Defence Minister Peter Reith has suggested that ADF commanders could have greater flexibility in the granting of extra recreation leave.

In a paper on workplace relations to which he spoke at a meeting of the Defence Women's Network, Mr Reith said he understood there were a number of problems with ADF leave entitlements.

Mr Reith said when the present government came to office in 1996 there were about 35 different types of leave in the Australian Public Service and all types of centrally determined allowances that theoretically applied to everyone but in practice were only received by a small number of employees.

"I see a similar thing in the ADF. There are 22 types of leave. There is Basic Recreation Leave and five other variants of additional recreation leave - a total of six types of recreation alone," he said.

"In contrast, the Defence Employees Certified Agreement contains a total of 10 types of leave. These 10 types of leave cover every purpose."

"There have been few changes to ADF leave since 1980. In 1997, the Defence Efficiency Review (DER) recommended that 'a comprehensive rationalisation and restructuring of allowances and benefits should be undertaken as a matter of priority'."

The minister said the basis of the recommendation was the procedural complexity of current conditions of service and their high administrative costs.

Mr Reith said that in addition to the DER recommendation, the current ADF Enterprise Productivity Arrangement that began in late 1999 had included undertakings for the review of recreation leave.

"There seems to be a lot of reviewing happening but not much change - I understand that a discussion paper on ADF leave entitlements was circulated last December."

Mr Reith understood that one problem with leave policy was the varieties of recreation leave - Extra Recreation Leave, Seagoing Leave, Field Leave, Flying Service Leave and Remote Locality Leave - were based on annual accrual and crediting of these leave types.

"I am advised that fundamentally the purpose of these types of leave is to provide rest and recuperation but cannot be accessed at the time the event creates the entitlement because of the accrual and crediting arrangements," he said.

"Basic recreation leave in the ADF is aligned to community standards."

The minister said leave entitlements could be a sensitive issue.

"I don't advocate arbitrarily changing the basic recreation leave provisions for ADF members without some process that assures there is a high level of agreement," he said.

It seemed to Mr Reith, however, that there was considerable scope for flexibility in respect of extra recreation leave.

"I ask myself, why shouldn't commanders, who have the primary responsibility for caring for their people, simply have the flexibility to rest their troops as they see fit subject to certain minimum criteria?" he said.

"Why can't the ADF have an extra leave policy that prescribes what commanders shouldn't do when it comes to the need for rest and recuperation for their troops rather than a highly rigid and exhaustively prescribed set of rules which lays down what they should do?

"Such flexibility would empower commanders and give them freedom within wide boundaries to respond to the needs of the force as a whole and its individual members."