Julian Assange has become a problem for Australia. He has an Australian passport and the Gillard government is under pressure to cancel it. But it's tricky, you have to have a good reason - you can't just strip him of his passport simply because he's an embarrassment to an ally. His mother Christine Assange, who still lives in Queensland, said today "Please don't hunt my son". But it's a bit too late for that now, Interpol have put out an alert for his arrest on suspicion of rape and the Americans say that he's commited a serious crime and now they want him too.
Yesterday Attorney-General Robert McClelland asked the federal police to see if any criminal laws have been breached but the reality is that they can't do anything about an Australian citizen who is running a website out of Sweden unless a criminal offence has been commited and it looks like they can't find one.
So has this man done the world a service and given us an insight into what our governments really think about each other or has he inflamed an already stained relationship between countries and made things worse?
Yesterday Equador offered Assange residency with no questions asked. "We are ready to give him residence in Equador with no problems and no conditions" Deputy Foreign Minister Kintto Lucas said.
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