ATO whistleblower Richard Boyle was forced to plead guilty, on Tuesday the 27th of May 2025, after the Albanese government failed for 3 years to pass genuine whistleblower protection laws and failed to withdraw the frivolous and vexatious charges against him.
One day later, on Wednesday the 28th of May 2025, war crimes whistleblower David McBride had his appeal dismissed by the ACT Supreme Court.
At any time the federal attorney-general, who until recently was Mark Dreyfus and is now Michelle Rowland, could have had the charges withdrawn against both Richard Boyle and David McBride. They decided not to.
The decision to not withdraw the charges against Richard Boyle and David McBride was obviously fine with Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and the rest of the federal Labor MPs.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and federal Labor MP’s will jump up and down and accuse Russia and China of wrongly jailing Australians and denying them a fair and just trial.
But when Australia’s legal system persecutes and jails whistleblowers, which Albanese and Labor refuse to reform laws to protect whistleblowers, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and the federal Labor MP’s say nothing.
Richard Boyle – ATO whistleblower
Richard Boyle was charged with 66 offences, but 62 charges were dropped over time and he pleaded guilty to 4 charges after a plea deal, with the prosecutors agreeing not to push for a jail sentence.
The ABC reported on the (27/5/25): He had been scheduled to stand trial later this year, after last year losing his last chance to secure immunity from prosecution when the High Court refused his application for special leave to appeal.
Kieran Pender from the Human Rights Law Center called on the government to urgently reform whistleblower laws to prevent any similar prosecutions.
“This is a heartbreaking day for Richard Boyle and whistleblowers in Australia,” he said.
“Prosecuting whistleblowers has a chilling effect on truth and transparency, and sends a clear message to prospective whistleblowers that if you speak up you will face punishment.” (Click here to read more)
The ABC reported on the (28/5/25):
Boyle first made a public interest disclosure within the ATO, internally, revealing the agency’s heavy-handed tactics.
In mid-2017, while working as a debt recovery officer at the ATO’s Adelaide office, he shared how agency staff across the country were instructed to take money out of people’s bank accounts — regardless of whether the debts raised against them by the ATO were justified or not — thereby unjustly targeting many small to medium size businesses.
Boyle then made a complaint to the Tax Ombudsman before going public with his revelations in a joint Four Corners-Fairfax Media (now Nine) investigation.
Follow-up reviews confirmed that Boyle’s revelations of aggressive debt-recovery practices at the ATO at the time were valid, with the small business ombudsman at the time saying the agency’s then treatment of small businesses was “crippling”.
And a parliamentary report later also found that the ATO’s investigation into Boyle’s public interest disclosure was ‘superficial’.
Boyle’s home was raided after he spoke out publicly, and he’s spent almost a decade trying to claim protection under public interest disclosure laws. (Click here to read more)
A pre-sentence hearing is set down for August and even though the prosecutors have agreed not to push for a jail sentence it is up to the judge.
David McBride – War Crimes whistleblower
War crimes whistleblower David McBride’s appeal was dismissed by the ACT Supreme Court on Wednesday the 28th of May 2025.
Nine reported (28/5/25): David McBride, who was jailed for leaking classified information about possible war crimes, will remain behind bars after losing an appeal against his sentence.
He was jailed for five years and eight months after pleading guilty to obtaining and disseminating classified defence information.
His sentence included a non-parole period of two years and three months, meaning the 61-year-old will remain imprisoned until at least August 2026.
His legal team had already flagged an appeal to the High Court if the decision didn’t go their way.
Human rights advocates have called for the Commonwealth to drop the prosecution and for McBride to be freed, saying his imprisonment will deter whistleblowing from coming forward. (Click here to read more)
It’s worth noting in October 2023 there were calls by the federal crossbench to protect whistleblowers but Prime Minster Anthony Albanese and the Labor Party ignored them.
The SMH reported in October 2023:
Crossbench MPs have stepped up their support for whistleblowers David McBride and Richard Boyle in a bid to persuade Labor to drop court action against the two men for revealing state secrets in the name of the public interest.
The move is a new sign of the demands on Prime Minister Anthony Albanese for stronger laws to protect people who go public about wrongdoing, but the MPs are warning about the “glacial” pace of government action.
Victorian MP Helen Haines joined fellow independents including Andrew Wilkie from Tasmania, Rebekha Sharkie from South Australia and Kate Chaney from Western Australia to call for the prosecutions to be dropped and for the government to move quickly to strengthen the Public Interest Disclosure Act, which sets out the grounds for people to release information without being charged.
Wilkie said Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus should intervene to drop the prosecutions against the two whistleblowers and the government should do a full rewrite of the disclosure act and set up a “whistleblower authority” to protect the release of information in the public interest.
“Until they do all of those and other things, then the Attorney-General’s claims about the government being good on whistleblower protection are just hollow, it’s as simple as that,” he said. (Click here to read more)
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has been a career politician in Canberra for 30 years since 1996 and like a lot of the career politicians in Canberra he hates whistleblowers. Otherwise, laws protecting whistleblowers would have been passed long ago.
Whistleblowers are the canary in the coal mine for corrupt governments because governments persecute whistleblowers to intimidate other whistleblowers not to expose government corruption.
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Categories: Prime Minister Anthony Albanese
Thank you KCA. One of the reasons I no longer vote Labor. Aussie Bob
Me neither. Albo’s only PM because he’s no Peter Dutton.
Perhaps Albo has something to hide? When he said that he knows no corrupt politician I knew he was corrupt!
As if a Marxist Trotskyist gives AF! 🤷 Albanese, oh how far has Albion fallen?
A “Marxist Trotskyist” is how I would describe myself, and NEVER Albo, and I do care. Albo should be ashamed of himself, on this matter especially.
As the years go by – the soul of A. Albanese grows ever uglier! He’s a total sell-out to the ALP principles of Gough – the era which my first ever federal vote in 1972 ushered in. Honesty/truth and justice – protection of these principles are now withered away – the environment, racism, self-interest – all being pursued against the interests of Australia and all Australians – helping make us seen as a pariah around the world. And don’t think it is not being remarked upon abroad!
So true Jim, your refection how low the ALP has sunk from Gough to Albanese in principles, policies and reform, is as I recall.
With regard to their promised whistleblower protection – remember the persecution of Allan Kessing ? Rudd and Albanese’s role it that and their promised whistleblower laws when elected in 2007, set the stage for what was to follow.
No promised pardon of Kessing and a Public Interest Disclosure Act, not fit for purpose 16 years later.
I leave you with a pertinant quote – “When exposing a crime is treated as committing a crime, you are being ruled by criminals” – Whistleblower, Edward Snowden.
Richard Boyle. David McBride. Two Australians who exposed serious wrongdoing – and what did they get?
Years of legal warfare, reputational destruction, and betrayal from a government that promised integrity but delivered cowardice.
Anthony Albanese has now joined the long, shameful line of Prime Ministers who say one thing about protecting whistleblowers, but do the exact opposite when power is on the line.
He had every chance to show moral courage. Instead, he stood back and watched these men be crucified by a system rigged to protect the powerful.
Attorney-General Michelle Rowland has inherited Mark Dreyfus’ indifference like it was a family heirloom.
At any time, she could have dropped the prosecutions. At any time, she could have acted in the public interest. Instead, she chose silence – and complicity.
And where the hell is the NACC?
This was supposed to be a watchdog with teeth. So far, it’s looking more like a sleeping chihuahua under the Cabinet table.
If persecuting whistleblowers who reveal government abuse of power doesn’t raise red flags at the National Anti-Corruption Commission, then what exactly is its purpose? A logo? A press release? A PR stunt?
Whistleblowers are a cornerstone of democratic accountability. Boyle and McBride should have been honoured, not hunted.
Labor’s message is clear:
Expose truth – and we’ll ruin you.
Ask for protection – and we’ll slam the door.
Expect courage from your leaders – and we’ll give you cowards in suits.
This is not justice.
This is not integrity.
This is the slow death of democratic accountability – and Labor is holding the suffocation pillow.
Thank You KCA
This present government are a disgrace and how they besmirch the men and women of fifty years ago when Gough Whitlam came to power after the long reign of Menzies.
This issue needs publicity so thank you KCA for airing this. In the USA they laud their whistleblowers and even pay them millions compensation….. We jail ours!
Before the 2022 election ALP were stating they were going to clean up corruption via the NACC. They have done the opposite and Dreyfus was an absolute embarrassment as AG. He could have done so much good so I am glad he has been dropped from the Ministry. Rowland needs to step up now.
LNP are just as guilty….they could have overturned these too! Both parties are complicit in corruption so I don’t hold out much hope for any whistleblowers in the future unless there is a dramatic change in attitude by both parties.
Government always has something to hide but to have whistle blowers protected will only open the flood gates for information of any incompetence, dishonesty and lies that we all know happen but hear little about. It seems that Mr Albanese may have more to hide than others, considering his lack of action to remedy the whistle blower law or to help these two men who were brave enough to tell us the other side of a story and not just what government want us to know.
Canneries in coalmines have never worked and that is a fact.
The current Labor Party ought to be charged with fraud.
Keep up the good work.
A corrupt anti corruption commission says it all.
You have to remember you are dealing with an Occupying Force, a Foreign Corporation known as the “Australian Government” we have never had a lawful government since Federation, the “Australian Government” is the administrator under the United Nations. If you think you will get away with challenging their power, think again. The labor party still rules with 34% of the vote, they do what ever they want knowing full well we will not do anything to prosecute them for their TREASON!
Albanese of the old duopoly is to Howard’s right, but he has inherited a gaggle of ambitious backbenchers who will listen to their constituents’ concerns and complaints. If a week is a long time in politics, three years is an Eon.
I anticipate a schism within 18 months.