Defence consultant uncovered culture of drugs, sex, crime

Samantha Crompvoets is the go-to expert helping the Defence Department create a more female-friendly culture.

Canberra-based sociologist Samantha Crompvoets who wrote a confidential report commissioned by Defence.

The private consultant who wrote a 2015 report examining the internal culture of Australia’s most elite fighting unit, the SAS, has become one of the Defence Department’s go-to experts in its attempt to create a more female-friendly culture.

Canberra academic Samantha Crompvoets’s consulting firm has received contracts of about $3.6 million from the Defence Department for a series of projects aimed at examining and changing Defence Force culture.

Her report into the SAS relied on interviews with serving SAS troops and revealed a culture of drug and alcohol abuse, domestic violence and allegations of unlawful activity.

The report reinforced army fears a toxic culture had developed inside Australia’s secretive community of special operations soldiers, who had become battle-hardened after heavy fighting in Afghanistan.

Defence leadership was understood to have been alarmed at a contractor without security classification being given so much information about alleged misconduct within the SAS.

Dr Crompvoets’s firm, Rapid Context, said its work involved designing “research projects, organisational reviews and evaluations to deliver accurate current-state analyses, and identify underlying barriers to change for often the most sensitive and complex issues that an organisation faces’’.

Australian Defence Association executive director Neil James said Dr Crompvoets was highly respected within Defence and academia. He said she was one of only a handful of sociologists who understood military culture and hierarchy.

Dr Crompvoets was travelling yesterday and could not comment.

PAUL MALEY