from ABC
The Commonwealth has racked up more than $7.6 million in legal fees pursuing whistleblowers, with the bulk of that bill relating to a now-dumped prosecution.
Officials from the Attorney-General’s Department revealed the cost under questioning from New South Wales Greens senator David Shoebridge, who labelled it as a “lavish use of taxpayer funds”.
- NSW Greens senator David Shoebridge said it was a “lavish use of taxpayer funds”
- The case against Bernard Collaery and Witness K cost the Commonwealth $5,510,829
- Whistleblowing advocates have criticised the government for pursuing David McBride and Richard Boyle.
In July last year, Federal Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus ordered prosecutors to drop the case against Canberra lawyer Bernard Collaery.
Mr Collaery had been charged with helping his client, an ex-spy known by the pseudonym “Witness K” with revealing classified details of a secret mission in Timor Leste.
The Attorney-General’s Department confirmed that by the end of January, the case against Mr Collaery and Witness K had cost the Commonwealth $5,510,829.
Senator Shoebridge also sought details of prosecutions against David McBride and Richard Boyle.
Mr McBride is being prosecuted for allegedly leaking top-secret defence information to the ABC, while Mr Boyle is before the courts after lifting the lid on unethical debt recovery practices within the Australian Taxation Office.
Officials revealed the cost of the McBride prosecution had reached $1,875,348, while Mr Boyle’s case had reached $233,171.
The Commonwealth’s spending in Mr McBride’s case was higher, according to Attorney-General’s Department officials, because of the extra work needed to protect national security information.
Senator Shoebridge described it as using taxpayer funds for “monstering whistleblowers”.
“Is there some point at which … your department reviews the lavish use of public money to jail a whistleblower,” he asked.
“I’m not sure I would agree with your characterisation of lavish, it’s a significant amount of money,” Attorney-General Department Secretary Katherine Jones responded.
The Department’s deputy secretary, Sarah Chidgey, noted it was up to the Commonwealth Director of Public Prosecutions, as an independent agency, to decide whether to continue pursuing the two men.
“They continue over time to have regard to the prosecution policy of the Commonwealth, and whether it continues to be satisfied — and that includes consideration of the public interest,” Ms Chidgey said.
The federal government has been criticised for pursuing Mr McBride and Mr Boyle by whistleblowing advocates, particularly as it reviews Commonwealth whistleblowing protections.
Blisskitt… Nothing is ever what it seems. That is a fact of life. But in this case, I don’t see how this pays off for the globalists or the Pentagon. Also, Snowden is on the same side as Assange and there is no way the White House puppeteers would tolerate that kind of alliance.
Tony Ryan, I have read several articles over the past 5 years, that Julian Assange is also controlled opposition or part of it!. He was “allowed” to release all this stuff, then the media onslaught, bad man, good man ever since. Why doesn’t the Australian government do anything for him?
Scenario 1. He is innocent and they are doing the bidding of the US
Scenario 2. He is guilty of ? ( producing some truth) and they are covering their arses.
Scenario 3. He is merely another actor to detract and living life elsewhere (compliments of the same green screen cinematography Zelensky is renowned for)?
There is possibly a lot more scenarios. Just three I guessed. I not that smart but he is not what he seems.
Hasn’t he supposedly married and had children in all this time?….
Absolutely Tony. – ‘What they really fear is being hung for treason.’
This was precisely why Tony ‘Miranda’ Blair ‘ammended’ Britain’s treason laws in 1998. This was a conscious act of pre-meditated self-preservation.
The Government still refuses to re-instate the old laws. So treason against the people has increased unrestrained.
https://petition.parliament.uk/archived/petitions/236798
In a democracy, there is no compelling reason why the government should have any secrets at all. Hypotheticals aired to justify secrecy are just that, hypotheticals, and never occur in the real world. What secrets do achieve is protecting official wrongdoers from public scrutiny.
My favourite alibi is claims of protecting agents in the field. By agents, we mean spies, whose behaviour is grossly illegal. Back to square one, protecting wrongdoers from public scrutiny.
Next comes the belief that for national security reasons, we must have spies. I can seriously claim to have a vastly more comprehensive understanding of geopolitics than any public servant or politician in Australia. So there you go, Albo, an opportunity to set me up to make a fool of myself and forever destroy my credibility. Yet you cannot, because you are bluffing. I would make fools of your boys and girls and I have no spies, only colleagues in almost every country in the West, who have proved their information to be reliable for half a century. As somebody observed three thousand years ago, ‘the wise man is not he who knows everything but he who knows how to find out’. Another said, ‘a king is as good as his counsel’. As Albo is advised by psychopaths and fools, where does that leave him? I can tell him: best mates with Zelensky, Adern, and Biden.
This takes us to Assange. He is being held for exposing mass murder by the US. The UK was complicit and supports the US in its thuggery, just as the UK assisted Biden blow up the Nordstream Ii pipeline. Both nations believe their criminal actions should be protected. What they really fear is been hung for treason. That is the actual reason why capital punishment was repealed, an action the public did not support.
Albo and his crooked politicians face the certain prospect of prosecution for violations of Sections 51 and 44 of the Australian Constitution and their own researcher’s surveys would have revealed that the vast majority of Australians support a return of the death penalty.
When whistleblowers receive awards from governments, we will know we have restored democracy. While whistleblowers are imprisoned, we know we are enduring tyranny and government by criminals and traitors.
History will judge us by how long it takes us to rid ourselves of these scum.