{"id":598160,"date":"2026-04-10T16:01:11","date_gmt":"2026-04-10T16:01:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/598160\/"},"modified":"2026-04-10T16:01:11","modified_gmt":"2026-04-10T16:01:11","slug":"arrest-of-national-war-hero-ben-roberts-smith-cuts-deeply-to-core-of-australian-psyche-ben-roberts-smith","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/598160\/","title":{"rendered":"Arrest of national war hero Ben Roberts-Smith cuts deeply to core of Australian psyche | Ben Roberts-Smith"},"content":{"rendered":"

The former Australian prime minister, John Howard, this week described Victoria Cross recipient and accused war criminal Ben Roberts-Smith<\/a> as the \u201cmodern personification of the Anzac tradition\u201d.<\/p>\n

The broad-shouldered, blue-eyed Roberts-Smith was the hero of the battle of Tizak in Afghanistan<\/a>, for which his actions earned Australia\u2019s highest military honour.<\/p>\n

Roberts-Smith now sits on remand in Sydney\u2019s Silverwater prison, charged with five counts of committing \u201cwar crime \u2013 murder\u201d<\/a>. The charges relate to the deaths of five Afghan men between April 2009 and October 2012.<\/p>\n

He has yet to enter a plea and will likely face a bail hearing this month, with a trial to follow much later. He has always denied the allegations.<\/p>\n

A civil court has already found, in 2023, that on the \u201cbalance of probabilities\u201d Roberts-Smith had committed war crimes in Afghanistan, in a defamation case, brought by Roberts-Smith himself, that upheld the revelations of two investigative journalists from the Nine newspapers.<\/p>\n

Australian federal police arrest Ben Roberts-Smith in Sydney on Tuesday. Photograph: Australian Federal Police\/AFP\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

Still the arrest of a national war hero has cut deeply to core of the Australian psyche, in a country whose identity is often entwined with the exploits of young men on foreign fields.<\/p>\n

Reactions from politicians, community leaders and the broader public have been deeply divided, often down long-established cultural and political fault lines.<\/p>\n

Kerry Stokes, a billionaire former head of media company SevenWest, had bankrolled Roberts-Smith\u2019s unsuccessful defamation case. Stokes has not publicly commented on the former soldier\u2019s arrest. Australia\u2019s richest person, Gina Rinehart, said she \u201cdidn\u2019t understand\u201d<\/a> the rationale for charging Roberts-Smith and others who remain under investigation.<\/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 Rinehart said.<\/p>\n

Pauline Hanson, whose rightwing One Nation party is surging in the polls, said she would not \u201cabandon\u201d Roberts-Smith.<\/p>\n

\u201cI remain steadfast in my support of Ben Roberts-Smith despite news of his arrest today,\u201d the Queensland senator said.<\/p>\n

Two former conservative prime ministers \u2013 Howard and Tony Abbott \u2013 each released more measured statements. Abbott said his \u201cinstinctive sympathy\u201d remains with special forces soldiers from the Afghanistan campaign who \u201cfought bravely and well for a just cause\u201d and described the rules of engagement as \u201chighly restrictive\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s wrong to judge the actions of men in mortal combat by the standards of ordinary civilian life,\u201d Abbott said.<\/p>\n

Howard said the arrest would \u201ctug at the heartstrings\u201d of many, but that one of Australia\u2019s core values remained the rule of law.<\/p>\n

Anzac tradition a \u2018civil religion\u2019<\/p>\n

Ken Inglis, the late historian, described the Anzac legend as a \u201ccivil religion\u201d in Australia, such is its connection to the national story. The term \u2013 an abbreviation of the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps formed in 1914 \u2013 has become a shorthand for Australian forces in foreign conflict.<\/p>\n

Prof Marilyn Lake, a historian from the University of Melbourne, says she created significant controversy when she co-authored a 2010 book that challenged some of that myth making, \u201cWhat\u2019s Wrong with Anzac?\u201d<\/p>\n

double quotation markWhen it goes to a sense of identity or core beliefs people can get very emotionalDr Sebastian Svegaard<\/p>\n

\u201cI had people frequently accusing me of being a traitor,\u201d says Lake.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy feeling is that some of the heat has gone out of that particular worship of Anzac since then.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut more generally society and politics seem more polarised. Those who want to defend old Australian traditions, what better symbol than the Anzac tradition?<\/p>\n

\u201cIn some ways it\u2019s a form of identity politics, the identification with old Australia. In that sense the Anzac tradition works really well as a touchstone.\u201d<\/p>\n

Members of the defence force during the dawn service at the Shrine of Remembrance in Melbourne for Anzac Day. Photograph: AAP<\/p>\n

Dr Sebastian Svegaard, from the Digital Media Research Centre at the Queensland University of Technology, says the case has the potential, at least initially, to heighten existing cultural divisions.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen it goes to a sense of identity or core beliefs people can get very emotional,\u201d Svegaard said.<\/p>\n

\u201cFrom the point of view of someone who does believe Roberts-Smith is a hero, it might appear as if they\u2019re suddenly being told to change their opinion of not just him, but also of themselves or those beliefs.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat goes deeper than this being about whether a person has done something wrong.\u201d<\/p>\n

Support for Roberts-Smith has been particularly vocal from rightwing, nationalist and anti-immigration groups, including some far right figures such as Joel Davis, a former high-ranking member of the National Socialist Network.<\/p>\n

Not all conservatives have been so steadfast. Andrew Hastie, a prominent Liberal who has campaigned for lower immigration, was among the cohort of former SAS soldiers to testify about Roberts-Smith during the defamation hearing.<\/p>\n

He released a statement this week saying Roberts-Smith was entitled to the presumption of innocence but that \u201cnone of us are above the law\u201d<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Conservative commentator Andrew Bolt \u2013 one of the most influential voices in the Australian right \u2013 asked those \u201cangrily defending Ben Roberts-Smith\u201d<\/a> to consider the allegations, specifically, whether they think Australian soldiers should be allowed to shoot unarmed prisoners.<\/p>\n

\u201cAre you fine if our soldiers shoot prisoners in the back? Machine gun a one-legged man who\u2019d surrendered? Murder a handcuffed man already injured after being thrown off a cliff?\u201d<\/p>\n

The answer, at least from some, appears to be: yes.<\/p>\n

On Thursday the Australian flag society \u2013 a Christian nationalist group that has long campaigned for Roberts-Smith to be absolved \u2013 posted an image to its social media page depicting an Australian soldier, in the shadow of the national flag, kicking an Afghan man off a cliff.<\/p>\n

The group asked its supporters if they felt the image was \u201cacceptable as part of our campaign to save Ben Roberts-Smith from legal jeopardy\u201d. Some commenters said they found the image in bad taste. Several others approved.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t care what he did to save Australian lives,\u201d said one response.<\/p>\n

\u201cWar is war, kill or be killed,\u201d said another.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The former Australian prime minister, John Howard, this week described Victoria Cross recipient and accused war criminal Ben…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":598161,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[64,63,44],"class_list":["post-598160","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-australia","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/598160","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=598160"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/598160\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/598161"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=598160"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=598160"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=598160"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}