Latest news with #NickMcKenzie
The Guardian
23-05-2025
- Politics
- The Guardian
Court's nuanced analysis of Nick McKenzie's secret recording in Ben Roberts-Smith appeal a far cry from Sky News claims
When three judges dismissed Ben Roberts-Smith's appeal in his defamation case against Nine Newspapers last week, they made some insightful comments on journalism practices, in particular the delicate relationship between a reporter and a source. Dismissing Roberts-Smith's interlocutory application to reopen the appeal over a secret recording of the journalist Nick McKenzie and a source, the judges noted the 'very experienced investigative journalist' was 'accustomed to getting the most out of his sources'. It was a far cry from the way some media framed the recording two months earlier. 'Explosive confessions from star Nine reporter caught on secret tapes expose tricks against Ben Roberts-Smith war crimes trial', Sky News Australia said. The appeal judges said the 'unlawful' recording of a conversation between Australia's most celebrated journalist and a potential witness was part of a longer conversation and they could not be confident 'that the contents of the recording have not been doctored by removing sections or splicing together different parts of a recorded conversation'. They rejected an attack on McKenzie's credibility by Roberts-Smith's barrister Arthur Moses, saying they 'generally accept his evidence'. But it was their analysis of the nature of the conversation that demonstrated they understood the nuances of a journalist talking to a source. McKenzie was 'seeking to reassure an important potential witness' and had 'an incentive to exaggerate', they said. In the witness box the Age and Sydney Morning Herald journalist explained how in speaking to another source he gave an 'impression of excitement in order not to reveal that he already knew some of what he was being told', they said. 'This is a reason why the recording should be treated with caution in so far as it is relied on as an admission of wrongdoing or otherwise as evidence that Mr McKenzie really was receiving briefings on the appellant's 'legal strategy'.' McKenzie, who has won an incredible 16 Walkley awards, said it was a 'terrifying experience to be put before the full bench of the federal court'. But two days after the court published its reasons for rejecting a wider defamation appeal, McKenzie was back in print with an exclusive story about the ongoing investigation into war crimes. Next month Hachette Australia will release an updated edition of McKenzie's book Crossing the Line, including new material on the appeal and the emotional and professional toll of the case. SBS has leaned into its old reputation as the 'Sex Before Soccer' network with the release of a cheeky new campaign to celebrate its 50th birthday. With the tagline 'We Go There', the 60-second ad features a middle-aged man running naked through the SBS shows Alone, Insight, The Point and, of course, a football match (not that the network has the rights to many competitions these days). The film is 'so daring and so SBS, it can't be played anywhere but SBS', the network said. And that is exactly what happened this week when ABC's Gruen panellists analysed the ad. Although all the panellists praised its originality and ingenuity, the public broadcaster had to censor the full frontal nudity. Host Wil Anderson, who dubbed SBS 'Sweaty Ball Sack', said full frontal nudity was not allowed on Aunty. Editors put a sticker saying 'Too rude for the ABC' over the man's genitals as he ran across the pitch. David Crowe, the outgoing chief political correspondent for the Sydney Morning Herald and the Age, was farewelled at the National Press Club on Wednesday evening before heading off to London as Europe correspondent. Journalists and staffers particularly enjoyed two messages read out at the Canberra event: one from Labor minister Tanya Plibersek and one from the former prime minister, Malcolm Turnbull. Unsurprisingly, they both referred to Peter Dutton's infamous attack on 'Crowey', as he is affectionately known to all. In January 2024 the then opposition leader posted a tweet in response to news that Guardian Australia's then-political editor, Katharine Murphy, was joining Anthony Albanese's office. 'I am genuinely shocked to see Murpharoo take up a spot to now be officially running lines for Labor,' Dutton said on X. Sign up to Weekly Beast Amanda Meade's weekly diary on the latest in Australian media, free every Friday after newsletter promotion 'The real outrage is David Crowe missed out. What more must he do to prove his credentials to formally be employed by the Labor Party? #givecroweago.' The Canberra Times' political analyst Mark Kenny said it was 'not just churlish but clearly intimidatory'. Plibersek and Turnbull both said Crowe had the last laugh. His final column contained a critique of Dutton's disastrous media strategy. 'Thanks to the internet and the smartphone, the media is a landscape of earthquakes and eruptions – and Peter Dutton has shown everyone how to be engulfed in lava when you think you're at the top of the mountain,' he wrote. 'The former Liberal leader is a case study in what not to do.' Crowe has been replaced as chief political correspondent by Paul Sakkal, who was described internally by the executive editor of Nine's metro mastheads, Luke McIlveen, as 'one of the best news breakers in the gallery', which he joined in early 2023. Natassia Chrysanthos, who McIlveen said had a 'forensic eye for detail', has been appointed federal political correspondent. It's been a rapid rise for the two reporters, both 29, who began as trainees in 2018. Buried in the documents filed by Sky News Australia in defence of a defamation claim brought by the lawyer Adam Houda is a rare full disclosure of how many people watch The Bolt Report across all Sky platforms. Here is the rundown of Bolt's audience. For the 7pm broadcast on Foxtel on the night the allegedly defamatory comments were made (23 January 2024) there was an average audience of 57,000. For a rough comparison, Bolt is up against ABC News and Nine's A Current Affair in the 7pm time slot. Both free-to-air shows usually have up to 1 million viewers. On Sky News Regional, Bolt picked up another 43,900 and Sky News Now had 10,100 streams. On Foxtel's streaming platform the program had an average audience of 4,600 with 250 video-on-demand streams. On the Flash service there were 757 streams and an additional 48 on the Sky News website. The content was also published on Facebook and YouTube. After a complaint from Houda, the episode was removed from all platforms and an apology remains online, although it was not enough to stop the lawsuit. Sky News and Bolt are defending the defamation claim on the grounds of truth.
Yahoo
20-05-2025
- Yahoo
Sad but simple explanations in veteran's lost appeal
Fear of reprisal drove soldiers serving alongside disgraced veteran Ben Roberts-Smith to look the other way as he committed war crimes, appeal judges have found. The Federal Court on Tuesday published its reasons for dismissing Roberts-Smith's appeal against the finding he was responsible for the murder of four unarmed civilians in Afghanistan. The incidents, first reported by journalists Nick McKenzie and Chris Masters in Nine newspapers in 2018, sparked a years-long defamation fight. Justice Anthony Besanko in 2023 found the claims were substantially true. The court dismissed the Victoria Cross recipient's appeal against that finding on Friday, adding to a legal bill expected to run into the tens of millions of dollars. Roberts-Smith argued the judge erred in finding he killed a man with a prosthetic leg and ordered the execution of another, elderly man at a compound called Whiskey 108 in order to "blood the rookie". The judge failed to give weight to official records suggesting the pair were insurgents legitimately killed while fleeing the compound, or adequately deal with the improbability of a widespread conspiracy to conceal the truth when those records were made, the appeal argued. Rather than a widespread conspiracy, the court ruled there were other, simpler explanations. "It can be explained by the more pedestrian, if disappointing, path of widespread individual failure. "All the soldiers that knew or suspected looked the other way," Justices Nye Perram, Anna Katzmann and Geoffrey Kennett said in the published findings. Soldiers told the court they feared reprisal. "I was afraid what would possibly happen to me if I was seen to be the bloke who was speaking out about incidents and not playing the team game," one said. "The primary judge's conclusion that the soldiers had reasons not to speak out was, as His Honour correctly observed, part of the sad facts of the case," the appeal judges said. Roberts-Smith bringing the prosthetic leg back to Australia and encouraging other soldiers to drink beer out of it was also found to be substantially true by the primary judge and was among the findings for which appeals were dismissed. The appeal court found no errors in Justice Besanko's finding that Roberts-Smith had murdered a man named Ali Jan by kicking him off a cliff and ordering another soldier to shoot him. The September 11, 2012, incident in the Afghanistan village of Darwan was among other reported claims found to be substantially true that conveyed to readers that Roberts-Smith was a war criminal who had disgraced his country and its army. Similarly, no errors were found in a finding Roberts-Smith ordered another soldier, through an interpreter, to shoot a detained man in nearby Chinartu about a month later. An argument Justice Besanko failed to apply legal principles for determining truth was also rejected. The court ruled he had carefully and repeatedly adhered to them, discussing them at length in his reasoning. The trial judge was "acutely conscious of the seriousness of the findings", resisting some when nonetheless compelling evidence was insufficient, the appeal court said. He had also rejected evidence from Roberts-Smith and others as false. Two errors in the primary judge's reasoning were detected but ruled immaterial on the appeal. The trial ran for 110 days, stretched out over more than a year. More than a thousand documents were tendered and 44 witnesses were called. The appeal itself took 10 days, with numerous pre-trial and post-trial hearings, taking the case's total estimated bill north of $30 million. Roberts-Smith plans to appeal to the High Court. "I continue to maintain my innocence and deny these egregious, spiteful allegations," he wrote in a statement on Friday. Lifeline 13 11 14 Open Arms 1800 011 046
The Guardian
20-05-2025
- Politics
- The Guardian
Ben Roberts-Smith defamation appeal failed because ‘unlike most homicides, there were three eyewitnesses', judges explain
Ben Roberts-Smith acted with 'a certain recklessness or perhaps even brazenness' when he killed a man with a prosthetic leg in Afghanistan in full view of other soldiers by shooting him with a machine gun, the full bench of the federal court has found. 'The problem for [Roberts-Smith] is that, unlike most homicides, there were three eyewitnesses to this murder,' the judges wrote. The disgraced former soldier lost his appeal against a defamation case ruling last week, with three justices of the federal court agreeing that he was not defamed by Nine newspapers and journalists Nick McKenzie and Chris Masters when they published reports in 2018 which claimed he had committed war crimes. The decision of the court was handed down on Friday morning in Sydney, but reasons for the judgment were temporarily withheld to give the federal government time to ensure that no matters of national security had inadvertently been revealed in them. The open reasons were published on Tuesday. Roberts-Smith has always denied the allegations against him and indicated he would appeal the decision to the high court. In the open reasons, Justices Nye Perram, Anna Katzmann and Geoffrey Kennett examined the findings of Justice Anthony Besanko, who ruled in 2023 that Roberts-Smith had, on the balance of probabilities, committed war crimes while deployed in Afghanistan. Sign up for Guardian Australia's breaking news email 'We detect no error in his Honour's approach,' the justices wrote, in an analysis of Besanko's findings relating to one of the deaths at the heart of the case – the killing of an unarmed Afghan man who had a prosthetic leg. 'The eyewitness accounts provided cogent evidence that the appellant had machine gunned the man with the prosthetic leg … When all is said and done, it is a rare murder that is witnessed by three independent witnesses. The appellant's efforts to construct uncertainty out of inconsistencies in peripheral detail are unpersuasive.' The bench also dealt with Roberts-Smith's contention that Besanko had erred in his decision by reasoning 'in a fashion which had reversed the burden of proof'. 'There is nothing in this submission,' concluded the appeal judges, who added that some of the criticisms made of Besanko in Roberts-Smith's appeal submission were 'both unfair and unfounded'. Sign up to Breaking News Australia Get the most important news as it breaks after newsletter promotion The decision of the full bench of the federal court affirms as substantially true claims made in news reports by McKenzie and Masters in 2018 that Roberts-Smith was responsible for the murder of four unarmed civilians when deployed in Afghanistan. The bench backed Besanko's reasoning, calling it a 'long, careful and clear judgment'. 'We are satisfied that his Honour's conclusions with respect to the substantial truth of the relevant imputations conveyed by the respondents' articles were correct. Consequently, the appeals must be dismissed.' The bench ordered Roberts-Smith to pay costs, which the Sydney Morning Herald has estimated to exceed $40m.
ABC News
19-05-2025
- Politics
- ABC News
Defamation discharge
HUGH RIMINTON: Another huge day in court, another crippling blow for our most decorated living war hero … his appeal dismissed. More costs to pay to the Nine Media Group. 10 News First (Sydney), 16 May 2025 Hello welcome to Media Watch I'm Linton Besser. And we turn tonight to a landmark moment in the battle between Australia's most decorated soldier and its most decorated journalist, with former SAS corporal Ben Roberts-Smith suffering a grave defeat and The Age's Nick McKenzie celebrating an historic win: NICK MCKENZIE: To have our journalism scrutinised fully, thoroughly, to have the testimony of our witnesses, those brave SASR soldiers, scrutinised yet again, and yet again, the finding is utterly compelling. Ben Roberts-Smith did do these things. Ben Roberts-Smith is a war criminal. 9News Afternoon (Sydney), 16 May 2025 It's now been seven years since McKenzie first published allegations that the Victoria Cross recipient had killed or was complicit in the killing of four prisoners while serving in Afghanistan Two years ago, Roberts-Smith failed in an attempt to sue for defamation. He appealed that decision and on Friday the Full Court of the Federal Court delivered its verdict: 'Having carefully considered all these matters we are unanimously of the opinion that the evidence was sufficiently cogent to support the findings that the appellant murdered four Afghan men ' 9News (Sydney), 16 May 2025 The court's complete judgement will not be released until tomorrow to allow the government to vet it for any security concerns, but it has delivered its full verdict on Ben Roberts-Smith's sensational last-minute allegation of a conspiracy, in which Nick McKenzie had exploited improper access to the ex-soldier's legally privileged material. And the central evidence for this claim? An 85-second snippet of a telephone call between McKenzie and one of Nine's witnesses in the case a woman known only as Person 17 in which he tells her he has sources who are: NICK MCKENZIE: actively, like briefing us on his legal strategy, in respect of you. Sharri, Sky News Australia, 24 March 2025 On the tape McKenzie also said: NICK MCKENZIE: I shouldn't tell you. I've just breached my f***ing ethics in doing that, like this is where like, this has put me in a s**t position now Sharri, Sky News Australia, 24 March 2025 For Roberts-Smith, a smoking gun-hard evidence McKenzie had engaged in 'wilful misconduct" by unlawfully accessing privileged legal material. On Friday however, three eminent justices said it was nothing of the sort, rather the recording was ambiguous unreliable and crucially: There is no way of knowing how long the whole conversation was and what topics were being discussed before and after this decontextualised snippet. Nor can one be confident that the contents of the recording have not been doctored Federal Court of Australia, Roberts-Smith v Fairfax Publications Pty Limited (Reopening Application) [2025], 16 May 2025 In contrast to Roberts-Smith's attack on McKenzie's conduct, Friday's ruling found the reporter to be a witness of credit and that his desire to reassure a sensitive witness and his apparently incriminating words on the tape: … indicates that he had an incentive to exaggerate He may also have had an incentive to try to earn Person 17's trust by suggesting that he was taking her into his confidence and risking his own position. Federal Court of Australia, Roberts-Smith v Fairfax Publications Pty Limited (Reopening Application) [2025], 16 May 2025 And as for the mystery of who was behind the recording? … we accepted that on the balance of probabilities it was established that Person 17 made the recording and at some point communicated it to at least one other person. Federal Court of Australia, Roberts-Smith v Fairfax Publications Pty Limited (Reopening Application) [2025], 16 May 2025 The court did not make a finding as to who sent the recording to Roberts-Smith's lawyers, a potential criminal act, and it certainly made no suggestion that it was Person 17, but it did raise the possibility that whomever did so might have desired harm to come to Nick McKenzie. If so, they certainly hit their mark: WAR CRIMES SHOCK EXPLOSIVE SECRET RECORDINGS The West Australian. 25 March 2025 'UNETHICAL' JOURNO IN THE LINE OF FIRE The West Australian, 26 March 2025 'BREAK LAW' TO GET A STORY The West Australian, 2 May, 2025 Published by The West Australian these articles failed to acknowledge the paper's proprietor Kerry Stokes, who had helped to fund Ben Roberts-Smith's case, had a pecuniary interest in blowing up Nine's defence. Not least because the total court costs are estimated to have run to almost $30 million. Stokes' television arm also papped Nine chairwoman Catherine West … REPORTER: Catherine why are you avoiding us? Seven News (Sydney), 7 May 2025 … after damaging allegations Nine had agreed a secret deal with Person 17 buying her silence for $700,000: REPORTER: Did you sign off on the $700,000 hush money payment? Seven News (Sydney), 7 May 2025 … which Roberts-Smith claimed on Friday had prevented Person 17 from giving: … direct evidence of Mr McKenzie's use of my privileged material during the trial. Statement of Ben Roberts-Smith VC, MG, 16 May 2025 Ben Roberts-Smith says he will continue the fight and on Friday pledged to take his case to the High Court, but the fact this story and the events surrounding it have twice withstood such exacting and forensic scrutiny, endorsed by no less than the full Federal Court, is a resounding vindication not just of those whistleblowers in uniform who exposed the monstrous acts of Australia's most famous soldier but also for the great and necessary enterprise of investigative reporting.
The Guardian
19-05-2025
- Politics
- The Guardian
Gina Rinehart criticises ‘relentless attack' on Ben Roberts-Smith and media ‘gloating'
Gina Rinehart has criticised an unfair and 'relentless attack' on the former SAS soldier Ben Roberts-Smith and argued that it has weakened the nation and a defence force 'already struggling with inadequate numbers to defend us'. Australia's richest person, who has donated to a fund designed to support the legal costs of former SAS soldiers, has declined to say whether she personally funded Roberts-Smith's legal costs. On Friday the former soldier lost his appeal against a defamation case ruling, with three justices of the federal court agreeing he was not defamed by Nine newspapers and the journalists Nick McKenzie and Chris Masters when they published reports in 2018 which claimed he had committed war crimes. He has always denied the allegations. The decision handed down on Friday morning in Sydney marked a key moment in a marathon legal battle that has spanned seven years. It upheld the decision of Justice Anthony Besanko, who found in 2023 that Roberts-Smith had, on the balance of probabilities, committed war crimes while deployed in Afghanistan. Sign up for Guardian Australia's breaking news email In response to media commentary about the case, Rinehart told the Sunday Times: 'The relentless attack on Ben Roberts-Smith hasn't made the country better, as some journalists like to imply, it's just weakened our Defence Force already struggling with inadequate numbers to defend us. 'Many patriotic Australians query, is it fair that this brave and patriotic man who risked his life on overseas missions which he was sent on by our government, is under such attack.' Rinehart has also told the Nightly the court's decision 'seems to be taken by some in the Channel 9 group as something they can gloat about'. In an editorial published on Saturday, the Sydney Morning Herald said 'our journalism, led by McKenzie and Masters, has withstood the most severe scrutiny'. 'While this verdict should draw a line in the sand on years of litigation, it must not be the end to a much-needed focus on Australia's conduct abroad,' the editorial said. Rinehart in 2021 donated a reported $1m of her own money and a further $610,000 from her companies towards the legal defence of former special forces personnel through the SAS Resources Fund, which has previously listed Roberts-Smith as a donor and ambassador. Hancock Prospecting donated to the fund in the wake of 'left media' criticism of defence personnel after the public release of parts of the Brereton report in 2020, according to an online statement. Sign up to Breaking News Australia Get the most important news as it breaks after newsletter promotion 'The HPPL Group was keen to provide support following the whistle-blowers and then Government's unfortunate [publication] decision … throwing our defence personnel without fair trial to the left media,' the statement reads. 'The [resulting] loss of life has been far greater since the enquiry, than the Australian Defence lives lost in active service in Afghanistan.' Rinehart's company websites advertise a further 'seven-figure' donation to another special forces fund, the Commando Welfare Trust, as well as her donations to veteran housing projects. The decision of the full bench of the federal court affirms that claims made in news reports by McKenzie and Masters in 2018 that Roberts-Smith was responsible for the murder of four unarmed civilians when deployed in Afghanistan were substantially true. Roberts-Smith, 46, is one of Australia's most decorated soldiers. He was awarded Australia's highest military honour, the Victoria Cross, in 2011, for single-handedly taking out machine-gun posts to protect pinned-down colleagues in Afghanistan.
