What chance for John and Mary citizen?

From "They don't follow orders.." in the Sydney Morning Herald, some comfort for those who have been sorely tested when trying to get information from Defence- they are not alone:

"The row (in Federal Parliament yesterday) surfaced after special forces soldiers returning from Afghanistan found themselves subject to debt recovery action by the Defence Department following overpayment of allowances. (Defence Minister) Fitzgibbon ordered Defence chiefs to fix the problem in October. They did not. Mr Fitzgibbon's problems were compounded when he could not tell Parliament yesterday how many soldiers and how much of their pay was affected - because Defence could not tell him. (Former Defence Minister Brendan) Nelson said his job as defence minister was the most challenging he had held, more difficult than being opposition leader, a job now held by Malcolm Turnbull who yesterday moved a censure motion against Mr Fitzgibbon. A key problem, Dr Nelson said, had been extracting accurate information from the insular and secretive defence machine."