It was also a fundamental part of our jurisprudence that a court would not restrain the publication of confidences if their disclosure would reveal the commission of crimes. The information in Spycatcher was at least 20 years out of date and had no relevance to current operations. Almost all of it had been previously published by the journalist and trusted MI6 mouthpiece Chapman Pincher in his book Their Trade Is Treachery. Further, there was material that revealed acts of criminality on the part of British intelligence officers. The British government made a martyr of Wright by fighting a furious legal battle not just in Australia (where Wright lived) but around the world, making itself look foolish and Wright rich. There are a few lessons from this regarding WikiLeaks. Julian Assange should make sure that any further documents published do not contain information that would impinge on current operations and put lives at risk. We are in a global struggle with terrorism and any material that assists our opponents should not be published. Material that puts at risk the lives of those who help us should not be published and to do so is morally reprehensible whatever its legal character.

Governments and politicians should be careful not to make a martyr of Assange and fools of themselves. Julia Gillard's claim that Assange had broken Australian laws, when it is clear he has not, demonstrates how out of her depth she is. One may well ask whether her denunciations would be so shrill if the documents had been handed to a powerful newspaper group - if the contents were being dribbled out by The Australian, would she be accusing Rupert Murdoch of high crimes and misdemeanours? Assange is an Australian citizen. No matter how much the government disapproves of his actions, it should make it clear that he is entitled to return to Australia if he wishes and to receive consular assistance if the charges of sexual assault proceed in Sweden. I have heard conflicting reports of whether Assange has invited the US State Department to edit the materials he has received. While it may stick in their craw to do it, the US government should take up that opportunity if it is offered. After all, this is not the first leak of security-related materials. What is shocking is the extraordinary scale of the leak - more than a quarter of a million documents. Harm minimisation should be the order of the day for Washington. Extravagant demonisation of Assange and the leaks only makes them more exciting than they are. Is it really a story that American diplomats think Silvio Berlusconi is a skirt chaser or that Kevin Rudd was a control freak presiding over a chaotic, dysfunctional government? It would be amazing if they had reached any other conclusion.

Just as the vindictive pursuit of Peter Wright turned his book into an international bestseller, so the furious attacks on Assange are likely to be counterproductive. It is hard to know what to say about the Swedish sexual assault charges, other than to observe that the facts so far outlined by the prosecution would constitute an unlikely basis for a prosecution in Australia. American politicians might use their time more productively working out how a 23-year-old army private had access to so much confidential material and was able to copy it and hand it over to WikiLeaks. The long-term damage from the leaked cables is likely to be that it confirms that despite spending billions on security and the war against terror, the US government is unable to preserve the security and confidence of those it deals with around the world. It will take a lot of reassurance before the chilling impact of these leaks wears off. As to the contents of the cables, the material seems to me to fall into three categories. There are the many penetrating glimpses of the obvious such as those relating to Berlusconi and Rudd. I could not imagine Australian legal principles justifying a ban on the publication of that material. There are some cables with information that is not surprising but the publication of which is diplomatically damaging, such as the report that Saudi Arabia had urged America to attack Iran. Although I should note that this cable was received rapturously in Israel! One can see the argument that this sort of material should not be published, but I doubt whether a newspaper would resist the temptation to print it or that a court would injunct it. The third category are those cables that reveal enough information to identify people who are informants of the US government in circumstances where the disclosure would put their lives at risk. That is material that should not be published and that a court, were it to have jurisdiction, may well decide to injunct on the basis that the publication would cause "real detriment" as opposed to embarrassment.

Malcolm Turnbull is shadow minister for communications and broadband. Follow the National Times on Twitter: @NationalTimesAU