Abuse investigations of serving Australian Defence Force rise

The number of serving Australian Defence Force members under investigation for physical, sexual and other abuses has more than doubled since October, local media reported on Tuesday.

A 135 percent rise since October took the number of serving ADF personnel currently under investigation to 151 including 82 permanent force members, 62 reservists and seven civilian public servants.

The total number of complaints received by the Defence Force Abuse Task Force (DART), an independent body charged with examining abuse in the military, has now reached 2,400 going back to the 1950s.

In response to questions by independent senator Nick Xenophon at a Senate Estimate hearing on Monday evening, Defence chiefs confirmed 151 serving members were the subject of 110 cases of alleged abuse, that ranged from rape and sexual assault to bullying.

None of the cases come from the second volume of the top-secret DLA Piper Report which details hundreds of cases and specific recommendations dealing with individual complaints of abuse.

Senator Xenophon described the jump in the number of cases as " startling" and raised concerns about the pace of the investigation.

Former solider and fellow independent senator, Jacqui Lambie, said victims should know their perpetrators had not risen to the military's elite.

Air Commodore Henrik Ehlers, Defence's head of cultural change, said no Defence members would knowingly be put at risk by a member under investigation.

"We will look to the name of the perpetrator, the alleged incident, their service history to date, to see (whether) they present, in our assessment, a real and present danger today and now," Ehlers said.

"To date I have not received sufficiently compelling information ... and been able to link a risk assessment of the alleged perpetrator to taking immediate action."

He said bringing cases to a conclusion was "a high priority" of the Chief of Australian Defence Force Mark Binskin.

He acknowledged, however, none of the accused had been disciplined by the ADF itself or through a court martial.

Ehlers said some complainants did not want a full investigation into their cases.

Almost 50 million U.S. dollars in reparation payments has been awarded to 1,643 complainants since DART was established four years ago.

Its founding was prompted by a wave of cultural change in the military after a female cadet at the Australian Defence Force Academy having sex was unknowingly broadcast via Skype to other cadets. Endi