We all know the saying: "It never rains but it pours." And that's how it feels to be working in Australian journalism at the moment — attacks on the media and whistleblowers are coming in quick succession.
On 5 June, the Australian Federal Police (AFP) raided the Sydney office of our public broadcaster, the ABC. The raids were related to "The Afghan Files", an ABC report published almost two years ago related to the allegation that the Australian Defence Force had illegally killed unarmed civilians, including children, during operations in Afghanistan.
No one could dispute the story’s importance. Certainly, no one could question that it was in the public interest to know whether Australian forces were responsible for killing civilians during operations in the Middle East. So last month to see our national police raid the journalists responsible for breaking the story marked an unprecedented and shocking moment in our history.
And the further I dig into the details of the the ABC raid the more alarmed I am. For example, the search warrant itself was a wide-reaching and comprehensive legal document which gave the AFP permission to access any information at the ABC that so much as mentioned the Australian Defence Force, the Australian Army, or any of the reporters involved. The search turned up an astonishing 9,214 documents. Some of these would have revealed the identities of sources and the information they passed on.
But it isnt just the extent of the net cast by the AFP that is concerning. The warrant also gave officers free reign over the ABC servers, allowing them to "copy, delete or alter" any of the stored material.
At the same time the Australian Government is prosecuting former lawyer to the Australian Special Forces and the whistleblower responsible for the leaks, David William McBride. According to ABC journalists who watched the raid unfold, it was clear that the police were searching for material aimed at building a case against McBride.
This attack on this whistleblower is not an isolated one. It came less than 24 hours after a raid on the home of another journalist, political editor Annika Smethurst. Her crime? She had received information that the Australian government was considering the introduction of citizen monitoring — accessing emails, text messages and bank accounts. Smethurst published a story to that effect. Again, it was a matter of real public interest, and again, the reporter and her sources were met with a hardline response.
The same day that officers went knocking on Smethurst’s front door, Sydney radio presenter Ben Fordham was contacted by Australia’s Home Affairs Office. The day earlier, Fordham had told his audience that a senior source from the Home Affairs Office had revealed that six boats of asylum seekers had been identified leaving Sri Lanka for Australia. Fordham was asked to give up his source but he refused to do so.
As a journalist, and more importantly as an Australian, I am deeply troubled by these three developments. We are accustomed to attacks on journalists in countries like Turkey, China and Russia, but it is alarming to have the freedom of our press eroded here in Australia.
This isn't just a media issue — it concerns us all. Our society needs whistleblowers — people willing to approach the media to call out stories of corruption and abuse of power. Right now the message from the Australian government and its police force is clear: they will act swiftly and harshly against those who speak up against them.
While Julian Assange fights extradition to the USA from British prison over Wikileaks, as China marks 30 years of censorship of the Tianemen Square massacre, and as world leaders denounce inconvenient truths as "fake news", in our country there are forces at work to repress truth-telling.
Fortunately, there is a silver lining in that the gravity of the the government's offensive is not lost on media organisations and those in the community. Many have been quick to denounce the raids and the attacks on the journalist and the whistleblower. We need to keep the pressure on our governments.
Most of us are not privy to the inner workings of government departments or the dynamics of the news room, but we can all stand in solidarity with those who risk their lives and reputations to call the powerful to account when they deceive the public. If we do not stand up for truth and for those who tell it, we can slide into accepting uncritically what our politicians want us to believe. We need to stay vigilant, think critically and value the role of good journalism in our societies.
Tui Motu Magazine. Issue 239 July 2019: 26