Several developments in recent weeks raise concerns about the state of whistleblower laws in Australia — but not in the way that some critics claim.
The developments relate to David McBride, Richard Boyle, and now-former attorney-general Mark Dreyfus.
Before going on, a personal note, I’ve covered, and been passionate about, whistleblowing reforms, the protection of whistleblowers and reducing government secrecy for a very long time. I wrote extensively about the Collaery, Witness K, and Julian Assange/WikiLeaks cases. But my coverage in Crikey of the McBride and Boyle cases did not go down well with supporters of those two men. It turns out, nuance and scepticism make for poor bedfellows with the interests of those with partisan agendas. Who’d have guessed?
Last week, McBride’s appeal against both the severity of his sentence and his conviction itself was rejected by the ACT Court of Appeal. He looks set to remain in jail until mid-2026. And in South Australia, Boyle pleaded guilty to a limited set of charges in exchange for avoiding jail time.
In my view, while McBride was correctly and justly convicted, his sentence was grossly excessive. McBride was no whistleblower, and his supporters endlessly repeated the claim that he wasn’t going to change the facts of his case. His motivation in revealing classified information was to halt perfectly legitimate investigations of war crimes by Australian soldiers in Afghanistan, not to bring those war crimes to light. The fact...
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