Piers Akerman: Scott Morrison should back freedom of the press
After several days of consideration, Scott Morrison stated his government is “absolutely committed to the freedom of the press”. Now it’s time for the PM to step up and review the legislation, Piers Akerman writes.
Opinion
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No ifs or buts, Scott Morrison, the buck stops with you.
The election’s over. You won, you’ve been congratulated and you’ve had your international lap of honour, but your responses to the totally justified serial questioning you have received over the past week about attacks on press freedom have been flaccid at best.
But they really amount to nothing but despicable, weaselly sophistry. Arse-covering, and it stinks.
My Sunday Telegraph colleague, Annika Smethurst, had to endure the embarrassment of a team of Australian Federal Police rummaging through her underwear drawers and inspecting her kitchen appliances in their search for material which may have identified a leaker or leakers of documents within a number of departments.
Over at the ABC, the same authorities spent more than seven hours inspecting electronic files and downloading more than 9000 documents which may have been covered by an extremely broad-ranging warrant which gave them approval to “add, copy, delete or alter,” material in the ABC’s computers.
Over a year ago, Smethurst revealed Defence Secretary Greg Moriarty and Home Affairs Secretary Mike Pezzullo were discussing how the Australian Signals Directorate could be used domestically to fight cyber crime.
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Technically, it meant that the government would have had the power to spy on ordinary citizens had the suggestion proceeded to legislation and been enacted.
The ABC is being put through the wringer over a series of stories it carried two years ago on allegations of war crimes committed by Australian special forces in Afghanistan in 2011 and 2012.
A former defence lawyer, David McBride, was charged two months ago with five counts of leaking classified information which were alleged to have formed the basis of the reports and has been committed to stand trial.
Acting AFP Commissioner Neil Gaughan has denied the raids were politically influenced or timed around the federal election, saying the back-to-back raids were a matter of efficiently using resources.
That may be but the timing is certainly suspicious as is the post-election release of other information relating to asylum-seeker boats stopped and turned around at sea.
How national security, the basis upon which the legislation enabling the AFP raids to take place, has been affected by stories which appeared so long ago is difficult to fathom and thus it is difficult to avoid the conclusion that the week’s heavy-handed intimidatory intrusions were attempts to bludgeon the media into submission.
In a democracy, as Australia likes to proudly boast it is, transparency should be the first order of government but we lag behind many other First World nations in this regard.
The US has freedom of speech in its Constitution and by extension, freedom of the press.
Embedding various rights in our own Constitution now would open it up to becoming a lawyers’ picnic — clearly the time for serious protections for speech and the press to be enacted in law is long overdue.
Mr Morrison, it is trite to tell reporters on the other side of the world that you uphold what is lawful when it is apparent to all that the law urgently needs reform.
You can support the law as a concept but still be cognisant of its weaknesses and back a review.
You said you were unable to gauge public opinion from the shores of the English Channel where you were paying tribute to the heroes of D-Day but you have a staff (rather too large to be effectual, it would appear) to keep you informed. Perhaps you’re hoping that this is an issue that only resonates within “the bubble”.
For some decades, I have railed against the secrecy that pervades our court system through the iniquitous suppression orders that magistrates and judges have used to cloak their processes across the country to the detriment of the fundamental right to an open justice system.
Taking on the media may even win you some supporters, but it would be a most shortsighted tactic. Even the most virulent hater of the press might come to recognise when the media is eventually silenced.
After several days of consideration, you stated: “My government is absolutely committed to the freedom of the press.”
Now show you are fair dinkum.