The Chaser Report - Ben Roberts-Smith Finds a Leg to Stand On

Episode Date: June 5, 2023

Peta Credlin if you're reading this, you're welcome on the show anytime. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The Chaser Report is recorded on Gadigal Land. Striving for mediocrity in a world of excellence, this is the Chaser Report. Hello and welcome to The Chaser Report with Dom and Charles. Dom, you look upset. I am, I am. Charles, I feel terrible. I've done the wrong thing and so of you. Oh, what, really? We've got to correct the record.

We need to apologise. Oh, dear. This is a formal apology. Look, I know normally we're flipping about stuff, but we need to apologize to Ben Roberts. Smith, the murdering war criminal. You know that guy? Doesn't he need to apologize to, well, basically everyone? The Australian people and some, probably some widows. Yes. So did we get it wrong? Is he not a war criminal?

He's a lovely person who's in the wrong place at the wrong time, killing the wrong people for the wrong reasons. And I know this because I just read Peter Credlin's column in the Daily Telegraph. I'll explain more after this. So she says, look, I'm not going to, I'm not going to jump on board with this. It's more complicated. It's more morally complicated than thought, Charles. It's more morally complicated that very long trial that. Yeah, I don't think we should rush to judge.

That's the thing. We weren't there. We weren't there. Admittedly, the trial did speak to people who were there for 110 days. But we weren't there. And Peter Credlin makes the point that she went to Turin Cout four times. So she's been to Afghanistan. Oh, wow.

Okay. Yeah, admittedly, in the very safe bubble bit with Tony Abbott, presumably. Yeah, a bit of an expert. Yeah, she's an expert. Is that, was she there when Tony Abbott made that thing about shit happens? Oh, probably. When people die, when soldiers die, well, shit happens. Shit gets machine gun and then kicked off a cliff and then their prosthetic leg souvenirs as a drinking trophy.

So, I mean, she asks great questions, I'm quoting here. When does a beaten enemy go from being a combatant to a prisoner, Charles? That's such a hard line to know, Peter Cretton points out. Like they're a combatant when they're shooting at you, when you captured them and they're defenceless, does that make them a prisoner? Or does that make them someone you haven't killed yet? It's really hard to know.

Surely that's like one of the easiest lines to know. Like, especially if you're a soldier and you've got a whole lot of procedures about how to subdue your enemy. I mean, it's called the law of war, generally speaking. And I presume the training covers when you're allowed to shoot people. I would have thought that would be day one of the training. But I wasn't there, as Petty Credlin point. I don't know what it was like.

She says, look, you don't know what it's like being an SAS commando, and they're killing people, Charles, who would do us harm, who hate our values, that's what she says. But isn't the point that, yeah, that's right. But the whole point about a well-trained soldier is that they know when to start killing and also when to stop killing? Like, isn't that the whole point about this whole trial? I'm not sure that any of us, Peter Wright,

who have never been exposed to deadly combat, can fully grasp just to how psychologically fraught and morally deadening this can be. So she won't join the pylon, all these journalists, vindicated journalists, she points out, who've never risked a bullet for our country. Now, triumphantly describing him as a liar, a bully, and a murderer. Admittedly, the judge also described him as those things. But it's the journalos, she takes issue with Charles.

The journals have never taken a bullet for this country. Well, maybe, maybe I'm, that's very convincing, isn't it? It is. Yes. We weren't there. As someone who has been there four times, admittedly very briefly, in the safe space. Yeah.

And so I think I should take her word for it rather than all the witnesses against Ben Robert Smith, who were actually... In the SAS alongside him and appalled by his behaviour so much so that they broke the code to report it. Apparently he tried to intimidate them, by the way, into not giving evidence. This is another thing that's come out. So what I've decided to do, Charles, and I invite you and I invite Peter Credlin to join me in this.

I'm going to be going to Afghanistan. I'm going to be machine gunning, uh, defenseless and non-combatants. Oh, yes. And souveniring their... because I want to know if it's wrong. I can't possibly know. You can't know unless you've done it yourself. It's got to be a hail of bullets.

Yes. And so I think an elderly man, I don't know who I'm going to choose for this. A useless elderly man, possibly Tony Abbott. I've got to shoot someone to know whether it's wrong. I can't rely on... Well, you don't need to go to Afghanistan. Surely you can just go to Mossman or something.

I could go to Forestry. I'm not going to say that because the AFP will change. No, but Charles, how do we know if it was wrong? And how does the judge know? How does the judge know if it was right or on what basis does the judge say he was definitely responsible for those murders, well, at least on the balance of probabilities, and therefore a murder and a war criminal? Well, this sort of brings up the whole problem with our entire justice system, doesn't it?

Because if you follow Petty Cretton's logic, then, you know, how do you know whether stealing is bad unless you've stolen something? That's true. How do you know if... Genocide. Genocide. Genocide is bad unless you've done it yourself. She also points out, Charles, and this is very,

the fits of moral indignation are characteristic of these times. And the pariah status that we seem so happy to confer on people, she says, sometimes turns out to be undeserved. Can you think of some examples of people who've been made pariahs and it was undeserved? Because she can. Tony Abbott, for example. She cites Cardinal George Pell.

Oh, yes. Yeah. Team Pell. How does she know that Fiddling with boys is wrong, because he hasn't done it. Well, one assumes. One assumes. Whereas, you know, Cardinal George Pell, he was actually very well qualified to oversee the Melbourne response.

That's right. To into child pedophilia, because he himself had done it. And whether or not you think he did it, Charles, or merely covered up for many other priests who did it. Yes. You know, well, you haven't, you can't go against a cover up unless you've covered up something. Well, she did work with a PMO. She probably had a bit of experience with that. She also cites Bruce Lamon, who was on Channel 7.

She seems to be the only person who's on his side after his appearance on Channel 7. Channel 7 seems to be the place to go for cell phones, whether it's Ben Robert Smith, who's now resigned, by the way, is the manager of Channel 7 in Queensland. Or Bruce Lamon, who, I mean, I didn't watch the interview, but a lot of people who did seem to find him. They're not entirely convincing. Not a credible witness. No, more of a creduline witness than a credible witness.

Did they ask him why he gave three different responses and reasons for why he had left abruptly from Parliament House that night? It was the key question, wasn't it? Yeah, that was the key question. I know that he, I've seen this morning he's been quoted in the press as saying, well, the actual reason is because I got a whole of text messages from my girlfriend saying, where are you? Did they go into the question of why did he keep changing his story at the time?

Well, because here's the thing that Peter Credlin would say, you weren't there. And he was there and he doesn't know either. So sometimes, Charles, even when you were there, you don't know the reason. Yes, and, you know, like, who are we to comment? We've never changed our story three times, so we don't know what it's like, so we can't comment on it. I mean, Charles, the bit in the column that I found most convincing, right, and I'm quoting again here, what's happened to the old presumption that people are innocent until proven guilty?

I mean, that's about going through a court case, isn't it? Which just happened in the case of an argument. Or the understanding that only those without sin should be the first to cast a stone. And that's from the Bible. That's very impressive. And so I presume that given that she thinks that only people without sin can cast stones, Peter Credlin will immediately resign as a columnist for the Daily Telegraph and a commentator on Sky News on the basis that she's in no position to

criticise anybody else ever, which seems to be her job, Charles, which seems to be her job. Yes, look, I think that she needs to be immediately, like, she's clearly an idiot. I think she needs to be immediately made the new host of Q&A, don't you think? Well, I mean, she could be in the new host of Sunrise, but they've gone with Servo. Oh, really? Matt Shervington is a new host of Sunrise. So wait a minute, that's a bit humiliating for Carl Stefanovic if Matt Shervington's going and beat him in the ratings.

Oh, yeah. That would be embarrassing, wouldn't it? Well, I think that he's going to happen, isn't it? Well, unless this kills sunrise, just to move on to another subject. Yeah. But I mean, Charles, how can we know who the host should be unless we were in the room, except by having watched Chervo being fairly underwhelming on a whole range of TV shows? It's just very hard to judge, Charles.

It's hard to judge is what I've learned from Peter Cleveland. It's a valuable moral lesson. And again, I just think the entirety of Sky News should listen to what Peter says. She says, don't judge others unless she were there, even if you were. That means Rowan Dean might need to resign. Oh, shit, does this mean I can't judge Rowan Dean? Because that's my favourite thing to do. The Chaser Report, news you know you can't trust.

Well, no, no, but isn't the point that we don't have to follow what Peter Credlin's saying? Because for us to follow what Peter Credlin's saying, we would have to have been there when Predick Credlin was writing the column. That's true. But we weren't there. And so therefore we don't know what she said. Because even if we can read it, that we weren't there witnessing her writing it. And we don't know what it's like to have been Tony Abbott's chief of staff.

I mean, imagine what that would do to a person. No, exactly. I mean, yes, exactly. Like, that would be like being subjected to sort of war crime style things each day. Like contraventions of the Geneva Convention. And it would give you permanent PTSD, which is why she's ended up on Sky News. I mean, imagine having to go to work in any given day. And my heart goes out to Petty Kredland, right?

Yes. And having to deal with, look, the Prime Minister has just eaten a raw onion. We can't really spin this. I don't know what. The Prime Minister's just decided on Australia Day to give Prince Philip the Prince, like literally the husband of the Queen and knighthood. How do you go on after an experience like that? Yeah, he was a weird unit.

He was a weird unit. I guess the other thing is it's just making me think, actually, well, maybe we've got this all wrong. Just with Peter Credlin's thing of not judging. See, I detect Charles elsewhere in her column. She's judging the people who've criticised Ben Robert Smith. But she wasn't there when they're... She doesn't know what it's like to criticise Ben Robertson.

She doesn't know what it's like to say that guy's a fucking war criminal because she hasn't done it. How dare she judge Ben Robert Smith's critics, including the judge in this case? So in some ways, what we're saying, It's a sort of called for radical ignorance about everything. Yeah. It's sort of like the only people who are allowed to comment on anything ever

are the people who've personally done it and experienced it themselves. I mean, I was told, Charles, that the thing that made humans so special was that we could hear a story about something and gain the moral lessons from it. No. Without needing to experience it. But clearly that was wrong. No. I mean, Charles, in many ways, the heroes in this scenario, now that I think more about it,

are Ben Robert Smith's critics. Because you know what they've done, these journalists, the fellow essayist troops, they've criticised someone who machine guns people he doesn't like and throws them off a cliff. And if they've got prosthetic limbs, he drinks beer out of them.

That's very brave. Why aren't the critics of Ben Robert Smith not getting Victoria crosses? They've taken him on. He knows where they live, Charles. Well, this is my theory about why Kerry Stokes bankrolled the whole trial, right?

Which is... $25 million. Because it's come out that... Well, they're saying now, today, they're saying it might be as much as $40 million. Well, it could be double, yeah, because of the nine and the other newspaper's costs. So what happened was two years ago, nine wrote to Ben Robert Smith and his lawyers and said, we are offering to settle this case right here, right now, no expenses on either

side, just releases from liability, you know, for the comments that we've made. Just make it go away. That's right. I saw this. And there would be no trial. they're worried about the impact on the witnesses and on everybody involved having to have 110 days in court. And they said, look, the journalists, Nick McKenzie and Chris Masters, they're very keen

to go to trial. They've won every single stage up until now. The AFP are very clearly very happy that this civil trial is happening because it gives them a chance to sort of have a look at that before they launch any criminal proceedings. But we suggest that we're making this offer basically on commercial grounds, which is this is going to cost a stack ton of money and you're going to be liable for it at the end. And why don't we just call it quits now?

Because you're clearly going to lose. To which the Ben Robert Smith lawyers then wrote back two weeks later going, thank you for your very judgmental letter. And went, well, actually, Ben Robert Smith, is also very, very confident about this trial, and he assumes that his word will be taken as true, and therefore your clients don't have a leg to stand on, which is ironic.

There's one thing we weren't shot over in this trial, it was legs, spare legs. No, look, this is the unique folly of people who undertake defamation actions. I don't know. It seems as though, look, who can really know if someone, one really did a thing. But if there's a chance of the process making, like even if Ben Robert Smith had won this case, right? I don't think people were thinking terribly highly of it.

Like, just because of all the revelations that came out, it's a brutal process to go through any kind of defamation trial, which is why I implore, I implore Charles. Anyone who listen to this podcast or reads the chase in newspaper or the books or anything we do, don't sue us for defamation, you fucking idiots. It will blow up in your face. We will win. And even if we don't win, you'll still.

you'll lose. Yes. It's, you may as well cut off your own leg and replace it with a prosthesis. That's less painful

than going through a defamation trial. And anyway, you're not allowed to, but did you see this morning Channel 10 suing Petter Van Onsulam? I did see that.

Yeah. Another person we've known for a long time. We should get him on, we should get him on the podcast. PVO. If you're available, jump on.

I don't think we can afford to have Petty Van Insulin on the podcast. No. But I think, but I think, I think the point is that you can't sue us, you shouldn't sue us. And according to the Petticredelin logic, there's no possibility for you to sue us.

Or anybody. You weren't here when this was being recorded now. And we made all those terribly defamatory comments about you. That also makes me think, Charles, that I shouldn't judge. I shouldn't judge the editors at the telegraph and the Herald Sun and the people who run Sky News for the decision to hire Petticredlin. I shouldn't try and second guess what the fuck they were thinking. Yes, exactly.

Yes, you weren't there. I wasn't there. You're not allowed to comment. And if I was there, maybe I would have made the same brilliant decision. Our gear is from Road. We're part of the iconoclast network. Catch you next time.