Navy sex games, drugs in spotlight

The HMAS Success. Photo / Glenn Jeffrey

A report into allegations of sexual bullying and drug and alcohol abuse aboard an Australian supply ship, HMAS Success, raises "very serious issues" about Navy culture, according to the Defence Force chief, Air Chief Marshal Angus Houston.

The first 400 pages of the report of a commission of inquiry have just gone to Houston and the Defence Minister, Stephen Smith, and "it doesn't make good reading", Smith told ABC radio yesterday.

The inquiry heard claims of a "predatory culture" on HMAS Success during a deployment to the Philippines, China, Hong Kong and Singapore in early 2009, with younger female crew members coerced and bullied into having sex.

A group of male sailors allegedly put a dollar value, or "bounty", on each of their female colleagues, then placed bets on who would have sex with them first, detailing their exploits in a ledger. During the same trip, a junior male and female sailor allegedly celebrated Anzac Day by having sex on a pool table in a Chinese bar, with their comrades watching and cheering.

The inquiry held hearings last year, and Smith says the first part of the report - which he said would be made public within weeks - raises "very concerning issues" about "so-called tribal culture". He said: "To be blunt about it, it doesn't make good reading, either about ... the suggestions of individual conduct, nor the suggestions of discipline, nor the suggestions of a particular type of culture."

The report also raises questions about the way such matters are investigated by the military, Smith said. The independent inquiry, led by a retired judge, Roger Gyles, was ordered after an initial inquiry by the navy was criticised by legal experts as biased.

HMAS Success, which supplies naval combat units with food, ammunition, food and stores at sea, was on a "goodwill" tour of Asia between March and June 2009. The deployment allegedly turned into a drink and steroid-fuelled cruise, culminating in the smashing up of a bar in Manila.

Smith said the military hierarchy had zero tolerance of such behaviour, "but in the end we're dealing with human beings and ... we have faults". "We want to ensure it doesn't become part of an institutional ... culture."