Nick McKim (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

It's so sad and frustrating that so many in this parliament regard Australia as a vassal state to the United States. It is equally sad that when, given an opportunity today in this Senate chamber to put the government's position, even though there is a minister of the Crown sitting here in the chamber, we didn't even get to hear from a minister from the Labor government. Maybe this is what Labor calls 'quiet diplomacy'—outrageous—not so much quiet as downright silent. It's even sadder that one of the people in this parliament that regards this country as a vassal state to the US is our Prime Minister. We're spending $370 billion on the AUKUS deal. We're hosting their armed forces, with US bases on our soil. We're going to host their nuclear submarines, and we're going to embed their spies into our military apparatus. We've been here time after time after time for the US. Whenever they've said 'jump' our only question has been, 'How high would you like us to jump?' It is time that Australia made it clear to the US that this relationship is a two-way street. We're not just here to deliver for the US, time after time after time. They've got to step up and deliver for us on the way back.

Mr Albanese has been able to run his line about quiet diplomacy with some success, until last week. Last week the US made it abundantly clear that they are not for the turning on this. That's an exposure of the failure of Mr Albanese's quiet diplomacy, and it's an exposure of the failure of Senator Wong's quiet diplomacy. What we need is for the Prime Minister and the foreign minister to make it clear to Mr Biden that freedom for Mr Assange is a non-negotiable in this relationship. Mr Albanese needs to stand up for his citizens. That is the very least that any Australian would expect their Prime Minister to do.

Make no mistake: the situation Mr Assange finds himself in is not in any way about his actions threatening US national security. The US's behaviour is motivated by three things. The first is their utter humiliation and embarrassment that Mr Assange exposed the US military as having committed murder and war crimes. The second is their desire to send a chilling message to the media around the world that they shouldn't report on things like the US military engaging in murder and war crimes—a blatant attack on the press freedoms that are such a fundamental part of any liberal democracy. The third is to send a chilling message to anyone else who might be thinking of blowing the whistle in the future, like Chelsea Manning did.

Remember: the US government has freed Chelsea Manning, and rightly so, but what about the Aussie? What about the Australian citizen who published the information? He published it—he didn't leak it. He's festering away in Belmarsh prison. It's an outrageous injustice that we are discussing here today. What the Albanese government needs to do is insist that the US cease its attack on journalism, cease its attack on the truth and free Mr Assange. Let's bring him home to his family and his country, where he belongs.