The Australian government, under Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, remains firm in its opposition to the United States' prosecution of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange. Assange, an Australian citizen currently fighting extradition from Britain on U.S. espionage charges, has spent the past four years in a London prison.

Since winning the 2022 elections, the center-left Labour Party government has consistently argued that the United States should end its pursuit of Assange. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, however, pushed back against the Australian position during his visit on Saturday, emphasizing the seriousness of the charges against Assange.

Prime Minister Albanese, in response to Blinken's comments, stated, "This has gone on for too long. Enough is enough." He further noted that Blinken's remarks aligned with the points made by President Joe Biden's administration during private discussions with Australian officials.

Assange's case was a topic of discussion in the recent annual bilateral meetings between Blinken and Australian Foreign Minister Penny Wong in Brisbane, Australia. Wong expressed Australia's desire for the charges against Assange to be brought to a conclusion, but remained ambiguous about whether the U.S. should drop the prosecution or strike a plea deal.

Assange currently faces 17 charges of espionage and one charge of computer misuse relating to WikiLeaks' publication of classified diplomatic and military documents in 2010. American prosecutors allege that he aided U.S. Army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning in stealing classified information.

Australia has raised concerns over the disparate treatment of Assange and Manning by the U.S. government. While Manning's 35-year sentence was commuted to seven years by then-President Barack Obama, allowing her release in 2017, Assange has remained in high-security Belmarsh Prison since his arrest in 2019 for skipping bail during a separate legal battle.

Prior to his imprisonment, Assange sought refuge in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London for seven years to avoid extradition to Sweden on allegations of rape and sexual assault. However, Sweden dropped the sex crimes investigations in 2019 due to the significant passage of time.

Gabriel Shipton, Assange's brother, has called for Australia to increase pressure on the United States, stating that each day the U.S. administration ignores the Australian public's plea for Julian's freedom, it becomes clearer that Australia's standing in the alliance is at stake. Shipton refers to the bilateral security treaty signed in 1951 between the two countries.