COMPACCOM meets CDF. ADML Thomas Fargo meets with CDF GEN Peter Gosgrove. ADML Fargo is responsible for all US Military (Army, Navy, Marines and Air Force) in the Pacific.

New CDF, GEN Peter Cosgrove, has acknowledged the Navy has been the busiest of the three services "in some ways" during the ADF's present high operational tempo.

In an exclusive interview for the service newspapers, he said Navy had also been "in some ways" the least acknowledged service.

"You need to know your new Chief acknowledges you," he said.

GEN Cosgrove had had the "good fortune" to have recently visited RAN ships deployed on duty in the Arabian Gulf.

He also had gone on board "one of our great submarines - the best conventional submarines in the world with the best submariners you will find in any navy anywhere".

"I deeply appreciate the work our men and women at sea and those supporting them from the major fleet bases are doing," he said.

"I look forward to learning a lot more about you and I look forward to the further contribution you will make to the major security issues we confront as the ADF."

GEN Cosgrove addressed the issue of changing service conditions, saying he wanted ADF remuneration modernised to the point that if ADF personnel would not be better off after change, then at least they would not be worse off.

He said junior ranks, in the three services, wondered whether under "modernising," service conditions were being reduced.

"That's a natural suspicion and one which will make us even more cautious about arriving at those changes," he said.

Any changes would be exposed for "absolute scrutiny and debate by our people both junior and more senior" before decisions would be made.

"Of course we're obligated to explain to all the people who haven't been part of the trial procedure what we're on about, why it's good and how it will be better for them," he said.

But GEN Cosgrove said there would be instances where a condition would be changed because it was "old-fashioned and clunky in administrative terms".

Such change would seek to streamline conditions to divert funds into other areas of Defence, however, people had to be able to see that they would not be personally worse off.

By David Sibley