Peter Whish-Wilson (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

In this bill before us today, the National Security Legislation Amendment (Comprehensive Review and Other Measures No. 3) Bill 2023, the lack of scrutiny and the use of national security arrangements to hide information, as outlined in the bill, are very significant issues. And they are, may I say, significant matters of public interest.

I rise today to add my support to the comments of my colleagues Senator Shoebridge and Senator Steele-John. I'll add my concerns and my personal experience over many years in this area, and I know other colleagues will also add their weight to this debate.

It was reported yesterday—and it has been covered well by Senator Shoebridge and Senator Steele-John—that the jailing of David McBride, an Australian Army officer, a veteran of Afghanistan, for blowing the whistle on war crimes in Afghanistan by Australian forces, is a dark day for democracy and for press freedoms in Australia. David's defence argued about the public interest component of his disclosures, which have led to a chain of events including the civil prosecution of Ben Roberts-Smith and, may I say, a conviction in the civil courts that Ben Roberts-Smith is a war criminal. And yet, all those disclosures that were outlined in that court case in significant detail and all the other disclosures we've seen in the media—the Brereton report and the endless questions asked by the Greens in Senate estimates, as another example—have still not led to any criminal prosecution of Australian special forces in Afghanistan. It's not just Ben Roberts-Smith; we know there are a number of individuals who have been investigated for a period of time. The questions you need to ask yourself are: 'Would this have occurred if David McBride didn't provide those documents to the media—to the Guardian and the ABC?' and, 'Can any Australian, can any senator in this chamber, not argue that those disclosures were significant in terms of our moral and ethical duties to uphold justice for those in Afghanistan who were killed by Australian special forces in cold blood?' I don't hear anybody talking about that here today.

Mr McBride, as a whistleblower, has risked everything—and I've read David McBride's book; I've spoken with David at rallies and, like my other colleagues, I've got to know him over the years. He was recently featured on 60 Minutes. It hasn't been easy for Mr McBride. His life's been sheer hell. As he said in his book, he knew what he was getting himself into when he handed over these documents. He had gone through internal processes to have his concerns dealt with at the highest levels—and they weren't—and he felt his moral and ethical obligation was to go down this path as a whistleblower.

May I say, for Mr Andrew Wilkie in the other place, it was exactly the same thing. Remember the weapons of mass destruction that led us into this horrific war in Iraq—the illegal, immoral invasion of Iraq? He was threatened with 40 years in jail, and yet he continued to campaign on the need for telling the truth and the need to seek justice. He is now a member of parliament in the other place because of his convictions. I've always publicly acknowledged that he was a hero of mine during the Iraq war for speaking out on these matters and, once again, putting it all on the line. It's not an easy thing to do when you are an officer in the Army. But it was his training, as it was Mr McBride's training, that led them to this pathway to blow the whistle. They felt they had a moral obligation and a duty to disclose the truth. But that's not enough—we throw them in jail for doing so.

The word 'deterrence' has been raised here today. I'd like to throw in another word: retribution—retribution for disclosing secrets. We haven't got the balance right, and, while we are seeking to improve it with amendments, this bill doesn't get the balance right.

I also raise the case of Witness K and Mr Bernard Collaery. How many debates have we had in the Senate over the years trying to get respective governments to drop the prosecution of Witness K and Bernard Collaery? Once again, in the story of Witness K, which I'm sure Senator Paterson is very familiar with, he went through its extraordinary lengths internally to have his concerns dealt with within the national security apparatus. When his concerns became public and were taken to The Hague by Mr Collaery, what did we do? We prosecuted the whistleblower and the lawyer in this case. What sheer hell both those men went through for so many years, because they dared challenge the secrecy emblazed in this legislation today, when they felt they had a moral obligation and a duty to disclose information that was in the public interest.

And it's an opportune time, less than a week away from 20 May, when another whistleblower—a publisher, Julian Assange—will find out from a UK court whether his appeal to the UK High Court against his extradition to the US for publishing inconvenient truths and facts about the war in Iraq has been successful. That's not to mention the other conflicts that both Australia and our allies, especially the US, have been prosecuting. His wife, Stella Assange, recently said—and she used the word—'This US persecution of my husband is nothing but retribution.'

We are sending a very strong message of deterrence and retribution by prosecuting the whistleblowers for disclosing our secrets. Who knows what the High Court is going to do? The US government has been asked to provide assurances that Mr Assange, if he is extradited to the US, will be covered by US law like any other citizen. Will he be guaranteed his First Amendment rights? We'll wait and see what those US assurances are, but I can tell you they won't be worth the paper they are written on.

I have been to Washington, and I have had meetings with the Department of Justice and the Department of State, as have my other colleagues. It's no secret that the US administration does not consider Mr Assange a journalist, even though he won a Walkley Award for journalism here in Australia. An international union of journalists have asked for his immediate release. WikiLeaks was a publisher. But if the US argue the case successfully that he's not a journalist, the First Amendment will not apply to him. This is really obvious. Australians need to know that it's all on the line for Mr Assange next Monday, after sitting in a maximum security prison, his health broken by years of imprisonment prior to that in the Ecuadorian embassy in London.

I want to acknowledge that this government has said that he has suffered enough, and they want his extradition to end. It is a good thing that this government has at least publicly said that. We will never know what they've been doing behind the scenes in terms of trying to secure his release. I know there are people in this place that have done everything they can to try and secure his release. But it is such an important day next Monday. If Mr Assange is extradited to the US for doing his job as journalist, it will be a very dark day for press freedoms. This whole extradition was driven by the Trump administration. Once again, that's no secret.

Mr Mike Pompeo, the head of the CIA at the time, drove this extradition process. They wanted Julian Assange's head on a pike. He was considered one of the most dangerous men in the world to the US. But, actually, the people who consider him the most dangerous are the US security apparatus. Let's also be reminded that our previous Prime Minister, Mr Scott Morrison, boasted publicly that he had Mike Pompeo on speed dial. It is no coincidence that the previous government did nothing to help Mr Assange, because we were so close to the US administration and the US security apparatus.

This is an issue that many people in this chamber and this parliament have now signed onto—to free Mr Assange and to end this extradition. It is a significant matter of public interest in Australia. His case stands before all of us, not just here in Australia but internationally. The world will be watching what the UK courts decide next Monday. I hope to hell that they decide to allow him to appeal this persecution—this affront to freedom and democracy—and send a message that journalists have a very important job to do, which is to publish information without fear or favour if it's in the public interest. Once again, look at the disclosures from the video Collateral Murder, which shocked the world and propelled Wikileaks to international attention, not to mention all the disclosures that were made through a series of WikiLeaks publications, which may I say were published by some of the key media outlets around the world, who also won awards for journalism thanks to the WikiLeaks disclosures—everything released 100 per cent factually and carefully redacted in stories to protect our forces and US forces, which is also often ignored in the rhetoric.

What other truth could we gain from a conflict like Iraq if it wasn't for Julian Assange and Private Bradley Manning, now Chelsea Manning, blowing the whistle? She has been pardoned by former president Obama and is now free. Yet the publisher of the documents, Julian Assange, is rotting in jail for our freedoms. I think all of us agree that that is not good enough.

So I urge the US courts to cancel and walk away from this extradition, this persecution of an Australian citizen, a Walkley Award journalist, and I urge the UK courts to give him full access to the UK judicial system to appeal to the High Court.

It brings me back to this bill before us today. I understand that the security services here and within the Five Eyes organisation do really important work. We do live in a very dangerous and complex world, but there are times when individuals are driven by their moral character to a point where they feel they have to blow the whistle. As Senator Shoebridge rightly said, don't prosecute the motives of these whistleblowers; prosecute the information that they have provided. If you look at what David McBride provided, if you look at what was provided through Bernard Collaery and witness K, and if you look at what WikiLeaks and Assange provided, none of us can argue that that wasn't in the public interest. Those disclosures were critical to our understanding of these conflicts and the need to do better and the need to seek justice. That's what I ask senators in this chamber to consider today.