The Hon Warren Snowdon places his head firmly in the sand, while Australian troops go into combat without appropriate health support

Below is the letter I have just received from Warren Snowdon, the Minister for Defence Science and Personnel. The Minister has been advised that the Department of Defence has conducted a full assessment of my concerns and has found no evidence of harassment or discrimination directed towards me, or other Specialist Service Officers.

This is passing strange, as Defence has consistently refused to abide by their own directives and investigate any of my strongly expressed concerns about the treatment of SSOs since 2008. In fact, they have done everything they can to stop me exposing the critical shortage of Medical Officers they have created through their misbehaviour. So it is certainly not possible for Defence to be advising the Minister they have conducted a full assessment of this matter. This is simply more of a cover-up of serious misbehaviour amongst senior officers in Defence.

Apparently, my written concerns, expressed consistently over the past four years, don't constitute evidence. Nor does the fact that the ADF is unable to provide health support to any of our deployed forces, and much of our garrisoned forces, provide any evidence of a problem.

The Minister goes on to say he is confident that these matters have been appropriately considered, while Australian troops on operations receive inadequate health support from civilians or other countries.

In my opinion, the Minister Snowdon must be grossly negligent or completely incompetent if he thinks these matters have been appropriately considered. At the very least, there is overwhelming evidence of a critical shortage of Medical Officers that has crippled the ADF. For an independent view, see my post publishing the Defence Force Remuneration Tribunal's Reasons for Decision published earlier.

This letter nicely illustrates the whole problem, and how dysfunctional the senior leadership of the ADF has become: A Medical Officer (me) tries very hard to bring these facts to them and help them fix the problem. They charge me with insubordination, lie to the Australian Government, and rely on a dim Minister to accept their false reassurances.

Don't they know truth will out?
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