Defence Minister and Deputy Prime Minister Richard Marles has continued his ongoing battle with the n Defence Force, saying there are ‘issues of culture within its senior leadership’.
Tensions with the Department of Defence and the top brass of the ADF first came to light two weeks ago when Mr Marles was forced to address rumours he is at loggerheads with top officials.
In a closed door meeting late last year, he reportedly laid down the law to more than two dozen military chiefs and bureaucrats including Defence Secretary Greg Moriarty and Chief of the Defence Force Angus Campbell.
‘What we need to see in terms of the leadership of the n Defence Force and the Department of Defence – and I’m not just talking about the two leaders (Mr Moriarty and General Campbell) – but the broader leadership is that all that we do is done with excellence,’ Mr Marles told Sky News on Sunday.
‘I think there are issues of culture within the senior leadership and the more general leadership of the ADF and the department which needs challenging.’
Defence Minister and Deputy Prime Minister Richard Marles has continued his ongoing battle with the n Defence Force, saying there are ‘issues of culture within its senior leadership’. ADF personnel are pictured at Gallipoli Barracks in Brisbane
He said advice given to him and the Government needs to be ‘timely (and) accurate’.
‘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 where there is excellence and complete competence.’
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Deputy Prime Minister Richard Marles is pictured getting off a plane
The Opposition’s home affairs spokesman James Paterson said Mr Marles comments appeared to be a ‘public vote of no confidence in his own department and the military leadership of our defence forces’.
‘That’s a deeply disturbing thing,’ Mr Paterson told Sky. ‘If he does have confidence in them, he shouldn’t publicly undermine them by saying that.’
But Mr Marles said he’d had ‘complete collaboration from both the Secretary of Defence and the CDF (Chief of the Defence Force).
‘There is an issue in relation to culture and we should be seeking to have a culture of absolute excellence and that is the point that I’ve made.’
The minister said morale within Defence had been damaged by the previous three term Coalition government, which had seven different ministers in nine years and made many spending announcement which Mr Marles said were not backed up by the funds to pay for them.
‘When you go out and make all these fanciful announcements, $45billion dollars’ worth, and there’s no money behind them, it’s obviously going to have an impact on morale. And it has.
‘I mean, would you leave the country with the oldest surface fleet sailing since the end of the Second World War, which is what the former government did, that is going to impact morale,’ he said.
Mr Marles said as the incoming Defence Minister, he inherited ‘those issues within the ADF and within the department.
‘And I can understand how that has happened. Going forward, though, we need to address that culture.’
Defence Department Secretary Greg Moriarty (left) and Chief of the Defence Force General Angus Campbell (right) are pictured
Two weeks ago when Mr Marles (pictured) was forced to address rumours he is at loggerheads with top officials
He acknowledged that the Government has to play a major role in changing the culture and part of that is being ‘very clear about where money is coming from’.
The minister said the Albanese government would not be ‘engaging in the make believe that the former government (did) and we intend to have consistency in leadership from government’.
Mr Marles said the ADF has to address the issue of ‘morale and make sure that there is excellence in all that is done’.
He added he was ‘surprised that the opposition regard that as a controversial proposition’.
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Defence Minister and Deputy Prime Minister Richard Marles (pictured) has racked up more than $3.6million in VIP flight costs since taking office