Jae Robinson: Defence names new top special forces soldier

An outsider will become the nation’s most senior special forces soldier in an attempt by Defence to address festering cultural problems.

Warrant Officer Class One Jae Robinson.

Defence has appointed an outsider as the nation’s most senior special forces soldier, installing a former armoured unit commander to the role in a dramatic sign of ongoing cultural problems in the elite army units.

Warrant Officer Class One Jae Robinson has been named as Command Sergeant Major, Special Operations Command, amid growing fallout from the Brereton war crimes report.

His predecessor, Warrant Officer Class One John Letch, stood aside in December after a photo emerged of him drinking from a souvenired prosthetic leg in Afghanistan.

It is the first time the post has been held by a soldier from outside special ­forces units.

A senior special forces source said as a “non-beret qualified” soldier, WO1 Robinson would struggle to be accepted by Special Air Service and Commando Regiment operators: “I feel sorry for him. They are throwing him in the shark tank.”

Another senior source said: “It is a very significant position symbolically, and the humiliation will be felt.”

WO1 Robinson will work closely with the Special Operations Commander of Australia, Major General Paul Kenny, to impose discipline and cultural change across SASR and the 2nd Commando Regiment following last year’s Brereton report.

Three months after the Chief of the Defence Force, Angus Campbell, released the report, Defence is still to finalise a plan to implement its recommendations, and serious questions remain over how it will deal with leadership accountability, given no officers have been held responsible for more than 39 allegedly unlawful killings by up to 25 soldiers under their command.

“Due consideration must be given to … complex issues arising from the significant number of report recommendations,” a Defence spokeswoman said.

WO1 Letch was identified on social media late last year as the man drinking from the artificial limb in a pixelated photo published by The Guardian.

The leg was taken from a Taliban insurgent, despite rules forbidding the taking of war trophies.

WO1 Robinson was born in New Zealand and enlisted in the Australian Army in 1991.

He was assigned to the Royal Australian Armoured Corps, serving as crew commander and section commander in armoured personnel carriers.

He was regimental sergeant major in the 12th/16th Hunter River Lancers, Task Group Afghanistan, Task Group Taji (Rotation IV), 1st Armoured Regiment and Headquarters 8th Brigade (Training).

He was posted to the 1st Light Armoured Reconnaissance Battalion with the US Marine Corps in 2008 as gunnery officer and jump platoon commander.