Category Archives: Australian military

Ben Roberts-Smith planned to leave Australia and researched buying wellness business in Spain, court documents show

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Partner of soldier accused of war crimes says the couple discussed possibility of moving overseas to ‘create some normalcy in our lives’

Ben Roberts-Smith was planning to leave Australia to live overseas and had a business class flight out of the country booked in four days’ time when he was arrested at Sydney airport this month, court documents allege, with investigators telling a court “his willingness to return to Australia to face prosecution cannot be judged”.

Roberts-Smith was ultimately granted bail last week under strict conditions, a move opposed by prosecutors who said there was potential concern he was a flight risk and might try to avoid ever having to face trial for a series of alleged murders he committed in Afghanistan.

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Ben Roberts-Smith released from prison on bail after being charged with five counts of war crime murder

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Former SAS corporal granted bail ahead of potential trial on charges relating to alleged killing of civilians in Afghanistan

Ben Roberts-Smith has been granted bail under strict conditions while he awaits a potential trial on alleged war crimes.

The Victoria Cross recipient, once Australia’s most lionised soldier, faces five charges of war crime murder over allegations he killed unarmed civilians during his service with the Australian SAS in Afghanistan.

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Susan Coyle to be first woman to lead Australian army in ‘deeply historic moment’

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Appointment part of senior defence changes as navy chief Mark Hammond promoted to chief of defence force

Lt Gen Susan Coyle, an officer of more than three decades standing, will become the first woman to lead the Australian army.

Coyle has been announced as the new chief of army, with her term beginning in July.

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Australian War Memorial amends Ben Roberts-Smith display after former soldier charged with war crimes

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Text on plaque in Hall of Valour updated to include references to war crime – murder charges and the ongoing legal process

The Australian War Memorial has updated the display dedicated to Ben Roberts-Smith after the former Special Air Service (SAS) corporal was officially charged with five counts of the war crime of murder.

The changes, implemented on Friday, mean nearly half of the descriptive plaque in the museum’s Hall of Valour is now dedicated to events occurring after his military service, beginning with the initial reports of misconduct in 2016.

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Ben Roberts-Smith is back in court, now as a defendant. His case reminds us that there are laws even amid war

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The former soldier’s previous defamation trial presents the rare situation of there being hours of evidence of his alleged crimes already on the public record

For almost every day of his marathon defamation trial, Ben Roberts-Smith VC, sat in the same spot in the federal court. A chair by the window, bathed in sunshine, from where he could glare at witnesses giving evidence.

He sits now in a very different position.

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Australia will be left with no submarines if it abandons Aukus, senior defence official warns

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Malcolm Turnbull asks defence department official what Australia would do if the promised Virginia-class and Aukus-class submarines don’t arrive

Australia will be left with no submarines if it abandons the Aukus deal with the US and UK, a senior defence official has warned, declining to publicly countenance an alternative plan if Australia’s promised nuclear-powered fleet does not arrive under Australian command.

“Defence has been directed to pursue Aukus and we are pursuing Aukus and that’s our plan. I would not venture into the space about ‘Plan B’ or ‘Plan C’,” defence department deputy secretary, Hugh Jeffrey, told a Sovereignty and Security Forum in Canberra on Friday.

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Australian soldiers’ bodies ‘very likely’ disturbed by Israeli bulldozing at Gaza cemetery, senator says

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David Pocock’s comments come as new photos show scale of damage and government official says its ‘quite possible’ bodies disturbed

The bodies of Australian soldiers buried in Gaza have “very likely” been disturbed, the independent senator David Pocock says, as new photos tendered to parliament show widespread damage of graves by Israeli bulldozers.

About 146 of the 263 graves of Australian soldiers buried in Gaza have been damaged, Senate estimates heard last week.

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Penny Wong refuses to say if any Australian crew onboard US submarine that sank Iranian warship

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More than 50 Australian sailors and officers serving across US attack submarine fleet as part of preparations for Aukus

The Australian government has refused to disclose whether Australian sailors or officers were onboard the US attack submarine which torpedoed and sank an Iranian warship in the Indian Ocean, killing at least 87 people.

More than 50 Australian sailors and officers are serving across the US attack submarine fleet, a training regimen that is part of preparations for Australia to command its own nuclear-powered submarines under the Aukus deal.

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Albanese should demand reparations from Israel, say families of Australian soldiers whose graves were bulldozed

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A third family says the Australian government must do more to hold Israel and the Israeli Defence Force to account, including demanding an apology

The families of dead Australian soldiers whose graves were bulldozed by the Israeli Defence Force in Gaza have called for reparations and urged the Albanese government to hold Israel accountable.

Earlier this month, the Guardian revealed that the IDF had bulldozed parts of the Gaza War Cemetery – the resting place of Australian, British and Canadian soldiers who served in the first and second world wars.

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Google to build new AI datacentre on tiny Australian Indian Ocean outpost after signing defence deal

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Military experts say facility on Christmas Island would be valuable asset to monitor Chinese submarine and naval activity

Google plans to build a large AI datacentre on Australia’s remote Indian Ocean outpost of Christmas Island after signing a cloud deal with the Department of Defence earlier this year, according to documents reviewed by Reuters and interviews with officials.

Plans for the datacentre on the tiny island located 350km south of Indonesia have not previously been reported, and many details, including its projected size, cost and potential uses, remain secret.

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Australia’s $20m ‘iron fist’ deal with Israel’s largest arms company signed two weeks before UN genocide finding

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Exclusive: Experts criticise federal government’s contract with Elbit Systems as ‘troubling acceptance’ of Israel’s conduct in Gaza

Australia’s $20m purchase of missiles from an Israeli arms company for its “iron fist” weapons system on infantry vehicles has been condemned as “morally questionable” and reflective of a “troubling acceptance” of Israel’s conduct in Gaza.

The Australian defence department signed a contract with Israel’s largest weapons company, Elbit Systems, on 1 September, two weeks before a UN commission of inquiry found Israel was committing genocide in Gaza. Details of the contract were not published on the Australian government’s contract database until last week.

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Women launch class action against ADF alleging widespread sexual violence, misogyny and harassment

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Female members of the military shouldn’t have to fight off their colleagues on a daily basis, lawyer says

Women who allegedly suffered widespread and systemic sexual abuse, harassment, discrimination and victimisation while serving in the Australian defence force are taking part in a class action against the commonwealth.

There are four applicants in the class action, whose names are withheld for legal reasons, but any woman subjected to sexual violence, sexual harassment or discrimination while working in the ADF between 12 November 2003 and 25 May 2025 is eligible to join them.

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Trump says Australia will get the Aukus submarines – but the decision won’t be his to make

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If the US navy needs the subs, they cannot be sold to Australia, regardless of how much the president might wish it

Even by the standards of the Trumpian promise, the unvarnished commitment to Australia on US nuclear submarines – “they’re getting them” – is entirely unreliable.

They are not the US president’s boats to give.

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Australia says Chinese fighter jet released flares near RAAF aircraft in ‘dangerous’ incident

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Richard Marles condemns Chinese military after flares let off ‘very close’ to Australian surveillance aircraft over South China Sea

The acting prime minister, Richard Marles, has condemned the “unsafe and unprofessional” behaviour of the Chinese military, saying a fighter jet released flares close to an Australian surveillance plane over the South China Sea.

Australia’s defence forces expressed “concerns” about the incident in a statement, saying it posed a risk to Royal Australian Air Force personnel and their aircraft. No injuries or damage was sustained as a result of actions.

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Weapons maker Saab ‘directly linked’ to human rights breach after missile found in South Australian Indigenous area

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Lawyer hopes investigation for OECD into 2021 find near Australian military testing range sets precedent

The weapons manufacturer Saab was “directly linked” to a human rights violation when a missile it produced was found in an Indigenous heritage area, an investigation for the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development has found.

The four-year investigation could lead to more companies being held accountable for how their weapons are used by clients, according to human rights lawyers involved in the case.

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Billion-dollar coffins? New technology could make oceans transparent and Aukus submarines vulnerable

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Quantum sensing, satellite tracking and AI are part of an accelerating arms race in detection that should prompt a re-evaluation of Australia’s defence strategy

Military history is littered with the corpses of apex predators.

The Gatling gun, the battleship, the tank. All once possessed unassailable power – then were undermined, in some cases wiped out, by the march of new technology.

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Australian War Memorial defers military history prize after judging panel awards it to book on Ben Roberts-Smith

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Exclusive: Governing council ‘retrospectively’ decides the Les Carlyon literary award should go only to first-time authors, ruling out Chris Masters’ book

The Australian War Memorial has effectively overruled a decision by its appointed judges to award a military history literary prize to a book about the alleged war criminal Ben Roberts-Smith.

War memorial sources and documents seen by Guardian Australia show that an external judging panel chose Chris Masters’ book Flawed Hero: Truth, Lies and War Crimes as the 2024 winner of the Les Carlyon literary award for military history, after a panel comprising memorial employees had included it in a shortlist of six from 59 entries.

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China’s military follows Australian and Canadian warships in Taiwan Strait accusing them of ‘provocation’

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Strait is considered an international waterway by countries including the US, Canada, Britain and Taiwan

Australian and Canadian warships sailing through the sensitive Taiwan Strait have been followed and warned by China’s military, with Beijing describing the incident as a provocation.

The People’s Liberation Army’s Eastern Theatre Command said the Australian guided-missile destroyer Brisbane and the Canadian frigate Ville de Quebec were engaged in “trouble-making and provocation”.

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ABC defence correspondent Andrew Greene quits after failure to disclose junket

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Resignation comes after Media Watch revealed a German defence company bidding for an Australian contract paid for him to visit its shipyards

A senior journalist at the ABC has tendered his resignation two months after the public broadcaster’s Media Watch program raised potential conflict-of-interest concerns over a press junket.

Andrew Greene has been defence correspondent for the past 10 years since joining the ABC in 2010.

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Aukus laws will mean anywhere in Australia could be potential nuclear waste dump, critics say

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Greens senator David Shoebridge says communities will have ‘no way to protect the land’ from waste that will be radioactive for millennia

Critics of Australia’s Aukus submarine deal say the government has given itself the power to nominate any place in Australia as a potential nuclear waste dump, without proper consultation with communities and indigenous landowners.

Australia has agreed to take sole responsibility for the management, security and storage of all nuclear waste from its fleet of proposed nuclear-powered submarines, including the spent fuel from the submarines’ reactors – high-level nuclear waste that will be radioactive for millennia once the submarines are decommissioned from the early 2050s.

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