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Special Forces Veteran Slams Chief of Defence Force Failures

I had the privilege of reading a letter sent by a Special Forces Veteran into the HANSARD record.

He shockingly details the Chief of the Defence Force (CDF) General Angus Campbell abandoning the soldiers that served under him. Due to the CDF’s successive failures and appalling state of Defence bureaucrats, the soldiers are abandoning him.

We need to make our Defence Force as lethal and full of warriors as possible, but that won’t happen with the current CDF at the helm.

Transcript

Tonight I’ll read a letter from a constituent, a special forces veteran who chose to leave the Australian Defence Force after seeing Defence leadership callously throwing soldiers under the bus. It’s a long letter, a clear and scathing indictment of Defence’s supposed leaders. Here’s the letter:  

Dear Senator Roberts 

On the 19th of November 2020 a certain number of SASR soldiers were accused of having a toxic culture with the release of the Brereton report.  

This was a sound bite Chief of the Defence Force General Angus Campbell, AO DSC, repeated to the world. He accused Australian special forces non-commissioned officers of attempting to fuse excellence with Ego, Elitism and Entitlement.  

The Brereton report, written by General Campbell’s subordinate, absolved successive defence force leaders of anything other than ‘moral responsibility’, including the CDF. 

It wasn’t written in the report, but the message was loud and clear: there was another “E” in the equation. That of Exemption, Exemption for defence force senior leaders.  

The Inspector General Australian Defence Force investigation and media campaign was clearly endorsed by ADF leadership.  

In contrast, we have seen the lower ranks of those who served Australia in the Special Operations Task Force/Group in Afghanistan systemically abused, disempowered, marginalised and their valuable service denigrated. 

Many of these men and women have since medically discharged due to poor mental health caused not only by aspects of their active service, but more damagingly, their treatment by defence and the media on returning home.  

Treatment akin to that of a bygone era.  

We have seen ADF leaders recuse themselves from command responsibility and the very laws and standards established after World War 2.  

The Yamashita standard saw the Allies demand a Japanese General be hung for crimes committed by his soldiers.  

Now, after losing our war, and in the hope of avoiding scrutiny from the International Criminal Court for their failures, it is OUR military leadership who demand their soldiers who fought under their command be punished while they refuse to accept anything other than meaningless ‘moral responsibility.  

During the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, the combined total cost to the Australian taxpayer was approximately $13.5 billion. 

During that same time frame Australian soldiers fought with substandard and rented ISR, Intelligence Surveillance and Reconnaissance equipment.  

They had no integrated close air support and borrowed US helicopters.  

Both Government and Defence ‘procurement specialists’ wasted three times the cost of both wars on failed and failing procurements.  

Now, we see the failed MRH-90 Taipan helicopter procurement feature in the tragic loss of life, devastating defence families and the serving community.  

We have seen veterans abandoned by defence and given no choice but to defend themselves in court without financial, legal, moral, or any other form of support from the same leaders they once served. This situation demonstrates complete disregard for those who loyally fought the wars of our generation and of the families who supported them.  

This ongoing treatment by defence leadership is yet another failure in their duty of care to the people they proclaim to value. 

Leadership then took their disregard a step further giving tacit approval to journalists by failing to correct the lies and fabrications they published.  

We saw the CDF and his service chiefs demand that senators’ questions in relation to the failure of the MRH90 helicopter be considered and respectful due to the families impacted by loss.  

This is a stance in complete contradiction to his grandstanding on the release of the Brereton Report, an uncaring act ignorant of the thousands of families impacted, and without consideration of the accuracy of the unproven and untested allegations, or of jurisprudence. 

We saw a victim falsely labelled a perpetrator by the cold and dispassionate Royal Australian Airforce chief.  

When offered the chance to set right the incorrect and damaging slur, the chief instead doubled down on his untrue statement with impunity.  

This further damages all victims in defence, while simultaneously highlighting to Australia the class distinction between an out of touch but untouchable leadership, and those they supposedly lead.  

We have seen defence leadership use national security as an excuse to cover their lies, mistruths, and omissions.  

And we have seen how the same leaders hide behind the ‘in consideration of the impact on families’ excuse, selfishly treating grieving families as human shields to protect their reputations. 

These families are strong families, they have supported loved ones through their years of service to this country, they don’t need protection, they need the truth.  

And now, we have seen elected senators voicing the concerns of their constituents and veterans, be labelled as divisive and bullied by the leader of Australia’s Military.  

If a lower ranked service member had publicly acted in the same way the CDF did at Senate Estimates, they would likely be charged with prejudicial conduct. 

If the civilian overseers, the elected senators responsible for scrutinising defence force activities and spending, are not immune from the wrath of our Defence force leaders, is there anyone in Canberra able to hold them to account?  

People do not leave bad jobs; they leave bad bosses. Defence has been pushing woke agendas to appease minorities leading to so many poorly conceived and implemented reforms.  

Furthermore, due to the defence leadership’s damaging use of the media to denigrate its veterans whilst recusing themselves, they have sidelined and denigrated ADF’s best assets, its people, and they are leaving in droves. 

This devastating recruitment and retention crisis is weakening Australia’s defence capability and national security, the very thing our leaders say they are protecting.  

This exodus of people from the ADF creates a vacuum that will take years to replace. These men and women are patriots; they are not leaving defence due to the promise of better-paid jobs.  

They are leaving because they are not valued and because of the incompetence, failures, double standards, blame-shifting, and lack of support from defence leaders. 

What has been the leadership’s answer to the current recruitment and retention crisis?  

To appoint yet another general to investigate why those who did, and those who normally would serve our great nation, no longer wish to do so.  

It’s a weak, box-ticking exercise to avoid leadership accountability and fails to resolve the issues.  

To Defence leadership, I say, if your medals are so important to you, keep them, and take ours back; there are more pressing items on the agenda. 

Over two decades, incompetence in a Defence hierarchy more intent on accolades, awards, and power, has mismanaged Australia’s defence force into its weakest ever position, and done so at a time when the world is in its most volatile and dangerous state since World War 2.  

These leaders leave us poorly defended, and solely reliant on another nation with a dubious track record for supporting its allies in war.  

Those of us who have been to war, who have been ‘in action’, don’t relish another one, especially one fought at home, that require our children to fight.  

On releasing the IGADF Brereton report into war crimes allegations, Angus Campbell was reporting as saying, “We are a nation that stands up when something goes wrong and deals with it and that is what I intend to do.”  

Well, as a concerned special forces veteran and father of Australian sons, this is me standing up, hoping someone in government will deal with this crisis.  

Or am I right with the final E? Exemption: Are our Defence Force leaders truly exempt from their failures and above international and domestic laws? The sorely needed Royal Commission into veteran suicides is a direct reflection of the poor leadership that has mismanaged defence over decades. 

A Royal Commission into ADF leadership, specifically the failures in leadership during the Afghanistan war, and subsequent to it, is now imperative to ensure the same failures are not repeated. The Government fails the nation if it does not. 

Signed: A concerned father and ADF Veteran. 

Name and address supplied. 

Anyone who hears the letter I just read into the Senate Hansard record will understand why many soldiers, veterans and senators, including me, have called for the Chief of the Defence Force, General Angus Campbell, to be fired. There are too many examples of hypocrisy, failure and incompetence from Defence leadership to list them all in one letter or one speech. Get rid of every single general who isn’t completely focused on making sure our Defence Force is as capable and lethal as possible. The safety and sovereignty of the entire nation require it. 

The state of the Defence Force is the fault of many successive governments and shiny generals, yet the responsibility for the current state of Defence must lie with the current head of the organisation, and that is General Angus Campbell. The Defence Force is going backwards—literally, when it comes to headcount—and the Special Air Service Regiment is facing an unprecedented capability crisis. One Nation believes warriors should be welcome in our military. We don’t need to spend time making sure drones are gender neutral. How about we just buy enough drones to defend ourselves? Spend money on ammo for our defence personnel to train with, not more gender advisers. Give medals to the heroes who show bravery in combat, not the bureaucrats who sit in air conditioning and shine their arse for half the war. The safety and sovereignty of our entire nation require that our ADF, the Australian Defence Force, starting at the top, tell the truth and be held accountable. 

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Defence Could Have Avoided ABC Defamation of Veteran Heston Russell

I asked the ADF about whether they could have stepped in and provided the correct information that would have avoided the need for Special Forces veteran Heston Russell to take legal action to clear his name when the ABC published incorrect and defamatory information about him.

All Defence needed to do was clarify to the ABC that Heston wasn’t even in Afghanistan at the time of the allegations and a multi-million dollar legal case could have been avoided.

The Generals wouldn’t even lift a finger to help one of their own Special Forces veterans and they wonder why they have a recruitment crisis.

Transcript

Senator ROBERTS: Thank you. The next line of questioning goes to the topic of Heston Russell. How much, roughly, does the defence department spend each year on legal costs?

Mr D’Amico: I don’t have the exact figures in front of me, but I think our expenditure last year was around the $150 million mark in total.

Senator ROBERTS: Thank you. Can you give me an accurate one on notice, please.

Mr D’Amico: Yes, I’ll take that on notice.

Senator ROBERTS: Did the defence department provide financial or legal assistance to former special forces commander Heston Russell in his defamation case against the ABC recently?

Mr D’Amico: I don’t believe so.

Senator ROBERTS: Why not?

Mr D’Amico: That was a private civil matter. He commenced those defamation proceedings. The way that we provide legal support to former ADF members would be through what I’d describe as a LACE payment made under the Legal Service Directions, and that just doesn’t allow for that sort of circumstance.

Senator ROBERTS: Wouldn’t it have been in the best interests of the defence department to ensure Mr Russell won his defamation case so he could clear his name and the reputation of the November platoon and the
Australian Defence Force in general?

Mr D’Amico: I’m not sure if that’s a comment or a question.

Senator ROBERTS: Would it not be in the best interests? It’s a question?

Mr D’Amico: That’s a difficult—

Mr Moriarty: It’s in the best interests of the department for the law to be upheld. There’s been a legal process.

Senator ROBERTS: I see that. He won, but that’s not your judgement to start. I get that. Nonetheless, to be seen to leave one of your senior people out in the cold doesn’t augur well for people in the armed forces still. Mr Russell spent 16 years in the Australian Defence Force and led November platoon in Afghanistan. He was the subject of a vicious smear campaign by the ABC, who wrongly accused him of war crimes, and the judge was pretty scathing in his comments about the ABC. The Federal Court has now ordered the ABC to pay Mr Russell more than $400,000, plus costs. Why did a veteran have to fight this public battle alone, at his own expense?

Senator McAllister: May I make a number of essentially procedural points? There are three things. The first is that officials have given you advice that they complied with the policy settings that are relevant for this legal assistance that may be provided to personnel. I think the second is that, in asking them to make comment about the appropriateness of those steps, you’re effectively asking them to offer an opinion about the current policy settings. The third thing is just to remind you that Defence was not a party to these proceedings and it’s not really appropriate to ask them, as I think you’ve done just now, to comment on a civil matter.

Senator ROBERTS: Minister, what do you say in response?

CHAIR: Last question.

Senator ROBERTS: I have one more after this. What’s your opinion?

Senator McAllister: I think the officials have given you advice that they have sought to comply with the standard arrangements that are in place for providing legal support to personnel. I don’t have any more to add in
relation to that.

Senator ROBERTS: Has the Department of Defence been in contact with Heston Russell during his three-year ordeal? Did the Department of Defence attend his trial in the Federal Court? Has Defence reached out to
Russell after his victory over the ABC?

Rear Adm. Wolski: I’m not aware of any official contact with Mr Russell. This was a civil defamation case brought about by a private person and it’s not appropriate to comment any further on it.

Senator ROBERTS: Thank you, Chair.

Mr D’Amico: Senator, I can update you on a number. Earlier, I gave an approximate figure of $150 million— in fact, it’s $155,570,000.

Senator ROBERTS: You’ve got a good memory, or you’re accurate.

Mr D’Amico: It was close.

Transcript

Senator ROBERTS: I have another question about the Heston Russell case. Do you accept that much of the time, effort and expense in the Russell and ABC defamation matter could have been avoided if Defence had simply advised the ABC that the November platoon wasn’t even in Afghanistan when Heston Russell was first accused?

Senator McAllister: I think advice was provided earlier that, in the general issue of the civil matter between the ABC and Heston Russell, this is a private matter and Defence were not a party to the case. I think you are now asking Defence to speculate about events that may or may not have happened. I’m not sure that they’re going to be able to offer you an opinion of that kind.

Senator ROBERTS: I can see where you’re coming from.

Senator McAllister: We don’t wish to be unhelpful, but I think there are a number of elements of your question that make it difficult for officials to provide an answer in this forum.

Senator ROBERTS: As I understand it, the SAS people are very close-knit; they have a long association after they leave the Army that’s very much entrenched in comradeship and mateship. I would have thought that the Department of Defence would want to cultivate that because that’s our key strategic weapon as I understand it from talking to former and current members of the ADF. Anyway, that’s fine.

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ABC Won’t Apologise for Defaming Special Forces Commando Heston Russell

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I confronted the ABC about their humiliating defamation loss to Heston Russell and the culture at the ABC. A federal court judge found that the unreasonable actions of ABC journalists led to protracted litigation.

Australian taxpayers are getting a multi-million bill because the ABC got it wrong and couldn’t bring themselves to apologise. Their entire culture needs an overhaul. Will the journalist responsible for publishing

disinformation, failing to act reasonably and costing the taxpayer millions about an elite veteran be punished at all? Apparently not.

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Distinguished Service Medals Might Be Illegal

At Senate Estimates I have been pursuing the Chief of the Defence Force over allegations he was illegally awarded a Distinguished Service Cross.

This represents the hard work and tiring investigations of veterans and others over many years. They deserve justice and CDF Angus Campbell must hand back his DSC and resign.

Read the full story here:

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-10-20/distinguished-service-medals-army-might-be-illegal/102999116

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Band-aids aren’t going to help Small Business

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I spoke this week on the Social Security and Other Legislation Amendment (Self-Employment Programs and Other Measures) Bill 2022. Bills like this are only bandaids.

The only way to really support small business and make the country flourish is to have cheap electricity and simple regulation, two things Australia is in desperate need of.

Transcript

As servants to the people of Queensland and Australia, One Nation stands for veterans and small business. But I want to address the root cause. This is a bandaid; it’s very necessary but it’s not addressing the root cause.

Senator Gallagher has stated that self-employment is ‘an excellent alternative to traditional employment for Australians who want to use their existing skills and experience in a work environment of their choice’. We agree. Yet Labor is really anti-self-employment and soon intends to stifle small business and self-employed Australians under gig laws that could strangle the sector. They devastated California, for example, and sent people interstate. There’s nowhere to go beyond the shores of this country if Labor gets its way.

I remember what Labor, the union bosses and some dishonest, disrespectful, antihuman multinational corporations did in the Hunter Valley. Labor joined them in enabling the exploitation and abuse of casual coalminers in the Hunter, and when I tried to stand up for them the Labor member of parliament for the Hunter at the time, Mr Joel Fitzgibbon, misrepresented me and the problems, apparently to hide the problems. That perpetuated the abuse of workers and the hurting of workers. Labor does not care about workers. Modern Labor cares about getting Green votes in the inner cities.

Everyday Australians are now suffering from 2½ years of COVID mismanagement, and it is ongoing. Labor wasn’t the federal government during that time, but Labor was in power in the states, and the states and the federal government worked together, hand in hand, to destroy the productive capacity of this country, not only over the last 2½ years but over the last 78 years, since 1944. Labor wants to phase out the coal industry and jobs in the coal sector and related sectors. The Labor-Greens coalition in the Senate is hell-bent on doing that. Labor is in favour of eroding our rights and freedoms and increasing rents, house prices, energy prices and debt. There is a lack of much-needed tax reform and economic reform. That needs to be comprehensive reform. As I said a minute ago, Australia’s productive capacity is being destroyed and has been in the process of being destroyed for 78 years.

In uncertain times, such as I’ve just described, much, much more needs to be done to support small business and the self-employed. Yes, we agree that starting a new enterprise or a self-employment assistance program is a help to some people, particularly hardworking vets who have earned the support, but they’re up against it in the form of the taxation system, energy prices, lack of infrastructure and capricious overregulation. All workers—not just vets—are suffering because the productive capacity of our beautiful country has been destroyed.

The economic environment has been destroyed. The government’s job is not to employ people. The government’s job is to create an environment that favours employment through people taking risks with investment and hiring workers. That’s where real jobs—sustainable jobs—come from. That’s known throughout civilisation. We must give Australians the opportunity to be free, to be their own boss and to own a business that offers them secure work and financial independence. They should be free to create, initiate and innovate, and that requires cheap energy. Labor, with its mates in the Labor-Greens coalition, are raising energy prices. We went from having the cheapest electricity sources in the world to having amongst the highest electricity prices in the world. It’s not due to resources and it’s not due to Mother Nature; it’s due entirely to mismanagement under the Liberal-Labor-Nats-Greens circus.

Not only do we need affordable, reliable and secure energy but also we need fair reward. That means we need a comprehensive reform of the tax system. Why are we letting multinational corporations off the hook, as we did with Robert Menzies’s bill in 1953 and Prime Minister Hawke’s legislation on the petroleum rent resource tax in the 1980s? Both sides have done it. Jim Killaly, the former deputy assistant commissioner of taxation in this country, who was responsible for large companies and international matters, said—and he said it in 1996 and in 2010—that 90 per cent of Australia’s large companies are foreign owned and, since 1953, have paid little or no company tax.

Meanwhile individuals in this country are paying exorbitant tax rates. The median income in this country now is $51,000. After tax, that’s around $45,000 or $46,000. The additional cost of Labor, Greens, Nationals and Liberals policy on energy—the additional cost of solar and wind subsidies and climate subsidies—is a staggering $1,300 per year. How the hell can someone earning $45,000 or $46,000 a year afford that additional cost? That’s not the cost of electricity; that’s an additional cost for solar and wind subsidies. We’re sending the country broke because of the people in this building lacking the courage to do what is right and tell the truth. Veterans need more support, and this bill is just not enough. When will Labor and the Greens do something about housing, rent, veteran suicide, agriculture, energy and inflation? Who will protect the economy and jobs? Who will create the economic environment that will enable people to invest, innovate, create and to be entrepreneurs? Who will do that? When will Labor and the Greens do something about this very issue? Who will restore the productive capacity of our country, the economic environment of our country? Labor and the Greens don’t understand.

In fact, while I enjoyed listening to Senator Allman-Payne yesterday, sharing her emotions freely, she was crying at the plight of the poor and then congratulating Senator Larissa Waters for her 12 years in the Senate when Senator Waters is directly responsible for raising the cost of electricity which is destroying the poor and raising prices through the roof in terms of inflation. That’s what’s going on: it’s complete ignorance. Contrary to that, we understand. One Nation understand the root causes and the solutions to the root causes of these problems. We are one people, we are one community and we are one magnificent country with enormous potential. We just need to become, again, one nation.

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Lest We Forget

Today I honour those men and women who willingly answering the call to duty.

Lest We Forget.

Transcript

The men and women of our Australian Defence Force have a history of willingly answering the call for duty to protect our freedoms and our sovereignty. They do so sometimes at huge personal sacrifice, whether that be leaving their families and loved ones, or putting themselves in harm’s way to ensure the safety of others.

It’s all in a day’s work for our men and women of the armed forces. Our Defence Force personnel and our Aussie veterans are important and respected people who have committed to the defence of Australia in so many ways, in many ways, whether they have been deployed to active conflict, on peacekeeping operations, or have actually served without being deployed.

For some of our defence force personnel and our veterans, the battle, though, goes on long after they have returned from operational deployment. We must remember this at all times. The veteran death toll by suicide since 2001, by the most conservative of measures, is 10 times greater than our losses in Afghanistan.

Today, and every day, we need to remember these Aussies, and we must join to stop these preventable deaths of our servicemen and servicewomen. So, I hope you join with us in cherishing our armed forces and cherishing days like today, and that on days like today, help our younger generations to remember why our soldiers are being honoured and appreciated.

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