“Protected Source” to Olympic Chief: The Mark Arbib Episode That Never Became a Formal Case
Few Australian political stories illustrate the gap between public suspicion and formal process as neatly as the WikiLeaks cables that branded former Labor powerbroker Mark Arbib a “ protected ” source—and the quiet institutional ending that followed. In December 2010 , media reports drawing on leaked U.S. diplomatic cables described Arbib as a regular source for the U.S. Embassy in Canberra, with Australian politicians publicly insisting there was “ nothing unusual ” about senior figures speaking to diplomats and offering political commentary. The label that did the rhetorical heavy lifting—“ protected ” or “ protect ”—is best understood as diplomatic handling language (how the embassy circulates information and shields identities), not proof of employment by an intelligence service . But in a Five Eyes country where the alliance is central to defence planning , that nuance often loses the public argument to optics . From there, the story split into two tracks. In the polit...
