World Press Freedom Day

The Australian - Freedom of speech has become a critical issue

TODAY’S World Press Freedom Day is about much more than journalists being able to do their jobs unimpeded. It is about the public’s right to know the truth about how the governments they elect and the services they pay for, such as police and hospitals, operate. This year, the day comes at the end of an appalling week for press freedom.
On Wednesday, armed police from the Major Fraud Squad raided the Perth office of The Sunday Times newspaper. They spent four hours trying to prise out the source of a story that had embarrassed the Government of Alan Carpenter, a former journalist. The story was in the public interest, relating to a request by Treasurer Eric Ripper for $16 million to pay for advertising for the Government’s re-election campaign. It was the second time in a month that police, whose stretched resources would be better employed fighting crime, had entered the Sunday Times offices to uncover the sources of political stories.

Speaking on behalf of the media coalition, Australia’s Right to Know, News Limited chairman and chief executive John Hartigan said: “This is a disturbing reminder that governments in Australia will resort to legal muscle to redress political embarrassment. Do we now live in a country where whistleblowers and journalists can expect to be hunted down and charged if they reveal government information that is a matter of legitimate public interest? The answer, regrettably, appears to be yes.”

The armed raid, reminiscent of those in countries such as Malaysia, erodes Australia’s credibility in speaking out against the intimidation again meted out to the media this week in Fiji. The Fijian Government, known for its brutality, corruption and totalitarian rule, arrested Evan Hannah, managing director of The Fiji Times on Thursday night, forcibly removing him from his home, pending deportation. The arrest came two months after another Australian, Russell Hunter, publisher of the rival Fiji Sun, was arrested in a night-time raid on his home and deported.

Amid such repression, it should be reassuring to know that federal Labor, in the run-up to the November election, promised a mature and open approach to freedom of information. A Rudd government, the ALP’s policy document said, would “drive cultural change across the bureaucracy to promote a pro-disclosure attitude”. Information would be withheld only “where this is in the public interest”. The Australian community would be able to “properly access information in the possession of the commonwealth Government.”

These fine commitments have already melted into hollow rhetoric with the federal Government using FOI laws to block the release of advice about the wage-push inflationary effects of its industrial relations changes.

In response to an FOI request from the ABC, the bulk of the 38 pages produced this week were censored. A Treasury official’s lily-livered excuse was that full disclosure would “be contrary to public interest as they are internal documents containing information which could raise unnecessary debate on matters considered by cabinet”. This ridiculous mindset, reflective of Orwell’s Big Brother, deems economic debate “unnecessary” and against the public interest.

In reality, Treasury concerns about Labor’s abolition of the Howard government’s IR reforms have been known for months. In August, Treasury secretary Ken Henry underlined the importance of flexible labour markets for sustaining full employment. Months after the triumphant abolition of Work Choices, full disclosure of the relevant Treasury advice would have been no more than mildly embarrassing for the Rudd Government. But a cynic might suggest it feared the advice could come back to haunt it in the event of an inflationary wages breakout. The public interest, however, demands openness rather than a cover-up and Mr Rudd’s silence on the subject yesterday was deafening.

This penchant for secrecy pervades both sides of politics and much of the legal system, to the detriment of public life. This newspaper, for instance, spent much of the last parliament battling former treasurer Peter Costello’s blocking the release of data about bracket creep and the use of the First Home Buyers Scheme. The Australian lost the case in the High Court.

In a report released at last night’s Australian Press Freedom Media Dinner in Sydney, the Media Entertainment & Arts Alliance noted numerous perturbing instances of censorship. These included the sentencing of former public servant, Allan Kessing, to a nine-month suspended jail term after he was found guilty of leaking a report on serious gaps in airport security to The Australian. The issue was vital to the public interest.

In the US, freedom of speech is fundamental to national culture and guaranteed under the First Amendment. Australia’s establishment, in contrast, is increasingly embracing the censorious, “less is more” mentality of the taciturn British civil service. At every turn, civil libertarians battle to keep the public in the dark about lawyers’ clients facing charges. States such as Queensland keep pertinent school performance data under wraps, while Tasmania refuses to release details of secret proposals for taxpayers to subsidise pipelines to service the controversial Gunns pulp mill. Secrecy, control and spin have rendered free speech fragile. This is bad for democracy and the issue deserves elevating to the centre of national debate.