{"id":592754,"date":"2026-04-08T05:15:08","date_gmt":"2026-04-08T05:15:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/592754\/"},"modified":"2026-04-08T05:15:08","modified_gmt":"2026-04-08T05:15:08","slug":"billionaire-gina-rinehart-says-i-dont-understand-arrest-of-ben-roberts-smith-over-alleged-war-crimes-ben-roberts-smith","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/592754\/","title":{"rendered":"Billionaire Gina Rinehart says \u2018I don\u2019t understand\u2019 arrest of Ben Roberts-Smith over alleged war crimes | Ben Roberts-Smith"},"content":{"rendered":"

Australia\u2019s richest person, Gina Rinehart, says \u201cI don\u2019t understand\u201d the justification for prosecuting Ben Roberts-Smith<\/a> for alleged war crimes, as pockets of high-profile support emerge for the Victoria Cross recipient.<\/p>\n

Roberts-Smith was arrested in Sydney on Tuesday and charged with five counts of \u201cwar crime \u2013 murder\u201d in relation to alleged offences in Afghanistan between April 2009 and October 2012. He is yet to enter a plea but is expected to defend the charges.<\/p>\n

The arrest sparked a flurry of commentary split along political lines, with conservative and rightwing figures \u2013 including a former prime minister \u2013 voicing support for Australia\u2019s most decorated living solider<\/a>. A three-year-old petition asking for a pardon for Roberts-Smith garnered thousands of new signatures on Tuesday and Wednesday.<\/p>\n

Rinehart, a mining billionaire, issued her own statement in which she maintained her support for the SAS veteran.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t understand how it can be justified to spend more than $300 million to try for years to bring SAS veterans, who have served our country, towards criminal proceedings, and most recently the arrest of Ben,\u201d Rinehart said.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs the recently passed, Brigadier George Mansford succinctly stated, \u2018The oath to serve your country did not include a contract for the normal luxuries and comforts enjoyed within our society. On the contrary, it implied hardship, loyalty and devotion to duty\u2019.<\/p>\n

\u201cHave we lost sight of the fact that in our inadequately defended country, facing uncertain times, the morale of our defence force has already been brought to its lowest ebb since inception, our defence personnel numbers are inadequate, and recruitment is suffering.<\/p>\n

\u201cLike many Australians, I hope that compassion and the Aussie spirit is extended to Ben and his family and his duty to our country in the hardship of war is never forgotten.\u201d<\/p>\n

Responding to a post in support of Roberts-Smith on X, the social platform\u2019s owner, billionaire Elon Musk, replied: \u201cThis sounds insane.\u201d<\/p>\n

The former Australian prime minister Tony Abbott<\/a> also released a statement that said his \u201cinstinctive sympathy\u201d remains with special forces soldiers from the Afghanistan campaign who \u201cfought bravely and well for a just cause\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cI am very sorry that some of them have been subjected to a form of persecution by the country they served.\u201d<\/p>\n

He said they often fought under \u201chighly restrictive rules of engagement\u201d, and that \u201cit\u2019s wrong to judge the actions of men in mortal combat by the standards of ordinary civilian life\u201d.<\/p>\n

The opposition leader, Angus Taylor, would not comment directly on Roberts-Smith\u2019s arrest on Tuesday, but emphasised support for defence personnel and veterans. <\/p>\n

But some of his Coalition colleagues have gone further. The shadow veterans\u2019 affairs minister, Michael McCormack, suggested the soldier was the victim of a smear campaign. <\/p>\n

\u201cFor the record, alleged war crimes must be accounted for \u2026 but the persecution of one of Australia\u2019s most decorated soldiers \u2013 years after his tours of duty in one of the most testing wars against some of the most ruthless enemies our brave Diggers have ever encountered \u2013 must be taken for what it is \u2026 a campaign to smear someone from people whom would never step up if our country was in peril,\u201d he posted on Facebook. <\/p>\n

The shadow defence personnel minister and veteran, Phillip Thompson, said there should be accountability for actions in war but claimed it was wrong to \u201cassess split-second decisions made in combat as though they were made in ordinary civilian life\u201d.<\/p>\n

The National party leader, Matt Canavan, on Wednesday said: \u201cI feel very uncomfortable passing any judgment on someone that put their life on the line for our country.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cClearly, though, we\u2019re a country of high standards and they must be applied,\u201d Canavan told the ABC\u2019s Radio National.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m not exactly sure about the wisdom of subjecting military personnel to a civilian court process.\u201d<\/p>\n

Much of the support for Roberts-Smith has emerged along existing cultural fault lines, particularly among prominent Christian nationalists and other rightwing groups. International commentators, particularly in the US, have also weighed in on the case.<\/p>\n

Support for veterans and their families is available 24 hours a day from Open Arms<\/a> on 1800 011 046 and Safe Zone Support<\/a> on 1800 142 072. Hayat Line<\/a> is a free and confidential crisis support line for Muslims on 1300 993 398<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Australia\u2019s richest person, Gina Rinehart, says \u201cI don\u2019t understand\u201d the justification for prosecuting Ben Roberts-Smith for alleged war…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":592755,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[64,63,128,285],"class_list":{"0":"post-592754","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-space","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-science","11":"tag-space"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/592754","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=592754"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/592754\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/592755"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=592754"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=592754"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=592754"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}