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Speaker 1: My name is Lily Maddon and I'm a proud Arunda

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Speaker 1: Bunjelung Calcottin woman from Gadigl Country. The Daily oz acknowledges

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Speaker 1: that this podcast is recorded on the lands of the

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Speaker 1: Gadighl people and pays respect to all Aboriginal and Torres

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Speaker 1: Strait Island and nations. We pay our respects to the

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Speaker 1: first peoples of these countries, both past and present.

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Speaker 2: Good morning and welcome to the Daily os It's Friday,

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Speaker 2: the fourteenth of April. I'm Sam, I'm Zara. Forty eight

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Speaker 2: Australian politicians have called on the US government to free

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Speaker 2: Julian Assange, the founder of Wiki Leagues. He's currently in

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Speaker 2: prison in UK after his involvement in a controversial leak

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Speaker 2: of a huge quantity of secret US military files.

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Speaker 1: Julian Assange has fame, notoriety, and some very powerful enemies.

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Speaker 2: Few people have had an impact on the history of

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Speaker 2: this century quite like Julian Massange, and few have been

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Speaker 2: as polarizing. We're going to get to all of that

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Speaker 2: in the Deep Dive. But first, Sarah, what's making headlines

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Speaker 2: this morning?

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Speaker 3: The Federal government will launch a survey to assess the

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Speaker 3: literacy numeracy and digital skills of Australian adults. The survey

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Speaker 3: was announced by Skills and Training Minister Brendan O'Connor, who

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Speaker 3: said about twenty percent of Australian adults lack the basic

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Speaker 3: skills to fully participate in day to day life and

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Speaker 3: the workplace. There will also be an investigation into the

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Speaker 3: basic skill levels of First Nations people and an analysis

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Speaker 3: of pre existing data to identify priority groups.

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Speaker 2: Moving forward, smoking and vaping within ten meters of schools

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Speaker 2: and children's sporting events would be banned under new plans

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Speaker 2: unveiled by the South Australian government. If successful, the ban

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Speaker 2: could mean a fine of up to seven hundred and

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Speaker 2: fifty dollars for breaking the law. The government also announced

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Speaker 2: they will trial a scheme to financially incentivize people to

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Speaker 2: quit smoking and vaping.

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Speaker 3: The unemployment rate remained at the near fifty year low

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Speaker 3: of three point five percent. That's according to the latest

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Speaker 3: data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics. The rate of underemployment,

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Speaker 3: so people who aren't working as much as they'd like to,

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Speaker 3: wrote zero point four percentage points to six point two percent.

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Speaker 3: The ABS said the figures reflect that the tight labor

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Speaker 3: market in Australia and difficulty for employers to fill job vacancies.

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Speaker 2: And your Friday good news, the New Zealand government cabinet

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Speaker 2: has reached gender equality for the first time in the

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Speaker 2: country's history. It comes after Willow Jen Prime was added

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Speaker 2: as the twentieth member of the cabinet, which is now

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Speaker 2: made up of ten men and ten women. Forty eight

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Speaker 2: Australian politicians have signed this open letter calling for Julian

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Speaker 2: Assange to be released back to Australia after more than

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Speaker 2: a decade in legal limbo. Now, Assange is currently in

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Speaker 2: prison in the UK, but the US is trying to

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Speaker 2: have him brought over to face a range of charges,

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Speaker 2: including espionage. So in this case intelligence gathering.

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Speaker 3: Okay, So before we go any further, I feel like

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Speaker 3: the case of Julian Nossange is one of those things

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Speaker 3: that we always not at when we see it in

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Speaker 3: the news, like, oh, we know this story, but in actuality,

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Speaker 3: I don't think I've ever been sat down and told

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Speaker 3: what has actually happened, why he is imprisoned, where this

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Speaker 3: case is going. So can you just take us back

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Speaker 3: to the very beginning.

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Speaker 2: Of this absolutely so Julian Massange is an Australian citizen

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Speaker 2: and make a little mental note of that or come

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Speaker 2: back to that later. And he's known for founding WikiLeaks

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Speaker 2: in two thousand and six. Now, WikiLeaks is known for

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Speaker 2: sharing censored or restricted official documents. It's kind of a

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Speaker 2: big dump of documents online, but it's particularly known for

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Speaker 2: documents relating to war or government surveillance. Now, since wikiliks

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Speaker 2: has started, they claim to have published more than ten

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Speaker 2: million documents or pieces of information. But there was one

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Speaker 2: leak that made them particularly notorious in maybe even infamous,

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Speaker 2: depending on who you speak to, and that was the

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Speaker 2: War Logs of twenty ten. As part of that release,

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Speaker 2: WikiLeaks published hundreds of of classified US government documents related

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Speaker 2: to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The leaks included

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Speaker 2: a video from a US military helicopter of civilians being

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Speaker 2: killed in Baghdad, which is the capital of Iraq, and

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Speaker 2: other documents which revealed sixty six thousand civilians had been

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Speaker 2: killed in the Iraq war, which was more than had

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Speaker 2: been reported up until that point. Now, you can probably

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Speaker 2: get a sense that what's contained in these documents is

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Speaker 2: too much for US to go into right now. But

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Speaker 2: what you should know is that he was the largest

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Speaker 2: military security breach in US history, and it generated shockwaves

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Speaker 2: across the entire world.

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Speaker 3: Okay, so that's the foundation of the Julian assigned story,

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Speaker 3: that he was the wikileaku's founder. All of this information

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Speaker 3: was leaked. Where to from here?

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Speaker 2: Okay, So we've got this point in twenty ten where

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Speaker 2: the warlogs were released. At that point, the US didn't

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Speaker 2: bring any charges against him, but he became embroiled in

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Speaker 2: this whole other legal conflict in Sweden. And this is

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Speaker 2: where things can get a little bit confusing, because the

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Speaker 2: charges that he was facing in Sweden were not related

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Speaker 2: to wiki leaks or secret documents, but actually about allegations

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Speaker 2: of rape which were said to have occurred earlier in

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Speaker 2: the year. Now, Assange has always denied these allegations, and

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Speaker 2: at the time he said that they were part of

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Speaker 2: a plot to discredit him and to have him Can.

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Speaker 3: You go through that. Why would they be used to

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Speaker 3: discredit him?

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Speaker 2: Well, the US saw him as a security threat, and

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Speaker 2: so according to Assange, this was a way to get

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Speaker 2: him back to the US via Sweden, perhaps to face

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Speaker 2: charges on their soil.

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Speaker 3: Okay, So if we just put aside the espionage charges

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Speaker 3: for a second and just focus on those rape charges,

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Speaker 3: what happened there, I feel like that's not often spoken about.

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Speaker 2: So Swedish authorities put out an arrest warrants and he

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Speaker 2: was arrested in the UK where he was at the time,

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Speaker 2: on this Swedish warrant, but then he was freed on

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Speaker 2: bail by UK authorities. It then went to the UK

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Speaker 2: High Court, which ruled that Assange should be indeed extralited

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Speaker 2: to Sweden, and the purpose of that was to face

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Speaker 2: trial in Sweden over these charges. But for a son,

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Speaker 2: he had a plan to avoid being extradited to Sweden,

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Speaker 2: and that plan was to seek refuge in Ecuador's embassy

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Speaker 2: in London. It's getting a lot, but basically, well, because

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Speaker 2: that embassy is under Ecuador's control, UK officials weren't legally

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Speaker 2: able to reach him there, and he was granted political

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Speaker 2: asylum by Ecuador to remain in their UK embassy to

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Speaker 2: stop an extradition to Sweden. And that wasn't a quick thing, no,

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Speaker 2: So he was there for seven years in this embassy,

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Speaker 2: literally in the building for seven years until twenty nineteen.

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Speaker 2: When Ecuador revoked his asylum and what happened then, so

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Speaker 2: he literally was carried out of the embassy by UK

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Speaker 2: officials and those rape charges in Sweden were dropped. But

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Speaker 2: in the meantime, because of the seven years he'd spent

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Speaker 2: in Ecuador's embassy, he actually had breached his bail conditions.

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Speaker 2: So he then went to prison and in the UK, yes,

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Speaker 2: and that's when the US stepped in. So up until then,

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Speaker 2: the US had been relatively powerless. As soon as he

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Speaker 2: was in the hands of UK authorities, they became part

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Speaker 2: of the conversation, and the Justice Department formally asked the UK,

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Speaker 2: who were strong allies, to extradite Assange to the US

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Speaker 2: to face those charges that we were talking about all

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Speaker 2: the way at the beginning of the episode, about how

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Speaker 2: he conspired to hack US government computers and violated espionage laws.

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Speaker 2: And that kind of brings us to today where Assange

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Speaker 2: is in the UK prison facing a potential extradition to

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Speaker 2: the US.

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Speaker 3: I think this is one of those issues where people

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Speaker 3: feel very strongly on either side about specifically the leaking

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Speaker 3: of classified information. I remember watching the movie about Edward Snowden,

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Speaker 3: who was another whistleblower, and it was the first time

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Speaker 3: I had been prompted to think about these things, and

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Speaker 3: I remember going down a bit of an existential spiral

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Speaker 3: considering what my position was. What are the two sides

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Speaker 3: of this debate, especially when it comes to Julian Ossage.

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Speaker 2: Well, it's all about four words, freedom of the press,

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Speaker 2: and that's what everyone's argument kind of centers on, and

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Speaker 2: people take different approaches to what that means. Those who

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Speaker 2: defend Assange say that Assider was performing a public service

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Speaker 2: by releasing documents that they say the public had a

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Speaker 2: right to note. We deserve to know, in the opinions

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Speaker 2: of these defenders, what our armies are doing overseas and

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Speaker 2: whether we're upholding human rights standards across the world. But

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Speaker 2: then you have the other perspective, particularly held by the

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Speaker 2: US Justice Department and the US government, that says that

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Speaker 2: Assinge is not a journalist, so he shouldn't be treated

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Speaker 2: like one. They also say that wiki leaks risk the

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Speaker 2: lives of US military informants, so people in foreign nations

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Speaker 2: aiding the US military by failing to redact or censor

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Speaker 2: their names in the leaks. Assange's lawyers have maintained he

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Speaker 2: was careful to avoid publishing informants names.

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Speaker 3: And so the reason we're talking about this today, it's

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Speaker 3: been in and out of the news cycle for years

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Speaker 3: and years and years, and the reason we're speaking about

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Speaker 3: it today is because of this letter, right, that was

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Speaker 3: signed by forty eight politicians across the political spectrum, which

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Speaker 3: I think is really interesting. Now you are people on

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Speaker 3: the far right of the political spectrum and far left

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Speaker 3: agreeing on this one thing, that Julian Assange should be released.

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Speaker 2: And you remember that mental note I asked you to

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Speaker 2: right at the beginning of the episode.

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Speaker 3: Oh, citizen, Australian citizen.

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Speaker 2: Assige is Australian. So in all of this controversy about

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Speaker 2: Ecuadorian embassy's, US chargers, UK chargers, Swedish chargers, he's an

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Speaker 2: Australian citizen. So there is a vested interest of the

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Speaker 2: Australian government in what happens to Julian Assange. The letter

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Speaker 2: issued this week kind of reflects that. So it involves

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Speaker 2: all fifteen federally elected Greens, as well as thirteen Labour backbenches,

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Speaker 2: twelve independents, six MP's from the coalition, the United Australia

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Speaker 2: parties Ralph Babbitt and One Nation's Malcolm Roberts.

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Speaker 3: Quite the array.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, it's really the whole political spectrum. Former Nationals leader

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Speaker 2: Barnaby Joyce, who called for Assannger's release when he was

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Speaker 2: Deputy PM, also signed the letter. But it's not just

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Speaker 2: Australian politicians advocating for this. There are seven top US

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Speaker 2: Democrats who have called for assanngers release this week as well.

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Speaker 3: But this isn't a new thing. There have been pollies

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Speaker 3: calling for his release for a while. What do you

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Speaker 3: think will happen next from here, Well.

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Speaker 2: No one really knows what's going to happen. We've heard

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Speaker 2: reports that there is work happening behind the scenes to

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Speaker 2: try to secure Assange's release. If those efforts don't eventuate

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Speaker 2: and he is ext resided and convicted in the US,

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Speaker 2: Assange could face life in prison for his charges, but

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Speaker 2: the US has promised that even if he does end

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Speaker 2: up being charged there, he could serve any sentence he

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Speaker 2: might receive in an Australian prison. We're going to have

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Speaker 2: to wait and see what happens with the next chapter

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Speaker 2: of this story. The letter is out there. We'll see

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Speaker 2: how both the US and UK governments respond.

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Speaker 3: Thanks for joining us on the Daily OS this week.

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Speaker 3: If you're liking what you're hearing, give us a rating

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Speaker 3: and review wherever you do. You're listening helps people find

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Speaker 3: us and it makes us happy. Thanks as always for

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Speaker 3: your support, and have a great weekend.