I was not blaming victims, ADF chief Angus Campbell says

Nation’s top military officer says advice to cadets aimed at lowering risk of ­sexual assault.

Chief of the Australian Defence Force General Angus Campbell. Picture: Getty Images

The nation’s most senior military officer says his warning to first-year cadets against going out “alone” and “attractive” were aimed at lowering the risk of ­sexual assault, not blaming ­victims.

Chief of the Defence Force Angus Campbell told new recruits at the Australian Defence Force Academy in Canberra to stay safe by avoiding the “Four A’s”: “alcohol”, and being out “after” midnight, “alone” and ­“attractive”.

Australian of the Year Grace Tame, a child sex abuse survivor, said the advice was “not helpful rhetoric at all”.

“I’m not judge, jury and executioner but the idea that this is something that a victim has to foresee and stop themselves, as if they’re to blame, is really unhelpful,” Ms Tame told the National Press Club on Wednesday.

Acting Defence Minister Marise Payne also criticised General Campbell’s comments, saying they were “not the words” she would have used.

“My message is that it is most important that those who would seek to be sexual predators — don’t,” she said.

“That behaviour is unacceptable anywhere, anytime, under any circumstances. My message first and foremost is about stopping that behaviour.”

General Campbell said his speech to ADFA cadets last week had “been interpreted by some in a way that I did not intend”.

“There is never an excuse for perpetrating sexual assault or sexual harassment and the perpetrator is always to blame,” he said.

“In my speech, I reinforced the importance of the trainee cohort coming together to build a community that works in support of everyone (and) establishes trust in one another.”

Australian Defence Association chief Neil James said General Campbell’s comments were taken out of context, and were pitched at young men in the audience, too.

“The CDF was not just talking to them as young men and women in Australia — he was talking to them as future leaders in the ADF about the type of behaviour he expects of them and the ADF expects of them,” Mr James said.

“He was not having a go at the females. He was not victim-­blaming. He was telling them about how they need to act as young adults across the board.”

Labor leader Anthony Albanese said men needed to change their behaviour, not women.

“Women aren’t the problem here, and their behaviour and going out at night,” he said.

“We need to change the behaviour of men in all facets of ­society.”

Greens spokeswoman for women Larissa Waters said General Campbell’s comments “disgust me and every woman I know”.

“Rapists and abusers and the institutions that protect them are the problem,” Senator Waters said.

“It has nothing to do with how women dress, or how late we’re out, or whether we’re ‘too attractive’. How is this not already understood?”

ADFA was the scene of the so-called Skype sex scandal in 2011, in which a male cadet secretly filmed himself having sex with a female cadet, broadcasting the vision to a group of male colleagues.