ASHLYNNE:

David McBride. It's a huge day for you.

DAVID:

It is. It's D day.

ASHLYNNE:

How are you feeling?

DAVID:

I feel like, you know, I left it all on the field. In the sense that I am, I don't like to admit it, as a man and perhaps as a soldier, but I'm pretty tired. I've been emotional the last week, small things have upset me. And that's a good thing in some ways, because it means that I've really gone as hard as I can, to achieve what I wanted to achieve. But I can't say that, you know... whatever happens today, put it this way, it will be hard to choke back the tears, because while it's not going to be completely over today, it is the end of a pretty long phase. And, yeah, it's... emotion is going to come out either way.

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ASHLYNNE:

From Schwartz Media, I’m Ashlynne McGhee. This is 7am.

In recent years, we’ve faced a reckoning over the actions of some of our special forces soldiers, from reputations as war heroes to allegations they committed horrific war crimes against civilians.

David McBride is the former military lawyer who first gave journalists documentary evidence of killings in Afghanistan. To his supporters, he’s a war crimes whistleblower, but detractors say that was never his motivation.

During a secretive national security trial, he pleaded guilty to handing over those files and this morning his sentencing hearing gets underway.

Today, David McBride on why he did it, whether he has any regrets and how Australia keeps its secrets.

It’s Monday, May 6.

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ASHLYNNE:

David, I just want you to take me back to 2011 first. You're in the Army Legal Corps, posted to Afghanistan. Back then, what did you think about the war?

DAVID:

When you're a soldier, and I've always wanted to be a soldier, loved being a soldier. And if there is a war your country is fighting in, you want to be a part of it. I had a bit of a dichotomy. I'd been to Afghanistan in 2000 when the Taliban were running it, as making documentaries. I'd seen a lot of the developing world, and I'd also been in the British Army before that. So I came with a fair bit of, I guess, I was realistic, I didn't think it was going to be perfect, but I had doubts about the larger scale things, in that we were saying we were winning when that wasn't at all clear, and I suspected it was a case of “just put out the good news” message. And, politicians came to visit, the Prime Minister Julia Gillard came and the leader of the opposition, as he was then, Tony Abbott came, and we told them how good everything was going. And, I felt uncomfortable about that.

Audio Excerpt – News Reader:

“Opposition Leader Tony Abbott has visited Australian soldiers serving in Afghanistan. Amid calls for more troops and equipment, Mr. Abbott encouraged the troops to speak candidly about the situation on the ground.”

Audio Excerpt – Tony Abbott:

“I stand in humble awe of those who don't just risk their reputations, but who put their lives on the line every day for our country.”

DAVID:

I had my doubts about the bigger pictures in the war, to say how much of this is window dressing for domestic political audiences, and how much of this is actually trying to do a good job and actually improve the situation.

ASHLYNNE:

So you're watching all of this happen. Was there a particular thing that happened in your work environment or that crossed your desk that really was a turning point for you?

DAVID:

There was, actually. I'd forgotten all about it. But when I wrote my book in 2011, I remembered something happened. One of the jobs as a lawyer is to go and visit the prisons, the Afghan prisons, and to make sure that people we have captured are not being mistreated. And someone was brought in to me and when he started explaining his story, it was clear that he hadn't been captured by the Australians. But before he finished, he said, “oh, I've been beaten” you know and he showed me his hand and he said, “I was hung up on the roof of the prison with manacles, left there all day and then they came in with an iron bar, bashed me around the head”. And he had scars, he still had fresh scars on his head and fresh scars on his hands. Now, as a legal officer under the Geneva Convention, you can't ignore that. So even if he wasn't my prisoner, in the sense that he hadn't been captured by the Australians, this was a reasonable allegation of abuse. And when I got back to base, everyone went into a bit of a panic, which surprised me. It seemed to be implied to me that I needed to just turn the other way about this. So it was only a small thing, considering what we now know about what went on, but it was indicative of this “don't look under any rocks, don't find out about anything because, we don't want bad news stories”.

Now then in 2013, they put out a sort of change in the rules of engagement and said something like, basically it was a one page thing and it said “Don’t Murder” at the bottom. And I said, what's this about? Because according to all our reports, there hasn't been and there hasn't been a single trial, and why are you putting out this thing? If everything's okay, why are you reminding people with this new thing, saying don't murder? Has something happened? And I was told, no, no. And I just thought that was strange, something going on. And then in 2013, suddenly having not had a single criminal investigation during a very turbulent period where we now know that there were a lot of war crimes, we were investigating everything. It looked like we were pretending to care, but we weren't really caring, because we weren't investigating some things which looked highly suspicious and so I just started asking questions. And then in September when I was over there, it was a guy who had done what many soldiers had done before, he was just defending himself. And it wasn't so much that I had some sort of crystal ball, or I was in love with him or anything. There was no evidence to suggest this was a murder. I said, this is strange. And I didn't know what was up but I suspected that the investigations in 2013 were window dressing for the media, in order to say “look over here, don't look over there”.

There was whispers that there had been, in 2012, there'd been a kill count competition to see who could get the highest kill count and a certain soldier had won it. And they also put the kill counts on the door each day.

ASHLYNNE:

When they reiterated the rules of engagement in 2013, in the context of all these rumours, whispers, seeing that kind of kill count on the door there. Why raise an issue with them reiterating that? It sounds like maybe that was what was needed at the time.

DAVID:

Well, why didn't they investigate the allegations? If they think someone's done something, you should investigate it.

ASHLYNNE:

Did you ever raise that up the chain and say, hey, here's what's going on?

DAVID:

No, I didn't know. And I was a lawyer with a very good career and I wanted to keep it, it was the perfect job for me. I loved that it was half lawyer, half soldier, and I didn't particularly want to rock the boat. I suspected something big was up.

ASHLYNNE:

Did you feel like some soldiers were being scapegoated, when other soldiers were actually the ones that were doing the really bad stuff?

DAVID:

Yeah, I absolutely felt that. I felt like they didn't want certain famous soldiers to come under any investigation because they thought that that might… These were people that were popular and that would cause a lot of furore, so they wanted some non-entities to be able to, sort of, punish but I began to believe that that was exactly what was happening.

My goal was always to say the leadership should be investigated, and I still think they should be investigated. I think they probably knew about Ben Roberts-Smith and I think they were doing window dressing in 2013. Bad soldiers are a problem and we have to get rid of that, but bad leaders are a much bigger problem.

I knew, even when I was there, that I was going to make something with them. And it took me a while, because I knew it would have to be good and it would have to be, well resourced and have a lot of documents attached to it to explain what I was doing and to be relatively carefully worded. As I said, I wanted a result. And so after hours, I would stay late and I would look through the files looking for things to show.

ASHLYNNE:

Was it putting your career at risk?

DAVID:

It was putting my career at risk but the job of the Defence Force is to protect Australia from threats. If we have leaders who are completely political and dishonest, we are not doing our job.

ASHLYNNE:

And so, in preparing that report for leadership, that's very different to going public with that same information. Talk to me about when you decided it was something you wanted the public to know about.

DAVID:

Well, it took a while. I needed a partner, a good investigative journalist to look into the political side, to get a source in the minister's office, to find out where the email trails, what they said, if there was anybody who gave anything away. Anyone within the suits, I guess, the parliament end of things, who knew what was going on and could shed light. So I wanted a really good investigative journalist. Not to put the documents online, but to start looking into it.

ASHLYNNE:

When you did give them to the ABC, to Dan Oakes, a former colleague of mine at the ABC, what did you think when the ABC published that story? What was your first reaction to it?

DAVID:

Well, I was disappointed with the story because it was... it was okay. It was good that something was happening, so that was good that something was happening. I didn't particularly like the emphasis on, only on the soldiers and not on the leadership. I would have been happy if they'd done both, but well, the leaders have a case to answer about whether they knew what was going on.

ASHLYNNE:

Some of your critics say that you never set out to expose war crimes in the first place. What do you make of that?

DAVID:

Well, what's a war crime? You know, if they say I was never out to expose bad soldiers, they've got a point. I think the two things are linked. I think war crimes are already part of the story but the bigger story is who knew what and when they knew it.

It's not about the last war, it's about the next war. If we don't have honest, trustworthy people who really play with a straight bat in charge of our defence force, we're not actually defending properly.

ASHLYNNE:

After the break, what has life been like for David McBride as he awaits his sentence.

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ASHLYNNE:

David, you ended up pleading guilty to three charges and you face sentencing today, and it's been months since you entered that guilty plea. What's the wait been like?

DAVID:

Up and down, you know. I've got no money, I've lost my job, I've lost all my savings. I've lost... I've lost a lot. You know, I like the sort of person I've become, but I don't recommend it if you want an easy ride. It's not a way to celebrity, put it that way.

ASHLYNNE:

Do you fear going to prison?

DAVID:

I usually... Yeah, I've got a bit of a dichotomy about that. I don't fear the four walls and so much. Obviously, if you are prepared to put your life on the line for the military, you're prepared to die for your country. So I guess you can't complain about being put in prison. And in some ways, you know, they say you got to live your life like it's your last. I never really did that before. And now, the last couple of years at least, I have done that. Every time I watch a movie with my daughter, I really savour the experience. We play a lot of video games together and I love that.

I was always a pretty affectionate dad anyway but I'm more so now. I can't hug them enough and I can't just say nice things to them, I guess, I want them to remember me and I guess because I really do love them, I love every minute with them. I spend a lot of time with a dog. One of the hardest things is going to be missing out with my dog Jake. I'm secretly hoping I can get him registered as an assistance dog so he can come in with me.

ASHLYNNE:

So, given everything that's about to happen today, when you return to court to be sentenced, do you have any regrets about leaking those documents?

DAVID

This is the question. Look, I don't. I don't. I'm trying to get accountability at the top. That hasn't happened yet. Saying that, if I hadn't done what I've done, it never would have happened. And my conscience is such that I had to do something. I did the best that I can in the circumstances, and I'm proud of myself for standing up. I didn't even know whether I could do it myself.

ASHLYNNE:

So in the years since this started unfolding, we've seen the release of the Brereton report, which recommended the AFP investigate 36 matters for potential prosecution. Do you think we'll ever see these crimes prosecuted?

DAVID:

It's a good question and I don't know. And some of my friends, put it that way, some of my friends say, who are also sort of on my side of the fence agitators, they say that the purpose of the Brereton report was to put the International Criminal Court off and to make sure there are no investigations. It does seem strange that, ten years, 11 years, probably 15 years after some of these things happened, that we still haven't… we've only had one person charged, and he was charged as a result of a video. And apparently, the Brereton report has made it harder for people to actually be charged. And, I don't know if that was the idea of it, but it is a bit, I think, it just... it's unsatisfactory that we haven't had more charges yet. Now we might not get convictions, but we really do need to get on with it.

ASHLYNNE:

I've heard a lot of words used to describe you, David McBride. Some nice, some not so nice. I've heard whistleblower, traitor, hero, showman. What words would you use to describe yourself?

DAVID:

Yeah, well, I'm a soldier. I mean, you have to be a bit of a showman. You're not going to get accountability, justice, if you just, unless you create a fuss. So I do get that a lot. But it's like you, you've got to do what you got to do in order to get a result. And traitor... yeah, well, I mean, I don't think I'm a traitor, but, in the sense that I am out to try to make the Defence Force defend Australia so I don't think that makes me a traitor. I'm doing what I can to make this country a better place. I don't think anyone can say that I'm not trying to do what is right. And maybe if there is an inquiry, I will achieve what I wanted to achieve. People might not like it, but my conscience is pretty happy with it.

ASHLYNNE:

David, thanks so much for the chat today.

DAVID:

Thank you.

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ASHLYNNE:

Also in the news today…

Australia fell 12 whole places in the latest world ranking of press freedom, and now sits in 39th place.

The list, compiled by Reporters Without Borders, now places Australia below South Africa, the United Kingdom and Namibia, with the organisation citing that quote, “intimidation of whistleblowers in the name of protecting national security” as a factor.

And,

Finance minister Katy Gallagher announced yesterday, the government will slash $1 billion dollars from the budget bottom line by reducing spending on external consultants and contractors.

The announcement follows last year's revelations about misuse of government information by consultants at PwC, and a string of revelations about government agencies spending with other consulting firms.

I’m Ashlynne McGhee, this is 7am. See you again tomorrow.

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