Public fury led to backflip on move to strip Afghan veterans of medals, says Linda Reynolds

Linda Reynolds admits backlash over the stripping of citations from 3000 Afghanistan veterans was behind U-turn on the move.

The public backlash over the stripping of Meritorious Unit Citations from 3000 Afghanistan veterans was behind the government’s move to overrule the decision by the Chief of the Defence Force, senior ministers have confirmed.

Defence Minister Linda Reynolds said she and Scott Morrison responded to the community anger over the move, which saw a petition to overturn the decision rapidly amass 55,000 signatures.

“The Prime Minister and I have a responsibility, as all Australians would expect, to listen to the community, to listen to veterans, to listen to service personnel,” Senator Reynolds told Sky News.

“And we have done that, and we have expressed our opinions to the Chief of the Defence Force.”

Defence Personnel and Veterans’ Minister Darren Chester said the reaction from the veterans’ community and families of those who served “has been obviously quite strong”.

“It called for the actions of the minority to not impinge on the rights or the opportunities of the majority,” Mr Chester said.

On Monday, General Campbell backed away from his plan to strip the joint unit awards from all special operations task group members.

The punitive measure was a recommendation of the Brereton war crimes report to reflect “collective responsibility” for the alleged murder of 39 Afghan civilians and prisoners by up to 25 soldiers.

Senator Reynolds said General Campbell would ultimately decide how Defence would respond, but the government had expressed its views to him.

“We have listened to a wide range of key stakeholders. We have expressed those opinions and provided that feedback to the CDF,” she said.

“He has also heard those same opinions and thoughts, and he is now considering the matter further.”

Chief of the Australian Defence Force (ADF) General Angus Campbell, Picture: Getty Images.

Senator Reynolds said the Brereton war crimes report was the most consequential assessment of the Australian Defence Force in its history, and there was “no rule book” on how to deal with the gravity of the allegations it had revealed.

She said allegations of criminality flowing from the report would be referred to a soon-to-be-named special investigator, and pledged “very serious failures of leadership” would be addressed by Defence.

“The reasons for those leadership failures and command failures need serious analysis and consideration,” she said.

“There are serious issues that now need to be addressed in how this happened and how it was able to happen for so long.”

Mr Chester said rather than “collective responsibility”, he supported the principles of “fairness and presumption of innocence”, and of allowing people to clear their names.

“As Australians we accept that people who have done the wrong thing need to be held to account.”