February 26, 2024
Defence Minister points to cultural issues and queries accuracy of advice
Defence Minister Richard Marles has admitted there are "issues of culture" in the higher echelons of the defence force and his department, as he expressed concerns about getting accurate and timely advice.
The Opposition said Mr Marles' dressing down was "deeply disturbing" and amounted to a "public vote of no confidence" in the bureaucrats and army chiefs in charge of the day-to-day running of the defence forces.
Tensions between Mr Marles and senior ADF and Defence leaders became public knowledge with reports he used a closed-door meeting late last year to demand improvement.
Mr Marles later told Federal Parliament he made no apologies for "demanding excellence". Talking to Sky News on Sunday, he admitted issues in the senior ranks needed "challenging" and that Chief of the Defence Force Angus Campbell and Defence Department secretary Greg Moriarty supported his push for improvements.
"What we need to see in terms of the leadership of the Australian Defence Force and the Department of Defence, and I'm not just talking about the two leaders, but the broader leadership, is that all that we do is done with excellence," he said.
"That advice is timely, that advice is accurate, that we are expecting of ourselves the same amount of excellence that we would expect of somebody who's in the infantry or somebody who is maintaining an aircraft." Shadow home affairs minister James Paterson was alarmed at Mr Marles' public rebuke.
"It seems like a public vote of no confidence in his own department and the military leadership of our defence forces, and that's a deeply disturbing thing," he said. "If he does have confidence in them, he shouldn't publicly undermine them by saying that."
