NewsBite

‘It’s appalling’: Veteran journalist’s grim warning after AFP raids

Veteran journalist Kerry O’Brien had launched a blistering attack after raids on a News Corp journalist’s home and the ABC.

ABC latest target in series of AFP raids

Veteran journalist Kerry O’Brien has compared police raids on News Corp journalist Annika Smethurst’s home and the ABC’s Sydney office as “two big steps down the road” to authoritarianism in Australia.

During a segment about last week’s raids by the Australian Federal Police that shocked the nation, The Sunday Project questioned why officers were investigating leaks of top secret information only on stories that appeared to embarrass the government.

The show repeatedly highlighted comments made by Prime Minister Scott Morrison who said, “No one is above the law” — referring to journalists and whistleblowers — but suggested that politicians themselves did not appear to be subjected to such vigorous scrutiny.

“Firstly, I would say there would be an awful lot of politicians who would have had conversations with Annika Smethurst that would be very worried about those conversations being made public,” O’Brien told The Sunday Project.

Hosts of The Sunday Project who interviewed Kerry O'Brien on the AFP raids. Picture: Channel 10
Hosts of The Sunday Project who interviewed Kerry O'Brien on the AFP raids. Picture: Channel 10

The AFP conducted a seven-hour raid on Smethurst’s Canberra home, going through her cookbooks, personal belongings and underwear drawer, after she wrote a Herald Sun article in April last year about proposed changes to domestic espionage laws to give spy agencies powers to secretly access the emails, text messages and bank details of Australians.

The following day, AFP officers executed a search warrant at the Sydney headquarters of the ABC, reviewing almost 10,000 documents used in a journalistic investigation — known as The Afghan Files — into alleged unlawful killings and misconduct by Special Forces in Afghanistan.

However, The Sunday Project noted an article by The Australian based on leaked information of classified information about the so-called medevac bill — considered to be favourable to the Federal Government — was not investigated.

O’Brien said the raids were “inextricably linked” with the political process even though they were “all done at arm’s length” from the government and Mr Morrison who was in London at the time and has denied all prior knowledge of the raids.

Retired ABC journalist Kerry O'Brien has painted a grim picture of freedom of the press in Australia after the AFP raids. Picture: Mathew Farrell
Retired ABC journalist Kerry O'Brien has painted a grim picture of freedom of the press in Australia after the AFP raids. Picture: Mathew Farrell

“The question here is, why raid Annika Smethurst’s home and not her office?” O’Brien told The Sunday Project.

“One possible stark reason perhaps is her office is in the middle of the parliament.”

He said executing a search warrant at Australia’s democratic centre could have caused “quite a ruckus” and described the AFP’s actions against Smethurst and the ABC as “two big steps down the road to authoritarianism in this country”.

“It’s appalling,” he said. “We need to take a serious look at legislation that will enshrine journalistic freedom to do the jobs they are supposed to do in a democracy.”

Earlier this week, O’Brien told ABC Radio that people had to be “really clear about what’s at stake here”.

“If they care about democracy, this does go to the heart of democracy and the democratic process,” he said. “You are talking about the media going about its job in providing scrutiny to areas of government where scrutiny is not easy.

Annika Smethurst at her Canberra home which earlier was searched by six AFP officers who riffled through her personal items over seven hours. Picture Gary Ramage
Annika Smethurst at her Canberra home which earlier was searched by six AFP officers who riffled through her personal items over seven hours. Picture Gary Ramage

“You are also talking about the role of whistleblowers, who are mostly well-motivated people who are disturbed about what they are seeing inside the government in this case.”

On Thursday, AFP Commissioner Neil Gaughan said: “One reason why the search warrants took so long, both at (Smethurst’s) house and also at the ABC, is we were very, very careful in relation to the search warrant that we ensured that we were only targeting the information that was relevant to the search warrant.

“Further, a search warrant prescribes what police can lawfully seize and anything which falls outside of these parameters is excluded.

“The material subject to this search warrant related to specific Top Secret and Secret documents — how it was handled and who had access to it.

“Any inference decisions about what could be lawfully included was influenced by anyone outside the AFP is wrong and strongly refuted.”

Add your comment to this story

To join the conversation, please Don't have an account? Register

Join the conversation, you are commenting as Logout

Original URL: https://www.news.com.au/national/politics/its-appalling-veteran-journalists-grim-warning-after-afp-raids/news-story/9331af88a06fe6b13f717b126e333e5c