KAP Federal Member for Kennedy Bob Katter will introduce laws to protect the identity of war veterans from summary judgement by media, and ensure all legal matters involving warfare decision-making by deployed Defence Force personnel go to a court system judged by their peers – other combat soldiers using war-time standards – when Parliament resumes for Budget week in May.
Announcing the private member’s bill being drafted to cover veterans if they faced legal challenges from war service, Mr Katter today said he was “enraged by the erosion of the rule of law” in Australia since the arrest of scapegoated war hero Ben Roberts-Smith, and the “trial-by-media circus” dogging him for years.
The announcement comes after another distressed veteran returned his service medals to the Kennedy electorate offices this week with a letter requesting Mr Katter send them back to Canberra “after seeing the way they treat veterans… I no longer want them”.
Mr Katter said the potent plea embodied a swelling “rage and hatred” in the community reaction to this week’s coordinated publicised arrest and relentless media persecution of our nation’s most highly decorated Afghanistan war hero – which poses grave risks to “justice being done and, critically, being seen to be done”.
“You only have a look at Germany in the 1930s to see what happens when people lose faith in their government,” warned the veteran MP of more than half-a-century about a “coming hatred of politicians”.
“Now, we haven’t reached that stage, yet. But what’s happened with Ben is not a stain on our Defence Force or Australia – it’s a verdict of the ruling-class rodents running this country,” said Mr Katter, who was born in the dying days of World War II and raised with the legacy of horrors on veterans, families and communities nationwide, including his own family and friends.
“The rule of law means judgement by your peers and, as Winston Churchill put it, those who cannot learn the lessons of history are doomed to again suffer its miseries.
“The great dictators of the past always begin with the erosion of the rule of law. Once you move away from that, it becomes a snowballing avalanche that gets rapidly worse.
“Not only are they putting soldiers’ lives and livelihoods in jeopardy, but they are also now putting their liberty at risk at the hands of their own country and its ‘wokie’ machine. These people classify patriotism as evil and want to demonise those who want to work hard. They are tearing down every single aspect of life – everything that makes us Australians.
“Now, they are entitled to a demand a trial, but they are not entitled to jail a person without a trial. Well, this man is now in jail, yet he has had no trial. Even witch-hunts had mock trials! This bloke has been put in jail without any trial, and it takes years for a trial to even begin – even though you could be totally innocent.
“Until he is proven guilty, I will stand 100 per cent behind Ben just as I stand in solidarity with any person who has worn the uniform – anyone who has risked their life to defend Australia.”
Mr Katter said serving your country in warfare carried with it an unwritten law that the first duty of a solider on the battlefield was to “look after his mates”.
“You might be there to fight for your country, to protect your family – but when you’re in the heat of it, you’re not fighting for anything else other than because your mates are out there fighting too. Those values are the values that have been desecrated, spat upon, manured upon by these ‘armchair double-degreed-do-nothing wokies’ straight out of university.
“Ben’s case has been treated as a national-interest case – arguably to make some grubby journalists and public officials famous. And the government will spend money on that, but they haven’t got enough money to put a missile on a patrol boat?
“The rule of law says you are innocent until proven guilty and it should be applied here just as it is in all other criminal cases – judgement by your peers. All I am asking for is for our traditional Western civilisation justice system to be served to our bravest. Even a murderer, rapist or paedophile is presumed innocent – their identity protected until found guilty – and this should be extended, at the very least, to our war veterans.
“For our veterans to be giving away their medals – probably their only prized possession – shows the depth of the rage and hatred that is out there in our community; they would be endorsing my rage with aggression.
“So, we will fight this. We will fight so all veterans can keep those medals pinned proudly to their chest.”
