War Memorial director blames ‘communication breakdown’ for book-prize saga

The head of the Australian War Memorial has blamed a communications breakdown for the fact celebrated journalist Chris Masters was blocked from winning a prestigious literary prize for a book about war criminal Ben Roberts-Smith after an independent judging panel chose him as the winner.

“It wasn’t handled well,” War Memorial Director Matt Anderson conceded of the saga.

Anderson told Senate estimates hearings on Wednesday that the Les Carlyon literary prize had been explicitly established as an award for emerging authors, but some social media posts calling for entries for the 2024 prize had not made this clear.

Two independent judges – including Denise Carlyon, the widow of the late historian for whom the prize is named – decided Masters should win the prize for his book Flawed Hero: Truth, Lies and War Crimes.

The War Memorial’s governing council rejected the recommendation and reaffirmed that the prize should only be for emerging writers who had written their first major work.

Blaming a “breakdown in communication”, Anderson vigorously rejected claims the War Memorial did not want to celebrate a book about a disgraced war hero whose Victoria Cross medal honour is celebrated in the memorial.

Greens senator David Shoebridge labelled the affair a “debacle”.

It was revealed last month that Masters was uninvited from delivering the 2026 CEW Bean military history lecture due to fears by the organisers that it would jeopardise any future commercial relationship with the memorial.

Anderson also defended the War Memorial’s decision to keep displaying a photograph of Ben Roberts-Smith in the museum’s hall of valour that showed the disgraced war hero in Afghanistan.

Shoebridge condemned the choice to edit a dead body out of the photograph, asking Anderson: “How on earth did that get through any ethical decision-making? A staged photo of a bloke who’s famous for wanting his kill count” before condemning the choice to edit out the dead Afghan.

Anderson said he stood by the photo that “was taken on the day in which he was awarded the Victoria Cross for valour.”

He defended the decision to edit out the body, arguing that as children walk through the museum, the displays needed to be “... not quite age appropriate, but certainly PG”.

Earlier this year, the war memorial added an extra text panel noting that a Federal Court judge determined there was substantial truth to the allegation that he was complicit in the killings of unarmed civilians, while adding he had not been charged with any criminal offences.

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