This was published 3 years ago
‘I’m going to do everything I can to f---ing destroy them’: Secret Ben Roberts-Smith audio revealed
By Nick McKenzie, Joel Tozer and Chris Masters
Accused war criminal Ben Roberts-Smith has been caught on secretly recorded audio lauding his media mogul boss, Kerry Stokes, for financing his fight to “destroy” those in politics, the media and the SAS who have accused him of war crimes.
In the recordings, which were lawfully made, Mr Roberts-Smith, a senior executive of the Stokes-chaired Seven West Media, reveals his disdain for the business he helps run, his dislike of his fellow Seven executives and his incredulity that he is still running the company’s Queensland operations despite being at the centre of a war crimes scandal.
Media mogul Kerry Stokes is backing his executive, decorated former special forces soldier Ben Roberts-Smith.Credit:
“It’s bizarre. Other businesses would have just gone, ‘Mate, it’s not tenable’. I offered to resign at the start [of the war crimes scandal] and they said, ‘Nah’,” Mr Roberts-Smith says to an associate in one conversation.
The recordings capture multiple conversations between Mr Roberts-Smith and three other people. The conversations occurred at the time the inquiry of the military Inspector-General, Paul Brereton, was uncovering evidence from SAS whistleblowers that Mr Roberts-Smith was implicated in multiple unlawful executions while serving as an SAS soldier in Afghanistan between 2009 and 2012. That evidence prompted the Australian Federal Police to launch two ongoing taskforces in June 2018 targeting Mr Roberts-Smith.
The tapes cast fresh light on the extraordinary relationship Mr Stokes has maintained with Mr Roberts-Smith, while revealing the embattled war hero’s view that the billionaire is happy to run sections of his media empire at a loss in return for political power. Mr Roberts-Smith says the media is such “a powerful tool” that its owners say, “I’ll take that [financial] loss if it means I have political influence ... Politicians are scared of guys that own media networks.”
Encrypted communications
Mr Roberts-Smith describes how the influence of Mr Stokes, who is also the chairman of the Australian War Memorial, has forced those who supported scrutiny of the accused war criminal to back down.
“They seemed to have smelled blood in the water and thought, ‘Oh, Roberts-Smith is going down, we’ll f---ing chime in.’ I’m talking politicians and all kinds of people,” he says.
But after it became known Mr Stokes supported him, these same critics “are like, ‘Oh, thanks Kerry, glad you can help Ben out’. What the f--- is that? You wanted me to go down, you piece of shit.”
Mr Roberts-Smith also reveals how he talks to Mr Stokes on “encrypted” phone applications and “intelligence agencies cannot recover it”.
“So if I am talking to KMS for example – Kerry – we only talk on Telegram and then delete the messages after ... People use them so it can’t be intercepted,” he says.
There is no suggestion that Mr Stokes uses the applications to avoid interception by Australian authorities, but multiple sources told The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald that Mr Roberts-Smith has used such applications to avoid interception by the ongoing AFP inquiries.
‘I’m indebted to Kerry’
In the recordings, Mr Roberts-Smith makes multiple references to Mr Stokes’ support of his fight to contest war crimes allegations and those airing them.
“There’s no f---ing way I’d be able to keep paying what I’m paying for until Kerry got into it. That’s why now they’re shitting themselves because they realise he’s prepared to run his bank down to do it,” Mr Roberts-Smith is recorded saying.
”I probably won’t leave the fold now ... I think I’m indebted a little bit now to Kerry. Bottom line, I’d be f---ed without him ... we’ve certainly had those conversations already.”
Mr Stokes’ financial support allowed Mr Roberts-Smith to form an expensive legal and public relations team in 2018 to combat the allegations investigated by the military Inspector-General and detailed in media reporting in The Age and Herald. Mr Roberts-Smith is running a defamation case against the mastheads.
He said of Mr Stokes’ camp: “They are privy to everything that’s gone on in the courts, they know what is going on ... Put it this way, mate, Stokes isn’t an idiot. He’s not going to back someone …who’s a loser.”
Mr Roberts-Smith is scathing on the recordings about those he considers his enemies: “Now it is personal. Now I’m going to do everything I can to f---ing destroy them mate. Like everyone – and I’ll keep going – all those journalists. And that’s my sole f---ing mission in life.”
Dysfunctional and inept
Mr Roberts-Smith was hired to help run Seven West Media’s Queensland operations in 2014, after he discharged from the army having earned a Victoria Cross, Medal of Gallantry and Commendation for Distinguished Service as a special forces soldier in Afghanistan. But on the recordings, Mr Roberts-Smith describes Seven West Media as a dysfunctional business led by inept fellow executives.
“As a business person, or inside the business, you just sit there going, ‘What the f---?‘,” he tells one associate. “[Kerry Stokes’ son and Seven executive] Ryan Stokes put me on the strategy committee because no one knows how to f---ing plan in Sydney, which is actually true ... These are the people that are running this business, they don’t know how to plan ... There are some really good people that I’ve worked with. Just not many of them above me.”
He says on the tapes that his influence in the business is far too limited.
“If I was actually in charge ... like they f---ing pay me to do, then I would be able to actually do a job. But I’m not in charge,” he complains. “I’ll be frank with you … I don’t really like this industry, to be honest. I’m not, I don’t see myself staying in this job.”
Mr Roberts-Smith describes his fellow Seven employees as “smiling assassins” and says the TV network’s Queensland staff “have f---ing ... worn me down, and down and down to now I’m like, ‘you know what? F--- ’em’.”
He is particularly dismissive of human resources issues in the business.
“I hate this shit where people go, ‘Oh, you know, this person is a bully, this person is this, that person’s that and there’s sexual harassment’, and you throw these things out there.
“I go, ‘OK, that’s fine, but if we are going to do that then I want to know, dates, times, places. I want stat decs on the f---ing lot. I don’t want your f---ing opinion, I don’t want people’s bullshit rumours. If you say that to me again, make sure you come with the f---ing proof. Otherwise, it impacts on you’.”
Of Channel Seven’s high-profile hiring, sports presenter Mel McLaughlin, Mr Roberts-Smith says: “You know the worst thing? I just don’t think she’s that good looking.”