Crossbench senator Jacqui Lambie has called for the institution that trains Australian military officers to be shut down after the chair of the royal commission probing veteran suicide took aim at Defence leadership.
Commissioner Nick Kaldas issued a stinging rebuke of military leaders’ lack of action on personnel mental health after the royal commission’s ninth block of public hearings wrapped up in Perth on Thursday.
He said the evidence heard by the commission raised serious questions as to whether Defence leadership had been doing enough to respond to the “very real and pressing issues of suicide and suicidality within its ranks”.
“We are yet to find sufficient evidence of urgency in responding to these complex issues holistically – even with this royal commission on foot,” Mr Kaldas said, with the next round of hearings to be held in Adelaide in July.
Senator Lambie weighed in on Friday, saying Mr Kaldas’ comments were “spot on” as she accused senior military leaders of being at the heart of the problem.
The former soldier turned firebrand Tasmanian independent senator said these issues could be improved by radically changing the way Army, navy and air force leaders were selected and trained for their positions.
She is calling for the Australian Defence Force Academy (ADFA), the residential college which has been training the nation’s fledgling military leaders since 1986, to be closed down.
Senator Lambie claimed ADFA was a “failed 1980s experiment” where junior officers gained “almost no experience in managing actual people”.
“ADFA is an institution for the privileged where they’re told they’ll be commanders, but aren’t taught how to actually lead,” she said.
Instead, Senator Lambie said soldiers, sailors and airmen and women should be sent to officer training after they have been identified as potential leaders during their 12-week recruit course, or through their service.
She suggested ADFA’s alleged cultural problems flowed through to at least some of the leaders it trained given the institution “boasted a litany of scandals and poor behaviour”.
“Is this the standard we should walk past, and accept? That’s who we have in charge today,” she said.
“There is a massive difference between being a commander in name to being an actual leader.”
The most recent public review of ADFA was carried out nearly 10 years ago, with the Defence abuse response task force handing down its final report in 2016 right before it ceased operating.
However, the task force and two other high profile reviews before it all unearthed evidence of cultural problems at the institution including cases of alleged abuse, bullying and harassment.
Former sex discrimination commissioner Elizabeth Broderick led a review of the treatment of women at AFDA in 2011 following a scandal in which a female cadet was secretly filmed having sex with another student.
Ms Broderick said in her report ADFA had improved since the earlier Grey Review in 1998 found there were high levels of inappropriate sexual behaviour that was generally tolerated by cadets and members of the military staff at the academy.
Defence was contacted for comment, but the department did not respond by deadline.
* The Open Arms hotline offering free and confidential counselling to current Defence members, veterans and their families can be reached 24/7 on 1800 011 046.