From The Age 7 December, 2010.
PM can't say what law WikiLeaks has broken
December 7, 2010 - 11:28AM
Prime Minister Julia Gillard has again been unable to name any Australian laws broken by the controversial WikiLeaks website or its founder Julian Assange.
Western governments are increasingly calling for Mr Assange to be stopped as WikiLeaks continues to publish more than 250,000 confidential documents from the United States State Department.
But asked directly what Australian laws had been broken by either WikiLeaks or Mr Assange, Ms Gillard said the Australian Federal Police were investigating.
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"The foundation stone of it is an illegal act," Ms Gillard told reporters today.
But the "foundation stone" was the leaking of the documents to the website, not the publishing of the cables.
"It would not happen, information would not be on WikiLeaks, if there had not been an illegal act undertaken," Ms Gillard said.
It is widely assumed the man responsible for the leaks is a US soldier who is already in prison for previous leaks.
"It's grossly irresponsible and anybody who looks at the pages of today's newspaper and sees that things like critical infrastructure lists are being put on WikiLeaks ... would understand how grossly irresponsible this is," Ms Gillard said.
A classified cable listing infrastructure critical to the US was published by the site on Monday.
The list included some Australian-based infrastructure including the already widely known undersea telecommunications cable - the Southern Cross Cable.
Opposition legal affairs spokesman George Brandis accused Ms Gillard of being "clumsy" with her language on the issue of illegality.
"As far as I can see, he [Mr Assange] hasn't broken any Australian law," he told Sky News.
"Nor does it appear he has broken any American laws."
Senator Brandis, a Queen's Counsel, called for any debate about the publishing of the cables to have a well-defined understanding of the difference between something which appeared to be morally wrong and an act that was illegal.
"As far as I can see, nothing Mr Assange has done does break the law," he said.
Attorney-General Robert McClelland said yesterday that he believed the release of the cables could threaten the lives of people providing information to intelligence and law enforcement officials.
The federal police were not only looking at whether any Australian law had been breached by Mr Assange, but would help US law enforcement authorities in their investigations, he said.
Australian Greens leader Bob Brown said yesterday the government had a responsibility to look after Mr Assange as an Australian citizen.
"He's been convicted of nothing," Mr Brown told reporters in Hobart.
Mr Brown said leaking the information was not a crime.
Opposition Leader Tony Abbott told Barrie Cassidy on the ABC's Insiders program on Sunday that if Mr Assange had broken the law he should be prosecuted.
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