David Penberthy: Raids on media have no place in our democracy
The Morrison Government deserves total denunciation following raids by the Australian Federal Police on media outlets this week, writes David Penberthy. This is the result of a bad law crafted by the Coalition.
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There is a significant gap between the level of media outrage about this week’s police raids on several news organisations versus the public’s ambivalence and mistrust towards the media’s motives.
While even the fiercest journalistic rivals have been united in anger at the AFP raids, there is a feeling in the broader community that this is merely a case of self-absorbed journos whingeing about their apparently God-given right to publish any old piece of information, with no regard for its national-security implications.
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We received one text on our radio program this week which was indicative of public sentiment on this issue and deserves to be published in full.
“Come on guys,” listener Tony wrote, “… you just brush over the fact that the leaks are coming from a department that obviously has sensitive information that could affect national security and safety. They should be trying to find who leaked the information, no matter how minor that information was, as you don’t know what other more sensitive information may have been breached. It’s a serious issue and more than just a freedom of press thing. I know you’re journalists but surely you can see the seriousness of these leaks?”
These are all fair questions. It is important that the media address them candidly and factually if we are going to win the argument for greater protections against intrusions into our work and those who leak newsworthy information.
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While I cannot speak for all journos or every news outlet, there is absolutely no way I would want to write or publish anything that could aid our enemies or bring undeserved damage to our intelligence community and defence personnel.
One of the more regrettable moments in our recent journalistic history was the awarding in 2011 of the Walkley Award for Outstanding Contribution to Journalism to none other than the now-widely discredited Julian Assange.
Assange’s brand of “journalism” through WikiLeaks is the polar opposite of what any responsible news organisation should strive for — the indiscriminate and reckless release of highly sensitive information, often with questionable news value, obtained by suspect means, with zero regard for the safety of intelligence officers in the field, or crucial security and trade relationships between countries.
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This is not the type of journalism we are talking about in the AFP raids involving my fellow News Corp reporter Annika Smethurst, nor the raids against the ABC.
The Smethurst story that sparked the AFP’s attention was an important and accurate piece of journalism that was wholly relevant to the lives of every Australian citizen. She reported last April on a secret government plan to let the Australian Signals Directorate secretly access the emails, bank records and text messages of every Australian citizen, under the guise of national security.
As a result of this article, Smethurst had the cops lob on the doorstep at her Canberra home, even rifling through her undie drawer, to find out everything they could in a bid to identify her source.
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The ABC was also raided as a result of its story investigating possible human rights violations by Australian Defence Force personnel serving in Afghanistan.
Again, this was an important and valid story. To suggest that a story this grave should not be published is akin to saying that the US press should never have covered the My Lai massacre during the Vietnam War as it would damage the reputation of its military personnel.
As distressing as it sounds, there are times when generally good organisations deserve to have their reputations damaged, not on account of journalistic recklessness or fantasy but their own documented actions.
If you disagree with the assertion, fine, but it puts you in the same company as Robert Mugabe, Deng Xiaoping and Chile’s General Pinochet.
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Some of the media reaction and political reaction to these raids has been hysterical, stupid and counter-productive.
For a few hours on Wednesday, the term “Gestapo” was trending on Twitter, as if this all confirms that the newly re-elected Scott Morrison is about to usher in his own Thousand Year Reich.
There were claims that Peter Dutton himself must have directed the AFP to conduct the raids. The wackiest theory was peddled by former journalist George Megalogenis, a man who spent a good 30 years letting Rupert Murdoch pay his mortgage, but now believes that News Corp’s scrutiny of the ABC might have forced the AFP to raid the national broadcaster.
The more muted and sensible position should be simply that police action of this nature has no place in an open and mature democracy. On this score, the Morrison Government deserves total denunciation.
None of the events of this week should invite criticism of the AFP. The AFP doesn’t make the laws. It enforces the laws. And it is enforcing a bad law that was crafted by the Coalition.
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As Chris Merritt wrote in The Australian yesterday, when these national-security laws were being debated last year, the Government gave the media a public interest defence to protect it against the publication of secret information that could be reasonably argued to be in the public interest.
But it rejected a recommendation from the Law Society to extend that same protection to whistleblowers who provide the information to the media. This has created a perverse situation where journalists will be targeted not for what they have published, but in a bid to get to the person who provided them with the information. If the journo doesn’t co-operate — and we are duty-bound not to — it invites a charge of contempt.
The AFP is doing nothing more than implementing Scott Morrison’s ham-fisted legislation. Morrison stands condemned for his ambivalence on all this, shrugging his shoulders as if it’s no big deal.
For a bloke who has spent the past fortnight being hailed for his miracle victory — albeit grudgingly in some journalistic quarters — he has managed to change the media narrative about his own Government in record time.
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