Mark Dreyfus (Isaacs, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Attorney General) Share this | Hansard source

All Australians were shocked in June, just a couple of weeks after the election, to see the police raiding journalists for doing their jobs. This is a matter that the Attorney-General has spoken about, and I'd start by asking him: why did the Australian Federal Police, on consecutive days, raid the home of a News Corp journalist and the Sydney office of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation?

The government has repeatedly claimed that it respects press freedom and that it wants to protect journalists. The government has claimed that it understands the vital role that the media plays in the health of our democracy. But those words ring hollow in the face of those raids having been conducted. The words ring hollow in the face of the statements that have been made by the Prime Minister and the Minister for Home Affairs, who's the minister now responsible for the Australian Federal Police, in the weeks and months since those raids took place. They say things like 'nobody is above the law'. That's one of the favourite statements of the Minister for Home Affairs, and similar statements have come from the Prime Minister. But I'd ask the Attorney-General whether he agrees with the proposition that the police should not be raiding journalists just because they are doing their job.

Can the Attorney-General confirm, while he's answering these questions about press freedom, that the Federal Police raids were carried out in response to possible breaches of section 79 of the Crimes Act? Can the Attorney-General confirm that before these raids being conducted in June 2019 no journalist or media organisation had ever been prosecuted under section 79? Can the Attorney-General perhaps explain why he, alone, in the 104-year history of this law thinks it's appropriate to use the criminal law, specifically section 79 of the Crimes Act, to target journalists for doing their jobs?

Jonathan Holmes, a former Media Watch broadcaster, writing in the Sydney Morning Herald just last month on 27 August drew attention to these questions, and they're questions that need to be answered. It might be that the Attorney-General has said that he would be—his words—'seriously disinclined' to authorise the prosecution of journalists just for doing their jobs. Well, he needs to answer the question of why these raids went ahead in the first place, and how it is that the Commonwealth government, apparently for the first time ever, is not just using section 79 but now is having searches conducted with warrants that alleged that the journalists concerned might in fact be charged with the offence of theft—something which has never been considered before. But it might mean that in future, any journalist who receives any information that's not authorised from a Commonwealth officer—whether it's harmful or not, it might be completely innocuous, whether it's already been published or been binned—risks, apparently, prosecution for stolen property with a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison. The chilling effect, the intimidatory effect on journalists, on the media, in this country can only be contemplated.

Does the Attorney-General agree that a strong and independent media is vital to holding governments to account? And, if so, what plans does the Attorney-General—and anyone in this government—have to strengthen press freedom and ensure that there is no repeat of the raids we saw in June? It is a matter for the government. It's not a matter which the government can simply wash its hands of and say, 'Oh, that's a matter for the police.' It's the government which, as, in effect, the complainant, determines that a referral takes place. It's the government which is complaining about the matter of particular leaks, because this government's very selective—they don't care about some leaks when it suits their cause, but they care about other leaks when they are embarrassed by them—and it's this government that is ultimately responsible for the way in which the media in this country are being treated.

Can the Attorney-General confirm that as of this minute there is still a prospect that Annika Smethurst and journalists at the ABC could be prosecuted or even go to jail? An official told us that this was still the case at a hearing of the intelligence committee last month. Can the Attorney-General rule that out as well? Can he show some concern about media freedom?

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