INTERVIEWS
WITH DEFENCE MINISTER BRENDAN NELSON AND AUSTRALIAN DEFENCE ASSOCIATION
SPOKESMAN NEIL JAMES.
DISCUSSIONS
ABOUT EAST TIMOR, AUSTRALIA’S DEFENCE CAPABILITIES, RECRUITMENT,
LIEUTENTANT-COMMANDER ROBYN FAHY, MILITARY JUSTICE, THE POLICE MASSACRE IN EAST
TIMOR, JAKE KOVCO BUNGLE, MILITARY SECRECY PROVISIONS.
GREG TURNBULL: Good morning and welcome to
Meet the Press. Well. Violence,
death and destruction now afflicting
PRIME MINISTER JOHN HOWARD (Thursday): This is a
dangerous mission and a dangerous situation.
GREG TURNBULL: Well, the
TEN
REPORTER MAX FUTCHER: Good morning, Greg. Thankfully, so far this morning
things are fairly quiet here. We've heard no gunfire this morning or overnight
that we could hear, but things usually develop a little bit later in the day.
It could be because the Australian troops, as you say, are on the ground and
they've increased in numbers. Late yesterday we saw their number in the capital
almost double. They've been coming in by helicopter from the ships offshore and
many more came in by truck from the airport. They do face many problems, but a
couple of those challenges are to broker a peace between the warring security
factions, the Government forces and the so-called rebel forces. But also the
gangs roaming the streets with knives, machetes, axes - and they're burning
homes as well, so they're the main challenges that they face.
GREG TURNBULL: We've seen some disturbing pictures over the weekend of people
fleeing their homes and some very distressed civilians there. It appears to be
an emerging humanitarian crisis as well as everything else?
MAX
FUTCHER: Yes, there is a major problem developing on that front. Every embassy
you go to has hundreds of people either camped outside or inside the embassy
compound. The bigger problem is out at the airport where there's streams of
cars into the airport but also hundreds and hundreds of people camped at the
airport grounds with their belongings, their animals, and there's only one
toilet there and certainly no food or water other than what they've brought with
them and the shops in town are mostly closed and there are many, many homes
that are burned.
GREG TURNBULL: Max Futcher, thanks very much for joining us this morning. Dr Brendan
Nelson, welcome to the program. We'll come certainly to East Timor in just a
moment but first, the devastating earthquake near Yogyakarta
killing more than 3,000 people reportedly, what can the Australian Government
do?
BRENDAN NELSON: Well, obviously Greg this is a humanitarian disaster. Right
across the Government at the moment, we're examining what we could offer to the
Indonesia Government. Late last night I spoke to the chief of the defence force
Chief Marshall Angus Houston and I asked him to prepare from the defence
perspective what we could offer that would take the form of medical and other
supplies. I might also say that Angus Houston has spoken to his Indonesian
counterpart and offered assistance should it be required and at this stage he's
been advised that the Indonesian military is progressing very well, but nonetheless
we will provide assistance if we're asked to do so.
GREG TURNBULL: Moving to
BRENDAN NELSON: Well, I spoke this morning not only to the Chief of our defence
force, and our intelligence agencies about what's happening, it confirms your
own Channel Ten reporting that calm, relatively speaking, has come to Dili overnight. That relates to two things I think.
Firstly, that we are now fully deployed on the ground, the final amount of
equipment will be arriving in the 'Tobruk' in fact as
we speak. That means we'll have about 30 armoured personnel carriers, the
mobility of our troops will be greatly enhanced but also of course it's Sunday
today and in a largely Catholic population that brings a degree of stability to
the community. I've also spoken this morning to our commanding officer,
Brigadier Mike Slater and I've told him that Australians are very, very proud
of what his young soldiers are doing, and he's also basically informed me that
one of the things the Australians ought to appreciate, that anywhere an
Australian soldier goes he attracts East Timorese people who see him as a
source of comfort and protection.
GREG TURNBULL: Let's have a look at the words of Foreign Minister Jose Ramos Horta through the week as he predicted what might happen
when the Australians arrived. This is what he said.
JOSE RAMOS HORTA (Thursday): We believe the moment the news of the deployment
of these forces is made public and the moment the Australian forces land in
GREG TURNBULL: Yes, an immediate calming effect, but something that has
surprised I think observers is that while you might have had the rebel military
quietening down, we've suddenly seen this sort of Solomon Islands-style
machete-wielding people running through streets. Was that anticipated?
BRENDAN NELSON: You're night right in the sense that we've seen the immediate
calming in terms of the rogue military elements and the police in the most
savage way fighting with one another. What's now emerging of course is a basic
sense of lawlessness with these marauding young gangs. I spoke last night to
Justice and Police Minister Chris Ellison and the PM I know is now considering
deployment of Australian Federal Police. It is likely we over the next 24 hours
will send another 45 to 50 Australian Federal police officers to Dili to join the 15 that are already there. I think...
GREG TURNBULL: Will they be armed?
BRENDAN NELSON: That's entirely a matter for Minister Ellison. They will be
armed and carry armaments that are necessary to see they're able to do their
job. And they will work obviously with Brigadier Mick Slater and the Australian
Army. We would expect that once we have our policing arrangements in place and
now fully deployed with the Australian Defence Force that those totally
unacceptable scenes that we are seeing with dreadful behaviour by warring gangs
will be brought under control.
GREG TURNBULL: Time for a break and when we return with the panel we'll ask is
the Dili deployment stretching the capacity of our
army?
GREG
TURNBULL: Welcome back to Meet the Press with our
guest Brendan Nelson, Defence Minister. And we're joined by our panel this
morning, Brendan Nicholson from the
JOHN
HOWARD (Friday): I'm not going to make the mistake of saying, "Well, I
think they'll be out in X weeks or Y months." I can't do that. There is a
significant governance problem inside
FRAN
KELLY, RADIO NATIONAL: Minister, not well governed, what can or should we be
doing about that, should we be proposing a RAMSI-style intervention as we have
in the Solomons with security and governance support?
BRENDAN NELSON: I think, as Minister Downer has already, indicated, Fran, the
United Nations has a lead role to play in this regard, and clearly we are very
concerned about the governance arrangements in East Timor. I think some of the
key players in East Timorese Government have a lot to answer for for what has happened in the recent past in
FRAN KELLY: But the through the UN - not with us taking some kind of lead role
as we have in the Solomons?
BRENDAN NELSON: Clearly in many ways
FRAN KELLY: What about security in the region generally? Is it time or should
BRENDAN NELSON: Basically, we deploy when we believe there is a need to do so.
Whether that's in a preventive or in a responsive way, and those deployments
last until basically the job is done, which is an expression that you know we
use in relation to a number of our deployments. I can't imagine that we would
be looking at permanent deployments across the board. But it is likely that we
will be deployed in East Timor for the foreseeable future but again, the nature
and size of that deployment will be negotiated in consultation with the East
Timorese Government, other coalition partners and, as I say, we think that there
is a very important role for the United Nations in the future development and
governance of East Timor and we take that into account.
BRENDAN
NICHOLSON, THE 'AGE': Minister, we've got a significant number of troops in
BRENDAN NELSON: Well, you've painted a fairly accurate picture in terms of the
busyness and operational tempo of the Australian Defence Force, and Australians
would be pleased that the Howard Government took the decision to invest record
sums of increased money in defence. At the moment with the East Timorese
deployment, we have about 3,600 Australian Defence Force personnel deployed
across a number of theatres. That means that we have to have an equal number
that are training to be deployed and those that are recovering from deployment.
We still have significant reserve capacity should we for example need to
respond in some way to the crisis in response to the earthquake that we've seen
occur in the last 24 hours or indeed other issues that may arise, whether on
our borders or in our region. Recruitment is as you know a significant priority
for us and this week I will be receiving the report of the inquiry into
recruitment initiatives, and there are a number of things that in my view,
where common sense is applied, where I think we'll be about to significantly
increase our success in recruitment. Retention is the other end and at this
stage our attrition rate from the ADF is running at around just under 11% which
is getting closer to where we want it to be.
FRAN KELLY: Talking recruitment and retrenchment, we've had the high-profile
case in the media of a fairly senior naval officer Robyn Fahy
alleging harassment, bullying. Not great for recruitment generally, not the
sort of story you want out there, yet we've had the head of the navy in the
last week or so almost dismissing this as a media beat-up. Is that really the
way we want the defence force leadership to respond to stories like this. Are
you concerned about that?
BRENDAN NELSON: It's inappropriate for anyone to suggest the Chief of Navy has
been dismissive in relation to it, Fran. In fact, the Chief of Navy has taken
and does take this matter very seriously. The important thing...
FRAN KELLY: The Chief of Navy put it down as sensationalist media reporting,
these concerns?
BRENDAN NELSON: The important thing, Fran, is that Lieutenant-Commander Robyn Fahy has decided that she does not want to continue with a
career in the Royal Australian Navy. A mediator has been chosen which is
mutually acceptable to her and it will proceed to a mediation
very quickly and I would expect a fairly quick resolution of it. In the broader
sense, as I've said before, I think the way in which Defence handles its
military justice issues is extremely important because you're right in the
sense that it has an impact on potential recruitment and indeed retention, but,
as in all issues, there will always be two sides to the argument. The important
thing is that we move to settle this very quickly and that's certainly my view.
BRENDAN NICHOLSON: Minister, since you took on the job, you've initiated a
number of inquiries into various aspects of the administration of Defence in
BRENDAN NELSON: Well, certainly the leadership of the Australian Defence Force
Air Chief Marshall Angus Houston, the three service chiefs and the secretary
Rick Smith are outstanding people doing in my opinion an outstanding job. You
need to reflect on the fact perhaps, Brendan, that over the last three years
you've seen major changes in terms of financial management, the use of
technology, intelligence, also the bringing together and integration of
headquarters and command operations. You're talking about an organisation that
has essentially 90,000 people in the defence family, and one of the things
which I announced a couple of months ago is that we will be putting a business
improvement board over the top of Defence, the secretary will be a part of
that, it will be chaired by a cutting edge person from the business community,
and more recently I've announced that I'm also going to bring in a small number
of management experts to basically look at working with the secretary in
looking at the non-operational procedure and decision-making processes in the
Department. That's a way of trying to do things in a cooperative way that makes
sure that the departmental functions do the best to support our troops.
BRENDAN NICHOLSON: Have you decided yet who those people might be and will they
know what they’re looking at or looking for?
BRENDAN NELSON: That will be something I will announce once I've reach an
agreement with the Secretary on key individuals.
GREG TURNBULL: Can I just come back to
BRENDAN NELSON: Well,
GREG TURNBULL: Dr Brendan Nelson, thanks very much for
being our guest this morning.
BRENDAN NELSON: Thank you, Greg.
GREG TURNBULL: Our thanks to the Defence Minister for coming in. Coming up soon
- how our defence force are coping with that East Timor deployment and also the
Kovco debacle and our cartoon of the week is from
Warren in the 'Daily Telegraph' who has a nuclear power station installed
behind Kirribilli house with the caption reading "John was never one of
those not in my backyard types."
GREG TURNBULL: You're on Meet the Press. Well, it's been
quite a tumultuous few weeks for our defence forces. The major deployment to
NEIL JAMES: Good morning, Greg.
GREG TURNBULL: Do we have the right number of troops with
the right equipment in
NEIL JAMES: Well, we do at the moment. But if the situation becomes much more
complex, say for instance one of the factions decides they're losing and
retreats back up into the mountains, it becomes an entirely new ball game and
in that situation we would probably have insufficient troops to help the East
Timorese Government resolve that situation.
BRENDAN NICHOLSON: Neil, Jose Ramos Horta has
suggested overnight that we didn't actually get in there fast enough. Do you
think that the deployment, which seems to have gone to a layman like clockwork,
has actually shown up any weaknesses and did we get in in
time?
NEIL JAMES: How long's a piece of string, Brendan?
Certainly the deployment was reasonably speedy. But from the Defence
Association's point of view, we would have thought that we would have been able
to put a battalion group onto the ground in a place like
GREG TURNBULL: Speaking of the question of the capability of the defence force
and whether we are stretched because of this new deployment, let's have a
reminder of the confidence that was displayed by the Minister Brendan Nelson
not just in this program this morning but also to parliament. This is what he
said through the week.
BRENDAN NELSON: Around 3,500 ADF personnel deployed. That is from a defence
force of some 51,000. We at the moment, Mr Speaker, if we are asked to assist
with humanitarian or other kinds of issues, whether in our own country or in
our region I can assure you we have much more in our back pocket.
GREG TURNBULL: How long's a piece of string, as you
said? I guess that piece of string is pretty long according to Brendan Nelson.
NEIL JAMES: You've got to look at the figures accurately. If you quote just
numbers out of the whole defence force, you're not getting really a good
picture. The combat force of the Army for example is smaller than the NSW
police force. You've actually got to look at it as a percentage of the combat
force and you've also got to look at it as a percentage of the really highly
deployable parts of the combat force. Now, on current figures by early July
we'll have about half our infantry and about half our light cavalry deployed
overseas. That's really unsustainable after about six months for the simple
reason that you've got no one to rotate them with.
FRAN KELLY: What's the answer to that? The answer in the longer term is
recruitment and retention. We seem to be going backwards on that. Is that an
issue, and as we see deployments like Timor happening and criticism that it's
happening too slow, does that kind of publicity hurt or help retention and
recruitment?
NEIL JAMES: Well, if I can answer the first one first. Overseas deployments
generally act as neither an incentive or disincentive
to recruitment. Whether the deployment is a popular one or
not, really tends to not have too much of an effect. The problem we've
got is that there's some deep structural problems and
the defence force just isn't big enough. That's why we see this bipartisan
commitment to increase the size of the army by about 1,500 people at least.
FRAN KELLY: It's not working is it?
NEIL JAMES: That's a future increase. We're already about
1,500 under-strength. So we're about 3,000 down on where we should be.
And to an extent, strategically we're in a very similar situation to what we
were in 1964. We're having trouble recruiting the people for a range of
demographic and social and to some extent economic reasons. Quite frankly, a
lot more money has got to be thrown at defence force salaries and conditions
and wages because the only way in an economy with reasonably full employment
for skilled and unskilled labour is we're going to have to actually raise
salaries.
GREG TURNBULL: Neil James, could I come to the Kovco
matter? That bungle or double bungle as you might call it, took some of the
shine off the defence force in terms of their public image. Do you think that
that is being put behind the ADF now? Do you think there's been an appropriate
response, and what do you say about the apparent tensions between the Minister
or the Government and the uniform branch of the ADF?
NEIL JAMES: Well, the real problem is that, you know, the front end of the
defence force is working quite well but the back end has had some problems and there's been some problems in the department and, dare I say
it, in wider national support to defence. The bungle over the return of the
casket showed some systemic problems. The bungle over the loss of the report
was really individual failure, could have happened anywhere. I'd have to say
from my observations - and I've spoken to the service chiefs and the CDF and
both ministers on this - I haven't noticed any more tension than you'd normally
get. Obviously the ministers are a tad upset about some of the things that have
gone wrong, and that's what you'd expect, that's their job, but I haven't
really noticed any deep-seated tension and in fact one of the things that works
quite well at the moment is the current secretary and the current CDF and
service chiefs probably get on better than has occurred for many years.
BRENDAN NICHOLSON: Neil, there's been some concern expressed by the families of
some of the troops deployed in
NEIL JAMES: We're getting lots of complaints about this. The defence public
affairs organisation isn't handling this well and to an extent the political
direction they're getting isn't good. There's no reason for operational
security reasons why there needs to be such secrecy over some of our overseas
deployments. Indeed, in the longer term it's actually quite bad because if the
Australian people don't have a good understanding of what their defence force
is doing for them overseas, in the longer term we risk public support. As a
number of the fathers and mothers of people deployed in Afghanistan in
particular have pointed out to me, it's a bit silly when they can read things
on the Centcom web site that tell them about contacts
the Australians have been having or they have to follow the New China
newsagency to learn what our own forces are doing because of the so-called
operational secrecy provisions that are being applied by our system.
FRAN KELLY: But aren't we in a bit of a double bind
there. Out of sight out of mind is not good for public support but there's
always secrecy about the SAS, the special forces,
that's the nature of how they work?
NEIL JAMES: That's very true, Fran, but I had 25 years in military intelligence
and I can tell you that operational secrecy can be taken too far sometimes.
There's absolutely no reason why general accounts of what they're doing in far
more detail on some of their contacts can't be given. There's really no
military reason. As long as we don't betray our methods and to some extent our tasking
why this can't be better done and in fact if it isn't done better then we do
risk longer term public support for the defence force.
GREG TURNBULL: Neil James, thanks very much joining us
this morning. Would you tip that we will see more troops going to
NEIL JAMES: It really depends on what happens next. We've probably got enough
troops on the ground in Dili at the moment, but
should the problem spread into the rest of
GREG TURNBULL: Thanks, Neil James. Our thanks to the Minister
Brendan Nelson and to Neil James from