ABC will not appeal ruling on AFP raid

The ABC will not appeal the Federal Court ruling that the AFP’s warrant to conduct a raid on the ABC’s Ultimo offices on 5 June last year was valid.

Last week Federal Court Justice Abraham said the AFP asked the ABC to provide the documents that met the search conditions of the warrant but they declined. She said the ABC had failed to prove the police search warrant was invalid.

In a statement today, ABC Managing Director David Anderson said “The ABC stands behind our journalists and is committed to defending media freedom.

“This outcome demonstrates the urgent need for law reform to ensure professional journalism and whistle-blowers are appropriately protected.

“The AFP raid was an assault on public interest journalism and the Federal Court ruling was a blow to media freedom and democracy in Australia. But we don’t believe we can litigate our way to reforming fundamentally bad laws.”

This week the AFP, in its supplementary submission to the PJCIS Press Freedom Inquiry, suggested that any party can seek a judicial review of a decision to issue a search warrant.

Anderson said the reporting on the Afghan Files stories, which led to the raid, would remain online.

“All Australians should be highly concerned at this outcome, the position the ABC has been put in and what this means for all journalists and the public’s right to know,” he said.

“Australia’s regime for issuing search warrants fails to adequately protect whistleblowers and public interest journalism. We lag behind comparable western democracies and these events have been the subject of significant international criticism.

“There has never been a question over the accuracy or importance of the Afghan Files stories or whether they were in the public interest. Yet potentially our reporters could still be charged with offences carrying jail terms. They have now had this threat hanging over their heads for almost two years.

“Australians should not only expect but demand an open and transparent society. Our laws fail that expectation.”

ABC Chair Ita Buttrose said: “If our elected representatives in Canberra truly believe in Australia as a transparent democracy it’s time for them to show leadership and take action.

“Supporting media freedom doesn’t mean making allowances for journalists to break the law – it means having laws that allow journalists to safely do reporting in the public interest.

“None of us wants Australia to be a secretive state where journalists and whistleblowers can be threatened with charges over stories that we have the right to know.”

Meanwhile the Media and Entertainment Arts Alliance said the only way to fix it is to change the law to protect public interest journalism and whistleblowers.

MEAA Media federal president Marcus Strom said: “That warrant targeted journalists who had published the truth. The warrant was issued with the intent to bypass the journalists’ ethical obligation to never reveal the identity of a confidential source – a principle of journalism recognised around the world.

“Journalists and whistleblowers cannot feel safe until there are legislative reforms to protect public interest journalism. Remember, there are three journalists still in legal limbo following the raids on the ABC and the home of a News Corporation journalist. This is not about making journalists above the law, but to bring the law into line with community expectations. There must be a positive legal protection for journalism that is in the public interest in order to uphold the public’s right to know.”

Strom added: “The scope of the warrant is extremely disturbing. It allowed the AFP to ‘add, copy, delete or alter’ material in the ABC’s computers. That represents a genuine threat to the ability of media outlets to carry out their duties if government agencies can cause immense disruption to entire computer networks as well as undermine the privacy of other Australians unrelated to the warrant’s intent,” he said

“The warrant was approved by a local court registrar in Queanbeyan. But it is clear that there needs to be greater oversight of these warrants,” Strom said.

“As ABC managing director David Anderson has said today, the journalism in the Afghan Files was published almost two years before the raid. Its veracity has never been questioned.

“And yet for publishing the truth and upholding the public’s right to know, three journalists now face lengthy jail terms. Warrants should be contestable before they unleash their damage on the truth and the public’s right to know.

“The Department of Home Affairs and the AFP have made a supplementary submission to a Parliamentary inquiry into the freedom of the press that rejects the notion of contestable warrants, claiming contestability had the “potential undermine the efficacy of such a warrant”.

Strom said: “That argument is a nonsense. The potential for overreach has already been acknowledged by the Department. On August 9 last year, Minister Dutton directed the AFP ‘to take into account the importance of a free and open press in Australia’s democratic society and to consider broader public interest implications before undertaking investigative action involving a professional journalist or news media organisation’. Contestability is clearly necessary to stem overreach by government departments and the AFP.”

MEAA chief executive Paul Murphy added: “The ability to contest warrants is not about placing journalists above the law. It is about reforming bad law. Since the September 11 attacks in 2001, the Australian Parliament has passed at least 75 national security laws. Under the guise of protecting the nation, many of those laws have introduced new penalties that criminalise journalists and their journalism, and persecute and punish whistleblowers for exposing wrongdoing.

“The public’s right to know what our government’s do in our name must not be allowed to be usurped by bad laws that punish the truth,” Murphy said.