December 26, 2022 — 5.00am
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Former defence lawyer David McBride is ready to go to jail with his “head held high” for exposing alleged war crimes in Afghanistan, but has called for the establishment of an independent federal authority to help others avoid the same fate.
The creation of a centralised agency to oversee and enforce Australia’s whistleblower protections is the key demand of human rights and integrity advocates as Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus prepares to overhaul the country’s protection framework.
McBride, who is facing a jury trial next year over the leaking of a cache of documents to the ABC that formed the basis of its “Afghan Files” investigation, said the reform was “absolutely needed” to support others wanting to lawfully report wrongdoing within their organisation.
“The problem with complaining to your organisation, whether it’s defence or not, is you can’t have your own organisation deciding whether your complaint is valid or not. You need some third party to look at it, and they can then go to the police, or they can advocate on your behalf for some sort of action,” he said.
“If there had been a third party that I could have seen, it could have easily stopped me having to go to the media.”
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