Australian Electoral Commissioner Tom Rogers’ military past revealed after Voice referendum controversy

Australian Election Commissioner Tom Rogers was nicknamed after a character by Mr Bean comedian Rowan Atkinson while serving in the Australian Army.

The commissioner sparked controversy this week when he revealed that referendum ballots marked with a tick would be accepted as a yes vote for the Vote to Parliament, but crosses would not count as no.

AEC officials have been desperately trying all week to put out the political firestorm, insisting it was the same legal advice they had received and followed for 40 years.

But the row has become the biggest controversy to hit the AEC since the commissioner took over 11 years ago to bring military precision to the operation.

Mr Rogers, 61, spent 20 years as an officer in the Australian Army after joining Duntroon’s Royal Military College as a cadet in 1980 and graduating in 1983.

And he admits he was baffled by everyday life when he left the service, not even knowing how to pay for a doctor’s appointment.

Students at the academy at the time remember him as a match for Rowan Atkinson’s World War I comic character Blackadder (pictured with his dim-witted sidekick Baldrick, played by Tony Robinson)

The former rugby-playing private schoolboy at St Pius X College in Chatswood is said to have risen to the rank of Major and later UN Commander.

But in 1990 he was appointed adjutant – a form of military bureaucrat usually ranked as a captain or major – at the Australian Defense Force Academy.

Students at the academy at the time remember that his period coincided with the heyday of Rowan Atkinson’s World War I sitcom, Blackadder Goes Forth.

They said the AEC chief’s dry style was a perfect fit for Atkinson’s main character and gave him a nickname that combined the show and his work, calling him “The Black Adjer.”

“Tom Rogers was adjutant to the Australian Defense Force Academy in 1991,” remembers Peter Harris, who knew him then.

His mannerisms led to him being compared to Rowan Atkinson, who was starring on the TV show Black Adder at the time.

“This led to Tom Rogers being labeled the Black Adjer by the cadets and staff.”

Former cadets also questioned whether he was later behind the nomination of a new electorate created by the AEC in Canberra in 2018, located just south of the academy.

It was named Bean after Charles Edwin Woodrow Bean, born in 1879, who led the campaign to establish the Australian War Memorial.

But some wondered if it was also a reference to Mr. Rogers’ old nickname and Rowan Atkinson’s other famous bumbling comic character, Mr. Bean.

Mr. Rogers received four awards during his service, including the Australian Service Medal with Clasp, the Defense Force Service Medal, the Australian Defense Medal and the United Nations Medal.

Tom Rogers received four awards during his service, earning him the Australian Service Medal with clasp, the Defense Force Service Medal, the Australian Defense Medal and the United Nations Medal (pictured)

Rowan Atkinson plays Mr. Bean

He was awarded the Australian Defense Medal for four years of service and the Defense Force Service Medal for 15 years in ADF uniform, including a stint as a senior leadership instructor at Duntroon.

But he earned the Australian Service Medal and the United Nations Medal for his role as a UN commander on a peacekeeping mission in the Golan Heights in the late 1990s.

He once revealed how he took his wife Kate – also a former army officer – and their eldest daughter to the UN outpost on the disputed border between Syria and Israel.

But on the very first night at the welcome dinner, his daughter fell off a wall and broke her head open.

His wife jumped up to help her, but accidentally threw her plate of food over her husband in the process.

“This is my welcome to the UN,” the Commissioner told the UN AFR. “We have maybe fifty people there and suddenly I’m covered in goulash.”

He earned the Australian Service Medal and the United Nations Medal for his role as a UN commander on a peacekeeping mission in the Golan Heights in the late 1990s.

He was stationmaster in the powder keg war zone for fourteen months before returning to Australia and leaving the army for a civilian life shortly afterwards.

Mr Rogers – who does not use his military rank in civilian life and the AEC refused to discuss his military background – remained station chief in the powder keg zone for 14 months before returning to Australia.

He decided to end his 20-year military career at the age of 38 and briefly served as a consultant to defense contractor Raytheon Australia.

He was tasked with devising security measures for possible emergency scenarios during the Sydney Olympics, but quit just a few months after the Games ended.

He admits that returning to civilian life had confused him at times, when he told a health center receptionist that he didn’t know how to pay a doctor’s fee: “I have no idea.

“I understand there’s Medicare out there, but I’ve never done anything like it.”

He joined the Australian Federal Police’s Australian Institute of Police Management in 2002 as Program Director for five years, before serving a brief two-year stint as an Electoral Officer, then returning to the AIPM in 2009 as Executive Director.

He was appointed Deputy Commissioner of the AEC in 2012, became Commissioner in 2014 and appointed another former Australian Army veteran, Kathryn Toohey, as his deputy in 2016.

Since then, they have implemented precision and military-style logistics to keep the Election Day process running smoothly, with every aspect of Election Day planned, recorded, and executed by a workforce that has suddenly grown from 800 to over 100,000.

Aside from an incident in Western Australia in 2013 in which some 1,375 voices mysteriously disappeared – and have never been found – he says his biggest challenge is social media.

“The information ecosystem was completely different at the time of the last referendum, without social media,” he told Senate estimates in May.

“We are already seeing an increase in disinformation on social media, and a regrettable increase in threatening comments.”

He said it was the “most challenging, unpredictable, complex, yet exciting era in AEC history.”

The Voice referendum will be the commissioner’s final swan song after 11 years in this position

His current term of office expires in 2024 and Tom Rogers (pictured with his wife Kate) is convinced he will no longer be in this role.

The AEC will now aggressively counter any disinformation they encounter online, even attacking Peter Dutton on Friday over his claims that the referendum vote was rigged due to the confusion over ticks and ticks.

They issued a statement saying, “The AEC completely and utterly rejects the suggestions.”

But the Voice referendum will probably be the commissioner’s last swan song.

His current term of office expires in 2024 and he is convinced that he will no longer be in this position.

He told the AFR that 11 years is “a long time for one person to be responsible for the culture of such an important agency.”

He added, “I’ve got all the ideas I’ve put in, and it’s probably time someone else stepped in.”

And like Blackadder – which ended in a moving black-and-white tribute to the fallen – all good things must come to an end… even the Black Adjer.