Jacqui Lambie (Tasmania, Jacqui Lambie Network) Share this | Hansard source

I move:

That, in the opinion of the Senate, the following is a matter of urgency:

The government is refusing to acknowledge the poor senior leadership within the ADF. Everyone in the chain of command should be held accountable for their actions, irrespective of rank or hierarchy. Our ADF is in disarray with high attrition rates, low recruitment rates and significant issues with low morale due to the poor leadership standards being set by senior command.

I rise to talk about leadership, what it means and what a great leader looks like. While I was jotting some notes down last night, I was thinking about great Australian military leaders that we've had in the past, and I kept keep coming back to one of our greatest, Sir John Monash. One of his famous quotes was:

… equip yourself for life, not solely for your own benefit but for the benefit of the whole community.

I wonder what he would think about the leadership of our Australian Defence Force today. I wonder what he would think of an inquiry into alleged war crimes involving Australia's diggers that, from the outset, ruled out investigating the knowledge or responsibility of the senior command of our military. I wonder what Monash would say about ADF leaders asking for medals back from diggers but marking their own homework when it comes to their own medals. And I wonder what the leadership would think about sending diggers to Afghanistan on tour after tour—sometimes as many as 17 tours—to a war that dragged out for 20 years.

Monash was a great leader and always preferred substance over style. Of his time in the First World War, he said:

We trusted each other, and we fought as one big team, and to this we owe our success. I hope that the lessons of mutual help, comradeship, and self-sacrifice will assist to make Australia a still greater country than at present.

Did you hear that from General Angus Campbell? How do you think the diggers under your command in Afghanistan are feeling when their lives are under the microscope but their leaders are effectively saying, 'Nothing to see here—we're exempt from being looked at'?

I have ranted and sometimes raved and wept at the shocking lack of leadership in Defence for years. It's why I fought so hard to get into parliament. I experienced firsthand the lack of respect in the Department of Veterans' Affairs for those who have served. Their default system, 'delay, deny, die', is the order of the day. Why do you think we have historically low recruitment and retention rates? Why do you think we have record numbers of suicides and abuse claims that literally take years to be resolved? It's about the leadership and the culture that flows from leaders who don't take responsibility for their actions, or lack thereof, and don't look after their diggers.

In the fact of these facts and the disgraceful stories coming out of the Royal Commission into Defence and Veteran Suicide, it is shocking to me that the Australian government is refusing to acknowledge the poor leadership in the upper ranks of our Defence Force. Everyone in the chain of command must be held accountable, no matter how many medals they have and how many years they have served—that is the way it is. Let me tell you how they teach it: it's one in, all in, in uniform. You're part of the division that's going on in there between the diggers and the officers.

We have never needed our Defence Force more, and it is absolutely crucial that it is an institution that attracts the young leaders of tomorrow. If we want to build a Defence Force that young Australians aspire to join, a Defence Force that cares as much for the digger as the commander, then the failures of leadership and the deep culture of problems that we have must be acknowledged and must be addressed. I can assure you right now: you have a problem. And this is your big problem. Until you start admitting—until the government of the day starts admitting—that we have a problem with our leadership, your retention rate will continue to go down. And nobody out there wants to join. That is where you're at. This is not good for national security. This is not good for our military. You've got to stop avoiding this. You've got to start asking those generals questions. You've got to stop exempting them. Right now, I can tell you of the amount of hatred coming from diggers towards the generals and this parliament—this parliament, because you won't take on those generals—that is coming at us. I tell you what: it is coming in truckloads. It is awful. You do not want this going on in our military.

We are ultimately in charge, and the government of the day is in charge, not those generals. You need to show some courage, as part of the government. I say to your defence minister—not the one in charge of the personnel, but your big defence minister: you've to stop hiding, mate, because your time's up. I can tell you what: I know what's coming in the next week, and your time is over—and so are those generals.