The media union has welcomed changes that water down the Coalition’s espionage bill but said it was still a “very serious concern” to working journalists and should be dealt with by a blanket defence.
The bill, introduced in the foreign interference package in December, contains offences for communicating and dealing with protected information that is classified or harms Australia’s interests in defined ways. The offences are punishable by up to 15 years and five years in prison respectively for commonwealth officers such as public servants.
On Monday the attorney general, Christian Porter, released details of changes announced in February that will create separate offences for non-commonwealth officers, such as journalists, decreasing the prison sentences for them to 10 years and three years.
The changes also give journalists a defence for the offence of dealing with protected information where they “reasonably believe” it is in the public interest to do so.
The chief executive of the Media, Entertainment & Arts Alliance, Paul Murphy, said the defence was a “significant improvement” on the earlier version, which required journalists to demonstrate their work was “fair and accurate”.
Murphy said it was “not clear” the defence of reasonable belief was available for both dealing with and communication of information, meaning journalists could still be exposed to 10 years’ prison for publication of stories relating to national security.
Source:
theguardian
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