Heads must roll in Defence leadership

Australia’s diggers are being let down by terrible leadership from bureaucrats, generals and Defence Ministers.

We want warriors in our Defence Force and it shouldn’t be any other way. If the Chief of Defence Force Angus Campbell doesn’t understand that then he should resign.

Transcript

As a servant to the people of Queensland and Australia I speak in support of Senator Lambie’s motion of urgency addressing the appalling state of leadership in the Australian Defence Force. It’s important to note that this motion isn’t about our soldiers, our sailors and our aviators. They are among the world’s best and are often the most motivated and disciplined men and women our country has produced. Yet politicians and the Australian Defence Force’s higher leadership have repeatedly let down our Defence Force’s amazing work. Time and time again the generals, the brass, have failed to demonstrate real leadership.

Our current Chief of the Defence Force, General Angus Campbell, wears the Distinguished Service Cross medal. He was awarded this medal supposedly for his command of troops in Afghanistan. There are questions over whether General Campbell was awarded this medal illegally. The criteria used to be that the recipient had to be in action, meaning in direct contact with the enemy. General Campbell spent most of his time in command sitting in an air-conditioned office in Dubai, thousands of kilometres from the battlefield.

Even if his medal was validly given, General Campbell is trying to strip the very same medal from people who were under his command and for whose behaviour he is responsible. It is a frightening exercise in double standards when General Campbell is awarded the Distinguished Service Cross for his command of the same people who he is now trying to strip it from for alleged wrongdoing.

Leadership means taking responsibility for everything under one’s command. This isn’t an opinion; the Yamashita standard enshrines it in international law. When the Japanese Imperial Army committed untold atrocities, it was the overall commander General Yamashita who was charged with the war crimes that happened under his watch. General Campbell alleges war crimes were committed, including during his time in command. He spits on the idea of command accountability with his actions. When I suggested to General Campbell at Senate estimates that handing back his medals would be the moral thing to do, he responded, ‘That’s very interesting, Senator’—contemptuous. For General Campbell to demonstrate leadership he would hand back his medals and resign today.

On General Campbell’s allegations of war crimes it’s important to note that, eight years after a discredited sociologist first levelled allegations, not a single criminal charge has produced a guilty verdict—not one. Instead of affording soldiers of our elite Special Air Service Regiment procedural fairness, General Campbell may as well have declared them guilty when, at a press conference, he announced the allegations and said sanctions would be applied—not a criminal court, a press conference. It seems General Campbell intends to add ‘judge, jury and executioner’ to his resume.

It’s acquisitions department, the Australian Defence Force’s higher leadership, washed its hands of accountability. Almost every Defence program has failed to meet budget, time or delivery goals. Billions upon billions of dollars are wasted every year in foreseeable project delays, poor project planning and badly defined deliverable goals. Yet everyone involved seems to still be getting promotions. Is the motto on the wall, for the higher brass, at defence headquarters ‘Failing upwards’?

General Campbell even endorsed findings in the Brereton report complaining of a ‘warrior culture in the SASR’. If you don’t want warriors in the most elite fighting unit in this country and among the best special forces units in the world, where the hell do you want them? These issues are the reasons why defence recruitment is in crisis. Good soldiers are leaving because of the double standards flowing down from the top. It’s absolutely demoralising. The entire top brass needs to face a reckoning, for the state of the Australian Defence Force, and I stand in support of Senator Lambie’s calls for exactly that. We get so many calls from veterans and current service men and women asking us to do exactly that.

We say to our enlisted defence personnel: Australians know the good work you do and the effort and dedication you put into training to defend our country. Your job is applying state sanctioned violence, and no-one should shy away from this fact. It is a very difficult job. One Nation supports you all, and we will do everything we can to call for your poor leaders to face accountability for their actions and inactions.