Queensland’s everywhere Leaders’ travel schedules provide the surest sign we’re in election mode, and as usual, all the action is in Queensland. Labor leader Anthony Albanese spent much of last week there, addressing the state ALP conference in Brisbane, announcing a new Senate candidate, and of course attending New South Wales’ barnstorming demolition of the Maroons in State of Origin Game 1.
It’s Albanese’s second trip to the sunshine state since last month’s budget, when he hopped on a plane right after his reply speech to announce a flurry of candidates in the coal seats where Labor were pummelled in 2019. Morrison’s also at it — in the weeks between the budget and his overseas trips, he did a whirlwind tour of marginal seats in Queensland, Victoria and Tasmania. It’s (nearly) on.
ScoMo leads from the front It was a triumphant weekend for Morrison at the G7, if the Australian media coverage is anything to go by. According to reports in News Corp and Nine papers, Morrison used his private address to warn G7 leaders about China’s list of 14 grievances against Australia. But South Korea’s Second Vice Foreign Minister Choi Jong-Moon said China didn’t come up in any meetings between the G7 and guest nations like Australia.
Meanwhile, the days of press packs travelling with the prime minister are over. There are just two journalists accompanying Morrison to Europe — Sky News’ Andrew Clennell and The Australian’s Geoff Chambers, with other outlets deterred by the prohibitive cost of flights and hotel quarantine.
Redacted For an agency meant to find out the secrets of others, you’d think that ASIO would be better at keeping its own. Australia’s domestic spy agency tabled a redacted document to NSW Parliament reporting on the use of assumed identities by ASIO employees during 2019-2020.
Except, their redaction didn’t quite stick. The scanning process left the text under the manual reduction visible to the naked eye. ASIO reported that zero staff had been given new identities in NSW. (Interestingly, the report shared the year before wasn’t redacted — an example of over-classification in action?). Maybe the extra $1.3 billion tossed to ASIO in May’s budget will help them upgrade their black textas to something that will actually work.
Big money at stake as BRS hearing goes on Week two of the 10-week Ben Roberts-Smith defamation hearing has begun quietly, with the parties going into closed court until about lunchtime while they argue about affidavits from his former wife, Emma Roberts.
It’s the start of another week of watching thousands of dollars quietly ticking over at the bar table. For the former soldier, the cost is immaterial; his legal fees are reportedly being picked up by his supporter and employer, Perth billionaire Kerry Stokes.
It’s been fascinating to witness the media management of the two-metre-tall man, with happy snaps appearing in News Corp papers on the weekend with the headline “Big Ben”. The photos show him walking around the harbourside restaurants at Sydney’s Barangaroo, enjoying the sunshine with girlfriend Sarah Matulin. In them, Roberts-Smith is wearing a black t-shirt with the design of a crucifix on the front. The semiotics of it is clear — this is a man who went to the heart of Islamic State to fight the infidels for God and Country.
This country’s most awarded soldier is suing three newspapers and three journalists for defamation, claiming that their stories falsely painted him as a war criminal and a murderer. Experts have described this as a “war crimes tribunal disguised as a defamation action”.
He is also suing over a separate allegation of domestic abuse against a woman with whom he was having an extramarital affair. The photos of him kissing and cuddling Matulin help to position him as a man who could not have possibly hit a woman.
In this trial, millions of dollars are at stake and Roberts-Smith is lucky to have Stokes’ bank balance behind him. The West Australian businessman is one of the trustees of the SAS Resources Fund, a charity set up to support the families of members of the SAS, the Australian Defence Force’s most elite unit, in the event of a tragedy. The fund is very well-resourced; the donors make up a who’s who of Perth’s business establishment, and include another Perth billionaire as a trustee — Andrew “Twiggy” Forrest. Recently, Perth’s other military-adjacent billionaire, Gina Rinehart, pledged $1.6 million to the fund.
Several representatives of the federal government are sitting in on this trial. Late last year Major-General Paul Brereton released the findings of a four-year inquiry; in his report he said that the circumstances of several killings, were they to be eventually accepted by a jury, would constitute the war crime of murder. Further action against these soldiers, who are not named in the report, is possible.
On the weekend, I went onto the public Facebook groups for Australian Defence Force veterans. In around the fund-raisers for mental health charities and obituaries, there were some mentions of Roberts-Smith and the current trial. Whenever it was raised in the group, the support for him was absolute. Among many veterans, there is a feeling that people who have not gone to war and been shot at by an enemy cannot possibly judge those men and women who have served.
Like so many issues in Australian society, the view of Roberts-Smith has become completely polarised, with the two sides of politics and media using him as a way of attacking the other side in an endless culture war.
The hearing continues.
Thank you for spotting at least one discrepancy in the Prime Minister’s account. I believe very little that he says because he is a liar. He has not boasted about his conversation with Biden so I am assuming things did not go very well. At a guess, Biden asked Johnson to join their conversation. The reason could have been that climate change is even more important than Covid and that Australia is expected to do a lot better, much, much better….. a conversation that the PM would prefer not to relate to reporters. Perhaps he was reminded that trade with Australia will be detrimentally affected if we don’t lift our game. Maybe Biden pointed out that our problems with the Chinese are nothing compared to what might be coming…..
$cotty leads from the front (hilarity ensued)…$cotty is not a leader. He’s just a Liberal.
Scumo couldn’t lead his dick to the dunny… poor fellow my country.
How disappointing that both the federal government and msm have politicised Major-General Paul Brereton’s findings. Serious accusations have been made and should be independently investigated without interference from Stokes, Costello, Morrison or Dutton. If or when a party is charged and convicted, they must face appropriate consequences/sentencing…again without interference from the above.
I agree with you absolutely
Biden and Boris made the PM look good, a PR coup. But he wasn’t there for his climate beliefs, more likely to front some CIA crew re China or else, the Biden thing as bait/cover. Ask yourself, why was he there at all? It bodes ill.
The veteran thing is not so simple, I believe. Sure, a veteran who has been shot at has a certain view about civilians and their opinions. But there are other things at play, one of which is ‘rules of engagement’. On the way to war, we were all given some sort of instructions about who to kill. My Dad was told to drop bombs on cities in France and Germany, to later be accused of war crimes, along with all the other lucky survivors of bomber command. I was told all people in my area of operation were enemy, to be shot as required. Now I see a new generation of soldiers in similar circumstances and with public opinion turned against them and with politicians and top generals disowning them, their creation. I know this: the guilty people are those who created the war in the first place, as well as those who later could have stopped it. The society behind it is also to blame, of course, which means all of us as a group, not individually, although special mention could be made of those who sway public opinion.
To put the soldiers, the instruments of this public effort, on some sort of trial for the faults of society is an act of cowardice. To take away their medals is revealing – society trying to make it not to have happened in some way? Trying to put the bullets back in the guns?
Consider that these soldiers are of our best people, and that they have ahead of them, most of them, a future dominated by PTSD, which adversely affects every aspect of their life. A cohort of outstanding quality, slowly turning into a bunch of disillusioned and incapacitated, sad old people. Not broken, but certainly broke. Been there, done that. Veterans are a family: brothers and sisters. Do we support each other? What do you think?
All military should be aware of the Geneva conventions and obey them. “You wouldn’t understand if you haven’t been there” doesn’t cut it, in a court of law or anywhere else. And nor does “I was only obeying orders” – I thought that had been sorted out at Nuremberg.
great comment
‘The society behind it’ was overwhelmingly against the Iraq war, more than 90% according to polls at the time, and there were big, big marches across cities and towns. As a society, we were never in favour of going to war in Iraq and Afghanistan. Lay the blame where it fits, John Howard, Tony Blair, George W.