Retired Australian admiral defends initiation practices, but not bastardy or abuse

A retired Australian Rear Admiral has defended the Australian Navy's initiation tradition on Thursday despite allegations of rape when testifying at a public inquiry into sexual abuse in the Australian military dating as early as the 1960s.

Australia's long-running Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sex Abuse is currently hearing evidence of alleged abuse at a Naval training facility in Western Australia state and an Army school in Victoria state between the 1960s-80s. In total 111 victims have come forward, with more than a dozen due to testify at the inquiry in Sydney.

Rear Admiral Peter Sinclair, the former New South Wales state governor testified at the commission that he was horrified by evidence of sailors being victims of sexual assaults and initiation rites including "nuggeting", where their genitals were smeared with boot polish and scrubbed with bristle brushes.

But testifying on Thursday Sinclair said while bastardy and abuse was not to be condoned, initiations themselves weren't a bad thing as for centuries sailors had been conducting initiation ceremonies as a ship "crossed the line (equator)".

"I have been initiated probably half a dozen times aboard ships, involving almost to be naked, thrown in a pool, being covered in foul messes," Sinclair said.

Sinclair was the deputy naval officer commanding of the naval training base in question, HMAS Leeuwin, in mid-1972 to 1974, after being brought in to 'clean up' the facility and improve moral and discipline following a 1971 report that found "disgraceful outbursts of rabid behaviour".

Sinclair himself has been the victim of a violent initiation when he was a midshipman in 1948, being made to wear a bikini and covered in treacle, sawdust and smeared with boot polish, before being beaten with gym shoes and towels.

"The effect on me was... to ensure it never happened again on my watch," Sinclair said.

But he was disappointed to learn the 2014 Defence Abuse Report Taskforce (DART) found abuse still occurred during his tenor despite a significant drop off from changes to recruit engagement and supervision.

The inquiry's chair Peter McClellan alleges the ceremonies were are a starting point for a psychology in Australia's Navy that allowed for the type of physical abuse that took place.

Since 2013, the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sex Abuse has been investigating a broad range of allegations of historical sexual abuse, having already had public inquiries into Australian religious institutions, schools, orphanages and mental health facilities. Endit