Defence Chief Admiral Hammond says no further action will be taken after revelations of ‘bikie gang’ culture

The Defence Chief says no further action will be taken over command failures in Afghanistan despite a report finding Army effectively lost control of the Special Air Service Regiment allowing sergeants and corporals to fight the war as they chose.

A summary of a secretive examination conducted by the Inspector-General of the Australian Defence Force following war crime allegations found the SAS became dominated by what it called a “bikie gang” of non-commissioned officers.

“The breakdown in command occurred in an incremental way over an extended period of time,” the document completed in 2022, and quietly released earlier this week, states.

“Signs of broader decline appear to have been evident to some in higher headquarters. That there was no effective intervention and that this decline was allowed to continue, suggests an absence of effective leadership at various levels.”

Questioned in Senate Estimates by Greens leader David Shoebridge about a lack of accountability for senior leadership, Admiral Mark Hammond said the matter predated his time as Defence Chief.

“Those findings and recommendations were actioned by my predecessors. All departmental actions relevant to that inquiry have been completed,” Admiral Hammond told the committee on Thursday.

“I have nothing to contest the findings or recommendations of the Inspector-General IDF report, which is again, it’s been actioned by my predecessors,” he said on a day when former Defence Chief Angus Campbell was also at Parliament for formal meetings.

Pressed directly on why nobody in headquarters has been held to account, Admiral Hammond responded: “Senator, again, you’re talking about historical issues which predate my tenure. What I can state is that I agree with the findings of the IGADF.”

“I reject the fact that people should be able to behave that way and get away with it. I’m absolutely in agreement. That is, there are serious failures here that need to be addressed.

“Ultimately, those recommendations have been made to my predecessors. They’ve been actioned.”

Senator Shoebridge also demanded to know what punishments had been given to commanders found to have failed in their duties, including the name and rank of those held accountable.

Admiral Hammond told the committee he was unable to say whether officers had been “exited from the service”, or faced any other punishment, but was happy to take the question on notice.

“When it comes to command accountability, your assertion that no commissioned officer has had consequences amounting to being held accountable is something that I can’t speak to because I haven’t been involved in that process,” he said.

He also stressed that he had taken significant action to improve command accountability across the ADF and raised the topic with service chiefs on his first day in the job.

“What I can talk to is what has been done since the inquiry report with respect to improving command accountability across the service in the Australian Defence Force, the introduction of appointment to command certificate to provide greater accountability of commanders, and just in the last three months I’ve replaced the ADF Chiefs of Service Committee system within ADF Command Board system.”

Liberal frontbencher and Afghanistan war veteran Andrew Hastie said the IGADF findings closely reflected his own experience and demonstrated that responsibility extended well beyond individual soldiers.

“I lived a lot of what I read in that report. There’s almost 50 findings, and a lot of it rings very true to me as a junior officer at the time,” the former SAS Captain told ABC radio on Thursday.

“In the end, if you hold a commission in the Australian Army, then you are accountable for those underneath you. Maybe not directly for actions, but certainly there’s moral accountability, moral responsibility.”