Whistleblower prepared for lifetime in jail “for the long term good of Australia”
A whistleblower charged with leaking classified documents at the centre of the ABC raids says he’s prepared to go to jail for 60 years for the good of the Australian people.
A former Australian military lawyer charged with leaking classified documents says he will never take a plea deal and is prepared to go to jail for the rest of his life for “the long term good of Australia”.
Following the adjournment of his case in the ACT Supreme Court on Thursday, David McBride delivered a dramatic press conference in which he likened himself to Winston Churchill and accused the Australian Government of routinely misleading the public “under the euphemism of national security”.
Mr McBride, 55, said he was “appalled” by what he saw in Afghanistan during his service in the Australian Defence Force.
Mr McBride felt it was his “patriotic duty” to leak confidential military documents which contained allegations of unlawful killings by Australian troops and led to raids on the ABC by the Australian Federal Police, who also raided the home of News Corp journalist Annika Smethurst.
He said he was compelled to act as a whistleblower his after complaints to the Department of Defence and police did not result in charges.
“I’d been to the killing fields of Rwanda, I’d been to Afghanistan under the Taliban and what I saw in the Australian Government and the leadership of the ADF was worse than anything I’d ever seen in my life,” he said.
“It was disgusting and once every Australian hears about it and understands the implications, you would be sickened and ashamed to be an Australian.”
Mr McBride is facing 60 years in jail after being charged with theft of Commonwealth property, three counts of breaching the Defence Act and one count of the unauthorised disclosure of information. He has pleaded not guilty to all charges.
He said he would “never” take a plea if it meant he could go home in exchange for “shutting up”.
He said he was more afraid of his conscience given what he’d done in the past, which almost “killed” him, than spending the rest of his life in prison.
“Don’t get me wrong, I don’t have any false bravado, jail is going to be bad,” he said.
“It was very bad the one night I spent there but I can’t do the wrong thing just for selfish motives.
“I have to avoid being a hypocrite, if I’m going to criticise the Government for telling half-truths for putting themselves ahead of the future of the country, I can’t go and do those same things myself.
“That’s why my defence is just telling the truth and that’s why if I have to go to jail for the long term good of Australia, I need to do it.”
Mr McBride is the son of Dr William McBride who discovered the drug thalidomide was causing birth defects.
At ACT Supreme Court today, the prosecution requested a two to three week delay to determine how best to deal with a case involving so much confidential information.
Senior Deputy Registrar Grant Keneally granted a two week adjournment to June 27 after Mr McBride said that was “a bit long”.
At the start of the press conference Mr McBride said he had a message for the Minister and Secretary of Home Affairs, the Australian Defence Force and Australia’s spy agencies.
“My message to you is if you surrender now I will grant you amnesty, if you agree to stop doing what you’re doing,” he said, before saying later in the press conference he had been making a “joke”.
Mr McBride, who served in the ADF from 2008 to 2017 including two tours of Afghanistan said he had a “duty” to leak the documents.
“My defence is that it is an army officer’s duty to rebel against an unjust, illegal and immoral regime,” he said.
“You have a duty, when you join the army you don’t join the Peter Dutton force, you don’t join the Morrison force.
“You swear on a bible in front of a flag to the people of Australia. That’s my message to people who put on a uniform.
“Australia doesn’t work for you, you work for Australia.”
Mr McBride described whistleblower protections in Australia as non-existent and a “joke”
“Say I’m acquitted and it’s found by a reasonable judge that what I had to say was right, someone needs to get sacked.
“The ministers and generals need to face some sort of penalty, that’s the best protection you can give whistleblowers — you actually take action on the crimes that they alert you to.
“Look at the poor bank whistleblower, he put his whole life on the line and got a Royal Commission but nothing happened against the people who broke the law.”
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