/qresearch/ -  Q Research

>>25159813

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Bear said she had known Jefferies, a husband and father of three young children, for years.

“We’re very close to them, so I can wholeheartedly say he’s a selfless man. I’m not surprised that he stepped in and tried to do the right thing,” Bear said.

“He’s a young dad of three kids and has a wife at home, so anything terrible could have happened.”

A vase of flowers rested on the table out the front of Jefferies’ barbershop on Tuesday morning, matching the floral tribute at Haines’ office.

Underneath the vase was a handwritten note for Jefferies: “I hope you are OK. We pray for you. Nev and Donna.”

Jefferies was joined by several other locals shortly after, including Cody Lepoidevin. The 20-year-old was working across the street when he heard jolts and screams.

He said initially it looked like an accident, but then he saw the car drive forward again “at least three times”.

“We thought he was trying to run away, but he then reversed and drove back into her another three times before trying to flee,” Lepoidevin told reporters.

“I was there to restrain him [Nugent] against the wall, but yeah, more or less they got him out of the car. He was quite delirious … from there on, it was pretty much just blur. We did what we could.”

Nugent is expected to be interviewed by police later on Tuesday.

Victoria Police Chief Commissioner Mike Bush joined the chorus of praise for Jefferies, Lepoidevin and the others who intervened.

“They put their own lives in jeopardy to get in front of what was occurring,” Bush said at a press conference on Tuesday. “I’d also like to acknowledge our staff that were on the scene actually within eight seconds.”

As Wangaratta continues to comprehend the terrible incident that has put it on the national stage, the locals’ actions have shown what the town is all about, according to Mayor Irene Grant.

“That’s the sort of thing that I think we are known for, our community,” she said.

“We volunteer, we step up, we support each other, and never more so than in a situation like this, people do rally, and I think that will be what will happen as the days unfold.”

https://www.theage.com.au/national/victoria/the-split-second-decision-that-put-a-dad-in-danger-to-save-helen-haines-20261020-p616x7.html

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1un1efY2fnE

>>25159821

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In a reply to a post by Senator Wong condemning the killing of Australian aid worker Zomi Frankcom, who died when an aid convoy in which she was travelling in was hit by an Israel Defence Forces drone in April 2024, the account wrote: “what an insult to this womans life”.

The account had also solicited donations for people in Gaza.

In another post the account wrote the former female US Secretary of States were each “mass murderers of innocent civilians”.

“The Biden administration’s “no daylight,” unconditional support for Israel has provided so much leeway that Tel Aviv has no way of climbing down from its stated war objectives, despite having achieved none’,” he said in one post.

“Help the children of Gaza,” he stated in another post on August 25, 2024.

In May he wrote: ”You have not been clear on anything other than giving israel impunity to kill thousands of children”.

In May 2023 he replied to prime minister Albanese, saying: “what a pathetic year from a so called labor gov”.

A year earlier he posted in a now deleted post by the US ambassador to the UN questioning whether the US was “trying to provoke the first war between nuclear armed nations”.

Analysis of his posts show that his posts pre 2023 were about native forest logging and other environmental concerns.

He also replied to Canadian PM Justin Trudeau in May 2022 asking how he and Albanese were both “going to tackle climate change while increasing fossil fuel production?”.

Earlier this year he posted a link to a YouTube video by far right commentator Candace Owens making claims about conspiracies surrounding Jeffrey Epstein’s network and Charlie Kirk, titled “Did Epstein’s Network Reemerge In Charlie Kirk’s World”.

Before October 7 his posts were predominantly standard environmental activism featuring native forest logging specifically in Victoria, carbon accounting/forestry emissions, deforestation, climate policy and biodiversity.

He would often be critical of government and industry policy.

The account recently posted about “satanic child sexual abuse material network” and the late American financier Jeffrey Epstein.

The account in 2018 posted a photograph of the 1997 Toyota LandCruiser bearing the same number plate as the vehicle allegedly used in the attack.

In 2022, the X account launches into a rant about the NDIS and what he claims is his own disability.

“You need to understand

- NDIS has huge gaps

- DSP is not enough for many ppl w/o NDIS

- not all ppl w disability are on the DSP etc.”

Another post states:

“I’ve had plenty of time living with a significant disability, in a lot of chronic pain and also having to cook on a fire and wash my clothes in the river. without many houses available, and no houses available for ppl like us, where do you think we have been forced to live.”

On June 1, 2022, Mr Nugents posts:

“You really have no idea, do you. I have a masters degree, H1 average, still can get the basic assistance I need to work. Tried many times. Disability pension not enough to manage it so I’m constantly broke…”

(continued)

>>25159822

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Victorian Police have confirmed the man was known to them, but was not on their radar recently as they continue to probe if this was a “deliberate” attack.

Dr Haines was left critically injured after she was struck by a vehicle outside her electorate office in Wangaratta in what is being treated as one of the gravest attacks on a sitting parliamentarian in recent decades.

Police arrested the man at the scene shortly after the incident on Murphy Street, where a fast-acting bystander restrained him until officers arrived.

Victoria Police confirmed that police also located and a allegedly seized a knife inside the white Toyota LandCruiser as evidence.

Mr Nugent, 43, is understood to be from the small community of Tarrawingee, about 12km east of Wangaratta, within Dr Haines’s federal electorate of Indi.

Police on Tuesday were at a rural property on Great Alpine Road, Tarrawingee. It’s understood Nugent had resided at the address.

Social media material reviewed by The Australian shows the man had been involved in environmental campaigning in the Strathbogie region, including opposition to logging and planned burning.

He describes himself on X as a “plant person”.

In a November 2019 post, he said:

“Shut down the forestry industry” lol. Again you confirm you have absolutely no idea about Victorian forestry. Native forest logging employment 1 in 40 Victorian forestry jobs and they have a funde transition plan. How’s that “no old growth logging anyway” bs going Steph??”

The X posts in 2019 were more focused on environmental issues. On September 8, 2019, the account poste: “Pollution from coal fired power plants kills over 4,000 Australian every year so please spare me your absurd hypocrisy as the leader of a pro-coal-at-any-cost party pretending to be concerned about the damage coal does to people and our planet.”

And a few days earlier, the account posted: “This is why tree “targets” rather than ha planted is an extremely misleading metric.”

In March 2018, before his social media posts took a dark turn, Mr Nugent was quoted on the Friends Of The Earth Melbourne website, saying:

“This time last year communities around the Strathbogie Ranges in North East Victoria had done everything they legally could to prevent the logging of Parlours Creek coupe.”

“They had many meetings with state owned logging company VicForests, DELWP, and a raft of politicians. They were told there was nothing they could do to stop the destruction of their forests”.

The internet also lists a “Victorian forestry factsheet” detailing employment, economics and water issues relating to the industry that was “prepared by Brendan Nugent”. The post said he holds a master of “Forest Ecosystem Science, The University of Melbourne, Creswick Campus (Victorian School of Forestry)”. The university would not confirm or deny that Mr Nugent had a degree, citing privacy reasons.

https://www.theaustralian.com.au/nation/plant-person-and-progaza-radical-brendan-nugent-arrested-over-helen-haines-attack/news-story/ebb5bc0ac7dce7821d17f86b4945ea15

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JvM4SVPIvx4

>>25159764

Police are stretched trying to stop hundreds of other attacks on MPs and councillors every single day

GEOFF CHAMBERS - 19 October 2026

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The Australian Federal Police personal protection unit is under unprecedented pressure, with officers privately concerned that security gaps will be exposed by the speed, scale and complexity of threats and acts of violence targeting parliamentarians.

Federal and state officers have made dozens of arrests and laid charges against mainly male offenders targeting politicians across the spectrum, as they work to protect officials against conspiracy theorists, right and left-wing extremists, religiously motivated individuals, people suffering mental health conditions and others caught in family court matters who shift blame on to MPs.

The volume of death, physical, sexual, kidnap and extortion threats against MPs, other elected officials and family members has exploded since the pandemic, with federal and state police now providing rolling briefs for parliamentarians on the dangers they detect and responding to more than 4000 complaints in the past few years.

Coalition and Labor MPs were in shock on Monday night because Helen Haines is considered one of the most inoffensive, pleasant and community-minded MPs in the parliament.

The fact the attack happened in Wangaratta, the regional Victorian town close to where Dezi Freeman resided, will raise existing fears that parliamentarians based outside the big capital cities could be more exposed to lone-wolf acts of violence.

The Australian understands the Victorian Joint Counter Terrorism Team, comprising officers from Victoria Police, the AFP and ASIO, were on the scene outside Haines’ electorate office soon after the white Toyota LandCruiser struck the Indi MP.

The 43-year-old Tarrawingee man was understood to be known to the AFP and ASIO. He is one of hundreds of extremists and radicals on the radar of the AFP, ASIO and state police. The challenge for security agencies is balancing already thin resources to protect councillors, state MPs, federal parliamentarians, judges and other public officials from harm. Many threats are not followed through. But all threats must be taken seriously.

Threats against One Nation leader Pauline Hanson are constant and serious. Female MPs and senators are often targeted more aggressively.

Anthony Albanese, cabinet ministers, Coalition and One Nation MPs have been subjected to constant threats, with electorate offices often targeted, sometimes on multiple occasions. That has forced some MPs, including the Prime Minister, to move their electorate offices.

The location of electorate offices is vetted by security agencies to ensure adequate security measures are in place. Parliamentarians supported by the AFP Close Personal Protection unit must provide their daily itineraries ahead of time. In addition to the work of the AFP, the Department of Home Affairs coordinates physical security arrangements for the homes and electorate offices of high-office holders, MPs and senators. Staff at electorate officers are regularly exposed to abuse, including bomb threats.

(continued)

>>25159827

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Former opposition leader Peter Dutton, who as home affairs minister deported bikies, drug dealers and people-smugglers, was the subject of dozens of threats and required 24/7 CPP surveillance.

Josh Frydenberg, Australia’s most senior-ranking Jewish politician in history, was also targeted. Senior Liberal frontbencher Andrew Hastie has been forced to increase his security in response to threats. Lidia Thorpe has also been subjected to threats.

After multiple fatal and near-fatal attacks on politicians in the UK, Japan and the US, AFP and ASIO chiefs have made it clear that Australia was not immune from similar serious incidents.

The assassination of Japan’s longest-serving prime minister, Shinzo Abe, murders of British MPs Sir David Amess, Jo Cox and Ann Widdecombe, and attempted assassinations and serious assaults targeting US politicians have sparked concern among international law enforcement agencies about personal safety risks faced by elected officials.

Globally, there have been dozens of fatal and serious attacks on elected officials.

In Australia, many threats against parliamentarians are linked with individuals with deep distrust of traditional institutions who have aligned themselves with violent conspiracy groups. Social media has become a weapon used by extremists to threaten and intimidate others.

Senior AFP officers often speak about how a threat towards a parliamentarian that reaches a criminal threshold is not just an attack on a member of parliament but an attack on democracy itself.

The AFP is concerned about a high-risk and febrile environment that has seen an explosion in violent threats being levelled at MPs, senators, their children and partners, and staff, via mail, phone calls, emails, social media and in person. AFP and state police investigators are using considerable resources to identify those using pseudonyms online.

A key message that will be repeated in coming days will be that the premise of free speech does not extend to actions or commentary that incite violence.

https://www.theaustralian.com.au/nation/politics/cops-fight-rising-tide-of-violent-threats-against-politicians/news-story/8f63eca983ccda9ade4a44de6bea0eb0

>>25159764

Analysis: Helen Haines attack must be a turning point for Australia

James Massola - October 19, 2026

For years, we’ve received warnings that Australia is not immune to the phenomenon of political violence that is a growing problem in affluent, democratic countries around the world.

The COVID-19 pandemic played a part, propelling people disaffected by lockdowns and stay-at-home restrictions towards radicalisation. International tensions have continued to increase since then while attacks on MPs’ offices have grown following Hamas’ attack on Israel on October 7, 2023.

In the UK, two MPs – one from Labour and the other a Conservative – have been killed while in office in the past decade, while there have been repeated attempts to attack US President Donald Trump.

And now an attack of what appears to be an overt and targeted act of political violence – directed at independent MP Helen Haines – has brought that violence home to Australia.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese this year revealed he had spent weeks away from his Sydney residence as the government bolstered security and built a blast-resistant safety bunker in Kirribilli House, with 20 court cases ongoing regarding threats to the prime minister.

Liberal MP Andrew Hastie recently received major security upgrades to his home and office because of threats against him, while cabinet ministers regularly have personal security.

Now, in a violent vehicle attack, the member for Indi, Haines, a 65-year-old former nurse and one of the most respected and respectful members of Australia’s federal parliament, has been injured.

Haines is in a critical condition and has been rushed to hospital, with what are reported to be serious leg injuries.

How on earth Haines became a target for anyone is difficult to fathom.

Albanese looked visibly shaken as he confirmed the attack on Monday night and said a suspect had been arrested. A major police investigation is under way involving police and Victoria’s counter-terrorism unit.

Crucially, the prime minister said the motive of the suspect was not yet known and refused to speculate on what it might have been, but the presence of Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke alongside Albanese spoke volumes about what the government seems to believe has occurred.

Burke, for his part, noted that the number of reports of harassing and threatening behaviour against various high office holders had been 951, and in the most recent year that number had risen to 1067.

First and foremost, we must hope that Haines recovers from this attack.

But in the days and weeks ahead, it’s also time for Australia’s political leaders to lead a conversation about why more Australians are being radicalised and what can and must be done to head off further incidents of violence against political leaders, and indeed, more broadly within society.

The political class was already aware of the growing risks that MPs face; it’s time for the rest of us to grapple with the problems posed by radicalisation, extremism and the growing threat of political violence.

Social media companies, too, must not be let off the hook, given the outsized part they have played in providing platforms for and access to material that can radicalise and isolate people.

This attack has not yet been confirmed as politically motivated.

But it must be a turning point, and it is incumbent on all politicians to turn down the temperature of political debate rather than continuing a race to the bottom with cheap personal attacks and juvenile insults.

There must never be another incident like this attack on Helen Haines again.

https://www.theage.com.au/politics/federal/helen-haines-attack-must-be-a-turning-point-for-australia-20261019-p616vi.html

>>25159764

WA Police Minister laments ‘MAGA rubbish’ online as MPs react to Haines attack

Hamish Hastie and Holly Thompson - October 20, 2026

WA Police Minister Reece Whitby has lamented the decline of “civility” in online public debate, blaming “MAGA rubbish” imported from the US political discourse as the precursor for physical violence.

Whitby was one of several WA politicians expressing dismay and shock after Victorian Independent MP Helen Haines was hit by a car on Monday afternoon in what appears to be a targeted attack.

“Be robust in your debate, but don’t attack the person, and don’t get personal,” Whitby said.

“The kind of language we see, which is imported from the US so it’s MAGA rubbish, it doesn’t sit with Australian views.

“The extremes on either side of the political spectrum end up meeting because they’re exactly the same. I don’t care if you’re left or right – you’re a threat.”

Whitby said vile, abusive language online was a precursor to people carrying out violent acts in real life, and accused “some in the political system” of egging it on.

“It actually makes some people –who’ve gone down the rabbit hole and been radicalised – it gives them licence to carry out action,” he said.

Asked whether he was referring to One Nation as the political party egging on behaviour, Whitby said: “You can make your own minds up about that, but you know you’ve seen it. You’ve seen the language. We don’t need that at all.”

Nationals MP Lachlan Hunter called for an audit of security measures at Parliament House and electorate offices, noting one of his offices doesn’t have security cameras.

Whitby said there had already been a review of security at Parliament following the arrest of a 20-year-old man who was allegedly planning a mass casualty attack on WA parliament, as well as police precincts and religious institutions.

“We’ve had police add their presence … and security arrangements have been beefed up previously,” he said.

“We can’t put a cocoon around members of parliament. I’m really angry and sad today, but I don’t want to see this place cornered off. It’s the people’s house. People come here to demonstrate.”

Hunter said he had written to Premier Roger Cook twice recently to relay his security concerns, particularly about his two electorate offices, but had received no response.

“I would like to see the premier actually do a security review and audit of not only this building behind me at Parliament House, but also all electorate offices as well,” he said.

“I’ve received a number of threats being elected only in March last year. I received a number of threats when I was a candidate running for public office.

“I think these are part and parcel of being a public figure, but there needs to be stronger mechanisms in place.

“I’m worried, as not only a state member of parliament but as a regional member of parliament, that the increased level of threat … is at an all-time high.”

Prevention of Family and Domestic Violence Minister Jessica Stojkovski said in the past 10 years, there had been an increase in “the temperature of political discourse”, but that she herself felt safe.

“I think all members of parliament experience online threats … and that female MPs are targeted,” she said.

Opposition Leader Basil Zempilas said the incident involving Haines was “incredibly traumatic”.

“I’ve got to say, I feel supported in the Churchlands office, and the team feels supported, and I know that is the experience of many, but if there are any gaps in the system, then obviously we would ask those in charge of such matters to make sure that any gaps are rectified,” he said.

Midland Labor MP Steve Catania said he personally didn’t feel unsafe but said the social media discourse was getting worse.

He said it would be a shame if it got to the point of needing to reduce public access to MPs.

Cook was approached for comment.

https://www.theage.com.au/politics/western-australia/wa-police-minister-laments-maga-rubbish-online-as-mps-react-to-haines-attack-20261020-p61738.html

>>25159764

‘Conspiratorial multiverse’: Experts warn of rise in online extremism amid Helen Haines attack

ELIZABETH PIKE - October 20, 2026

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Social media platforms are serving up a “conspiratorial multiverse” that draws people in and feeds them antisemitic, anti-establishment content regardless of where they lie on the political spectrum, radicalisation experts have warned.

Concerns about the rise of “mixed ideology” extremism have been revived after federal MP Helen Haines was left fighting for life in hospital on Tuesday, after she was struck by a vehicle outside her electoral office in northern Victoria.

The incident led Anthony Albanese to declare the “contest for clicks” was driving social extremes just months after Australia’s intelligence agencies warned of the new, emerging online threat.

University of Sydney Research Associate Dr Milica Stilinovic, who specialises in digital extremism, said she had detected an alarming escalation since the Covid-19 pandemic in the number of people being radicalised online.

Dr Stilinovic likened the current online space to a “conspiratorial multiverse” that may draw people in on a specific issue, such as Covid vaccines, but leads to the same end point regardless of whether the person is left or right-wing.

“As they go deeper they are ending up in far-left, far-right, white supremacist views and it all leans towards antisemitism and this idea of the ‘New World Order,’” Dr Stilinovic said.

“Deep down it’s moving towards (questions about) who’s running the show and it happens during times of crisis, people are searching for answers, a common enemy.”

“All these roads are leading to this mishmash of ideological narratives, and usually the target is the Jewish community on the local or global scale.”

Dr Stilinovic’s research examined how people with interests in the raw vegan diet had ended up holding far-right views such as Hitler’s ideas of naturalism.

Entry points started with extremism, not ideology, making people across society including doctors and lawyers susceptible to radicalisation.

“And that is what makes it dangerous … (The online space) is dependent on algorithms and dependent on engagement, and the most extreme rises to the top,” Dr Stilinovic said.

“Nowadays people have an ability online to traverse across several different narratives that have competing interests and outcomes but are still held as truth.”

The message comes after Australia’s top intelligence agencies and Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke warned in May they had noticed the emergence of new, online threats.

Mr Burke said ASIO and the Australian Federal Police were encountering “characteristics” in their case loads that were not “traditionally part of how we would regard counter terrorism in Australia”.

“We had people being radicalised online, being radicalised fast, having mixed ideology and not necessarily the traditional ideologies that might be attached to terrorism,” Mr Burke said at the time.

(continued)

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Deakin University Associate Professor Dr Josh Roose said the pandemic accelerated anti-government sentiment, particularly in regional Australia, where grievances about financial struggles and lack of services created a hot-bed for online radicalisation.

Dr Roose was an expert witness at the Wieambilla shooting inquest and found potential similarities with the alleged attack on Dr Haines in Wangaratta.

Instead of focusing on youth radicalisation, the terrorism expert said authorities should be looking at how to reach out to middle-aged men who were a vulnerable demographic, especially if they lived in isolated areas with little contact or family connections.

“The easiest way to understand it is to see people who hold the ideology versus people who are grievance-fuelled. These are people experiencing significant personal challenges and are distressed financially, emotionally, anxious about their futures,” Dr Roose said.

“They are not going out there trying to change the world in their image by joining extreme movements, but there is scope there for violence.”

Dr Roose reviewed the online profile of Brendan Nugent, the man who allegedly attacked Dr Haines, and found his posts and comments were largely framed through the lens of “justice and injustice,” regardless of the political issue.

This fed back into grievances against forms of authority that were largely from a left-wing perspective, Dr Roose said.

“Hyper-extremism has become commonplace … it has core themes like justice and injustice, a more powerful other, a sense of disempowerment.”

The Prime Minister led calls from across politics to “turn the temperature down,” with ASIO chief Mike Burgess and AFP Commissioner Krissy Barrett releasing similar statements in support.

Mr Albanese convened a meeting with security chiefs on Tuesday about the incident as the government considers boosting protections for MPs.

Police have not yet established a motive for the attack on Dr Haines.

https://www.theaustralian.com.au/nation/conspiratorial-multiverse-experts-warn-of-rise-in-online-extremism-amid-helen-haines-attack/news-story/d53b68f87e6862bdc6ab7b719f4ec79a

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One Nation leader Pauline Hanson, who recently came under fire for disparaging comments about Muslims and Indigenous Australians, said Mr Albanese was being hypocritical, accusing his ­office of circulating “dirt files” targeting political opponents including Dr Haines.

“I’ll tell the PM, you tone it down,” Senator Hanson told News24. “Get rid of your dirt file that goes on against parliamentarians, including my party.”

Her call came minutes before she apologised for a video released by One Nation making fun of the health struggles of independent senator Jacqui Lambie.

Independent MP Zali Steggall said Senator Hanson was the ­opposite of what Dr Haines ­represented, accusing the One Nation leader of pushing hate and division.

The Opposition Leader said the success of “our great country” was resolving differences through “vigorous debate and choice of the ballot box”.

“That’s what we are, and we must protect that, which means every one of us must condemn acts that cross the line,” Mr Taylor said.

“I think we can get this balance right. We have in the past, but clearly what we saw yesterday was unacceptable and un-Australian.”

While Liberal frontbenchers Andrew Hastie and James Paterson were among those who backed Mr Albanese’s push for politicians to behave more respectfully, Nationals leader Matt Canavan said “we would be doing our heritage a disservice if we don’t strongly argue our case for what we think is right”.

“One thing we must protect is our robust democratic tradition that is based on the adversarial contest of ideas,” Senator Canavan said. “There just has to be a hard red line on anything that shifts into promoting or inciting a violent reaction. I can’t say I see that often or at all but these horrific events are a reminder for all of us not to cross that line.”

Former Victorian and NSW premiers Jeff Kennett and Bob Carr denied the political debate had become more uncivil since they were in politics, arguing social media was the changed factor.

Former prime minister John Howard said “we should not jump too quickly to compare civility of political debate at various times”.

Women’s Minister Katy Gallagher said she was concerned about the rise in sexualised threats towards female MPs.

Mr Nugent is an environmental activist who has regularly criticised political leaders on social media, including accusing them of “giving Israel impunity to kill thousands of children”.

Mr Nugent describes himself on X as a “plant person”, complains about “huge gaps” in the NDIS, the fact that he is “broke”, and living in “chronic pain”.

The account is a key focus of the investigation by police and anti-terror authorities, The Australian understands.

Australian Federal Police commissioner Krissy Barrett said the AFP had long been concerned about growing threats against federal MPs and high office holders. In 2025-26, the AFP received 1067 reports of harassment, offensive and threatening behaviour against federal MPs, ministers and protected establishments, up from 951 the previous year.

Victoria Police acting superintendent Ashley Mason said the “man has had some prior involvement with police”, but he wasn’t on the force’s radar recently.

https://www.theaustralian.com.au/nation/politics/grip-of-madness-ecoactivist-brendan-nugent-charged-with-attack-on-mp-helen-haines/news-story/ff9abf4c3c82bf18dd0791d5b089d40e

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ydkmGK2n3-Y

>>25091054

>>25131968

Antisemitism commission seeks final reply from Palestine activists

JAMES DOWLING - October 19, 2026

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Pro-Palestinian activists are preparing a response to potentially “adverse” findings by the antisemitism royal commission following their involvement in its most controversial hearing, with the inquiry narrowing in on its final report.

In one of the final stages of the Antisemitism and Social Cohesion Royal Commission’s work, parties who made appearances during its hearings have been contacted requesting they respond to counsel submissions – the views and findings of the commission’s lawyers that former judge Virginia Bell will use as the groundwork for her final report on December 18.

The notices seek to ensure “procedural fairness” by giving stakeholders and parties who may be at the centre of adverse findings the right to respond.

While non-publication orders block any publication of the counsel’s submissions or the replies from various parties, Palestine Action Group organiser Josh Lees said his activist group was among those contacted.

Mr Lees, who jointly co-ordinated the group’s march across the Sydney Harbour Bridge last year, said PAG planned to respond to the notice this month and had hoped the commission would lead the debate on fundamental rights to protest.

“We remain highly critical of the whole way the commission was constructed and conducted,” he said. “We did appeal for greater input into the commission … on the expectation that the issues relating to protest movements, any proposed restrictions on speech, assembly and protest would be dealt with in a much more meaningful way than turned out to be the case.

“Our request for one of our spokespersons to give evidence was not granted.”

A commission spokesperson said: “Counsel assisting prepared written submissions in respect of each hearing block, which were provided – in whole or in part – to parties with leave to appear or other persons given leave to respond to submissions on particular issues. This process accords procedural fairness to those who might be affected by any adverse findings of the commissioner proposed in the submissions of counsel assisting.

“The royal commission does not comment on its engagement with particular parties.”

The Australian understands the Australian Academic Alliance Against Antisemitism has also been afforded the chance to respond to counsel submissions on the commission’s third hearing block which focused on universities. Mainstream Jewish groups collectively represented at the commission have had ongoing engagement with its lawyers behind the scenes.

The non-publication orders signed by Ms Bell indicate the notices were delivered from September 2 to 28.

(continued)

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PAG was locked out from appearing at the commission, The Australian reported last month, with its lawyers only sitting in on one of its 62 sitting days. This was despite active lobbying by PAG and many of its critics that protest leaders should be compelled to give evidence.

The group said it had entered a single witness statement into evidence. In its one appearance during the hearings, rather than sitting in the witness box, its lawyers were given the chance to grill then-NSW Jewish Board of Deputies chief David Ossip on the scale and timing of Israel’s initial military retaliation on Gaza.

It caused acrimony among Jewish community figures, with Ms Bell vigorously denying an accusation by Executive Council of Australian Jewry co-chief Alex Ryvchin that she had let PAG and APAN “hijack” her inquiry.

Many of Ms Bell’s critics say the absence of protest leaders from the commission’s witness list was a glaring oversight, and clamoured at the end of its public hearings last month for Ms Bell to request a substantial extension in order to put alleged perpetrators of antisemitism in the witness box.

Former disability royal commission chair Ronald Sackville said the commission’s examination of protests lacked “any depth”, while senior Liberal Jewish MP Julian Leeser said: “The problem with failing to call people to account is it sends a signal to the protest organisers … (that) there’s no consequence at all.”

Students for Palestine organiser Yasmine Johnson was one of the few anti-Israel advocates called before the inquiry and gave evidence during its analysis of antisemitism on university campuses.

In her appearance she denied racism or antisemitism by student activists at pro-Palestine campus encampments nationwide and defended using the chants “Globalise the intifada” and “There’s only one solution, intifada revolution”, despite acknowledging the history of intifada violence.

“I don’t hold movements for the justice of the oppressed to a standard that says there can never be any violence,” Ms Johnson said. “The intifadas were acts of mass resistance by Palestinians to their oppression.”

Ms Bell pointed to the history of terror­ist violence used in the second intifada, suggesting it muddied suggestions the slogan was peaceful.

Ms Johnson said: “In a context where Palestinians have been put in a concentration camp in Gaza, or at the time where we’re facing massive oppression in Gaza and the expansion of settlements in the West Bank, that intifada was also a legitimate act of resistance by a people under occupation.”

https://www.theaustralian.com.au/nation/antisemitism-commission-seeks-final-reply-from-palestine-activists/news-story/c3f2d78eabe0744dc8b38e2c454ed62f

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>>25153220

>>25156334

Inside Ben Roberts-Smith’s media campaign for support

Calum Jaspan - October 21, 2026

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Disgraced war hero Ben Roberts-Smith has launched a coordinated publicity blitz over the past week that will be capped off by a 150-minute interview with 2GB’s Ben Fordham broadcast on Thursday morning.

Currently out on bail as he prepares to fight five counts of war crimes murder charges, Roberts-Smith’s public relations offensive also includes launching a clothing line and Instagram page.

The Victoria Cross (VC) recipient and former SAS soldier has become a lightning rod for division across politics and culture since launching and later losing a defamation case against this masthead in which he unsuccessfully contested he’d ordered and committed war crimes in Afghanistan.

He now faces war crimes charges which could land him behind bars for the rest of his life.

Where the VC holder would give his first major interview had been the subject of intense competition, with conservative broadcasters Karl Stefanovic and Kyle Sandilands both vying for the exclusive.

But he chose to work with the newly formed Tapt, the radio stations formerly owned by Nine, and its headline star Fordham.

While he is not paid for the interview, promotional pictures released by 2GB show him wearing his new clothing line Epic 1 Two in the video recording, which will be premiered in full on YouTube in video format at 9am.

The network is using the long-form interview format as part of a new strategy to find audiences on digital platforms outside traditional radio.

The interview, which spans two and a half hours, is the first since Roberts-Smith was charged with war crimes offences. It presents an opportunity for him to put his side of the story to the public, according to those familiar with the process not authorised to speak publicly, although Roberts-Smith did give several interviews before charges were laid and has in the past engaged media managers.

Roberts-Smith has drawn support from sections of the population, in particular those aligned with Pauline Hanson’s One Nation. Prospective voters of the party view him more favourably than they do their only lower house MP Barnaby Joyce, recent polling showed.

Roberts-Smith launched Epic 1 Two last week, which is a reference to his military call sign, positioning himself as the “underdog”. It has prompted a renewed push of public support for him, largely from sections of the right aligned with One Nation.

“EPIC 1 TWO is forged in adversity. It is for the people who know what it means to be counted out. To have the odds stacked against them,” the brand’s website says. “EPIC 1 TWO is for the underdog who refuses to stay down.”

As part of the agreement between Roberts-Smith and 2GB, Fordham was free to ask Roberts-Smith whatever he wanted. For Roberts-Smith, it is an opportunity to get his side of the story across, at length.

But there is also a risk that a spike in publicity could ultimately lead to the argument there is no possibility of a fair trial, says former Media Watch host and publisher of legal journals Justinian and Gazette of Law and Journalism, Richard Ackland.

“If you can poison the well enough, then they will make a plea to drop the charges against him,” Ackland says. “I think that’s a reality.”

Representatives for Roberts-Smith were approached for comment.

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The Roberts-Smith case has already infiltrated the heart of Australian politics. One Nation has adopted Roberts-Smith as a central figure in the party’s push to be viewed as that of the battler, of veterans and of those punished by the establishment.

One Nation has used Roberts-Smith’s image on campaign material, and he, like the party, enjoys significant support from Australia’s richest person, Gina Rinehart.

Opening a new apartment block for veterans in Brisbane this past weekend, Rinehart was introduced by Roberts-Smith.

“He’s fighting a fight that most of us don’t realise is a fight against the deep state,” Rinehart said of charges he is facing, according to an opinion piece written by veteran journalist Des Houghton in The Courier Mail.

The piece was republished on Rinehart’s website with the alternative headline Three Aussie Heroes, referring to the billionaire, Roberts-Smith and Daniel Keighran VC, whom the apartments were named after.

While Roberts-Smith’s fashion brand says it is for the underdog, Roberts-Smith was born to wealthy parents, his father being a Supreme Court judge and major general in the Army Reserves. He went to Perth’s oldest boarding school. He towers over most at more than 200 centimetres (six feet, seven inches).

He has been financially backed by one of Australia’s richest people, Kerry Stokes, and enjoys the support of Rinehart and the political party she is a major donor to, One Nation, which is currently preferred by a quarter of Australia’s population.

He has supporters across wide sections of the media at News Corp’s influential news channel News24, has received favourable coverage from outlets controlled by Stokes, including The West Australian newspaper, and is being handed two and half hours on Sydney’s No.1 radio network to tell his side of the story.

Since launching a social media account this week, Roberts-Smith has received support online from News24 presenter Peta Credlin, a former chief of staff to Tony Abbott.

Podcaster Karl Stefanovic has also posted a picture of himself and BRS donning the new merch, and has become a vocal supporter of the former soldier since leaving Nine, owner of this masthead.

There has also been support from One News Australia, a news outlet this masthead revealed was previously a One Nation Supporters Facebook group, as well as The Noticer, a white supremacy-affiliated news outlet.

Tom Malone, chief executive of Tapt Media, which owns 2GB and 3AW, said the interview showcased the company’s digital transformation in its new era owned by pokies and publican billionaire family, the Laundys. Whether it moves the dial for 2GB or Roberts-Smith, will have to wait to see.

https://www.theage.com.au/business/companies/inside-ben-roberts-smith-s-media-campaign-for-support-20261021-p617ep.html

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Trump, Albanese to meet for revived Quad security alliance

Jessica Gardner - Oct 21, 2026

Washington | The United States is breathing life back into the Quad security partnership with Australia, Japan and India, with Secretary of State Marco Rubio revealing the countries’ leaders will meet next month in the Philippines, ending a two-year hiatus.

Paving the way for the next in-person meeting between Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and US President Donald Trump, along with Japan’s Sanae Takaichi and India’s Narendra Modi, Rubio said the meeting will occur on the margins of the ASEAN summit, scheduled for Manila on November 16 and 17.

“We don’t have the specific date yet, but that’s going to happen, and we’re very enthusiastic about it,” he said during a television interview on Tuesday (Wednesday AEDT) while on a visit to India. “We look forward to being a part of that at ASEAN here in just a few weeks.”

The announcement will soothe foreign policy scholars who had worried that the nearly two-decade-old security pact aimed at keeping China’s ambitions in the Indo-Pacific in check had withered under Trump.

Although Rubio has had a handful of meetings with the foreign ministers of the Quad, including inviting Australia’s Penny Wong to Trump’s inauguration in January 2025, the last meeting of the leaders occurred in September 2024 when Joe Biden was US president.

Rubio, Wong and their Indian and Japanese counterparts will meet later this month on the sidelines of the G20 foreign ministers meeting in Atlanta.

Trump has shaken up foreign relations with his disdain for long-standing alliances, belief that allies should take more responsibility for their own defences and retreat from decades of US leadership on the global stage.

At the same time, he has nurtured relations with authoritarian states such as Russia and China, even as Beijing in particular has maintained an aggressive posture in the Indo-Pacific region.

At a meeting of the Quad foreign ministers in Washington last July, Rubio expressed some frustration that the Quad delivered a lot of talk but not much action on economic and security co-operation.

On Tuesday, he had changed his tune. “The Quad is not just a process by which we meet and agree to do certain things. You are now starting to see action,” he said, adding that at the leaders’ meeting, “they will be able to actually announce concrete actions, not just simply a nice social gathering.”

The ASEAN meetings have been pushed back two days to accommodate Trump’s attendance.

Relations between Trump and Albanese have been constructive, especially when it comes to the mutual benefit they hope to gain from mining and potentially processing Australia’s critical minerals, in a bid to break Beijing’s stranglehold on the industry.

Irritants in the relationship, however, include a 12.5 per cent tariff on Australian imports, dubious claims about forced labour in supply chains, and an additional threat of trade barriers for lamb. The US, meanwhile, has been frustrated by Canberra’s stiff regulation of technology giants and plans to tax them more.

It is approaching peak summit season, with Albanese and Trump both likely to attend the APEC meeting in China in November, and the G20 leaders meeting in Florida in the US.

The prime minister’s office has been contacted for comment.

https://www.afr.com/world/north-america/trump-albanese-to-meet-for-revived-security-alliance-20261021-p617da

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Complainant A's mother tells trial how son's mood changed after visit to Alan Jones's farm

Ethan Rix - 20 October 2026

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A mother has told a trial she trusted Alan Jones as a mentor to her son before the broadcaster allegedly indecently assaulted the 17-year-old schoolboy at his private farm.

One of Mr Jones's five alleged victims, known as Complainant A, alleges the radio host kissed him, put his tongue in his mouth and touched his buttocks when he visited Mr Jones's property in the Southern Highlands as a 17-year-old schoolboy.

The 85-year-old has pleaded not guilty to 21 counts of indecent assault and sexually touching, relating to several alleged incidents against five males between 2003 and 2020.

The court previously heard the complainant was 13 years old when he sent a letter to the then-2GB radio host, requesting help for his single mother and their serious financial struggles.

Emails read to the court show Mr Jones developed a relationship with the boy over several years, and that the prominent media figure helped wipe $600,000 off the mother's home loan and provided $100,000 to assist with the completion of their home.

Giving evidence at the trial on Tuesday, the boy's mother told the court her son met up with Mr Jones on several occasions including for private breakfasts at his Circular Quay apartment and lunch at a pub, but that she was never invited.

She recalled when her son was 17 and had been invited by Mr Jones to spend two nights at his Fitzroy Falls farm and that she felt "really comfortable" with him going because she "trusted" the radio host.

"I was just so pleased to have an older mentor in [my son's] life that was interesting and interested in lots of different things," the woman said.

"[Someone] who saw that my son was intelligent as he is."

Mother breaks down reading son's note

The woman told the court that when her son returned home from the trip, "his mood was different" and she "knew straight away something was up".

"He wasn't sleeping, he was just staying up," she said.

She said her son wrote her a letter 10 days later, saying "something happened at Fitzroy Falls" and that "someone did something they shouldn't have" but did not go into explicit detail.

The mother broke down several times in the witness box, including when her son's letter was placed in front of her during her testimony.

The woman said after receiving the note she asked her son if he wanted to report what happened to police.

"He [my son] said to me that 'I wasn't raped'," she said.

"[My son said] it probably is not a big thing in the scheme of it, and it will be my word against him and he's [Mr Jones] a powerful man."

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Mother tells court of her 'dire' financial situation

The mother told the court that, before the alleged assault that she was in a "dire" situation, with a $1.3 million mortgage hanging over her head and the builder of her unfinished home walking off the job.

The trial heard the woman's partner had also left the country and would often miss child support payments.

The woman said a family friend suggested she reach out to the broadcaster for help because "he's influential and there might be people he knows who can help you".

The mother said she provided information to her son to send to Mr Jones, who replied with an email saying, "you sound a special sort of young man," and asking for additional information.

"When he [my son] told me that, I was incredibly grateful that someone of his stature was interested in what we were doing because we got such a prompt reply," the mother said.

"I was desperate, people who are being served repossession papers are not cruising along in life."

Court told Mr Jones put mother in contact with head of major bank

The woman told the court that Mr Jones organised for the head of the Commonwealth Bank at the time to call her to understand more about her circumstances and try to find a "manageable" situation for the family.

"I was just so overwhelmed by the fact that he [the head of the bank] was willing to assist," she said.

The woman told the court that while the mortgage had been renegotiated, the agreement had not been finalised because the house was still under her estranged partner's name.

The woman said after her son wrote her the letter disclosing the alleged incident, she told him to no longer communicate with Mr Jones.

Prosecutor Georgina Wright SC asked the mother why she continued to have correspondence with Mr Jones after her son had disclosed the alleged assault to her.

"Nothing with the bank was finalised, I was scared that … that as quick as he rang [the head of CBA] that he would ring up and reverse the situation," she said.

"It embarrasses me that I kept in touch with him, but I did."

The woman said she stopped communicating with Mr Jones once a legal matter with her son's father, which the broadcaster was assisting with, was resolved.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-10-20/complainant-a-mother-gives-evidence-alan-jones-trial-sydney/107287760

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Australian government websites go dark after AI finds critical flaw

JARED LYNCH and BEN PACKHAM - 22 October 2026

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An AI-driven cyber emergency of unprecedented scale has crippled critical infrastructure and knocked government portals offline, thrusting the global economy into digital triage as Australia’s biggest companies race to halt mass ‘automated’ cyber attacks.

Labor frontbenchers rushed to assure Australians on Thursday morning the AI-identified flaw in PHP – a web programming language behind 70 per cent of the world’s websites – was “not a breach” but only “a weakness in the system”.

If left exposed, the PHP flaw threatens to fuel machine-driven digital assaults, with hackers able to take over corporate servers in seconds.

As cyber experts confirmed evidence of hackers already seeking exploit the PHP flaw, the nation’s biggest companies worked overnight on Wednesday and into the early hours of Thursday morning to secure their systems in what they said would be “an ongoing process”.

But smaller businesses risked remaining ignorant of their exposure, with experts warning the chaos is a “wake up call” and could take weeks to resolve.

Already, the incident has shut down and disrupted government websites across the globe, including Australia’s main threat intelligence advisory cyber.gov.au.

A researcher from security firm Calif detected the flaw using OpenAI’s advanced GPT-5.6 Sol model. National Cyber Security co-ordinator Lieutenant General Michelle McGuinness said the government was working with OpenAI and a patch was made available early Thursday morning.

“Sites that use this software, which are a large number of sites, many that did not feel they could maintain or protect their security, took their sites offline deliberately as a precaution until the patch was available and it could be implemented,” Lieutenant General McGuinness said.

“So the sites that are coming back online have had that patch applies, which closes that cyber security gap or vulnerability.”

Telstra was one of the country’s biggest companies forced to complete the emergency security patch.

“We recognise the seriousness of this matter and are giving it the attention it deserves. Our teams are actively assessing the situation and our cyber security team continues to closely monitor our network and assets and proactively test our systems and processes for vulnerabilities,” the spokesman said.

“We have established processes for responding to security matters, including engaging with government and industry peers where appropriate, and will take any appropriate action as required.”

Software titan Atlassian also completed an urgent investigation and secured its systems online with guidance from the Australian Signals Directorate.

It has so far found no evidence of suspicious behaviour but is continuing to monitor “any new developments out of an abundance of caution”.

Brisbane-based TechnologyOne doesn’t use PHP, but its head of security and compliance Chris Polkinghorne said it was a serious issue for many businesses.

The biggest vulnerability exposed by the PHP flaw is remote code execution. This allows an attacker to effectively take over a server and deeply penetrate an organisation.

“There’ve always been services that scan the internet, looking at who uses what technology. That’s existed for quite some time. Now AI can really rapidly accelerate the ability for attackers to execute these attacks at mass scale,” Mr Polkinghorne said.

“That’s why you see in the guidance from the ACSC that they know it’s going to take time for these patches to get deployed, and their advice is telling people to take services offline.”

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The Australian Signals Directorate issued a critical alert on Wednesday afternoon about the PHP flaw, urging organisations and individuals to urgently apply security patches.

But those who clicked on the link to that alert, posted on cyber.gov.au, were faced with a “503 Service Temporarily Unavailable” message on Thursday morning.

Mr Polkinghorne said many smaller businesses may not know they were running PHP and should check with their IT vendors to assess their exposure and determine what best actions to take.

Dimitri Vedeneev, executive director of secure AI at Melbourne-based online security firm CyberCX, said hackers were already attempting to exploit the PHP flaw.

“The discovery of this critical PHP vulnerability is a serious exposure which could impact as many as 70 per cent of websites globally,” Mr Vedeneev said.

“Cyber security has always been a race against time, but … the economics of vulnerability discovery and exploitation is becoming cheaper. This underscores a clear, unambiguous reality for cyber security in the AI era: organisations should expect to assess, prioritise and respond to vulnerabilities against all types of systems within hours rather than weeks to reduce cyber exposure risks.”

Industry Minister Tim Ayres stressed the incident was “not a breach” and described the mass shutdown of websites as “a normal response” while patches were being rolled out.

“This is normal for cyber security agencies. It happens all the time,” he told News24.

He said the Medicare breach last month by OpenAi – which the company said demonstrated key vulnerabilities in government systems – “was quite different” to the disruption on Thursday.

“That was an agent of OpenAI conducting unauthorised access in a way that it was not directed to do,” Senator Ayres said.

“And that has meant a much stronger response from OpenAI and much stronger co-operation with the Australian Government. We are going to be dealing with these issues as they come.”

OpenAi seized on the incident and declared the discovery of the flaw “marks a new phase, where AI can find security bugs with internet-scale impact”.

The vulnerability had remained hidden for years, with experts previously believing the software flaw was too complex to exploit.

Former prime ministerial cybersecurity adviser Alastair MacGibbon said the flaw didn’t raise concern over the security of websites themselves, but the databases they interacted with.

“There’s an ability now to essentially take those credentials and then use them to get into all those other things,” he said.

“It’s not just about patching to the new version of PHP. All of the passwords and certificates you have need to be reissued to prevent someone, who may have already touched this site and taken all of those secrets from you, from using them at some later stage.”

As a precautionary measure, and on advice from leading security agencies including the NSA in the US, many administrators took their sites offline.

“Effective Immediately, all organisations using PHP for their systems are advised to be prepared for an update addressing two critical vulnerabilities,” the NSA wrote.

“PHP is widely used for web applications. These vulnerabilities often provide a direct path to the server’s file system or database. If an immediate update is not feasible, it is recommend that organisations take the system offline until it can be fully mitigated. NSA will follow up shortly with more specific guidance.”

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Government websites across the world were shut down, including the national digital identity service in the Netherlands, Germany’s federal IT service provider ITZBund, UK local councils and Belgium’s Foreign Ministry, while France’s Interior Ministry suspended local administrative sites, including Paris Police Prefecture.

“We are aware of media reporting about critical vulnerabilities in PHP that may affect all versions from PHP 5 onwards,” the ASD wrote on Elon Musk’s X.

“Organisations and individuals should monitor PHP applications and prepare to update and apply patches.”

Raghu Nandakumara, vice president of industry strategy at cybersecurity firm Illumio said the flaw had revealed an “important paradox”.

“We want AI to move quickly enough to find vulnerabilities humans might miss, while also making sure that increasingly autonomous systems operate within boundaries we understand and control,” he said.

“The faster AI becomes at finding weaknesses, the more important it becomes to think about what happens after those weaknesses are exposed, especially when organisations can’t immediately patch every affected system. The lesson isn’t that AI is inherently dangerous or inherently protective. It’s that speed without control creates a new kind of security problem.”

Don Smith, vice president of threat intelligence on Sophos’s Counter Threat Unit said the “immediate challenge is not simply installing a patch”.

He said companies must find and managed every instance where PHP is running.

“The use of PHP is pervasive, it can sit beneath public websites, content management systems, hosting platforms and third-party products, sometimes without even being obvious to the organisation using it,” Mr Smith said.

“Security teams should prioritise internet-facing systems, confirming which versions are affected as soon as the official advisory is published, and apply the updates without delay. Any vulnerable system that cannot be patched should be isolated from the internet until it can be secured.

“Threat actors move fast, especially with the help of AI and this will likely be a priority target for them over the coming hours and days so it is crucial organisations monitor PHP and web-server processes for unusual processes, command execution or other signs that an attacker may already have gained a foothold.”

https://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/technology/australian-government-websites-go-dark-after-ai-finds-critical-flaw/news-story/88840e9964cd81c60ab4df6c00219c54

https://www.cyber.gov.au/alert/critical-vulnerabilities-in-php

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Mother of complainant was caught in 'web of dependency' with Alan Jones, court hears

Isobel Roe - 22 October 2026

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The mother of a man who has accused Alan Jones of kissing him when he was a 17-year-old schoolboy has defended keeping in contact with the broadcaster, telling a court she was in a "web of dependency" with him.

The woman has been cross-examined on day 50 of Mr Jones's criminal trial, in which Mr Jones has pleaded not guilty to 21 counts of indecent assault and sexual touching.

Mr Jones is accused of kissing a 17-year-old boy, Complainant A, with his tongue and touching his bottom during a visit to his NSW Southern Highlands property.

The NSW Local Court has heard the boy first contacted Mr Jones when he was 13 years old, asking for help for his struggling single mother, and the pair were in regular email contact while Mr Jones helped the family financially.

His mother, who cannot be identified to protect the complainant, has told the court her son wrote her a note about 10 days after the alleged assault, telling her "something sexual" had happened during his visit to Mr Jones's farmstay.

The court has heard the boy spoke briefly to police about the alleged assault when they turned up at his school in November of that year, but he did not want to make a complaint.

Under questioning from the prosecution, the woman agreed she emailed the broadcaster that same month, seeking advice after her son had "messed up" his university application.

She said Mr Jones "offered" to contact the university, and did so, but that "it came to no avail anyway" because her son's application was not accepted.

"I continued to contact Mr Jones," the woman told the court.

"I was in a web of dependency with Mr Jones… so a crisis would come up, and I would ask for advice."

The trial has previously been told Mr Jones gave about $100,000 of his own money towards the building of the complainant and his mother's home, and used his connection to the then-head of the Commonwealth Bank to have their home loan reduced by $600,000.

Emails handed up to the court show Mr Jones raised concerns with the mother and son about the "enormous cost" of his assistance.

"I recall feeling berated about how much it had cost," the woman told the court.

"[Complainant A and I] had a conversation to suggest that we repay money, that we go on a payment plan to pay for some of these things."

The pair offered to repay Mr Jones, but he declined, the court heard.

"I recall [Complainant A] and I saying to each other, 'well, we've offered… could you take us up on the offer rather than continue to berate us about your generosity?'" the woman said.

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Under cross-examination, Complainant A's mother was asked whether she intended to give Mr Jones the impression that emails from her son's account were coming solely from him, when in fact they were at times partly drafted by her.

The mother agreed she did not specify which emails she had contributed to, but asked why anyone would expect a 14-year-old boy to know his mother's mortgage details without her input.

Mr Jones's lawyers also asked why she did not produce the note her son allegedly wrote her in the aftermath of the alleged assault when her son made police statements in 2018 or 2024.

The woman said she found the note in 2025, in a drawer of "stuff" in her bedroom which she had not previously searched because it was "full of emotion".

Mr Jones's counsel Claire O'Neill also asked the woman whether she had "encouraged" her son to make a complaint to police, despite his reluctance to.

"Did you tell him you thought it was a good idea?" Ms O'Neill asked.

"I told him that I would support him in whatever he did," the woman responded.

The boy's statement in 2018 included a request not to pursue the matter further at that time.

Woman emotional during questioning

In the defence's opening address, Mr Jones's lawyers accused the mother of encouraging her son to complain to police about Mr Jones because she was "outraged" that he was going to stop paying her bills.

The woman became emotional under questioning about her motives, telling the court she did not expect Mr Jones to pay her legal bills, but that she had been told by the broadcaster's team "not to worry".

She also defended a decision to travel to New York and Paris with her son at a time when the radio host was assisting her to cover the cost of legal bills in a financial battle with her ex-husband.

"In 2016 you did not need Mr Jones to pay the legal bills, do you agree with that?" Ms O'Neill asked.

"No I don't agree with that … it was financially tight," the woman replied.

"I didn't have the money to go to Paris and New York but my mother, [Complainant A's] nan and a family friend were able to give the money."

The trial heard the mother asked her son not to mention the trip to Mr Jones, and Ms O'Neill accused the woman of hiding it so the defendant would not know she was spending money.

"What rubbish," the woman replied.

"No one knew how we were funding going to New York."

She will continue being cross-examined on Friday.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-10-22/nsw-sydney-alan-jones-mother-web-of-dependency-court/107296702

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Mr Roberts-Smith disputed suggestions the men killed during Australian military operations were innocent civilians, insisting the engagements he was involved in were against members of the Taliban.

He accused journalists of portraying the victims as civilians to generate public outrage.

“I’ve got a real problem with that because that has actually, in no way, ever been proven to be a fact,” he said.

His claims stand in stark contrast to the findings of Federal Court Justice Anthony Besanko, who ruled in 2023, on the balance of probabilities, that Mr Roberts-Smith was responsible for four unlawful killings of Afghan detainees.

The former soldier unsuccessfully challenged those findings in the Full Federal Court before the High Court refused to hear a further appeal in September 2025.

Those findings were made under the civil standard of proof, which is lower than the criminal standard of beyond reasonable doubt.

The 2GB interview, conducted in Queensland on October 8 and released on Thursday, also provided Mr Roberts-Smith’s most detailed account yet of his dramatic arrest at Sydney Airport on April 7.

He revealed he had been travelling with his twin teenage daughters from his marriage to former wife Emma Roberts-Smith, and his current partner Sarah Matulin, on what was supposed to be a surprise shopping trip to Sydney.

The girls were excited to visit a shop they had discovered on social media and Mr Roberts-Smith had used frequent flyer points to book economy flights for the six-hour day trip.

“We gave them a gift card for this thing. Like, ‘hey, this is a present for you. We’re gonna go down to the shop’,” he recalled.

“So they were ecstatic.

“It was all a day trip, no luggage, definitely no passports.”

But as their plane taxied towards the terminal in Sydney, Mr Roberts-Smith noticed a convoy of black SUVs with flashing lights parked on the tarmac.

He initially assumed police were waiting for a VIP.

“(Sarah) looked at me and was concerned and I looked across and said, ‘That’s not going to be for me. I’m not that important’,” he recalled.

Moments later, Australian Federal Police officers boarded the aircraft and approached him in front of about 200 passengers.

Mr Roberts-Smith described the arrest as “farcical”, claiming he had twice offered - in writing - to surrender voluntarily during the preceding six months.

He recalled walking onto the aerobridge and seeing about 10 more police officers waiting.

“I looked at (the AFP officer) and just said, ‘I can’t believe you’ve done this with the kids here’,” he recalled.

“And he looked at me and said, ‘Mate, look, I’m really sorry about that. That wasn’t our call’.”

Mr Roberts-Smith said one of his daughters became hysterical as she realised her father was being taken away.

“I hate it because that’s a memory that will never ever leave them,” he said.

“That’s something that will undoubtedly, no matter what I do to mitigate it, shape their life in some form.”

Mr Roberts-Smith accused authorities of orchestrating a “show arrest” designed to publicly humiliate him and prejudice perceptions of his guilt.

He also questioned whether the decision to arrest him in NSW rather than Queensland was intended to give prosecutors an advantage under different procedural laws.

AFP Commissioner Krissy Barrett has since rejected suggestions the location was chosen to secure a legal advantage in NSW.

Mr Roberts-Smith was subsequently taken to Silverwater Prison where he remained until he was released on bail 10 days later.

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The April arrest came almost three years after Mr Roberts-Smith’s spectacular defeat in his defamation case against Nine newspapers, a multimillion-dollar legal battle he now admits he was “naive” to launch.

“I accept that I lost the defamation. I’m man enough to sit here and say I didn’t win, but I didn’t win because I didn’t understand that game,” he told Fordham.

“I didn’t lose the defamation because I’m guilty. I can tell you that much.”

Mr Roberts-Smith sued Nine over articles published in 2018 alleging he committed war crimes in Afghanistan, but the legal gamble backfired when Justice Besanko found several of the most serious allegations were substantially true.

Mr Roberts-Smith said he had launched the action because he genuinely believed the allegations were false and could not allow the public accusations to go unchallenged.

Asked whether the defamation action had been one of the “biggest legal mistakes in Australian history”, he questioned what alternative he had.

“I mean, to use the word mistake, what was I going to do?” he said.

“I just thought ‘I know it’s not true, so if I sue these people, they cannot win’.”

Mr Roberts-Smith recalled the proceedings dragging on for years, including a lengthy interruption during the COVID-19 pandemic.

By the time Justice Besanko delivered his findings in June 2023, he was on an overseas holiday and decided not to return solely for the judgment.

Mr Roberts-Smith said he was “gutted” when the judge ruled against him.

“To be completely frank, I actually still thought I was going to win,” he said.

Mr Roberts-Smith also revealed the extraordinary financial cost of the failed litigation to former Seven Media Group chairman Kerry Stokes, estimating that his financial support exceeded $30 million.

“Look, I don’t have an exact figure, but I would say that it would have to be upwards of 30 million,” he said.

“That’s because . . . I didn’t win. I said that before. I accept that, which means a cost order went to Channel Nine.”

He described Mr Stokes and his wife Christine as close friends.

“Kerry and Christine Stokes have supported me from day one,” he said.

“He believed in me and all his position has ever been is ‘you deserve the right to fight it. You deserve a fair go’.

“Just their kindness, he and Christine, has always blown me away.

“I mean, how can you ever repay that?”

Mr Roberts-Smith said his decision to remain silent throughout the defamation case was ultimately detrimental.

“I spent over four years getting absolutely decimated in the press with all kinds of narratives, many of them false, and it most certainly shaped public opinion in a negative way,” he said.

He said the earliest allegations against him had nothing to do with war crimes.

“The first thing I ever heard about rumours circulating about me was actually about, you know, I don’t deserve my awards and I’m a bully,” he said.

He recalled his shock when the accusations became more serious.

“The first time I ever heard about it was an email from a journalist who was asking if I would answer questions about the bullying stuff,” he said.

“And the last line of the email said . . . ‘as a side note, I also would like to talk to you about an allegation that you murdered a child in 2006’.

“And I literally, reading that at the end of an email, I was basically in shock.

“It’s not just the allegation of a war crime, but a war crime where you shot a child. I mean, it doesn’t get any worse than that.”

He said that particular allegation was “the start of all of this”.

“That allegation, funnily enough, was one of the ones that was completely disproven during the defamation . . . It was just completely fabricated and false,” he said.

“The stories that I sued on were not the stories that I ended up having to defend in court.”

(continued)

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As for the bullying allegations, Mr Roberts-Smith revealed his nickname within the SAS had been “Front Dagger”, a reference to his blunt approach to dealing with fellow soldiers.

“Because I don’t stab people in the back. I just give it to them straight in the chest,” he explained.

He admitted confronting colleagues whose performance he considered inadequate but insisted maintaining discipline was critical in an elite military unit.

“I didn’t get it all right all the time,” he said. “But I knew I was giving it everything I had.”

Mr Roberts-Smith - who completed six deployments to Afghanistan over six years - became emotional while recalling the 2010 Battle of Tizak, where he risked his life attacking an enemy machine-gun position to protect fellow soldiers. It was the act that earned him the Victoria Cross.

“I can have a crack and stop this or I can not do anything,” he said.

“And if one of them gets hit, how do I go home and face their families if one of them is to get killed?”

Asked how he felt looking back on the men he fought alongside, Mr Roberts-Smith appeared to choke back tears.

“I’m glad they’re alive,” he said.

After a lengthy pause, he added: “You just think that you’re so lucky to be able to help them.”

He became emotional again when discussing the murders of Australian soldiers Robert Poate, Bryce Duffy and Luke Gavin by rogue Afghan soldier Hekmatullah in 2012.

Mr Roberts-Smith said his SAS squadron had spent a month searching for the killer but failed to capture him.

“That would be a regret of mine from Afghanistan, that we actually were never able to capture him,” he said.

“We put a lot of effort into it, but as I’ve had to say to Robert Poate’s dad, you know, we did our best.”

Mr Roberts-Smith then broke down, pausing and taking a sip of water before saying: “We didn’t get him”.

Looking ahead to his criminal trial, Mr Roberts-Smith said he hoped the ordinary Australians serving on the jury would be able to consider the evidence fairly and understand the military circumstances surrounding the allegations.

“Just having 12 normal people gives me hope, mate,” he said.

When Fordham suggested the trial could be five years away, Mr Roberts-Smith replied: “If I’m lucky, if I’m lucky.”

“So let the process play out before you go judging me, because there’s a long way for this to go, and a lot of things that are going to come out that are going to allow people to have a much more informed perspective of my situation,” he said.

“That’s all I’d ask. That’s all I’m asking. Just some perspective . . . and a bit of bloody fairness, mate. That’s it.”

https://thenightly.com.au/australia/ben-roberts-smith-denies-killing-prisoners-reveals-regrets-in-bombshell-interview-c-23056862

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tHnqSsvsRw8

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2GB listeners ‘eyes leaking’ as everyman BRS gives show of his life

The former soldier and accused war criminal gave his all in a bravura attempt to hit back at allegations against him – while spruiking his new clothing brand.

Janek Drevikovsky - Oct 22, 2026

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Ben Roberts-Smith knows how to pitch himself to an audience. For years, until war crimes allegations came crashing down on him, he was a jobbing public speaker, who made his coin entrancing with tales of bravery.

Then, during his mammoth defamation lawsuit, he spent 11 days in the witness box, suited and controlled, speaking in full, audibly punctuated sentences, crammed with jargon. It was a delight for legal ears.

And on Thursday morning, as his first in-depth interview this decade went to air on Ben Fordham’s 2GB, the gifted speaker, decorated soldier and accused war criminal gave what just might have been the performance of his life.

This was BRS the everyman. He spoke as though he’d been born and bred in his adopted Queensland – slowly, meandering, chatty. He addressed Fordham as “mate”, peppered his speech with “likes” and “ums”.

At least at the start, he was almost shaky – wouldn’t you be nervous addressing the media? “We’re doing all right,” he repeated when Fordham asked how he was. “We’re doing all right.”

For the thousands of people watching on YouTube when the full interview was uploaded Thursday morning, there was a visual dimension, too. The craggy-faced Roberts-Smith sat with his tattooed arm on display, in a white T-shirt – emblazoned, across the chest, with an “Epic 1 Two” slogan, the name of Roberts-Smith’s new fitness wear brand.

Never miss an opportunity.

Of course, a performance like this takes two.

Fordham assured his listeners this was a chance for “difficult questions”, that he’d “only do it” if Roberts-Smith answered the hard stuff. And yes, Fordham confronted the ex-soldier with some of his alleged wrongdoing.

Did he drink from a dead Afghan’s prosthetic leg in an army-camp debauch? Ben Roberts-Smith “had no part” in it. Did he shoot prisoners? “No”.

Did he “dress” corpses with guns to make them seem like lawful targets after the fact? No, although some objects were moved to be photographed together, and this was actually a “directive from the leadership”, not proof of a crime. Did he kill civilians? “I didn’t bloody murder anyone.”

The talkback host also described the storm Roberts-Smith is facing as “madness”. Wondered whether the inside of a plane at Sydney airport was “an appropriate place to arrest” someone. Asked whether the veteran felt like he was “back on the battlefield, outnumbered” by the authorities.

And Fordham gushed about Roberts-Smith’s Victoria Cross-winning performance at Tizak: “We’re all lucky that you boys were there that day with the mentality that you had, which was to put it all on the line for each other.”

(continued)

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The actual criminal charges against Roberts-Smith were off limits – to avoid prejudicing his upcoming trial for battlefield murder. So why, given that complexity, did the former corporal choose this moment to speak?

When he sued for defamation, Roberts-Smith decided he “wouldn’t talk”. That was a mistake, he now said.

“I spent over four years getting absolutely decimated in the press with all kinds of narratives, many of them false, and it most certainly shaped public opinion in a negative way.”

Of course, it wasn’t all pitchforks from the media. Kerry Stokes, then chairman of Seven West Media, “believed in me from day one.” How much had Stokes spent bankrolling the defamation case, Fordham asked?

“Upwards of $30 million”, Roberts-Smith replied.

Still, the veteran lost his suit. The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age, which meticulously investigated and broke the war crime allegations, were vindicated – and won back their immense legal costs (Their publisher, Nine Entertainment, also owns The Australian Financial Review.)

“I didn’t win because I didn’t understand that game,” Roberts-Smith insisted. “I didn’t lose because I’m guilty, I can tell you that much.”

Nine paid its witnesses, he complained (some Afghan witnesses had their travel and accommodation costs covered). Parts of the trial were in “closed court”. The civil standard of proof made the process “a crap shoot”.

Even when Roberts-Smith lost his appeal, and then a further appeal, to the highest court in the land, the outcome was unthinkable.

So unthinkable that his father, Len Roberts-Smith, a former West Australian judge and army reservist, “lost a bit of faith … in the system”. “He just could not believe that that had happened. It was a shock,” he added.

Many of Fordham’s callers, during the Thursday morning broadcast, shared the sentiment. Labor’s Rudd-era defence minister Joel Fitzgibbon rang in to say “the system” had perpetrated an “absolute disgrace”.

“What an interview, probably one of the best things I’ve heard in my life,” said another caller, Nick. “My eyes are leaking,” Jess texted in.

And the message from Roberts-Smith, the bloke down at the pub, griping that it’s “not acceptable” any more for soldiers to be “a larrikin”, yarning about the system, the authorities, “show arrests” and the media elite?

“I literally just want to put a couple of facts on the table if I can. And people will make their own minds up.”

https://www.afr.com/companies/media-and-marketing/2gb-listeners-eyes-leaking-as-everyman-brs-gives-show-of-his-life-20261022-p617qw

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Roberts-Smith said in the interview with News Corp that he had contemplated suicide after allegations surfaced in this masthead in 2017. Referring to the investigative reporting that revealed the war crimes allegations, he said, “psychologically, that takes a toll”.

“At that point, which probably played out over about three to six months of thinking about that every day, that’s rock bottom,” he said.

What saved him, he said, was “the kids [and] the fact that if I took my own life, they [his detractors] would win. They would be able to say I did it because I was guilty, and my family would have to live with that shame.”

He also complained about his arrest at Sydney Airport on April 7 on a plane from Brisbane in front of his partner, Sarah Matulin, and his children. He said it had been farcical, and “such a deliberate attempt to sensationalise the arrest”.

Roberts-Smith said he had been wrong to stay silent before and during the defamation case because he “trusted the system”. He also complained about the uneven playing field in Australia, with government funding for defence and prosecution cases in criminal trials.

Even though his defence was being funded by the taxpayer, his lawyers were paid for only six hours a day while “they’ll pay the prosecution lawyers 10 hours a day”, he complained to Fordham. “There is no parity, and that’s not what justice is about.”

“This time I want a spotlight on the proceedings and more transparency,” he told News Corp.

Roberts-Smith also added his voice to Pauline Hanson’s in a complaint about a 2024 change to Australia’s war crimes legislation. The previous law, passed in 2002, said a person was hors de combat (out of action) in a battlefield if they were under control, and had clearly expressed an intention to surrender or was incapacitated by wounds or sickness, and was abstaining from hostile acts and not attempting to escape.

The 2024 change meant that only one of the three conditions needed to be met to establish a war crime if such a person was harmed. The change was made retrospective.

“So, what you’ve actually done is said you drove down the freeway yesterday, doing 100 kilometres an hour, but today we’ve decided that you’re only allowed to do 80 kilometres an hour on the freeway. So we’re going to charge you for speeding over the limit yesterday,” Roberts-Smith told Fordham.

“It does not, in my opinion, pass the pub test.”

https://www.theage.com.au/national/i-just-give-it-to-them-straight-in-the-chest-roberts-smith-has-no-regrets-about-his-military-career-20261022-p617uk.html

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ppc2bJnJ4XE

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Ben Roberts-Smith’s 2GB interview fact-checked

Michael Bachelard - October 22, 2026

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Radio host Ben Fordham put a lot of questions to alleged war criminal and former SAS soldier Ben Roberts-Smith during his interview on radio 2GB on Thursday, but he did not challenge any of the answers over the 2½ hours. Here are some of the facts.

On the murder allegations

Roberts-Smith: “One of the things that the media really did well, unfortunately, was try and convince them that civilians had been killed … that has actually, in no way, ever been proven.”

Fact: The judge in the defamation case, Justice Anthony Besanko, did find that one victim in particular, Ali Jan, was a civilian. Ali Jan, the judge found, cultivated crops. He had some cattle and also sold wood. He was married with children. He was not connected to the Taliban. The evidence of Afghan witness Mohammed Hanifa on this was accepted by the judge.

Besanko’s findings explicitly state that Roberts-Smith “murdered an unarmed and defenceless Afghan civilian by kicking him off a cliff and procuring the soldiers under his command to shoot him”.

The other three people Roberts-Smith was found to have murdered were very likely members of the Taliban – a fact acknowledged in the original reporting. The key question was always whether they were unarmed, under control and out of action at the time they were killed, or still posing a threat.

Besanko’s finding, which backed the media reporting, was that three of Roberts-Smith’s victims were what the Australian military called “PUCs”, or Persons Under Control. Common Article 3 of the Geneva Convention “explicitly prohibits violence to life and person, cruel treatment, torture, and murder of persons who are taking no active part in hostilities, including those placed under detention or control”.

Asked about this during his evidence at the defamation case, Roberts-Smith acknowledged this was a crime. In the 2GB interview, he reiterated it.

“Do you accept that shooting a prisoner is a war crime?” he was asked by Fordham.

“Yes,” he replied.

On the practice of using “throw-downs” to frame victims as combatants.

“We were told to put weapons on the bodies for the photographs because they wanted it all in one photo, so we could send it back. So moving things around … it was actually a directive from the leadership.”

Fact: Roberts-Smith is portraying the practice as simply rearranging the scene to put everything in one photo frame. This was the order from above to make sure they could get their reports right, he said.

The actual allegation, made in the investigation by the inspector-general of the Australian Defence Force, in the media, and by many SAS witnesses during the defamation case, is much more sinister. They gave evidence that some soldiers carried items in their packs so they could posthumously frame dead civilians as soldiers.

This carries the implication of premeditated murder, and a posthumous cover-up.

Throw-down items included folding-stock AK-47s, Russian grenades, spare webbing and handheld radios.

As for being orders from “leadership”, two witnesses at the defamation trial testified that it was Roberts-Smith himself who instructed people in the practice.

During 2012 pre-deployment rehearsal, they say, the towering lance corporal explained how to put a throw-down weapon or equipment on a body to photograph to make the action appear legitimate when it actually was not.

On the defamation case

“The stories that I sued on were not the stories that I ended up having to defend in court … the same basic story, but we’re talking about things that would evolve to meet what needed to be proved.”

Fact: The implication from Ben Roberts-Smith here is that whenever he successfully defended an allegation in the reporting, the story would just morph to fit a new narrative.

The stories he sued over, and a number of the accusations in the court case, were the same. All the original allegations in the reporting were successfully defended by the newspapers, and particularly the murders at Darwan and Whiskey 108.

It was only because Roberts-Smith sued for defamation that journalists from this masthead were able to use the legal process he’d initiated to subpoena new information, including new witnesses. That allowed them to introduce additional evidence and ultimately allege Roberts-Smith had been involved in seven murders, six of which they proceeded with in the case itself.

Without him taking the legal action, a number of those allegations would probably never have emerged. In the end, Besanko found four murders substantially true, including those included in the original reporting.

(continued)

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On legal procedure

“You don’t have to prove that it’s true”. It was enough “to prove that they believe it, or that it might have happened”.

Fact: This gives the impression the defamation judgment was based on thin evidence. That is simply false.

Defamation is a civil procedure, and the threshold for proof is on the “balance of probabilities”, which essentially means it’s more likely than not that something happened. But in cases of this seriousness – where murder is being alleged – the “Briginshaw principle” applies.

This means “inexact proofs, indefinite testimony, or indirect inferences” are not enough, and that, for grave findings – such as murder or criminal conduct – the court requires clear, cogent, and strict proof, actual persuasion, and proper weight given to the presumption of innocence.

In his judgment, Besanko applied the principle vigorously to find the murders at Whiskey 108, Darwan and Chinartu, as well as Roberts-Smith’s campaign of bullying and unlawful assaults, were proven. Other allegations, he said, did not meet the threshold.

The newspapers’ evidence included eyewitnesses, physical or photographic evidence and contemporaneous records that meant, Besanko wrote, “I am satisfied that the proof is clear and cogent.”

It’s also worth noting, without breaching the presumption of innocence, that after an exhaustive, five-year criminal investigation led by one of Australia’s most eminent jurists, Mark Weinberg, KC, the Federal Office of the Special Investigator believes it has enough hard evidence to charge Roberts-Smith with five counts of war crimes – murder, under the criminal standard.

On the newspapers’ witnesses

“I was so naive in terms of the civil system. I just had no idea how it plays out … I didn’t understand that game. Witnesses were paid to give evidence and others paid not to give evidence.”

Fact: Roberts-Smith was advised and represented by the best lawyers Kerry Stokes’ money could buy, including Australia’s most aggressive defamation lawyer, Mark O’Brien, and a brace of SCs. It cost Stokes “upwards of $30 million”, the former soldier told Fordham.

As for paying witnesses, the only allegation Roberts-Smith’s team made related to three poor Afghan farmers who were taken out of their remote villages to Kabul and put up in a hotel and fed while they waited for the court’s time.

Besanko found this was not a motive for them to be dishonest. Routine travel and living assistance for people travelling to give evidence did not undermine their credibility, the judge found.

On the other hand, Besanko made significant adverse credit findings regarding Ben Roberts-Smith paying the legal fees of his own key witnesses. He found the Seven Network paid hundreds of thousands of dollars in legal fees for witnesses, Persons 5, 11, and 35 – a bill that was added to Roberts-Smith’s personal loan facility with Seven Network. Roberts-Smith, the court found, tried to hide this fact, perhaps because, as Besanko found, it created an obvious potential for the witnesses to feel obliged to co-operate or maintain a particular narrative.

Roberts-Smith also tried to induce others to either give evidence, or avoid doing so. This included typing up threatening letters and arranging for a private investigator to have them delivered to potential witnesses.

He also called one man to pass on a message to another, saying, “You tell that c*nt, he’d better not say anything, otherwise I’ll get him charged for war crimes.”

https://www.theage.com.au/national/ben-roberts-smith-s-2gb-interview-fact-checked-20261022-p617q0.html

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OPINION: Ben Roberts-Smith’s big publicity blitz is aimed at an audience of 12

Hugh Riminton - October 22, 2026

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Ben Roberts-Smith is shaping the battlefield. Or as he sees it, he’s reshaping it. No one should be surprised. It’s what soldiers are trained to do.

First this week was the launch of his merchandise brand, Epic 1 Two. Now, today, the release of interviews with 2GB’s Ben Fordham and News Corp outlets – all of them vetted by the veteran’s legal team before release.

Fordham teased his interview as Roberts-Smith “breaking his silence, (telling) his side of the story (in) the fight to clear his name”.

It is far from the first time the Victoria Cross recipient and accused war criminal has told his side of the story. He told it under oath when he sued the Nine newspapers, unsuccessfully, for defamation. So what’s he up to now?

The answer lies in lectures delivered at military academies from Duntroon to West Point. ADF doctrine explicitly states that “if you control the opponent’s information environments through co-ordinated and integrated influence operations … then you control your opponent.”

Technically, as he faces five counts of the war crime of murder, Roberts-Smith’s opponent is the Crown. But that’s not his target. Ultimately, it is the 12 as-yet unselected members of the jury. There are skirmishes, there are battles, but that trial will decide the outcome of the war.

Conviction requires a unanimous verdict.

A dozen Australians. Roberts-Smith’s war is won if even one among them has formed a view that our most decorated living hero should not be sent to jail.

Acquittal is the goal, but a hung jury voids the trial. BRS retains the presumption of innocence. It would take heroic determination for the Commonwealth DPP to order up another trial.

Roberts-Smith has always denied the charges. “I didn’t bloody murder anyone,” he told Fordham. He says he is the victim of a hostile law enforcement PR campaign, pointing to his arrest at Sydney airport in front of his partner, his teenage daughters, 200 passengers and cameras.

“It was such a deliberate attempt to sensationalise the arrest,” said Roberts-Smith today. Being charged in NSW, rather than Queensland where he lives, he says was “100 per cent” designed to get a jurisdictional advantage when the trial begins. In Queensland, he said, he had offered to hand himself in.

Intriguingly, Roberts-Smith himself uses the verb “shape”. He says remaining silent throughout his defamation campaign was a mistake.

“It was to my detriment because I just spent four years being absolutely slaughtered in the press and that absolutely shaped public opinion in a very detrimental way.” Losing that case was “gut-wrenching.” He told Fordham, “I found out in the civil game (they) don’t have to prove it’s true, they just have to prove they believed it. Or it might have happened.”

That is not a true reflection of the law. An outlet simply “believing” it’s telling the truth has no defence in defamation. The judge found to the civil test of the balance of probabilities, Roberts-Smith did murder prisoners who were under control, or directed others to do so. A full bench appeal unanimously upheld that verdict and the High Court refused to hear an appeal on the basis that it had no prospect of success.

(continued)

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Roberts-Smith’s public “shaping” campaign this week is not limited to today’s splashy interviews.

His new merchandise outlet, Epic 1 Two (simplified to E12 on the “No Quit” tank-top and the $50 “Desert Vintage Camo Trucker” hat) states his brand is “for the underdog who refuses to stay down”.

Epic 1 Two was Roberts-Smith’s call-sign in the fight for Tizak in the wider Battle of Shah Wali Kot. Hugely outnumbered, grievously exposed, Roberts-Smith led a push against a well-protected Taliban position. As the official citation records it: “demonstrating extreme devotion to duty and the most conspicuous gallantry, Corporal Roberts-Smith, with a total disregard for his own safety, stormed the enemy position”.

It was for this that he was awarded the Victoria Cross.

His new brand presents Roberts-Smith not just as a war hero, but as a stand-in for every Australian battler. The marketing blurb says Epic 1 Two is “for the people who know what it means to be counted out. To have the odds stacked against them.” It is for those who have been “treated unfairly.”

Because everyone at some stage has been treated unfairly.

The marketing site does not mention that soldiers in that fight with him in Tizak have been witnesses against him. It makes no reference to the war crimes charges. It makes no mention of the allegation that he murdered prisoners.

You wouldn’t expect it to. It’s an exercise in shaping. When Roberts-Smith finally fronts court, expect to see his supporters wearing their E12 kit. Because the coming war crimes trial is not simply a matter of law. It is a question of what a nation chooses to value.

The defining battle of Ben Roberts-Smith’s life will not be the one he fought at Tizak. It will be in that courtroom. Everything in his life will come down to that jury.

You could call them the Epic-12. In his head – and certainly that of his team – is this question: in any randomly selected group of 12 Australians, would at least two or three baulk at convicting a war hero? It only needs one.

The battle is huge. The shaping is under way. It is being shaped for that one.

https://www.theage.com.au/national/ben-roberts-smith-s-big-publicity-blitz-is-aimed-at-an-audience-of-12-20261022-p617il.html

https://www.dst.defence.gov.au/strategy/star-shots/information-warfare

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Mr Roberts-Smith hit out at a five-year investigation by the Australian Federal Police and the Office of the Special Investigator, which culminated in his arrest in front of his wife and children on the Sydney Airport tarmac.

“There is no way in any way, shape or form that I was considered a threat by the AFP,” he said. “I fought for this country … yet all those resources continue to be used on me right up until the arrest and still today,” Mr Roberts-Smith told news.com.au reporter Cydonee Mardon in a separate interview.

He claimed that his public arrest and the relentless focus on the allegations of wrongdoing were intended to serve the political purpose of distracting from the public fallout of the allied campaign in Afghanistan.

Mr Roberts-Smith also denied the AFP’s assertion the circumstances of his arrest were routine and necessary, instead saying it was calculated to generate publicity and gain a procedural advantage by arresting him in NSW because it gave prosecutors wider powers to compel evidence.

He told Fordham the AFP’s decision to haul him off a plane at Sydney Airport was a “show arrest” intended to impugn him.

“They take me off the plane, and parade me in front of — the vision of me as if I’ve tried to escape on a plane to go overseas and on a flight risk,” he said. “It’s trying to confirm or prejudice the public as to my guilt, right? Because you’ve got this vision of me being dragged off a plane: ‘he’s obviously guilty, he’s trying to run away’.

“Why involve the media to the degree that they did?”

Mr Roberts-Smith told Mardon he had considered suicide for “three to six months” after allegations against him were publicised, before he resolved to challenge the narrative.

He reflected on his four-year defamation suit against Nine and the Federal Court finding on a civil standard that he had murdered four prisoners in Afghanistan, including a farmer who was kicked off a cliff in the village of Darwan and a one-legged man dragged from a tunnel at the compound known as Whiskey 108.

The finding against him was affirmed by the Full Bench of the Federal Court at the end of his appeal last year.

He denied that a large cohort of his former SAS colleagues stepped forward to provide evidence against him during the trial and regrets maintaining his silence during that period, claiming it led to him being “slaughtered in the press”.

Mr Roberts-Smith hit out at the Nine Network over revelations it had paid $700,000 in a secret settlement to a key witness during the proceedings, while accusing authorities of intimidating his own defence witnesses.

“From the very first witness I called to help support my case, they’d get detained, questioned, and told that if they didn’t comply and give all their devices to the AFP, they’d be charged,” he claimed.

“Every time a witness walked out, they’d pull them aside at airports or wait at hotels. Every time I went to dinner we were followed by police sitting next to us in restaurants.

“Clearly, that’s going to intimidate upcoming witnesses from wanting to give evidence. I thought that was really poor form. Right when I was in the middle of that case, it didn’t sit well with me. It was all about timing, and that was not a coincidence.”

He lost, he argued, because he was “naive” about the civil justice system.

“I just didn’t understand that it wasn’t black and white,” he told Fordham.

“I’m man enough to sit here and say, yeah, I didn’t win, but I didn’t win because I didn’t understand that game. I didn’t lose the defamation because I’m guilty.”

He said billionaire Kerry Stokes had provided him “upwards of $30m” in legal fees he would not be able to reimburse.

The two interviews were part of a co-ordinated media blitz by Mr Roberts-Smith who has put his legal battle at the centre of a PR campaign for a personal apparel brand he has promoted with his partner Sarah Matulin.

https://www.theaustralian.com.au/nation/ben-robertssmith-breaks-silence-to-slam-afp-over-dramatic-sydney-airport-arrest/news-story/036ea066e7f4182f3e9a74f30e3d7348

https://www.news.com.au/national/ben-robertssmith-breaks-years-of-silence-in-tellall-interview-truth-about-sydney-airport-arrest-his-real-rock-bottom-and-being-on-suicide-watch-in-prison/news-story/b1733f5fcd9fe31b94d2fca8ee1ad1cc

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LlAQFTfUG2Q

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OPINION: Roberts-Smith’s media blitz is playing with danger for his murder trial

Greg Barns SC, Barrister - October 24, 2026

Usually, when a person is charged with criminal offences, they will say nothing to anyone other than their lawyers, and perhaps family and close friends.

But former SAS soldier Ben Roberts-Smith has taken a radically different approach with his lengthy and sympathetic interview with Sydney radio host Ben Fordham on Thursday. Not only is this strategy different, there are risks attached to doing interviews before a criminal trial.

This is no critique of Roberts-Smith’s legal team. We don’t know what advice he was given or the tactical approach to the case.

Roberts-Smith has been charged with five counts of the war crime of murder alleged to have been committed in Afghanistan between 2009 and 2012.

He adamantly denies the charges, and of course, has the presumption of innocence. Thursday’s interview was wide-ranging and covered his denials about the allegations against him, but also his reflections on his unsuccessful Federal Court defamation case against the then-Fairfax and now-Nine newspapers.

In that case in 2023, Justice Anthony Besanko concluded that, on the balance of probabilities, Roberts-Smith had committed or was complicit in the murder of four Afghan men between 2009 and 2012 who were under the control of Australian forces.

An appeal to the Full Court of the Federal Court was unsuccessful, as was an application to the High Court in 2025 for leave to appeal the Full Court decision.

Some of the statements made by Roberts-Smith about that civil case are problematic, as Michael Bachelard pointed out in a fact check of the interview on Thursday. For example, Roberts-Smith said, “You don’t have to prove that it’s true.”

It was enough “to prove that they believe it, or that it might have happened”.

As Bachelard pointed out: “This gives the impression the defamation judgment was based on thin evidence. That is simply false.”

Roberts-Smith’s interview not only traversed his view of the Federal Court findings but also his view of the justice system. He wants to be given a fair go in the upcoming criminal trial.

“All I’m asking for is a fair shake, mate.” That’s what all defendants expect, and rightly so.

One of the dangers with high-profile criminal proceedings today is that the media, both traditional and social, sometimes advocates for a cause that arguably prejudices the rights of an accused by publishing damning material about them prior to a trial. This Roberts-Smith interview is the opposite. The accused has put himself in the limelight.

And why? Is it to influence the public narrative about Roberts-Smith to sway a potential jury?

Hugh Riminton argued in a piece published in this masthead on Thursday: “Technically, as he faces five counts of the war crime of murder, Roberts-Smith’s opponent is the Crown. But that’s not his target. Ultimately, it is the 12 as-yet unselected members of the jury.”

If that is the motive, then it is unusual to say the least, although it has been done before and regularly happens in the United States.

But there is a risk in it. And the risk is this: anything an accused says to the media can be – subject to it being admissible and relevant in a trial – used by the prosecution for the purposes of shaking the credibility of the accused if they give evidence.

For example, if a person says to a journalist “I didn’t tell the police X”, and in another media interview they have said the opposite, that inconsistency could be used to undermine the accused’s credibility.

The more you say to the media, the more material you potentially give to a prosecutor to sift through and find inconsistencies and false statements.

It is one thing, if the camera is in your face, to deny the charges and say you look forward to being vindicated; it is another to comment on findings from a defamation trial that is dealing with the same subject matters as the forthcoming criminal trial.

Roberts-Smith has powerful advocates in the media and the community.

It is surely in the interests of justice for them, and his critics, to be circumspect from now on so that the criminal trial process plays out. That is the way our justice system should work.

Greg Barns, SC, is a criminal lawyer and spokesman for the Australian Lawyers Alliance.

https://www.theage.com.au/national/roberts-smith-s-media-blitz-is-playing-with-danger-for-his-murder-trial-20261024-p61831.html

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‘Best kind of deterrence’: Australia and Indonesia stage massive joint war games

DIAN SEPTIARI - October 20, 2026

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Australia and Indonesia have completed one of their largest and most complex joint war games in East Java on Tuesday, the exercise hailed as a demonstration of the “best kind of deterrence” amid growing security concerns in the Indo-Pacific region.

The week-long Keris Woomera 2026, the first bilateral exercise since the countries signed the landmark Treaty of Common Security in February, also marked the first time Australia’s High Mobility Artillery Rocket System had been deployed offshore, and the first deployment of the Royal Australian Air Force No.4 Squadron’s PC-21 ground support aircraft, underscoring deepening trust between the two militaries.

Australian Defence Force joint operations commander Justin Jones said the war games, aimed at strengthening the two countries’ interoperability, readiness and preparedness “for all manner of contingencies”, were the ADF’s centrepiece force projection activity and largest offshore exercise of the year.

“It is a demonstration of the long and enduring partnership between our nations, but more so of both our commitments to a peaceful, prosperous and stable region,” Vice-Admiral Jones said after a combined joint live-fire exercise at Baluran Marine Corps Combat Training Centre.

With more than half of Australia’s trade passing through Indo-Pacific waters, Australia’s economic prosperity was “very much linked to stability, security and the peaceful nature of the region … in which sovereign nations can’t be coerced, a region in which international law is upheld”, Vice-Admiral Jones said.

“The best kind of deterrence is deterrence that comes from operating with friends, allies, partners and coalitions in the region,” he said.

Mohamad Naudi Nurdika, who heads the Indonesian military’s training command, said the exercise had expanded from a navy-to-navy drill focused primarily on maritime operations two years ago, into a larger joint exercise involving all three branches of the Indonesian military.

Asked about the possibility of expanding the partnership with Australia to include firefighting, amid the worst forest and peatland fires in Indonesia in more than a decade, Lieutenant General Nurdika said he would welcome greater co-operation on that front.

Tuesday’s live-fire exercise capped a week of drills involving 1000 ADF personnel alongside 1235 members of the Indonesian National Armed Forces (Tentara Nasional Indonesia, or TNI), rehearsing everything from underwater infiltration and amphibious landings to jungle ambushes and bomb disposal.

Off Banongan Beach, Indonesian frogmen and Australian reconnaissance teams slipped beneath the water to map approaches and identify underwater obstacles.

Onshore, troops practised moving through jungle terrain, identifying edible plants and animals, and dismantling and reassembling weapons in relay races.

Other scenarios tested their responses to threats beyond the battlefield. Cyber teams simulated attacks on computer networks and worked to contain them, while a tabletop exercise challenged participants to plan civilian evacuations following an imagined eruption of the Mount Raung volcano.

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Australia deployed three warships, HMAS Choules, Perth and Stalwart, alongside Seahawk helicopters, C-130J Hercules transport aircraft, PC-21 aircraft, infantry, M777 howitzers and HIMARS rocket launchers for its largest overseas military training activity of 2026.

Indonesia contributed a Diponegoro-class corvette, Panther and Bell-412 helicopters, Super Tucano aircraft, infantry and marines, as well as 105mm howitzers and RM-70 Vampire multiple-launch rocket systems.

Australia’s defence ties with Indonesia have arguably never been closer since Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and President Prabowo Subianto signed the Treaty on Common Security in Jakarta in February.

The agreement commits both countries to regular security consultations and consideration of joint responses to shared challenges, with Australia also offering to help build a military training centre in Morotai near North Maluku and expand exchanges between their armed forces.

Australian Strategic Policy Institute senior analyst Fitriani said pressure from China was driving Canberra to pursue as many defence agreements as possible, but Australia needed to be realistic about their implementation and responsive to Indonesia’s competing domestic priorities.

“The challenge is how to implement them and whether they are sufficiently sensitive to the domestic circumstances of their partners. We know that Indonesia currently has a government that is struggling with competing priorities,” Dr Fitriani said.

In recent months, Jakarta has hosted both the US-backed Super Garuda Shield exercise in September, and Japanese Self-Defence Forces personnel who deployed to help fight forest fires in Kalimantan.

In July, Indonesian navy frigates trained with Russian forces off Vladivostok, but then sparked controversy on their way home by conducting a joint passing exercise with China off Taiwan.

Analysts say the engagements reflect Indonesia’s efforts to cultivate military ties across competing powers and said Australia should be mindful of the limitations of its growing ties with Jakarta.

ASPI senior analyst Gatra Priyandita told The Australian while this week’s second Exercise Keris Woomera built practical interoperability between the two militaries, it did not necessarily mean strategic alignment.

“Indonesia’s willingness to exercise with China is generally consistent with its commitment to strategic autonomy,” he said. “This is something Australian officials are aware of, and I do not think they expect Indonesia to choose sides.”

https://www.theaustralian.com.au/nation/defence/best-kind-of-deterrence-australia-and-indonesia-stage-massive-joint-war-games/news-story/a66a3cbf2cd8ec2cf07d82635004acf2

>>25032394

>>25032435

>>25139232

Joint Operations Command Facebook Post

23 October 2026

That’s a wrap!

After six months of training, collaboration and shared achievement, the 15th rotation of Marine Rotational Force Darwin has returned home, marking another successful chapter in the Australia-United States Alliance.

Working side by side across Northern Australia, Defence Australia and U.S. Marine Corps personnel strengthened interoperability, enhanced readiness and improved their ability to operate together in a complex strategic environment, including through major exercises:

- Balikatan 🇵🇭 🇺🇸 🇦🇺

- Pitch Black ✈️

- Predators Run 🦅

- Southern Jackaroo 🇦🇺 🇯🇵 🇺🇸

https://www.facebook.com/hqjoc/videos/mrf-d-end-of-rotation/860503647122180/

>>25032394

>>25032435

>>25139232

>>25171464

Darwin-based US Marines return home

australiandefence.com.au - 23 October 2026

After six months of training, the 15th iteration of Marine Rotational Force-Darwin (MRF-D) will return home.

Since March, approximately 2,000 United States Marines and sailors have participated in training, exercises and engagement activities in Australia and the Indo-Pacific - strengthening our ability to respond within our region.

"The 2026 Marine Rotational Force-Darwin rotation has delivered tangible operational outcomes, enhancing the readiness of our people and strengthening our ability to integrate with the United States and regional partners," Commander Joint Operations Command, Vice Admiral Justin Jones, said.

"Training across Northern Australia and the Indo-Pacific has challenged our people to operate together in complex, austere and demanding environments, building the capability, resilience and integration required to respond to crises, deter potential adversaries and contribute to regional stability when called upon.”

MRF-D participation in exercises such as Balikatan, Pitch Black, Predators Run and Southern Jackaroo highlight our collective preparedness, enhanced interoperability and the strengthening military cooperation between Australia, the United Sates and regional partners.

“This 15th rotation stands as a testament to what the United States and Australia can achieve when we train shoulder-to-shoulder. I want to extend my deepest gratitude to our ADF counterparts and our hosts across the country for their unwavering support," Commanding Officer Marine Rotational Force-Darwin 2026, Colonel George Flynn, said.

“By pushing our limits together during exercises like Render Safe, Predators Run, Southern Jackaroo, and Capital Reach, we have learned immensely from one another. We have forged an unparalleled level of interoperability, proving that we can move together rapidly and effectively to ensure a free and open Indo-Pacific.”

MRF-D also participated in Exercise Capital Reach, which concluded with an amphibious disembarkation from the Royal Australian Navy Landing Helicopter Dock HMAS Canberra.

"The enduring success of MRF-D reflects our shared commitment to regional security, stability and cooperation. The strong relationships we have working alongside the Marines at all levels consistently provides opportunities to maximise integration of forces and capabilities. Each year integration improves, as demonstrated this year on HMAS Canberra during Capital Reach," Commanding Officer Headquarters Northern Command, Group Captain Melissa Neilson, said.

“Our Marine friends immerse themselves in our culture while they are here, supporting local community events and charities, and this year learnt Aussie rules football during cultural festivals in small Indigenous communities.”

In addition to training activities, MRF-D supported Operation Render Safe, which contributes to collective regional security through the safe disposal of explosive remnants of war.

The Australia-US alliance is the most important defence relationship and is central to Australia’s strategic and security arrangements.

Since the first iteration in 2012, the annual six-month rotational deployment has grown significantly in capability, complexity and regional reach.

The United States Marine Corps (USMC) will return to the Northern Territory in early 2027 for the 16th MRF-D rotation, as part of the United States Force Posture Initiatives.

https://www.australiandefence.com.au/news/news/darwin-based-us-marines-return-home

https://www.defence.gov.au/news-events/releases/2026-10-23/us-marines-head-home-after-six-months-top-end

https://www.defence.gov.au/defence-activities/programs-initiatives/united-states-force-posture-initiatives/marine-rotational-force-darwin-initiative

https://www.dvidshub.net/image/9883155/mrf-d-marines-conduct-fast-roping-training

>>25032394

>>25032435

>>25139232

>>25171464

>>25171672

MRF-D 26 concludes 15th rotation as the first certified Special Purpose Marine Air-Ground Task Force

Capt. Kevin Hicks - 10.23.2026

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MARINE CORPS BASE CAMP PENDLETON, Calif. - Approximately 2,000 U.S. Marines and Sailors assigned to Marine Rotational Force - Darwin 26 concluded a historic deployment across Australia and the Indo-Pacific, marking the program’s 15th rotation and the first time the rotational force earned certification as a Special Purpose Marine Air-Ground Task Force.

Led by 5th Marine Regiment, 1st Marine Division, MRF-D Special Purpose Marine Air-Ground Task Force 26.3 combined Marines and Sailors from I and III Marine Expeditionary Forces into an integrated force capable of bringing together command and control, aviation, ground combat and logistics capabilities.

From March through October, Marines and Sailors trained alongside the Australian Defence Force and regional allies and partners throughout Australia, the Philippines, New Caledonia, Papua New Guinea, French Polynesia and Indonesia.

As a certified SPMAGTF, MRF-D 26.3 demonstrated the value of a forward-postured stand-in force that remains persistent in the region, integrates with allies and partners, operates from dispersed locations and responds quickly when crises or contingencies arise. Rather than building relationships after an event begins, MRF-D 26.3 used the rotation to establish the trust, procedures and shared understanding needed to move, sustain and operate together quickly.

“This 15th rotation stands as a testament to what the U.S. and Australia can achieve when we train shoulder-to-shoulder,” said U.S. Marine Corps Col. George Flynn, commanding officer of MRF-D 26.3 SPMAGTF. “I want to extend my deepest gratitude to our ADF counterparts and our hosts across the country for their unwavering support. By pushing our limits together during exercises like Render Safe, Predators Run, Southern Jackaroo and Capital Reach, we have learned immensely from one another. We have forged an unparalleled level of interoperability, proving that we can move together rapidly and effectively to ensure a free and open Indo-Pacific.”

The force began preparing before it arrived in Australia. During Exercise Steel Knight 2025 in California and Arizona, the still-forming force established geographically distributed command-and-control nodes and rehearsed long-distance movement of personnel and equipment using MV-22B Osprey tiltrotor aircraft and C-130J Super Hercules aircraft.

Marines and Sailors also underwent evaluations on their ability to conduct embassy reinforcement, evacuation operations, casualty evacuation, expeditionary medical support, aviation-node operations and expeditionary advanced base operations.

After arriving in Darwin in March, MRF-D 26.3 began its regional training campaign in April with Exercise Balikatan 2026 in the Philippines, held April 20 through May 8. The exercise provided the final operational environment for MRF-D 26.3 to complete its SPMAGTF certification.

At the same time, Marines deployed to New Caledonia for Exercise Tagata Toa, a multinational combined-arms exercise hosted by the French Armed Forces from April 27 through May 10.

During Balikatan, Marines and Sailors validated their ability to recover aircraft and personnel, conduct aviation external lift, deliver supplies by air to a notional civilian population and establish expeditionary advanced bases in austere, dispersed locations.

In Aporawan, Palawan, Marines with 1st Battalion, 5th Marines, MRF-D’s ground combat element, trained alongside the Armed Forces of the Philippines, Australian Defence Force, New Zealand Defence Force and U.S. joint forces during a counter-landing live-fire exercise. The combined force synchronized Philippine Marine Corps artillery, High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems, mortars, crew-served weapons, anti-armor systems and air-defense capabilities against simulated amphibious threats.

Balikatan culminated May 3 on Balabac Island, where multinational reconnaissance teams from the Philippine Marine Corps, Australian Army and 1st Reconnaissance Battalion shaped the operational environment before U.S., Philippine and Australian forces conducted an air assault to secure Balabac Airfield.

“Under the cover of darkness, multi-national reconnaissance teams from the PMC, Royal Australian Army, and Force Reconnaissance Company, 1st Reconnaissance Battalion, 1st Marine Division, inserted onto Balabac Island,” said Gunnery Sgt. Ramsey Crow, a platoon sergeant with 1st Reconnaissance Battalion. “These elite elements reconnoitered key terrain to support maritime security operations and fed the targeting cycle with critical intelligence from deep within the battlespace.”

(continued)

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Marine Medium Tiltrotor Squadron 268 (Reinforced) transported personnel and equipment from Antonio Bautista Air Base, while U.S. Army watercraft moved HIMARS into the austere maritime environment. The combined force then integrated air mobility, reconnaissance, ground maneuver and fires during a live-fire demonstration against simulated maritime targets.

The certification carried significance beyond the individual training events. It showed MRF-D 26.3 SPMAGTF could combine its aviation, ground, logistics and command-and-control capabilities with allied and partner forces to respond across maritime terrain without building a force from scratch.

The result was a more capable combined force that could sense, decide, move and sustain operations across multiple locations. Early May also demonstrated the importance of partner-enabled mobility. The Royal New Zealand Air Force provided a Boeing 757 and two C-130 Hercules aircraft to move Marines and equipment between Darwin, New Caledonia and Townsville.

The effort enabled SPMAGTF participation in regional training and required close coordination among MRF-D, the Australian Defence Force and Royal New Zealand Air Force for aircraft scheduling, customs, agricultural clearances, hazardous-material procedures and diplomatic approvals.

The airlift also demonstrated the value of human interoperability: direct professional relationships that allow allies and partners to overcome friction and move quickly when requirements change.

“I would definitely say it’s important, and it’s a good way to demonstrate to adversaries that we are capable of working abroad as if we are home,” said Sgt. Timothy Miller, a platoon sergeant with Alpha Company, 1st Battalion, 5th Marines.

By drawing on allied capacity, access and professional relationships, MRF-D moved personnel and equipment across international boundaries faster than it could have through unilateral means. That ability to leverage partner capabilities expanded the combined force’s reach and resilience across the Indo-Pacific.

The SPMAGTF returned its focus to northern Australia on May 18 with Exercise Predators Walk, the force’s first major Australia-based field exercise. The training continued through June 12 and built tactical familiarity between Marines and Australian counterparts before the force expanded into additional bilateral and multinational training.

That momentum continued in Townsville, where Marines trained alongside Australian and Japanese forces during Exercise Southern Jackaroo, held May 29 through July 3. The trilateral exercise included joint operations and live-fire training designed to strengthen combined readiness and interoperability in complex terrain.

While Southern Jackaroo continued in Australia, Marines and Sailors joined Philippine counterparts for Exercise KAMANDAG 10, held June 15 through July 1. During the exercise, Marines and Sailors visited the Bataan World War II Museum and Capas National Shrine to reflect on the shared history of U.S. and Philippine service members.

The visit reinforced that the U.S.-Philippine alliance remains rooted in shared sacrifice, enduring relationships and a continuing commitment to peace and security.

June also gave MRF-D Marines and Sailors opportunities to support Northern Territory communities.

Approximately 30 Marines and Sailors volunteered for six days at the Barunga Festival, helping community organizers set up and recover festival infrastructure, support event operations and connect with community members through sports, cultural activities and service.

During the festival, Esther Bulumbara, known as “Auntie Esther” and the senior traditional owner of the Bagala clan lands, and Flynn exchanged gifts as a symbol of the ongoing relationship between MRF-D and Aboriginal communities in the Northern Territory. July brought simultaneous training, community engagement and multinational operations.

In Papua New Guinea, Marines assigned to the MRF-D 26.3 explosive ordnance disposal element supported Operation Render Safe 2026 from July 1 through 31. The multinational effort removed World War II-era unexploded ordnance and reduced risks to communities in East New Britain.

The Marine element disposed of 732 munitions totaling 16,041 pounds of net explosive weight. Multinational teams from Papua New Guinea, Australia, the United States, New Zealand, Canada, France, the United Kingdom and Japan disposed of 2,387 munitions totaling 68,029 pounds of net explosive weight, said Gunnery Sgt. Jeremiah Rogers, Marine element commander for Operation Render Safe 2026.

Working across a 7,380-square-kilometer area in northern East New Britain, Marines operated alongside Australian, U.S. Army and New Zealand teams. The Marine element conducted the first Render Safe procedure using a .50-caliber de-armer on a U.S. 5-inch naval round equipped with a mechanical time fuse.

(continued)

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Marines also supported the identification, evacuation planning and disposal of a 1,000-pound U.S. bomb located near Rabaul Market, a heavily traveled public area.

Operation Render Safe demonstrated that forward presence provides value beyond combat training. By working with multinational teams and local communities to remove unexploded ordnance, MRF-D 26 strengthened relationships, improved community safety and showed how combined forces can apply their capabilities to practical regional challenges.

Meanwhile, MRF-D 26 joined the Australian Army’s 1st Brigade and the Philippine Army’s 1st Brigade Combat Team for Exercise Predators Run 26, held July 20 through Aug. 7 in the Townsville Field Training Area. The trilateral exercise integrated U.S., Australian and Philippine forces under a unified command structure for platoon-level training, force-on-force maneuvers and a combined defensive live-fire scenario.

During Predators Run, Marines employed multiple organic unmanned aircraft systems to expand logistics, medical support and ground-combat capabilities. Marines with Combat Logistics Battalion 5 used a tactical resupply unmanned aircraft system to transport temperature-controlled simulated blood more than 2 kilometers to the task force’s primary medical facility while working alongside Australian Army medical personnel.

The task force also employed first-person-view drones during a simulated platoon attack, demonstrating how it can integrate emerging capabilities into distributed operations.

The unmanned aircraft systems showed how a stand-in force can sustain and protect itself while operating across dispersed terrain. Delivering simulated blood by unmanned aircraft reduced the burden on ground convoys and extended medical support, while the ground-combat employment of unmanned systems gave Marines another tool for reconnaissance and precision effects.

In early August, Marines and Australian Sailors conducted Exercise Capital Reach during a combined maritime transit from Townsville to Darwin aboard the Royal Australian Navy flagship HMAS Canberra. Marines and Sailors lived, planned and operated side by side aboard the landing helicopter dock.

VMM-268 (Rein.) conducted MV-22B Osprey deck landing qualifications, while Royal Australian Navy mechanized landing craft transported Marine Corps Joint Light Tactical Vehicles and Medium Tactical Vehicle Replacements from Canberra’s well deck to shore.

“Australia’s alliance with the United States is our most important defence relationship, underpinned by deep levels of cooperation through training, exercises and operations. By operating together, we strengthen our ability to respond,” said Capt. David McPherson, commanding officer of HMAS Canberra. “This exercise demonstrates the high level of trust and interoperability between our two nations.”

Capital Reach showed how the Australia-U.S. alliance can turn maritime access into operational advantage. By operating from an Australian amphibious ship and moving Marine aviation, personnel and ground equipment from sea to shore, the combined force demonstrated another option for distributing forces, sustaining them in austere locations and responding where land-based infrastructure may be limited or unavailable.

(continued)

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The rotation shifted to Indonesia in mid-August. Marines with Alpha Company, 1st Battalion, 5th Marines, conducted an annual platoon exchange with Indonesian marines from 7th Infantry Battalion, 4th Brigade, near Lampung from Aug. 12 through 28.

Marines from both nations trained in tactical combat casualty care, jungle and urban operations, marksmanship and communications before integrated squads applied their shared procedures during a two-day full-mission-profile exercise.

That foundation carried into Exercise Super Garuda Shield 26, which ran Aug. 31 through Sept. 11 across Sumatra and Java. Approximately 230 Marines and Sailors joined Indonesian and multinational partners for combined-arms live fire, jungle operations, small-unit tactics, force-on-force training and subject-matter expert exchanges.

Logistics Marines also conducted water-purification and engineering civic-action projects.

The rotation concluded its major public engagements in Melbourne from Sept. 6 through 11, when MRF-D SPMAGTF and the Australian Defence Force participated in community and ceremonial events surrounding the first regular-season National Football League game played in Australia at the Melbourne Cricket Ground.

Marines supported a youth flag football and science, technology, engineering and mathematics clinic; participated in a joint Taps ceremony at the Shrine of Remembrance; and joined Australian counterparts for a combined color guard, 75-flag-holder detail and aviation flyover during the game’s opening ceremony.

MRF-D 26 SPMAGTF leaves the Indo-Pacific with a stronger network of allies, partners and communities connected by shared experience, proven procedures and mutual trust.

As the first MRF-D certified as an SPMAGTF, MRF-D 26 demonstrated the value of a forward-postured stand-in force. Marines and Sailors integrated with allied and partner formations at every level, leveraged shared maritime, airlift, logistics and medical capabilities, and remained prepared to respond to crisis across the region.

The MRF-D 26 SPMAGTF demonstrated the ability inherent in any USMC MAGTF to response rapidly, communicate effectively, sustain operations in austere locations and do so as the best of teammates alongside allies and partners.

https://www.dvidshub.net/news/577738/mrf-d-26-concludes-15th-rotation-first-certified-special-purpose-marine-air-ground-task-force