Pacific Media Watch

27 March 2012

REGION: Wikileaks bid for Australian senate to 'champion free press'

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Wikileaks founder Julian Assange is making a bid for the Australian Senate in next year's election. Photo: Scoop
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7873

REGION (ABC/Sydney Morning Herald/Pacific Media Watch): Julian Assange's bid to run for the Australian Federal upper house in the 2013 election caught headlines last week. The ABC reported the Wikileaks website made the announcement after discovering there was no impediment to his running for the Senate whilst being detained.

However today, the Sydney Morning Herald have the report that the motivation behind Assange's bid is to champion press freedom.

Phillip Dorling wrote wrote that Assange's priority "was to campaign for more openness in government, what he termed "the politics of understanding before acting"."

Assange is also quoted as predicting the US will decline in the next 15 to 20 years and experience a "collapse of its superpower status".

Asange is still on bail waiting for the British Supreme Court to decide on his appeal against his extradition to Sweden.

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