More to come on this. Navy Captains are being used as scapegoats.
Navy captain stood aside, another punished over Indonesia breaches April 17, 2014 - 2:40PM
David Wroe
National security correspondent
A Royal Australian Navy captain will lose command of his ship and another will receive administrative punishment over the recent incursions into Indonesian waters during border protection operations.
The Chief of Navy, Vice Admiral Ray Griggs, announced in a statement on Thursday that he was carrying out the sanctions against the ship commanders to uphold the standards of the navy.
Five more captains would be “formally or informally counselled,” the statement said.
While Admiral Griggs accepted the incursions in December and January were not deliberate, they constituted “lapses in professional conduct that required action to be taken”.
“Each of the Commanding Officers conducted these activities with the best of intent. However, I expect nothing but the highest standards of those in command,” Admiral Griggs said.
As a result, Admiral Griggs would “remove one Commanding Officer from his command and another will be administratively sanctioned”, the statement reads.
There were seven navy vessels involved in the six incursions, with more than one ship involved in each breach. The Customs vessel Ocean Protector also breached Indonesian waters.
Fairfax Media understands that at least some of the incursions happened while asylum-seeker boats were being turned back to Indonesia.
A review of the incidents by Defence and Customs found that the breaches – which angered Jakarta – were inadvertent and arose because the ships’ crews did not know where the maritime boundaries lay.
Read more:
http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/navy-captain-stood-aside-another-punished-over-indonesia-breaches-20140417-zqvxa.html#ixzz2z7sG0cAA