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The Australian Defence Force continues to remain engaged in a range of operations from the Middle East to the Pacific. This paper will give an overview of ADF operations for the period between July 2008 and October 2009 and mention some of the salient legal issues arising from these operations. At the time of writing there are approximately 3300 ADF personnel deployed overseas on operations with a further 500 involved in domestic maritime security operations. This represents a slight decrease from the 3850 deployed overseas at the time of writing the 2008 edition of the review of ADF operations. This is primarily due to the decrease in troop numbers in Iraq from 1575 to 823 following the expiry of United Nations Security Council Resolution 1790 on 31 December 2008 which authorised much of the operation.4 However, there are 1550 ADF personnel in Afghanistan; up from 1000 last year. Operation SLIPPER has expanded to incorporate anti-piracy operations off the coast of Somalia as well. There have also been a number of disaster relief operations in response to the Victorian bushfires and the earthquakes and tsunamis in Samoa and Indonesia. Some other operations have concluded since the last edition of this review. These are Operation TESTAMENT, in support of World Youth Day, and Operation OUTREACH, the Northern Territory Indigenous Intervention. Domestic security generally, and the ADF's own base security in particular, have increased in prominence following the disruption by police on 4 August 2009 of an alleged plot to attack Holsworthy Army Base.

The Australian Defence Force (ADF) has considerable power at its disposal. It is physically more powerful than any other organisation in Australia. This is hardly surprising when it has the task of defending the country, conducting warlike and peacebuilding operations overseas, enforcing maritime legislation, and providing a degree of internal security. Yet only a minor proportion of this activity is authorised by an Act of Parliament. In fact, some of the more extreme powers currently exercised by the ADF, such as the offensive use of lethal force, deliberate destruction of property, interception of shipping and detention of civilians, are actually contrary to some Acts of Parliament. The authority for such activity lies elsewhere. The scant literature on this topic in Australia would identify the executive power of the Commonwealth as the source of this extraordinary authority whether it is to invade Iraq in 2003, to conduct warlike operations in Afghanistan since 2001, to bomb Syria since 2015, to board shipping in the Arabian Gulf since 1990, to counter piracy off Somalia since 2009,to fly combat air patrols to protect visiting dignitaries in 2002 and 2003 or to occupy East Timor in 1999. In some senses, executive power as a source of authority for ADF operations is a new question.

Background: The introduction of a mandatory health insurance system contributing towards the funding of national healthcare in Saudi Arabia necessitates the implementation of clinical coding and a unified health classification system, which has previously not been a feature of Saudi healthcare. As the Ministry of Health (MOH) moves to introduce ICD-10-AM, the Australian modification of the WHO ICD-10, in the Kingdom’s public hospitals, it is important to understand the factors that will influence its successful implementation. Objective: The purpose of this article is to develop and evaluate the internal consistency reliability and validity of a questionnaire establishing the factors influencing the the implementation ICD-10-AM and clinical coding in Saudi public hospitals. Method: The content validity method was initiated by sending the whole draft questionnaire to a panel of experts to indicate values for each item based on a scale of content validity created by the researchers and, subsequently, using the internal consistency reliability and factorial validity methods to estimate the internal reliability of clusters of items, which were assumed to measure the same factors, grouped in this study into three factorial categories, health information (clinical documentation, classification, and coding requirements), organization (the implementation preparation in individual organizations), and national (institutional support through the national hierarchical structure). Results: The content validity identified all items of the proposed questionnaire to be valid. Based on the content validity test, several items were removed as they did not meet the proposed model and the final questionnaire was created in accord with the pilot study result. The pilot study utilized Cronbach's α and factor analysis to examine the reliability and validity of Part 2 of the questionnaire and the findings indicated high internal consistency reliability and factorial validity.

Objective: The aim of the present study was to develop and evaluate a multidimensional measure of distress experienced by partners of Australian combat veterans. Method: The Partners of Veterans Distress Scale (POV-DS) was developed using factor analysis on a sample of 665 female members of Partners of Veterans Association of Australia. Content validity for the scale was established by using focus groups and expert feedback during item development phase. In addition, two self-report inventories were administered to assess physical/mental health, and satisfaction with life. Results: Following principal-axis factoring, 45 items were retained, loading on seven distinct but correlated factors: Sleep problems, Hyper-vigilance, Social isolation, Financial problems, Intimacy problems, Exhaustion, and Negative affect. The factor structure was cross-validated using confirmatory factor analysis on a hold-out sample. The distress subscales all exhibited excellent internal consistency (as ranged from 0.84 to 0.95). Validation analyses revealed subscales derived from the seven-factor model explained 31% to 45% of the variance in partners' physical health, mental health, and satisfaction with life. Conclusions: The study found that the POV-DS is a reliable and valid tool for assessing distress in partners of Australian combat veterans.

The ADF has often been literally at the sharp end of seeking to uphold human rights around the world, and it has also been accused of not meeting human rights standards at various times. The implications of enhanced human rights protections in Australia are potentially of profound significance to the ADF and its operations. The ADF is used to having to meet the standards of international humanitarian law (the law of armed conflict) and would adapt to any new human rights laws. The difference between international humanitarian law though and human rights law is that humanitarian law developed to cover military operations whereas with human rights law, military issues are usually an afterthought. As an academic who writes on the Australian Defence Force and the law, and as a reservist and former permanent naval officer, I would like to see the National Human Rights Consultation consider military issues from the outset. Discussions with academic and military colleagues have brought to my attention the experience of the UK, Canada and Germany. It illustrates that human rights laws developed for civilian society can have unexpected consequences for the military and its operations. Australia would do well to learn from these experiences so that any new enhanced human rights laws work in the unique context of the ADF and its operations.

Charles Clode wrote the following words on the relationship between the Crown and the armed forces in Military Forces of the Crown: Their Administration and Government in 1869: In the first place, he is bound to obey and to give his personal service to the Crown under the punishments imposed upon him for disobedience by the Mutiny Act and Articles of War. No other obligation must be put in competition with this; neither parental authority nor religious scruples, nor personal safety, nor pecuniary advantages from other service. All the duties of his life are, according to the theory of Military obedience, absorbed in that one duty of obeying the command of the Officers set over him. Callinan J cited this passage with approval in X v Commonwealth in 1999. The High Court has consistently affirmed a view of the relationship between the Crown and members of the armed forces in Australia which is unique and Victorian. It appears in cases from Marks v Cth (1964) to Coutts v Cth (1985), X v Cth (1999) and Jarratt v Comm of Police for NSW (2005). Despite some dissent and caution as to the use of nineteenth century military texts, nonetheless the High Court has relied heavily on historical material and perceptions. Given this emphasis on history, this paper will examine the historical antecedents of the relationship between the Crown and the armed forces to which the High Court refers. It will consider the extent to which the legal principles governing that relationship were subject to change over time or in fact remained relatively unmodified. In doing so, this paper will consider the extent of divergence, if any, in the relationship of the Crown with British and Australian armed forces. In this way, the paper seeks to illuminate a connection between law and history, and see whether the relationship between the Crown and the armed forces is a fenceline through the past.

Injustice can have serious consequences for an individual. Ill-discipline in the military can have disastrous consequences for society. The Mutiny Act of 1689 immediately followed the Glorious Revolution because, despite the deep parliamentary mistrust of standing armies after the English Civil War, Jacobite forces threatened and a standing army seemed indispensable. This was the beginning of parliamentary discipline legislation in the common law world. The Preamble to the Act clearly stated the tensions at play . ... whereas no man may be forejudged of life or limb, or subjected to any kind of punishment by martial law, or in any other manner than by the judgment of his peers and according to the known and established laws of this realm; yet nevertheless, it being requisite for retaining such forces as are or shall be raised during this exigence of affairs in their duty [that] an exact discipline be observed, and that soldiers who shall mutiny or stir up sedition or shall desert their majesties' service be brought to a more exemplary and speedy punishment than the usual forms oflaw will allow.

The aim of the study was to develop a measure identifying specific skill sets of effective witness protection (WP) officers. Two representative groups produced a job analysis for WP officers from which we generated a pool of items forming a Behavioural Observation Scale (BOS). Supervisors of 50 Australian WP officers (40 men) completed the BOS. Exploratory factor analysis produced a 38-item BOS resolving into three factors, Policing skills, Partition skills and Interpersonal skills, explaining > 69% of the variance with excellent internal consistency of >.90. The BOS represents a reliable and valid tool for selecting WP officers.

"On 25th December 1940 ... the first Australians trained (either in Australia or Canada) under the Empire Air Scheme landed in England ... These [preparation] courses took an average of eight months from enlistment until individuals were ready for attachment to the Royal Air Force." (p.107) "Although anxious to meet Australia's wishes, the Air Ministry replied that it was unlikely that all RAAF bomber squadrons could be formed ... (p.113), John Herington, 'Air War Against Germany and Italy, 1939-1943' (1954). The quotations from the first cited work come from the official account of the earlier Australian participation in Bomber Command, Royal Air Force, from 1941 to 1943.

Callinan J's view expressed in White raises some intriguing possibilities. It might provide a more satisfactory explanation for the exception of military justice from the requirements of Chapter III of the Constitution. This would be because it is an exception that requires less contortion to the text of the Constitution than the current reliance on s 51(vi). This raises two further questions though. The first is whether command inherently includes discipline. There is some authority for this, including in White itself. The second question is, assuming that command does include discipline, whether it follows that s 68 'vests a power of command which cannot be rejected or diminished'. That is to say, can military disciplinary jurisdiction be exercised by a Chapter III court or only militarily? Further, could it be the case that 'it may not be subject judicial supervision under Ch III of the Constitution' mean there is not even room for judicial review by the High Court? This paper will attempt to address each of these questions in turn.