What will it take to pull the Australian military into line?
THE “Prime Minister for Defence”, John Howard, came to the rescue of the beleaguered department yesterday saying the “appalling” mistakes in the Kovco affair did not mean the organisation was incompetent. Mr Howard denied that there was a crisis of confidence in the Australian Defence Force. Even before the mislaying of Private Jake Kovco’s body, the defence force was battered by damaging investigations that revealed deep flaws in the military justice system, its processes for buying equipment and munitions rotting on the shelf. On Thursday, the man appointed to sort out the problems, new Defence Minister Brendan Nelson, announced an independent review of management in his department. He would also create a new “business improvement board” to oversee its operations. But former senior defence officials said last night that was unlikely to fix problems that ranged from bullying to massive financial waste, because private sector businessmen would not know what they were looking at. Dr Nel
