This is my contribution to Alexandra Marshall’s challenge on Julian Assange…

In the last year or so I’ve had a lot of conversations with people about Julian Assange and whether he should be extradited from the UK to the US to face US courts.

Some argue passionately that he is a journalist and that he did what journalists are supposed to do, which is expose stories so the citizens of a country have a better understanding of what really is going on.

Assange published information concerning the US’s activities in Iraq and Afghanistan and this information can be used to assess whether US officials were acting as they said they were, or whether there were lies and unethical or criminal activities undertaken.

Then there are others who appear somewhat indifferent to the wider public interest issues and, instead, are oddly fascinated in Assange’s personal characteristics, for example, what he was like as a guest in the Ecuador Embassy under the seven-year period of political refuge?

A brutal article in The Australian in April claimed that when in the Embassy, Assange’s personal behaviour was described as disgusting. Quoting Embassy staff, it said that when Assange wanted to be unpleasant he put excrement on the walls and underwear with excrement in the lavatory. He had to be reminded to flush the toilet and clean the dishes. He apparently refused to clean up after his cat.

The third set of people deeply interested in Assange are the national security hawks, and they view his actions as risking lives, such as servicemen, spies, informants, and diplomats. As such, he was compromising the broader US national interests, and handing useful information to people who despise the US and Western values.

Given these three Assange camps, perhaps it is not surprising that the support is hedged by the politicians. Yes, there was a Parliamentary resolution calling for him to be returned to Australia, but the Prime Minister has not swung behind the merits of his extradition case, at least not publicly.

The line used so far is that he’s spent sufficient time in some form of incarceration, and so the matter should be resolved as a practical step.

A healthy society needs journalists and especially mavericks like Assange – those people who, for whatever motivation, perhaps just attention-seeking, are willing to break laws where those laws have the effect of undermining natural laws. Natural laws are those we associate with basic human rights.

You can argue convincingly that Assange’s strange personality is a valuable asset to a society, as the existence of people willing to act against powerful state interests create positive spillover benefits (known formally as ‘positive externalities’) – because they increase the probability of exposing bad behaviour, then that can lessen that bad behaviour.

Yet, it is also the case, I believe, that government agencies commissioned to protect national interests, such as the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), also serve a critical role in protecting people. While they failed in 9/11, it’s probably the case the US spy agencies have since scuttled dozens of similar attempts.

It is not right or sustainable that a single person like Assange acting in a way that threatens the lives of individuals and groups, even under the guise of journalism, can expect to do so free from mitigating consequences.

So, here we have an odd situation whereby there seems deep value in both camps, Assange’s willingness to publish confidential documents and, on the other side, the state infrastructure set up to prevent such illegal acts.

A similar ironic situation often arises with respect to the unions in Australia.

A full bench of the Federal Court has recently fined the union $60,000, including $6,300 for an individual from the Queensland branch for having acted in ‘deliberate … open defiance’ of safety requirements.

This latest fine comes on top of fines in 2019 for an official who had been refused entry to a building site because he was not deemed a ‘fit and proper’ person.

The Federal Court ruling stated that the CFMEU treated fines and penalties as ‘simply a cost of undertaking its industrial activities’.

In 2018, Justice Richard Tracey said that the ‘union simply regards itself as free to disobey the law’.

My personal view is that union movement is a blight on Australian productivity and living standards, yet I do recognise the existence of the CFMEU’s role as a union willing and able to breach laws is a potential asset for the wider society.

A few years ago, the Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU) ran a campaign around the idea that breaking the law is okay – particularly if that law is bad.

Was the legislative support for Apartheid a sound law in South Africa? What about Mugabe’s laws enabling confiscation the land of white farmers?

And wasn’t one of the primary concerns of the US Founding Fathers that of trying to ensure government did not overreach and trample on natural rights of citizens?

What about Sharia Law and its brutal approach to homosexuality and women? Are we comfortable with that, just because those laws may be supported by a majority of citizens in some countries?

I live in Sydney’s Millers Point, and I’m exceeding thankful to now deceased communist and unionist Jack Mundey for the laws he broke in preventing demolition of historic buildings around the Rocks.

Assange and the CFMEU will do things that can be very bad for countries and economies – but equally, we should be thankful they exist as we all benefit from the positive spillovers of having people and organisations who have the mentality and muscle to defy overreaching governments. And yet, we should also highly value the law enforcement infrastructure set up to stop them and hold them to account.

There is no need to take a definitive side on Assange. Both reverence and revulsion are true. Two contradictory things can, sometimes, be true at the same time.

Nick Hossack is a public policy consultant. He is former policy director at the Australian Bankers’ Association and former adviser to Prime Minister John Howard.