Commonwealth Consolidated Acts Commonwealth Consolidated Acts(1) Without otherwise limiting the meaning of continuous full - time service as defined in section 3, a period of full - time service by a member in the Defence Force is taken to be broken, for the purposes of this Act, if:
(a) the member is absent on leave without pay (other than prescribed leave) for longer than 12 consecutive months; or
(b) in connection with a transfer of the member between 2 arms of the Defence Force, the member stops serving in one such arm and there is a delay of more than 21 consecutive days before the member starts serving in the other.
(2) Paragraph (1)(b) does not apply if the delay was caused by the processing of the transfer by the relevant authorities in the Defence Force and was beyond the member's control.
(3) A period of full - time service by a member of the Defence Force is not taken to have been broken by a period described in paragraph (a) or (b) of the definition of effective full - time service in section 3.