Australia’s Right to Know coalition outlines media freedom protections

Letter details six changes Australia’s Right to Know coalition wants to prevent government interference and excessive secrecy laws.

The Right to Know coalition, made up of Australia's top media companies and industry organisations, is pushing for stronger protections for media freedom. Photo illustration: Getty Images

Australian media organisations have ramped-up pressure on Canberra to overhaul laws to protect journalists and freedom of speech, a day after the industry launched an unprecedented campaign that saw their front pages blacked out.

Australia’s Right to Know coalition, which consists of nearly 20 media companies and organisations, have outlined in a letter the six changes they want to prevent government interference and excessive secrecy laws hindering important work by journalists.

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The industry wants the right to contest the application of warrants for journalists and media organisations and exemptions for journalists from laws that would put them in jail for doing their work.

In addition, they also want adequate protection for public sector whistleblowers; a new regime that limits which documents can be stamped secret; a “properly functioning” freedom of information regime; and defamation law reform.

Campbell Reid, News Corp Australia’s group executive for corporate affairs, policy and government said in the letter on behalf of Australia’s Right to Know coalition, that Prime Minister Scott Morrison told parliament this week Australians would not want to live in a country where politicians on a whim could decide who gets prosecuted and who doesn’t.

“We couldn’t agree more,” he said.

“And yet we do live in that country. The Attorney-General – a politician – has the power to decide if journalists will be prosecuted.”

Keeping the public informed

The Right to Know coalition’s members, include public broadcasters ABC and SBS, plus media group’s such as Nine Entertainment, Seven West Media, News Corp Australia, WIN Network, Free TV Australia, Commercial Radio Australia and Daily Mail Australia.

Mr Reid blamed the current situation on the government, which has passed laws that have made “the ordinary work of journalists to keep the public informed a crime”.

“These matters should not be dependent on the subjective assessment or good graces of any individual politician. The laws should strike the right balance,” he said.

“In recent years, government has passed too many laws that favour secrecy over openness. They are at odds with the expectation that we live in an open and transparent society.”

Above the law

Mr Reid said when politicians gather in parliament they are above the law and have the right to say anything with the protection of parliamentary privilege.

“This special circumstance allows you to have the open debates that are so important to democracy.

“Journalism’s role in reporting the workings of democracy to the public is also a special circumstance,” he said in the letter.

Mr Reid said they don’t want anything like the “blanket exemption” that some have claimed, rather they want “common sense changes to laws so that, like politicians, the unique role journalists have in serving society is acknowledged”.

“In the countries that share our democratic values, this responsibility is enshrined and protected in their constitutions and guiding documents.

“In Australia, there is no such protection for freedom of speech and this is why we are fighting for it now,” he said in the two-page letter.