In 2019, the AJF worked with Gilbert + Tobin to publish our first White Paper on Press Freedom in Australia. Our paper, based on extensive research found that press freedom was far more fragile than most people appreciated.
The AJF has published two White Papers which analyse the state of press freedom in Australia.
Our first White Paper outlined the growing risks to investigative reporting and journalists’ sources through overbearing national security legislation. With help from the law firm, Gilbert + Tobin, we published that paper in 2019, weeks before the AFP raided two news organisations in a search for evidence of sources to critical news stories. The raids underlined the risks that we had foreshadowed in the paper.
Five years later we checked the pulse of press freedom with an updated paper. We examined the promises made in the wake of the original raids, checked their progress, and made eight recommendations on how to improve press freedom.
The 2024 White Paper recommendations:
- Introduce a Media Freedom Act
- Introduce Exemptions for journalists to national security offences
- Repeal the Journalist Information Warrant Scheme
- Harmonise and strengthen state-based Shield Laws
- Fully Protect Whistleblowers
- Improve transparency around court suppression orders and access to court documents
- Harmonise state-based defamation laws
- Ensure that new laws have adequate journalism exemptions