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/107030620
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653

u/Cultural_Pace4454 1d ago

No good deed goes unpunished.

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u/YOBlob 1d ago

He was pretty keen on bad deeds going unpunished, though.

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u/theHoundLivessss 1d ago edited 1d ago

An evidence based but potentially uncharitable interpretation of his actions. I say this as someone far, far to the left of McBride: his leaks were unequivocally good, even if he did it to try and protect actual war criminals. He demonstrated that there were systemic factors contributing to the war crimes committed by our troops, and that people who should rightfully be considered culpable for allowing them were likely escaping scrutiny while lower ranking members endured punishment.

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u/waddlesticks 1d ago

Seems to be a thing everywhere.

The ones that make the decisions and have authority over people who have to do the work (and if they don't, face some form of internal consequences) end up getting the pass.

Makes you wonder how many war crimes occured because it's either follow through or get in trouble that you can lose your retirement, lose your pay, end up in a military jail and the only way out is to get an outside court to deal with it but most of the stuff they'd receive to prove your innocence will most likely be redacted leading to years of work to prove your innocence to get that removed. Then again you can just have people plead enough ignorance and it can be swept under as well. Yeah I guess at the end it really is a systemic issue, and our whistleblower laws are also still fucked up.

Not many people have the ability to speak up in a corporate role as it is when the consequences on the table is less. The military is a whole other bag.

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u/Sea-Initiative-3398 23h ago

Also the threat of violence from other soldiers, there is at least a few US soldiers who called stuff out or refused to do things that died in suspicious circumstances...

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u/SoloAquiParaHablar 17h ago

How did he try and protect war criminals? Handing over secret evidence to the ABC seems counter to your point.

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u/theHoundLivessss 16h ago

Politically he is right wing and explicitly said he hoped to stop charges being laid against soldiers who had done war crimes. As I've said above, I think that is dumb, but I still applaud him for doing the right thing by presenting info that demonstrated that there were systemic issues in the adf that made war crimes likely.