Hint of violent past exists in Aust Navy scandals

Australian navy tanker HMAS Success. Photo / Glenn Jeffrey

CANBERRA - The late British Prime Minister and one-time Lord of the Admiralty Sir Winston Churchill once described naval tradition as "all rum, sodomy and the lash".

The specifics may have changed, but evidence to a commission of inquiry suggests that the substance may be the same, at least aboard the Australian Navy's French-designed replenishment ship, HMAS Success.

The commission has heard allegations of a culture of sex, bullying, intimidation and threats aboard the 18,000-tonne vessel, coming to a head as the ship sailed on a goodwill visit to Southeast Asia last year.

But the Navy itself is also under a disturbing microscope, following criticism of the measures it took after four sailors were sent home from Singapore, and an initial investigation that was axed for bias.

The new commission, set up last month, is an independent inquiry led by a former Federal Court judge, and joins a Senate inquiry and a series of other investigations into aspects of the scandal.

This week, confidential documents obtained by the Melbourne Herald Sun under Freedom of Information laws revealed a far wider problem facing the Navy.

These showed that in the past financial year more than 250 complaints of unacceptable behaviour were made to fleet commanders.

The complaints included 36 sexual abuse allegations, 21 of sexual harassment, 23 of inappropriate workplace relationships, and others of workplace bullying, harassment, discrimination and abuse of power.

At HMAS Creswell, home to the Royal Australian Naval College, commanders also reported a "trend towards sexually aggressive females among the trainees".

The senate foreign affairs and defence committee is conducting its own inquiry into the Success scandal.

The committee has held confidential briefings and received submissions that have not been made public, and has suspended its inquiry until the outcome of the commission of inquiry.

But it said it had been concerned at evidence that the sailors allegedly involved in the scandal had been ordered to the captain's cabin, offered no chance to respond to the allegations, and given half an hour to pack their bags.

As they left the Success in Singapore, they had been "humiliated" when the ship's company was ordered to turn their backs to them.

The Navy has also been criticised for distributing an internal document that the committee believed was designed to deter personnel from volunteering information about the allegations surrounding the Success.

These emerged in May last year when the Navy confirmed that four sailors had been sent home following claims that included a sex gambling challenge in which sailors competed for points by seducing female colleagues.

Bonus points were allegedly awarded for sex with officers or lesbians, or undertaken in risky areas, and were recorded in a "ledger".

Last month Defence Force Chief, Air Chief Marshal Angus Houston, announced that the initial inquiry into the scandal had been axed and would be replaced by an independent commission led by retired judge Roger Gyles, QC.

The commission has been told that while there was no real evidence of a ledger, the Success - with 30 women among its crew of 220 - had been locked in a culture of sex, drugs and bullying.

Allegations included the abuse of steroids and illicit drugs, "mafia-style" threats of violence, and drunken orgies on shore and aboard ship that included public sex - once on a pool table in a Philippines bar, as another sailor used a megaphone to urge others to watch.