‘Not justifiable’: ADF chief David Johnston paid three times more than US counterpart, hearing told
The Chief of the Australian Defence Force’s pay packet is three times that of his counterpart in the United States.
Chief of the Australian Defence Force David Johnston is paid nearly three times as much as his counterpart in the United States, Senate estimates has been told.
Admiral Johnston is paid $896,372 per year compared to the $343,000 paid to the US Chief of Joint Chiefs of Defence, Greens Senator David Shoebridge revealed.
Senator r Shoebridge said the remuneration was “not justifiable”.
“You can’t justify paying somebody who’s the Chief of the Australian Defence Force, which is vastly smaller and vastly less complex than the United States defence force, you can’t justify paying them three times as much,” Senator Shoebridge said.
“But, that’s what Admiral Johnston gets paid – three times his equivalent in the United States.”
NDIS Minister Jenny McAllister, representing Defence, said rates for personnel were set independently.
Admiral Johnston had initially refused to say how much he was paid,
“You get paid three times as much as your equivalent in the US. Is that why you didn’t want to tell me,” Senator Shoebridge asked.
In response, Admiral Johnston said he was instead referring the Greens Senator to Defence annual report which he said contained “a version” of his pay packet.
Senator Shoebridge launched multiple attacks on Wednesday over the size of the ADF ranks.
Admiral Johnston said the ADF currently had 234 star-ranked officers.
The figure represents one of the highest concentrations of top brass in the world for the size of the Australian Defence Force.
Nonetheless, Senator Shoebridge said the ranks continued to swell.
“The number of mounted gold braid keeps increasing, but the number of people actually do people actually delivering the work stays pretty flat,” he said.
“How is it that you keep getting more one star and above generals and the like? Why did you decide to recruit more of them.”
In response, Admiral Johnston said “pleasingly the size of the ADF is growing” off the back of recruitment and retention, as well the introduction of new space and cyber roles.
“But I am very conscious of the size of the star rank positions,” he said.
“We have introduced a process that has us reviewing every one of those positions over a cyclic basis to determine the work value associated with them, the military expertise required of them, the rank level associated with them.
“We have running through all of the positions to determine what the appropriate rank level is. We’ve applied a similar criteria for new positions when they may be considered, to ensure they’re the subject of a test.”
Australian concern over China-Russia relationship
Australian Secretary of Defence Greg Moriarty has warned warming relations between Russia and China and the “meddling” presence of Iran is “a concern”, with the war in Ukraine contributing to a “security deterioration in our region”.
Appearing before Senate estimates on Wednesday afternoon, Mr Moriarty said China’s support for Russia was of particular concern and had allowed the “continuation of Russia’s aggressive, illegal campaign in Ukraine”.
“I don’t believe that Russia would have been able to conduct the type of operations and replenish and grow capability to the extent that it has if it wasn’t for Chinese co-operation and, in some ways, the provision of material assistance,” he said.
Mr Moriarty also raised concerns about the presence of North Korean troops in Ukraine, where they are fighting alongside regular Russian forces, which he said was “a really unpleasant and unwelcome development”.
“It will also allow North Korea to develop greater combat experience and expertise which those troops, or those of them that are left, will take back to North Korea, and that will improve the combat capability of the DPRK armed forces,” he said.
“That is, we believe, a direct threat to our partners, the South Koreans.
“So, a number of these things are having a really unfortunate impact in the European theatre, but also contribute to a security deterioration in our region.”
ADF tracking Chinese task group off Palau
The Australian Defence Force is tracking a Chinese naval task group in the Philippine Sea about 500 nautical miles north of Palau, Senate estimates was told.
Defence Force Chief Admiral David Johnston was observed by an RAAF P-8A surveillance aircraft on Tuesday evening.
It was made up of four ships, including a landing helicopter assault vessel, a cruiser, a frigate and a replenishment ship.
“I have previously stated that we have seen a greater PLA navy presence in our immediate region in recent years, and we do expect to see future PLA in extended area deployments,” he said.
“We will continue to monitor this task group as we learn more about its direction, its purpose and intent.”
Admiral Johnston said he was confident in the ADF’s ability to monitor the movements of the task group and provide advice to the government on what it believes its destination is and what its activities might be.
“If they move into the Southwest Pacific, we would work with our specific partners in that area, the French in New Caledonia, PNG,” he said.
“I am very confident that, depending on where the task group goes, and certainly … if it were to get closer to Australia, in our ability to provide air based surveillance, maritime based surveillance, where it’s relevant.
“But it, of course, depends on what the task group does.”
October 19 incident nit “an attack’
Admiral Johnston said military forces of Russia, China and North Korea were “more commonly training together”.
“Chinese and Russian forces train and operate together,” he said.
“There is clearly a relationship between the militaries of them coming together, both for training purposes and on a number of occasions for operational activity as well.”
Admiral Johnson denied interactions between the People’s Liberation Army and the Australian Navy in the South China Sea could be characterised as an attack.
“The bulk of our interactions are unremarkable,” he said.
“There are only those small number of occasions … where they draw particular concern from us.”
In particular, Admiral Johnston referred to an incident on October 19 when a PLA-AF Su-35 fighter plane deployed flares close to an RAAF P-8A patrol plane.
“This was an unsafe and unprofessional manoeuvre that posed a risk to the aircraft and its personnel,” Defence said at the time.
Admiral Johnston on Wednesday said the incident could have been a display of capability by the PLA or “a warning trying to deter an activity that we are engaged in”.
“I would not characterise it as an attack of that nature, and just it would not meet those types of thresholds,” he said.
He went on: “I do not believe that, certainly for the activities like a PLA incident or our naval patrols in the area, that we would characterise them as being under attack.”
Admiral Johnston would not answer whether he believed alleged actions by Iran against Australia’s Jewish community were would be characterised as Australia being funder attack owing to “legal consequences under laws of armed conflict and very precise definitions of what attack would be”.
Mr Moriarty said the federal government was “responding flexibly to what it sees” and had taken “very strong action against Iran”.
“Iranian meddling in a number of theatres is certainly not helping the cause of international peace in any theatre,” he said.
Originally published as ‘Not justifiable’: ADF chief David Johnston paid three times more than US counterpart, hearing told
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