The royal commission on defence and veteran suicide has explained its publication of a previously secret report on military justice, arguing the government made no demand that it be kept confidential.
The report recommending an overhaul of the military justice system first came to light on Tuesday when the Greens senator David Shoebridge found it on the website of the recently concluded royal commission into defence and veterans’ suicide. He and independent senator Jacqui Lambie – who has been campaigning for its release – tried to table it in the Senate but the government blocked the move.
On Wednesday morning, Shoebridge and Lambie distributed the review of the Inspector-General of the Australian Defence Force which contains 51 recommendations including re-establishing the IGADF under new legislation.
The federal government later published the report after Shoebridge found it among other exhibits tendered to the royal commission into veteran suicide.
Labor frontbencher Malarndirri McCarthy told the Senate on Wednesday the report had been published on the royal commission website “in error” after being provided on a confidential basis.
“I am advised the office of the royal commission removed the document from its website after becoming aware of the error, but it is now public as I’ve just tabled it,” McCarthy said.
But in a statement issued late on Wednesday, the royal commission secretariat said the review had been tendered into evidence in May this year and that the commonwealth’s lawyers were advised in advance.
“The Commonwealth Government’s lawyers made no confidentiality claims over the redacted version of that document which was relied upon as evidence and referenced in the Royal Commission’s Final Report,” the royal commission’s statement said. “The Commonwealth Government’s lawyers did request the Solicitors Assisting the Royal Commission to carefully consider use of the Report, including any publication, pending the Government’s review.”
The statement also said the report had been “inadvertently” published among other exhibits on its website last month but that publication was “not in keeping” with its standard process of not publishing reports to government until they had been publicly released. When this was discovered on Tuesday, it said, the report was taken down.
Lambie had previously urged the government to publish the document – a review of the first 20 years of operations of the Office of Inspector General of the Australian Defence Force.
Lambie told the Senate on Wednesday that the government’s handling of the issue had been “disgraceful”.
“The truth’s already there,” Lambie said of the military justice system, before the government tabled the review.
“Have you not been watching the royal commission? Sure you have. People from the department have been there every day … I am sick of the cover-up. You say you want to make changes, you say you want the culture to change, you say you want to reduce veterans’ suicide. But you are part of the problem. You are not holding them accountable.”
The review says a statutory overhaul would secure “the appearance of independence, as well as its fact” to help rebuild broken trust with defence force personnel.
It proposes establishing an independent ADF director of military prosecutions and a registrar of courts martial. The review recommends that whistleblower protection be widened to cover more military justice issues.
It also says special guidance should be issued to commanders and those in pre-command training to “discourage any tendency to conceal potential military justice problems from higher authority”.
Conducted by former federal court judge and former Keating government attorney general Duncan Kerr, the review states the IGADF should be given the resources and authority to conduct more frequent and detailed investigations and that its remit should be expanded to investigate any death of a former member of the ADF – permanent or reserve force – when it occurs within two years of them having served.
It also recommends the creation of an offence of “taking reprisal action against any person because they have or are suspected to have made a complaint to the IGADF”.
After Shoebridge and Lambie raised the issue on Tuesday, the report was removed from the royal commission’s website, prompting the senators to demand the government explain who ordered it be taken down.
“The government yesterday, in another appalling example of their addiction to secrecy, sought by hook and by crook to prevent this coming out in a timely fashion,” Shoebridge said on Wednesday.
The opposition Senate leader, Simon Birmingham, said the government needed to explain the report’s handling.
“The chaos and the mishandling and the on-again, off-again responses from the government and the accidental publication of the report all deserve to be explained,” he said.
A spokesperson for the defence minister, Richard Marles, declined to comment on the handling of the report.
“The review is complete and is currently being considered by the deputy prime minister [Marles] in the context of the royal commission recommendations to ensure a holistic and pragmatic approach to any proposed reform,” the spokesperson said.
“To respond to one report in isolation of the other would be impractical and ineffective. The deputy prime minister has said the government will agree to implement the thrust of the recommendations of the royal commission, of which reform to the IGADF and military justice system forms a large part.”
