McBride Is Out and About, After the Attorney General Released the Whistleblower on Parole

Australian Defence Force whistleblower David McBride was released from prison on Thursday, 13 August 2026, after serving a 2 year and 3 month non-parole period in respect of criminal offences perpetrated when leaking classified documents to the ABC that revealed war crimes in Afghanistan and, as he claimed, a culture of coverup regarding senior management in a battlefield gone wrong.

McBride was sentenced to a jaw-dropping 5 year and 8 month head sentence by ACT Supreme Court Justice David Mossop in May 2024, and it was up to current federal attorney general Michelle Rowland to decide whether the former military lawyer should be allowed to walk, after he, as the whistleblower, has been the only person to have served time in respect of the war crimes scandal.

After serving tours of duty as an ADF legal officer in Afghanistan over 2012 and 2013, McBride became concerned over a decision by then chief of the ADF David Hurley to overhaul the rules of engagement, or the directives regarding soldier behaviour in battle, in late 2013, as he considered foot soldiers were to be blamed for the loose manner in which top brass had been running the war.

The ADF lawyer had been questioning the way in which the war in Afghanistan was playing at the same time as another researcher had been raising the alarm about an army culture that considered war crimes favourably, and he considered that a pile of briefings relating to incidents that were said to justify the reforms didn’t involve the required legal prerequisites to commence prosecution.

As he was leaving the Alexander Maconochie Centre located on Ngunnawal land in Canberra on Thursday, McBride told the press that incarceration had been “a very positive experience” and he thanked the AG for granting him parole. The lawyer will now serve the more than 3 years left of his sentence in the community on conditional release.

“A beautiful day to be free”

“I’m very happy to out. It’s a beautiful day to be free,” McBride told reporters from the passenger seat of a car, as he was exiting the prison grounds. “I thank all my supporters. I thank the attorney general for granting me parole. I’m just happy to be here with my wonderful family.”

“It was hard, but it was good,” said McBride, in response to a question about his time inside. “Corrective services were very good and polite to me. The other prisoners were good too. So, on the whole, it was a very positive experience – I am happy to be out though.”

The lawyer also said in response to a question about lung cancer that he would be having an operation in the next couple of weeks. And after being asked about whistleblower reforms, David cracked up and said that he wouldn’t be making any political comments on the day of his release, out of respect for the nation’s chief lawmaker, who’d just granted his freedom.

McBride leaked multiple classified ADF documents to ABC journalists over 2014 through to 2016, as he’d sought to highlight issues with ADF management. However, what was reported by journalists was the evidence of multiple war crimes perpetrated by Australian special forces in 2017’s The Afghan Files, and this subsequently led to the military lawyer’s arrest in September 2018.

The father-of-two went on to fight his charges, but he was dramatically blocked in the courts on two occasions, firstly, during his 2022 public interest defence hearing and then again during his 2023 criminal trial, as the prosecution had been empowered to remove great swathes of his evidence at both proceedings for national security reasons, which meant he couldn’t argue his case.

McBride was then left with the option to plead guilty to three, out of an initially laid five, criminal charges. So, the lawyer accepted responsibility for one count of theft, contrary to section 131.1(1) of the Criminal Code Act 1995 (Cth), and two counts of unlawfully communicating naval, military or air force information, contrary to section 73A(1) of the Defence Act 1903 (Cth).

The whistleblowing hitlist

McBride’s case was amongst three high profile whistleblower prosecutions that were launched under federal attorney general Christian Porter circa 2018. These further included the prosecution of Witness K and Bernard Collaery for exposing the 2004 Timor-Leste bugging scandal and that of ex-Australian Taxation Office employee Richard Boyle, who exposed unlawful garnishee practices.

The determination to prosecute these men shone a light on the failed whistleblower protection laws in the Public Interest Disclosure Act 2013 (NSW), which was initially drafted by then Labor AG Mark Dreyfus, who was returned to that same position in 2022, with the election of the Albanese government. And over the interim, the Moss inquiry had considered the laws within the PID Act.

The 2016 Moss report found that the PID protections were lacking and made 33 recommendations to improve them, but the Coalition just sat on these.

Dreyfus then delivered on 21 of the reforms by mid-2023 to facilitate the rollout of the NACC (the National Anti-Corruption Commission), although he noted that this was ahead of the major overhaul, which was not forthcoming prior to Rowland having taken over the office mid-last year.

Witness K pleaded guilty to charges that had sat on the backburner for years prior to being pressed in mid-2018. The charges against his lawyer, Collaery, were dropped in mid-2022, as an incoming Labor government responded to the public outcry against the high profile “political prosecutions”. And Boyle was eventually released in August 2025, after pleading guilty to four minor charges.

Rowland opened up the draft exposure of the Public Interest Disclosure and Other Legislation Amendment (Whistleblower Protections) Bill 2025 in September last year. It contains the second tranche of PID Act reforms, and it aims to establish the Commonwealth Whistleblower Ombudsman, as well as strengthen supports for disclosers and clarify rights. Yet, this bill is yet to be introduced.

Prosecuting war crimes

In 2016, around the time that McBride was raising issues with the press about the suspect manner in which the war in Afghanistan was being waged by ADF management and military sociologist Dr Samantha Crompvoets inquired into the special forces culture and produced a report citing war crimes, the Brereton inquiry, or the ADF investigation into war crimes in Afghanistan, commenced.

The four-and-a-half-year-long inquiry resulted in a November 2020-released report that found evidence of 39 murdered Afghan civilians and prisoners-of-war that had likely involved 19 members of the Australian special forces (SAS). However, despite the establishment of the Office of the Special Investigator in January 2021, to inquire into these matters, developments had been slow moving.

Former SAS officer Oliver Schulz was charged in 2023 over the alleged murder of an Afghan civilian, and he’s since pleaded not guilty and is set to stand trial next year.

The saga took a decidedly high profile turn in April this year, however, when Australia’s most decorated war hero, Ben Roberts Smith, was publicly arrested and charged over five counts of the war crime of murder.

But as to how McBride considers these developments and the laws that Rowland has flagged is not known as yet, as the renowned whistleblower told reporters that were waiting for him at the prison gates in true McBride style, that he’ll soon be back in public eye with his personal opinion on how these matters are playing out.

Image of David McBride taken by Paul Gregoire