Royal Commission Reveals Horrors Cadets Face Inside the Australian Defence Force

A Royal Commission, launched Tuesday in Sydney, has revealed Australian Defence Force recruits were subjected to both physical and sexual abuse as part of their "initiation."

The Commission is investigating the Australian Defence Force facilities from the 1960s onwards. There's also a specific focus on the treatment of ADF Cadets during 2000, when a 15-year-old cadet named Eleanore Tibble suicided. Eleanore thought she was facing discharge from the ADF over "fraternisation charges" stemming from a sexual relationship with an ADF instructor who was 15 years her senior. But before her death, Eleanore was not told the ADF had dropped the charges.

During the hearing, former recruits who had entered the Defence Force in the past 50 years told the court they were subjected to hazing practices such as "nuggetting." This involved having boot polish smeared onto their genitals and rubbed with a hard brush.

"They rolled me over and applied shoe polish to my penis and scrotum and started scrubbing it with a brush," a witness identified only as CJT said. "I was left lying on the tiles, bleeding, with black shoe polish all over my penis and scrotum."

The "gauntlet" was also commonplace, where recruits would have to run down a hallway as others hit them with "sacks full of irons, boots, and other items."

Perhaps most shocking, many witnesses said recruits were systematically and repeatedly raped, and forced to rape one another by older Defence Force members.

"At night I was physically and sexually abused multiple times by the navy police," a witness called CJA said through his lawyer. "The sexual abuse consisted of oral sex, masturbation, and buggery."

Recruits were threatened and intimidated into not reporting the abuse. If they did tell, the court was told senior officers would often dismiss abuse as "pranks."

On Wednesday, former NSW governor Peter Sinclair defended initiation ceremonies, telling the Commission they were part of Navy culture. While he conceded that they could get "out of control," Sinclair said he believes they should continue.

The Commission will hear evidence until July 1, with 30 witnesses set to testify.