Introduction

The announcement of new national security laws to be introduced in Australia in mid- 2014 sparked political, public and media debate about the complex balance between freedom and security in a liberal- democratic society. Between July 2014 and March 2015, the Coalition Government, led by conservative Prime Minister Tony Abbott, proposed and passed the National Security Legislation Amendment Bill (No. 1) 2014 (Cth) (National Security Amendment Bill); the Counter- Terrorism Legislation Amendment (Foreign Fighters) Bill 2014 (Cth) (Foreign Fighters Bill); and the Telecommunications (Interception and Access) Amendment (Data Retention) Bill 2015 (Cth) (Data Retention Bill). Together, these were presented to the public as giving security agencies the powers necessary to protect citizens at a time where technological change intersected with increasing international and domestic threat (for a comprehensive overview of the security and and antiterror laws passed since the 9/11 attacks in 2001, please see Chapter 3).

While all three bills were the subject of intense interest, the first and last attracted media industry concern about the impact of elements of these laws on journalists and journalism. Central were considerations about how increasing restrictions would affect press freedom and public interest journalism. Some echoed political discourses: an editorial in the Australian (2014b) argued that while freedom of speech was vital, journalists needed to acknowledge that ‘the nation faced the new and genuine threat of home- grown terrorism’ and that ‘above all, Australians want to live as freely and as safely as they possibly can’. Counterarguments emphasised the value of press freedom for democracy. Journalists could now go to jail, veteran political reporter Laurie Oakes (2014) argued in the Herald Sun, for ‘doing their most important job: holding those in authority to account’.

Australian journalists’ core identity and values were mobilised on both sides of the debate in this way. Discussions focused on section 35P of the National Security Amendment Bill, which introduced a penalty of up to ten years’ imprisonment for disclosing information related to a ‘special intelligence operation’ (SIO) (Farrell and Hirst 2014), and requirements in the Data Retention Bill for telecommunications companies to ‘retain customers’ phone and computer metadata for two years’ (Bennett and Yaxley 2015).