🚨 EXCLUSIVE CHAT: Chris Masters (The Truth About Ben Roberts-Smith)

Journalist Chris Masters joins Jonesy & Amanda to chat about his new book, Flawed Hero: Truth, Lies and War Crimes.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Jersey and Amanda jam.

Speaker 2 (00:03):
Nation Victoria Cross recipient Ben Robert Smith was one of
the most highly decorated Australian soldiers. While he was being
celebrated in the public eye, rumors and allegations of war
crimes were being investigated in the background. Our next guest
heard the rumors before we did. Award winning journalist Chris
Masters was one of the first to start an investigation

(00:23):
into Robert Smith, and it's led to a new book
called Flawed Hero, Truth, Lies and War Crimes. To tell
us about that, Chris Masters, Hello.

Speaker 3 (00:32):
Hi there, Hey Chris. It's a hell of a book.
It's a brave undertaking.

Speaker 1 (00:37):
It took a long time. Yeah, I mean, obviously there
wouldn't be a book if we hadn't had the outcome
that we had. But before the book came one hundred
and ten days of court sittings and a judgment by
a seven hundred page judgment by Justice Pasanko. And I'm
really relieved enormously that his judgment on what occurred was

(01:02):
pretty much parallel with ours.

Speaker 2 (01:05):
When did you first start to hear rumors about Ben
Robert Smith and some of his behavior overseas?

Speaker 1 (01:13):
I embedded with special Forces. I'm the only journalists to
have ever done so with Australian Special Forces in twenty eleven,
I suppose I started hearing this. I know it. By
twenty twelve his name was coming up as a controversial figure,
not a war criminal. And look, you know, Amanda, I
didn't take that much notice of it, because, oddly enough,

(01:35):
even though Matship is supposedly such a profound force in
the Australian defense community, there's a lot of bitching too,
particularly in special forces. You know, they're the warrior elite
and they're the sort of the A graders, so they
tend to be very competitive. What I heard was that
Ben was a bully and not necessarily always a pleasant blow,

(02:00):
but that didn't mean that he was a war criminal.
And soldiers, specially special forces soldiers have to be tough,
have to be hard, have to be brutal to some degree.
So you know, that wasn't such a surprise. It really
wasn't until I got into an argument with him, if
you like, about an incident that occurred in two thousand

(02:21):
and six, only because I started to hear competing accounts
of the action that won him a medal for gallantry
and I had to put some questions to him, and
really it went from there.

Speaker 3 (02:35):
Wow, because most Australians and myself included, we interviewed Ben
Roberts Smith. I think at the time when he got
the Victoria Cross and we were just impressed with him.
It was almost like it's like Superman suddenly turning out
to me not such a superman.

Speaker 1 (02:51):
Yeah, well I was too jonesy, I thought, you know,
when I first met him, I remember, well I met
him a few times, but we had this interview that
went on for two and I made a note at
the time. For the first hour he reasoned, and for
the second hour he ranted. I mean he can put
on that statesman like visage where he gets the words right.

(03:13):
You know, he comes from an esteemed family, he went
to a private school. He had a serious job, you know,
he was the managing director of Channel seven in Queensland,
so he could put on an impressive face. He did
so in court as well. But after a while, it's
that thing about truth, you know, it's quite punishing and

(03:37):
after a while, if you kept hitting him with alternative facts,
then that facade started to weaken.

Speaker 2 (03:47):
What do you say, Christa, people who say we can
never understand what happens on the fields of war. It's
not our place to judge these actions and we should
leave well enough alone.

Speaker 1 (03:59):
Well in the the Second World War, when Japanese soldiers
were bayoneting our soldiers to death, our prisoners on the
Burma rail, we didn't think much of that. You know,
when sister Vivian Bullwinkle was machine gun to death by
the Japanese, we didn't think much of that. You know,
we fought against that kind of conduct. You know, we

(04:22):
condemned the Nazis for killing civilians, but why is it
differentive Australians to it. You know, that proposition that if
they're wearing an Australian uniform it's not a war crime
has never sat well with me. And look, it doesn't
really sit well with the image of the Australian soldier either.
I mean, the rules of war are pretty clear. You know,

(04:45):
you don't kill non combatants. Certainly it's a messy business
and certainly mistakes are made. But one of the things
we tried to make clear all the way through and
still having the argument to this day, is that the
matters that we dealt with were never fog of war.

(05:06):
Heed of the moment. Things they were we alleged outright
callous murders, and it wasn't just morally wrong, it was
strategically wrong. You know, whenever this sort of thing happened
in Afghanistan, it turned the local population against us.

Speaker 3 (05:22):
Ben Robert Smith has steadfastly denied this and said this
is what is all about war. So he's never going
to come around and say, oh, okay, you got me.

Speaker 1 (05:31):
No, he's not. No. And of course it is true
to say that this has not been demonstrated to a
criminal standard. This was a civil court action. It wasn't
so much about it wasn't a war crimes trial as
much as it was a trial, a defamation trial. It
was about whether we could truthfully support what we had asserted.

Speaker 3 (05:55):
And will this lead to further recriminations for Ben?

Speaker 1 (05:59):
Yes, I mean there's a long way to go. The
Office of the Special Investigator was set up after the
Breton Inquiry to look into not just allegations involving Ben
Robert Smith, but also other soldiers as well, and there's
a prosecution about to begin with one of those matters.
As far as Ben's concerned, there'll be an appeal process.

(06:23):
We presume. We don't know for sure whether he will appeal,
but we'll know within a week or so. And beyond
that there are prospective criminal charges.

Speaker 3 (06:33):
Well, if Ben Robert Smith was a good bloke, do
you think he would have gone away with this?

Speaker 1 (06:37):
That's a good question, you know. I think in a way,
there's a damn good chance he would have. I mean,
one of the reasons that those soldiers turned against him
was they didn't think he was a good bloke. They
were actually quite angry at the impact that Ben had
on so many of their brothers, you know, particularly the

(06:57):
younger ones. As one of them said to me, Look,
I don't mind him pushing a dirt farmer to his
knees and blowing his brains out if he does it himself,
but he was bullying other younger soldiers into doing it,
and it was their consciences that couldn't cope. Wow.

Speaker 3 (07:14):
Well, Chris, it's a fascinating read. Flawed Hero Truth, Lies
and War Crimes goes on sale from Wednesday at all
good bookstores. Chris Masters, thank you for joining us.

Speaker 1 (07:24):
Thank you