Spycatcher sequel: Gillard is doing a Thatcher on WikiLeaks, says Turnbull

APRIL 5  2011

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Phillip Coorey

MALCOLM TURNBULL has likened Julia Gillard's handling of the WikiLeaks founder, Julian Assange, to Margaret Thatcher's ''over the top'' reaction to the Spycatcher author, Peter Wright, saying the Prime Minister has given Mr Assange a hero status and kudos he does not deserve.

Mr Turnbull also berated Ms Gillard for saying Mr Assange had broken the law, and for failing to defend the Australian citizen against calls for his death from the Republican presidential prospect Sarah Palin and others in the US.

''At the time he was being described as breaking the law by Ms Gillard, prominent American politicians and journalists were describing him as a terrorist and, in some cases, calling for him to be assassinated,'' he said.

''Julia Gillard could have quite properly deplored his publishing of confidential information, sympathised with our embarrassed American allies, but at the same time registered our profound unhappiness that an Australian citizen is being threatened in this way by leading figures in another country whose commitment to freedom of speech and the rule of law we traditionally regard as being no less than our own.''

Ms Gillard also should have admonished the US for such sloppy data security, he said.

The comments were made last week in a speech to the University of Sydney Law School.

Last year WikiLeaks began releasing to the media about 250,000 diplomatic cables from the US State Department allegedly stolen by a US Army private. When the contents of the cables began to embarrass the US, Ms Gillard accused Mr Assange of illegal behaviour. This prompted a backlash from the Labor Left, and Ms Gillard later qualified her statement as meaning the cables were obtained by an illegal act.

Mr Turnbull shot to prominence in 1986, when he represented the former MI5 officer Peter Wright against efforts by the Thatcher government in Britain to prevent the publication of his book Spycatcher

Wright was then living in Australia and the contents of his book were already in the public domain. He won the case and a British appeal was dismissed in the High Court.

In his speech Mr Turnbull said the High Court was ''very clear that an Australian court should not act 'to protect the intelligence secrets and confidential political information' of a foreign government''.

He said even if Mr Assange had broken Australian law - which he had not - ''the decision of the High Court in Spycatcher makes it quite clear that any action in an Australian court to restrain Assange from publishing the State Department cables would have failed''. Ms Gillard's remarks, he said, were regrettable.

''Assange's conduct may be misguided, even reprehensible, but no Australian prime minister should accuse one of her own citizens of breaking the law when there has not even been a charge, let alone a conviction,'' he said.

''I do not regard him as a criminal, nor do I regard him as a hero. The ineptitude of his detractors has given him greater kudos and importance than he deserved in precisely the same way Margaret Thatcher's iron will made Spycatcher a global bestseller,'' Mr Turnbull said.

He said Ms Gillard should have ''rolled with the punches'' like the US Defence Secretary, Robert Gates, who played down the WikiLeaks as embarrassing but no more.

Read the full speech here.

http://www.smh.com.au/technology/technology-news/spycatcher-sequel-gillard-is-doing-a-thatcher-on-wikileaks-says-turnbull-20110404-1cyod.html