Army and Defence chiefs need to explain why a civil servant with limited or no combat experience was given a war zone command
by Ganesh Sahathevan This is beginning to look like the Mona Shindy affair ie an appointment made to further the vice-regal ambition of army chiefs looking to life after active duty. The article below from The Australian makes clear that Brigadier Kathryn Campbell is essentially a desk bound Canberra civil servant. Her combat experience appears limited if not non-existent and yet she was given a war zone command. It does seem as if army chiefs who have themselves been desk bound for many years , waging political battles in Canberra,fighting tooth and nail for that next appointment , can no longer tell what is required to fight a war. As for transferable skills-Ms Campbell has been found by the Auditor General incapable of managing peace time tasks: Nearly a quarter of the 57 million phone calls made to Centrelink last year went unanswered, according to a new report by the Australian National Audit Office. About 13.7 million calls did not even make it to the point of being put on
