Greens councillor Dr Olivia Ball amends her motion calling for a ‘civic reception’ at Town Hall for Julian Assange

A proposal to hold a civic reception for WikiLeaks founder and former Melbourne resident Julian Assange has been scrapped.

A controversial plan to invite WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange to Melbourne Town Hall for a celebration to mark his release from detention has been scrapped.

Greens councillor Dr Olivia Ball last week put forward a motion calling on the City of Melbourne to welcome Assange, his family and his supporters to Town Hall for a “civic reception” to honour him “at a time of his choosing”.

The motion also called on the council to celebrate Assange’s freedom from “arbitrary detention”, to laud his “exceptional courage in championing the universal right to freedom of opinion and expression” and to reaffirm its support for whistleblowers.

But on Tuesday night at a packed Future Melbourne committee meeting, Dr Ball amended her motion, ditching the clause relating to the civic reception.

Greens councillor Dr Olivia Ball had initially proposed a civic reception for WikiLeaks Founder Julian Assange.

The amended motion was ultimately carried, with five councillors – including new Lord Mayor Nick Reece – voting in favour.

Councillor Roshena Campbell voted against the amended motion, while councillors Davydd Griffiths and Philip Le Liu abstained from the vote.

The Herald Sun understands Dr Ball would not have had the numbers for the motion to be carried if she did not remove the controversial clause.

Several Assange supporters backed the civic reception during the meeting, but Small Business Australia executive director Bill Lang raised concerns about whether throwing the event would be an “appropriate” use of ratepayer cash.

“Without getting into the merits of Julian … I don’t think it’s an appropriate thing for the City of Melbourne to be funding,” he told the meeting.

“I believe it’s inappropriate to be having a formal welcome event … given the council has just got a surplus in its budget and we have a new Lord Mayor … now is the time to get back to the core issues.”

He added that council time would be better spent dealing with the “more pressing needs of the local community”.

An amended motion on Julian Assange was ultimately carried. Picture: Ian Currie

Most famously, the City of Melbourne rolled out the red carpet for the Beatles, who attended a civic reception at Town Hall in 1964.

Mr Griffiths said he could not support the amended motion after suggestions were made during the meeting by Assanage’s supporters that sexual assault allegations levelled against him were “in the past”.

“As recently as yesterday, there was a BBC article … where one of the people who had made those allegations … said that she felt that she hadn’t had justice achieved,” he said.

Ms Campbell also said she found herself “deeply troubled” by the amended motion.

“It calls on councillors to laud the exceptional courage of a man who … has plead guilty to a criminal offence and has outstanding allegations of sexual assault against him,” she said.

“I do acknowledge his release is long overdue, but I cannot bring myself to laud his courage in (those) circumstances.”

The Beatles attended a civic reception at Town Hall in 1964. Picture: When We Was Fab: Inside The Beatles Australasian Tour 1964

This is not the first time the council has debated a motion on Assange, having previously carried four motions in support of Assange since June 2020, including supporting strenuous diplomatic intervention to free him and having the charges against him dropped.

Dr Ball argued the amended motion was similar to those that had come before the council.

“It is a mere repetition of our previous motions but on this other side of that momentous event … of being released and enjoying his freedom in Australia,” she said.

In her motion, Dr Ball said the council has “repeatedly defended this Melburnian as he faced outrageous suffering and injustice and this motion now seeks to celebrate him, his freedom and his contribution to humanity”.

Assange was once a resident of the City of Melbourne – living in a terrace house in Carlton – and studied at the University of Melbourne in the early 2000s before founding WikiLeaks in 2006.

He returned to Australia last month after pleading guilty to a single charge of conspiracy to obtain and disclose national defence information under the US Espionage Act.

Assange originally faced 18 charges and up to 175 years in prison in the US after he published sensitive military and government documents on WikiLeaks in 2010, supplied by former army intelligence analyst and whistleblower Chelsea Manning.

His homecoming follows an extraordinary 14-year-long legal battle to avoid extradition to Sweden and the US, which included seven years in the Ecuadorean embassy in London and five years in Belmarsh prison.

He was accused of sexual assault in Sweden in 2010, but prosecutors dropped their investigation into those allegations in 2019.

Originally published as Greens councillor Dr Olivia Ball amends her motion calling for a ‘civic reception’ at Town Hall for Julian Assange