Shergold panned in Never Never Land

An article in last week’s Media section of The Australian, headlined “Police raid reignites debate on leaking”, nailed the fantasy.

Reporters Katherine Murphy and Elizabeth Colman reported that the Howard Government “is asserting its right to crack down on officials who leak confidential documents to the media”. But academics and the media union are posing the question: Will Canberra be prepared to police itself?

The article continued: “Australian National University political science professor John Wanna says governments only police the material they don’t want to see brought into the public domain. ‘These judgments can be very arbitrary and asymmetrical’, Wanna says. ‘They essentially want to police the stuff they don’t want leaked’.”

Mark Ryan from the Media Entertainment and Arts Alliance puts it more bluntly. “Does this mean a cabinet minister will be prosecuted if they are found to be the leaker? Governments can’t pick and choose who they go after.”

The Australian reported the debate on leaked documents had been re-ignited by the Shergold-sanctioned AFP raid on this newspaper. Its readers were informed of the Shergold warning in State of the Unit, that the police would be called to investigate any unauthorised disclosure of material. Both Wanna and the dean of the Australian New Zealand School of Government, Allan Fels told The Australian the Government had a legitimate point.

Governments needed confidentiality in order to govern effectively but the need for secrecy needed to be tempered by the responsibility of the media to investigate the activities of politicians and officials with a view to protecting the public interest. Fels put the view that this was a fraught area and a difficult one in which to find the right balance. “The whole situation is extremely complicated by controlled and semi-controlled leaks from ministers themselves,” he says.

Mr Ryan from the Media Union was having none of this. “The public interest”, he said, “is paramount". Shergold, he said, was guilty of “a massive over-reaction”.

Hear, Hear.

The Media Union’s sentiments were picked up in editorials around the country and provoked the international press freedom organisation, Reporters Without Borders, to pen a letter to PM Howard pointing out that police had violated the principle of protection of sources fundamental to guaranteeing independent, investigative journalism. What’s the bet it gets spiked on a dead letter file?

The Howard Government has turned politicisation of the public service and contempt for the Parliament into an art form.

It also sanctions ministerial leaks.

The classic involved our old friend Monty Burns, aka Philip Ruddock. He was silly enough to tape himself conducting a briefing for a Queensland journalist on the confidential contents of an ATSIC Fraud Awareness Unit briefing on the activities of ATSIC Commissioner Ray Robinson and the Bidjara group of companies. The tape became public property, via a leak. Ruddock’s punishment? Appointment by John Howard to the post of Federal Attorney General, the Commonwealth’s chief law officer.