David McBride and the AMC

October 10, 2024

The fact that Australian Army war crimes whistleblower David McBride has been granted a chance to appeal against his five years and eight months sentence at the dreadful Alexander Maconochie Centre federal prison in Canberra is long overdue.

It is important to understand that this occurred partly because of the tireless efforts of Professor Ross Fitzgerald and other key supporters who continued to reveal the inhumane conditions that Mr McBride was facing. In a number of articles, Prof Fitzgerald also documented in detail, with first person corroboration, deeply disturbing revelations about the terrible treatment of other prisoners at the AMC.

It is a condemnation of all the mainstream media that the only outlets that were courageous enough to publish Prof Fitzgerald’s revelations were City News and John Menadue’s national newsletter Pearls and Irritations.

But the campaign to free David McBride has only just begun. Whether or not the Public Defenders Office can help with his appeal is unclear.

The federal government may spend millions of dollars opposing McBride’s appeal.

If so, there is an urgent need for those who value justice and the human rights of prisoners to contribute to his online fundraiser.

The appeal may not happen until mid 2025. Well before then, there should be a public inquiry, not just into the mistreatment of Mr McBride, but also into serious allegations about the inhumane conditions other inmates face at the AMC.

It is ironic that probably the worst jail in Australia was named after one of world’s greatest prison reformers, Alexander Maconochie.

As Neal Price explained in a letter supporting a call for a federal parliamentary inquiry into the AMC, in 1840 Maconochie became governor of the brutal Norfolk Island prison colony.

In four years he had made remarkable progress in prisoner rehabilitation. Despite, or more likely because of his success, in 1844 the authorities shipped Maconochie back to England.

The ACT elections are looming. Is it beyond the dreams of avarice to hope that, from now until Saturday October 26, the disturbing revelations about the AMC prison are publicly debated?

And that they are widely covered, not just by City News and Pearls and Irritations but by the mainstream media as well.

Voters deserve nothing less.