IN DEFENCE OF OLD NAVY VALDES

摘要

This paper is set against the backdrop of the Maritime Warfare Officer Project, Summary Report, drafted by the Australian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) between 2016 and 2017 and delivered to Chief of Navy in 2018. Itself set against three connected strands that contributed to the report, and potentially determined its context and conclusions. Namely: the AHRC Review by Elizabeth Broderick into the Treatment of Women at the Australian Defence Force Academy, 2013, (following the UNSW-ADFA 2011 Skype scandal, leading to the unfair (probably unlawful) dismissal of, then, Commodore Bruce Kafer AM CSC RAN); the 2014 AHRC Review into the Treatment of Women in the Australian Defence Force, also by Elizabeth Broderick; the New Generation Navy programme, launched by the then CN, Vice Admiral Russ Crane AO, CSM RAN, in 2009, and relaunched in April 2019 under Plan Pelorus by Chief of Navy. This paper considers the report into the Maritime Warfare Branch; its rationale, consequences, and biases and some of the reasons and potential ramifications on capability and the existential, pre-postmodern, enduring values of Navy.