Security law at odds with Coalition philosophy

In the post-truth world of fake news it is harder to build a public constituency for the media’s right to know.

In the post-truth world of fake news it is harder to build a public constituency for the media’s right to know than it was when News Corp and the ABC set up the Right to Know Coalition in 2007.

But the industry has come ­together again to fight the Turnbull government’s new National Security Amendment (Espionage and Foreign Interference) Bill 2017. The bill, launched in December, has effectively revitalised the coalition, first spearheaded by former News Australia CEO John Hartigan, and more media players have joined forces. The original coalition was an attempt to salvage something from a High Court loss by The Australian in freedom of ­information searches for documents from then treasurer Peter Costello’s office that really should have been available to the public.

New Attorney-General Christian Porter told this newspaper on Thursday that he was open to amendments to the bill to avoid unintended consequences. Media companies and the journalists’ union, the MEAA, had on January 22 launched a document in ­response to the bill. They are concerned it could criminalise some of the work of public accountability journalists. Not only journalists are concerned. Churches fear they could be caught up in provisions banning groups answering to foreign powers (the Vatican, for ­example) and academics are worried research that involves dealing with overseas entities or financing from foreign governments could also create risks.

At the heart of all this is a principle many media consumers do not really understand. Leaks to the media are good, both for holding governments to account and for ensuring good public policy is not overtaken by political self-interest. I am not talking here about self-serving leaks by politicians ­designed to advance their personal interests or damage their rivals.

Former prime minister Kevin Rudd was the master of such leaks. But he does not like leaks that serve the public interest rather than his self-interest. He launched legal action last Thursday over leaked documents concerning his failed pink batts scheme.

The ABC’s co-ordinated online publication of the best stories from the leaked documents also ­includes a user-friendly online presentation of Rudd-era warnings to cabinet about the dangers of Stephen Conroy’s rushed ­National Broadband Network. There are also revelations about the Abbott government covering up legal advice about its pink batts royal commission and about Australian Federal Police bungling.

There is no case — other than political self-interest — for secrecy of many such documents. Quite the reverse. There is a strong argument warnings from the bureau­cracy about pinks batts and NBN should have been made public at the time. Just look at the reaction of politicians to the ABC’s genuine “cabinet leak”, when a used government filing cabinet sold to a second-hand store in Fyshwick in Canberra was found to contain top secret cabinet documents that normally would not have seen the light of day for 20 years.

The ABC did the right thing. News director Gaven Morris made clear he had worked with authorities to make sure nothing that could threaten national ­security was published. Why then the raid on the corporation’s Canberra and Brisbane offices after midnight on Wednesday and the orchestrated handover in those ­offices and Melbourne the next night? This is Keystone Cops from the PM’s office that ordered the raid after selling its own secret documents by accident.

Given the political incompetence of the past decade, why should the public trust a government trying to expand its powers over what voters may know? Yet there are reasons for a revised bill. Intelligence services say there have never been more foreign spy incursions in our country, and around the world.

WikiLeaks compromised the safety of US military personnel on the ground in Iraq by distributing thousands of documents leaked by a disgruntled soldier, Bradley Manning. Edward Snowden leaked a treasure trove of Western intelligence documents and fled to Russia. Neither WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange nor Snowden has done anything to undermine the regimes in Russia and China. Assange damaged Democrat candidate Hillary Clinton by releasing her emails and Russia is being ­investigated for wider interference in the presidential election.

China has spent up on access to our universities by funding courses and academic projects and ­directly interfering in the freedom of Chinese students. China even sought to sabotage a film festival in Melbourne in 2009 that screened a documentary about Rebiya Kadeer, leader of the Uyghur minority in western China. We also know the Chinese have been responsible for hacking attempts on government and defence contractors here and in the US.

Will China and Russia really be deterred by legal threats from Australia? Not likely. A free media’s focus on foreign intelligence ­incursions is far more likely to make China and Russia rethink their efforts than legal threats.

Attorney-General Porter says the bill has tried to allow public ­interest exemptions and is not aimed at the media. Yet a reading of the explanatory memorandum to the bill suggests otherwise, ­especially paragraphs 1637 to 1642. The bill gives the government wide scope to determine what is in the public interest and what is fair and accurate. Offences under the bill carry heavy penalties. The ­offence of “communication” carries a penalty of 15 years’ jail, “deals” with — which may simply mean knowing about a document without having it — five years.

The New York Times’ Australian bureau chief, Peter Cave, on Tuesday filed an excellent piece warning of the sorts of practical problems the bill could cause. He outlined possible adverse effects on whistleblowing against misconduct by public officers, quoting a report by the Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security to parliament: “A person who prints, copies or makes notes from a document ... but has not, or is pre­vented from, communicating the information to the IGIS would be exposed to criminal liability.” That is, if you want to dob someone in to the right authority you can be prosecuted even if found out by the person allegedly responsible for the wrongdoing.

Cave sites examples of a government employee witnessing misconduct by a soldier in Afghanistan or “a security analyst pushing false information up the chain of command”. The person whose ­actions are being complained about could launch action against the whistleblower. Yet exposure in both examples would be in the ­national interest.

Private discussions of, and documents about, economic data, trade policy or GST arrangements between the federal and state governments could ensnare economists and economics journalists in the espionage legislation.

This is an illiberal reform at odds with Coalition philosophy and more reminiscent of dra­conian laws that apply in totalitarian systems.