{"id":85871,"date":"2023-09-25T02:11:09","date_gmt":"2023-09-25T02:11:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/celebritytidings.com\/?p=85871"},"modified":"2023-09-25T02:11:09","modified_gmt":"2023-09-25T02:11:09","slug":"modern-version-of-the-d-notice-how-the-home-affairs-boss-tried-to-stifle-press-freedom","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/celebritytidings.com\/world-news\/modern-version-of-the-d-notice-how-the-home-affairs-boss-tried-to-stifle-press-freedom\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Modern version of the D Notice\u2019: How the Home Affairs boss tried to stifle press freedom"},"content":{"rendered":"
By <\/span>Michael Bachelard<\/span> and Nick McKenzie<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Senior journalist Annika Smethurst\u2019s house was raided by police. <\/span>Credit: <\/span>Illustration: Matthew Absalom-Wong<\/cite><\/p>\n Add articles to your saved list and come back to them any time.<\/p>\n The public servant in charge of Australia\u2019s internal security lobbied hard for the power to censor the media\u2019s reporting of national security issues after the Australian Federal Police controversially raided three Australian journalists over their reporting.<\/p>\n In a series of text messages to an influential Liberal Party operative in 2019, the secretary of the Home Affairs department, Michael Pezzullo, sought to convince then prime minister Scott Morrison to introduce a system of \u201cD-Notices\u201d \u2013 by which government agencies would be able to pressure media organisations not to publish stories deemed damaging to national security.<\/p>\n Pezzullo pursued the issue despite the apparent indifference of the government, after his anger was stoked by a report by then News Corp journalist Annika Smethurst \u2013 who is now state political editor for The Age<\/em> \u2013 about his secret proposal to allow the nation\u2019s external intelligence agency to spy on Australians.<\/p>\n In other messages, Pezzullo wrote that the government could \u201ccriminalise\u201d journalists in certain circumstances for reporting on what they were told by government whistleblowers.<\/p>\n The revelations come after The Age<\/em>, the Sydney Morning Herald<\/em> and 60 Minutes<\/em> revealed a five-year conversation between Pezzullo and Briggs as the Home Affairs secretary used as a back channel to two Liberal prime ministers to try to further his ambitions. Home Affairs minister Clare O\u2019Neil on Monday announced an inquiry by the Australian Public Service Commissioner into Pezzullo\u2019s behaviour, but did not stand him down.<\/p>\n \u201cI am aware of reporting regarding communications between Mr Michael Pezzullo and Mr Scott Briggs,\u201d O\u2019Neil said in a statement. \u201cLast night I referred this matter to the Australian Public Service Commissioner, Dr Gordon de Brouwer.\u201d<\/p>\n Smethurst\u2019s April 2018 story was based partly on a leaked letter written by Pezzullo, in which he proposed the Australian Signals Directorate be able to access the private information of Australians in the name of increasing security.<\/p>\n The following year, Australian Federal Police raided Smethurst\u2019s house. Pezzullo praised the officers who conducted the raid and the Home Affairs secretary called publicly for the jailing of the person who had leaked the document to Smethurst.<\/p>\n The raid on Smethurst, along with a separate raid targeting two ABC journalists, Dan Oakes and Sam Clark, led to a public debate and a parliamentary committee inquiry into the balance between press freedom and increasingly heavy-handed security legislation.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Senior journalist Annika Smethurst at a Press Club speech on press freedom following the raid on her home in 2019.<\/span>Credit: <\/span>Dominic Lorrimer<\/cite><\/p>\n More than a thousand messages to Liberal Party operative Scott Briggs, obtained by The Age<\/em>, the Sydney Morning <\/em>Herald<\/em> and 60 Minutes<\/em>, show Pezzullo used the leak to Smethurst to denigrate former defence minister Marise Payne and other colleagues, including his fellow bureaucrats, and to go behind Smethurst\u2019s back to criticise her to her senior journalistic colleagues.<\/p>\n Pezzullo\u2019s messages also show a contempt for several well-known media figures. He congratulated then prime minister Malcolm Turnbull for putting prominent journalist Waleed Aly \u201cin his place,\u201d described young reporter Primrose Riordan as a \u201csilly journalist\u201d, veteran ABC journalist Barrie Cassidy as \u201ca sneering, cynical hack,\u201d and referred to broadcaster Alan Jones\u2019 view that the Murugappan family of Biloela should be allowed to stay in Australia as a \u201crant\u201d.<\/p>\n Pezzullo, who has a responsibility as a senior public servant to be apolitical, to serve his minister and to be transparent in his dealings in the public interest, instead cultivated a secret relationship with Briggs, a party apparatchik who had the ear of successive Liberal prime ministers.<\/p>\n On April 29, 2018, Smethurst published a story citing a letter written by Pezzullo. It outlined his proposal to allow government hackers working for the Australian Signals Directorate to \u201cproactively disrupt and covertly remove\u201d onshore cyber threats by \u201chacking into critical infrastructure\u201d in Australia.<\/p>\n In WhatsApp messages between Pezzullo and Briggs on the Sunday the story was published, the powerful public servant turned his attack on Payne over her response to Smethurst\u2019s questions published in the article.<\/p>\n \u201cPayne is completely ineffectual,\u201d Pezzullo wrote to Briggs around midday. \u201cShe could have killed the story yesterday.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cShe is useless,\u201d Briggs agreed, before reassuring Pezzullo that, \u201cScott [Morrison] was at pains to say he has your back \u2013 meaning he agreed it [the hacking policy] is a totally necessary measure. [Then prime minister] Malcolm [Turnbull] said he supports it as well. We just need to make sure they stay committed.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThe shame of it is that Payne could have turned it around yesterday had she engaged,\u201d wrote Pezzullo. \u201cI could have turned it into a great story for the Government \u2026 once Smethurst had the yarn she could have been turned.\u201d<\/p>\n Payne declined to comment.<\/p>\n Smethurst told The Age<\/em>, the Herald<\/em> and 60 Minutes<\/em>: \u201cI don\u2019t think it\u2019s the role of department people to be trying to turn journalists.<\/p>\n \u201cThis was a profound change [of policy], one that the intelligence watchdog, Margaret Stone at the time, warned against \u2026 I wasn\u2019t in the business of writing great stories for any government or any opposition. It was just about getting facts out there and I would have written it in the same manner.\u201d<\/p>\n Fourteen months later, in June 2019, Pezzullo returned to the subject after the Australian Federal Police \u2013 which is also part of the Home Affairs portfolio but not under Pezzullo\u2019s operational command \u2013 raided Smethurst\u2019s home and confiscated her electronic devices.<\/p>\n The furious media reaction prompted Pezzullo to write to his senior contacts in the media who he described in messages to Briggs as \u201csome colleagues in the 4th estate\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cI respect your journalism but I am calling foul on your commentary on the AFP warrant on Smethurst,\u201d Pezzullo wrote, forwarding the extended message to Briggs. \u201cYou cannot possibly defend so-called \u2018public interest journalism\u2019 which is entirely false, and where no evidence of wrongdoing is exposed \u2026 Why do I know this to be false? Because I wrote the proposal and sent it to Defence.\u201d<\/p>\n He then denigrated Smethurst: \u201cWhy do you think her handler picked her, rather than say an experienced national security journalist. Think about it.\u201d<\/p>\n Smethurst said she had spent months reporting and confirming the story.<\/p>\n \u201cIt was a good story and I stand by it.\u201d <\/p>\n The raids prompted a national debate on media freedom, but Pezzullo\u2019s messages to Briggs showed that he quickly tired of it. Five days after the raid, as the coverage continued, he wrote to Briggs: \u201cThe self-indulgence is getting tiresome\u201d. Briggs comforted him by saying Morrison, who was by then the prime minister, was \u201cvery supportive of you and resolute on the media issue\u201d.<\/p>\n Pezzullo quickly proposed new controls on journalists. Telling Briggs the \u201cpunters are sick of the chaos,\u201d Pezzullo said he was \u201chappy to speak with the PMO [Prime Minister\u2019s Office]\u201d discreetly.<\/p>\n \u201cSolution is elegant and can be played out sequentially over coming months \u2013 purposefully and steadily without a sense of crisis and reaction. We need to fix this over medium term. A prosecution \u2026 would see WWIII break out\u201d.<\/p>\n His politically-charged proposal to Morrison, via Briggs, was for the powerful security oversight committee to hold a parliamentary inquiry which would \u201cgive us cover to stitch together a deal built around a modern version of the D Notice system.<\/p>\n \u201cWould only work if deal could be struck with Albo [then opposition leader Anthony Albanese],\u201d he added.<\/p>\n D Notices were used in Australia until 1982 to warn the media not to publish on questions deemed to infringe on national security. They are still used in the United Kingdom as a mechanism for the government to meet media bosses to influence them to restrict their publishing.<\/p>\n A week later Pezzullo suggested to Briggs that he approach the Prime Minister\u2019s Department to suggest \u201cthat Mike P probably knows a fair amount about this as a public service and national security tragic \u2026 It would have the ring of credibility\u201d.<\/p>\n He told Briggs that his minister, Peter Dutton, \u201clikes D Notice type approach\u201d to \u201cguide the AFP in terms of whether or not they even commence an investigation where a journalist could be a suspect\u201d. AFP chief commissioner Andrew Colvin \u201cwould prefer same,\u201d Pezzullo added.<\/p>\n It would be \u201cmodelled on the British D Notice system which unlike ours hasn\u2019t fallen into disuse\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cUnder my model unless the harm was exceptionally grave you would not go after the journalist as a suspect or as an accessory, but you would still go after the original leaker,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Briggs said this was \u201cwhere Scott [Morrison]\u2019s head was\u201d.<\/p>\n In July 2019 the parliamentary joint committee on intelligence and security began its inquiry, and, on August 14, Pezzullo addressed it, calling for the source of the leaks to Smethurst to be jailed.<\/p>\n In the following days, he was full of self-congratulation on WhatsApp: \u201cJust reviewed social media \u2026 this [press freedom issue] is a dead duck. All we have to do is throw something light but constructive into the mix and it\u2019s over,\u201d he told Briggs. His proposal would need to be negotiated with \u201cthe hard headed and realistic media business leaders\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cPress freedom issue has completely vanished. Job done. (green tick emoji) Sometimes you have to hit an issue with a massive amount of ordnance.\u201d<\/p>\n Ultimately, Pezzullo\u2019s D Notice idea itself vanished as neither the committee nor the government showed interest in it, considering the inevitable backlash from the media.<\/p>\n It was not the first time in the text messages that Pezzullo had shown his contempt for media freedom. In early 2018, amendments to the Espionage Act, drafted by the Attorney-General\u2019s department, caused an outcry by proposing jail terms for journalists who communicated or dealt with certain information provided by a Commonwealth officer.<\/p>\n Pezzullo wrote to Briggs asking: \u201cWhy is the Government picking a fight with the media when it doesn\u2019t need to?\u201d He blamed the rival department, saying the drafting was \u201cunforgivable\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cDon\u2019t trust anything served up by AGD. i [sic] don\u2019t!\u201d he said.<\/p>\n But this was not a case of Pezzullo moving to protect journalists: instead of using the espionage legislation, in early 2018 he proposed using the whistleblower act to jail reporters.<\/p>\n \u201cThere is a way through \u2013 but you have to criminalise secondary disclosures [by the media] as an extension of Public Interest Disclosure law which protects whistleblowers,\u201d he told Briggs.<\/p>\n Reassured by Briggs in the wake of this issue that he had Turnbull\u2019s full confidence, Pezzullo responded: \u201cI am just doing my job to the standard to which all Secretaries should be held\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cI intend to now lift to another level again. It\u2019s like elite sport \u2013 never be satisfied with your performance and be your own harshest critic.\u201d<\/p>\n Cut through the noise of federal politics with news, views and expert analysis from Jacqueline Maley. Subscribers can sign up to our weekly Inside Politics newsletter here.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n The Morning Edition newsletter is our guide to the day\u2019s most important and interesting stories, analysis and insights. <\/i><\/b>Sign up here<\/i><\/b>.<\/i><\/b><\/p>\nSave articles for later<\/h3>\n
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