Top brass ‘should get marching orders if they were at fault’, Liberal MP Phillip Thompson says

LNP MP and ex-soldier Phillip Thompson says commanders found to have covered up alleged war crimes should lose their jobs.

Federal MP Phillip Thompson in Townsville. Picture: Matt Taylor.

Liberal National Party MP and former soldier Phillip Thompson says commanders found to have covered up alleged war crimes or failed to hold their subordinates to account in Afghanistan should in the worst cases face disciplinary action or lose their jobs.

The member for the north Queensland seat of Herbert, who was deployed to Afghanistan and East Timor, also wants an independent oversight panel scrutinising Defence’s cultural, organisational and leadership reforms in the wake of the shocking Brereton report to look at any poor culture within the highest ranks of the military.

“If there are leadership failings then maybe they should not be in the position of being the leaders,” he said. “This is not a point the finger at enlisted soldiers (exercise) and say, ‘look at what they’ve ­potentially done’. The finger needs to be pointed inward and go ‘where have people been let down, where have officers let down their subordinates, not just within the unit but within army and the wider defence force’.

“I would think the oversight panel would look at all leadership roles and positions involved in not just the (Brereton) report, but the positions held in Afghanistan, to be able to look with independent fresh eyes and make their decision from there.”

Mr Thompson’s push for ­accountability from the defence force’s leaders goes further than the Brereton report, which found Special Operations Task Group commanders had moral responsibility for what happened under their control but that did not ­extend higher up, including the joint task force that was headed by Defence Force chief Angus Campbell for a year in 2011.

General Campbell on Thursday left “all options on the table” in dealing with the commanders but said the process would be fair. The inquiry only went as far as recommending the award of decorations to particular commanders who served in Afghanistan be reviewed, which Mr Thompson said was appropriate but penalties should include the removal of some leaders if necessary.

“Some of these commanders, they would be senior officers somewhere now,” he said. “That doesn’t mean that they get away without any recommendations or training or, in the worst cases, disciplinary action just because they once were there (in Afghanistan) and now have left. It doesn’t mean they get away with any ­alleged poor leadership.

“I’m talking about mid-range and senior officers who have been on operation, who know the detail of what has happened and failed to report and failed to hold people to account if these allegations ­become founded. They must be held to account.”

A former special forces soldier who requested anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue told The Weekend Australian it was inconceivable “this has all come to a huge surprise to commanders”. The Afghanistan veteran said the lack of knowledge of what happened among commanders “just can’t be written off as a lack of curiosity”, as General Campbell suggested on Thursday.

“The operational summaries were works of advocacy,” they said. “If you see one of those, it’s like ‘So what, nothing went wrong and everything went brilliantly?’

“If you just get a puff piece, you’d think you’d say to the person who gave it to you, ‘Hey, I wasn’t asking you to write a novel about how good you are. I want to know where all the warts are. What can we do better? Where are we going wrong?’”

Neil James, executive director of the Australia Defence Association, said the perception that no one in the chain of command was being held responsible was a hard sell publicly.

He said the Brereton report was persuasive on the point that officers were kept in the dark about the crimes, but that was unlikely to satisfy Diggers and the public.

The entire Defence workforce was told to stop work to watch General Campbell’s press conference on Thursday.