 Rowell returned to Australia to become Director of Military Operations and Intelligence at Army Headquarters in Melbourne but in August 1938 he became staff officer to the Inspector General, Lieutenant General Ernest Squires, partly because Rowell was recognised as "one of the ablest of the early Duntroon graduates" but also because he had spent five of the previous thirteen years with the British Army or at British staff colleges.The government's decision to appoint a British officer to produce an authoritative report into the Army was widely seen as demonstrating the government's lack of confidence in its own officer corps.Squires' first recommendation was to restructure the military districts into four "commands".