Kelvin Thomson (Wills, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

About the disclosures which were made related to airport security. The government accepted recommendations concerning them. At the same time, however, the Australian Federal Police sought to track down the person who had leaked the reports that had so embarrassed the government. The man ultimately blamed for the leak was Mr Kessing. In March of this year he was found guilty, by a Sydney District Court jury, of leaking one classified Customs report, in breach of the Commonwealth Crimes Act. In fact, he has no public interest defence available to him. The secretary of the Media, Entertainment, and Arts Alliance said in relation to these matters:

I think there has been a very serious deterioration in the state of freedom of speech in Australia over the past five years …

The media coalition titled Australia’s Right to Know notes that Australia now lags in the worldwide press freedom rankings compiled by international media organisation Reporters Without Borders. That latest index shows that Australia has slipped two places to 35, behind nations such as Bolivia, which is 16th, South Korea, which is 31st, and Ghana, which is 34th. This slip is reported as having come after a horror few years for advocates of press freedom in Australia. Indeed, the Leader of the Opposition has indicated his support for the media in relation to press freedom issues, saying there is an emerging abuse of conclusive certificates by the federal government and that, when it comes to whistleblowers protection legislation, this also needs to be reviewed in the light of recent cases. Of course, he is referring to the cases of Michael Harvey and Gerard McManus and also the case of former Customs officer Allan Kessing.

It is clear that this legislation is inadequate. We need more in the way of protection for journalists and their sources and we need more in the way of protection for whistleblowers. The present regime will not be adequate to protect whistleblowers. It is part of a series of failures on the part of this government, if we are talking about freedom of information, privacy protection and the like. Where information is the currency of democracy we need to do better and we can do better. I believe that the legislation can be supported as a small step forward but it is regrettable that this government, acting under duress, is doing too little too late.

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