 Hello, you're watching People's Dispatch and today we're joined by David McBride, a former Australian Defence Force lawyer and a whistleblower. Now, McBride released information which showed possible Australian war crimes in Afghanistan. This was when Australian troops were in that country as part of the NATO and US-led operations. Now, the fact remains that after releasing this information, he has faced years of persecution. Despite an official report which pretty much vindicates everything he said, this persecution has continued. Now, he's set to face trial in September over these charges. We're going to be talking to him about what these allegations were, what is the kind of persecution he's facing, and what it says for whistleblowers across the world and the media. Thank you so much, David, for joining us. Right, I'm going to first start with the question which is unfortunately lobbed at every whistleblower even unfairly at times, which is that, you know, but just it is still relevant in the public interest, which is that this information regarding the war crimes, you revealed information which talked about at least 10 incidents of such killings of civilians by Australian forces in Afghanistan. But there was the possibility of information of much more. So the first question really here is that that's often asked is that, did you go via the proper channels? What is the process through which the information was released? I did go by the proper channels. I was a lawyer and I knew what had to happen and it was quite a slow process. It was a big deal and so it was something that had to be done delicately. People you could have got yourself killed. That's without an exaggeration by some of the soldiers involved who are quite serious. And also it was a very big scandal, one of Australia's biggest, I imagine, and the people at the top of the organisation didn't necessarily want to know about it either. So I had to tread gently and I, but I did do so and I even thought we have an active parliament, a piece of legislation called the Public Interest Disclosure Act, which allows public interest disclosure and gives you the ways you must do it. And it does allow you even to go to the media if all the internal complaint systems are exhausted, which they were in my case. But because I was effectively, I wasn't just complaining about the war crimes. I was complaining that it seemed to me that the generals either knew about it or were turning a blind eye to it. And so that made it very hard for my complaint to be heard because it's a bit like in America complaining about the President or something. I mean, this everybody doesn't want to hear and the people I had to complain to in your internal complaint mechanism all worked for the generals I was complaining about. So I think a lot of whistleblowers will find this. It's very, there was no independent complaint system. The people that ran the Defence Force Complaint System all worked for the generals at the top. And while that was okay to complain about a corporal at the bottom or complain about something very minor, it's a very, it's a very biased system. If you actually want to complain about the people who are likely going to be listening to your complaint. Absolutely. David, in this context also quickly wanted to go through, so what exactly are the charges that the government is trying to accuse you of what really, because you mentioned that there are laws by which whistleblowing is permitted, releasing this kind of information is permitted in Australia. So what exactly is the government trying to foister on you? I believe they wanted this problem to go away. And the first charge I was charged with was a simple theft charge. And it wasn't theft of classified information. It was just theft. And it would have effectively been theft of pieces of blank A4 paper owned by the Defence Force, which is what I took out to give to the journalists. And I think the reason they did that, that they were hoping that I might plead guilty to that. And then the case would go away. I wasn't prepared to plead guilty to that. And then they put four more charges on and much more serious charges, although again, and India would probably be similar. Some of our legislation in this area is very dated. We don't have any strict kind of official secrets where the simple act of giving classified information to a journalist is in itself simply a crime. There was no available charge for me. There were some under the Defence Force Act, but I'd left the Defence Force. And so they had to charge me with some very antiquated sections, which involve wording, which implies that you have given the the plans to the fort, the fortifications of the national fortifications, allowing the enemy to sort of the enemy to invade Australia. And so it's, it's kind of funny that there may even be a legal challenge in that it's so clearly not what I did, giving, giving plans to the enemy so they could invade Australia. But that's, that's the sort of oldie worldie chart, wording of the charge. One of my biggest advantages of the charges is they do use this phrase. It was not his duty to do so. It's giving documents to someone else outside the Defence Force and it was not his duty, I guess to cover. So public affairs, people don't get charged for giving information as part of their press briefings. However, I want to argue that it was exactly my duty as a lawyer and as someone who was concerned about things. At this time, of course, there was no, there was no serious investigations in the war crimes when I went to see the journalists. There was the beginnings of something, but those beginnings of something had only started after I agitated. So the Defence Force can't say, oh, we had it under control because they didn't. They didn't have it under control. It wasn't really clear. In fact, according to the Defence Force, they only found out about the allegations of war crimes in a very roundabout way, in a report written by a sociologist about the culture, meaning drinking culture, drug culture, and as some sort of annex, she mentioned that quite a few people had spoken openly about war crimes. So that was in 2015, long after I had started my agitation. Right, David, of course, this brings us to the next question, which is that in the aftermath of all this, the Berettan report was released and that was quite a damning report in some senses. You, of course, had, you also have a different take on that report. But before that, the question really is that it basically vindicated you pretty much in terms of it confirmed exactly what you had been saying had been happening. It talked about a maybe larger number of cases as well. So in the aftermath of the Berettan report, why was it that the prosecution against you continued? It's mainly political. It's a good question. The Berettan report definitely helps me. It definitely, public perception changed and people could see because they're probably the same in India. We have a great reference for our people in uniform. They put their lives on the line. But the Berettan report showed people that everything was not rosy. Everything was not what they thought it was. The problem with the Berettan report, and I'm sure India is a bit the same, there's a lot of politics involved. And while it looked good to say, oh, we're going to do something, we haven't actually done anything in the Berettan report. Not a single person has been charged. And no one was even named in the Berettan report. So it's potentially the government just window dressing saying, oh, look how good we are. We've done this thing. And then it may be, as happened in the UK, that no one ever gets charged. It just gets quietly shelved. And the narrative has changed. Now, that's what I don't want to see happen. I want to say that Berettan report was a good thing, and it was a step in the right direction. But we need to do, we need to take some action from it. Otherwise, we have just, we have peeled off a scab and we haven't actually healed it. Absolutely. David, in this context, also wanted to talk of, we know that globally, across the world, we've seen situations where whistleblowers are now continuously maligned. There's this global, in some senses, it almost seems like a playbook, the way in which whistleblowers are attacked, the kind of allegations that they're thrown against them. How has it been in Australia after you released this information? What has been the kind of response by the media, sections of civil society, or even the political establishment? I've been lucky. And actually hearing your question reminds me on how lucky I have been. I'm from a blue-chip sort of background, very much an establishment background. My father was quite famous for being a whistleblower in the medical field, in relation to the drug philitimide. I was a family man. And they haven't yet speared my character. There was a little bit of what they call backgrounding, where journalists were spoken to by the Australian Defence Force, and they were implying that I was a little bit unbalanced and I suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder, which I did. However, that didn't, you know, there was no question that that affected what I had to say. I've been lucky in that case, but you're right, it's open season on whistleblowers, and luckily there's a few of us now who are all different, but we all say the same thing. This is my key point. It's not so much war crimes, but that the government has become quite rotten, and everything the government does is usually based on opinion polling and based really on appearances rather than substantive. Some of the stuff I saw in your own writings about India seemed similar in that we are getting to a very corporate government in the worst sense of that world, where everything is glossy ads, everything is smiling people, but underneath the substance is really not good at all, and the corporate world and the corporate way of doing things is increasingly overtaking the government in quite disturbing ways. Right. David, also two last questions. First of all, a bit on the process that starts out in September itself. Could you just take us through what are the steps that might be coming ahead? It's a little bit complex. For those who know a little bit about the criminal law, it's a bit like the committal hearing. It's not the the jury trial. I probably will get a jury trial, but that won't be till next year. It's to see whether I have a defense under the Public Interest Disclosure Act. Now, this act, as I mentioned, does allow people like myself to give documents to the media. However, it was written by politicians, and it makes it very difficult to do that because they're obviously covering their own covering their own position, and no one has ever been successful under this act. So and they have decided to change the act because it doesn't really protect anybody. And unfortunately, I have to be tried under the old act. I think that I will have a jury trial after that. Some of the charges may be dropped. If it's really clear that I did everything I possibly could before I went to the media, some of the charges may be dropped. But I think the government will be keen to draw it out because in my case, as with the other whistleblowers, they say it's punishment by process. And if they can really make life difficult for us for as many years as possible, in some ways, that's a victory for the government because it puts off other whistleblowers. Whether we go to jail or not, other whistleblowers will look at us and think twice because we've had our lives strung out for so long fighting the cases. And so I think, yes, it will be drawn out as long as possible. They may not actually, they may drop the case on the final one before we go into court in the sense that once we get into court, and once I can cross examine the generals and the politicians and say, did you know about these crimes? And if you didn't know, how is that not incompetent and ask them very searching questions like that? They may not want that to happen. So they may not actually go to court, but they'll certainly draw it out for as long as they can. David, of course, as you're talking right now, I was reminded of another person with close ties to Australia, of course, Julian Assange, who's right now in a very, very difficult situation right now in the United Kingdom. His extradition most likely might go through as well. So in this context, how do you see the response to the political establishment to that case as well because that's another case which has often been drawn in parallel to yours? Yes, we're very, very similar in that way. And the response is quite similar, a bit depressing in the sense that Julian Assange revealed many, many thousands of sometimes clearly crimes, sometimes questionable conduct, even things which are worse than just the sort of murders that the government, the US government covered up the amount of civilian casualties by, you know, 25,000 or 200,000, huge amounts, huge wrongdoings by the US government and other governments, not just the US government. Now, the fact that he is going to go to jail for that most likely and there's nothing that can be done and also the governments are all in unison is quite worrying about the state of the world. And it does make, it does make me feel that we have to change this capitalist system because it's the idea that you could, he like me was clearly right, nothing he said was untrue. And no action was taken against the people that he pointed out have done the wrong thing, nothing at all. And the idea that he is going to go to jail. And they put out this old re-revealed secrets. Now, for once you commit a crime, once a government commits a crime, it's not a secret, it's a crime. And something needs to happen about it. And the idea that it's still stuck in a lot of people's minds. And I still, I get it and Julian Assange gets the people go, oh, you can never, there's no excuse to release state secrets. I'm afraid once the state commits crimes, it's not a secret, it's a criminal, it's evidence of a possible crime and something needs to be done about it. You actually have a duty as a lawyer if you work for the government to do something about criminal conduct within government ranks or anywhere. So it is a very bad sign that Julian Assange is going to jail. It shows you how warped we've become and it also shows you the power of a biased media. With a freer media, he would not be going to jail because they would be pointing the finger at the George Bushes, to Hillary Clinton's, the Mike Pompeo's, all these other people that clearly did not do their jobs properly rather than the person who revealed the information. Absolutely. Thank you so much, David McGride, for talking to us. You mentioned media, of course, we hope that media in Australia, media across the world will be covering your case in the coming months as well and explaining to people what really is happening across the world. We certainly will do so. Thank you so much for talking to us. Yeah, I love you to talk to you. Thank you very much. That's all we have time for today. Keep watching People's Dispatch.