 We're here today to acknowledge, perhaps to celebrate, but I think as much to acknowledge that it's Julian Assange's birthday and it's an entirely appropriate time to reflect upon the cost to whistleblowers at any level of standing out and speaking out against abuse of power. And what Julian Assange represents is the way that systems of power around the globe delivered by governments with a strong self-interest to protect their secrets and to hide their mysteries, the extent to which governments around the world will go to monster, criminalise and imprison whistleblowers. And Julian Assange is the, tragically, the global poster boy for exactly the lengths to which governments will go to keep their secrets secret. So we're gathered here today to say that that must end. And this new parliament that we have should do some of that heavy lifting at a national level. Now that of course involves fundamentally reforming our whistleblower laws in Australia, protecting whistleblowers who speak out, creating new institutions like a whistleblower commission and welfare agency to ensure that whistleblowers are protected, but surely if the new government wanted to send a signal to whistleblowers within Australia that they will be protected, that this new government is on their side, the easiest, simplest message they could send right now would be to directly cable Washington and say pull the charges from Julian Assange and free Julian Assange and that's pretty high. That would be the simplest message. And that's what we are calling upon the Australian government to do today. And yet we have, we've seen the Prime Minister just in the last few weeks refuse to do that. Refuse to take the most obvious step and not only protect Julian Assange but send that signal to the Australian people, to the Australian public service, the whistleblowers actually will be protected going forward. And the failure to do that I think is a deeply troubling step from this federal government. It can still be corrected of course and I think part of what we're doing today is to hopefully extend the call to save the federal government correct course and actually send the cable as soon as possible because what has Julian Assange been charged with? Well, he's been charged under the Eskinadject and in fact was originally charged after a grand jury in the state of Virginia charged him with account of computer intrusion and hacking for allegedly assisting private money. Now if you know anything about the US criminal justice system they say that a grand jury would have died to have sandwich if the case were presented. But nevertheless that grand jury indicted him on one charge and then in May 2019 Julian was further charged under the US Eskinadject with 17 counts of soliciting, gathering and publishing US military and diplomatic documents in 2010. And all of those provided by private money, then private money. Now, what's remarkable about that May 2019 series of charges is that they post state, they post state the commutation of private mania's offences. So after the US government commuted those offences from Manning, two years later they went in and charged an Australian citizen for a few many ways a second order offence not the original leaking but the publishing and dissemination of the offence. So there are many things that Bob Carr and I disagree on. The former foreign minister. There are many things that I disagree on with Bob Carr but one thing I will agree on is when he came out and said why is there one rule for a US citizens and one rule for Australian citizens and why isn't the Australian government calling out that double standard and making the demand right now. I think we need to go back and remember what Julianne's crime was, crime in inverted cons. The crime was releasing hundreds of thousands of documents of US documents, diplomatic cables, defence documents that exposed some appalling and in many cases systemic instances of war crimes and gross abuse of power. I mean, the first document that was released I remember being horrified when I saw it. The video of the Apache helicopter like ruthlessly, brutally and it was an insight into war really and all the war is a series of connected crimes if you think about it but it was an insight into war and the Apache helicopter killing Iraqis and also in that 39 minute video killing two gorgeous journalists if you remember and it was appalling and then it was a shocking kind of insight into war and then the utter disregard of life that is inherent in war but it was also an insight into how those truths were constantly and sustainably hidden not just from the global public but also in this case from the US public and the response from the US and Australia governments was to support ongoing secrecy but of course that was just the first documents that were then tranches and tranches of hundreds of thousands of other documents released many of which showed the deep complicity between US embassies and the US government about the abuse, direct interference in other nations interests, ongoing war crimes we had a further insight into the appalling human rights abuses in Abu Ghraib like there was a litany of crimes that were exposed in the work of Julian Assange it's just that Julian Assange didn't commit any of those crimes those crimes were committed by the US government and the US military and what we have seen since is as predicted by him as predicted by Julian around the world governments seeing their self-interest inciting the US and the US military complex and signing against whistleblowers and in this case sending a very clear message that they will hunt you down wherever you are around this globe and silence you and imprison you and in this case Julian is facing up to 175 years in jail for the crime of telling the truth but we know that telling the truth is not and cannot be a crime it's about time the Australian government understood that telling the truth is not and cannot be a crime and so on today being Julian Assange's birthday let's unite in making that call and let's hope that we get majority MPs in the federal parliament MPs and senators in the federal parliament join us in that call to release Julian Assange to drop the charges and to end that two track justice it can't be one rule for US citizens and one rule for Australian citizens let's bring Julian up thanks very much