Dismiss charges, urges Government

COMMONWEALTH solicitor-general David Bennett was eloquent in his praise of political journalists Gerard McManus and Michael Harvey as they pleaded guilty to contempt charges before the Victorian County Court this week.

COMMONWEALTH solicitor-general David Bennett was eloquent in his praise of political journalists Gerard McManus and Michael Harvey as they pleaded guilty to contempt charges before the Victorian County Court this week.

The journalists were of fine reputation, Mr Bennett QC said. The court should dismiss the contempt charges brought against the two veteran reporters. At the very least, they should not be sent to jail.

The Government's intervention in the reporters' case was hypocritical, according to Australian Press Council chairman Ken McKinnon. He said the federal Government is "determined to prevent leakages to the point of intimidation".

McManus, senior political reporter for the Melbourne Herald Sun, and Harvey, chief political reporter and bureau chief of the Herald Sun's Canberra bureau, were called as witnesses at a pre-trial hearing in the case of Desmond Kelly, a public servant accused of leaking confidential government information.

Mr Kelly was charged with the leak after Australian Federal Police trawled through the telephone records of hundreds of public servants looking for a match with the telephone numbers of either of the journalists.

The leak led to a report that the Government had accepted only one-sixth of the recommendations of a wide-ranging review into veterans' entitlements and planned to short-change veterans of $500 million.

Mr Kelly was convicted by a Victorian County Court jury and given a suspended sentence, but he was acquitted of the charge by the state's Court of Appeal last year.

The reporters were charged with contempt at the insistence of the County Court.

Mr McKinnon said the prosecution of Mr Kelly, that led to the contempt charges being laid, was unnecessary and revealed a government obsessed with the control ofinformation damaging to it.

"The Government was ruthless in its pursuit of the journalists and didn't mind trampling on freedom of expression and the capacity of journalists to serve the public interest,"he said.

Mr Bennett rejected the view that the Government was somehow to blame for the prosecution of McManus and Harvey, pointing out that contempt charges were initiated by the County Court.

"I don't quite see how the bringing of the prosecution is anything to do with my client, the Government," he said. "The Director of Public Prosecutions is independent and the judge is certainly independent."

As McManus and Harvey wait to learn whether the court will use its discretion to dismiss the contempt charges against them, NSW is still the only state that has a piece of legislation that can be relied upon by a journalist in protecting a source.

Labor's Kelvin Thompson has attacked the Government over its failure, as yet, to amend the Commonwealth Evidence Act.

According to a submission tendered by Mr Bennett to the County Court, the federal Government intends to introduce legislation to amend the Commonwealth Evidence Act after model legislation has been drawn up by parliamentary lawyers from NSW, Victoria and the commonwealth.

The model legislation would be drafted on the current NSW law. But in NSW, the right to journalists' confidentiality is far from absolute. Any potential harm to a source must be balanced against the value of the evidence and the gravity of a charge.

Federal Attorney-General Philip Ruddock this week blamed the states for their delay in introducing uniform evidence laws. But Mr Ruddock's comments ignored the fact that his own Government's "model provisions" for amending the federal act were not finalised either.

Victorian Attorney-General Rob Hulls said Victoria's amendments to the evidence act will be introduced some time this year.