The Wikileaks disclosures included the “collateral murder” video that showed US forces killing civilians in Iraq and the release of a trove of US diplomatic cables.
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“We want the government to do more than just make representations to the Biden administration,” Shipton said.
“Ideally,we would like the government to act as it does for other Australians who are imprisoned overseas.”
Assange,who is currently in London’s Belmarsh prison,is facing a maximum jail sentence of 175 years after being charged with 17 counts of breaching the US Espionage Act plus a separate hacking-related charge.
Shipton,who saw Assange last week,said a visit to his brother was always “full of anxiety” about his brother’s condition.
“He’s still fighting,he’s hanging in there despite what he’s been through and despite the adversary he’s taken on,” he said.
“He’s not the same man he was a year ago or even before that —it’s really taken its toll on him.”
Shipton said it would be unacceptable for Assange to face trial in the US given the case is set down for a Virginia court where the community — and the jury pool — included defence and security workers.
“I don’t believe that Julian would receive a fair trial in the United States,” he said. “It’s a bit of a fairytale,to be honest,this idea that Julian would receive a fair trial or a fair deal that wouldn’t see him suffering more.”
When Australian journalists asked US National Security Council spokesman John Kirby about the case this week,Kirby said it was an extradition matter for the Department of Justice.
Biden faces the risk of a domestic political blowback if he intervenes in the case to drop the extradition request,with conservatives such as former Donald Trump using it against the president at the next presidential election.
Former president Barack Obama commuted the sentence of another person involved in the WikiLeaks disclosures,Chelsea Manning,after she had faced trial and gone to jail.
US President Joe Biden with Albanese during the visit.Credit:Alex Ellinghausen
A cross-party delegation of MPs,including Nationals’ former leader Barnaby Joyce and Kooyong independent Monique Ryan,travelled to Washington in September to plead for Assange’s liberty.
Shipton said people cared about the issue because it was becoming a sign of the “inequality” in the relationship between Australia and the US.
“Julian is an Australian — he’s an Australian father,he’s an Australian son,” he said.
“He’s an Australian citizen who’s been unjustly imprisoned and it’s up to the Australian government to defend their citizens overseas.
“People don’t really understand what he even did wrong. He published truthful material,” Shipton said in Washington.
“So the other aspect to it is our right to know what governments do in our name,and that is important when we are in such a close relationship with the power that is imprisoning Julian for publishing national defence information about what they are doing behind closed doors.”
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