Australian Army Journal

ORGANISATIONAL CULTURE
From Institution to Occupation:
Australian Army Culture in Transition
individual attitudes and organisational restructure have seen the Army move a
long way down the occupational path in pay matters while stepping back from
the collective action nexus.
Individual rights
Shifts in individual attitudes and behaviour are also part of the broad cultural
change overtaking the Army. These changes to individual characteristics are,
however, partially due to cultural trends in the broader civilian society.
Sociologist John Faris argues that, as the military organisation shifts in orientation,
it ‘both indirectly and directly affects both the attitudes and values of military
personnel as individuals’. 23 The changing culture of the organisation and individuals
within the Army can become self-fulfilling as both groups reinforce each other.
As the organisation becomes more occupational in nature, members become more
occupational in outlook. In turn, the members make more occupational demands
on the Army and so the process continues.
A dichotomy exists between the role of a soldier as a citizen who is subject to the
laws of the land and an individual who is entitled to his civil rights. On enlistment,
the soldier is subject to military law and discipline above and beyond the civil code.
The Defence Force Discipline Act was implemented in 1985 to overhaul the then
incumbent system and, in part, bring the individual rights of service members into
line with community standards.
The civil rights of individual service personnel were also the driving force in the
establishment of the Defence Force Ombudsman in 1983. Service personnel
lacked a legally binding contract and their employment was at the pleasure of the
Crown — they enjoyed few substantive rights. The Defence Force Ombudsman
extended to soldiers a measure of legal protection such as from unfair dismissal,
which civilians take for granted. The Defence Force Ombudsman is, in fact,
the many-hatted Commonwealth Ombudsman which handled 104 cases for the
Army in 2011–2012 with a 100% closure rate. 24 This compares favourably with
the Ombudsman’s other 160 clients from various Commonwealth departments
with a caseload in excess of 40,000 in 2011–12. Despite these relatively small
numbers the Defence Force Ombudsman, as an independent body to redress
grievances outside the chain of command, further undermines the traditional
institutional approach.
Australian Army Journal
Culture edition 2013, Volume X, Number 3 Page 196