Another failed court martial by the ADF

Below is the Notice of my directions hearing, where my court martial was vacated by the Judge Advocate.

Thank goodness someone has a clue in the Military Justice System. What was Colonel Cameron thinking when he convened a General Court Martial for insubordination?

As it turned out, 8 of the 12 charges were withdrawn, and the remaining 4 were changed anyway.

Your taxes at work...

The Australian Defence Force Investigative Service

You may remember this ADF version of the Keystone Cops from the recent ADFA Skypegate debacle, when the ADFIS "investigated" the cadets involved in broadcasting the intercourse between two ADFA cadets. Until it got away from the ADFIS, there was no case to answer, and it was the typical ADF response to these matters: the woman's behaviour was wrong and she was vilified by the hierarchy of the ADFA. In contrast, the boys who had committed several sins against a fellow officer cadet were simply told to get back to work.

As you know, ADFIS are clueless, and the boys were eventually charged with a number of offences.

Here is my personal experience with ADFIS:

After writing a formal and polite letter to Brigadier Michael Arnold he charged me with insubordination. He then set up a kangaroo court with one of his infantry commanders, Lieutenant Colonel Laidlow, who had the good sense not to proceed to hear the trial when I pointed out the complainent was his immediate superior. When I did eventually stand trial, an alternative CO tossed the whole thing out when he read the letter. His reasons were "There is nothing insubordinate, insulting or prejudicial to good discipline in the ADF in this letter".

But not ADFIS! This is what Warrant Officer Kealy-Bateman found:

The letter I wrote to Brigadier Arnold can be found here.

Meanwhile, Australian troops continue to have whatever health support anyone else can provide when Brigadier Arnold sends them overseas on operations.

How Brigadier Arnold stopped the investigation of my complaint of unacceptable behaviour in the ADF

When the ADF or the Minister for Defence says they are going to have an inquiry, most people would expect they would gather as much information as possible in order to make the best decision.

But what actually happens is that the Terms of Reference for an inquiry of usually limited so that nothing will be uncovered that reflects badly on Defence or the Minister for Defence.

For example, read through the TOR for my complaint. There are more things excluded than included.

As a result of poor leadership like this, the ADF is now unable to provide health support for any of our forces serving overseas. In Afghanistan, medical support was provided by the Dutch and now the US. In East Timor and the Solomon Islands, it is provided by a civilian group, ASPEN Medical Services.

Civilian health support is not as good as uniformed health support. And when the situation becomes unstable, the civilians must leave. Then the troops have no health support.

Terms of Reference of the ADF inquiry into my complaint of unacceptable behaviour.

2008 Redress of Grievance about Unacceptable Behaviour in the ADF

This is a slightly edited copy of the complaint I made about unacceptable behaviour in my unit, 4 Combat Service Support Battalion, in 2008.

Brigadier Arnold, then the  Commander of 4 Brigade, refused to investigate most of this complaint. See his Terms of Reference in a later blog entry to see how the ADF sweeps matters under the carpet.

2008 Redress of Grievance about Unacceptable Behaviour in Defence

Colonel Commandant A.P. Adams discriminates against Specialist Service Officers

I was told yesterday that the officer hearing the charges against me is Colonel Adams, the fellow who is in charge of one of the army training institutions that fosters discrimination and actively discriminates against Specialist Service Officers. I have been on course there and been interviewed by the senior instructors, including the commanding officer, for protesting about the behaviour of the General Service Officers towards their Specialist Service Officer colleagues.

Let me give you an example.

On my last course, these particularly dim GSOs asked me about the siting of field hospitals. Having worked in the Rwandan emergency in 1994/94 and Baragwaneth Hospital in South Africa, I have a strong working knowledge of this sort of question. So I told them what was required, and they dismissed my opinion because I "hadn't worked on brigade staff". I told them to get stuffed.

Their arrogance and ignorance became apparent to all shortly afterwards. These halfwits went on to present to our supervisor, on behalf of our group, without consultation with any of the subject matter experts (doctors or nurses), that they needed 834 (yes, eight hundred and thirty four) emergency medical teams for a medium sized operation in a relatively quite area. In fact, we only needed three.

Despite obvious proof that these GSOs were performing very poorly and not taking any notice of the subject matter experts in their group, I was interviewed by the Senior Instructor, a Major and then by the Chief Instructor, a Lieutenant Colonel, for arguing with these very sensitive GSOs. Both the SI and the CI failed to appreciate the dysfunctional environment of their school, and I was unfairly criticised in my course report.

Finally, ALTC and Colonel Adams have a policy of not using Specialist Service Officers as instructors, only General Service Officers. Obviously this is discriminatory. But more than that, it means that our officers are deliberately being trained by second-rate instructors. The Specialist Service Officers are, by virtue of their appointment, very highly educated and trained. I do not mean to infer that SSOs can teach everything, but to have a policy which excludes them means our army is not as well trained as it could be. We should always use our best instructors wherever and whenever possible, not deliberately exclude them!

Colonel Adams discriminates against Specialist Service Officer and fosters an environment in which we are undermined, belittled and harassed. His is obviously biased and cannot be impartial in a matter like this, where my complaints about discrimination against SSOs are being treated as insubordination.

This is merely futher abuse of the Military Justice System and another kangaroo court set up to stop me drawing attention to the lack of health support for our troops. I have no doubt Colonel Adams will find me guilty of everything, regardless of the evidence put to him, and that these proceedings will be used to discharge me from the ADF.

_________________________________________________________________________

Hello Sir,

FYI, the Superior Summary Authority (SUPSA) for the proceedings is COL A.P. Adams CSM, Commandant. Mailing address is:

Colonel A.P. Adams
Commandant
Army Logistics Training Centre
Gaza Ridge Barracks - South
MILPO
BANDIANA VIC 3694

Legal Representation: When you request approval to use a legal officer as your defending officer, I request you provide me with a copy of your request. To assist with the process please see attached and extract below from DLM:

Legal officers as defending officers
7.313 An accused person may wish to have a legal officer as a defending officer. In such circumstances, the accused person should be made aware that additional limitations will apply. Importantly, there is no entitlement to be represented by a legal officer at proceedings before a SUBSA. A legal officer may only appear as a defending officer before a CO or SUPSA if the requested officer is ‘reasonably available’ and leave is granted by the summary authority.295
7.314
Guidance on applications for legal representation and the factors that may be considered by a summary authority in deciding whether or not to grant leave for legal representation is provided above. [End extract]
Dates: The dates for the proceedings will be 30 Apr and 01 May 11.
Location: Simpson Barracks.
Further details: An instruction outlining key administrative, rations, accommodation details will be released in due course.

Sir, request you ack receipt of this email please.

Kind regards
RSM
______________________________________________________________________________

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?
_________________________________________________________________________

Sedition and Mutiny in the ADF, or Incompetence?

Like Brigadier Michael Arnold, Brigadier Marsh has refused to investigate my concerns about the ADF's critical shortage of Health Professionals, despite my 4 page letter to him and written directives that he must do so. Apparently he doesn't care about Australian troops, either.

I have edited out names of innocents, as before.

___________________________________________________________

Brigadier Marsh, RFD

Commander 4 Brigade

Simpson Barracks

Victoria                                                                          6th December 2010

Dear Brigadier Marsh,

I write in response to LTCOL L.A. Grime's Notice to Show Cause why I should not be suspended from duty on suspicion of committing service offences.

In addition to responding to the notice, this document is also a complaint about harassment and discrimination against Specialist Service Officers by General Service Officers generally and discrimination against me specifically by General Service Officers because I am a Specialist Service Officer. I refer you to DI(G) PERS 35-3 Management and Reporting of Unacceptable Behaviour.

I have not sought advice about the notice as it was served upon me on Tuesday evening, giving me effectively three days (Wednesday, Thursday and Friday) to seek advice. I have not received one of the documents, an MP3 file, that LTCOL Grimes promised me. The time given for me to respond is manifestly unfair and in keeping with the bastardisation of Specialist Service Officers by General Service Officers that I have been complaining about for several years now.

Nevertheless, the notice is of the same extremely poor standard as previous attempts by LTCOL LA Grimes to harass me and I am confident that this will be as easy to dismiss as the kangaroo courts she organised in 2008 and 2009 and the court martial in September this year.

I will assume the missing document LTCOL Grimes has failed to supply is substantially about the same subject, that is the inability of the ADF to provide health support to Australian soldiers because of the inability of the ADF to retain doctors, nurses and dentists.

There are at least seven reasons why I cannot be reasonably suspended. I suspect if I had a reasonable amount of time or the opportunity to seek expert counsel, many more would come to light. But off the top of my head I can immediately think of the following. In no particular order, they are:

1. There is insufficient reason to suspend me;
2. There is no advantage gained by the ADF in suspending me;
3. There is considerable disadvantage to the ADF if I were to be suspended;
4. Suspending me will diminish morale amongst health personnel and other ADF members;
5. There is overwhelming evidence the Defence Force Discipline Act is being misused again as part of a general campaign of harassment of SSOs and myself specifically;
6. Supporting the actions of LTCOL LA Grimes will foster the current poor practice of ADF GSOs in resorting to the most extreme processes and punishments as their first or early action in dealing with situations that are better handled through inquiry, education and negotiation; and
7. Suspending me from duty is not in the interests of Australia or the ADF.

Firstly, It is clear from that the issuing of this notice that LTCOL Grimes does not understand the process she is initiating. She has written in her notice that I am being investigated, and the mere fact that I am being investigated may be reasonable grounds for suspension. This is nonsense. The investigation has not resulted in any charges being laid, nor will it. It is impossible for the ADF to prosecute me because I was not a defence member at the time the alleged offences took place.

Further, the issues discussed with the media are matters of public knowledge. Everything mentioned is well known to any interested observer of defence matters. It has been well known for a long time the ADF cannot retain SSOs. There was no utterance of confidential material.

In any event, it is not open to the ADF to pursue this matter.

The process initiated is only every used when it becomes clear there is a reasonable chance of success in a prosecution. This is usually signalled by a decision to lay charges. It is not the 19^th century, and the DFDA is not a plaything for struggling officers to use for personal vendettas.

Secondly, the ADF gains nothing by suspending me from duty. If the concern is that I will continue to voice my concerns to the Australian Parliament and press, suspension cannot prevent me from continuing to do so.

Thirdly, if I am suspended the ADF loses a critical individual asset. I enlisted in the ADF over thirty years ago, and have enormous experience working in countries all around the world. I am an experienced pharmacist, doctor and effective leader of health teams.

Fourth, morale amongst ADF health support personnel is already at an all-time low because of the extant situation you and your colleagues have created. ADF health support personnel are ignored and civilian contractors are given their jobs, or the health support is provided by allies. Suspending me from duty for trying to provide appropriate health support for members on operations will signal all observers that you disagree with the provision of appropriate health support to soldiers and further lower morale amongst all ADF members and health support personnel especially. My actions are strongly supported by every right-thinking soldier and officer.

Put more simply, I am trying to protect soldiers. You happily send them into hazardous operations without appropriate health support. No-one in their right mind would support your position, or act against mine. Suspending a Medical Officer for expressing concern about the current health situation is madness and will reinforce the current, unacceptable situation to the dismay of everyone affected by it.

Fifth, this notice continues a pattern of harassment carried out by LTCOL Grimes and her subordinates for the past two years. In some semblance of chronological order,

1. The captain OIC of Beersheba was replaced by a staff sergeant, over the heads of the three remaining captains who were all SSOs. This is bizarre and confusing for everyone, especially the SSGT and the soldiers who know a captain outranks a SSGT by a fair bit.
2. This year SSOs in 6^th Health Company, 4 CSSB were denigrated and undermined by the appointment of an engineering captain from outside the company and associated corps who has no association with health support as the second in command. This has continued the discrimination directed towards SSOs by failing to appoint, train or encourage any of the very competent Nursing or Medical Officers with 6^th Health Company.
3. LTCOL Grimes had me charged with insubordination for asking an ROG to be elevated to the Chief of Army, which is clearly an offence under Defence Force Regulations.

4. LTCOL Grimes instigated an investigation and adverse findings against me in my PAR, saying that I had carried out an unauthorised promotion of a new Nursing Officer, Lieutenant Nursing Officer, when he was in fact commissioned and appointed in the usual manner by a Major in Albury. All I did was congratulate him!
5. Immediately upon arrival the same LT was posted to a private's position in a Low Dependency Unit by our OC, without discussion. Again this is very demoralising and denigrating to everyone who is aware of this bizarre, destructive behaviour.
6. At the same time our OC said she was taking all of the Medical Officers out of their posted positions and teams and they would be working independently – which is a fairly good indication of how little she knows about our jobs, and how little she knows about how little she knows. I couldn't open the door to my practice without a receptionist and a nurse, and I often have another doctor, a practice manager and psychologist on site as well. Not to mention IT support, the bookkeeper and the other important team members I need to make a functional medical unit!

LTCOL Grime's behaviour is belligerent, bizarre and destructive of the fabric of the ADF. It displays hallmarks of psychopathic behaviour. It is most likely that the notice is so badly misconceived because it is wrongly motivated.

Sixth, if LTCOL Grimes was genuinely concerned about the ADF or members under her command or had any reasonable motivation for her actions she would have taken reasonable steps to gather information in order to make a good decision. I would have been interviewed about the precise nature of my concerns and asked why I had these concerns. Supporting her notice by suspending me will foster similar mismanagement and further poor decisions by your subordinates.

Seventh, suspending me from duty acknowledges publicly the ADF is discomforted by my concerns and adds credence and weight to them. If my concerns were unfounded, the matter would not be serious enough to attempt to silence me with the DFDA. It is not in the interests of Defence or Australia for my concerns to be supported or to be broadcast any more than is required to fix the problem. I acknowledge the futility of making this point – obviously if you had any regard for the interests of Defence or Australia, you would be more supportive of your SSOs, we would be able to provide health support for our troops and I wouldn't be so concerned about their welfare. I have included it for the other addressees.

Previous dealings in similar matters with your predecessor, Brigadier Michael Arnold, were handled in a particularly vile manner and I have no confidence you will behave any differently. Accordingly, I have elected to publish the Notice to Show Cause and my response to the Senate Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade, the Minister for Defence and the Shadow Minister for Defence. I believe the critical shortage of SSOs in the ADF to be a Proper Reason for this disclosure. I consider these two documents can aid understanding of the reasons Australia is unable to properly support deployed ADF personnel and may be unable to meet treaty obligations and so constitute Proper Instruments. In the absence of any reasonable response by anyone in the ADF or the IGADF, I consider these offices to be Proper Persons to whom to disclose this information.

Further, I consider it possible the misuse of the DFDA and Military Justice System by senior officers such as Brigadier Arnold, Brigadier McDade and LTCOL LA Grimes to be seditious. The Australian Parliament, through the Senate, has made it very clear the MJS is not to be misused, and have allocated millions of dollars of public funds in order to stop this kind of misuse. I consider this notice to be further misuse of the DFDA and to directly undermine the Australian Parliament.

It is possible the actions of some of these officers have seriously weakened the ADF and may constitute offences under the DFDA, including, but not limited to:

DFDA Sect 15G Imperilling the success of operations

             (1)  A person who is a defence member or a defence civilian is guilty of an offence if:
                     (a)  the person engages in any conduct; and
                     (b)  the conduct imperils the success of operations against the enemy.

DFDA Sect 20 Mutiny

"mutiny" means a combination between persons who are, or of whom at least 2 are, members of the Defence Force:
                     (a)  to overthrow lawful authority in the Defence Force or in an allied force; or
                     (b)  to resist such lawful authority in such a manner as to prejudice substantially the operational efficiency of the Defence Force or of, or of a part of, an allied force.

Defence Force Regulations Reg 92 (2)

A member is guilty of an offence if he or she causes another member to be victimised, penalised or prejudiced in any way for:
                (a)    making a complaint; or
               (b)    requesting the referral of a complaint.

It is clear from the above that you have a major problem with several of your middle and senior officers discriminating between SSOs and GSOs and harassing them. While your predecessor and the Chief of Army do not feel directives are binding upon them and have ignored my previously expressed concerns about discrimination and harassment of myself and other SSOs, I would take this opportunity to remind you that DI(G)PERS 35–3 Management and Reporting of Unacceptable Behaviour specifically states that an overarching principle of the ADF is that:

7b. Defence does not tolerate any forms of unacceptable behaviour, nor the mismanagement or disregard of complaints;

and specifically that:

7c. Commanders and managers are to take all reasonable measures to eliminate and prevent unacceptable behaviour and to manage complaints, including the appointment of a case manager;

My concerns are not trivial and are not confined to me. The conduct I refer to above has crippled the ADF, as you well know.

Yours sincerely,

Dr Julian Fidge BPharm, Grad Dip App Sc (Comp Sc), MBBS, FRACGP

Captain

Medical Officer

6^th Health Company

4 Combat Service Support Battalion

 

cc Senate Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade

Minister for Defence

Shadow Minister for Defence

____________________________________________________________

When questioned about why the ADF was not investigating, a spokesperson for Senator Snowdon, the Minister for Defence Science and Personnel and Veterans Affairs, wrote:

"On January 13, the Commander requested Dr Fidge provide  additional information by January 31 in order to proceed with the investigation, as Dr Fidge's letter of complaint does not contain sufficient detailed information to thoroughly consider his complaints."

Brigadier Marsh continues to mismanage my complaint, which obviously contained enough information to make enquiries, as at the date of ths post. I am happy to report that 6th Health Company has a new 2IC, whom I think is a Nursing Officer. I am happy to have forced Lieutenant Colonel Grimes to have reversed that appointment and awarded it to an appropriate officer.

The reason it is has never been open to the ADF to investigate or prosecute me is quite clear - I was not a defence member at the time. A defence member is defined in the Defence Force Discipline Act as:

________________________________________________________

"defence member" means:

                     (a)  a member of the Permanent Navy, the Regular Army or the Permanent Air Force; or

                     (b)  a member of the Reserves who:

                              (i)  is rendering continuous full‑time service; or

                             (ii)  is on duty or in uniform.

_________________________________________________________

And I was never on duty or in uniform when I wrote these letters or spoke to the press, far less rendering CFTS. But as the Senate found, many ADF officers don't think they are bound by the laws of this country.

I'll publish the Senate findings on the ADF's contempt of Parliament when I get time.

Cheers,

Julian