Jim Molan

Andrew James "Jim" Molan, AO, DSC (born 11 April 1950), is an Australian politician and former major general[2] in the Australian Army. He has been a Senator for New South Wales since November 2019, representing the Liberal Party. He was previously a Senator for New South Wales from December 2017 to June 2019.

Jim Molan

AO, DSC
Senator for New South Wales
Assumed office
14 November 2019
Preceded byArthur Sinodinos
In office
22 December 2017 – 30 June 2019
Preceded byFiona Nash
Personal details
Born
Andrew James Molan

(1950-04-11) 11 April 1950
East Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
NationalityAustralian
Political partyLiberal Party
Spouse(s)
Anne Molan
(
m. 1972)
[1]
Children4
Alma materUniversity of New South Wales
University of Queensland
ProfessionRetired army officer
Military service
AllegianceAustralia
Branch/serviceAustralian Army
Years of service1968–2008
RankMajor General
CommandsAustralian Defence College
1st Division
1st Brigade
6th Battalion, Royal Australian Regiment
Battles/warsEast Timor
Iraq War
  • Operation Catalyst
AwardsOfficer of the Order of Australia
Distinguished Service Cross
Officer of the Legion of Merit (United States)

During his military career, Molan was commanding officer of the 6th Battalion, Royal Australian Regiment, commander of the 1st Brigade, commander of the 1st Division and its Deployable Joint Force Headquarters, and commander of the Australian Defence College. In April 2004, he deployed for a year to Iraq to serve as Chief of Operations for the new Headquarters Multinational Force in Iraq. He has been awarded the Distinguished Service Cross, as well as the Legion of Merit by the U.S. government. He retired from the Australian Army in 2008, and later that year released his first book, Running the War in Iraq.

Following his retirement from the Australian Army, Molan was appointed by the Abbott Government as a special envoy for Operation Sovereign Borders and was subsequently credited with being an architect of the coalition's Stop the Boats Australian border protection and asylum-seeker policies.[3][4] In 2016, Molan unsuccessfully stood as a Liberal Party candidate for the Senate in New South Wales at the 2016 federal election.[5][4][6] In December 2017, during the parliamentary eligibility crisis, the High Court declared him elected in place of Fiona Nash, who was ineligible to stand.[7] He was not re-elected to the Senate in the 2019 federal election.

On 10 November 2019, Molan was selected by the NSW Liberal Party to fill the casual vacancy left by the resignation of Senator Arthur Sinodinos. He was appointed by a joint sitting of the NSW Parliament on 14 November 2019. He will serve the remainder of Sinodinos's six-year term which expires in June 2022.[8]

Early life and education

Molan joined the Australian Army following completion of his schooling in Victoria. On graduating from the Royal Military College, Duntroon, in 1971, he was allocated to the Royal Australian Infantry Corps. He graduated with a Bachelor of Arts from the University of New South Wales and a Bachelor of Economics from the University of Queensland. He is a graduate of the ADF School of Languages where he studied Indonesian. He maintains an interest in aviation and holds civil commercial licences and instrument ratings for fixed and rotary wing aircraft. He is also a Fellow of the Australian Institute of Company Directors (FAICD) and is accredited as a Master Project Director (MPD).

Military career

Molan has had a long and active military career. Regimental postings include the 1st Battalion, Pacific Islands Regiment (Papua New Guinea) as a rifle platoon commander; 9th Battalion, Royal Queensland Regiment, as adjutant; rifle company second-in-command and rifle company commander in the 3rd Battalion, Royal Australian Regiment; Commanding Officer of the 6th Battalion, Royal Australian Regiment;[9] Commander of the Army's mechanised 1st Brigade; and Commander of the 1st Division and its Deployable Joint Force Headquarters.

Molan was the Commander of the Australian Defence College, including the Australian Defence Force Academy; the Australian Command and Staff College; and the Australian Centre for Defence and Strategic Studies.

He served as the Army Attache in Jakarta as a colonel between 1992 and 1994 and for this service he was awarded the Indonesian decoration Bintang Dharma Yudha Nararya in 1995. Between 1998 and 1999, Molan was the Defence Attache in Jakarta as a brigadier and served in East Timor. On 25 March 2000 he was upgraded to an Officer of the Order of Australia for his service in Indonesia and in East Timor.[10]

In April 2004, he deployed for a year to Iraq. He was despatched to serve as the Chief of Operations for the new Headquarters Multinational Force in Iraq, which was being planned. However, he initially instead spent some time trying to find a specific role within the headquarters structure,[11] before being allocated responsibility for energy security.[12] He was eventually made Deputy Chief of Staff for Operations, and served during continuous and intense combat operations. For distinguished command and leadership in this period, he was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross,[13] and the American Legion of Merit.[14]

After returning from Iraq he served as Defence Materiel Advocate of the Defence Materiel Organisation; and Adviser to the Vice Chief of the Defence Force on Joint Warfighting Lessons and Concepts.[15] Major General Molan retired in July 2008.[16]

Post-military

In August 2008 Molan released his first book, Running the War in Iraq.[17] The book concentrated on his experience as Chief of Operations in Iraq during 2004–05, and contained some criticism about Australia's capacity to engage in military conflict.[18] In an August 2008 speech, Molan stated that: "Our military competence was far worse than even we thought before East Timor, and people may not realise that the military performance bar has been raised by the nature of current conflict, as illustrated in Iraq and Afghanistan."[19] Writing in a February 2009 article, Molan called for a doubling of the Australian military presence in Afghanistan, from about 1,100 troops to 2,000.[20]

Molan has been associated with the Liberal Party, helping to launch the Liberal opposition party's military-led border protection campaign in the lead up to the 2013 federal election in Brisbane on 25 July 2013.[21] Molan has been an outspoken critic of Labor's management of defence matters.[22] Stephen Smith, at the time the Minister for Defence, described Molan as 'partisan' and a "Liberal Party activist".[23] In mid-2014 Molan was engaged as an advisor to Minister for Defence David Johnston, but resigned after three weeks. In a subsequent interview Molan implied that his resignation was due to dissatisfaction with Johnston.[24]

Political career

At the 2016 federal election, Molan was a Liberal party senate candidate for New South Wales. However, in what former prime minister Tony Abbott called a "tragedy for our country and for our party", Molan failed to be elected.[25]

In November 2017, the High Court of Australia ruled that Nationals Senator Fiona Nash was ineligible to be elected to the Senate due to her dual British Citizenship.[26] On 22 December, the High Court declared Molan duly elected in place of Nash.[7]

In February 2018 it was revealed that Molan shared, on his personal Facebook page in March 2017, anti-Muslim content from far-right political party Britain First.[27][28][29] Molan refused to apologise for his sharing of this material.[30] In response to the Facebook post, Greens MP Adam Bandt accused Molan of war crimes over his actions in Iraq. Bandt later apologised.[31][32]

2019 federal election

In November 2018, Molan polled the third-highest number of votes in the Liberal Party's Senate preselection ballot for the 2019 federal election. Subsequently he was placed in the "unwinnable" fourth position on the Coalition's Senate ticket in New South Wales, below Hollie Hughes, Andrew Bragg, and the Nationals' candidate Perin Davey.[33]

Molan was disappointed at being relegated to a low-priority position on the official Coalition NSW Senate ticket and spoke of being unable to defend the Liberal Party after the decision.[34] Later, in May 2019 during the Australian Federal election campaign, a row broke out affecting both the Liberal Party and the National Party when Molan began an independent campaign, not supported by the Liberal Party, to be elected. Molan and his supporters began urging voters to ignore the official joint how-to-vote instructions issued by both the Liberal Party and the National Party. Instead, voters were encouraged to vote directly for Molan. This independent campaign was reported in the media as leading to marked divisions within the Liberal and National Parties. Disagreements grew to the extent that in the week before the election, senior officials of the National Party in NSW took the "extraordinary step" of advising voters to ignore the agreed Liberal-National how-to-vote card and vote directly for the preferred National Party candidates.[35] Former deputy prime minister and parliamentary leader of the National Party, Barnaby Joyce, was reported as saying that the row threatened to undermine the coalition agreement which existed between the Liberal and National Parties at the federal level.[36]

However, on 10 November 2019, Molan was selected by the NSW Liberal Party to fill the casual vacancy left by the resignation of Senator Arthur Sinodinos. He was appointed by a joint sitting of the NSW Parliament on 14 November 2019, and will serve the remainder of Sinodinos's six-year term which expires in June 2022.[8]

Climate change

On 3 February 2020, on the ABC program Q&A, Molan was asked about his declaration that his "mind is open" on whether humans were causing climate change. Asked "What is the evidence you are relying on?", Molan replied: "I'm not relying on evidence".[37] Molan was challenged about being so open minded that "his brain may fall out" in response to the 2019-2020 Australian bushfires and climate change on the same episode of Q&A.[38]

Published works

Molan has published his opinion on matters related to his expertise, and gives interviews and speeches to recount his experiences. The following is an incomplete list of his published works, interviews, speeches, opinion pieces and debates:

Books
  • Molan, Jim (2005). Operations in the land of two rivers. Australian Defence College, Centre for Defence Command, Leadership and Management Studies.
  • Molan, Jim (2008). Running the war in Iraq: an Australian general, 300,000 troops, the bloodiest conflict of our time. HarperCollins. ISBN 978-0-7322-8781-8.

Articles and opinion pieces

Speeches, interviews and debates

Personal

Molan is married to Anne and they have three daughters and a son. One of their daughters is Erin Molan, a presenter of the rugby league television program, The Footy Show.[40]

Honours and awards

Officer of the Order of Australia (AO)(2000)[10]
Member of the Order of Australia (AM)(1992)[9]
Distinguished Service Cross (DSC)(awarded 2006)[13]
Australian Active Service Medalwith "EAST TIMOR" and "IRAQ 2003" clasps
Iraq Medal
Australian Service Medal 1945–1975with "PNG" clasp
Defence Force Service Medalwith Federation Star (5th clasp)
Australian Defence Medal
Papua New Guinea Independence Medal (PNG)
Order of the Star of Yudha Dharma 3rd Class (Indonesia)(Bintang Yudha Dharma Nararya) (1995)
Legion of Merit (United States)Officer (2004)
gollark: Who's going to check?
gollark: No, you just *guess* what it is.
gollark: You can exchange it for Freedom Dollars\™ and stuff.
gollark: I doubt they'll actually give you one.
gollark: Or an address or whatever.

References
  1. "Maj Gen. (Rtd) (Jim) Andrew James Molan". Who's Who in Australia Online. ConnectWeb. Retrieved 24 June 2016.
  2. https://www.legacy.com.au/Assets/9750/1/Longbioforwebpage.pdf
  3. Wroe, David (6 September 2013). "Abbott adviser handed new paid role as envoy". The Sydney Morning Herald. Retrieved 4 June 2016.
  4. Koziol, Michael (15 March 2016). "'Stop the boats' architect Jim Molan is planning a new mission - to enter Parliament". The Sydney Morning Herald. Retrieved 4 June 2016.
  5. "General Jim Molan ready to fight for Liberal Senate spot". The Australian. 25 October 2014. Retrieved 4 June 2016.
  6. "Senate - New South Wales". ABC News. Australia. 2016. Retrieved 4 June 2016.
  7. Hoerr, Karl (22 December 2017). "Jim Molan to replace Fiona Nash in Senate, High Court rules". ABC News (Australia). Retrieved 22 December 2017.
  8. Karp, Paul (10 November 2019). "Jim Molan wins Senate spot to replace Arthur Sinodinos". Retrieved 10 November 2019.
  9. "Member of the Order of Australia". It's an Honour. Australian Government. 26 January 1992. Citation: For service to the Australian Army as Commanding Officer 6th Battalion, RAR
  10. "Officer of the Order of Australia". It's an Honour. Australian Government. 25 March 2000. Citation: For distinguished service to the Australian Defence Force as the Head of the Australian Defence Staff in Jakarta during the Indonesian and East Timor crisis.
  11. Molan, 2008, 63–75.
  12. Molan, 2008, 75–83.
  13. "Distinguished Service Cross (Australian)". It's an Honour. Australian Government. 26 January 2006. Citation: For distinguished service in command and leadership in action while serving as Deputy Chief of Staff for Strategic Operations and Deputy Chief of Staff Civil Military Operations with Multi-National Force – Iraq from April 2004 to April 2005, during Operation CATALYST.
  14. Devine, Miranda (9 December 2006). "To gloat is to insult many brave Iraqis". The Sydney Morning Herald. Retrieved 4 June 2016.
  15. "MAJGEN Jim Molan". Principals. AADI Defence Pty Limited. Archived from the original on 16 January 2013.
  16. Molan, Jim (4 August 2008). "Australia's war unreadiness". Unleashed. Australian Broadcasting Corporation. Retrieved 22 October 2009.
  17. Molan, Jim (2008). Running the war in Iraq: an Australian general, 300,000 troops, the bloodiest conflict of our time. HarperCollins. ISBN 978-0-7322-8781-8.
  18. Molan, Jim (21 July 2008). "Molan speaks about Iraq". The 7.30 Report (Interview: transcript). Interviewed by Kerry O'Brien. Australia: ABC TV. Retrieved 22 October 2009.
  19. Sheridan, Greg (14 August 2008). "Anzac spirit but not battle ready". The Australian. Archived from the original on 21 November 2008. Retrieved 22 October 2009.
  20. Molan, Jim (17 February 2009). "End the pussyfooting in Afghan war". The Australian. Archived from the original on 19 February 2009. Retrieved 22 October 2009.
  21. "Tony Abbott to put three-star commander in charge of military-led border protection campaign". The Sydney Morning Herald. 25 July 2013.
  22. "Mike Kelly, Jim Molan Disagree on Asylum Seekers". Canberra Times. 11 July 2013.
  23. "Indonesia could close down people smugglers" (transcript). Lateline. 8 July 2013.
  24. Elks, Sarah (21 September 2014). "Defence Minister David Johnston 'the reason' Jim Molan quit role". The Australian. Retrieved 4 December 2014.
  25. Lewis, Rosie (9 August 2016). "Federal election 2016: Tony Abbott slams Libs' failure over Jim Molan". The Australian. Retrieved 11 October 2016.
  26. Loussikian, Kylar (11 December 2017). "High Court stops short in endorsing Jim Molan for Senate". The Daily Telegraph. Retrieved 12 December 2017.
  27. Senator Jim Molan defends sharing Britain First posts, news.com.au
  28. Why is it so hard for Jim Molan to apologise for sharing Britain First material?, 7 February 2018, smh.com.au
  29. Liberal senator Jim Molan shared anti-Muslim videos from far-right group, 27 March 2017, theguardian.com
  30. Bourke, Latika (6 February 2018). "Why is it so hard for Jim Molan to apologise for sharing Britain First material?". The Sydney Morning Herald. Retrieved 28 February 2018.
  31. Jim Molan responds to Adam Bandt's apology, Australian Broadcasting Corporation, 8 February 2018, retrieved 28 February 2018
  32. Remeikis, Amy; Karp, Paul (8 February 2018). "Jim Molan 'deeply disappointed' by Adam Bandt's apology – politics live". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 28 February 2018.
  33. "Senator Jim Molan left in an unwinnable position following Liberal Senate preselection". 4BC. 24 November 2018. Retrieved 24 November 2018.
  34. Matthew Doran, 'Jim Molan says he cannot defend Liberal Party on television after Senate ticket relegation', ABC News, 25 November 2018.
  35. Michael Koziol, 'Coalition implodes as Nationals launch their own 'below the line' campaign against Jim Molan', The Canberra Times, 15 May 2019.
  36. Michael Koziol, '"They fired the first shot": Barnaby Joyce warns Coalition at stake as Senate civil war rages', The Age, 16 May 2016.
  37. Johnson, Paul (4 February 2020). "'I'm not relying on evidence': Molan's frank admission over climate scepticism rocks Q+A". ABC News. Retrieved 4 February 2020.
  38. Wolfe, Natalie (4 February 2020). "Trainwreck': Crowd's furious jeers at MP". The Daily Examiner. Retrieved 4 February 2020.
  39. Goldstone, Richard (17 September 2008). "Justice in Gaza". The New York Times. Retrieved 22 October 2009.
  40. Doherty, Megan (9 March 2013). "A heart for Canberra and the Raiders". The Canberra Times. Retrieved 4 June 2016.
Military offices
Preceded by
Rear Admiral Raydon Gates		 Commander Australian Defence College
2002–2004		 Succeeded by
Rear Admiral Mark Bonser
Preceded by
Major General Peter Cosgrove		 Commander 1st Division
1999–2002		 Succeeded by
Major General Mark Evans
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