Jim Molan

Major General Andrew James Molan, (11 April 1950 – 16 January 2023) was an Australian politician and a senior officer in the Australian Army.

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 was a graduate of the Australian defence force's School of Languages where he studied Indonesian.

He maintained an interest in aviation and held civil commercial licences and instrument ratings for fixed and rotary wing aircraft.

He was also a fellow of the Australian Institute of Company Directors (FAICD) and was accredited as a master project director (MPD).

Molan had a long and active military career.

Regimental postings included 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; 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.

Molan 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.

In April 2004, he was deployed to Iraq for a year to serve as chief of operations of the new headquarters for the Multinational Force in Iraq.

He was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross, as well as the Legion of Merit by the United States government.

In April 2004, he was deployed for a year to Iraq.

He was despatched to serve as the chief of operations of the new Multinational Force in Iraq headquarters that was being planned.

However, he initially instead spent some time trying to find a specific role within the headquarters structure, before being allocated responsibility for energy security.

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, and the American Legion of Merit.

Molan has been accused of responsibility for planning and carrying out multiple purported war crimes during the attack on Fallujah in late 2004.

After returning from Iraq he served as defence materiel advocate for the Defence Materiel Organisation; and adviser to the Vice Chief of the Defence Force on Joint Warfighting Lessons and Concepts.

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.

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.

Major General Molan retired in July 2008.

In August 2008, Molan released his first book, Running the War in Iraq.

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".

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.

Molan was 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.

Molan has been an outspoken critic of Labor's management of defence matters.

In 2016, Molan unsuccessfully stood as a Liberal Party candidate for the Senate in New South Wales at the 2016 federal election.

He was a senator for New South Wales from December 2017 to June 2019 and from November 2019 until his death in January 2023, representing the Liberal Party.

During his military career, Molan commanded the 6th Battalion, Royal Australian Regiment, the 1st Brigade, the 1st Division and its Deployable Joint Force Headquarters, and the Australian Defence College.

In December 2017, during the parliamentary eligibility crisis, the High Court declared him elected in place of Fiona Nash, who was ineligible to stand.

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.

At the 2022 election, he was re-elected to a six-year term that was supposed to expire 30 June 2028.

He died less than a year into his new term.

Molan joined the Australian Army following completion of his schooling in Victoria.