Pirate Party Australia condemns the harsh punishment of whistleblower Major David McBride – 68 months prison – for leaking to the press. The ABC in 2017 used his leaks to report on war crimes in Afghanistan by some of Australia’s SAS soldiers.
When McBride, a military lawyer, shared evidence of serious leadership misconduct to an investigative journalist of the ABC, he defied the military’s orders of secrecy. “As a lawyer, he believed that he had a paramount duty to the public interest. Internal investigations he had instigated were going no-where, the AFP had off-handedly dismissed his concerns, so in the end he went to the media to blow the whistle”, said party President Miles Whiticker. “Whistleblower protection laws failed to protect him. This sentence sends a chilling message to all potential whistleblowers in the country.”