Susan Templeman (Macquarie, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Deputy Speaker, what a pleasure to see you in the chair. I don't think I'll forget the disbelief I felt back on 5 June 2019 when John Lyons at the ABC started tweeting that an AFP raid was underway at the ABC. This was my husband's old workplace. I know many ABC journalists. I think my bewilderment was probably tenfold within the walls of ABC's Ultimo headquarters as the raid was happening, and John Lyons brought it to life for us. He told us about the coffees that were being brought in for the AFP officers. He gave us some insight into the conversations that were being had over what I think was a nine-hour raid, where they went through and determined what they were going to take and what they weren't. He described the special AFP sticky tape, the evidence-sealing tape, as they began sealing bags with USBs. I think that was a shock for everyone like me who's been a journalist, because that is not common practice in Australia. We do not have a history of having our offices raided.

Since those extraordinary raids on News Corp journalist Annika Smethurst's home—not her workplace, her home—and that ABC headquarters, the Morrison government has maintained that the law was fine, the law doesn't need to change, there's nothing to see here, there is not a problem. But clearly there was a problem, and we all know now that he was wrong to maintain that the law was fine. That there is a problem with the law, and this Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security report has unanimously rejected the view that things are fine. There is something to see here, and there is something that needs to be addressed.

As a journalist originally, my initial response to the release of these findings by the committee was one of relief, because the pressures on journalists are bad enough without an additional fear that you'll be locked up for reporting something. I don't think people appreciate this, but, as a journalist, you are busting a gut to make sure that not only do you have the story before one of your competitors or your colleagues but that you can turn it into something that's able to be broadcast or published really fast. And not only do you have to do all that, you have to get it right, or as right as you possibly can, in the time that you've got. So I can't imagine what it feels like now, in this really fast-faced media environment compared to the one I worked in 30 years ago, to see the senior people that you respect facing raids on their offices and their homes. That is not doing anything to bring a sense of confidence to journalists, that by doing the right thing they will be okay. So the bipartisan recommendations in this report are really welcome. I think, if they were implemented, they would go a long way to be a really significant improvement for the legal protections that journalists have.

A key change is the way federal warrants that relate to professional journalists and media organisations are issued and contested. So while now this report is saying that we can't have journalists know about the warrant before it's issued, what we can have is a public advocate who can appear before a senior judge—and we're talking about a judge, as is recommended in the report, of the Supreme Court or the Federal Court. So while the agencies, the media organisations, won't get advanced notice, there will be someone who can actually challenge the warrant and the legality of it—a public interest advocate who can speak on behalf of journalists and media organisations. So that's a really good step forward.

The Committee has also recommended a review of how national security legislation is applied as far as the classification of government documents goes. There is a concern that high-level classifications are being put on documents which really don't deserve that status.

It's highly likely that even if just these processes had been in place when the warrants for the three journalists were sought we might have seen a different outcome. A Labor has said, though, we don't believe that the 16 recommendations go far enough to protect press freedom.

A government member: No!

Freedom of the press is central to a functioning democracy—

A government member: I agree with that!

It's absolutely essential, and it's great to hear those opposite agree. Freedom of the press is under threat from multiple fronts. The market is so fragmented now that there have been huge consequences for traditional media and a profound loss of jobs in every broadcast and print medium. The journalists and their sources need to be protected so that stories that someone wants kept secret are able to be told. Because news is often what someone doesn't want reported, and to use legal force to prevent that publication should not be possible. It's a journalist's job to find out those stories and to build trust with their sources so that they can share information that they believe is in the public interest. I want to thank Dan Oakes, Sam Clark and Annika Smethurst for being fearless in doing that.

As the union representing journalists, the MEAA, of which I'm a member, says, 'There remains a raft of so-called national security laws that can be used to criminalise journalism and punish whistleblowers for telling the truth.' No-one is saying journalists should be above the law, but even if the recommended changes are adopted, there is still a situation where journalists are considered guilty before the law and are required to prove that they haven't breached any laws—a different standard than for anybody else.

The concern about press freedom isn't the exclusive domain of journalists and media organisations. The third annual MEAA press freedom survey showed that 89 per cent of the 2½ thousand respondents said that the health of press freedom in Australia was poor or very poor, and that there had been a change for the worse to the tune of 18 percentage points. Looking at the trends over the past decade, 98 per cent of people said that it had got worse, compared to 90 per cent in 2019. This shows that this is something we should all care about. It shouldn't just be journalists or ex-journalists who care about this. It's relevant to everybody. The chief executive of the MEAA, Paul Murphy, describes the sentiment as the sort you'd expect to see 'in a despotic police state, not a country that prides itself on being a liberal democracy that chides the failings in others.'

While this is a good first step, there is much more that can be done to make sure journalists are free to do their job, free to hold governments to account and free to uncover things that are being hidden by bureaucracies and private organisations as well as government organisations. I commend this report, but it is just a first step.

Mike Freelander (Macarthur, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the honourable member and I call the member for Goldstein.

Tim Wilson (Goldstein, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

'Gold-styne', Deputy Speaker! The Goldstein electorate is named after a very famous suffragette by the name of Vida Goldstein.

Mike Freelander (Macarthur, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I know.

Tim Wilson (Goldstein, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Every time we mention her name, we honour her memory.

Mike Freelander (Macarthur, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Indeed. She was a contemporary of my great-grandmother.

Tim Wilson (Goldstein, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

A contemporary of your great-grandmother? That's very good. That's why it's so important to get it right. In fact I understand that a Labor member contacted a historian to make the point that the member for Goldstein kept mispronouncing it and was making a dill of himself, only to be lectured by the historian that in fact it is 'Gold-styne', not 'Gold-steen'.

But that's not what we're here to talk about, now that we've made that important correction. We're here to talk about the report of the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security on press freedom. As you know, Deputy Speaker, I was part of that inquiry, since I am privileged to be a member of the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security. Of course this inquiry came about as a consequence of criticism—justified, I think—of investigations into I think technically former journalist—or certainly on the road to being former journalist or at least sabbaticalled former journalist—Annika Smethurst, where there were investigations into her private home as part of uncovering the source of leaking of documents on the basis of national security.

This inquiry was justified and very relevant for a number of reasons. Firstly, because there was obviously a moment of community concern. I'm not going to try and pretend. Most of the concern came from the free press itself, but there was also community concern about making sure that the free press is not stifled. Being somebody who believes very strongly in not just free speech but also freedom of the press, I share those concerns. I don't care who sits on this side of the parliament, we must speak truth to power. Of course, I'd much prefer it be us, but, even then, I believe there must be truth speaking to power. There were difficult questions being asked, including of myself and the member for Mackellar. I know he has an awful lot to hide! That's the basis upon which I get to speak truth to power to him, but there's also, of course, the Prime Minister and everybody else. In the end, there is nothing more that humans should be concerned about than concentrations of power—economic power or political power, because they are the first be abused. It's one of the core reasons why I'm a Liberal. I can never understand why anybody would want to sit on the other side of this chamber and believe in any other value, because every other political system is anchored around concentrations of power to the benefit of a few and at the expense of the many. We are focused on the many. That is why we believe so strongly in a free press. That's why the minister called this inquiry, that's why the committee, led by a Liberal chair, conducted it, and that's why we came up with such important recommendations.

The second reason I believe in this inquiry is that it does not matter where you are. Even if there are no events, there are important issues that should be revisited from time to time, on both sides of the ledger. What we confronted in this inquiry weren't just issues about freedom of the press, although that is very important and we need to make sure the laws are tinkered in the digital age and are appropriate and contextual to our times; we also looked at the apparatus and the provisions around national security laws and the classification of documents, and whether that was relevant for the 21st century. The report made a series of recommendations looking at reviews, consistent with what has previously been done. Other recommendations were proposed about making sure we have correct classifications of documents so that, if there is information that goes through the appropriate steps or through whistleblowers, legitimately, to appropriate authorities, that information can't be suppressed when it might simply be embarrassing to the government. It needs to have a standard met, at a level that we all would reasonably accept, that it can't be released unless it's on the basis that it breaches national security. That's a good thing. I really support that. I always have a concern that people in positions of power and authority will classify documents or—

A division having been called in the House of Representatives—

Sitting suspended from 16:42 to 17:03

Julie Owens (Parramatta, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The question is that the document be noted. I call the member for Goldstein.

Tim Wilson (Goldstein, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Thank you, Deputy Speaker, but do we really need to go through this again? I went through this with the other deputy speaker, about how it's pronounced 'Gold-styne', named after a suffragette. Every time we mention the name of the electorate, we honour her, so I respectfully counsel the deputy speaker that that's how we pronounce the name of the electorate Goldstein correctly. In any case, that's the second time I've now had to do that in this speech, so hopefully we don't have a third deputy speaker!

The principal reason I support this report is it constructively goes through all the different issues that we find with the tension between national security and freedom of the press. I outlined before the division how strongly I support both principles, and they are important. There are some people who believe in almost unlimited or unfettered restrictions or limited restrictions on the press to be able do their job. Idealistically, that suits me. In practice, when you work through the issues around national security and the risk to lives, particularly with sensitive information being released, that's not a viable option unless you're prepared to discard those lives for freedom. I always sit on the freedom versus security ledger, but I also recognise the need for national security not only for the interests of government to be able to deliberate and do its work but also because we don't want officers in the field who may be doing particular types of work to be exposed to harm. That's what we've sought to introduce in this report. We can go through it and the different recommendations, line by line, but what's clear to me is that putting in an effective mechanism to make sure that the classification of documents is properly scrutinised and done in accordance with the spirit of law as well as the practice of what we should expect as a Five Eyes partner is critical. I think that making sure we revisit a lot of those previous reviews, which made recommendations that haven't necessarily been fully enacted by successive governments, is also critically important.

One of the things that arose specifically out of the Smethurst case was whether registrars could issue warrants. As a member of the inquiry, this was one of my bugbears, and it was a simple thing to fix, to build a sense of public confidence. That in itself is mostly what we are talking about. I think that our national security agencies do an outstanding job. I think they do it deliberatively and cautiously. In terms of their roles, there is a constant review of the functions and powers, as well as an auditing of the activities, of both the IGIS and the Independent National Security Legislation Monitor. Of course, the IGIS effectively has the power of a standing royal commission. I think they take those roles very seriously and I think they do an excellent job. I'll leave it to the members of this chamber to decide whether they think the free press always do their job with the same degree of responsibility. I have mixed views at times, but that is the price of freedom. That is why I am a great believer in free speech in particular.

So, getting that balance right is important. I think that having proper courts and superior court judges issuing warrants is a foundational test for making sure that there is public confidence. When they're issued by a registrar to journalists it erodes public confidence that there are proper considerations in place, that there are proper restraints and that there are proper consideration of the public interest in its many forms, including security and of course freedom, in this discussion. There is also the involvement of a public interest advocate, looking at the justification for a warrant but also making weighty decisions about what the public interest is in making sure that the public gets the information they need to hold us—meaning all of us—and the agencies and arms of government, as well as, of course, politicians, to account.

That's where I feel we got the balance overwhelmingly right. The member for Berowra made some additional comments—and I've no doubt that he'll give a very erudite outline of the basis of his comments. I associated myself with them. They're not dissenting from the report. They're not arguing against the report. They're talking about a general trend around what warrants ultimately are and particularly around the fact that they are an obligation and a responsibility of the executive versus the courts and that we should reflect that and acknowledge that as part of the discussion around these issues.

Of course, the Parliamentary Joint Committee of Intelligence and Security do quite a substantial and weighty amount of work, not just in the areas of freedom of speech, freedom of the press and national security; we have inquiries looking at any number of other areas of legislation, like the legislative clearing house, as well as the more recently announced inquiry related to tertiary institutions and the role of foreign interference, which, I think, at this time, is critical for building another type of confidence.

The PJCIS works very well, and I want to acknowledge all of the members, even those from the opposition that I sometimes have strategic disagreements with! Sometimes I have strategic disagreements with members from my own side as well—it's true—inside and outside the committee. I thank them very much for their constructive work under the chairmanship of the member for Canning, who does an excellent job stewarding the committee and steering us all in the right direction. The truth is that it is a committee where there is so much work that needs to be done, particularly on the detail. I want to thank everybody who had input into this inquiry—your voices were heard and listened to—and also to the secretariat, who bring all of those voices together into a digestible form to enable us committee members to successfully prosecute our job. I commend the report to the Federation Chamber.

Julian Leeser (Berowra, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

by leave—I sought leave to make a statement on behalf of the member for Canning, who chairs this committee so well, as my friend the member for Goldstein just said. I presented the report on behalf of the committee and spoke about the report in general, and I wanted to use a small amount of my time today to note the additional comments that the member for Goldstein, myself and Senator Abetz made in the context of this report.

This report was an unusual activity for the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security. Most of our activities as a committee involve the examination of bills, often giving those bills quite a technical assessment, and making recommendations as to the parts of those bills that could be amended. This was an inquiry that was more traditional of other committees of which I've been involved on, and was more traditional of other committees in this parliament, which look at issues of broad public policy consideration. And so, instead of considering the minutia of particular bills, we were actually trying to chart a way forward for public policy.

Like the member for Goldstein and Senator Abetz, I don't dissent from any of the recommendations that have been made by the committee—in fact, I join with all members—but the three of us wanted to make a particular point in this inquiry of observing a trend about the issuing of warrants. In the particular circumstances that gave rise to the inquiry, warrants were issued to search the premises of Ms Annika Smethurst and the ABC by an issuing officer who was the registrar of the local court at Queanbeyan. The registrar of the local court at Queanbeyan has wide powers to issue warrants for everything from searches through to arrests—they are a very experienced officer. But, given that agencies were seeking to effectively search out the premises and the home of media organisations and given the important role that the media plays in our democracy, informing the Australian public of the activities of their government and critiquing those activities, it was thought in these instances, instances that involve warrants issued relating to journalists or media organisations, that those warrants should be issued by superior court judges, either Federal Court judges or judges of the Supreme Courts of the states, or the Attorney-General, in relation to some warrants that relate to ASIO powers.

For myself, I thought that this was a very important thing to do because it addressed the public concern about such a low-level official in our nation issuing a search warrant for an important democratic protector, which the press provide. But one of the things that we have been seeing on the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security generally is a trend to the judicialisation of warrants, and I think that this is a worrying trend. The issuing of warrants, as the member for Goldstein pointed out, is an executive and not a judicial action, and in increasing the issuing of warrants to the judiciary rather than executive officers effectively what we're doing is changing the balance. We are losing the knowledge, the expertise, the balance that we've developed in those officers who are regularly used to issuing warrants. This, in many instances, may be a good thing, but we should be cautious in doing so because custom, tradition, codes of practice and knowledge of the balance may well be lost over time.

In our additional comments we make the point that, because this issue of who should issue warrants in which circumstance constantly comes up in different reports before our committee, the government should develop a principled approach to the appropriate authority for warrant issuing generally. And that is, I think, the key recommendation, because in committee hearing after committee hearing the issue of warrants arises and I don't think there's adequate justification for who should issue warrants in which particular circumstances.

The other point that the additional comments make is to note that the public interest advocate regime—which it's proposed to extend in this report from the journalist information warrant area to all areas that deal with warrants sought against media organisations or against journalists—as the report suggests, should apply whether it's the Attorney or whether it is a Supreme Court judge or a superior court judge, a Federal Court judge, issuing warrants. In relation to the Attorney, I think, as with the journalist information warrant, it provides a very helpful mechanism. But I wonder in relation to superior court judges, given that they are among the smartest and most experienced legal officers in the land and the most able to weigh up these competing concerns, whether the public interest advocate role in those circumstances is necessary.

Nonetheless, those comments aside, we completely concur on the recommendations of the report, and let me take this opportunity again to acknowledge the good work of the member for Canning, who is an outstanding chair of this committee, and all members of the committee for the good work that they do.

Debate adjourned.