Janet Rice (Victoria, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

Minister Payne's response to my question about justice for Julian Assange—to take action to free Julian Assange, to take action to reach out to her US counterpart in the incoming Biden administration—was distressing. It was the same old, same old. Basically, it was complete abrogation of the responsibility, you would think, of this government to actually protect the rights of a US citizen.

Julian Assange is imprisoned in the UK at the moment as a political prisoner. He is there because of a political decision by the Trump administration to charge him with espionage. It was a political action that was taken then, and a political action needs to be taken by our government to protect his rights. Yet, when I asked the minister if she would pick up the phone so that Julian Assange could be freed from the awful conditions that he is still experiencing in Belmarsh prison in the UK, her answer was, 'I haven't yet met with my counterpart Antony Blinken, but I'm sure that, in the course of a meeting, this matter would be raised.' This is appalling. There is no urgency there; there is no commitment. There is a willingness to just let Julian Assange continue to suffer in jail. She's basically shrugging her shoulders at the potential of the US appealing the court judgement that said Assange shouldn't be extradited and shrugging her shoulders at the potential of the appeal winning—at the potential of Julian facing up to 175 years in jail in the US.

There is no recognition by this government of the political nature of the charges against Assange. There's no willingness by the minister to use the power that she has, as foreign minister, to engage on a political level. The decision by the Trump administration to charge Julian Assange was because he was a whistleblower, because he published evidence of war crimes. He revealed the murder of innocent men, women and children—crimes which the US defense force had covered up. Yet our Australian government has abandoned him. The US is meant to be our mate. You would think that, if you had an Australian citizen being held as a political prisoner, the least the government could do would be to use their power to reach out and attempt to free Julian Assange.

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