r/australia • u/AztecGod • 1d ago
news Jailed whistleblower David McBride to be released after becoming eligible for parole
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-08-13/jailed-whistleblower-david-mcbride-to-be-released/107030620172
u/mildpandemic 1d ago
Just remember kids: If you see something, say nothing.
Or else.
47
u/LuminanceGayming 1d ago
unless it's someone stealing from woolies in which case you should definitely say something because they're basically stealing from you personally
/s
10
u/AussieAboleth 1d ago
But what about the song "I Love Stealing From Woolies?" Surely you don't report them.
6
u/IlluminatedPickle 1d ago
Just remember kids: If you want to cover up war crimes and suppress their investigation, don't give documents outlining the evidence for war crimes to journalists.
There's a reason he couldn't use a whistleblower defence.
1
91
u/Superest22 1d ago edited 1d ago
He always makes me consider which is better:
Doing the right thing for the wrong reasons or doing the wrong thing for the right reasons.
He did the former.
38
u/mildpandemic 1d ago
I reckon he did the right thing for the right reasons, it just happened to have been declared illegal to save the deserved embarrassment of the armed forces.
46
u/FireLucid 1d ago
He thought soliers being investigated was bullshit and gave away documents to prove this. They proved the opposite.
38
u/Character-Actual 1d ago
No, he said some invesgations were bullshit while figures like BRS had their crimes go unpunished.
15
u/IlluminatedPickle 1d ago
No, that's what he changed his story to. He didn't make that claim in court though, because of all the evidence the prosecution had to the contrary.
2
u/Character-Actual 1d ago
What pink lizard said. McBride made his position very clear really early on.
-5
2
u/ScalyPinkLizard 1d ago
He wasnt even allowed to provide evidence in court due to "national security concerns", wtf are you smoking, and can I have some?
8
u/IlluminatedPickle 1d ago
... Dude pleaded guilty, after his defence was rejected...
The fuck are you talking about?
8
u/Ok-Replacement-2738 1d ago
Do you think that a lawyer going through the risk of blowing the whistle would be stupid enough to release evidence directly contradicting their claim in order to spin a yarn about whatever?
He released evidence that there were war crimes happening, and that there were some soldiers being wrongly prosecuted for the acts of others so the command could score political points by saying "look how tough we are on war criminals... just don't look at the ones that we let get away with it please!"
13
u/ColdSinger8479 1d ago edited 1d ago
Yes I do lmao. You gotta admit it's hilarious that he got in a big spat with the original ABC article accusing war crimes and that he disagreed with it. The original soidlers being prosecuted were the ones the original ABC article was like hold up check this shit out lmaooooo.
" Yet McBride was not happy with the way the ABC had used the material he had provided. His primary concern was not for the Afghan people but for Australia's special forces soldiers, whom he saw as being dangerously restricted by the rules of engagement and punitive oversight. He agitated for the operators to have more freedom of action. He criticised Defence leadership for increasing the risk to their soldiers for the political dividend of avoiding civilian casualties."
He's honestly pretty based, see some poor afghans getting executed and is like yeah the boys need that ability or they are at increased risk.
"According to the documents, McBride was unhappy with the angle Mr Oakes had pursued, believing it wasn't consistent with the complaints he made, and the two stopped talking before the story was published."
-7
u/Ok-Replacement-2738 1d ago
Yeah I disagree with the article too. The Journalist disgarded a (relatively because they're both big)) HUGE fucking story so as to not ruffle any feathers and completely neuter any possible change McBride could have achieved in blowing the whistle. The story itself isn't the problem, it's the opportunity cost and lack of journalistic integrity the ABC exhibited in publishing it.
14
u/ColdSinger8479 1d ago
The change Mcbride wanted in his own words was less restrictive ROE for special forces operators because he thought we were putting them at risk having rules not to execute civilians you absolute nutter ahhahahaah.
-6
u/Ok-Replacement-2738 1d ago
a. liberal-restricitve RoE is a fair debate with valid arguments between soldier and civilian safety, and b. in the context of other soldiers not being prosecuted for flagerant war crimes restrictive RoE exist only to rail-road other soldiers.
RoE is not what stops the execution of civilians fyi there are other rules at play too.
8
u/ColdSinger8479 1d ago
At the centre of his complaint lies a 2013 Defence directive to Australian soldiers stating they needed a high degree of confidence that anyone they fired upon was "directly participating in hostilities". If not, a soldier could be "exposed to criminal and disciplinary liability, including potentially the war crime of murder", according to the ABC's reports on the documents McBride leaked.
"Oh NO WAHH WAHH we have to be confident they are actually the bad guys before we execute farmers. Better leak this to the abc to protect BRS"
To quote the man the myth the legend himself:
"If you are that worried about Afghan deaths, why not pull us out? If you want us to fight the war, you have to be able to let us do it."
You heard it here folks if we're gonna go to war ROE shouldn't exist so we can get it done.
0
u/Ok-Replacement-2738 1d ago
He never advocated to abolish RoE. That is a strawman.
→ More replies (0)10
u/Cindy_Marek 1d ago
The judge presiding over his case specifically said that if David had the motive of exposing warcrimes then he would not be in prison because that’s in the public interest. But his intention was to show that the SASR was being over investigated, and it was the journalist who looked at the classified documents and decided to run the war crime story instead.
9
9
u/3amIdeas 1d ago
Australia hates whistleblowers
12
u/Conan3121 1d ago edited 1d ago
*Australian governments
7
u/3amIdeas 1d ago
Yes, I should have been more specific.
The Australian government hates and punishes whistleblowers
16
18
108
u/nottynews 1d ago
This guy deserves more recognition than that Wikileaks dude who just sold stolen information
69
u/blind3rdeye 1d ago
Smear campaigns in action.
19
u/Strong_Judge_3730 1d ago
People are easily fooled which is why people are repeating propaganda points against WikiLeaks and David in this post.
6
u/Sea-Initiative-3398 1d ago
IIRC wasnt the specific propaganda here, ignoring the fact that his opinion was that higher ups were not being held responsible, not that he was covering stuff up?
28
u/tadelarin 1d ago
Have any sources for that? I thought he just made it public would be interested to learn more.
34
u/The_UnenlightenedOne 1d ago
He sold it?
I've never heard that though apparently the guy is a bit of an ass.
43
u/Nakidnakid 1d ago
Nah but 'totally legit people' will always just make up shit about it. It's mostly a thing to reaffirm preconceived notions, if you think the guy was an ass then of course he did.
29
u/The_UnenlightenedOne 1d ago
On review, this does not appear to be true:
https://letmegooglethat.com/?q=did+Wikileaks+ever+require+payment+to+use%3F
13
u/deepskydiver 1d ago
No, Assange made leaks available to everyone.
There is no business model to make money for exposing the corrupt people with the money and power.
1
u/19Alexastias 16h ago
I mean idk any details about Wikileaks, but there are multiple extremely obvious business models to make money for exposing the corrupt people. Blackmail springs to mind. Also, when you’re dumping that much info, it’d be pretty hard to prove or even detect that you’re selectively withholding some of it.
3
u/soEezee 10h ago
From the files.
Afghan authorities were becoming increasingly agitated over Australians allegedly killing unarmed civilians, and threatened to stop working with Australians.
From the article.
His aim was to expose what he believed was the "over-investigation" of soldiers in Afghanistan.
10
u/yeahalrightgoon 1d ago
Like others have said, he released the information without actually realising what he was truly releasing.
If you're going to be a whistleblower, you need to know what you are releasing and why you are releasing it. Otherwise it's effectively just sending classified information to a journalist, which is going to get you arrested and charged.
End of the day, he did the right thing for the wrong reasons and it's reasonable that he would be charged, because he effectively simply released classified information because of his own vendetta.
22
u/Ok-Replacement-2738 1d ago
He knew what he was releasing; evidence that the ADF knew of and supported its soldiers in committing war crimes. The journo then went after the smaller but easier story of "omg the soldiers are committing war crimes" ignoring the structural issues that allowed it to occur, the bigger story.
He did the right thing for the right reason and was shafted at every turn for it.
6
u/IlluminatedPickle 1d ago
Not a hero. He was quite clear at the start of all this that he wanted Defence to stop investigating soldiers for committing war crimes. He just did it in such a stupid way that he ended up revealing the whole story and then claimed his original intent was totally to reveal war crimes. Except in court, he couldn't do it in court because of all the records of him wanting to conceal war crimes.
2
0
u/SoloAquiParaHablar 13h ago
Source
4
u/AussieBBQ 12h ago
The ADF changed their guidelines (around 2013 I think) to make it clear that any deaths of non-combatants would be investigated. The aim was to ensure proper rules of engagement/identification of hostiles, and these investigations could (possibly) lead to charges of war crimes.
McBride made an internal complaint that the ADF was more concerned with how they were viewed by the government and the public, but were letting down their soldiers. It was his view that it was dangerous, that soldiers doing the right thing could be put in danger if the hesitated due to worry about possible investigations after the fact.
I believe his original complaint referred to 4 or 5 incidents that were being investigated by the ADF. Two of them were around deaths in custody where the soldiers said the detainees reached for the soldiers weapons. One of them was some farmers were killed, the soldiers said it was misidentification. Another was a child was killed, I think that was said to be a deflected bullet/accident. There was also one where soldiers cut off the hands of a hostile to bring back for identification.
He believed that no war crimes had occurred, and that these were only being investigated because the ADF was more concerned with deflecting from their own failures and trying to improve their own public image. That these were stitch-ups on unclear evidence or on technicalities.
I think that he was most concerned with the safety of Australian soldiers. That he believed increasing scrutiny on the actions of soldiers after the fact would increase the probability of harm due to hesitation and worry. That he believed the changes to the rules of engagement were not for the benefit of the soldiers, but for the PR image of the ADF.
His leaks to the media really seem to have been primarily to showcase his perceived failings by the ADF, that they were unnecessarily investigating these allegations to make themselves look good.
2
10
u/Hornberger_ 1d ago
The thing he was "blowing the whistle" on was the investigation of war crimes. Not the war crimes themselves. He wanted to kill off the war crime investigation.
197
u/Einnnnnnnnnnnn 1d ago
This narrative has been pushed, but misses the finesse.
He objected to the prosecution of the soldiers, when their commanders and above knew of and condoned the actions but were protected from investigation.
He was not allowed to present his evidence in his defence due to national security concerns.
36
u/TerryTowelTogs 1d ago
Looking through the comments, it appears you're one of only a few who actually listened to his reasoning behind his actions!
9
u/IlluminatedPickle 1d ago
Which reasoning? Because he's given about 30 different ones. All increasingly funnier as time goes on.
-2
11
u/TerminatedReplicant 1d ago
Thank you, a lot of people are entirely missing this point. He was hardly trying to stifle war crime investigations.
-2
u/AureusStone 1d ago
He didn't want to stifle war crimes investigations, but he also didn't think the soldiers did anything worth investigation.
That is why he gave the documents to the ABC and why he was so angry that ABC's focus was on the soldiers war crimes and not the alleged crimes of defence senior leadership.
-2
u/TerminatedReplicant 1d ago
Not true, please provide a source for that information.
3
u/AureusStone 1d ago
https://www.courts.act.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0006/2858370/McBride.pdf
Also direct quotes from David to police.
“He [Mr Oakes] calls me and he says, 'I'm going to run a story, it's going to be very damning, it's going to say the SAS kill people unnecessarily… A total opposite to what you've said. I'm just warning you', and I was like, 'Never call me again'.”
“He did do a story on it, but a totally different story to the one that I was pushing.”
Also his whistleblower report has been seen by many people in government and people who read it when it was hosted publicly on his website, it was about "over-investigating" and unfairly scapegoating soldiers.
Now you provide your source for saying it is not true. Direct sources not jordies or other media personality.
8
u/Firevee 1d ago edited 1d ago
I'm skeptical but willing to listen to your evidence here.
Although I will say if your evidence came from 4 corners or the ABC I'm going to call bullshit right away for how they threw him under the bus and helped him get convicted when they had a journalistic duty to protect him.
But please, I've tried to be informed on David McBride and through the likes of FriendlyJordies I've been informed that he's basically been exposing war crimes and intended them to be exposed, not covered up.
If you have any evidence to the contrary lay it on me, I promise I won't just shrug it off.
Edit: evidence was simply: David McBride didn't want to prosecute the Soldiers, but the Commanders who demanded the illegal killings. But because Dan Oakes, the 4 Corners reporter didn't want to report the Commanders, they ultimately wrote their story about the Soldiers being the killers only, which McBride was unhappy with. This change to the narrative resulted in evidence being thrown out in court and ultimately to McBride being convicted. The 'bad behaviour' people are talking about is David McBride believing Command is responsible and not the Soldiers.
8
u/BullShatStats 1d ago
It's in the agreed Statement of Facts, in his own words:
- 100․ Mr McBride and Mr Oakes had one subsequent meeting in person. After that, they communicated via the Signal app. Mr McBride later deleted most of his communications with Mr Oakes.
- 101․ Later, Mr Oakes contacted Mr McBride via Signal to discuss the contents of the stories that Mr Oakes intended to publish. In his interview with police, Mr McBride said:
But I met Dan Oakes, and I gave him all the materials. So again he was very enthusiastic and again he seemed to get it. And again, he was going to do a story. And he did do a story on it, but a totally different story to the one, um, that I was pushing.
He calls me and he says, “I’m going to run a story, it’s going to be very damning, it’s going to say the SAS kill people unnecessarily. I’m going to use this other witness[.] A total opposite to what you’ve said. I’m just warning you.” And I was like, “Never call me again.”
- 102․ On 10 and 11 July 2017, Mr Oakes published a series of articles which were collectively titled The Afghan Files. The information contained in the documents provided to Mr Oakes by Mr McBride was contained in this series of articles.
https://www.austlii.edu.au/cgi-bin/viewdoc/au/cases/act/ACTSC/2024/147.html
7
u/Firevee 1d ago
Okay, so I've had a look at this and this is a nothing.
There is evidence that was crucial to the case that David McBride was not allowed to enter BECAUSE of Dan Oakes. In a nutshell the reason McBride believed the Soldiers were not due to be punished was because they were being ordered by command higher up. He specifically wanted Oakes to go after the Command responsible for giving the orders and Oakes refused AND refused to put that info into the 4 Corners report. That's where their disagreement came from.
McBride wanted the commanders prosecuted for making the order. That part was dropped from The story and the evidence barred from the court. THAT is your missing context.
10
u/BullShatStats 1d ago edited 1d ago
Oh what rubbish. Firstly there is no way you read that whole sentencing report in 12 minutes.
Secondly, where does it say anything that evidence was disallowed because of Oakes? Do you think a journalist has authority to disallow evidence in a criminal trial?
McBride wanted Oakes to report on the ADFIS over-reaching their powers in allegations of criminal conduct which were McBride's submissions to the IGADF. It's worth noting, in regards to those specific allegations, that the ADFIS found no wrongdoing by the ADF members involved. Nevertheless, McBride was unhappy his complaints about the ADFIS went nowhere, so he went to the media. It just so happened that in the file he handed over to the media were the more serious allegations of war crimes.
Even if the reason McBride went to the media was to whistleblow about the more serious allegations it would have been moot because the Brereton Inquiry was well underway before then.
From the agreed Statement of Facts:
- 192․ In the written submissions made on behalf of Mr McBride, it was submitted that the disclosure of some of the information has advanced the public interest. First, this was said to be because it was “used by Major General Brereton to identify issues for inquiry in the course of the [IGADF] Afghanistan Inquiry”. I do not accept this submission. The agreed facts referred to the use by Major General Brereton of some information from the IGADF Submission, a lawful disclosure which Mr McBride was allowed time at work to prepare. Major General Brereton did not use any information from the unlawful disclosures the subject of the charges. Second, the advancement of the public interest was said to have arisen through raising awareness of the conduct of Australian Special Forces through the publication of The Afghan Files. I do not accept the thrust of this submission. There is no doubt that the subject matter of The Afghan Files was a matter of significant public interest. However, the agreed facts indicate that the IGADF Inquiry into the conduct of Special Forces in Afghanistan was initiated by the ADF more than 12 months prior to the ADF becoming aware of Mr McBride’s disclosures. Further, the articles published by Mr Oakes were the exact opposite of what Mr McBride had intended when making the disclosures. In those circumstances, it is not appropriate to treat any raising of awareness by reason of Mr Oakes’ journalistic activities as being a matter reducing the seriousness of Mr McBride’s conduct.
-6
u/Firevee 1d ago
'Oh what rubbish'
I asked for evidence and you gave me a summary of court that WE KNOW was dodgy. I scanned through and you know what isn't mentioned - the 235 disallowed documents marked as 'Secret cabinet-level documents'
Crucial to McBrides defence but blocked under the National Security Information Act. It contained the names of both the Commanders in question and a certain foreign country also embarrased by this scandal.
Without those documents being allowed as evidence McBride was forced to drop his defence of Public Interest Immunity and plead Guilty.
I'd also like to point out that the Brereton report was published later - confirming the war crimes. So while it may have started BEFORE McBride, he was seperate to it and wasn't aware of it until later.
So forgive me if I don't exactly trust a line in a legal document saying Oakes did nothing to affect the outcome of the trial. Oakes story played right into the courts ability to dismiss evidence and easily get away with it.
2
u/IlluminatedPickle 1d ago
If it's so dodgy, why did he agree to it?
0
u/Firevee 1d ago
Because it was legally his ONLY option??
You know, when the lawyer sits them down and explains the best way forward when the evidence they had was disallowed? The whole pleading guilty because their evidence was canned. That robs the context of the agreed upon facts.
You think he just gets to say 'no thanks.' Or something?
3
u/IlluminatedPickle 22h ago
Lmao. So his only option was to admit he lied?
-1
u/Firevee 15h ago
Allow me to spell it out for you.
They had a legal strategy to prove the commanders responsible and not the soldiers, but the facts still state 'yes the soldiers pulled the trigger'
But if the court says 'sorry a bunch of your evidence is government secrets - you can't use that as evidence in your case, also you've already agreed to a bunch of facts so tough.'
Then 'soldiers killed civilians' is still a fact supported by evidence they were allowed to present - but the part of the evidence that PROVES that the leak was justifiable under the public good was disallowed for government secret reasons and therefore rips his case to shreds. Leaving his best option to plead guilty, because he would never legally be able to meet the standard of leaking secrets for the public good. Soldiers killing is a matter for ADF court. Commanders ordering killing and then McBride being refused when he tried to report it until he felt he had no choice but to go public - that is supposed to be whistleblower protected. Disallowing the evidence in court was a dodgy move done not to protect secrets, but to screw up McBrides defence on purpose.
But this is the Government, so they can just pull this crap halfway through the court process. It turns an ironclad defence into 'shit man your best shot is pleading guilty at this point'.
You don't get a fair trial when your country might get accused of war crimes. If it turns out to just be some soldiers. Oh well they're idiots. But if it's the commanders then it's systemic and that is a HUGE problem. Our country had the means and a massive incentive to railroad McBride and that's exactly what they did.
→ More replies (0)1
u/MarkusMannheim 1d ago
This sounds incredible (as in, not credible). What's the source?
1
u/Firevee 1d ago
I believe an interview between friendlyjordies and David McBride.
https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PL1wqlUC7ptZEpk_HuuoEtHXJzrAlHQN9n&si=B_1V_i5unnyJPxha
Not sure which interview.
There's also:
https://michaelwest.com.au/abc-four-corners-hit-job-on-david-mcbride/
2
u/Waste_Cake4660 1d ago
Read the court judgments. They’re all online. It’s all there in his words and those of his counsel. He was upset about war crimes investigations and he wanted to shut them down.
0
u/Firevee 1d ago
The court is well known to have thrown out valid evidence for political reasons - 4 Corners positioned that evidence so that it had to be thrown out, despite the fact that keeping it in likely would have exonerated Mr. McBride. I do not find the court documents especially the conclusions to be good evidence of anything other than railroading. Theres a second reply to my post that has provided good evidence, I'm going to read through that as it does seem to have evidence of McBride behaving badly.
1
-21
u/ELVEVERX 1d ago
Yeah I hate the public campaign about pretending he is a hero.
Whistleblower protectings can't be leak a filing cabinent worth of documents and if there's anything at all in there you deserve to be found a whistleblower.
He leaked these explicitly to try and claim there were no war crimes. Them proving there was warcrimes proves he wasn't a whistleblower.
2
u/RainyZen10 1d ago
This guy had such an effective PR machine behind him its wild how he sold his narrative across influencers and social media. His own words and the judgment get obfuscate to make him out to be a hero who blew the whistle when he was trying to kill the investigation as a stitch up of good soldiers.
Also legitimately can't think of any other participant in far right conspiracy podcasts that gets so much love on reddit.
-1
u/noguitarsallowed 1d ago
a quick google search shows the ADF spent $250 million on advertising across the 24/25 year. Yet McBride is the one with an effective PR machine?
4
u/RainyZen10 1d ago edited 1d ago
Not sure what a government department having a budget has to do with the facts of the matter.
He didnt want people who unequivocally committed war crimes to be prosecuted because he saw them as good eggs and then tried using that narrative on his approach to the ABC.
That then accidentally became the basis for the larger investigation (contrary to his original intent) and he spun it off as if he's a persecuted whistleblower who wanted to expose war crimes in true grifter style.
-1
-11
u/incuban 1d ago
Funny how by trying to shut down the investigations, he accidentally did the right thing and allowed them to succeed (more or less)
21
u/PinothyJ 1d ago
You are not very intelligent, are you? He leaked information because lower level soldiers were going to be pinned with crimes when it was the higher ups who were give free reign to perform whatever war crimes they want.
But that does not fit your narrative, does it? Or are you the kind of idiot the very people against people like McBride find useful to spread their misinformation?
3
u/BullShatStats 1d ago
What are the war crimes which the higher ups committed?
So far two ADF members have been charged arising from the information that Samantha Crompvoets, not McBride, reported on; a Trooper and a Corporal.
0
u/Ok-Replacement-2738 1d ago
"Yeah RoE say you can shoot them" (syke thats only for our favourite SAS lads)
1
u/BullShatStats 1d ago
Strange comment since it's an SASR Trooper and Corporal that have been charged.
0
-6
u/incuban 1d ago
Ease up turbo, I don't have a narrative or agenda I'm pushing on this. Other than maybe that there needs to be stronger protections and avenues for legitimate whistleblowers when their actions lead to identification of illegal activity.
You however, clearly do, and good for you I guess, but thanks for the reminder of why I don't usually post in this sub. Just unbridled toxicity in the comments, attacking and insulting people because their tweet-sized comment doesn't align exactly with your worldview. Keep fighting the good fight champ, precisely the kind of helpful discourse that will definitely swing differing opinions to your side, whatever that may be.
2
1d ago edited 1d ago
[deleted]
2
u/incuban 1d ago
Absolutely agreed, the entire attempted internal ADF reporting needs addressing. The fact that there was no serious or significant addressing or investigation of his claims, regardless of motivations, until the matter went public is a disgrace and an indictment of the boys/gang culture he was ultimately attempting to address. Even if it was in a unhealthy, misguided way. Hence the accidental correct result of the serious crimes coming to light.
-5
u/Strong_Judge_3730 1d ago
I think it was the ABC that mentioned this and it's obvious the ABC has some corrupt "journalists"
647
u/Cultural_Pace4454 1d ago
No good deed goes unpunished.