In late 2012 I had a call from John Shipton, Julian Assange’s father. I had done some advocacy on the Assange case for the Australian Lawyers Alliance. John wanted to know if I would run Julian’s bid to be elected to the Senate in the 2013 federal election. From that time on I have worked with John, Julian’s brother, Gabriel Shipton, the lawyer Steve Kenny and others to help bring an end to the US pursuit of Assange for publishing material which clearly implicated that nation in war crimes in Iraq and Afghanistan. Our work morphed into an Australian Assange campaign.
The Australian political environment has changed enormously since I began campaigning for Assange 11 years ago. Then, the Labor government of Julia Gillard not only showed no sympathy for Assange but ordered an investigation into whether he had broken any Australian laws in publishing the material. It was an absurd proposition and one that was quickly dismissed by commonwealth law officers. There seemed to be little interest on the part of the Coalition parties, and many in the Australian media saw Assange as a dangerous impostor.
This was a bleak landscape for those of us in this country who believed that the Australian government had an obligation to prevent one its citizens from an effective death penalty of more than 170 years jail in the US for publishing news the world deserved to know about.
Certainly, Malcolm Turnbull, for whom I ran the republic referendum campaign in 1999, took an interest in the case and the former foreign minister Julie Bishop acted professionally in dealing with Julian’s case. But there seemed to be disdain on the part of the Australian high commissioner in London, George Brandis, and his equivalent in Washington, Joe Hockey. On Wednesday Penny Wong, the foreign minister, paid respect to Bishop’s successor Marise Payne’s “persistent diplomacy” supporting Australians detained overseas. Payne, whom I have known for many years and like, saw me once in a restaurant in Melbourne where she was meeting an overseas counterpart. I said I needed to see her about helping Assange. Friendly but firmly she said: “I don’t think I can help you, Greg.”
In the federal parliament the Tasmanian independent MP Andrew Wilkie, elected in 2010, took up the Assange cause early and gradually pulled together a formidable group of MPs across the spectrum to form an Assange supporters group. I briefed this group regularly and recall going to meetings in Parliament House where the former conservative Nationals MP George Christensen would sit next the left-of-centre Wilkie. On one occasion, only a year or two ago, across from me was the Greens leader, Adam Bandt, sitting next to the climate change sceptic Nationals senator Matt Canavan. Nowhere else, I thought, would one see such a sight.
But the rainbow political coalition supporting Assange was not surprising to me. Assange’s plight attracted rule-of-law types, the former Nationals leader Barnaby Joyce being one, who were troubled by the US seeking to prosecute an Australian citizen who had not published from the US. Others with a strong human rights focus saw Assange as an individual whose human rights were being undermined by the US, the UK and Australia, and who also recognised the broader human-rights implications of the attack on freedom of the press. There were also other politicians and supporters who opposed the “deep state” and the control exercised by the security state over nations. And there were MPs who thought enough was enough and the suffering inflicted on Assange was not justified. The Liberal backbencher Bridget Archer was one of those. As she told me one day, the Assange case needed humanity to be the priority.
Another important development in the last five years was the emergence of the former New South Wales premier and federal foreign minister when Assange became a wanted man, Bob Carr. Carr wrote some powerful opinion pieces and made the point that Australia needed to call on its ever strengthening alliance with the US to ensure Assange was released.
The major shift in the case, from the point of view of those of us focused on the Australian context, was the 2022 election of the Albanese government. Anthony Albanese had long been an Assange supporter in the sense of believing there was no public interest in the US continuing to pursue the case. As prime minister he appeared to me to be genuine in wanting to push the issue with the Americans.
Meanwhile, our campaign began a highly successful meet-and-contact-your-MP program. Across the nation small groups would visit or contact their MPs. This strategy had impact. Late last year the House of Representatives passed a resolution supporting Assange, withtwo-thirds voting in favour.
Now it is over. But the issues raised by Assange’s case represents remain potent.
• Greg Barns SC is a barrister who has advised and appeared in cases involving anti-terrorism laws. He is an adviser to the Australian Assange campaign
