Felicity Ruby - A Secret Australia: Revealed by the WikiLeaks Exposés

In A Secret Australia, eighteen independent and prominent Australians discuss what Australia has learned about itself from the WikiLeaks revelations. This is an Australia that officials do not want us to see. However Australians may perceive our place in the world, whether as dependable ally or good international citizen, WikiLeaks has shown us a startlingly different story.

Contributors include author Scott Ludlam, former defence secretary Paul Barratt, lawyers Julian Burnside and Jennifer Robinson, academics Richard Tanter, Benedetta Brevini, John Keane, Suelette Dreyfus, Gerard Goggin and Clinton Fernandes, psychologist Lissa Johnson, as well as writers and journalists Andrew Fowler, Quentin Dempster, Antony Loewenstein, Guy Rundle, George Gittoes, Helen Razer and Julian Assange.

Sad but true: Eisenhower in his retirement address, Curtis LeMays reaction to Cuban missiles and the disclosures in WikiLeaks teach us, as citizens, the need for greater transparency in relation to our dangerous governments.

The Hon Michael Kirby AC CMG

Exceptional, illuminating, and deeply disturbing. With commanding breadth this superb collection highlights the dangers to democracy of proliferating information control and official secrecy, exploring the powerful transformative work of Julian Assange and WikiLeaks in exposing dark secrets as an exemplar of Australian investigative journalism. His persecution is our shame.

Emeritus Professor Jenny Hocking

A Secret Australia: Revealed by the WikiLeaks Exposs

Copyright 2020

Copyright of this collection in its entirety is held by the editors, Felicity Ruby and Peter Cronau. Copyright of the individual chapters is held by the respective author/s.

All rights reserved. Apart from any uses permitted by Australias Copyright Act 1968, no part of this book may be reproduced by any process without prior written permission from the copyright owners. Inquiries should be directed to the publisher.

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https://publishing.monash.edu/product/a-secret-australia/

Cover design: Somerset Bean

Internal design: Les Thomas

A catalogue record for this book is available from the National Library of Australia.

Odd, is it not? A paradox? That Australia gave birth to the two most powerful media figures in the world?

Both creating global empires from humble provincial beginnings. Both seen as dangerous, problematic. Both blamed for changing the course of history. Both condemned for putting Trump in the White House. There the similarities end. One is a multi-billionaire, the other in solitary confinement in Belmarsh Prison, facing a life worse than death in a US supermax.

One is Rupert, the other Julian.

Ive known both men, albeit a little, for years. Now the longest-running newspaper columnist in the country, I write for one of Ruperts newspapers, kept on out of habit or to give it the illusion of pluralism. Whereas Julian first became part of my life when Suelette Dreyfus was discussing the developing world of encryption, digital transparency and online activism on my little wireless program Late Night Live, citing young Assange as its presiding genius. This led to Julian asking me to be the Australian representative on the international advisory board of an outfit he was setting up. Wiki something? Seemed harmless enough so I accepted. Not that hes ever asked me for advice.

Since then Late Night Live has raised Julians plight on many occasions with friends and supporters the likes of Geoffrey Robertson and Yanis Varoufakis. Julians been on the program when that was possible and become a Gladdie, a loyal listener, saying we helped him stay connected to Australia. Sadly, appallingly, his country has not returned the compliment. What passes for both sides of politics in this mediocre nation have abandoned him in his hours, months, years of need.

The last time I saw Julian was in the Ecuadoran Embassy in London, in the early days of his confinement, and even then one feared for both his physical health and his sanity. What he has endured in Belmarsh and in the grotesque extradition proceedings has been monstrous. Even Australian journalists have been indifferent to his sufferings, to the injustice, to the horrors that await him in the US.

For me Julian is, without qualification, a hero, a national treasure. If I was still chairing the National Australia Day Council one of my more amusing government anointments Id make him Australian of the Year. Every year until further notice.

Australia is the better for all his work. But dont take my word for it. Read the book.

Phillip Adams AO FAHA

Secret No More

Felicity Ruby and Peter Cronau

Not only was WikiLeaks.org conceived in Australia, it has given Australians a lot to think about too. This book reflects on the impact and implications for Australia of once-secret documents as revealed over the past decade by WikiLeaks. The book reminds us of what they have taught and shown us about ourselves, our history, our leaders, our country. It reflects on how we readers, academics, bureaucrats, journalists and politicians have responded to the material, which also says something about us as a nation. So too does our response to the vilification of an Australian publisher and journalist, who in April 2019 was dragged to maximum security Belmarsh Prison from the Ecuadorian Embassy in London that he had quietly entered seeking protection six years, nine months and 24 days earlier.

Assange was given asylum by the Ecuadorian government due to credible threats he faced from the United States for WikiLeaks publishing activities, and because he was without the support of his own country.

Of the charges, 17 relate to publication, and one to acting to protect the identity of his source. He is not charged with doing anything other than what any journalist might do in the course of their work. In trying to bolster their case, in June 2020 the US Justice Department announced further allegations of conspiracy to commit computer intrusions with hacker collectives LulzSec and Anonymous, though notably none of this warranted additional charges. Assange has not been charged with hacking into computer databases whether the Democratic National Committees or others to get secret information. His crime is journalism.