Australia needs a plan for war to ‘focus the national mind’, Michael Pezzullo says

In a speech to an invitation-only security seminar last week, Pezzullo said Australian leaders needed to resurrect a practice adopted in the 1930s and prepare “a war book” which clearly allocated roles and responsibilities in the event of a conflict.

The speech constituted the former departmental secretary’s first public remarks since being removed from his job late last year after an independent inquiry found he had breached the government’s code of conduct at least 14 times.

He said military planners were focused on preparing the Australian Defence Force to be deployed to nearby small countries quickly and at short notice but, while necessary and important, “such ventures would only be marginally relevant to today’s great issues of war and peace”.

In a separate new interview for the Meridian100 podcast, released on Thursday, Pezzullo insisted his comments in the Anzac Day message had been misconstrued as suggesting war was inevitable.

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Pezzullo told the seminar Australia could draw lessons from international experience, especially the current wars in Ukraine and the Middle East, as well as from natural disasters and the supply-chain vulnerabilities exposed during the pandemic.