In dark times, let’s shine a light

News Corp Australia journalist Annika Smethurst in front of her home in Canberra. Picture: Sean Davey

Next Thursday, it will be a year since the Australian Federal Police raided and searched the Canberra home of News Corp Australia journalist Annika Smethurst. She had reported government plans for an agency monitoring foreign intelligence to turn its sights on Australian citizens, a topic of obvious public interest. Yet Smethurst, who was doing her job serving the right of the public to be informed, has had hanging over her the possibility of criminal charges for an alleged breach of secrecy. Last month’s High Court ruling that the AFP warrant was unlawful must have eased the pressure; on Wednesday, the AFP said it would not charge her after all. Two ABC journalists, whose reporting of war-crimes allegations led to an AFP raid the day after Smethurst’s house was searched, remain in limbo.

Without robust media freedom to report and analyse, the public’s right to know and to be informed as full citizens is rendered null and void. When Smethurst filed her news reports in the autumn of 2018, Australia’s strategic and security outlook was already grim. To the existing threat of jihadist mass murder was added emerging evidence of foreign interference. Now our independent policy as a nation is under pressure from China, our biggest trading partner. Democracy across the developed world is under strain with polarised politics and social media weaponising of core issues. COVID-19 has the potential to make this worse by destroying jobs and livelihoods and setting us up for the misery and instability of a deep global recession.

To get through this, we will need facts, data, sharp analysis and a wide range of viewpoints, minimising the dysfunction and distraction of personal attacks, party political games and sterile symbolic disputes. We need intelligent and pragmatic decisions across government, the economy and society about what to do, and what to avoid. Australians rightly worried about the country and future generations expect this. That is why, right now, they are turning to reputable news sources such as The Australian in record numbers.

The Morrison government has acknowledged that institutions and policies must be rigorously vetted to ensure they give us the best chance of a swift return to prosperity, stability and security. The official culture and laws that unwisely restrain media freedom — chiefly defamation laws and national security provisions — cannot be exempt from this national interest test. Certainly there are sensible limits to media freedom: editors are conscious of the need to draw clear lines protecting national security and personal reputation from unwarranted incursions. It is also true that media freedom comes with a duty of balance and accuracy in coverage. But too often the official insistence on secrecy is a denial of accountability. Like any other policy area, counter-terrorism and intelligence operations will be less prone to going off the rails if there is careful media scrutiny in the public interest. What is complained of as a criminal breach of secrecy may in fact be a routine case of embarrassment for politicians and bureaucrats who have been caught out.

The coronavirus pandemic reinforces this need for open, informed debate. It is a scientific question that demands the sharing of data and research so that political leaders can apply expertise and moral values to arrive at the best decisions for society. COVID-19 is not just a public health issue, it is a strategic challenge. And so the government response is doubly in need of close media scrutiny enabling informed public debate. This is quite different from a journalistic “gotcha” exercise. Solid, independent reporting can lead to inept policymakers paying a political price, but this is incidental. Accurate media coverage also vindicates decision-makers who take pains to arm themselves with the necessary information and do the right thing by the country, even at personal cost. And this is the kind of leadership we need, now more than ever.