 Does anyone else see the irony of this, that all the truth-tellers are outside parliament and all the people who lie, obfuscate, spin, mislead and hide are all in the house? There's something fundamentally wrong with this equation that the truth-tellers are out here. We've got we've got John Shipton, the wonderful father of Julie and Assange who is fighting tirelessly for his son but not just for his son for WikiLeaks and for truth-tellers more broadly. We've got of course Bernard Caleri, a Canberra lawyer who has assisted witness Kay to shine a light on the terrible injustice and misconduct of the bugging of the East Timor Embassy to give Australia an unfair advantage in the treaty negotiations over the oil and gas. We've got David McBride who's in all sorts of strife at the moment with Christian Porter and other people because he was prepared to speak up, speak truth to power to help the public understand what was going on in Afghanistan. The irony of this is just breathtaking that the truth-tellers are outside parliament and the liars are inside parliament. Where are all of the senators? Surely they see the shocking injustice about what is being done to Julian Assange. You know when you boil it all down all Julian did was reveal hard evidence of US war crimes and for that he's been pursued around the globe and is currently being jailed indefinitely in Belmarsh all because Washington wants to get even and Canberra and London are happy to go along for the ride. The injustice is breathtaking. Who can forget, who can forget that grainy black and white image of the Apache attack helicopter gunning down innocent Iraqi civilians including two Reuters journalists. That's what he did, that's what Julian did for us. He revealed that to the world but who's in jail? Is it the Apache helicopter pilots? No. It's the journalist and the head of the journalistic organization that brought all of that to our attention. This is just wrong on so many levels. It's about freedom of the media and the persecution of a journalist. It's about the US claims of extra territoriality. It's about the bilateral relationship between Australia and the US and the UK and the US and the fact that the Australian government and the British government think their relationship with Washington is more important than the rule of law. More important than justice. More important than sticking up for our own citizens when they're in strife overseas. I call again on our Prime Minister to pick up the phone to the US President. He didn't do it with the previous US President but he can do it now with the new US President. Joe Biden is very fond of our wonderful country and is said as much publicly. He would pick up the phone. He would listen to it passionately for common sense from our Prime Minister but it hasn't happened yet because our Prime Minister is more concerned with our relationship with Washington than with sticking up for an Australian citizen who did the right thing and is now bizarrely still in prison even though he won his case for the extradition. This is basically indefinite detention and that's a crime against humanity. That's against the Rome Statute. But what's our government doing about it? Nothing. Absolutely nothing. This is so wrong on so many levels. It's about a year ago now that I visited Julian in Belmarsh with George Christensen and I can speak with personal experience of what a dreadful place Belmarsh prison is. It's the last place to detain a journalist. It's the last place to detain someone who won their court case and should have been allowed to walk free. It's the last place to keep someone who is not a flight risk. His family's in London. He's hardly going to to flee. This is wrong on so many levels. The rallies and protests against this illegitimate illegal and unethical war were the biggest this country's ever seen. The rallies right around the world were some of the biggest in history. Over 10 million people hit the streets. A million people just in Rome alone. And for those of us that were there, we remember. We've got to ask ourselves where are all these people now? Where are all these people now because the anger, the righteous anger that we were ignored and lied to and nobody doubts what a disaster that war was and we knew it when we marched. Let's find these people. Let's get half a million people on the streets again in Australia marching to save the truth teller of this war. The only person along with the whistleblowers Chelsea Manning who disclosed the truth about what was going on in Iraq. Let's channel that energy, that anger, that indignity and get hit the streets for Julian. This Saturday is a good opportunity, but it's not going to be the last. So let's all do it. Let's talk to the people we know. Let's send a really clear message to this building and to President Joe Biden. This is the biggest opportunity we've had and I am optimistic we are going to free Julian Assange. Where are they now? Well, I'll tell you when we first start a call on those rallies when we got together with a phone book to organise those rallies. One of the first organisations we called was the Medical Association for Prevention of War. And I'm proud to welcome Dr Sue Wehram from MAPW to the microphone. The Medical Association for Prevention of War has been standing by Julian for the whole time, but even more importantly, standing for the principles that Julian is in jail for, standing for peace, standing against war, standing against the murder of unarmed civilians, women, children, non-combatants all over this world. Medical Association has been doing this for a long time, so please give a warm Canberra welcome to Dr Sue Wehram. Thanks, Jacob. 40 years actually, MAPW has been going this year. It's an honour to be here. So we're standing here again to urge that an Australian citizen who's played a pivotal role in bringing to light Australia's complicity in war crimes to urge that he not be persecuted but that he be brought home. We have so-called leaders in this country who hide behind lies about Julian Assange, who are very content to have his reputation trashed, who are gutless in the face of pressure from our allies, and then have the temerity to talk to us about the rule of law. Under our government's version of the rule of law, if Australia and our allies commit the most grievous violation of international humanitarian law in the invasion of another country, Iraq, our leaders are never held accountable. As has been alluded to, where is the trial of John Howard, whose decision to take us into that war helped to grossly undermine the rule of law, undermine our security, and help to bring in a humanitarian catastrophe in the Middle East, which is continuing. Under our leaders' version of the rule of law, the shocking material published by Assange of war crimes and other human rights violations in US detention facilities, all of this is of little interest. In the Afghanistan war, evidence that Australians were lied to about the progress of that war, that is of little interest. And the man who helped bring to light the allegations of war crimes made against Australian troops in Afghanistan, David McBride, who is here today, he must be silenced also, as must Bernard Cleary and witness Kaye for their alleged crimes. Under our leaders' version of the rule of law, extremely credible reports of psychological torture against Julian Assange and Australian citizen, these are of little interest. Multiple violations of due process in Assange's trial, these are of little interest. In 2019, the UN Special Rapporteur on Torture, Nils Meltzer, reported on Assange's condition and he wrote, the evidence is overwhelming and clear. Mr. Assange has been deliberately exposed, let me repeat those words, deliberately exposed for a period of several years to progressively severe forms of cruel inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment, the cumulative effects of which can only be described as psychological torture. The Australian government is aware of this. Are they concerned at such treatment of an Australian citizen? Not a bit of it. All of this must be suppressed and those with the conscience and courage of Assange must be persecuted to put the fear of God into anybody else who might think of doing the same. Government knows that information and knowledge are key elements in our democracy and in holding governments to account a free and independent media are critical. We're constantly told that our defence forces fight for our freedoms, but when those freedoms are actually used, then it's the use of freedoms who are persecuted. We have an attorney general in this country with a history of a string of grossly improper abuses of his power, even before the recent coming to light of a rape allegation. A man who's quite happy for other people to be tried in secret and for other people's due process to be demolished. So we applaud all of these courageous Australians, Sturling Assange and others, some of them present today who've taken big risks to uphold the essential value of truth. Without them all, our nation would be much, much poorer. And I want to congratulate the parliamentarians who have joined us today. For not being cowered into silence as so many of their colleagues have been, we're indebted to them. And we'll continue to stand in solidarity with Assange, to whom we are indebted, for taking risks to uphold the value of truth and decency in our national life, and our right to know what is done in our name. Assange must be brought home to the country whose democracy he has done so much to defend. Thank you. And we will bring Julian home. It's not a matter of if, it's a matter of when. We are going to bring Julian home. And when we bring him home, we're going to bring him home to an Australia that knows the truth. We're going to bring him home in the knowledge that what he's been through has not been for naught. And so we urge you, one of the things we're urging people to do around the country, we urge you to make the result, make use of the resources of wikileaks.org. Just type in your favourite politician, your favourite company, your favourite country, your favourite military, and learn the truth. Be curious. As Julian put it, curious eyes never run dry. We need to keep looking and we need to keep holding them to account, because he's in jail not because he wanted to know the truth, but because he wanted you to know the truth, because he published. And that is what they cannot tolerate. And it's not just Julian. Julian's, I guess it's called the thin end of the wedge of the war on whistleblowers, on the war on truth tellers, on the war on truth itself. So our next speaker is another truth teller, a lawyer representing people who are exposing, well I'd call them war crimes, exposing crimes of espionage and spying, and trying to get the Australian people to support the truth tellers. Put your hands together, lawyer, former Attorney General of the ACT, and another fighter for justice Bernard Collary. Thank you. I don't prepare things usually, and not today, that I was just looking across to you all, seeing the gray hair somewhere. This isn't the country I was born into. This isn't the country with the values that the McKillip nuns taught me as a child. Our country has changed for the worse, and that's not the grumpy ideas of an old man. What I fear at the moment is the country that Julian will come back to. He'll be monitored, they'll watch him, they'll watch us speaking to him. I'm just saying to his dad, John, I can't remember the circumstance in which I met Julian and his brother Gabriel years ago in Melbourne, but this country is destroying him while we are here. And think also for our witness Kay. Think about what could be done to him if they leak his name. What could be done to his family, his children, and grandchildren. Think about what they are doing to a patriotic Australian who can't utter a word in his defence. And think, and those of you who go back to Glogenus, but before that, the Soviet Union, when in those years defectors came forward, those who left their family behind were terrified of what would happen to their family. Some of them went back knowingly on the deal that their families not suffer. This country reminds me at the moment of the Soviet defectors, the treatment of witness Kay that I watched in the 70s and 80s in the position of access that I had in those years. Now, Julian will come back to a country that's passed 19 obsessive acts of parliament aimed at having access to your lives, his life, and controlling them. There's a bill about to be introduced that will allow the police to access WhatsApp. Almost that will. Almost that will if someone is on WhatsApp and you are on that person's link and that person is under investigation, you all can be investigated. So that's the Orwellian bill, the next bill being brought forward. So question for me after hearing Andrew and Peter, Jenna and Sue Warram speak, the question for me I want to pose to you is what country is Julian going to come back to and how will he be treated? Will he be left alone? Will you who contact him be left unsurveilled? What is the country that is evolving behind us now with those people? Now all of us tut tut and no one, not even the most conservative, can agree with the machine gunning of innocent pedestrians that WikiLeaks observed. So there's this dual morality that's evolved in this place behind us. We've got this Godfaring Hillsong image of our Prime Minister and a dual morality the man has. He allows his attorney to appoint someone to a very senior post in the Minister for Appeals Tribunal where most reviews of government action take place. There is a minimum requirement which is five years legal service, prior legal service, admission as a lawyer. There's have been a blatant breach of that statutory requirement and what I want to say this morning is this. Will the first lawyer to appear before that wrongful appointee refuse to accept that person's role before them on the bench? Have we come this far in society when a lawyer can refuse to appear before someone on the bench? That's where we're at. How lawful can that person sit on the AAT? And I call upon my profession across this country this morning to refuse to appear in front of that appointee and we must start to fight back. We must start to fight back. This country is not the country some of us were born into when the values emerged after that great Second World War when we believe we were building an exemplary community. We thought Australia would be a beacon in this part of the world. We would never ever have the bestial treatment of our prisoners of war again. We would never ever allow that kind of inhumanity to exist. Yet we perpetrated ourselves. How awful for my generation who grew up in the notion that this country would become a better country. How wrong this group have led and how wrongful their conduct and the laws of defamation prevent me going further as you know. It'll just hasten my trip to prison or something. But what you have to do is to fight on and to bring others and bring young people to these gatherings. Thank you. Thank you Bernard. Next speaker talking about truth tellers have very few heroes in Australia to be honest let's be honest we have very few heroes in Australia even less in the defence force for mind the least but we have one here with us today a man whose integrity led him to tell the truth about what happens in war which led to a report that's currently we've told being investigated about war crimes committed by Australian soldiers acting in your name in my name in the politician's name in his name it's a hard road to travel and we need to give this man every answer support we can on his journey so please put them together not just your hands but your hearts for David McBride I need the microphone high because I feel like standing tall today seeing you all here makes me want to stand tall the one thing I need to do and some of you were there last night but the one thing I really need to do is to thank you to thank you for turning up to thank you to keep protesting and today I want to particularly thank the parliamentarians that are here but the two senators and Andrew Wilkie it gives us enormous strength to have people who sit in parliament get it and understand where we're coming from so I can't fat those three people enough the whole Greens is behind us but Andrew Wilkie it's incredibly inspiring for me to have someone who stood up against the lies around the Iraq war sticking up for me and it's I really want to thank Andrew he's given me some great quotes I've sent them around the world to my friends in England they don't necessarily know that much about Australian politics but when they see a member of parliament speaking up it makes them think Australia must be a good place so those people really are on the right side of history I've got good news and the bad news and the good news is I think we're going to win this I really think we're going to win it broken door you know that hides the sleaze in parliament is is just about to break down and the protest today at lunchtime could be the last shove to push it in as Bernard said the fact of the matter is that so many of the people that govern us are simply pathological lies they are not who they pretend to be and like Bernard said I am appalled at what our country has become I grew up under the same atmosphere as Bernard I grew up in the shadow of the Second World War the greatest generation I believed that I believed all that and my disgust and anger to find out that most of the people who make decisions in this country are really just charlatans in suits and it is a disgrace that it makes my blood boil. Senator Wish Wilson talked about the protests to the Iraq war in 2003 now I didn't protest the Iraq war in 2003 I was one of those people that believed that if our government was doing something it was probably close to the truth or okay and so it hit me harder than harder than most to find out that the protesters were right and it was a totally fake illegal disgusting action carried out by our governments and the Australians were right there behind it a lot of the Australians in some ways actually had more to be ashamed of than the Americans you know because this the Americans would not be able to do some things unless the Australians were backing them up and it's even worse because we are like this kind of sleazy in a partner of the school bully who just walks around behind the school bully and says yeah yeah yeah whatever they say yeah we are we are we are we're not even the school bully we're the we're the crappy little accomplice of the school bully and it makes me sick to see it and what for what are we benefit for I can tell you because I've seen all the secret files I've seen what's inside it and I can tell you as an insider I'm not like a rebel who came to this game opposing our forces but I saw the reality and the reality is we don't get anything out of the so-called strategic relationship we get shame we get lies the afghanistan war was no better than the iraq war it was better disguised but it wasn't any better it wasn't any different it was all a show to win domestic elections and when you think about that that is really disgusting we're killed afghan after afghan we dropped bombs on the wrong houses we created terrorists the really terrible fact is that we were less popular in 2013 than we were in 2002 they wanted us to come in 2002 they thought we might bring food and drinking water instead we bought bombs because bombs sold elections bombs look good on the 730 news and we made terrorists we made I was appalled to see a secret briefing in 2013 where the intelligence people said there are more would-be suicide bombers in the Middle East now than they have equipment to supply them with and it doesn't cost that much to make a suicide vest now that's a scary fact they weren't there because they were brainwashed they were there because they could see we were liars we were cheats we said we believed in the rule of law and we believed in the rule of money we said we believed in human rights and we set up Guantanamo Bay Guantanamo Bay was cynically set up it was almost like a joke to say well we have to give them rights if we put them in jail in America we have to give them rights if we put them in jail in Afghanistan so we'll find a place which is neither Afghanistan and neither America it is legally nothing and we'll put them there now that's cynical and that is sick a lot of people in Guantanamo Bay were simply Taliban soldiers and there's thousands of lawyers that work for the US State Department now they knew that it was not legally valid to put Taliban soldiers in some sort of high security anti-terrorist organization but they did it they might have had 10,000 international lawyers and yet they just their purpose of most of these lawyers that work for the government and Australia is the same is to find ways for the government to break the law I mean we had an Australian lawyer the guy that makes my blood boil who was posted to back on Abu Ghraib and he saw all the atrocities at Abu Ghraib and he came back and well he and he said oh it's all it's all fine it's all enhanced interrogation he came back to the Australian army and they didn't demote him they promoted him he was the sort of person that they wanted in Australia it was a sort of person who would cover up crime and would say everything's fine and that's a sort of a sleaze not to the top because that's what they wanted and it is quite it is quite disgusting if you if you knew what goes on in the high echelons of the defense force and the high echelons of the country it is really if the more you know the worse it is it's no surprise for me to see what the attorney general accused of rape the eye everything they do in parliament is pushing pushing the law getting away with whatever they can get away with and saying one thing and doing another we really need to act well we are acting and I think the trajectory is going to change because I said I'm almost I always want to go to jail because it will it will be in people's faces to say here's a guy that put his life on the line for his country here's a guy that believed believed the hype that's been many years working with the special forces working with the the like the ministers people and he saw what was actually going on and he was disgusted he was absolutely disgusted and and they're going to put me in jail in fact don't be fooled by I doubt there will ever be any war crimes trials what's happening now is the playbook what they call the playbook where you make a big fuss about something and then you don't do anything it happened in the UK when there was a similar thing when they had they were meant to have war crimes trials they made a huge fuss about war crimes from the SAS it's a familiar story and you know how many of them went to jail you know how many of them were put on trial zero so what do you think's going to happen here the whole thing is run as a spin operation made themselves look good they want to win the progressives over they do the report and then they doubt they're scared of the conservatives so no one ever goes to trial except the truth teller except people like Julian Assange as I said last night the reason they hate Julian Assange is simply because he exposed the truth he revealed that the products that they sell and that they say are safe and that good are actually toxic and they hated that absolutely hated that and again like Julian Assange none of the people whose crimes he exposed have faced trial haven't even faced inquiries in yet his his life has been turned upside down like here's the problem it's a sickness it's a sickness when we blame the truth teller we blame the messenger few people don't you people are on the right side of history someone this morning was talking about um they just see the the movie The Trial of the Chicago Seven um I think that it won't be long before there is a similar movie about Australia at this time and new people will be the stars new people will be the sort of people when when we will watch that movie in 20 years time they'll be going weren't those people heroic who stood out there and protested and never stopped talking you know you guys are the heroes I'd be dead if I didn't have support I would have killed myself a few years ago if I didn't have support and it's not about people saying oh do you want to have a cup of tea or whatever it's about people getting what the issues are new people get it you know and every time someone gives me some support says hello sends me a message it gives me strength so much strength though that I'm not gonna die but I can go to jail with my head held high and I know and there's anybody in Australia doubt that I am 10 times the man with the attorney generals the able to get over them and don't see me crying imagine my political career is ruined and nothing anybody doubts he was crying for anybody but himself money money the same way Linda Reynolds wasn't crying for anybody except her own ruin career they are the most despicable group of people have been gathered um for a long time and I don't care with my survey defamation they can do that after the trial and I can tell them my defences are going to be truth and public interest back to you you've been here long enough thank you so much great to see you thanks for looking after my dog and um I look forward to seeing you again in the trial or the hearing in a couple of months time the politicians to get off their arses and bring Julian home and nobody is saying that louder or more fervently or stronger or as often as the man you'd expect our next speaker Julian's father John Shipton has been fighting to bring Julian home since day one over the last few weeks we've been traveling as I say Rain and Ian's joined us and as has joined us Graham Dunstan of course traveled round speaking truth not just here under the hill but in regional towns small towns all over Australia and now he's in Canberra with politicians we have a parliamentary French group for Assange put them together please for Julian's dad fighter for truth at his own right standing by son mr. John Shipton everybody thank you Jacob so there's a phenomenon that you know my travels around the world and around New South Wales and Victoria revealed in the upwelling of support amongst people for Julian and to return Julian home and that upwelling includes other aspects for example the demand that we be spoken to truthfully by our government this parallels increasing stature of those parliamentarians who in the beginning took the risk of supporting Julian political risk the personal risk is of course not there because they took upon themselves the demand to follow their conscience and fight for the return of Julian's son citizen of Australia their increasing stature parallels exactly the upwelling of support amongst people of Australia people of England people of Germany I give you an example in Germany the 29 cities pre-covid held weekly vigils in support of German in support of Julian 29 cities it's not lightweight support equally the Bundestag probably the second most powerful parliamentary group in the world have a cross-party group for Julian Assange that was the second cross-party group the first was formed by Peter Wishwilson Andrew Wilkie George Christensen and Barnaby Joyce has 24 members those 24 members have their constituents concerns at the forefront and they bring into parliament into the parliamentary institution of parliament those concerns and bring those concerns before the executive and insist that the executive act upon the concerns of the citizens of Australia that is the power in that building behind you rests with us and as the 24 parliamentarians demonstrate to us to bring our concerns before the executive and insist that they solve this problem of a 10 years standing now moving into its 11th year can you believe that now to get a proper understanding of all the calamities insults delivered to Australian citizen Julian Assange the government of this country has not uttered a word in his defense as an assailee Julian Assange is lifted above by the conventions of asylum the national laws of the united kingdom lifted above them as an assailee and yet those laws are disregarded and Julian's dragged out by six men and thrown into a wagon three hours later convicted the government says nothing that is the conventions of asylum which we Australians presented to the Unger the United Nations General Assembly in 1973 and with massive support over 100 nations voting for our presentation of the conventions of asylum we did that Australians did that and yet the government said nothing not a word i can outline to you many insults to the well the malfeasance misfeasance conspiracy between the crown prosecuting service and the sweety prosecuting authority now i don't make these things up we use their documents released under foi to demonstrate this our government says nothing for this unfortunately indicates to us that acquiescence grows silently into complicity complicity complicity grows silently into a need to protect yourself in the department of foreign affairs or in the department of prime minister and cabinet that's the two institutions that run the matter of Julian Assange again their documents demonstrate to us this fact they say nothing so they have to cover and what happens then is secrecy begets secrecy and the criminologic environment develops in these institutions and these institutions necessarily must mirror the institutions the crown prosecuting service the Swedish prosecuting authority and the department of justice William Barr the previous attorney general in the book in the trump administration when he was in the bush administration was known as the snatcher for his capacity to formulate the laws of the united states in a way that allowed extra judicial sorry judicial abductions through the process of extradition around the world so that is the circumstance it is not my habit to ever personalize politics at all for it's the institutional ideologies that are the problem that we must address it's not mr Morrison it's not mr. Porter it's the institutional ideologies within the government that has guided has guided them and the word then this doesn't work out has guided them for all these years whether labor or whether liberal as i don't normally personalize politics in this case i would just like to think of few men and i do think those men in politics as icons of the 24 men who have taken our powers into parliament to get parliament in its mighty institution its sovereign institution to direct the executive to fulfill the requirements of our constitution and bring to bear upon the united states and the united kingdom the circumstances to return jury and hope that peter wish wilson andrew wilkin barnaby george george christensen men who are polled apart in their political outlook and yet they recognize the circumstance that for a habit to get the people of australia into unity to remove the frictions from good governance that the circumstances of julian assigned must be rioted and must be brought home i've said enough i just would like to thank you all for coming and see you at the next meeting thank you