Navy's Turn To Go Overboard

Sydney Morning Herald

Saturday April 13, 2002

Alan Ramsey

YORKSHIRE-born David Shackleton has been in the Royal Australian Navy all his adult life. He was 11 when his parents migrated to Adelaide from Leeds in 1959. He joined the navy at 18 and now, 36 years later, as Vice Admiral Shackleton, AO, he runs it. The Howard Government appointed him Chief of Navy three years ago. You would likely know Shackleton's name from the political turmoil of the children overboard debate. He was one of 29 senior miliary officers (eight admirals, seven generals!) at the Senate estimates hearings in February. Three weeks ago, on March 25, Shackleton was cross-examined for five hours in the Labor-incited humbug of the Certain Maritime Incident inquiry. Round three of that charade resumed two nights ago.

However, this story is not about children overboard. This story is about the navy overboard. It is a very different Certain Maritime Incident altogether. It is one the navy remains hugely coy about, even though it happened four months ago. Almost nothing, officially, has been disclosed. And nobody has been more loath to openly talk about it than the admiral at the top of the navy chain of command.

A month ago, on March 11, Shackleton wrote a letter to Brenton Holmes, secretary of the Senate legislation committee on Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade. ``Dear Mr Holmes," it said. ``I write to correct evidence I gave at the Senate additional estimates hearing on Thursday, 21 February, 2002. In a discussion with Senator [Chris] Evans [Labor, WA], I stated that the the commanding officer of [the Anzac class guided missile frigate] HMAS Arunta had conducted a trial in relation to an incident that occurred on Christmas Island in December 2001. In addition, I stated that three personnel were disciplined as a result of the trial.

``My statements referring to a trial conducted by the commanding officer were incorrect. The facts are that the commanding officer directed an investigation under the Defence Force Disciplinary Act into the indecent assault. Based on the recommendation of the investigation report and the wishes of the complainant not to proceed with Defence Force Disciplinary Act action, the commanding officer decided to pursue administrative action under Defence Instructions. The outcome of that action was a formal Caution for Unacceptable Behaviour for one sailor and counselling for another.

``There was no intention to mislead the committee and I apologise for any misunderstanding,

``D.J. Shackleton, AO

``Vice Admiral, RAN

``Chief of Navy."

The Senate hearing Shackleton referred to was the one dominated by the media frenzy of the children overboard incident last October 7. Labor has been flogging it unmercifully for political self-interest ever since. However, on the second day of those hearings, when the tumult over the people-smuggling illegals temporarily subsided, the Senate foreign affairs and trade committee got onto other matters. The press immediately lost interest and left.

But an hour after the committee resumed at 8 that night, Chris Evans, Labor's defence spokesman, zeroed in on Shackleton. Evans was not interested in children overboard. What he wanted was answers about an attempted ``sexual assault" by two drunken sailors on a female sailor who resisted so vigorously she broke a bone in her hand punching one of her assailants in the head. It was Shackleton's evidence on this matter the Admiral would write to amend a fortnight later. That was a month ago. Nothing has been heard since.

Now, some background.

The navy has 12,500 military personnel, including 2,000 women, 500 of whom are officers. Almost one-third of all navy regulars, or 4000, are serving at sea at any given time. Five hundred of these, including 100 officers, are women. The ratio between men and women in ships' crew averages, broadly, one of every five officers is a woman and one of every eight ratings is a woman. The source of these figures is the navy's Web site.

HMAS Arunta, adjudged the RAN's ``outstanding" ship two years ago, is the second of the eight new frigates coming out of Melbourne's Williamstown dockyard. The fourth of these, HMAS Stuart, is due to be commissioned in June. Arunta's usual crew numbers 163, including 22 officers. In joint military operations last year against people-smuggling fishing boats from Indonesia, Arunta, like its sister frigates Anzac and Warramunga, also carried between 50 and 80 army troops, including SAS forces.

That brings us to a Certain Drunken Incident at the Golden Bosun Tavern on Christmas Island at 9.30 on the night of December 2. Arunta, with more than 200 navy and army personnel, had been patrolling south of Indonesia in Operation Relex since September. Its crew was enjoying shore leave. A month later a military police report, written by an army corporal on December 11, was ``leaked" to The Daily Telegraph.

That report said, in part, that two sailors ``may have" groped a young woman sailor ``on the buttock area" and ``on the crotch area" and, after falling on her on the floor, one of the men ``attempted to remove" the woman's top ``by pulling it over her head". A civilian claimed a sailor tried to pull down the woman's pants. The woman fought the men, breaking her hand. An SAS soldier intervened forcibly to stop the men.

The Telegraph story on January 10 had lurid details about other events that night, including ``nude romps" in a private swimming pool and theft, petty damage and ``indecent acts" (ie, exposing themselves) by ``drunken" sailors ``running amok." But it was the allegation of attempted ``sexual assault" that jangled the navy. That and a second allegation that a videotape of the drunken revelry but not of the assault was taken off the investigating army corporal by an Arunta naval officer and, apparently, destroyed.

Shackleton learnt of the December 2 incident only when he read the Telegraph story on January 10. He was ``angered and embarrassed". Shackleton immediately launched an inquiry, this time by an army colonel. The Arunta's captain, meanwhile, had conducted his inquiry, disclosing nothing publicly. But Shackleton's ``urgent" inquiry kept the press at bay. That is what such announcements are meant to do: they throw a blanket on the fire.

Nothing happened for another month.

Then, on February 13, the day after Parliament met for the first time since the November election, the new Defence Minister, Robert Hill, announced two further inquiries. ``Vice Admiral Shackleton has advised me he has accepted the report of [the army colonel's] inquiry," Hill said. ``He has further advised me that, as a result of the report, he has directed separate Defence Force Disciplinary Act investigations into two incidents: allegations of an act of indecency against a female sailor; and the destruction of a video tape which may have contained material evidence relating to a separate incident of unacceptable behaviour." A report on both inquiries was due by March 8.

Significantly, Hill's press release, drafted by Shackleton's advisers, concluded: ``It is a great pity the poor behaviour of a small minority reflects badly on the Service. The vast majority of navy personnel are doing a great job for Australia and deserve community appreciation and support." And this, of course, is what this public relations exercise in damage control is all about: protecting the navy's image. Voters want navy heroes, not drunken hoons.

Hill's announcement kept the lid on further publicity. It also curbed the Opposition from asking awkward questions in Parliament. But it didn't stop Labor's Chris Evans trying to learn exactly what the navy was actually doing about the assault on the woman sailor.

At Senate estimates hearings, Evans told Hill and Shackleton late that night of February 21: ``I want to know why we've had five inquiries. I'd like to go through them and understand why we've had five different levels of investigation and whether these matters have been referred to police. I don't intend to canvass the incident or the sailors involved if there is an ongoing inquiry. What I want to understand is how it has been handled."

Evans was wasting his breath. Shackleton and Hill talked only in circles (see below). They shied at any suggestion of a navy cover-up. But they would only generalise vaguely about what was going on. There was no detail of charges, of the numbers involved, or what action, if any, had been taken. There was a lot of legalistic twaddle about how the navy defines sexual assault. ``I can understand your saying, `Here is another investigation on an investigation on an investigation,"' Shackleton told Evans. ``The point is I want to get those involved. I don't want to lash out and damage everybody."

That was seven weeks ago. The official silence ever since has been resounding. Yet Shackleton's plea looks threadbare alongside the letter he wrote on March 6 ``correcting" his February 21 evidence.

That letter makes it clear the assault against the young woman sailor is a dead letter. The Arunta's captain dealt with it as an internal ship's matter in January, if not late December. And in a drunken assault in which a woman broke her hand resisting two assailants groping her and attempting to remove her clothing, one sailor has been ``formally cautioned" for ``unacceptable behaviour" and the other ``counselled".

Evans won't leave it there, of course. Neither he should. No matter how much the navy obfuscates or drags its feet, Evans will want to know how an attempted sexual assault became indecent assault became, very quietly, unacceptable behaviour, even in a closed shop like the military.