As esteemed former Defence Minister Kim Beazley recently pointed out, Australia has let its defence forces go to wrack and ruin. Like the feckless mendicant states of Europe, we’ve long let our defence spending fall well below the bare minimum two per cent of GDP. To bring the ADF up to anything like a meaningful capacity, ‘Bomber’ Beazley pointed out, is going to need spending of at least three per cent, even five per cent, over coming years.
But to bring the ADF back up to anything like its past standard as a fighting force to be reckoned with is going to require a massive clean out of a woke, top-heavy command structure. An army that has, in its top brass, a ‘Second Indigenous Elder’ (WO ‘Aunty’ Lorraine Hatton OAM), is not an army to be taken seriously. Nor is a military overburdened with high-paid senior officers who ponce around in high heels for Women’s Day and whose most significant contribution is whining about a ‘warrior culture’ among the people who do the real fighting.
A warrior culture in an army? Whoever heard of such a thing?
Certainly not, apparently, a military whose ranks of senior officers have doubled, even as the ranks of enlisted personnel declines alarmingly.
Analysis prepared by the Parliamentary Library confirms the number of “star-ranked” officers in the Australian Defence Force now totals 219, up from 119 in 2003.
The figures, commissioned by the Greens Party, confirm that for every senior Australian Defence Force (ADF) officer, there is just 260 other lower ranked officers or regular personnel serving below them.
To put that into perspective, it’s nearly six times as many brass as in the US and UK militaries. This isn’t a serious military: it’s a special school for woke public servants playing dress ups.
It’s certainly a sad state of affairs when even the Greens can see the problem.
Greens Senator and Defence spokesperson David Shoebridge says the “top-heavy” nature of the ADF is laughable given the declining numbers of overall military personnel.
The army now has five times as many Lieutenant Generals (three stars) as it did in Vietnam and twice as many Major Generals (two stars). Yet it had nearly 3,000 more regular soldiers.
So what have these myriads of senior Defence leaders delivered to us? A Defence Force so demoralised that it has engendered the worst crisis of self-harm among veterans that we have ever seen. An army that stands accused of serious war crimes – a charge that emerged in 2020 and a resolution of which is nowhere in sight. (To date, only one former soldier has been charged in relation to the findings of the Brereton Report.) What else? Oh yes, a Navy virtually bereft of submarine capability, a Navy incapable of deploying a single warship into the Middle East to deter Houthi attacks, or even to shadow a Chinese flotilla conducting live-fire exercises in our aerial laneways. An army with no drone capability to speak of, even though drones are emerging as a powerful and cheap force multiplier. An army that cannot retain its members.
Yet, for such egregious failure, Australia’s Chief of Defence trousers a cool million per year. Three times as much as the US chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
I wonder if that salary is accompanied by some Key Performance Indicators? If so, it would be interesting to know what they are. I wonder how much Aunty Lorraine is being paid? Possibly a question for a dispassionate question at Senate Estimates.
Apparently, one of the KPIs is ‘gender equity’.
Over the past 10 years or so we have seen the encroachment of women into more and more combat related roles. We have seen them promoted to the highest ranks, despite having limited or no combat experience.
Peacetime Australia has a defence force comprising one-fifth women. Ukraine, actually fighting an actual war, has just five per cent.
There is a role – an honourable and valuable role – for women in the army. It’s the same as it was in World War Two, when women replaced men in support roles to allow them to go to the front line where they were more effective. Traditionally, a theatre of operations is divided into three zones – a combat zone, a communications zone and a secure rear area. The communications zone, which includes headquarters, logistic, signals and some engineering capability, is a more appropriate place where women can add real value and, yes, put their life on the line if they wish.
And for God’s sake, don’t put them in command of frigates. Just ask New Zealand.
