One Nation dissenting report
Recommendation 1
The Minister for Defence to direct the Defence Honours and Awards Appeals Tribunal to review all nominations for Distinguished Service Crosses and Medals to Senior Officers from 1991 to 2012 for integrity assurance, with specific assurance that the ‘in action’ criteria was satisfied.
Recommendation 2
Return the criteria for the Distinguished Service Cross and Distinguished Service Medal to require the recipient’s conduct to be ‘in action’.
Recommendation 3
Create the class of Meritorious Service Decorations to be awarded for leadership and/or command in warlike operations as recommended by the 2008 review.
Recommendation 4
Empower the Defence Honours and Awards Appeals Tribunal to (retrospectively) review decisions to cancel awards parallel to their current review powers.
Recommendation 5
The Australian Government make clear announcements and implementation of policy to establish command responsibility as a binding doctrine in the Australian Defence Force.
Recommendation 6
The government must make stronger efforts to root out all hints of a culture of reprisal as it has a cancerous effect on the morale of the ADF and Parliament’s ability to provide oversight of Defence.
1.1One Nation supports increasing the transparency of the nomination process including ensuring the original text and subsequent commentary is properly identified and preserved. Nonetheless, given the Department of Defence’s (Defence) historic actions generating an entrenched lack of trust, there must be real consequences for nomination tampering. Tampering with or modifying an original nomination in an unauthorised way must be made an offence under the Defence Force Discipline Act.
1.2One Nation fully supports original nominators being informed of the content, status and outcome of a nomination.
1.3One Nation believes the specific criteria and guidance is best left to the relevant body, the Defence Honours and Awards Appeals Tribunal (DHAAT), to arbitrate and publish relevant case law. Government published guidance has the real chance of misleading nominees as to their eligibility and discouraging a potential application to the Tribunal to the service member’s detriment. The terms ‘in action’ and ‘in warlike operations’ are sufficiently defined in case law and policy application. The terms do not require further guidance from Government which only has the potential to disturb long standing precedent.
1.4One Nation supports the establishment of an ‘end of war’ list.
1.5One Nation supports the establishment of medallic and emblematic recognition for current and former Australian Defence Force (ADF) members and their families who are injured, wounded or killed in, or as a result of, their service.
1.6One Nation does not support obligating the Tribunal to ‘work alongside’ Defence in reviewing the Tribunal’s review and inquiry functions. Defence’s proposals to this inquiry were rightfully slapped down by the Tribunal as complete overreach that would curtail individuals’ rights. The history of the relationship between Defence and the Tribunal (described in the tribunal’s supplementary submission) could aptly be described as one of bad faith on behalf of Defence. It would not be sensible to give the Tribunal the impression it is obligated to give Defence’s proposals any more weight to satisfy an objective of consensus building (‘working alongside’) than they otherwise would in their impartial and objective assessment. One Nation encourages the Tribunal to take as critical a view of any Defence proposal as it deems necessary to protect the rights of ADF personnel to appeal Defence’s decision on an honour or award.
1.7In the coming decades the government plans to pay hundreds of billions of dollars for highly sophisticated Defence equipment. Whether AUKUS Submarines, the Hunter Class Frigates, Combat Reconnaissance Vehicles or F-35 fighter jets, government is ignoring that personnel must operate almost all the platforms it plans to buy. The Government needs operating personnel who feel the ADF actually values their service.
1.8The Defence Force is in a recruiting and retention crisis from low morale, with the permanent ADF headcount decreasing last year.[1] ADF Personnel are leaving because they don’t feel valued while potential recruits aren’t joining because veterans aren’t urging them to join and, in some cases, urging them not to join.
1.9In this context, a functioning, fair and transparent Honours and Awards system that recognises the sacrifices and achievements of ADF personnel regardless of their rank has never been more important.
1.10While in many cases recognising valuable achievements and sacrifices, the Defence Honours and Awards system too often operates as a two-tier system. Senior Officers are seen as nominating each other for prestigious awards as if they are entitled to them in their salary package. In contrast, non-senior ranks feel they must fight over years for recognition while their nominations are doctored and downgraded without their knowledge.
1.11The infamous examples of this are corrosive to morale across the ADF and that in turn is seriously contributing to the recruitment and retention crisis facing the ADF.
1.12Significant reform is needed to send a message that the government is serious about accountability when it comes to recognising the service, achievements and sacrifice of our ADF personnel.
1.13One Nation thanks the committee, secretariat, senators, witnesses, submitters and stakeholders for the conduct of this inquiry initiated on a One Nation motion.
1.14This inquiry could not have happened without the years of research, volunteer work and advocacy from veterans, current ADF Personnel and anonymous contributors without pay and sometimes under threat of reprisal. One Nation is forever grateful for their service to our armed forces, and their tireless work towards a fairer honours and awards system for the soldiers, sailors and aviators who will follow after them.
1.15The inquiry has heard there are systemic issues with the awarding of Distinguished Service Crosses to senior officers nominated prior to 2012.
1.16One Nation’s position is that these issues are undeniable and that the Distinguished Service Cross and Distinguished Service Medal have clearly been awarded to individuals who never satisfied the criteria of being ‘in action’ as required for those awards.
1.17Importantly, as submitters noted, both of these awards come with the privilege of allowing post nominals after their name, e.g. General John Citizen DSC.[2] These awards are highly sought after and convey a high level of prestige both in and outside of the Defence ecosystem. There is a clear perverse incentive for senior officers to seek out these awards.
1.18From 1991 to 2012 the Distinguished Service Cross and Distinguished Service Medal required the recipient to demonstrate leadership, as well as command in the case of the cross, while ‘in action’.[3]
1.19Despite statements to Senate Estimates hearings from senior officers and from Defence to this inquiry, the meaning of ‘in action’ has almost universally been well understood and clear. Since 1996 ‘in action’ was defined as limited to ‘acts in the course of armed combat or actual operations against an enemy’.[4]
1.20Indeed, as recently as 2019, the Defence themselves said that ‘in action’ was to be ‘physically present in a specific action involving direct conflict between opposing forces’ in the case of Gilbert.[5]
1.21DHAAT said in the case of Gilbert ‘in action’ was ‘involving armed conflict in close proximity to or under the fire of an adversary’.[6]
1.22As some say colloquially, to be ‘in action’ is to be on the ‘two-way rifle range’, essentially in danger under direct enemy fire.
1.23It has not been possible to find when many senior officers who received a Distinguished Service Cross were ever recorded as being ‘in action’.
1.24Asked to provide a specific response at Senate Estimates, General Angus Campbell AO DSC was unable to provide the specific action, as Gilbert defined, in which he was involved and for which he received his Distinguished Service Cross. The further detailed response on notice was that General Angus Campbell simply ‘travelled extensively within the area of operations under his command’.[7]
1.25If accurate, this alone could not satisfy the criteria for being ‘in action’ as understood in Gilbert and the previous regulations.
1.26General Angus Campbell, and potentially dozens of senior officers who came before him, most likely received Distinguished Service Crosses and Medals for which they never satisfied the ‘in action’ criteria.
1.27This is a conclusion One Nation, veterans and serving ADF personnel have reached based on public information, freedom of information requests and evidence to parliamentary hearings.
1.28The proper place for this issue to be finally reviewed with access to all material information is the well-respected, independent and trusted DHAAT. The Tribunal should then hand this review to the Minister for action, including, making recommendations to the Governor-General for the cancellation of any honours that have been found to have been deficiently awarded.
1.29Without final closure from a respected, independent body like the Tribunal, the issue of the Distinguished Service Crosses will continue to fester as a cancerous drain on morale. In action will be pointed to as more proof that the Defence Honours and Awards system operates in two-tiers with senior officers using it to pad their own nests.
1.30The Minister for Defence to direct the Defence Honours and Awards Appeals Tribunal to review all nominations for Distinguished Service Crosses and Medals to Senior Officers from 1991 to 2012 for integrity assurance, with specific assurance that the ‘in action’ criteria was satisfied.
1.31The changes to Distinguished Service Decorations criteria from ‘in action’ to ‘warlike operations’ in 2011 was done without stakeholder support.
1.32As a submitter put it, the panel that conducted the 2008 Defence Review of Defence Honours, Awards and Commendations Policies:
… found there was strong and almost universal support at the RSL level and amongst non-senior-officers to preserve the ‘in action’ requirement for the award of the Distinguished Service Cross…[8]
1.33Departmentally, the change was not supported. The 2008 Defence Review of Defence Honours, Awards and Commendations Policies did not support the change from ‘in action’. Those recommendations were considered ‘at length by Defence’s Chiefs of Service Committee and … the Interdepartmental Committee of Defence Honours and Awards’. The Parliamentary Secretary for Defence Support, Dr Mike Kelly, sought Prime Ministerial support for the actual recommendations from the review.[9]
1.34The consensus of stakeholders such as the RSL, the review panel and Departmental committees was to establish a new set of Meritorious Service decorations for warlike service, not to modify the Distinguished Service Decorations.
1.35The distinction for acts committed ‘in action’ under enemy fire is not trivial. It is a distinction that should never have been erased from Australia’s highest honours and awards. There was never anything close to stakeholder consensus to do so. Seemingly it was done without authority.
1.36Equally, senior leaders who distinguish themselves in ‘warlike conditions’ and not ‘in action’ deserve recognition. The review panel and departmental secretaries proposed the perfect solution to this, the Meritorious Service Decorations.
1.37One Nation notes that the committee is recommending the establishment of a new class of medallic and emblematic recognition for current and former Australian Defence Force members and their families who are injured, wounded or killed in, or as a result of, their service. The establishment of the new class of Meritorious Service Decorations should occur in parallel with this.
1.38Return the criteria for the Distinguished Service Cross and Distinguished Service Medal to require the recipient’s conduct to be ‘in action’.
1.39Create the class of Meritorious Service Decorations to be awarded for leadership and/or command in warlike operations as recommended by the 2008 review.
1.40Deep inequities in the Honours and Awards system have existed for some time. Many submitters cited a particular example of this divide and arguably set this inquiry in motion. That example is the disgraceful difference in how awards of more junior ranked personnel were treated in comparison to senior officers after the Brereton Report.
1.41Three different groups are perceived to have received differential treatment: recipients of the Meritorious Unit Citation, lower ranked recipients of the Distinguished Service Cross and senior officers who received the Distinguished Service Cross, including former General Angus Campbell.
1.42On 19 November 2020, General Angus Campbell, then Chief of Defence Force, announced the findings of the Brereton Report and that he would recommend the Meritorious Unit Citation be stripped from members of the Special Operations Task Group from 2007–13. This was estimated to effect 3000 ADF members.[10]
1.43General Angus Campbell announced this in a press conference long before a charge had been laid or a court had handed down a verdict for any of the 25 alleged individuals. Yet to date, no guilty verdict has been handed down to any individual and only one has been charged.[11]
1.44The perception amongst many veterans and serving personnel was that the admirable service of up to 3000 ADF members had been tarnished and their awards unjustifiably stripped for the allegations in relation to a handful of individuals.
1.45After a wave of public backlash to the news, the then Minister for Defence intervened to ensure the Meritorious Unit Citation was retained.[12] The fact the former Chief of Defence Force ever made the recommendation in the first place caused and continues to cause great resentment from ADF members and veterans. Special Forces Veteran Mr Dan Fortune told the inquiry:
… we want an apology for the disgraceful smearing of our Meritorious Unit Citation and the damage done to the award system. We would like restorative justice for those who've been pejoratively impacted by that denigration.[13]
1.46As DHAAT highlighted to this inquiry, there is no provision for the tribunal to review a decision to cancel an honour or award. This is an anomaly the tribunal recommends should be fixed.[14]
1.47As the system stands, without the Ministerial intervention to retain the Meritorious Unit Citation, those 3000 ADF members would have had no right to appeal the cancellation. One Nation strongly supports any decision to cancel an award or honour creating a right to review at the Tribunal.
1.48Unfortunately, this class of situation has occurred, and awards have been stripped with no avenue of appeal to the tribunal available.
1.49In May 2023, General Angus Campbell wrote to another group of Afghanistan veterans, reportedly mid-ranking officers such as majors or lieutenant colonels[15], to inform them he had recommended the Minister terminate their awards for distinguished and conspicuous service.[16]
1.50On 12 September 2024 the Minister for Defence stripped up to 10 officers of their medals.[17] These individuals have no right of appeal to the tribunal on that decision.
1.51Empower the Defence Honours and Awards Appeals Tribunal to (retrospectively) review decisions to cancel awards parallel to their current review powers.
1.52General Angus Campbell was awarded a Distinguished Service Cross for his command of all troops in the Middle East 2011.[18] General Angus Campbell was then promoted to Deputy Chief of Army in February 2012.[19]
1.53The citation for General Angus Campbell’s Distinguished Service Cross reads:
For distinguished command and leadership in action as Commander Joint Task Force 633 on Operation SLIPPER from January 2011 to December 2011.[20]
1.54The point submitters made is that at relevant times in relation to the Brereton Report allegations General Angus Campbell held significant, senior command roles over those forces. If the allegations rise to the point that soldiers under his command must lose their medals, many rightly question how General Angus Campbell can be entitled to keep his medal awarded for ‘distinguished command and leadership’ of those forces.
1.55The Brereton Report disagreed and opposed the doctrine of command responsibility stating there was:
… no evidence that there was knowledge of, or reckless indifference to, the commission of war crimes, on the part of commanders at troop/platoon, squadron/company or Task Group Headquarters level, let alone at higher levels such as Commander Joint Task Force 633… [21]
1.56The Brereton Report goes on to state that these higher headquarters did not have ‘a sufficient degree of command and control’ to attract legal liability.[22]
1.57It is ridiculous to claim that the Commander of Joint Task Force 633 can have both enough command and control over forces to entitle him to an award, yet not enough to make him responsible for allegations on his watch.
1.58The person from Defence who recommended whether Senior Officers like General Angus Campbell should be stripped of their medals was, General Angus Campbell:
Senator Shoebridge: Can you tell us who undertook the review?
Gen. Campbell: I undertook the review. It is a uniquely particular circumstance in which, as the Commander of the Australian Defence Force, looking at the question of command accountability, I am the authority to undertake that review.[23]
1.59As Senator Shoebridge rightly pointed out at a Senate Estimates hearing this was like ‘marking your own homework’.[24] There wasn’t just the ‘perception of [a] conflict of interest’ that General Angus Campbell tried to minimize.[25] Instead, it is a real, unmitigated conflict of interest.
1.60General Angus Campbell made the recommendation to the Minister for Defence that he shouldn’t be stripped of his own Distinguished Service Cross.
1.61Media reports cited anonymous sources to claim that General Angus Campbell had offered to return his Distinguished Service Cross.[26] In contrast, my Senate Estimates question on notice asked, ‘Was an offer made by General Angus Campbell to return his Distinguished Service Cross…?’ and the answer was a simple: ‘No’.[27]
1.62It is One Nation’s position that evidence given to a parliamentary hearing should be given more weight than unsourced and unverified claims to the media.
1.63Additionally, the independent panel established to supervise Defence reform in the wake of the Brereton Report disagreed with the conclusion on command accountability.
1.64In their final report the Afghanistan Inquiry Implementation Oversight Panel provided:
The Panel did not agree with the Brereton Inquiry's view that some accountability and responsibility could not fall on the most senior officers, and it suggested that issue should be the subject of further consideration…
There is ongoing anger and bitter resentment amongst present and former members of the special forces, many of whom served with distinction in Afghanistan, that their senior officers have not publicly accepted some responsibility for policies or decisions that contributed to the misconduct, such as the overuse of special forces.[28]
1.65The Independent Oversight Panel’s disagreement on command accountability is significant because the original conclusion was used to justify senior officers keeping their honours and awards.
1.66To date, there has been no further consideration of this issue as the Independent Oversight Panel recommended. One Nation has recommended that the Minister make a reference of senior officer Distinguished Service awards to the Tribunal to achieve this.
1.67One Nation says General Angus Campbell should never have been the authority to undertake that review in relation to his own award. The Independent Oversight Panel’s disagreements, that there should be some level of command responsibility, only reinforce that.
1.68Other options to conduct that review include former senior public servants and academics, such as those appointed to the Oversight Panel, eminent and retired Judges, independent defence analysts and most relevantly of all, DHAAT.
1.69The Tribunal has specialist experience in this area with a long history of precedents and jurisprudence regarding nearly all honours and awards.
1.70The public perception of a two-tier system from these episodes has been undeniable. As Special Forces Veteran Andrew White provided at a public hearing to this inquiry:
Why should seven SOCOMD [Special Operations Command] officers have their distinguished service awards taken off them pre-emptively, and why can he [Campbell] decide to keep his own award as a deciding authority? That's why honours and awards need to be separate to Defence.[29]
1.71Furthering this perception of a two-tier system for Senior Officers is the fact that Admiral David Johnston recommended General Angus Campbell for the Distinguished Service Cross. Admiral Johnston is of course General Angus Campbell’s immediate successor as Chief of the Defence Force.[30]
1.72General Angus Campbell’s Distinguished Service Cross has become a point of focus because many feel it is representative of a systemic issue, where the honours and awards system (and Defence more generally) operates in two-tiers with seemingly different rules for senior officers. This greatly undermines morale and trust and unless rectified will undermine national security and likely undermine this inquiry’s report.
1.73This understandable perception and its accompanying feeling are utterly corrosive to morale and trust within the ADF and is a significant contributor to the recruitment and retention crisis. In turn it undermines national security.
1.74To address this and improve morale across the ADF, the government must take tough action to be seen as subjecting senior officers to the same level of scrutiny and accountability as are the troops under their command.
1.75The Australian Government make clear announcements and implementation of policy to establish command responsibility as a binding doctrine in the Australian Defence Force.
1.76Committee recommendation 6 provides that:
… the Department of Defence works alongside the Defence Honours and Awards Appeals Tribunal to undertake a review of Part VIIIC of the Defence Act 1903 to improve the tribunals review and inquiry functions, while ensuring that the tribunal’s operational independence is maintained.
1.77In One Nation’s opinion, this implies the committee thinks the Tribunal should feel some kind of obligation to build towards a level of consensus through compromise with Defence on any reform proposals. Any sense of this should be rejected. As a review body, Defence proposals will almost certainly aim to curtail the Tribunal’s power and independence. The Tribunal should not be obligated to give an inch in its views of those proposals purely to satisfy some objective that it is seen to be ‘working alongside’ a body that routinely makes bad decisions.
1.78Below is an excerpt from the Tribunal’s supplementary submission, which any observer of this inquiry and those considering Defence reform proposals should read in full:
Given that Defence’s key proposals for amendments to the Act appear to be so counter intuitive and lacking in sound public policy justification, the Committee might consider whether their purpose is simply to avoid public accountability through independent merits review by the Tribunal in respect of the most contentious categories of defence honours and awards decision-making.
This is not the first occasion on which Defence has sought to curtail and avoid scrutiny by the Tribunal. For many years, Defence argued against merits review by the Tribunal. It argued in Tribunal hearings that historic decisions on medallic recognition should be affirmed by the Tribunal without merits review unless the applicant brought forward ‘compelling new evidence’ or proof of ‘maladministration’ affecting a previous decision. From 2015, the Tribunal consistently rejected these arguments on the basis that the legislation clearly required the Tribunal to undertake merits review of the reviewable decision that was the subject of the application for review. Merits review clearly requires that all relevant evidence must be considered, no matter whether or not it was available to the original decision-maker, and without regard to whether or not the decision-making process was tainted by defective administration. On occasion, the Tribunal also pointed out that Defence was in breach of its obligations as a model litigant under the Legal Service Directions, to assist the Tribunal because of its refusal to engage on the merits of the decisions under review by the Tribunal.[31]
1.79The Tribunal should feel no obligation to compromise its views on reform to the Defence Act based on reaching some consensus with Defence.
1.80Some key submitters felt they could not risk appearing as a witness to this inquiry, even confidentially and with the parliamentary protections afforded to them, due to fear of repercussions or reprisals from members of the Defence ecosystem. This extends to threats to commercial arrangements veterans have with the government in the Defence industry:
We (and others) did not attend the hearing, despite offers of appearances being held confidentially ‘in camera’, because, despite your assurances about parliamentary privilege we and others are wary of Defence’s reprisals, especially as some still work in the defence industry.[32]
1.81Many of the witnesses to the public hearings were former personnel who felt they could appear because they didn’t have commercial interests in the Defence industry that could be threatened, or who no longer served a chain of command that could inflict consequences upon them. As one witness remarked to me on the sidelines of a hearing, ‘I’m out now, so they [Defence] can’t touch me.’
1.82This committee has previously identified that fears of reprisal and repercussions are longstanding issues in Defence culture.[33] In conducting the Royal Commission into Defence and Veteran Suicide, Chair Nick Kaldas noted in the context of workplace complaints:
What is even more alarming is that [Defence] could neglect or mishandle a complaint of misconduct or target the complainant, leaving them re-traumatised. Yet that is exactly what we are hearing.[34]
1.83The risk of reprisal is clearly still a real threat to current and former ADF members. This culture has had an impact on the conduct of the inquiry for the evidence that witnesses felt unable to share and that the committee couldn’t consider.
1.84The government must make stronger efforts to root out all hints of a culture of reprisal as it has a cancerous effect on the morale of the ADF and Parliament’s ability to provide oversight of Defence.
Senator Malcolm Roberts
Pauline Hanson One Nation Party
Footnotes
[1]Department of Defence, Annual Report 2023–24, 8 October 2024, p. 108.
[2]Mr Mark James and Mr John Smith, Submission 21, p. 3.
[3]Office of the Official Secretary to the Governor-General, Distinguished Service Regulations, 15 January 1991, Gazette No. S 25 of 1991 (4 February 1991).
[4]Mr Mark James and Mr John Smith, Submission 21, p. 5.
[5]Defence Honours and Awards Appeals Tribunal (DHAAT), Gilbert and the Department of Defence, 7March 2019, p. 36.
[6]DHAAT, Gilbert and the Department of Defence, 7 March 2019, p. 34.
[7]Department of Defence, answer to question on notice 247, Senate Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Legislation Committee Supplementary Budget Estimates 2023–24, 25 October 2023 (received 15 December 2023).
[8]Mr Mark James and Mr John Smith, Submission 21, p. 5.
[9]Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet, Documents released under FOI 2024/314, 20 December 2023, p.1.
[10]Mr Andrew Greene, ‘Defence steps back from move to strip veterans of military decorations after war crimes inquiry’, Australian Broadcasting Corporation, 30 November 2020.
[11]Joanna Panagopoulos, ‘13 years later, special forces soldiers give evidence about an alleged war crime’, The Australian, 23 May 2025.
[12]Department of Defence, Honours and awards FAQ, www.defence.gov.au/about/reviews-inquiries/afghanistan-inquiry/frequently-asked-questions/honours-awards-faq (accessed 18 June 2025).
[13]Mr Dan Fortune, private capacity, Committee Hansard, 7 February 2025, p. 1.
[14]DHAAT, Submission 1, p. 27; Mr Stephen Skehill, Chair, DHAAT, Committee Hansard, 7 February 2025, p. 67.
[15]Mr Andrew Tillet, ‘Veterans lash Marles for stripping medals over war crimes probe’, Australian Financial Review, 12 September 2024.
[16]Mr Matthew Knott, ‘”National Shame”: Richard Marles strips medals from Afghanistan War Commanders’, The Sydney Morning Herald, 12 September 2024.
[17]Mr Matthew Doran, ‘Defence commanders stripped of medals after Afghanistan war crimes investigation ends’, Australian Broadcasting Corporation, 12 September 2024.
[18]Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet, Australian Honours Search Facility Award ID 1146295, 11 June 2012.
[19]Department of Defence, Major General Angus Campbell promoted to Lieutenant General [archived], 19September 2013.
[20]Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet, Australian Honours Search Facility Award ID 1146295, 11 June 2012.
[21]Inspector General of the Australian Defence Force, Afghanistan Inquiry Report, 10 November 2020, p. 31.
[22]Inspector General of the Australian Defence Force, Afghanistan Inquiry Report, 10 November 2020, p. 33.
[23]General Angus Campbell AO DSC, Chief of the Defence Force, Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Legislation Committee Hansard, 30 May 2023, pp. 69–70.
[24]Senator David Shoebridge, Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Legislation Committee Hansard, 30 May 2023, p. 70.
[25]General Angus Campbell AO DSC, Chief of the Defence Force, Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Legislation Committee Hansard, 30 May 2023, p. 70.
[26]Mr Chris Masters, ‘Defence chief Angus Campbell tried to hand back his medal but was refused’, The Sydney Morning Herald, 13 June 2023.
[27]Department of Defence, answer to question on notice 70, Senate Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Legislation Committee Budget Estimates 2023–24, 15 June 2023 (received 17 July 2023).
[28]Afghanistan Inquiry Implementation Oversight Panel, Final Report to the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Defence, November 2023, p.34.
[29]Mr Andrew White, private capacity, Committee Hansard, 7 February 2025, p. 10
[30]Department of Defence, Documents released under FOI 544 of 2022/23, 23 August 2023, [p. 11].
[31]DHAAT, Submission 1.1, p.12.
[32]Mr Mark James and Mr John Smith, Submission 21.3, p.1.
[33]Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade References Committee, The effectiveness of Australia’s military justice system, June 2025, pp. 132–139.
[34]Emphasis added. Commissioner Nick Kaldas APM, Chair, Royal Commission into Defence and Veteran Suicide, ‘The tragedy of veteran suicide: How Australia has failed its finest’, National Press Club, 13 September 2023.
Inquiry into Defence honours and awards system
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