Jim Molan

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 Bahasa Indonesia. 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; 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.

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 spend 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.

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. Major General Molan retired in July 2008.

Post-military

In August 2008 Molan released his first book, Running the War in Iraq. 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. 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 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. Molan has been an outspoken critic of the Labor's management of defence matters. Stephen Smith, at the time the Minister for Defence, described Molan as 'partisan' and a "Liberal Party activist". 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.

At the 2016 federal election, Molan was a Liberal party candidate for the NSW senate but in what former prime minister Tony Abbott called a "tragedy for our country and for our party", Molan failed to be elected.

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

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.