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

We have heard a lot of victim blaming in this chamber in the last fortnight. Contenders for the gold medal for victim blaming could be the Royal Australian Navy and the Department of Veterans' Affairs. Today when women raise a complaint of military sexual misconduct or apply for assistance from DVA relating to injuries sustained by sexual misconduct they are often subjected to the same culture of rape cover-up, victim blaming, slut shaming, gaslighting and coercive control—nothing has changed. Female veterans are still not getting functional or effective trauma-informed care or post-assault support from either department, and Defence and DVA deny its existence.

Instead, female veterans who have been assaulted and raped are often subject to decision-making processes that lack procedural fairness and often seriously breach their personal and sensitive information. As one of these women—whose story I'm going to tell you about tonight—put it: 'I felt like I was raped once and then raped again and again—re-traumatised by a culture of denial and cover-up.' These women have no escape. They are forced to stay connected and identify with the very government institutions that have denied them justice and then forced them to stay in a relationship with their abuser. The unequal power relationship between the victim and Defence or DVA, the boys club, keeps victims silenced, and they are powerless because they rely on Defence and DVA for their housing, their health and their pay cheque. What could possibly go wrong?

I'm going to tell you a story about Deb Morris, a young Australian who dreamed of a career in the Royal Australian Navy—a dream that turned into a nightmare worse than what Stephen King could write. As a straight-A student she was earmarked for leadership by the Navy from the very beginning, and she looked forward to a full and rewarding career. She excelled through her training, and her future looked bright.

Deb was sent to the Navy training school HMAS Cerberus at a time when we all know the place had a toxic culture of unfettered sexual predatory behaviour. At 23 years of age, Deb was raped by the officer in charge of her training. He was a little cunning bugger. He took her off base and when he took her back he told her not to tell anyone, warning that it would kill off her career. Her rapist told his mates that he had slept with Deb. He used a different word obviously, as you can imagine, that I will not use in here, but the implication was clear—she was consenting and, to his mates, a notch on his belt.

Deb didn't report the rape. In her words, 'At that time there was no-one to report it to—and there were rapes going on left, right and centre.' It was 2002 and there was no formal process to report a rape. According to a statement in 2022 from ex warrant officer and lieutenant Geoff D Kearney, the culture of the Royal Australian Navy training school was one of 'turning a blind eye from the lowest level to the highest level' and the training school was rife with 'sexual exploitation and bullying, and some instructors believed they were all powerful and their behaviour was not challenged'.

This is the world that Deb lived in. She was terrified of losing her job in the Navy. She decided she would just have to swallow the pain and soldier on, as she did. In May 2002 Deb Morris completed Royal Australian Navy recruit school and won the recruit of the intake award and the literacy award of the intake. Deb kept fronting up, but trauma leaves a mark. Nightmares kept her awake. She found it difficult to eat, and when she did she would make herself sick. That caused an eating disorder that still dogs her today.

In late August 2002 Deb decided she had to talk to someone. Her weight was dropping like a stone and she was experiencing suicidal thoughts. She decided to go to talk to someone. She was in the Navy and she was put in touch with an ADF psychologist. Deb kept trying to tell the psychologist what had happened, but the psychologist didn't want to hear about it—she kept cutting her off. The message was clear to Deb—the Navy didn't want to hear about what happened to her. Years later Deb FOI'd the report from the psychologist and discovered that this ADF health professional had labelled Deb 'a perpetual victim'. These defamatory comments, which were not clinical in nature, resulted in Deb being once again slut shamed and victim blamed. Deb was terrified to try to properly report the incident again. Even though Deb continued to reach out for the psychiatric help she needed, she was ignored.

Deb left Defence in 2005. Her dreams of a long rewarding career in Defence had been shattered. Over the next 20 years the impact of the rape and Defence's utter lack of care continue to impact every aspect of her life. She was a single mom living on social security benefits below the poverty line without help from Defence or anyone else. Worse, she had to watch a steady stream of Defence and Navy officials publicly proclaiming assistance for military sexual trauma victims and promising that systems have been put in place to stop this behaviour and to make sure that victims are looked after. Deb kept asking Defence to investigate what happened to her, but Defence rejected Deb's repeated requests for an investigation.

From 2012 to 2015, incidents of sexual misconduct were investigated by the Defence Abuse Task Force and the Victoria Police sexual assault unit, and Deb's was one of them. During that police investigation, Defence interfered with the investigation, refused to disclose evidence and pushed to share victims' personal information with the alleged perpetrators. Then the commanding officer, against the express instructions of Victoria Police, started an internal investigation. This contributed to the decision by Victoria Police not to proceed with prosecution. Deb was once again denied justice.

In December 2016, Deb attempted suicide and she had another three attempts in 2017. You can be earmarked for leadership and then, 15 years later, you can have lost your job and your home, and the institution that you thought would be a place of safety becomes the institution that destroys your goddamn life! Deb's complaint to the Defence Abuse Task Force was not trauma informed care, nor did Defence request informed consent to view, share or distribute Deb's personal information. Instead, her personal account of the incident was shared and viewed with more than 50 Defence members without her knowledge or consent between 2016 and 2018. She received the occasional update on the progress of her complaint, but once it was referred to the office of the Chief of Navy for investigation it was up to Deb to chase it up.

There was another slap in the face in 2018: Deb got a letter from the now current Chief of Navy, stating that no further action would be taken, even though a review was undertaken in 2017 which recommended that an officer inquiry into the complaint be initiated. In 2019, Deb lodged a second complaint about the initial noninvestigation into her sexual misconduct case. This process, like the ones before, retraumatised Deb as Defence continued to slut-shame, victim-blame and use facts that Defence knew to be untrue. In 2019, Deb wrote directly to the secretary of DVA but, instead of getting help, she experienced further cover-ups, slut-shaming and victim-blaming from that department itself. During this time, and without her knowledge or consent, over 100 DVA employees overtly discussed, ridiculed, criticised, viewed, shared and distributed private and sensitive information relating to Deb's sexual health and genitalia in connection to the sexual assault.

Finally, in 2021, and to her credit, the secretary of DVA actioned a review of Deb's DVA experiences. This was undertaken by an independent legal third-party. After the review, the secretary apologised to Deb for the treatment she had endured and encouraged her to consider options for a meaningful resolution. But even after Defence and DVA apologised to Deb, they continued the cover-up. Last year, after her attempts to speak to the minister were dismissed, Deb submitted a series of freedom-of-information requests. The responses she received were an absolute disgrace. Deb is one woman who has experienced significant trauma. Incredibly, she has had no less than six briefs raised about her to the office of the minister. This was without her knowledge or consent. At no time has the minister bothered to contact her or even speak to her. Shockingly, a backgrounder was sent from the current Deputy Chief of Navy to the office of the Minister for Defence Personnel, who, for good measure, also ensured that it was distributed to the office of the Minister for Defence, the secretary of Defence, the Chief of Defence and the Vice Chief of the Defence Force, as well as another four work areas within the ADF. It was full of incorrect, unreasonable and unlawful statements about Deb. This included, but wasn't limited to: falsely stating that Deb's recruiting documents reported self-disclosed drug use; misrepresentation of Deb's ADF mental health counselling reports, reporting her as unresponsive when in fact it was an ADF health professional who labelled Deb a 'perpetual victim'; falsely stating that Defence had referred the complaints to Victoria Police; falsely stating that ADFIS advised Deb that no further action was going to be taken, but ADFIS has never contacted Deb; not clarifying that Deb's change of mode of discharge was based on psychiatric conditions as a consequence of the sexual misconduct, which is absolutely rubbish; falsely stating that Deb undertook FOIs in 2021 when Deb had painstakingly undertaken FOIs since 2019 in order to piece together the mismanagement of her complaint because Defence refused to disclose the facts which they knew to be true; falsely stating that poor Deb was advised that a fact-finding inquiry—a fact-finding inquiry!—was conducted and determined that an internal inquiry would be unlikely to reach the balance of probabilities required to pursue an administrative sanction.

Deb has documents from Defence which demonstrate that a review was undertaken in 2017 which stated that there was enough evidence to investigate the predatory sexual behaviour that had happened to her, falsely stating that the IG ADF had undertaken an inquiry into Deb's complaint. I would keep going on but I'm running out of time: once again it's cover-up, cover-up, cover-up! I'm going on this, and the minister knows about it. Enough is enough, and it will be out there tomorrow.