A View from Canberra: Moral outrage? | ADM Apr 2011

A Special Correspondent | Canberra

One question which doesn’t seem to have been asked from the HMAS Success commission of inquiry is just how outraged should defence and the nation be about a bunch of sailors getting really drunk and misbehaving while on leave.

Admittedly, the particular subjects of the Success inquiry really pushed the boundaries and in startlingly new directions. Past misbehaviour involving defence personnel has involved days of earnest academic and media commentary, lamenting the shortcomings in defence culture and demanding that something be done.

Yet this time the media and public response was strangely muted. Perhaps that was due to an over-abundance of scandals involving footballers and because the release of the inquiry report coincided with the NZ earthquake.

For those not across the fine details, the Success inquiry was conducted by former NSW Judge Roger Gyles QC and was prompted by hijinks during the ship’s Asian deployment in early 2009.  In visits to various ports, assorted members of the ship’s company really cut loose.

One subsequently described three days in Hong as the biggest pissup he’d ever experienced but the tour de force occurred on Anzac Day in the Chinese port of Qingdao. There in the LPG Bar, a senior sailor had sex with a junior female sailor with others called to watch. Understandably, the participants and onlookers weren’t saying that much and Gyles was unsure whether this occurred on a pool table or on a couch in the corner. But occur it certainly did, he concluded.

In the nature of such events, this may well have been filmed on a mobile phone but that hasn’t yet surfaced. Also in the nature of such things, it’s highly likely it will down the track, as those in possession of such verboten material are irresistibly tempted to share with mates and before you know it, it’s on YouTube.

Gyles concluded that some aboard Success were out of control during their various port visits, drinking vast quantities of booze, breaking stuff and being generally offensive. What initially attracted media interest when Success first hit the news last year was not made clear until later.

That was the claimed existence of a document called The Ledger in which a group of senior sailors placed dollar values on sex with female sailors. Larger sums were on offer for sex with an officer or a lesbian, with challenges to have sex in various places including on a pool table. Gyles found no evidence that The Ledger existed but concluded the whole truth had not come out.

What did was bad enough. He found evidence of predatory sexual behaviour not limited to a bounty being placed on one female sailor who actually had sex with a senior sailor aboard the ship.

The three days of drunkenness in Hong Kong produced enough complaints to spur action. This must have come as a mighty shock to fleet headquarters back in Australia because as far as they were concerned, Success was operating well. Gyles said there was no suggestion of operational failure or deficiency.

The consequence of the complaints was that a navy “equity and diversity tiger team” sailed aboard Success from Hong Kong to Singapore, reaching broad conclusions about the culture aboard Success in their seven page report not markedly different from Gyles in 412 pages. He found evidence of a toxic culture based around a small group of senior sailors from the engineering department.  With hindsight, the reason for that was pretty obvious.

Success, launched in 1984, is a one-off vessel in the Australian navy with unique mechanicals. Consequently, those who knew how to operate the ship stayed for long periods.

This tribal culture was some years in the making and sufficiently insular and protective of its own interest through silence and intimidation that it escaped notice by a succession of captains, among them current Chief of Navy Vice Admiral Russ Crane who commanded Success 1998-2000.

Coming on his watch and not long after well-publicised problems with the navy’s heavy amphibious capability, VADM Crane has copped a fair bit of flak which is wholly unfair.  Among the critics, Opposition defence spokesman David Johnston released a media statement describing the Gyles report as a “damming indictment” of both the navy and the government.

For his part, VADM Crane instigated the navy seaworthiness board, which uncovered the problems aboard Manoora and Kanimbla, and in April 2009 launched the New Generation Navy, a five-year culture reform. Defence’s response to the Gyles report will be conducted under the umbrella of New Generation Navy with a fresh emphasis on leadership.

Some people will certainly face the music. Gyles made no recommendations but an audit of his report by a senior lawyer threw up 29 names for possible disciplinary action. There may be more. Defence chief, Air Chief Marshal Angus Houston said the core group was much smaller than 29.

At the tail end of his report, Gyles made some pertinent comments. He said a sense of proportion was needed and that most of the behaviour examined occurred away from the ship by relatively young sailors on shore leave. He said that behaviour could not be considered in isolation from the behaviour of other young people in Australian society.  Further, almost every untoward incident involved excess consumption of alcohol but there was a limit to what the navy could or should do about alcohol consumption on shore leave.

Nonetheless, he concluded, some on Success had gone way too far, creating a risk the discipline and ship performance could have been adversely affected and the reputation of the ship, the navy and Australia brought into disrepute.

He might have added that binge drinking gets people badly hurt or killed, as anyone who has ever set foot in a big city hospital emergency room on a Saturday night can attest.

Defence is having a good hard think about a comprehensive ADF alcohol management strategy, in partnership with the Australian Drug Foundation. VADM Crane proposed one possible further measure which likely induced groans of horror across the navy – a complete ban on alcohol consumption in selected foreign ports.