James Campbell: ‘Making excuses’ is an Aussie tradition but some things are indefensible

Making excuses for ‘our blokes’ is a fine Australian tradition, but defending the honour of our soldiers by treating murder as a matter for flippancy is insulting all of them, writes James Campbell.

A tough week for Ben Roberts-Smith fans it goes without saying.

Our defamation laws being what they are, most journalists I know thought Thursday’s Federal Court decision in Roberts-Smith v Fairfax Media Publications Pty Ltd was unlikely to go in the company’s favour.

It’s not right to say they are decided on the vibe of things but the vibe you get is the legal profession, from judges down, don’t like journalists.

But on Thursday Justice Anthony Besanko was saying in plain words that, on the balance of probabilities, the recipient of our highest award for valour was a murderer and a bully who had disgraced his country.

Actually, he didn’t quite say that, he said the newspapers “have established the substantial truth of imputations” that the above was true.

Ben Roberts-Smith outside the Federal Court of Australia in Sydney on June, 2021. Picture: Sam Mooy/Getty Images

Obviously, a disaster for Roberts-Smith himself but also a disaster for those who championed his cause.

In the four years since Fairfax first raised the allegations against him, I can’t remember the number of times I’ve heard people who should know better defend or seek to downplay the allegations. Initially the response, what we might call Defence No.1, was to claim the claims were untrue and would be found so when the matter got to court.

Then Chief of the Defence Force, Air Chief Marshal Angus Houston (left), salutes Australian Army Corporal Ben Roberts-Smith, VC, MG, during the Victoria Cross for Australia investiture ceremony at Campbell Barracks, Perth, on January 23, 2011. Picture: Department of Defence

One didn’t hear that argument so much once the trial began and the testimony began piling up.

That was fine for his supporters though because, by then, they had shifted to Defence No.2, which was to say: ‘Well these things happen in war, who are we who have never been near that stuff to judge him?’

Making excuses for “our blokes” is a fine Australian tradition.

Has any other country in the world ever had a hit film with a war criminal as the hero, as we did with Breaker Morant? The problem with Defence No.2, which essentially boils down to “they all do it”, was that the men making the accusations against Roberts-Smith were also in the SAS.

Corporal Ben Roberts-Smith (right) in action in Afghanistan. The men making the accusations against Roberts-Smith were also in the SAS.

Presumably because the law in its majesty does not permit “they all do it” to be run as an argument against murder, Roberts-Smith’s defence team could be forgiven for arguing instead that their man’s accusers were motivated by envy of a war hero.

But, given the trauma it must have caused them to go to all this trouble, it’s a feeble one to raise in private conversation when unencumbered by the same restrictions.

The next time you hear someone defending the honour of our soldiers by treating murder as a matter for flippancy, remember that in doing that they are insulting all of them.

Because at the centre of this case is a simple proposition, which is this: placed in a position that few of us can imagine, some men descended into barbarity while others kept their heads.

SAS Corporal Ben Roberts-Smith in action with the Australian Special Operations Task Group in Afghanistan.

Luckily most of us will never have to find out which side we would end up on if we found ourselves in the situation these SAS men did.

Since Oscar Wilde launched an action for criminal libel against the Marquess of Queensbery for accusing him of posing as a “sodomite”, it’s hard to think of a defamation trial that has ended as disastrously for the plaintiff.

Wilde’s ill-advised action ended up sending him to prison for two years.

Whether that fate awaits Roberts-Smith remains to be seen, of course.

In the meantime, it will be interesting to see how his supporters respond to their man’s fall.

Some will say they were wrong – but not many I fear.

Because, let’s face it, looking closely at what has happened here would take a moral courage that most of us don’t possess.

Originally published as James Campbell: ‘Making excuses’ is an Aussie tradition but some things are indefensible