# David McBride on being sent to prison

An episode of [7am](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1461999702), 15 Aug 2026, 19 min.

Audio: https://p.podderapp.com/2544644999/traffic.omny.fm/d/clips/2fb3740d-3436-44af-8cc0-a91900716aa5/62723a1f-3e96-4fc4-882c-b25e0181da4d/80514b5c-781c-428e-b097-b4a6004c79cf/audio.mp3?utm_source=Podcast&in_playlist=70f29d90-2a63-48aa-bf8f-b25e0181da70

Whistleblower David McBride has been released from prison on parole, after serving 27 months for leaking classified Defence documents to journalists. Those documents helped expose allegations of war crimes by Australian soldiers in Afghanistan. Years on, he’s still the only person to have been sent to prison over the Afghan Files. Today, as McBride is released, we’re returning to an interview Ashlynne McGhee recorded with him just before he was jailed – on why he leaked those documents, whether he had any regrets, and how Australia keeps its secrets. This episode was first published in May 2024. If you enjoy 7am, the best way you can support us is by making a contribution at 7ampodcast.com.au/support. Socials: Stay in touch with us on Instagram Guest: Whistleblower and former military lawyer, David McBride Photo: AAP Image/Mick Tsikas See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

## Transcript

[0:00] Speaker 1: David McBride, it's a huge day for you.
[0:03] Speaker 2: It is It's D Day.
[0:05] Speaker 1: How are you feeling.
[0:07] Speaker 3: I feel like I left it along the field in
[0:10] Speaker 3: the sense that I am. I don't like to admit it,
[0:14] Speaker 3: and perhaps there's a solder, but yeah, I'm pretty tired.
[0:19] Speaker 3: I've been emotional last week. Small things have upset me.
[0:24] Speaker 3: And that's a good thing in some ways because it
[0:28] Speaker 3: means that I've really gone as hard as I can
[0:31] Speaker 3: to achieve what I wanted to achieve. But I can't
[0:35] Speaker 3: say that, you know, whatever happens today. Put it this way,
[0:40] Speaker 3: it'll be hard to choke back the tears because it's
[0:44] Speaker 3: while it's not going to be completely over today, it
[0:47] Speaker 3: is the end of a pretty long phase. And yeah,
[0:53] Speaker 3: it's emotion is going to come out either way.
[0:58] Speaker 4: I'm Daniel James and you're listening to seven AM. Whistleblower
[1:07] Speaker 4: David McBride has been released from prison on parole after
[1:10] Speaker 4: serving twenty seven months for leaking classified defense documents to journalists.
[1:15] Speaker 4: Those documents helped expose allegations of war crimes by Australian
[1:19] Speaker 4: soldiers in Afghanistan. Years on. Is still the only person
[1:23] Speaker 4: to be jailed over the Afghan files, the alleged perpetrators
[1:27] Speaker 4: roaming free as the person who revealed them sat behind barks. Today,
[1:32] Speaker 4: asber Bride walks free from prison, we're returning to an
[1:35] Speaker 4: interview Ashley McGhee recorded with him just before he was
[1:38] Speaker 4: jailed and while he leaked those documents, whether he had
[1:41] Speaker 4: any regrets, and how Australia keeps its secrets. It's Sunday,
[1:52] Speaker 4: August sixteenth. This was first published in May twenty twenty four.
[1:58] Speaker 1: David, I just want you to take me back to
[2:00] Speaker 1: twenty eleven. First, you're in the Army Legal Corps posted
[2:03] Speaker 1: to Afghanistan. Back then, what did you think about the.
[2:07] Speaker 2: War when you're a soldier and I always wanted to
[2:10] Speaker 2: be a soldier, love being a soldier, and if there
[2:15] Speaker 2: is a war, your country is fighting and you want
[2:17] Speaker 2: to be a part of it. I had a bit
[2:22] Speaker 2: of a dichotomy. I'd been to Afghanistan in two thousand
[2:26] Speaker 2: when the Talabama running it as making documentaries. I've seen
[2:29] Speaker 2: a lot of the developing world, and I'd also been
[2:33] Speaker 2: in the British Army before that, so I came with
[2:38] Speaker 2: a fair bit of I guess I was realistic. I
[2:41] Speaker 2: didn't think it was going to be perfect, but I
[2:44] Speaker 2: had doubts about the larger scale things in that we
[2:50] Speaker 2: we were saying we were winning when that wasn't at
[2:54] Speaker 2: all clear, and I suspected it was a case of
[3:01] Speaker 2: just put out the good news message. And politicians came
[3:06] Speaker 2: to visit. The Prime Minister ju Leguillard came and the
[3:11] Speaker 2: leader of the opposition as he was then, Tony Abbott,
[3:13] Speaker 2: came and we told them how good everything was going,
[3:15] Speaker 2: and I felt uncomfortable about that position.
[3:18] Speaker 5: Leader Tony Abbott has visited Australian soldiers serving in Afghanistan
[3:23] Speaker 5: and it calls for more troops and equipment. Mister Abbott
[3:26] Speaker 5: encouraged the troops to speak candidly about the situation on
[3:29] Speaker 5: the ground. I stand in humble or of those who
[3:33] Speaker 5: don't just risk their reputations but have put their lives.
[3:37] Speaker 2: On the line every day for our country. So I
[3:42] Speaker 2: had my doubts about the bigger pictures in the war
[3:45] Speaker 2: to say how much of this is window dressing for
[3:49] Speaker 2: domestic political audiences and how much of this is actually
[3:52] Speaker 2: trying to do a good job and actually improve the situation.
[3:59] Speaker 1: So you're watching all of this happen. Was there a
[4:02] Speaker 1: particular thing that happened in your work environmental that crossed
[4:06] Speaker 1: your desk, that really was a turning point for you.
[4:10] Speaker 2: There was actually I've forgotten all about it, but when
[4:13] Speaker 2: I wrote my book in twenty eleven, even there was
[4:15] Speaker 2: something happened and I one of the jobs is the
[4:19] Speaker 2: lawyer is to go and visit the prisons, the Afghan
[4:21] Speaker 2: presence and to make sure that people we have captured
[4:24] Speaker 2: are not been mistreated. And someone was brought into me
[4:30] Speaker 2: and as he started explaining his story, it was clear
[4:33] Speaker 2: that he hadn't been captured by the Australians. But before
[4:37] Speaker 2: he'd finished, he said, oh, I've been beaten with it,
[4:41] Speaker 2: you know. He showed me his hands and he said,
[4:43] Speaker 2: I was hung up by the roof of the present
[4:47] Speaker 2: with manacles or left there all day and then came
[4:50] Speaker 2: out with an iron bar and bashed me around the head.
[4:53] Speaker 2: And he had scars. He had still fresh scars on
[4:55] Speaker 2: his hand and fresh scars on his hands. Now, as
[4:59] Speaker 2: I legal for some under the Geneva Convention, you can't
[5:03] Speaker 2: ignore that. So even if he wasn't my prisoner in
[5:08] Speaker 2: the sense that he hadn't been captured by the Australians,
[5:11] Speaker 2: this was a reasonable allegation of abuse, and when I
[5:16] Speaker 2: got back to base, everyone went into a bit of
[5:19] Speaker 2: a panic, which surprised me. It seemed to be implied
[5:24] Speaker 2: to me that I needed to just turn the other
[5:27] Speaker 2: way about this. So it was only a small thing,
[5:29] Speaker 2: but considering what we now know about what went on,
[5:33] Speaker 2: but it was indicative of to say, don't look under
[5:37] Speaker 2: any rocks, don't find out about anything, because we don't
[5:41] Speaker 2: want bad news stories now. Then in twenty thirteen, they
[5:49] Speaker 2: put out a sort of change in the rules of
[5:50] Speaker 2: engagement and it said something like basically, it was a
[5:56] Speaker 2: very one page thing and it said don't murder at
[5:59] Speaker 2: the bottom. And I said, what's this about, because according
[6:03] Speaker 2: to all our reports, there hasn't been There hasn't been
[6:06] Speaker 2: a single trial, And why are you putting out this
[6:09] Speaker 2: if everything's okay, why are you reminding people with this
[6:13] Speaker 2: new thing saying don't murder? Has something happened? And I
[6:17] Speaker 2: was told no, no, no, no, And I just thought that
[6:20] Speaker 2: was strange, what something's going on? And then in twenty thirteen,
[6:26] Speaker 2: suddenly having not had a single criminal investigation during a
[6:32] Speaker 2: very turbulent period where we now know that no want
[6:35] Speaker 2: a walk on we were investigating everything. It looked like
[6:40] Speaker 2: we were pretending to care, but we weren't really caring
[6:44] Speaker 2: because we weren't investigating some things which looked kind of suspicious.
[6:49] Speaker 2: And so I just started asking questions, and then we
[6:52] Speaker 2: in September, when I was over there, there was a
[6:55] Speaker 2: guy who'd done what many soldiers had done met before.
[7:00] Speaker 2: He was just defending himself, and there wasn't It wasn't
[7:05] Speaker 2: so much that I had it some sort of crystal ball,
[7:07] Speaker 2: or I was in love with him or anything. There
[7:09] Speaker 2: was no evidence to suggest this was a murder. I said,
[7:13] Speaker 2: this is strange, and I didn't know what was up.
[7:18] Speaker 2: But I suspected that the investigations in twenty thirteen were
[7:22] Speaker 2: window dressing for the media in order to say look
[7:26] Speaker 2: over here, don't look over there. There was whispers that
[7:33] Speaker 2: there would been in twenty twelve, there had been a
[7:35] Speaker 2: kill count competition to see he could get a ass
[7:37] Speaker 2: killed count and a certain soldier in one and they
[7:40] Speaker 2: also put the kill counts on the door each.
[7:43] Speaker 1: Day when they reiterated the rules of engagement. In twenty thirteen,
[7:49] Speaker 1: in the context of all these rumors, whispers, seeing that
[7:53] Speaker 1: kind of kill count on the door, there. Why I
[7:55] Speaker 1: raise an issue with them reiterating that it sounds like
[7:58] Speaker 1: maybe that was what was needed at time.
[8:00] Speaker 2: Well, why didn't they investigate the allegation. If they think
[8:07] Speaker 2: someone's done something, you should investigate it.
[8:09] Speaker 1: Did you ever raise that up the chain and say, hey,
[8:12] Speaker 1: here's what's going on.
[8:13] Speaker 2: No, I didn't know, and I was a lawyer with
[8:16] Speaker 2: a very good career, and I wanted to keep it.
[8:19] Speaker 2: It was a perfect job for me. I loved that
[8:21] Speaker 2: it was half half lawyer, half soldier, and I didn't
[8:25] Speaker 2: particularly want to rock the bout it. I suspected something
[8:28] Speaker 2: big was up.
[8:30] Speaker 1: Did you feel like some soldiers were being scapegoaded when
[8:33] Speaker 1: other soldiers were actually the ones that were doing the
[8:36] Speaker 1: really bad stuff.
[8:37] Speaker 2: Yeah, I absolutely felt that. I felt like they didn't
[8:41] Speaker 2: want certain famous soldiers to come under any investigation because
[8:45] Speaker 2: they thought that that might These were people that were
[8:49] Speaker 2: popular and that would cause as a lot of funerals,
[8:53] Speaker 2: so they wanted some non entities to be able to
[8:57] Speaker 2: sort of punish. I began to believe that that was
[9:00] Speaker 2: exactly what was happening. My goal was always to say
[9:06] Speaker 2: the leadership to be investigated, and I still think they
[9:09] Speaker 2: should be investigating I think they probably knew about Ben
[9:11] Speaker 2: Robert Smith, and I think they were doing window dressing
[9:15] Speaker 2: in two thy and thirty. Bad soldiers are a problem
[9:21] Speaker 2: and we have to get with, but bad leaders are
[9:24] Speaker 2: a much bigger problem. I knew even when I was
[9:27] Speaker 2: there that I was going to make a complaint that's
[9:29] Speaker 2: something with them. And it took me a while because
[9:33] Speaker 2: I knew it would have to be good, and it
[9:36] Speaker 2: would have to be well resourced and have a lot
[9:41] Speaker 2: of documents attached to it to explain what I was doing,
[9:47] Speaker 2: and to be relatively carefully worded. As I said, I
[9:50] Speaker 2: wanted a result, and so after hours, I would stay
[9:53] Speaker 2: late and I would look through the files looking for
[9:56] Speaker 2: things to show that.
[9:58] Speaker 1: Was it putting your career at risk?
[9:59] Speaker 2: It was putting my care It is, but the job
[10:02] Speaker 2: of the Defense Force is to protect Australia from threats.
[10:06] Speaker 2: If we have leaders who are completely political and dishonest,
[10:15] Speaker 2: we are not doing our jel.
[10:17] Speaker 1: And so in preparing that report for leadership, that's very
[10:21] Speaker 1: different to going public with that same information. Talk to
[10:25] Speaker 1: me about when you decided it was something you wanted
[10:29] Speaker 1: the public to know about.
[10:31] Speaker 2: Well, it took a while. I needed a partner, a
[10:35] Speaker 2: good investigative journalist to look into the political site, to
[10:41] Speaker 2: get a source in the minister's office, to find out
[10:44] Speaker 2: where the email trials, what they said, if there was
[10:48] Speaker 2: anybody who gave anything away in anyone within the suits
[10:55] Speaker 2: I guess the Parliament and of things who knew what
[10:58] Speaker 2: was going on, called shed light. So I wanted a
[11:01] Speaker 2: really good investigative journalist not to put the documents online,
[11:06] Speaker 2: but to start looking into.
[11:08] Speaker 1: It when you did give them to the ABC. To
[11:11] Speaker 1: Dan Oaks, a former colleague of mine at the ABC,
[11:15] Speaker 1: what did you think when the ABC published that story?
[11:19] Speaker 1: What was your first reaction to it?
[11:21] Speaker 2: Well, I was disappointed with a story because it was
[11:26] Speaker 2: it was okay, it was good that something was happening.
[11:29] Speaker 2: So that was good that something was happening. I didn't
[11:33] Speaker 2: particularly like the emphasis on this or only on the
[11:36] Speaker 2: soldiers and not on the leadership. I would have been
[11:40] Speaker 2: happy if they'd done both. But well, the leaders have
[11:43] Speaker 2: a case to answer about whether they knew was going Some.
[11:47] Speaker 1: Of your critics say that you never set out to
[11:49] Speaker 1: expose war crimes in the first place.
[11:52] Speaker 2: What do you make of that, Well, what's a war crime?
[11:55] Speaker 2: You know? If they say I was never out to
[11:58] Speaker 2: expose bad soldiers. They've got a point. I think the
[12:04] Speaker 2: two things are linked. I think more crimes are already
[12:07] Speaker 2: part of the story, But the biggest story is who
[12:10] Speaker 2: knew what and when they knew it. It's not about
[12:14] Speaker 2: the last war, it's about the next one. If we
[12:16] Speaker 2: don't have honest, trustworthy people who really play with a
[12:21] Speaker 2: straight bat in charge about offense thoughts, we're not actually defended.
[12:24] Speaker 1: Probably after the break, what has life been like for
[12:30] Speaker 1: David McBride as he awaits his sentence. David, you ended
[12:42] Speaker 1: up pleading guilty to three charges, and you face sentencing today,
[12:46] Speaker 1: and it's been months since you entered that guilty play.
[12:49] Speaker 1: What's the weight being like?
[12:52] Speaker 2: Up and down? You know, I've got no money, I've
[12:56] Speaker 2: lost my job, I've lost all my savings. I've lost
[12:59] Speaker 2: I've lost lot. You know. I like the sort of
[13:02] Speaker 2: person I've become, but I don't I don't recommend it
[13:06] Speaker 2: if you want an easy ride, it's not a way
[13:09] Speaker 2: to celebrity. Put it that way.
[13:11] Speaker 1: Do you fear going to prison?
[13:15] Speaker 2: I usually yeah. I've got a bit of a dichotomy
[13:18] Speaker 2: about that. I don't fear the four walls. So much. Obviously,
[13:25] Speaker 2: if you're prepared to put your life on the line
[13:28] Speaker 2: for the military, you're prepared to die for your country.
[13:30] Speaker 2: So I guess you can't complain about being put into prison.
[13:34] Speaker 2: And in some ways, you know, they say you've got
[13:36] Speaker 2: to live your life like it's your last. I never
[13:40] Speaker 2: really did that before, and now the last couple of
[13:44] Speaker 2: years at least, I have done that. Every time I
[13:47] Speaker 2: watch a movie with my daughter, I really savor the experience,
[13:51] Speaker 2: and we play a lot of video games together, and
[13:54] Speaker 2: I love that. I was always a pretty affectionate dad anyway,
[13:58] Speaker 2: but I'm more so now. I can't them an as
[14:00] Speaker 2: they can't just say nice things to them. I guess
[14:04] Speaker 2: I want them to remember me well. And it's because
[14:08] Speaker 2: I really do love I love every minute with them.
[14:12] Speaker 2: I spend a lot of time with my dog. One
[14:14] Speaker 2: of the hardest things is going to be missing out
[14:16] Speaker 2: with my dog, Jake. I'm secretly hoping I can get
[14:21] Speaker 2: him as registered as an assistance dog so he can
[14:24] Speaker 2: come in with me.
[14:26] Speaker 1: So, given everything that's about to happen today, when you
[14:31] Speaker 1: return to court to be sentenced, do you have any
[14:33] Speaker 1: regrets about leaking those documents?
[14:36] Speaker 2: This is the question look, I don't. I don't. I'm
[14:42] Speaker 2: trying to get accountability at the top that hasn't happened yet,
[14:46] Speaker 2: saying that if I hadn't done what I've done, it
[14:49] Speaker 2: never would have happened. And my conscience as such that
[14:54] Speaker 2: I had to do something. I did the best that
[14:57] Speaker 2: I can in the circumstances, and I'm proud of myself
[15:02] Speaker 2: for standing up. I didn't even know whether I could
[15:04] Speaker 2: do it myself.
[15:14] Speaker 1: So in the years since this started unfolding, we've seen
[15:17] Speaker 1: the release of the Burton Report, which recommended the AFP
[15:20] Speaker 1: investigate thirty six matters for potential prosecution. Do you think
[15:25] Speaker 1: we'll ever see these crimes prosecuted.
[15:28] Speaker 2: It's a good question, and I don't know. And some
[15:32] Speaker 2: of my friends put it that way. Some of my
[15:34] Speaker 2: friends say, who are also sort of on my side
[15:38] Speaker 2: of Offen's agitatus, they say that the purpose of the
[15:41] Speaker 2: Breton Report was to put the International Criminal Court off
[15:45] Speaker 2: and to make sure there are no investigations. It does
[15:48] Speaker 2: seem strange that ten years, eleven years, probably fifteen years
[15:53] Speaker 2: after some of these things happened, that we still haven't
[15:56] Speaker 2: We've only had one person charge and he was charged
[15:59] Speaker 2: as a result of video and the apparently that a
[16:03] Speaker 2: broken reports made it harder for people to actually be charged.
[16:07] Speaker 2: And I don't know if that was the that was
[16:10] Speaker 2: the idea of it, but it is a bit I
[16:12] Speaker 2: think it is. It's unsatisfactory that we haven't had more
[16:16] Speaker 2: charges yet now that we might not get conventions, but
[16:20] Speaker 2: we really do need to get on with it.
[16:22] Speaker 1: I've heard a lot of words used to describe you,
[16:24] Speaker 1: David McBride. I'd so nice, I'm not so nice. I've
[16:31] Speaker 1: heard whistleblower, trader, hero, showman. What words would you use
[16:36] Speaker 1: to describe yourself?
[16:38] Speaker 2: Yeah, well, I'm a soldier. I mean you have to
[16:40] Speaker 2: be a bit of a showman. You're not going to
[16:42] Speaker 2: get you're not going to get accountability justice if you
[16:45] Speaker 2: just unless you grewd it a fuss. So I do
[16:50] Speaker 2: get that a lot, but it's like you've got to
[16:52] Speaker 2: do what you've got to do in order to get
[16:54] Speaker 2: a result. And trader, Yeah, well, I mean I don't
[16:59] Speaker 2: think I'm a trader, but in the sense that I
[17:01] Speaker 2: am out to try to make the Defense Force defend Australia,
[17:05] Speaker 2: So I don't think it makes me a trader. So yeah,
[17:09] Speaker 2: I'm doing what I can to make this country a
[17:11] Speaker 2: bet of place. I don't think anyone can say that
[17:14] Speaker 2: I'm not trying to do what is right, and maybe
[17:18] Speaker 2: if there is an inquiry, I will achieve what I'm
[17:21] Speaker 2: wanted to achieve. People might not like it, but my
[17:27] Speaker 2: conscience is pretty happy with that.
[17:31] Speaker 1: David, thanks so much for the chat today.
[17:33] Speaker 2: Thank you.
[17:41] Speaker 4: Seven am, and will be back tomorrow with an episode
[17:43] Speaker 4: on why. For the first time in generations, Australia is
[17:47] Speaker 4: being asked to think seriously about how it will cope
[17:49] Speaker 4: with a major war, not just whether our military is ready,
[17:52] Speaker 4: but whether our civilians, supply chains and economy are prepared
[17:56] Speaker 4: as well. We speak with Sam Rogavin, director of the
[17:59] Speaker 4: lawyingitu's International Security Program, about what Australia is actually preparing
[18:04] Speaker 4: for and how far that preparation could go well.
[18:08] Speaker 6: I mean, one model is something like you see maybe
[18:11] Speaker 6: in Finland or in Israel, where effectively it means you
[18:14] Speaker 6: are to a degree militarizing the entire society, so you
[18:18] Speaker 6: have universal conscription. North Korea is another example of that,
[18:21] Speaker 6: perhaps a slightly more immidious example, where when you take
[18:24] Speaker 6: it to an extreme, it ends up impoverishing really the
[18:28] Speaker 6: entire society. That's one end of the spectrum I think
[18:31] Speaker 6: for Australia will never reach those levels. I know there
[18:34] Speaker 6: are some people who are calling for a reintroduction of conscription,
[18:37] Speaker 6: but really in the short to medium term probably what
[18:41] Speaker 6: it looks like is a national capability to withstand a
[18:46] Speaker 6: pressure campaign against Australia.
[18:48] Speaker 4: I'm Daniel James. Thanks for listening.

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