Following sustained pressure from Labor, Tasmanians and the veteran community over his stubborn refusal to award a posthumous Victoria Cross (VC) to Tasmanian war hero Teddy Sheean, Prime Minister Scott Morrison announced in June he had convened a so-called ‘expert panel’ to review the case.

The panel was expected to report back on Friday 31 July on the 2019 review by the independent Defence Honours Awards Appeals Tribunal (the Tribunal) that unanimously recommended a posthumous VC for Sheean.

While Labor’s view is that this review of a review was an unnecessary waste of time and money, it has at least provided fresh hope that the Prime Minister might award Sheean the honour he is so clearly owed. 

After all, any objective examination of the facts around his actions and of government policy would lead to that conclusion. 

The fact is Scott Morrison’s review was based on a number of false premises and misleading assertions that need to be called out, so it’s worth dealing with these in turn.

Firstly, the stated rationale for the expert panel review seemed to hinge on the Prime Minister’s assertion that there are different views on whether there is compelling new evidence about Sheean’s actions in 1942.

The Prime Minister questioned whether last year’s review by the Tribunal had any significant new and compelling evidence to support a recommendation that a Mention in Despatches be replaced by a Victoria Cross.

As the Tribunal Chair Mark Sullivan himself has pointed out in an explosive letter to Defence Minister Linda Reynolds, the Tribunal’s comprehensive merits-based review did indeed find compelling new evidence of Teddy Sheean’s bravery, which clearly met the criteria for a VC, consistent with clear and longstanding policy.

This included that the young sailor returned to the sinking HMAS Armidale from a lifeboat after being ordered to abandon ship so he could fire a gun at Japanese aircraft strafing his comrades in the water, shooting down at least one aircraft before dying at his gun and going down with the ship.

These findings are a matter of fact and have not been disputed, including by Defence. So to say there are different views on this is simply disingenuous.

This is an extraordinary example of courage under fire and it’s hard to know what more anyone could do to earn the honour.  

Secondly, the Prime Minister has suggested that historic awards involve a higher bar and has invoked previous VC recipients like Keith Payne to argue a retrospective VC would create a two-tiered system of honours.

But the inconvenient truth is Keith Payne has supported a VC for Teddy Sheean, so this argument doesn’t stack up.

And thirdly, Scott Morrison has implied a historic VC would somehow undermine the integrity of the system.

What he ignores is that two posthumous VCs have been awarded to British Navy personnel and the Tribunal found Sheean's actions exceeded those of these “strikingly similar” cases.

So it’s clear the Prime Minister’s stated reasons for his decision to snub Teddy and commission the new review simply don’t check out.

If anything, it’s the Morrison Government’s decision to ignore the Tribunal that has undermined the integrity of the system and is a clear trashing of good process.

In 2019, the Chief of Navy Vice Admiral Michael Noonan, in representing the Defence Department, said the independent Tribunal was the "most appropriate decision-making body" to determine whether an individual's gallantry was worthy of a VC.

Unlike the Prime Minister’s panel – we know two members are being paid more than $30,000 each for around six weeks’ work – in contrast, the Tribunal is a genuine expert panel whose members include lawyers, military historians and veterans.

It was established by the former Labor Government to independently consider honours and awards outside of Defence and keep the politics out of these decisions.

It’s unacceptable for the Government to ignore this respected body and it sets a dangerous precedent that future recommendations could be dismissed at the whim of politicians.

For our part, Labor in government always accepted the recommendations of the Tribunal.

Putting all that aside, now that the Prime Minister will have this new report, there is an opportunity for him to swallow his pride and reverse his earlier decision.

As a first step he should release the panel’s report publicly as soon as possible to ensure transparency – the Government can’t sit on this for months as they have with numerous other reports, including the Tribunal’s 2019 report.

But better yet, the Prime Minister could save himself the time and simply move to recommend that Teddy Sheean be granted the VC immediately. 

After all, in these challenging and uncertain times, we don’t need another review, but we do need another hero.

This opinion piece was first published in The Mercury on Wednesday, 5 August 2020.