New Chief of Defence Johnston Faces Integrity Questions

Angus Campbell’s DSC (Distinguished Service Cross) is still a live issue and retiring won’t bury it. Now we know Campbell’s replacement, CDF Johnston, was the person who nominated Campbell for his DSC.

Johnston maintains he was just doing what everyone else did at the time. He did not disclose the specific action, with enemy forces in contact, he saw Campbell in that justified a combat award. 

Anyone hoping that there would be new type of direction and integrity leading the Defence Force might be worried that this doesn’t signal a change of pace.

Transcript

Senator ROBERTS: What about leadership and integrity and truth?  

Adm. Johnston: That was the third in terms of what I understood when you said ‘culture’: leadership is key to culture.  

Senator ROBERTS: We are on the same track. There’s been a long process, revisited over multiple years now, of estimates sessions, questions on notice and freedom of information requests on a particular issue. You’ve been in this room while I questioned your predecessor, Angus Campbell, over his Distinguished Service Cross, which I’m sure you will recall. Admiral Johnston, you were the officer who recommended Angus Campbell for that Distinguished Service Cross, weren’t you?  

Adm. Johnston: I was on the nomination for it, yes, that’s right.  

Senator ROBERTS: According to Defence freedom of information request 522/23, you recommended him for that award on 29 September 2011. At that time, the criteria for the Distinguished Service Cross required the recipient to be ‘in action’. Admiral Johnston, can you, once and for all, as a person who recommended Angus Campbell for his DSC, clarify what contact with the enemy you saw General Campbell in, in action, that led to your recommending him for a combat medal?  

Adm. Johnston: If I could answer—the nomination was provided to me in my role as the Deputy Chief of Joint Operations at the time. That position has, as one of its responsibilities, to look at the performance of commanders in our deployed forces, of which General Campbell was one at the time. So I progressed the nomination because of the function that I had in Joint Operations Command. I did, as part of that, indicate that the submission of the nomination should be after the period when General Campbell completed his tenure, which was the case. The definition of ‘in action’ that I applied is consistent with that which had been standing for some time, as to commanders—and certainly in General Campbell’s case, I believe, he spent more than 100 days in Afghanistan, as part of his command role, in an area that was classified as a warlike zone.  

Senator ROBERTS: ‘A warlike zone’?  

Adm. Johnston: Yes.  

Senator ROBERTS: Was he in a war zone?  

Adm. Johnston: Yes.  

Senator ROBERTS: And facing fire?  

Adm. Johnston: He was, as part of his duties, rotating through the places where Australian soldiers and others were located, experiencing the same threats as they had in those locations.  

Senator ROBERTS: What is your definition of ‘in action’?  

Adm. Johnston: The definition I applied is the same as what had been applied by my predecessors and over, I think, eight commanders prior to General Campbell, who had been nominated for a Distinguished Service Cross. It was an individual who is operating in an area where it is a warlike zone and there are threats from hostile forces.  

Senator ROBERTS: Did that definition come into place the day after his nomination? I think beforehand it was direct action.  

Adm. Johnston: The definition changed before his nomination, but the application of what we understood that to be is consistent before General Campbell’s nomination.