Andrew Wilkie (Clark, Independent) Share this | Hansard source

The topic for today's matter of public importance is the government's disregard for the rule of law, sovereignty and a healthy democracy. I suggest there's no better case study to explore this important subject than Julian Assange. Seeing as this will be discussed during this MPI in some detail, to assist the House, I'll briefly summarise the matter.

Let us not forget that Julian Assange is not a citizen of the United States; he is a citizen of Australia. He founded WikiLeaks and he sought asylum in the Ecuadorian embassy in London for some seven years in an attempt to avoid extradition to the United States via Sweden. He's now jailed in Belmarsh prison in London, where he's been for almost one year, most of that time as punishment for breaching bail when he sought political asylum in the Ecuadorian embassy. He remains in Her Majesty's Prison Belmarsh while a court hearing is underway looking at a request from the United States for him to be extradited to the US, where he faces 17 espionage charges and one hacking charge. If Julian Assange is convicted of those 18 federal charges, he's at risk of being jailed in a US federal prison for 175 years—a life imprisonment which may well be called a death sentence when you consider the man's poor health.

There are a range of views about Julian Assange, but please let us remember what the substantive matter is. The substantive matter is that Julian Assange and WikiLeaks, acting as a journalist and a publishing house, released information in the public interest, including hard evidence of US war crimes. Let's not forget that the US extradition is narrow and is only to do with WikiLeaks' revelations during 2010 and 2011 regarding US misconduct in Iraq, in Afghanistan and at Guantanamo Bay and also regarding the so-called embassy cables. Who can possibly forget the shocking footage—that grainy black-and-white footage—of a US attack helicopter gunning down Iraqi civilians in the street, including two Reuters journalists? Unbelievable footage!

This isn't about all of the other allegations, insinuations, stories and furphies that swirl around WikiLeaks and Julian Assange. This is fundamentally about the freedom of the press and the freedom of a journalist to publish information in the public interest. That's what this is about. That's only what this is about. Let's put aside this nonsense debate about whether Julian Assange and WikiLeaks are a journalist and a publishing house. Of course they are. I was in London just last week at the Frontline Club and there, in the display cabinet, is Julian Assange's Walkley Award. You can add to that all of the other international awards he has received for his journalism. There is also the fact that, at the moment, in the international media, there is a letter from 1,300 international journalists who all agree that Julian Assange is a journalist and that he has a right, as a journalist, to report on the misconduct of any country.

Imagine the precedent that will be set if US extraterritoriality is deemed to be global. Imagine the precedent that will set. Does that mean that any time an Australian journalist offends any other country that that country can successfully extradite that Australian journalist to that country? If the precedent is set about Julian Assange, does that mean that the next time an Australian journalist offends China and China demands that journalist to be sent to Beijing for special treatment, the Australian government will roll over? Does it mean that if an Australian journalist says something that offends Saudi Arabia and Saudi Arabia wants to get their hands on that journalist that the Australian government will roll over and agree to that extradition? Because that's what this is all about. That's the precedent that will be set.

It is shameful that the Australian government is standing by and letting these events unfold. It is a shocking demonstration of our subservience to Washington and our indifference to London. It's not good enough. It's beyond time that the Australian government recognised a terrible injustice to an Australian rotting in a jail in London. It's way beyond time that the Australian government fought for its citizens and for the Prime Minister to pick up a phone to Boris Johnson, pick up the phone to Donald Trump and to say: 'Back off. Drop the extradition. Let that Australian journalist come back to Australia.'

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