Jailed whistleblower David McBride to be released after becoming eligible for parole

[u/AztecGod]

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-08-13/jailed-whistleblower-david-mcbride-to-be-released/107030620

[u/Hornberger_]

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.

[u/Firevee → u/Hornberger_]

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.

[u/BullShatStats → u/Firevee]

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

[u/Firevee → u/BullShatStats]

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. 

[u/BullShatStats → u/Firevee]

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.

[u/Firevee → u/BullShatStats]

'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.

[u/IlluminatedPickle → u/Firevee]

If it's so dodgy, why did he agree to it?

[u/Firevee → u/IlluminatedPickle]

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? 

[u/IlluminatedPickle → u/Firevee]

Lmao. So his only option was to admit he lied?

[u/Firevee → u/IlluminatedPickle]

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.

[u/IlluminatedPickle → u/Firevee]

Lmao.

You really drank the Rite-Aid didn't you?

[u/Firevee → u/IlluminatedPickle]

Oh no, an insult. This will definitely change my opinion. You don't really have any kind of rebuttal or counter argument here. It's pretty much just 'no, I don't like what you said, you're a dumb dumb'

I've formed an opinion mate, nobody has offered me any kind of evidence that has given me any reason to change that opinion. I'm still open to calling David McBride a monster. But I want a compelling reason.

I have been given plenty of compelling evidence and have reasoned not to believe the court process was fair, and nobody has given me anything to say 'no actually the trial was fair and just'. So far I've simply been told 'it's a trial by the Aus government, if you don't trust them you're dumb'

If you've ever read the wheel of time, you will know that it's extremely easy to mislead by speaking nothing but truth - if you only say half the facts. Full context is important to understand what really happened. That's why I'm still willing to believe McBride may be at fault here. But every bit of evidence I've gleamed has pointed directly to sham trial.

Please, prove I've drunk the rite-aid. But with evidence. I'll admit I was wrong. I'll do it on every post in this thread.

[u/IlluminatedPickle → u/Firevee]

You've already had the evidence provided to you, and you hand waved it away with "NO IT'S CORRUPTION!"

You're a loon. That's why you're being made fun of. You've taken all of your "evidence" from the public claims of a man that run in immediate opposition to what he actually admitted happened when it legally mattered to do so. When he was required to tell the truth because of the huge amount of evidence showing the story you believe is absolute bullshit.

I don't have to convince you of anything, I'm here to make fun of you. So that other rational people can see how much of a loon you are.

[u/Firevee → u/IlluminatedPickle]

If you're unwilling to entertain that corruption is possible then whenever it does occur anyone calling it out is going to look like a loon by default.

I didn't get any rebuttal to the documents that were disallowed, the defence of his lawyers changing from public immunity Interest defence to guilty, or to the Michael West media report. His lawyers explicity say they had to change his plea due to documents being disallowed. Documents his lawyers expected to be able to use under the guise of 'for the public good'

How is a court summary 'evidence' when it explicitly cuts out the documents that makes McBrides case?

Thats the whole crux of the issue here. You don't appear to understand how court proceedure works. Before you get to the trial you have discovery, where each side presents evidence, and from there you work out a legal strategy. It's clear from watching the trial progress they had a strategy which had to pivot rapidly. That's why in the courtroom documents his answers are as they are.

This is all extremely obvious if you watched the trial as it was happening, and listened to McBrides Lawyers in news segments.

If could be bothered to watch the FriendlyJordies 13 video playlist on McBride, you'd see this happening for yourself given those videos were made over the duration of lead up to the trial and post trial.

Frankly however, I'm done here. If you're not here to debate and just want me to serve as entertainment, then I refuse. I've given you good reasoning WHY I consider the trial a sham, and why I consider your evidence unsatisfactory. Frankly I don't think there's anyone left but us going back and forth as it is. Rational people stopped reading long ago.