Australia’s major newspapers yesterday published redacted front pages in a coordinated campaign to highlight government secrecy that is often justified on national security grounds.
Rival media businesses first banded together to fight for press freedom in June after police raided the Canberra home of a News Corp journalist and the Sydney headquarters of Australian Broadcasting Corp in search of leaked government documents that had formed the basis of news reports embarrassing to the government.
A former army lawyer has been charged over the leaks and several journalists could also be charged.
Photo: EPA-EFE
The newspaper front pages ask: When government keeps the truth from you, what are they covering up?
Examples of secrecy include the government’s refusal to disclose which nursing homes have been found to abuse and neglect elderly residents.
The government also has not disclosed how much agricultural land has been sold to foreign entities.
“Australians should always be suspicious of governments that want to restrict their right to know what’s going on,” News Corp Australia’s executive chairman Michael Miller said.
The media campaign began on the day that new Australian Federal Police Commissioner Reece Kershaw testified for the first time before a Senator committee that is holding an ongoing inquiry into police issues.
Kershaw, who has been in charge of the police for less than three weeks, said he planned to meet news editors soon to discuss their concerns about press freedom.
“Police independence and freedom of the press are both fundamental pillars that coexist in our democracy,” Kershaw said. “I strongly believe in these two pillars.”
Police had finalized new guidelines for investigating unauthorized disclosures by government officials that take into account a recent government direction to acknowledge the importance of a free and open press, Kershaw said.
Questioned in Parliament yesterday, Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison would not give assurances that journalists targeted in the June raids would not be charged.
“There is no one in this country who is above the law,” Morrison said.
“People should not be prosecuted for their profession. They should only be prosecuted if indeed they have been found to be falling foul of the law,” he added.
Australian media organizations argue that press freedoms have been eroded by more than 70 counterterrorism and security laws that have been passed by Parliament since the al-Qaeda attacks on the US on Sept. 11, 2001.
The government responded by asking a parliamentary committee to hold an inquiry into the effect of law enforcement and intelligence powers on press freedom.
That committee is to report its findings next month.
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