Libs caused Defence infighting: Beazley

The special forces pay bungle and departmental infighting that engulfed Defence Minister Joel Fitzgibbon this week can be blamed on the former Howard government's politicisation of Defence, former Labor leader Kim Beazley says.

Mr Fitzgibbon has taken aim at his department, accusing it of occasional
incompetence and saying it "nuanced information" to cover up mistakes and protect
personnel.
But Mr Beazley, who was defence minister in the Hawke Labor government, says the
problems are due to a poisonous culture which developed under the former coalition
government between 1996 and 2007.
"You can't overnight reverse a pattern that has been established over a decade," Mr
Beazley told AAP on Saturday.
"A pattern of politicisation and of centralisation of responses which basically is
immensely destructive of a minister's time."
The former Labor opposition leader said the coalition government pressured Defence
to come up with Liberal Party, as opposed to independent, responses to problems.
As a result, every issue, big or small, was channelled through the minister's office.
In a huge operation like Defence that was "fundamentally unworkable", Mr Beazley said.
"An awful lot of the issues that Joel has to confront would have been handled by
middle-ranking Defence officials when I was a minister."
Mr Beazley said that while things were occasionally "incorrectly presented" by the
department when he was in charge, he would never have described it as incompetent.
Mr Fitzgibbon also received support on the weekend from the Australia Defence
Association (ADA).
The think tank's executive director, Neil James, said Mr Fitzgibbon was "99.9 per
cent innocent" over the SAS pay debacle, with the special forces' administrative
staff the real culprits.
Mr James said the minister had been let down by the department on a number of
occasions but it usually wasn't the military wing's fault.
Rather, interfering bureaucrats were to blame, he said.
"Civil control of the military means civil political control by the prime minister
and the minister.
"It doesn't mean control by bureaucrats."
The ADA believes the solution is to split the department in two, with the civilian
and service sections both answering to the same minister but operating as separate
entities.
"The military are sick of copping the blame for problems in the department," Mr
James said.
He said Mr Fitzgibbon had refused to examine that option in the past but after this
week's headaches "may be a bit more inclined to look at it".
Responding to Mr Fitzgibbon's criticisms, Defence Force chief Angus Houston said his
job was to serve the minister representing the government of the day and he would
"never mislead him".
"We try and be as timely and as accurate as we can," Air Chief Marshal Houston told
Fairfax newspapers.
"Fundamentally a lot of information comes through the chain of command and
sometimes, sometimes, there will be errors."
Earlier this week, Prime Minister Kevin Rudd said the strained relationship between
Defence and the government would only be fixed "over time".
"I've noted comments from (former coalition defence minister) Brendan Nelson today
about historical problems in the relationship between the ministerial arm and with
the services arm," Mr Rudd said on Thursday, as Mr Fitzgibbon faced down calls for
his sacking.
"These will be worked through over time."
Mr Fitzgibbon delivered a firm but polite "no comment" when contacted by AAP on
Saturday.