Former Deputy PM Barnaby Joyce speaks on Julian Assange plea deal
WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has agreed to a plea deal with US prosecutors that could see him return to Australia shortly. Former Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce urges caution ahead of Mr Assange’s hearing.
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00:00I think it's important to reiterate this because you don't want to have a narrative at one
00:05stage and then a different sort of, you know, a triumphant narrative at another stage.
00:10It was not really an issue about Mr Assange.
00:13If you asked me do I think what he did was morally correct, no it wasn't.
00:18But the issue for me is extraterritoriality.
00:21This was an Australian citizen.
00:23He was not a citizen of the United States.
00:25He was not in the United States when this felony, is what they said, was created.
00:30He did not steal the information.
00:32That was then Bradley Manning who is now Chelsea Manning.
00:34He was not the first person to publish this information.
00:37That was a gentleman I believe named Doyle from Cryptomania who first published it.
00:41And if the dissemination of this information is a crime, then every person where I now
00:46stand in the Parliament of Australia's Fourth Estate is on their way to the United States
00:50of America because you all printed it.
00:53And that creates massive confusions.
00:55I don't want a place in Australia where if I offend the Koran I'm off to Riyadh.
00:59If I offend the Chinese Communist Party I'm off to Beijing.
01:03Or an Australian citizen who has, offends a law in the United States is off to the United
01:07States.
01:08Unless he's in the United States when he commits it, in that case, it's a completely different
01:12issue.
01:13But from what I read, and of course we're all very new to this, it's still a plea deal
01:17on a felony.
01:19As a plea deal on a felony he has to be heard on the soil of the United States, and I read
01:24that that may be Saipan Island.
01:27So we've just got to be still cautious.
01:29Still cautious on how this proceeds because the end has not arrived.