{"id":37639,"date":"2026-06-24T12:08:09","date_gmt":"2026-06-24T12:08:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/37639\/"},"modified":"2026-06-24T12:08:09","modified_gmt":"2026-06-24T12:08:09","slug":"former-labor-defence-minister-joel-fitzgibbon-says-public-debate-surrounding-ben-roberts-smith-deterred-some-veterans-from-attending-anzac-hall-opening","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/37639\/","title":{"rendered":"Former Labor defence minister Joel Fitzgibbon says public debate surrounding Ben Roberts-Smith deterred some veterans from attending Anzac Hall opening"},"content":{"rendered":"

Former Labor defence minister Joel Fitzgibbon has called it a “national tragedy” that some special forces veterans stayed away from the opening of Anzac Hall amid the controversy surrounding Ben Roberts-Smith.<\/p>\n

Roberts-Smith, who is awaiting trial on five counts of the war crime of murder, was granted a bail variation to attend the opening of Anzac Hall.<\/p>\n

However, his barrister informed the court ahead of the ceremony that the Victoria Cross recipient had fallen ill and<\/a> would not attend.<\/p>\n

Mr Fitzgibbon, who attended the opening, told Sky News that Roberts-Smith’s explanation was likely genuine.<\/p>\n

Mr Fitzgibbon said: \u201cIn other circumstances he may have made his way there anyway, no matter how sick. He’s a pretty tough guy\u201d.<\/p>\n

He also questioned why a highly decorated soldier such as Roberts-Smith had to seek a bail variation to attend.<\/p>\n

“What’s wrong with the system … that a VC has to go through that process for the right to visit the Australian War Memorial?” he said.<\/p>\n

The former defence minister labelled the debate surrounding Roberts-Smith a “national tragedy,\u201d claiming some special forces veterans skipped the event because of the public controversy.<\/p>\n

\u201cI do know that our special forces soldiers weren’t enthused about being there last night and were not there because of the public debate,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think that\u2019s a national tragedy.\u201d<\/p>\n

The opening marked a major milestone for the completion of the Australian War Memorial’s Atrium and Anzac Hall, part of its $550 million redevelopment.<\/p>\n

All living Victoria Cross recipients were invited.<\/p>\n

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese joined current and former political leaders, military figures and veterans at the official opening of Anzac Hall on Tuesday night.<\/p>\n

Mr Fitzgibbon has previously backed Roberts-Smith<\/a> and argued he should retain his Victoria Cross.<\/p>\n

One Nation leader Pauline Hanson also defended Roberts-Smith at the event.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe may have been charged, he hasn’t been convicted. He’s still an innocent man,\u201d she told Sky News.<\/p>\n

Defence Minister Richard Marles also supported Roberts-Smith’s attendance, saying it was “appropriate” for the veteran to attend following the amendment to his bail conditions.<\/p>\n

“The Victoria Cross recipients have been invited to this, which is appropriate. I’m comfortable about that,” he told ABC TV on Tuesday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Former Labor defence minister Joel Fitzgibbon has called it a “national tragedy” that some special forces veterans stayed…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":37640,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[483,31471,22,23,21,7148,18794,31472,156,1668],"class_list":["post-37639","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-australia","tag-anthony-albanese","tag-anzac-hall-opening","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-austrlia","tag-ben-roberts-smith","tag-defence-minister","tag-joel-fitzgibbon","tag-labor","tag-sky-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37639","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=37639"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37639\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/37640"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37639"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=37639"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=37639"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}