 you get a range of views. That's the truth of it. And there's a lot of people that don't like Julian Assange. There's a lot of people that think he's a hero. And there's a lot of people in the middle. But this is about a matter of principle and some really fundamental points of principle. It doesn't matter whether you like the guy. It doesn't matter whether you disagree with him. Doesn't matter whether you think he mistreated his cat or any of the other nonsense and myths that have been spread and misinformation over many years now. The guy was engaging in journalistic activities. He exposed war crimes in Iraq. That's no different from what happened in 1971 with the Pentagon Papers as a US audience would well remember and understand. This is an issue which is gathering momentum and which is bringing together members of parliament. And I know there's now support in the US Congress and in many other parliaments around the world. It is bringing together people from across the political spectrum. Be they arch conservatives who have a view about institutions and media independence and the importance of press freedom in a democracy, or what you might call ratbag lefties, probably a bit like Peter and myself, different parties and everyone in between. And it's welcome that we're starting to see more media attention on this, including in mainstream press in America and across Europe. But it's that point of principle is the thing we've got to stick to. The guy was engaging in journalistic activities. There's been a silly debate about, well, was he a journalist? Wasn't he a journalist? Was he in this club? That doesn't matter. The principle of protection to the press extends to any citizen, anyone engaging in this journalistic activities and make no mistake. This is an inherently political prosecution and the extradition is inherently political. It's about chilling the media across the world from reporting on war crimes and abusive power, and it will chill the ability of across the democratic world, if this case sticks, to hold power to account. It's incredibly important. And I think the interest that you and others are showing is really welcome. The key message, whatever you think are the points of principle, is that this has gone on long enough. This guy has been in effect incarcerated for over 10 years. The UN special rapporteur on torture found that he showed all the signs of prolonged psychological torture. And if you want to get real about it, I didn't like the UK judgment that the court found, which you referred to in the introduction. I thought it was a terrible judgment. The court agreed with every one of the key substantive arguments, which the United States put, the points of principle are dangerous. But in that sense, the US has what it wants from this. They've got the precedent that anyone anywhere in the world at any time, that's accused of publishing material that the US government doesn't like, could be subject to these kind of charges and extradition orders. That will have a chilling effect on journalism. But what the UK court found, and this is the key point, which we all tried to convey to the US government, you have what you want from the legal precedent, you can now respect the judgment and accept on the humanitarian arguments. And I know Joe Biden is a great humanitarian. He's been that all his career and all his life. He believes in human rights or professes that belief. The US could actually respect the judgment of the court based on the health grounds that Julian Assange cannot be extradited because of his own fragile health. They could choose to actually accept the court's argument and still walk away thinking, well, we got what we wanted from this. Ultimately, this is political, the prosecution was political, and we need a political solution, not a legal one. And that is, and that's the message we sent back. We call on the US government to drop the charges, to drop it, to stop it, and to say it rests here. It's gone on long enough. Let's imagine for a moment, let's imagine for a moment that they pursue this appeal and that the US government is successful and that he's then extradited to the United States. That will be a terrible spectacle for Australia. And Australia and the US have a very close alliance and we've got a great people-to-people relationship. As history showed with David Hicks, you never would have thought that public opinion in Australia could turn in favour of a so-called terrorist. But ultimately, that sense of the Australian fair go, that this guy's Australian and he should be treated fairly according to the Australian law and the Australian courts and not locked up in a military jail in the bowels of the Empire of our greatest and closest ally. That won out. The truth is Julian faces an effective death sentence in America if he's extradited. He will be convicted. He will be convicted. No one has ever not been convicted in the Eastern District Court of Virginia. No one. He'll be locked up for 175 years at least. I mean, that's if he's not subject to charges with the death penalty. Australia doesn't have the death penalty. I know this is a difference between, you know, America and Australia, but it's passionately and strongly held across most of Australia that you don't execute people or condemn them in that way. It'll impact on their relationship in an entirely unproductive way. It's unnecessary. You know, this could and should be stopped now. The final point I'll just make, Peter rightly mentioned the First Amendment's rights in a trial on press freedom. The assertion of the previous administration and much of the national security establishment in America is that First Amendment rights don't apply to non-citizens. So we're going to end up with this ridiculous argument for years about whether someone acting in a journalistic capacity in another country is or isn't eligible for the First Amendment protections. That again will complicate relations in an entirely unproductive way. The best thing for America to do now would be to drop this, take the precedent and move on. What is preventing Morrison and their Australian government from asking the US, Biden, to release Assange? What does the US hold over Australia? Does Morrison have any leverage at all with the US government? And given the opinion polls in Australia, where most people support Assange's release, wouldn't that be to an electoral advantage? Wouldn't that be an advantage with voters for Morrison to do such a thing? I mean, look in simple terms, I think the parliamentary group, including the members of Scott Morrison's own government, say he needs to step up and make that phone call, call the US president and say this has gone on for long enough, drop the charges, just stop it. That's a common view. The strongest points, the points we've made, are that this should be based on points of principle. The First Amendment problem, which as you stated, was the reported reason why the Obama administration didn't pursue the prosecution, whatever individuals be it President Biden or others may or may not think of Julian Assange, that First Amendment problem is still there. We now have the farcical situation. Let's compare one and two things. Chelsea Manning, the person who apparently provided the classified material, was pardoned. Julian Assange, the person who published the material, as Scott aptly said, all the way up to the editor of The New York Times, if you want to trace that line, is still being persecuted. The person who supplied the classified material was pardoned. The person who published it in the public interest was persecuted. I think we need to stick to those points of principle and not get too distracted in terms of pursuing our objectives on all of the other political conjecture, conspiracies. Some of them may be true. I don't think that's actually going to help our cause and help Julian's cause. Let's fantasize for a moment that Gough Whitlam is the Prime Minister now and he's faced with the Assange problem. Would he pick up that phone and threaten, let's say, to kick Pine Gap out of here or is the fact of what happened to Gough Whitlam hanging over the head of every subsequent Prime Minister, including the present one? If you want to take the Gough example, I think it illustrates the point that I've been trying to make. This is a better matter of principle and I would be very confident looking at Gough's incredible record and contribution to Australia that he would act on the basis of principle. That's the point that we're all making, conservative, progressive, somewhere in between. This is about press freedom. It's about protecting journalistic activities. In this case now, we're even respecting the UK court's judgment, which is he cannot be extradited on health and humanitarian grounds and the matter must stop there. If you want to take the Gough example, he would act on principle. Unfortunately, we did not have a Prime Minister and a leader now who will act on principle, completely agree with what Scott and Peter have said. It will rely on public pressure, both in America, in other democracies around the world and in Australia, to try and shift that position. But in the meantime, we need to keep advocating the points of principle and escalating that pressure. I have been very pleased to see the leader of the opposition, Anthony Albanese, making public statements, questioning why the US would continue with this extradition, given the court's judgment, especially about the health and mental health implications for an Australian citizen. And I understand the shadow attorney generals made public comments, and I do believe that there is a broader opposition now in politics in Australia, calling for this, for the US to walk away from this process. So I'm optimistic that that will continue into the next federal election. And I think that's significant. We are the alternative government in our democratic system of the country. We passed a motion unanimously at our every three years. We have a national conference. It's public. It's messy. It's on the web this year. And we passed a motion last week at the Triennial National Conference unanimously saying this has gone on for long enough. So as the alternative government of the country, Labor has made our position clear now. Whatever you think of the matters of principle, the prosecution needs to be dropped. And that is the policy position of the leader of the opposition, the alternative prime minister. I'd like to throw one out again to everyone, including Julian before he goes back to the former foreign secretary in his diary. His counterpart, Maurice Payne, the foreign minister of Australia has expressed trust and due process for Assange. But I wonder how that squares with the accounts that we read to a refollement of forcibly removing some from asylum. In this plot, what seems to be certainly an agreement between the UK foreign minister and the Ecuadorian president at the time, how does that square with Maurice Payne saying she believes that there is new process for Assange? It's absolutely worth people who are interested in that point. Do a bit of googling, have a bit of a look around and listen to the legal arguments that his legal team have picked that apart comprehensively and shown in numerous ways how he has been denied due process. And we should not be confident that he's been afforded a fair and reasonable process, even in the legal system. And then there's those issues you rightly raised about what happened before he was evicted from asylum. But fundamentally, as we keep saying, this is a political matter. And the problem with the foreign minister of Australia getting up and saying those talking points and the prime minister reading at his media message, he keeps saying, oh, he's got to face the music. He's got to front up. They're just media spin. They're just stuff that politicians say to the media to make an issue go away or when they don't want to talk about the substance of the matter. So this is inherently political. It's driven by politics. These prosecutions need or should need to be consented to. And you should not extradite people. This is a well understood convention within extradition law. You don't extradite people to face political crimes. And this argument, this supposed crime of publishing material and journalistic activities is a political crime. And it should not be the subject of an extradition. We've got a good and robust relationship, I think, with the US and all our major allies. We can speak truth as friends. The US ambassador, we're acting ambassador, welcomed us in. We had a chat. We were heard. I feel confident in that. And I've spent a lot of time in the United States officially and as a tourist. I think the relationship is strong enough to withstand these kind of discussions. I'm not concerned.