The Human Rights Law Centre, the Alliance for Journalists’ Freedom and the Whistleblower Justice Fund are calling on the Albanese Government to act on urgent, robust whistleblower protection reform, after war crimes whistleblower David McBride’s appeal was dismissed today.

McBride, a former Army lawyer who leaked documents to the ABC which led to important public interest journalism on war crimes in Afghanistan, was last year sentenced to almost six years’ imprisonment. He appealed both his conviction and the severity of the sentence to the ACT Court of appeal, which handed down its decision today.

McBride is the first whistleblower to be imprisoned in recent memory in Australia. Whistleblower Richard Boyle yesterday pleaded guilty, to avoid a custodial sentence, after exposing unethical debt recovery practices at the Australian Tax Office.

The Albanese Government has resisted repeated calls to drop the prosecution and intervene in McBride and Boyle’s cases.

Tosca Lloyd, Campaigner at the Whistleblower Justice Fund, said: 

“This is another dark day for David McBride and Australia’s democracy. David was the first person to be prosecuted, and punished, for Australia’s war crimes in Afghanistan – the whistleblower, not a war criminal.”

Kieran Pender, Associate Legal Director at the Human Rights Law Centre, said: 

“The truth should not be criminalised, yet Australia’s broken whistleblower protection laws have led to numerous whistleblowers being prosecuted for speaking up. The Albanese Government must act with urgent law reform and the establishment of a whistleblower protection authority, to ensure prosecutions like this never happen again. Whistleblowers should be protected, not punished.”

Peter Greste, Executive Director at the Alliance for Journalists’ Freedom, said:  

“Press freedom relies on protections for journalists and their sources. As someone who was wrongly imprisoned for my journalism in Egypt, I am outraged about David McBride’s ongoing imprisonment for leaking documents to the ABC. We urgently need stronger protections for public interest journalism in Australia.”