Four laws that need urgent reform to protect both national security and press freedom
Australia should introduce constitutional protections for freedom of the press, argues Denis Muller in this crossposting from The Conversation. But given the unlikeliness of that, laws surrounding secrecy of information, national security, metadata and whistleblowers should be changed.
In a perfect world, Australia would introduce constitutional protections for freedom of the press. But since the chances of that are next to zero, it might be more productive to look instead at what might be done to make the existing web of secrecy laws less repressive.
As a starting point, four laws in particular need reforming.
Wes Mountain/The Conversation, CC BY-ND
The secrecy of information law
Part 5.6 of the Criminal Code Act 1995 is headed “Secrecy of Information”. It defines two general categories of information that are to be regarded as secret:
