After questioning members of Defence during Senate Estimates, I spoke in the Senate Chamber in support of Senator Lambie’s Motion that the ADF recruitment and retention crisis is a national security issue.
With more leaving than joining our defence force, putting our ability to defend Australia at risk, there is no denying the ADF is in crisis. As Senator Lambie rightly pointed out, this is a national security issue. We need a ready, able and capable military force. It’s not enough to sit back and hope that the United States will come to our aid. We must ensure we are self-reliant in this country for our own defence.
Given his track record so far, it’s clear that until the Chief of the Defence Force, General Angus Campbell, is removed from his post, we will not have the defence force we once had. We must recognise our diggers for who they are – the people who care about our country and who are putting their heart and soul into defending this country.
Spend less money on “gender advisers” and more on ammo for training and diggers might just want to stick around.
Transcript
As a servant to the many fine people of Queensland and Australia, I speak on, and strongly support, Senator Lambie’s motion that the ADF recruitment and retention crisis is a national security issue. Senator Lambie, Senator Shoebridge and I spent a lot of time questioning Defence last week at Senate estimates. It was revealed at those h4earings that, despite all of Defence’s glossy recruitment brochures—as Senator Shoebridge accurately described them—there’s almost no mention of the fact that the headcount of defence personnel has gone backwards. There are more people leaving defence than joining, despite large recruitment and retention targets and huge expenditure.
The responsibility for this utter failure sits squarely with Defence’s upper brass and with the politicians, for failing to keep them in line. The branch chiefs are all led—and I use that term loosely, when it comes to this man—by the Chief of the Defence Force, General Angus Campbell. He is paid more than $1 million a year at a time when defence personnel receive a real wage cut. It’s difficult to find a KPI or a metric that General Campbell hasn’t failed on in his time as head of the Defence Force: recruitment and retention goals—failed; Taipan helicopters—failed; the Hunter class future frigates—failed. There are questions over whether a medal that General Campbell wears on his chest today—the Distinguished Service Cross—was given to him legally.
Over 100 active special forces soldiers have discharged from the force after General Campbell threw them under the bus at a press conference in 2020, tarring them with accusations of war crimes before a single charge had been laid. One of the most elite fighting forces in the world—the Special Air Service Regiment, or SASR—is reportedly facing a complete capability crisis as operators leave Defence because their supposed leaders don’t care about their welfare. The chair of the Royal Commission into Defence and Veteran Suicide, Nick Kaldas, has been scathing of Defence and its leadership. He specifically called out the successive failure of governments, the Australian Defence Force and the Department of Veterans’ Affairs to adequately protect the mental health and wellbeing of those who serve our country.
Our defence force is in crisis on many fronts. The ability to defend this country is at risk, and it’s a national security issue, as Senator Lambie rightly points out. We cannot just close our eyes and cross our fingers and hope that the United States will turn up and help us out. We need a ready, able and capable defence force as much as ever. Given his track record so far, it’s clear we won’t get one until the Chief of the Defence Force, General Angus Campbell, is removed from his post and until we start treating the diggers as the people they really are: the people who care about our country and who are putting their heart and soul into defending his country.
Good man. Well said. As a veteran I thank you. I certainly agree whole-heartedly with you about that traitorous oaf Angus Campbell.
Agreed! Common sense always so refreshing
My latest understanding is that applicants intake for the Defence Forces are now split by gender 50% male and 50% female. By the end of training all the females depart. So a large part of the defence training budget is squandered.
After a 30 year absence from active soldiering, I am not qualified to comment on the current attitudes and capabilities of today’s defence personnel; however, my 26 years of Arms experience across both other rank and officer appointments leave me with an unsettling sense of exposure in relation to Defence management today. The equipment, pay and conditions are way better than those which drove the exodus of military personnel of the 1980s but the ‘woke’ attitudes and appalling lack of national leadership clearly drive current dissatisfaction. Perhaps it’s the result of eroded social responsibility. Anyway, just watch the TV recruitment ads to ‘get the picture’ – all spunky females leading in fabulous roles which most will never experience. Sure, we have great female soldiers but……….talk about strained credibility? Spare me the P.R. bs!