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July 25th, 2013 
WikiLeaks founder and Senate candidate, Julian Assange. Picture: WikiLeaks
Source: Supplied
WIKILEAKS officially launched its Senate campaign today, adopting the slogan of the
former Australian Democrats, saying their sole aim is to “keep the bastards honest”.
Despite being confined to the Ecuadorian embassy in London for more than a year, WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange is running for the Senate himself, and has named a number of candidates to run alongside him.
He told journalists via Skype that the party would act as an independent “scrutiniser” of the Federal Government “by ensuring that the Senate is acting independently of the government of the day”.
Assange said one of the first actions of his party will be to call for full details on the Papua New Guinea deal.
“Considering PNG’s developing country status, the Australian government must disclose how it will assist PNG to financially support resettled refugees,” he said in a statement.
New South Wales candidate, former diplomat Alison Broinowski told news.com.au that she was running to “make a point” about the Australian government spying and allowing other countries to spy on Australian citizens “for a very long time”.
The 72-year-old grandmother said that the government “is appropriating our information and using it for their own purposes, and not telling us what they may be using it for”.
“Of course they will say ‘don’t worry this is only to protect you from terrorism’, but terrorism has been used ever since 9/11 and indeed before 9/11 as an excuse for all kinds of things,” she said.
As well as being a former diplomat, Broinowski is an academic, writer and former journalist. Of her many postings between 1974 and 1994, Broinowski is the former Regional Director of the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade in Melbourne, the director of advocay and planning at the Australia Council, and the director of the Japan section of the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade.
Though the party says its core principals are “transparency, accountability and justice,” Broinowski and at least one other candidate seem unconcerned over damning allegations aimed at Assange.
In terms of the claims of aggravated sexual assault aimed at Julian Assange, Broinowski said they were none of our business
“Being guilty of aggravated rape has nothing to do with our party,” she told news.com.au. “His private life is his own business.”
She called the assault claims “a conspiracy” created by the US government who responded by pressuring the Swedish government into trumping up false claims against him.
“If the Swedish courts have a problem why don’t they charge him?,” she said. “Why are they delaying? If it’s as serious as they say why don’t they charge him with something? I don’t have the answer to that.”
On claims made by former WikiLeaks employee, James Ball that Assange tried to empty WikiLeaks’ bank account to pay for his legal defence, and that he was tricked into handing over more than 90,000 US embassy cables to a Belarussian dictator, Broinowski said that the claims were the result of “bright young men with big egos” that are jealous of Assange’s media presence and are trying to trash his reputation.
“Typically bright young men with quite a lot of self regard, don’t necessarily take kindly to one person getting the prominence of media attention they want that for themselves,” she said.
WikiLeaks party’s Victorian Senate candidate Dr Leslie Cannold, told news.com.au that if elected, her first order of business was to return the Senate to its proper function as a “house of review” designed to “keep the bastards honest”.
The high profile author, bioethicist and activist was awarded Australian Humanist of the Year in 2011 for her advocacy for abortion rights for women, family planning and access to assisted reproductive technologies.
When asked whether she was concerned that Julian Assange has not answered to claims of sexual assault of two Swedish women, Cannold told news.com.au that “nobody is more troubled by these claims than Julian himself, as well as the women involved that justice has not been done and seen to be done in this case”.
“Julian has said repeatedly, and to me personally, that he would answer questions about the case and get it all cleared up, but that can’t happen without a promise that he isn’t being put at risk of extradition to the US,” Cannold told news.com.au.
When asked whether she would continue to run if Assange was found guilty, Cannold said “we’re just going to need to cross that bridge when we come to it”.
Who are the WikiLeakers ‘keeping the bastards honest’?
The WikiLeaks Party has six candidates running for the Senate, Kellie Tranter, Dr Binoy Kampmark, Suresh Rajan and Gerry Georgatos.
Julian Assange
Julian Assange, leader of the WikiLeaks Party and WikiLeaks founder
Source: News Limited
Occupation: Founder of WikiLeaks, creator of one of world’s first ISPs, Suburbia Public Access Network, author, hacker, activist.
Qualifications: Published the Afghanistan War Logs that showed two helicopter fighters killing journalists and innocent civilians, mistaking their cameras for weapons, author of Cyberpunks, contributed to book, Underground: Tales of Hacking, Madness and Obsession on the Electronic Frontier, responsible for the arrests of corrupt diplomats the world over following the publication of US embassy cables in 2010.
Policy: Wants the full disclosure of Australia’s agreement with PNG, will restore Senate to be the “independent scrutiniser of the government”, wants full shield laws for whistleblowers and journalists, and the destruction of online spy activities by the Australian and US government.
Alison Broinowski
Senate candidate, Alison Broinowski
Source: Supplied
Occupation: Academic, former journalist and public servant
Qualifications: Worked in Australian Foreign Service from 1963-1994. Has a PhD in Asian Studies from the ANU, member of the Australian Republican Movement, the Asian Studies Association of Austraila, the Asia-Pacific Council of Macquarie Uni, and is co-patron of the Asian Association of Australian Studies.
Policy: Complete transparency over government surveillance of Australian civilians home and abroad.
Leslie Cannold
Senate candidate, Leslie Cannold.
Source: Supplied
Occupation: Author, commentator, ethicist and activist.
Qualifications: Has a BA from Wesleyan Uni in the USA, a Masters in Medical Ethics from Monash Uni and a PhD from the University of Melbourne. Is an adjunct senior lecturer at the Gender, Leadership and Social Sustainability Research Unit at Monash Uni. Is on the board of Department of Health’s Human Research Ethics COmmittee, the Consulative Council for Clinical Trial Research.
Policy: Abortion rights for women, access to reproductive technologies, complete scrutiny of government’s data retention proposal and investigation to its alleged ties to the NSA’s PRISM spy program, the restoration of the Senate to an independent “house of review”, shield laws for whistleblowers and journalists.
Kellie Tranter
WikiLeaks Senate candidate, Kellie Tranter
Source: Supplied
Occupation: Lawyer and human rights activist
Qualifications: Stood as an Independent candidate for NSW Parliament in 2011 in the electorate of Maitland. She was endorsed by anti-corruption advocate, John Hatton, AO. Tranter has chaired workshops, addresses and debates on issues of climate change, human rights and gender equality both at home and abroad. She has given speeches and written columns on issues of unjustified wars and economic exploitation for publications including the ABC’s The Drum, The National Times, New Matilda and the Australia Institute.
Dr Binoy Kampmark
Senate candidate, Dr Binoy Kampmark.
Source: Supplied
Occupation: Legal lecturer for RMIT university.
Qualifications: Holds a PhD in history from the University of Cambridge, and a Masters degree in history and an honours degree in Arts and Law from the University of Queensland.
Policy: Dr Kampmark beliefs passionately in a “monitored government, rather than a government monitoring its subjects”. He says “WikiLeaks is the only party of its kind to remind voters of that aim”.
Gerry Georgatos
Senate candidate, Gerry Georgatos
Source: Supplied
Occupation: Human rights campaigner, an investigative journalist and PhD researcher with the Australian Custodial Systems and Deaths in Custody.
Qualifications: Georgatos is the founder of Students Without Borders and the creator of one of the largest computer recycling programs in Australia. He has done extensive research on Aboriginal homelessness, poverty, imprisonment and suicide rates.
Policy: Georgtos is a staunch refugee rights advocate and a free speech campaigner.
He says that “the ability to discover truth is outstripped by the capacity to manifest deciet,” and that “the WikiLeaks Party is an opportunity to challenge this premise”.
Suresh Rajan
WikiLeaks Senate Candidate, Suresh Rajan
Source: Supplied
Occupation: Rajan is an economist and advocate for ethic communities and the disabled.
Qualifications: Rajan is the former head of the Ethnic Communities Council of WA and is the current president of the National Ethinic Disability Alliance. Rajan holds a Bachelor of Commerce with a double major in Management and Accounting, as well as a Masters of Business from the University of Western Australia.
Rajan is a regular TV and radio finance and economics commentator.
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