Lieutenant General Morrison,Un Australian of the Year, An officer’s plea for justice.

An officer’s plea for justice to David Morrison

Miranda Devine
The Daily Telegraph
February 17 2016

AUSTRALIAN of the Year David Morrison said this week that he refuses to be “defined by his critics”. Unfortunately, that is not his decision.

He also said he would make no effort to reach out to the troubled former Lieutenant Colonel he unjustly sacked over the so-called Jedi Council affair.

The most senior officer caught up in Morrison’s purge, known simply as “Ken”, knew nothing about the Jedi Council sex ring and never opened the emails.

He has twice attempted suicide since the scandal broke.

Today he writes an open letter asking Morrison to set the record straight. It’s the least he should do.

Dear Lieutenant General Morrison,
Congratulations on winning Australian of the Year, but I write to inform of the humiliation, injustice and betrayal you showed me by publicly stripping me of army unit command on August 21, 2013.

That was when you acknowledged I was not a part of the Jedi Council but that you were removing me from command because I “failed to remain aware of issues and events affecting me, my unit and the army”.

You determined that I was accountable for inappropriate and unsolicited emails from a civilian that I had not read.

You were a late starter on this matter, claiming you were unaware of the Jedi Council, even though I informed my chain of command on March 28, 2013 that NSW Police had contacted me to ask what I knew of the Jedi Council. My answer was “nothing”.

In June 2013 you told the Australian public that a group of 17 personnel were “in production and distribution of highly inappropriate material demeaning women”. You told the media “there is one Lieutenant Colonel that is part of this group”.

Perhaps my anonymity could have been preserved if I was a private but there were not many Lieutenant Colonels in Townsville subjected to an Australian Defence Force Investigative Service (ADFIS) office raid and interview on June 5, 2013. Within hours I was fielding calls from friends asking why I was locked in my office.

Then on July 11, 2013 my name and image were released in the media. Despite knowing I had done nothing wrong, you made no effort to protect my name. Indeed, ADFIS told me two days before that I would be named nationally.

As Chief of Army, you failed one of your commanding officers.

On July 4, 2013 I attended a meeting in Townsville to look you in the eye and tell you I had nothing to do with the Jedi Council. You looked at my nametag and fobbed me off. I was then amazed when you stood and spoke about the Jedi Council, saying: “These alleged individuals, and I use the term alleged because I have to, I will have them removed from the army.” I knew then that, despite the evidence, you would let me down. And you did.

So now you are the Australian of the Year and I am unemployed. I won a bravery commendation and have three masters degrees, a loving wife and two beautiful children.

But none of this matters because my Chief of Army has not told the public that “the Lieutenant Colonel was not a part of the Jedi Council”.

I have a letter that states that fact but it will only count to my family, friends, and colleagues if you say it publicly. Please tell Australia what you told me on August 21, 2013, so that I can be at peace.

Australia's Shameful Mangina of the Year

"But instead of the leadership that ​soldiers at the frontline may have ​craved, they got flowery speeches decrying masculinity and patriarchy to mark International Women’s Day at the United Nations."

Sorry David, but it’s the wrong fight

Miranda Devine
The Daily Telegraph
January 27 2016

THE Australian of the Year award has ­officially become a politically correct joke with the selection of former chief of Army David Morrison, the diminutive gender ­equity maven who believes military force achieves nothing.

The award, which ought to ­reflect and unite this great ­nation, has evolved into a mere plaything of social engineers and reflects all of the unhealthy preoccupations of the Left.

The lucky recipients announced on Australia Day then spend a year lecturing the rest of us about how backward and awful we all are compared to their enlightened selves.

From Adam Goodes to Rosie Batty and now Morrison, you would think we are an irredeemably racist, sexist nation in which every man is an incipient wife basher. (Search engine leviathan Google yesterday confirmed that black-armband view by transforming its homepage into a ­lament about stolen generations in a special “up yours” message to its Antipodean customers on Australia Day.)

But Morrison’s selection is the final nail in the coffin of irrelevance for the Australian of the Year award.

It is a travesty that he has been rewarded for exposing our military to the warped ideology of Anne Summers, Elizabeth Broderick, 

Jane Caro (the “eminent Australian” as he described her yesterday) and the rest of Australia’s left-feminist clique.

This is a man who, after having been chief of Army for four years, told Leigh Sales on the ABC’s 730 program last year: “I don’t think that there’s a military solution to anything.”

This is a man who has derided the Anzac legend as being too male and “Anglo-Saxon”. You’d be hard pressed finding a Digger with much good to say about him, judging by my straw poll of friends and acquaintances.

While Australian soldiers were dying in Afghanistan, Morrison was talking about social ­engineering concerns such as gender equity. 

Fourteen soldiers died between July 2011 and July 2014 in that dangerous and confusing war, when Morrison was chief of Army.

But instead of the leadership that ​soldiers at the frontline may have ​craved, they got flowery speeches decrying masculinity and patriarchy to mark International Women’s Day at the United Nations.

Then, of course, there was his celebrated 2013 video lambasting as sexists the male soldiers who were risking their lives in service of our country. The video catapulted him into the pantheon of politically correct saints.

“The standard you walk past, is the standard you accept,” he thundered in an address that went viral, mainly because it was written so expertly by his then-speechwriter, transgender Group Captain Cate McGregor.

Winning wars has nothing to do with gender equity, but sadly our society now rewards this kind of sanctimonious posturing.

Morrison has also declared that he will use his new position this year to champion another divisive pet issue of the progressive elites, the republic debate.

“It is time, I think, to at least revisit the question so that we can stand both free and fully ­independent among the community of nations,” he said in his acceptance speech on Monday.

This prompted a delighted Australian Republican Movement chairman Peter FitzSimons to propose Morrison as President of an Australian republic, a sure-fire kiss of death to the cause if ever there was one.

The bottom line is that a former chief of army honoured with the title of Australian of the Year in 2016 should be advocating for wounded returned soldiers and those suffering post-traumatic stress rather than treading the overtilled ground of gender complaint and a republic.

God knows our Diggers could do with a high-profile champion.

BAFFLING BUSINESS: PICKING OUR TOP AUSSIE

SELECTION of Australian of the Year is an opaque, arbitrary and unrepresentative process too easily hijacked by social engineers.

From gender equity warrior David Morrison to domestic violence campaigner Rosie Batty to indigenous activist Adam Goodes, the role ends up channelling the preoccupations of the progressive elites and thus divides the nation.

At first glance this seems unlikely, as the Board of the National Australia Day Council is chaired by Victoria Cross recipient Ben Roberts-Smith and comprises upstanding community members.

But they can only choose from the eight candidates presented to them by state selection panels. And here is where the process becomes opaque and inconsistent.

In NSW a panel of 13 chaired by Sky News CEO Angelos Frangopoulos chose former Sex Discrimination Commissioner Elizabeth Broderick.

Victoria by contrast has a committee of three, chaired by Stefan Romaniw from Multicultural Arts Victoria. It chose human rights barrister Julian McMahon.

In the NT the selection is made by a board of 10 chaired by a former Country Liberal politician. It chose youth worker Will MacGregor. 

In SA a selection panel of 14 chaired by a suburban councillor chose surgeon John Greenwood. WA has a panel of 10, including, industry 

representatives and a former state governor. They chose ebola nurse Anne Carey.

In the ACT (Morrison), Tasmania (conservationist Jane Hutchinson) and Queensland (transgender campaigner Cate McGregor), selection 

is run by arms of the state government.