Molan to keep Senate alert
IF and when accidental senator Jim Molan is sworn in by Governor- General Peter Cosgrove, Australia’s currently dysfunctional parliament will likely experience a renaissance.
Molan should never have been an accidental senator save for NSW Liberal Party factional bastardry which relegated the decorated former soldier to the difficult third place on the ballot.
The NSW Liberals should have taken more notice of another soldierpolitician the Duke of Wellington, who said “the hardest thing of all for a soldier is to retreat”.
In the unrepresentative circus that Australia’s Senate has become, Molan will be a blast of uncompromising fresh air.
Molan’s strong opinions are derived from vast experience and expressed equally forcefully.
He will be a robust commentator on a range of issues and bring a forensic questioning to Senate estimates, even to members of his own government.
Molan’s military and academic pedigree is exceptional.
Graduating from the Royal Military College, Duntroon in December 1971, he was among the members of that class whose academic achievements were the first to be recognised with degrees from the University of New South Wales.
Molan completed a BA in military history.
However Prime Minister William McMahon had announced in September that year Australia would be withdrawing its combat forces from Vietnam, a disappointing career frustration for Molan’s class.
He was instead posted to the Pacific Islands Regiment in PNG, during which time he became a foundation member of the PNG Defence Force and fluent in Melanesian pidgin.
Molan then served with 9RQR in Brisbane, when he also completed an economics degree at the University of Queensland.
He then followed what many believed would be a career- ending move, undertaking flying training at Point Cook in Victoria, remaining to spend another year studying Bahasa Indonesia.
While his fellow infantrymen were gathering experience in battalion appointments, Molan was flying.
The expectation was Molan would never then command an infantry battalion, but after serving with 3RAR, he completed Army Command and Staff College in 1984, then served at the School of Infantry, Singleton before commanding 6RAR at Enoggera.
Molan was appointed AM for his leadership, particularly during the 1990 Charleville floods.
From 1992 to 1994, Molan was army attache in Jakarta, establishing strong relationships with Indonesia which still remain.
He then commanded 1 Bde during its relocation from Holsworthy to Darwin, before returning to Indonesia as defence attache in 1998.
This appointment saw him intimately involved in diplomatic negotiations in East Timor during the INTERFET deployment commanded by Major General Peter Cosgrove, who Molan replaced as commander 1st Division at Enoggera.
He then deployed to Iraq where he was coalition deputy chief of staff for operations, receiving the Distinguished Service Cross and US Legion of Merit.
Since discharging, Molan was instrumental in developing the Coalition’s military- led border protection policy.
He has been unafraid to criticise either political side in relation to defence policy and resigned as an adviser to Liberal defence minister David Johnson in 2014 after expressing dissatisfaction with the minister’s performance.
Molan will be the highest- ranking former army officer in the Senate since Major General Sir William Glasgow in 1919.
Glasgow commanded 1Div in World War I and was appointed defence minister in 1927.
It’s a role which Molan would fulfil admirably.