David Shoebridge (NSW, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

Amendments (3) and (4) seek to do a very simple thing. They will allow a journalist, or an entity that employs a journalist, that's been served with a warrant to produce documents or to attend an examination—they will allow that journalist or that employer of the journalist—to contest the warrant, to be there in court and articulate to the judge why the warrant shouldn't be issued or why the warrant should be narrowed, or set out such other appropriate submissions, as journalists should be able to make, before the coercive powers of the NACC can be exercised against a journalist.

I've said before, and I'll repeat it, we think it's good that the Attorney moved beyond the recommendations that came from the committee, the very narrow recommendations that came from the committee, to slightly increase journalist protections, to ensure that when a warrant is going to be issued the public interest, protecting journalism and journalists protecting their sources must be considered by the court.

But this amendment goes that further necessary step to say unless there are reasonable grounds for believing that there is a serious material risk that the journalist will seek to conceal or destroy the evidence, unless there's that concern, that the journalist has to be given notice and allowed the opportunity to contest that warrant. Why do we do this? We do this because it is already in practice in the United Kingdom and it works in the United Kingdom. There is not a single instance from the practice in the UK where a journalist that has been served with a warrant and given the opportunity to contest it has ever destroyed the evidence. But it allows the public interest to be fully contested. It protects journalism. It would be a deep irony if this parliament, in moving to empower the National Anti-Corruption Commission and to create an anticorruption body at the centre of the Commonwealth integrity agencies, in the same move harmed journalism and made it harder to be a journalist and challenged the existing integrity measures in journalism. That's why I seek leave to move amendments (3) and (4) on sheet 1714 together, and commend them to the House.

Leave granted.

I move Greens amendments (3) and (4) on sheet 1714 together:

(3) Clause 124, page 111 (after line 23), after subsection 3E(2A) of the Crimes Act 1914, insert:

(2AA) Before deciding whether to issue a warrant, the issuing officer must:

(a) give a notice in writing to the journalist or the employer of the journalist, to whom the warrant relates, stating that an application for a warrant has been made; and

(b) give the journalist or the employer of the journalist, to whom the warrant relates, the opportunity to make written or oral submissions.

(2AB) The Minister may, in writing, prescribe the form for the notice under paragraph (2AA)(a).

(4) Clause 124, page 111 (after line 31), after subsection 3E(2B) of the Crimes Act 1914, insert:

(2BA) However, subsections (2AA) and (2B) do not apply if the issuing officer is satisfied, by information on oath or affirmation, that there are reasonable grounds for believing that if a person was given a notice, there is a serious material risk that the evidential material might be concealed, lost, mutilated or destroyed.