The defence recommendations come as part of Australia’s major strategic review, which also highlight China’s growing military strength that is driving power shift in the region.
MICHELLE GRATTAN.
PETER Dutton has begun his tenure as defence minister by delivering a very public slap to his most senior military adviser, chief of the Australian Defence Force Angus Campbell.
Dutton’s overriding of Campbell’s initial command decision to revoke a meritorious unit citation that had been awarded to some 3000 special forces soldiers who served in Afghanistan is a humiliation to the general who is supposedly in command of the military.
The minister’s claim that he has full faith in Campbell does not alter this point.
On an issue that goes to the core of military professionalism, ethics and discipline, the government has not trusted Campbell’s judgment.
Peter Dutton has begun his tenure as defence minister by delivering a very public slap to his most senior military adviser, chief of the Australian Defence Force Angus Campbell.
Dutton’s overriding of Campbell’s initial command decision to revoke a meritorious unit citation that had been awarded to some 3,000 special forces soldiers who served in Afghanistan is a humiliation to the general who is supposedly in command of the military.
The minister’s claim that he has full faith in Campbell does not alter this point.
On an issue that goes to the core of military professionalism, ethics and discipline, the government has not trusted Campbell’s judgment.
Scott Morrison has a near obsession with control. But suddenly – in the course of only weeks – he has found himself presiding over a government in a shambles, where he is reacting rather than driving.
All the mayhem flows from a common source – two rape allegations, one involving staffers in a minister’s office in 2019, the other relating to a minister accused of assaulting a woman, now dead, years before he entered politics.
Waves from these allegations have embroiled the Prime Minister’s staff in a “who knew what” inquiry, threatened the futures of two members of his cabinet, and are now complicating the progress of a key part of the government’s policy agenda.
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