Stuart Robert (Fadden, Liberal Party, Assistant Minister for Defence) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Melbourne. We do not deal in hypotheticals, because the full notes of the case are not known. It is the judiciary that will determine if there is a conviction or a prosecution occurring. It is the DPP that will determine if a case is put forward. So we cannot deal in hypotheticals. The members knows that we cannot deal in hypotheticals. And no-one from either side of the House deals with them.

Let's go back and apply the common-sense test to which this legislation refers. The legislation is simply saying that if a journalist wilfully discloses and compromises an operation of such significance to the nation and the protection of its people an offence may have occurred. This is dealt with in numerous areas. There are areas that deal with interception law across the military space, where it is very clear to journalists that if you reveal areas in the nation's interception space you are liable for some degree of action. This has been in place for decades, and I have never yet come across a journalist who said that they do not understand the limits of how this law applies to what they can and cannot report.

So it is fine for journalists to operate in a framework with Defence, keeping in mind that we embed journalists in our military operations all the time; we have done for a decade. Journalists from every major reporting network and paper we have embedded in Afghanistan. In combat operations we have put them with our special forces. We have put them in our forward operating bases with very strict requirements on what they can and cannot report. And for a decade Australian journalists have not had a problem. In fact, the last time that I can recall that there was an issue of journalists pre-empting or disclosing military operations in an unauthorised manner was when the paras went to Goose Green in 1982 during the Falklands War. The journalist pre-empted an assault by the parachute regiment at Goose Green. The end result was that the commanding officer was killed and quite a substantial battle ensued.

That was 32 years ago, involving the British forces. We have had such a long operation of journalists understanding the need to be sensitive with a range of disclosures that journalists well and truly understand the limits. It is not muzzling of free speech; it is simply appropriately dealing with issues that we are looking at, at the time. So the member quite rightly asks: is the government concerned about journalists not understanding the limits to which they can use their journalistic freedom? The vast experience of journalists embedding in the military and working in this space clearly says: no, there is not a problem.

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