Scott Ludlam (WA, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

by leave—I move Australian Greens amendments (25) and (27) on sheet 7669 together:

(25) Schedule 1, item 5, page 29 (after line 8), after the definition of infrastructure, insert:

  journalist means a person who is engaged and active in the publication of news and who may be given information by a source in the expectation that the information may be disseminated in the form of:

  (a) news, current affairs or a documentary; or

  (b) commentary, observations or opinion on, or analysis of, news, current affairs or a documentary.

(27) Schedule 1, item 5, page 29 (lines 26 to 29) omit paragraphs (a) and (b) of the definition of source, substitute:

(a) to another journalist; and

(b) in the normal course of the other person's work as a journalist.

What we have attempted to do here is important and it was canvassed to some degree in the other place during the debate there last week. The government, for reasons I hope Senator Brandis will explain to us shortly, has a definition of journalist as regards who is actually protected by the clauses the government and the opposition agreed to, to provide for a warrant and the public interest advocate. The definition of journalist therefore becomes fairly central as to who can avail themselves of these protections. Some senators will recall that when we were debating shield laws provisions that made amendments to the Evidence Act, going back now a couple of years, the chamber agreed—do not let me get this wrong, but I seem to recall Senator Brandis was on the same side of this vote as we were; in fact, I think it was unanimous—that the definition of journalist should be framed fairly broadly so that in the event that people needed to avail themselves of the protection of shield laws, we would effectively leave it to the courts to decide whether it was in the public interest that somebody should be protected and allow their source to be protected. The reason for that should seem reasonably obvious: if you are doing investigative journalism or you are reporting in the public interest and you need to protect a source, or if people doing this work want to publicly disclose wrongdoing or corruption—if you have been given information that relates to government corruption or malfeasance or any of the other things the press gallery does every day to keep our democracy strong, if you will; that is probably overstating it a bit, but it is tremendously important—they can get that material into the public domain without being prosecuted. Whistleblowers have their lives ruined. I know Senator Xenophon has had a lot to do with Mr Allan Kessing. This society is tremendously hard on whistleblowers and the protections that do exist have in the past proven quite inadequate at protecting people. But shield laws are one way of keeping a source out of harm's way so that people can anonymously report to journalists stuff that needs to get into the public domain. We framed 'journalists' very broadly, and I will read the definition that is in the Evidence Act at the moment:

… journalist means a person who is engaged and active in the publication of news and who may be given information by an informant in the expectation that the information may be published in a news medium.

Linked to that:

news medium means any medium for the dissemination to the public or a section of the public of news and observations on news.

Those two definitions are deliberately broad, and my recollection is that they were unanimously agreed to by the Senate so that the courts can decide—not on some arbitrary distinction of whether the person got paid to write the piece. Whether they are working for the Sydney Morning Herald and whether they are sensible grown-up journalist should not matter. The decision is whether the disclosure is in the public interest. The source should be able to available themselves of the protection and the journalists should not be dragged through the courts and potentially jailed. We agreed to leave that broadly.

The government, in drafting this new category of quasi-warrant to protect journalists, is proposing to narrow the definition. I do not understand why you would do that. I think the standard that we apply for shield laws should apply in this instance. That is why we brought these amendments forward today. Arbitrarily constraining such protections as have managed to be hammered out, we think, are inadequate, but are better than what prevailed before.

I do not see any reason at all why that should depend on whether or not you draw a pay cheque. If it is important work—if it is public interest reporting—and if sources' lives or livelihoods are at risk, then that protection should be offered.