{"id":5167,"date":"2020-02-19T22:50:38","date_gmt":"2020-02-19T22:50:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/?p=5167"},"modified":"2020-02-19T22:50:38","modified_gmt":"2020-02-19T22:50:38","slug":"greens-to-introduce-media-freedom-act","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/2020\/02\/19\/greens-to-introduce-media-freedom-act\/","title":{"rendered":"Greens to introduce Media Freedom Act"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A Media Freedom Act to protect the public\u2019s right to know and whistleblowers who speak truth to power, will be introduced into the Senate, Greens Media Spokesperson Senator Sarah Hanson-Young announced today.<br \/>\nSenator Hanson-Young who is Chair of the Senate Inquiry into Press Freedoms, said there had been a serious erosion of press freedoms in Australia which was deeply concerning and needing fixing.<br \/>\n\u201cThe court ruling on the ABC raids on Monday, which comes after the ABC Ultimo headquarters raid and the raid on the home of a NewsCorp journalist, shows our laws are broken,\u201d she said.<br \/>\n\u201cJournalism is not a crime. We must enshrine media freedoms in legislation which is why I will introduce a Media Freedom Act.<br \/>\n\u201cIt\u2019s clear current laws have encroached on journalists\u2019 freedom, not just their ability to write sensitive stories but also to receive information from sensitive sources.\u201d<br \/>\nThe\u00a0Media Freedom Act\u00a0that Senator Hanson-Young will introduce will:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Ensure a\u00a0contested warrants process, where law enforcement would need to apply to a judge to search a media outlet or access a journalist\u2019s metadata;<\/li>\n<li>Protect whistleblowers by introducing a\u00a0public interest defence;<\/li>\n<li>Put the onus on prosecutors to\u00a0disprove public interest\u00a0rather than journalists to prove it;<\/li>\n<li>Overall, enacts\u00a0shield laws\u00a0to protect journalists from being forced to reveal their sources.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>\u201cWe need contested warrants and protection of journalist\u2019s sources. These are two key reforms witnesses have called for through the Senate Inquiry into Press Freedoms,\u201d Senator Hanson-Young said.<br \/>\n\u201cA contested warrants process would mean police can\u2019t just raid a news outlets premises or the home of a journalist like we saw with the ABC and News Corp raids. There would be checks and balance and consideration of what is in the public interest.<br \/>\n\u201cIn just two years there\u2019s been about 22 pieces of legislation the Federal Government has rammed through the Parliament that increase secrecy in our democracy, under a guise of \u2018national security\u2019.<br \/>\n\u201cThe truth is, those in power don\u2019t want the public to know what they\u2019re up to and are shutting down transparency and accountability to serve their own interests.<br \/>\n\u201cThe campaign by the Right to Know coalition and evidence given at the Senate Inquiry has provided many examples of wrongdoing and misconduct that would never have had a spotlight on them without whistleblowers and the protection of journalists\u2019 sources and media freedoms.<br \/>\n\u201cWhat\u2019s really at stake here is one of the pillars of our democracy. From the Afghan Files to Sports Rorts, the Morrison Government is more worried about covering its backside than national security.<br \/>\n\u201cWhen trust in politics is already so low, a bill to protect public interest journalism is like an insurance policy for our democracy.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A Media Freedom Act to protect the public\u2019s right to know and whistleblowers who speak truth to power, will be introduced into the Senate, Greens Media Spokesperson Senator Sarah Hanson-Young announced today. Senator Hanson-Young who is Chair of the Senate Inquiry into Press Freedoms, said there had been a serious erosion of press freedoms in &hellip; <a href=\"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/2020\/02\/19\/greens-to-introduce-media-freedom-act\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;Greens to introduce Media Freedom Act&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5167","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-aussie"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5167","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5167"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5167\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5167"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5167"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5167"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}