By Will Nicholas in Canberra

The onslaught of misogynist content on social media means politicians can’t afford to delay changing the culture of Australia’s armed forces, an inquiry has been told.

An ongoing scourge of sexual violence in the defence force and its government department was laid bare on Monday before a Senate inquiry into a proposal aimed at establishing a independent body to deal with the problem.

The “deeply entrenched” issue had frustrated multiple witnesses who lamented the passage of inquiries, reports and royal commissions with little to show for it.

But young men entering the military were now more likely than ever to have been influenced by misogynistic content flooding social media, meaning time was even more of the essence, the senators heard during the hearings.

“We can’t wait another three years and allow the culture and what we’re seeing externally,” Veterans, Emergency Services and Policy Industry Institute of Australia chief executive Shannon Hennessey said.

“We are in a race against time against these extreme ideologies towards women … For us to wait any longer to even begin is a disservice to all involved.”

That echoed the opinion of Angela Ballard, who served 29 years in the Navy and told the Senators online extremism could actually make military sexual violence more prevalent.

“The harmful behaviours from online manosphere and the consumption of online pornography is contributing to the beliefs and behaviours of boys and young men, beliefs and behaviours that have been replicated in those the ADF is recruiting,” she said.

“With the existing culture-carriers who remain in the ADF, these beliefs and behaviours will … increase the rates of military sexual violence.”

But repeated failures to put a dent in the defence force’s culture meant even more drastic action was needed, according to former federal judge Gary Rumble, who conducted a review of sexual assault in the defence force in 2011.

“The ADF continues to run advertisements urging young women to join the ADF, I ask the committee to call on the ADF to stop running those advertisements and stop any recruiting activities targeting women immediately,” Mr Rumble said.

Budding female soldiers should be given excerpts from the report of the Royal Commission into Defence and Veteran Suicide, and be barred from joining until the Defence Force had met certain standards, Mr Rumble said.

He relayed a grim finding that servicewomen take their own lives at twice the rate of women in general.

Protecting whistleblowers who divulged incidents to the proposed investigative body also loomed large in the hearings, something the defence force was described as not suited for.

“Looking at a culture like military, which is very tight-knit, word travels fast,” Ms Hennessey said.

“We really need to be sure that the potential reprisal in these instances isn’t preventing people from reporting … we see that time and time again that the victim often ends up worse.”

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