This is a shameful story about how a country founded on justice and egalitarianism tried to destroy a good man whose ambition was to serve it.

The country is Australia. The man is Russell Vance.

Today Vance - depressed, anxious and worn down - is testimony to the bastardry of the Australian Defence Force that has relentlessly pursued him.

The cost of pursuing Vance - a former commander of the Royal Australian Air Force at Butterworth, Malaysia - through a military Board of Inquiry (BoI) and the civilian courts, is at least $12 million.

Little says: "On the basis of what's happened to Russ, you wouldn't let your dog join the Defence Force. Defence has an obligation to care for its personnel."

On the eve of the last federal election, then shadow defence minister Joel Fitzgibbon told me, in relation to Vance: "Defence really ought to be acting as a model litigant . . . Defence has a duty of care and an ethical responsibility to look after its people as well as possible, and ought not be spending millions of taxpayer dollars on unnecessary litigation."

Well, minister, it's time to come good on that, because Defence has demonstrably proven to be anything but a model litigant here.

Last month the Commonwealth Attorney-General's Department informed Vance it had been so concerned about his case it had launched an investigation into whether Defence had conducted itself appropriately.

Its findings are most unflattering. Specifically, the department found Defence had breached its obligation to act as a model litigant "by causing unnecessary delay in the handling of the litigation arising from a failure to undertake all reasonable and necessary inquiries" relating to the discovery of relevant documents.

http://www.smh.com.au/news/opinion/indefensible-conduct/2008/12/13/1228585174973.html?page=fullpage#contentSwap1