The culture within the Australian army’s special forces will be reviewed regularly in the wake of the Brereton inquiry into alleged war crimes, a new document reveals.
The Australian defence force is also updating its respite policy to ease pressure on individuals after the inquiry found an overreliance on special forces in Afghanistan provided too little time between deployments.
The moves are mentioned in a new oversight report obtained by Guardian Australia under freedom of information laws. The document also says ADF members “will have to be assisted to disentangle their experiences of trauma and moral injury”.
An oversight panel led by the former intelligence inspector general Vivienne Thom carried out confidential interviews last year with 17 people who have regular working relationships with Special Operations Command. The goal was to check whether cultural change was actually filtering through.
While the specific findings of the interviews were redacted, the panel called for “this type of independent stakeholder review [to] continue to be done on a regular basis”.
The new report revealed that the chief of the ADF, Gen Angus Campbell, and the chief of the army, Lt Gen Simon Stuart, had “agreed with that recommendation and issued appropriate directives for that work to continue”.
A four-year-long inquiry by Maj Gen Paul Brereton found “credible” information to implicate 25 current or former special forces personnel in the alleged unlawful killing of 39 individuals and the cruel treatment of two others in Afghanistan.
Brereton’s report said some within the Special Air Service regiment had embraced or fostered a “warrior culture”, and his findings were “indicative of a culture that has departed from acceptable norms”.
Thom’s panel has previously pointed to efforts to reform the culture of “exceptionalism” within the SAS with a renewed focus on “humility”.
Thom and two other panellists were appointed by the former defence minister Linda Reynolds in late 2020 to give the government and the public confidence that the Afghanistan inquiry led to lasting change.
Their latest oversight report was handed over to the deputy prime minister, Richard Marles, in February and covers the period November to January.
The report backed a new “enduring respite policy” for ADF members. Guardian Australia understands the new policy ensures members have adequate respite between redeployments to recuperate and spend time with family and friends.
The panel said the policy brought “an improved form and structure to the purpose of respite and the situations in which it will apply, its duration and the processes for reducing or extending respite periods in individual cases”.
“The policy takes a realistic approach to balancing the competing pressures of members’ individual respite needs and the strategic situations and governmental demands confronting Defence,” the report said.
The panel warned, however, that “one outstanding issue is whether the revised policy will operate as designed and effectively evaluate and approve or reject respite waiver applications”.
Members of the panel held discussions about ongoing mental health impacts with the ADF’s joint health command staff on 11 and 28 November 2022.
“The panel considers Defence members will have to be assisted to disentangle their experiences of trauma and moral injury, and that the significant majority of individuals who would benefit from post-traumatic stress interventions understand the psychological and physiological benefits of pursuing those treatment options.”
The panel said it had previously warned that “generally ethics training within Special Operations Command was not yet consistent with the Defence ethics doctrine, may be unnecessarily complicated, and may still not lead to ethical decisions”.
But Campbell had “addressed the panel’s immediate concerns” by issuing a specific direction on 16 January that required training to be updated, the report said.
Thom’s panel updates the defence minister on progress in implementing cultural and organisations reforms four times a year.
It does not investigate criminal allegations against individuals, which are considered by the Office of the Special Investigator and the Australian federal police. Last month a former Australian soldier, Oliver Jordan Schulz, 41, was arrested and charged with the war crime of murder.
It was the first such charge laid against a serving or former ADF member under Australian law. Schulz was granted bail under strict conditions.
