It is interesting to see what kind of comments appear on social media in relation to the Ben Roberts-Smith arrest.

For those who came in late (as they say in the Phantom comics):

My position has always been that we need to follow due process of the law and that no one is immune from prosecution or otherwise above the law. My position also has been abundantly clear that we have mythologised Breaker Morant to the point of martyrdom and that this has not helped form an accountable culture in our Defence Forces, particularly in recent years, nor in forming the lens through which we as a nation see the conduct of our Defence Forces.

The phrase at the top of this blog – Breaker Morant 2.0 – was posted by one of the online supporters of Mr Roberts-Smith on Facebook, and then showed up in my feed. That sort of comment is probably typical of the world view of the people who publicly support him on social media.

They are entitled to their opinions (we are after all a democracy and we should engage in civil discussions), but I consider that parallels to Breaker Morant are part of the cultural problem which has led us to the sad state of affairs where a national hero has been accused of war crimes, and where many people in our community are stating openly that killing in warfare (including of non-combatants, prisoners, and wounded) should happen with impunity, rather than within accepted rules of war.

We need to move the national conversation away from the mythologising about convicted war criminals like Breaker Morant and towards nurturing a military culture where our troops do not behave with impunity.

The news today that Ben Roberts-Smith VC has been arrested on charges of murder relating to war crimes allegedly committed in Afghanistan whilst serving with the Australian Army has triggered a wave of outrage from some supposed patriots.

My own views on this, particularly given that the matter is now sub judice, are more nuanced.

For several months, if not years, there has been a Facebook page dedicated to demanding a ‘pre-emptive pardon’ for Mr Roberts-Smith. Given that he had, despite serious accusations and the findings of a civil court to a lower standard of proof, not yet been charged with any crimes, let alone convicted, I deplore calls for pre-emptive pardons as I feel that they undermine the place of due process in our legal system.

Indeed, I do not think that you can pre-emptively pardon someone who has not yet been found by a criminal court to have actually committed a crime. [Indeed, it implies that these petitioners believe that he did commit the crimes in question, but that he should not answer for them.]

But I doubt that those who talk of pre-emptive pardons are actually holders of law degrees, although I have met enough law graduates over the course of my adult life that I do not put my faith unreservedly in the understanding of jurisprudence held by all members of that category.

Australia’s relationship with the concept of war crimes has unfortunately been an ambiguous one, despite the fact that we are, on the whole, an extreme decent and fair nation, particularly when compared with most others.

On one hand, we played a significant role in the creation and then adoption of what is commonly known as the Rome Statute, the current main international legal instrument defining war crimes and crimes against humanity. [In my former day job, I had the pleasure and privilege of meeting and discussing these serious matters several times with a law professor from Melbourne University who had contributed greatly to the creation of the Rome Statute.]

On the other hand, we have this collective belief in the martyrdom of Breaker Morant, an Australian officer in the Boer War who, along with several of his colleagues, was convicted and executed for the killing of various prisoners of war and civilians.

Various books and a movie have emphasised this martyrdom myth in the intervening 125 years, particularly in the past half century.

This collective belief appears to have mutated into a sense of immunity for the conduct of Australian soldiers in conflict, that our troops can do no wrong, are above reproach in their behaviour on the battlefield and hence are immune from prosecution.

Ben Roberts-Smith, as arguably the most decorated living Australian soldier, has benefited from the shadow that the execution of Breaker Morant has cast on the conduct of Australian troops in the intervening 125 years.

But, Victoria Cross or not, he is not above the law. He was found by a court in a defamation trial to have, to the civil standard of proof (balance of probabilities), committed war crimes. He was unsuccessful in appealing that verdict to a higher court.

Now that the civil trials are over, the way is clear to establish in a criminal court, with its higher standard of proof (beyond reasonable doubt), whether he is guilty of murder or related war crimes.

I do feel sadness about this. I am patriotic, and I value our defence forces and the supreme sacrifice that a hundred thousand Australians have made since Federation in so many wars. I mostly believe that our troops are better behaved than those in other armies, and that we are fighting for just causes, rather than for conquest or to defend tyranny.

But that does not mean that we turn a blind eye to serious allegations of conduct that does not meet the standards of behaviour that we expect of our troops. To do so would not only undermine the legitimacy of our just cause when we do fight, but also will provide those who might behave otherwise the impunity to behave as if they are above the law.

Hence it is necessary, given the existence of such serious accusations, to see them tested in a court of law, in a criminal trial.

The Australian nation requires this, to preserve the moral integrity of our legal system, and of our defence forces, to show the world that we will behave better than others do in armed conflict, and that if we do not, we will investigate and punish transgressors.

As a footnote, in relation to the historical fact that Mr Roberts-Smith is a holder of the Victoria Cross, it is unlikely that it will be stripped from him, even if he were to be convicted. Whilst this happened several times prior to 1920, George V was asked his views that year as to whether the holder of a Victoria Cross should ever have it revoked for subsequent crimes. His views, as expressed through one of his courtiers, was:

The King feels so strongly that, no matter the crime committed by anyone on whom the VC has been conferred, the decoration should not be forfeited. Even were a VC to be sentenced to be hanged for murder, he should be allowed to wear his VC on the scaffold.

I am sad that a national hero must face justice in relation to the crimes he may have committed. But I am relieved that even heroes are not above the law.

The more I look at the news around Treasury Wine Estates, the more I am grateful that I sold 90% of my shares last year, leaving only sufficient to get me an invitation to the Annual General Meeting.

The announcement in mid-February that TWE was not going to pay a dividend this half year was not exactly surprising, given that the share price had been continuing to travel south and there has been no good news amongst any of the company announcements over the past year.

This morning, one of my friends sent me a link to the latest cheery news reports – that the Plato fund management group has not only been betting on the share price falling even further, but that they believe that there is a strong risk that the company could go bankrupt.

Well… in just under 18 months the falling share price has caused about $8 billion to be wiped from the company’s value.

A lot of the blame for the fall in the share price and the poor financial situation is due to the decision some 30 months ago to buy Daou vineyards in the USA. I remember that TWE did a rights issue at the time – a rights issue in which I did not bother participating.

Thinking about it, I have some 26 years of history as an investor in TWE and its various predecessor companies, such as Fosters Group and Southcorp to give me context.

Southcorp made a fatal mistake in consenting to what became a reverse takeover when it merged with Rosemount circa 2000. Not only did the fall out from that merger seriously damage the bottom line, but it caused the rise of Casella Wines’ Yellowtail brand at Southcorp’s expense. Nor was the Rosemount brand maintained (it had been the second biggest selling domestic wine brand in 1999) – it is now just a footnote in the TWE annual report each year rather than a surviving brand.

Then… despite the reservations held by the CEO of Fosters, the Fosters Board decided to take over Southcorp shortly afterwards, when the Oatley family (former owners of Rosemount) offered to sell their shares in Southcorp to Fosters. That decision did not exactly benefit the Fosters bottom line.

The moral of those stories is that bolting on additional large wine businesses to an existing wine conglomerate is not necessarily going to be a successful transaction. Indeed, looking at the many mergers and demergers which occur across many businesses in all sectors (the 1999 merger of BHP and Billiton, and the various capital restructures of Westfield come to mind) cause me to think that merger and acquisition lawyers are the main beneficiaries of such boardroom decisions. Call me cynical.

The TWE AGM is due to occur in October. Last year, I was very disappointed with the quality of the catering and the quantity of wine available, particularly in comparison to the 2024 AGM. I will go along again, but I will anticipate the explanations from the Board almost as much as the post meeting refreshments. And I will be bringing my party posse.

I was premature in my predictions about Moira Deeming and Western Metropolitan. There was another twist I did not see coming.

It has been known for several years that Dinesh Gourisetty, the endorsed candidate for 18 hours for that seat, had been fined heavily over health code violations at a restaurant he owned. This issue was raised by a Liberal Party official four years ago when he sought the Western Metropolitan preselection for the 2022 state election. At that time, that was enough to kibosh his chances of a political career.

This time around, it seemed that everything was forgiven. Despite his conviction for health code violations, he was able to win the endorsement with 37 votes against 29 for Moira and 3 for the second upper house MP, Truong Luu (who is a really good bloke).

Then, on Monday morning, all the triumph came to a premature end. It turned out that two years ago, Dinesh had written a character reference for a friend who ended up getting gaoled for child sex offences. This reference was public record, in that it was held in the AUSLII legal database, easily accessible to anyone who might think to look.

[I do wonder do had actually thought to look and then release this information at the most unfortunate moment, rather than sometime before the preselection convention.]

Suddenly Dinesh no longer looked like a barely viable candidate. The state opposition leader, Jess Wilson, announced that she would not allow him to join the party room after the election. Phillip Davis, the state president, sent out an email late Monday afternoon announcing that the preselection would be redone, without Dinesh as a candidate, and that Dinesh had agreed to step down.

Subsequent news reports suggest that he did not agree to step down, or at least not so readily.

In any event, nominations were reopened almost immediately for the number one spot on the Liberal ticket for Western Metropolitan. The Herald Sun has misinterpreted this as the party making another move against Moira Deeming, rather than the party trying to follow due process, albeit in its usual ham fisted way.

It really is amateur hour. Davis’s opponents on the state executive are demanding he immediately resign – despite the fact that his term is up in May. Some people are calling for a federal takeover of the state division, even though I somehow do not see that the federal apparatus of the Liberal Party looks particularly credible right now.

But the Western Metropolitan debacle is merely symptomatic of a wider malaise in the Victorian Liberals. The state election is scheduled for 28 November, less than 8 months ago. The coalition need to win a minimum of 45 seats – 26 more than they won at the last election. The only endorsed lower house candidates are the 19 in the coalition held seats. Nominations closed on 27 February for 4 marginal seats, and on 27 March for 8 marginal seats. No candidates have been chosen yet in those seats, let alone in the additional 14 minimum seats needed to win government.

Time is growing short to select candidates and get them on the ground, running for office. The lack of candidates is going to hurt.

And every day reduces the likelihood that the candidates will be chosen by a preselection convention involving local grassroots members, rather than appointed by the State Executive.

At this rate, I do not see that Federal intervention in the state Liberals is actually going to make a difference – it will just put a new captain on the bridge of the Titanic at the time after the iceberg has already collided.

I still buy and read books, although I much prefer to idle a few hours away on the iPad with the Kindle app, reading what is on offer via Kindle Unlimited (my preference is for Sharpe and Hornblower imitations about the Napoleonic War).

Browsing physical books in an actual bookshop is still a simple and real pleasure for me, one which I do not envisage ever giving up.

Recently, when browsing in QBD at Highpoint West, I came across a new release called ‘A Sociopath’s Guide To A Successful Marriage’.

With a title like that, I had to buy it, and I greatly enjoyed it, with the tension and black humour building as I got further into the book.

One very small detail which stood out for me, which really sets this book apart, is that the first husband (and victim) of the narrator happens to be an Australian, who is first introduced to us wearing a Western Bulldogs cap.

As this happens to be my team (and as we won today, I happened to have noticed that a few people besides myself were wearing such caps when out and about), I am pretty chuffed about this little detail. I have gone as far as contacting the author via instagram to ask what caused him to add this little detail, as it is very intriguing to me, but alas, no response.

I doubt that this book will be studied by scholars in the decades to come, with no Penguin Classic annotated edition to come out, so I expect that this question will remain unanswered.

But I suspect that this is the first time that, outside of Australia, any mention of the Western Bulldogs will have made it into literature, even the crime noir variety.

Last summer, I wrote about trying to grow pumpkins. I ended up successfully producing two. They were butternut variety.

This year, I tried again. Put in a few seeds of a variety which grows best in pots. So I have a few tennis ball sized (so far) yellow fruits in vines growing in pots.

I also decided to try again growing giant pumpkins. I planted a few seeds in a compost heap. Now I have several very healthy vines growing out of that heap and several pumpkins rapidly fattening up. I do not really want a 50 kilogram pumpkin, as I cannot lift such a beast, but I am very curious to see how big I can grow them.

This makes up in part for the disaster which has been this year’s attempt at growing heirloom tomatoes. I take some consolation in knowing that it is a bad year for tomatoes for a lot of people, from what I have heard.

It is going to be a while before I run out of the business cards I ordered in late 2024. I did, after all, order 500 at that time.

But when I do, I need to work out what sort of outrageous claims I can make on the card, beyond calling myself by the post nominal ‘Esq’ and describing myself as a ‘Gentleman of Leisure’, which looks rather boring in comparison to some of the others I have seen.

Let’s look at the business card I was given at the Savage Club in late 2024 by one interesting character.

That chap calls himself ‘Man of Action’ and then lists the following services:

. Lions Tamed

. Insurrections Put Down

. Mountains Climbed

. Virgins Cured

. Opinions Given

. Channels Swum

. Wars Fought

. Lawyers Intimidated

. God Disproven

. Casseroles Cooked.

You would think this was pretty original. However, when I was at my Bottle Club at Jimmy Watson’s Wine Bar on Thursday, another chap handed me his newly printed business card which described him as a ‘Gentleman and Flaneur’. [In case you are wondering, a ‘flaneur’ is someone who ‘saunters around observing society’.]

The flip side of this chap’s card offers the following services:

. Revolutions started & uprisings quelled

. Tamer of tigers and wayward moustaches

. Souls saved & sceptics convinced

. International adventurer & sometimes casual hero, bounder and a cad

. The difficult done immediately.

. The impossible takes longer.

. Miracles by appointment.

. No obligations, no worries.

You can see some similarities and opposites between what is included in these two totally separate business cards, such as the taming of lions or tigers, putting down insurrections as opposed to revolutions started and uprisings quelled, God disproven compared to Souls saved and sceptics convinced….

The chap who handed me his card on Thursday said that he was thinking of including ‘Virgins cured’ on the card, except that he wants to remain married.

Which leads me to conclude that there is some printer of business cards somewhere in Melbourne who is catering to the whims of the more eccentric members of our Gentlemen’s Clubs, and producing some standard text options for amusing inclusion on cards.

It all does make my simple card look rather boring indeed.

Postscript:

Since typing this blog post yesterday, I did have a bit of a Google search on the subject of such business cards, and have discovered that such business cards with almost identical phrasing have been making the rounds since at least the late 1980s, and not merely in Australia.