Right wing governments love prosecuting whistleblowers.
The previous coalition government started this persecution, but Albo’s Labor government drove it home.
So it seems like governments love prosecuting whistleblowers would be the correct take on this situation.
Edit: Just to be extra clear, Australia’s current government is Labor (center left party), but the previous government was a coalition of the Liberals (mainstream, yet still far right party) and the Nationals (deep fried crazy far right party).
So the unjust prosecution of David McBride started under the previous rightwing coalition government, but the current left leaning Labor government continued the prosecution and got the conviction.
Labor are centre-right and have been for 50 years now since they embraced neoliberalism.
Labor are left of Liberal, but that doesnt make them a left wing party.
They are center left, which yes, does include some neoliberal tendencies. However, they still support Australia’s welfare state and have very strong ties to, and support from, the relatively strong unions that still exist in Australia.
The welfare state was invented by Bismarck to crush leftism, it’s not leftism itself.
And unions and unionism are fucking atrocious in this country.
Look at the SDA it’s an entirely industry bought and ran right wing union, which has actually fought for worse deals for its members.
Furthermore we only allow government approved unions, meaning tough luck if you want a real union that will fight for you. It’s the entire reason the IWW is not operating in Australia despite its presence across the world.
The closest thing we have to a left wing party outside of the fringe socialist groups is the Greens who run on a proper union supporting platform.
Regardless what name they go by, if they uphold capitalism in any form they are right wing
That’s a fine metric for your own internal political compass, but it’s a poor one to use when trying to discuss or describe world events, especially on a forum like this.
Not because it’s an indefensible position, but because no one else is going to know your definition of rightwing is literally anything that isn’t already a communist utopia.
But I’m to go out on a limb and assume, no offense, that you just weren’t aware that Australian Labor regained power after nearly a decade of being the opposition…which is understandable, most people don’t follow Australian politics, outside of Australia.
Man wasn’t allowed to defend himself. Absolute farce.
And still whistleblowers are being sentenced, jailed, prosecuted by Gvements ( and sometimes killed)
I get the security thing, but war crimes and industrial crimes should be measured on another different scale altogether. Most of those guys should get a medal, imo. WTF?!
McBride addressed his supporters as he walked his dog to the front door of the Australian Capital Territory Supreme Court to be sentenced.
Why does the dog have to get sentenced? It’s well known that they can’t help themselves when they hear a whistle blow.
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This is the best summary I could come up with:
David McBride, 60, was sentenced in a court in the capital, Canberra, to five years and eight months in prison after pleading guilty to three charges including theft and sharing with members of the press documents classified as secret.
Rights advocates argue that McBride’s conviction and sentencing before any alleged war criminal he helped expose reflected a lack of whistleblower protections in Australia.
Police raided the ABC’s Sydney headquarters in 2019 in search of evidence of a leak, but decided against charging the two reporters responsible for the investigation.
McBride’s argument that his suspicions that the higher echelons of the Australian Defense Force were engaged in criminal activity obliged him to disclose classified papers “didn’t reflect reality,” Mossop said.
Also last year, a civil court found Australia’s most decorated living war veteran Ben Roberts-Smith had likely unlawfully killed four Afghans.
Wilkie quit his intelligence job in Australia’s Office of National Assessments days before Australian troops joined U.S. and British forces in the 2003 Iraq invasion.
The original article contains 824 words, the summary contains 165 words. Saved 80%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
Boy Boy episode about this.
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“Democracy btw”
