Barring a decision on how to pay for it, it’s likely we’ll see a Royal Commission into the allegations of sexual crime in the DLA Piper report.
The questions of whether the ADF still has a culture that condones sexual violence and bullying, whether alleged sexual criminals are still serving in the ADF, and whether the ADF did a good enough job of investigating reports can only be answered by an investigation external to defence. But a Royal Commission will be enormously damaging to the ADF at a critical moment in its history, regardless of the factual outcomes.
The damage caused by those alleged to have preyed on their weaker military peers is not yet complete.
Defence will be unable to conduct the investigation into these alleged offences internally for several reasons. First, the sheer scale of the allegations would swamp any organisation’s investigative capabilities. And defence does not have a great record of efficiently investigating itself.
Efforts to investigate and prosecute alleged offences committed by commandos in Afghanistan were highly contentious, slowly processed, led to emotionally charged debate within the organisation, and ended prematurely having established few facts. The Commonwealth Defence Force Ombudsman concluded in a 2009 report that there were numerous deficiencies in the way defence conducted investigations and that multiple reviews (including one external review in 2004) “did not seem to have produced decisive, measurable reforms or improvements”.
This week, internal documents released under freedom of information provisions outlined concern amongst senior defence leaders that the military’s police service “lack the requisite investigative capability to properly manage and investigate service offences committed by ADF members”. That service is already committed to a range of investigations within Australia and overseas and has nowhere near the capacity needed to investigate an additional 700 alleged s-xual crimes.
Institutions such as defence and churches often struggle with the aggressive investigative action needed to get to the bottom of seemingly pervasive scandals such as this. Internal investigators must go back to working inside the organisation when the investigation is done, their values are the same as the people they are investigating. Sometimes that is an asset, other times it is an obstacle.
A sweeping organisation of this scale requires external investigators with no entrenched interests, few confirmed biases, and the tenacity to cut through assumptions about the proper investigatory cadence. And only external investigators can assuage the public perception that defence cannot be trusted to investigate itself.
The investigation will need the power to compel witnesses to appear before it, because many of the alleged victims and aggressors will no longer be subject to the military chain of command. Only an inquiry external to defence will be able to achieve that. And the investigation will need to reassure witnesses that they can comfortably give evidence without fear of retribution. This would be difficult under an internal defence investigation — a 2007 Defence Ombudsman’s report found that a significant proportion of defence force members surveyed did not feel comfortable making complaints.
But the outcome of a Royal Commission may be entirely disappointing: for the public, for defence, and for the alleged victims. For the victims, a Royal Commission may deliver neither convictions nor apologies. The facts will be murky and poorly documented. Some of the witnesses will be elderly. And the process may take years to reach any conclusions.
All the while there will be a daily media menu of depravity and disgust dressed in a military uniform. There will be little dignity for anyone in this process.
The damage to defence’s public image will be severe. It will compound a deepening sense of public malaise about the purpose and value of the defence force at a decisive moment in Australian strategic history. Our region has changed dramatically but our defence force has not. Much needed reform of defence capability, force structure, and organisation will be all the more difficult while the Royal Commission consumes ministerial oxygen.
The impact will be felt in defence recruitment, right at a time when defence leadership are focused on making defence a better career for women. What parent would encourage their child to join a defence force where s-xual predators allegedly roam the hallways of training schools?
Yet the irony is that most of the alleged s-xual predators will have long left defence and the current defence leadership have made eliminating such behaviour a priority. So the actions of a few will tarnish the reputations of thousands.
But the facts need to be established. Witnesses need to be called. And the question of how institutionalised criminal s-xual behaviour is in the ADF must be answered. A royal commission awaits, and the outcomes may be painful for all those involved.
Alleged? Long gone? Tell it to Kate.
The reality here is that Smith will initiate an enquiry with lukewarm support but mostly criticism from the right wing Tories and only criticism from Neil James and his ratbag ADFA.
If, when, Abbott is elected PM it will all be dropped, but if that isn’t possible nothing will be done when the report is released.
So the bullies, rapists and all the other perverts who inhabit the Armed Services will continue on their merry way.
Contrary to most, I judge the ADF on its openness, transparency, professionalism and accountability and on all counts it is pathetic. Many of its members are little short of thugs, but then who else would go and slaughter people, without explanation, on the orders of someone they don’t even know.
The way our politicians crawl to them is nauseous and prevents any serious effort to improve the organization.
This only confirms my bias towards not wasting Taxpayer dollars on a Royal Commission from which only the Lawyers get wealthy. It would be far more productive of the dollar to pay some standard form of compensation based on degree of suffering and evidence provided.
“The damage caused by those alleged to have preyed on their weaker military peers is not yet complete.”
I think you mean an assessment of the damage. Also, those who become survivors of abuse are not targeted because they are perceived as “weak”. They are targeted because the predators think they can get away with it. No super-fitness or training will save you if you are drugged, or if you are attacked by several people working together. No amount of persistence or courage will help you bring predators to account if your report is ignored, dismissed or manipulated out of existence.
I think the word you need here is “vulnerable”, not “weaker”. Anyone can be vulnerable if you slip a drug into them, lure them away to a lockable and soundproofed space, or overwhelm them with multiple attackers.
Rambo could easily have been drugged and raped by someone he trusted. What use are all those weapons, and all that training and strength, if your attacker is someone you’d greet with an open hand, or someone to whom you’d trustingly turn your back?
What about charging the criminals though instead of just paying compo? The churches keep paying compo. and stacking up more victims because criminal charges are not laid.