About the Competition

Authors were invited to pen an essay of 3000 words (+/- 10%), a persuasive article or opinion piece of 1500-2000 words (+/- 10%), a short story of 1500-3000 words, a poem of any length, or a graphic novel of any length. All authors were invited to address a generic theme of leadership, culture, or ethics in Defence. They were also invited to address issues associated with Operation Bushfire Assist or COVID19 pandemic support, the impact of accusations of members of the ADF not upholding the highest standards of ethical and legal behaviour on operations, or technological advances affecting cyber security, the use of drones and automated weapons systems from a cultural, leadership and ethics perspective.

2021 Winners

The Australian Defence College and Centre for Defence Leadership and Ethics congratulate the 2021 Jamie Cullens Defence Writing Competition Winners. Winners received book vouchers of various values from a total prize pool of $2000.

Category 1: Essays

• 1st PTE John Wellfare – Soldiers Breaking Windows
• 2nd CAPT Vedran Maslic – The Peril of Extremes: on moral relativism and ethnocentrism
• Equal 3rd MAJ Andrew Stokes – Defining Right – ADF ethics
• Equal 3rd FLTLT Daniel Thomson – How Australia’s ethical failures with Timor-Leste should inform a future shaping strategy for the Indo-Pacific

Category 2: Persuasive Articles and Opinion Pieces

• 1st FLGOFF Regan Ho – The Future is Limited – ethics and AWS
• 2nd CPL Jason Gardner – The ADF – to an inclusive future
• 3rd CAPT Vedran Maslic – The suffering child in the basement of our civility-on the illusion of jus in bello

Category 3: Short Stories

• 1st FSGT Jessica Salih – The Aviator – A Story of Death Intertwined with Observations of Cultural Change
• 2nd LT Samuel Hatcher – Assistive AI

Category 4: Poems

• 1st SQNLDR Claire Pearson – Twitter Girl
• 2nd LEUT Sarah Lucinsky, RAN – Shinigami
• 3rd SQNLDR Claire Pearson – The Embed

Category 5: Graphic Novels

No entries were received for this category in 2021