Today, the Supreme Court of the ACT has issued a decision on an appeal by Bernard Collaery concerning the public disclosure of certain information that is likely to be given as evidence in his trial.
Read Judgment Summary below.
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Bernard has given a rather profound speech on Sunday 26th September for a webinar at Manning Clark House.
Bernard Collaery points out that Professor AC Grayling says that “if anyone should be expected to uphold the rule of law, it is the law’s own servants”. Whistleblowers are forming a Fifth Estate in Australia to fight a Federal Executive served by complicit or compliant bureaucrats. Why has this occurred? And what is the remedy?
Bernard Collaery is a former ACT Attorney-General and a prominent Canberra lawyer. He was lawyer for Witness K, the former ASIS officer turned whistleblower over the illegal bugging by the Australian Government of the cabinet offices of Timor-Leste. He is now being prosecuted and is appealing the national security orders that would see significant parts of his trial being held in secret.
You can read his speech in the PDF provided below.
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LABOR MPs JOINT STATEMENT
KATY GALLAGHER
SHADOW MINISTER FOR FINANCE
SHADOW MINISTER FOR THE PUBLIC SERVICE
SENATOR FOR THE AUSTRALIAN CAPITAL TERRITORY
ANDREW LEIGH
SHADOW ASSISTANT MINISTER FOR TREASURY
SHADOW ASSISTANT MINISTER FOR CHARITIES
MEMBER FOR FENNER
ALICIA PAYNE
MEMBER FOR CANBERRA
DAVID SMITH
MEMBER FOR BEAN
JOINT STATEMENT ON BERNARD COLLAERY AND WITNESS K
Federal Labor’s four representatives from the Australian Capital Territory have joined together with the Canberra community to state their objection to the treatment of Bernard Collaery and Witness K by the Morrison Government.
The way in which the Morrison Government has dragged out legal proceedings in the ACT Supreme Court is unjust. They must explain why it is in the public interest to proceed with these prosecutions.
Federal ACT Labor representatives call on the Commonwealth Government to uphold its duty to be a model litigant. From trying to effectively prevent Mr Collaery from choosing his own legal counsel to closed courts and delaying tactics, the Morrison Government has gone to absurd lengths to pursue these prosecutions. The new Attorney-General must do what her predecessor failed to do: explain to the Australian people why it is in the public interest to proceed with these prosecutions, which have already cost taxpayers almost $4 million.
As Labor Leader Anthony Albanese has said, ‘the idea that there should be a prosecution of a whistle-blower, for what’s a shameful part of Australia’s history, is simply wrong’.
The Government’s unexplained decision to spend millions of dollars and many years on the prosecutions of Witness K and Mr Collaery, and the Morrison Government’s attempts to have the trials conducted in secret, are part of a broader shift towards more secrecy and less accountability in government. That shift began with the election of the Abbott Government and has escalated rapidly under Prime Minister Morrison, who, despite multiple scandals on his watch, has never held any of his ministers to account.
The double standards are breathtaking.
MONDAY 17 MAY 2021MEDIA CONTACT: TASMAN VAUGHAN (PAYNE) 0435 933 313
Authorised by Alicia Payne MP, ALP, Canberra.
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LEGAL DISCUSSION OF THE PROSECUTION
Watch the excellent webinar below: