Journalists to get ‘public interest’ defence as government agrees to rewrite secrecy laws

Attorney-General Christian Porter Source: AAP

Attorney-General Christian Porter said the protection for journalists would have limits and reporting that “endangered lives” would never be allowed.

The Attorney-General is expected to redraft a proposed suite of tough new national security and secrecy laws to give journalists a court defence when reporting government secrets which are in the "public interest".

The treason laws are expected to be softened slightly for government employees who leak classified information, with a crime only occurring if they release information that was “inherently dangerous” and risks “harm to Australia’s national interest”.  

But, Commonwealth employees are expected to face tougher and broader laws than non-government citizens – like lawyers, journalists, lobbyists and academics – who will now only be prosecuted for “the most serious and dangerous” conduct, the government said.

Journalists will get an extra defence that will shield them in secrecy trails if they can prove they “reasonably believed” they published the sensitive information in the “public interest”.

Who counts as a journalist?

Mr Porter said the defence would be “strong” and “broad”, but warned those who engaged in Wikileaks-style publication of unfiltered documents were likely to still fall foul of the law. 

He said anyone who shared information that put lives at risk would never be protected under the public interest defence.

Major Australian media companies had written to the Turnbull government urging a rewrite of the bill that better protected journalists. They feared the original wording meant reporters could be committing a serious crime just by possessing classified information.

Some wanted the government to go further and exempt the media industry altogether, rather than only offering a defence to be used in court.

But Mr Porter said the government would not give any one occupation a “blanket” pass.

“I think the reasonable expectation of the Australian public is that where conduct truly endangers the national interest, or indeed lives, that has to be appropriately criminalised,” Mr Porter told reporters at Parliament House on Thursday.

SBS news asked Mr Porter whether the protections for “journalists” would apply to bloggers and individuals sharing information on social media.

He said the term “journalist” would not be strictly defined and would be left to court interpretation, but was likely to extend to bloggers in many cases.

The actual revised wording of the bill has not yet been released, but will likely be tabled in parliament in the coming weeks. 

A previous requirement for journalists to demonstrate their reporting was "fair and accurate" will be scratched from the law. 

Labor 'pleased' with new protections but yet to back the bill 

The opposition previously said it would not support the bill unless the government improved protections for the press, but it is not yet clear whether the promised rewording will secure Labor’s support.

Labor leader Bill Shorten said he was "pleased the government has taken a backwards step". 

He said Labor and the Coalition were "in this together" on national security and would try to work on the law in a bipartisan manner. 

The Australian Security Intelligence Organisation told a recent parliamentary committee Australia was currently experiencing a level of foreign espionage and interference "probably more dangerous, in many respects, than any time since the Cold War".