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Comment by cyphar | Hacker News Reader

Australia does not have any constitutional protections of press freedom (or freedom of speech for that matter). So draconian laws limiting press freedom can be passed without any recourse for the public.

Being able to forcefully disclose a journalists sources would not be permitted anywhere else in the world. We need reforms, not cow-towing to these disgusting authoritarian tactics.

Not to mention that this is clearly political. This comes on the eve of an election, and is related to articles published ~2 years ago. Not to mention the most recent article in question described alleged war crimes by the Australian military. But there's no legal investigation into that law breaking, all that matters is that the whistleblower is arrested and made an example of.

I hope we one day see an anti-corruption commission and pass laws protecting whistleblowers and a free press. But it's going to be a long road.

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I don't necessarily disagree with your larger point, but there are at least two important factual errors here:

* Australia does have an implied constitutional right to freedom of political communication: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australian_constitutional_law#... * The federal election was on May 18, this search was on June 4th, well after the election. If anything, the AFP may have waited long enough to ensure this did not affect the election.

> Australia does have an implied constitutional right to freedom of political communication

Yes, I am aware of that but it's simply not sufficient. While there are the 1992 interpretations, there has been significant evidence that the High Court is handcuffed by the lack of language in the constitution about individual freedom. There are also many subsequent cases where the protection was not granted.

But lets not forget that "freedom of political communication" comes from the fact that any Australian has the right to run as a political candidate and discuss political ideas. It's already an incredibly stretched usage of the intentuon of the preamble of the constitution.

Lets also not forget that the Liberal government tried to make it a crime (punishable with 5 years imprisonment) to post YouTube videos that have government logos in them -- unless they constituted "genuine satire". The fact that "freedom of political communication" didn't kill the idea from the outset tells you how weak the protection really is.

Sorry, I missed this other comment:

> The federal election was on May 18, this search was on June 4th, well after the election. If anything, the AFP may have waited long enough to ensure this did not affect the election.

I didn't say that their actions affect the election, I said it was political. If they really thought this was purely about justice they would've conducted the raids last year, but they conducted them ~2 weeks after the election now that the Liberal government is back in power again with a majority. Dutton and Morrison claim that they have nothing to do with it, but that's complete bullshit -- the AFP are now being run by Home Affairs (Dutton's turf). Police generally don't start prosecuting whistleblowers without government pressure.

"Being able to forcefully disclose a journalists sources would not be permitted anywhere else in the world." -- China would like to have a word with you, prehaps..

China and many others

Right, Australia has no bill of rights. The State of Victoria (Melbourne) has a charter of human rights, but I don't think it's binding. Australia courts have held up freedoms of protest and press in the past, but technically the Crown does control all communication. New Zealand has an official office of censor.

The High Court (of Australia) has made a fair few great decisions that are related to implied rights within the constitution, but it's pretty clear that they've already stretched the wording very considerably. They can't just enshrine rights which we take for granted in our everyday lives as being constitutional, because that would invalidate their authority as being the final source of truth for constitutional questions.

There is a research paper published in 1998 by the Australian Parliament which outlines the many arguments why we need stronger constitutional rights[1]. Unfortunately, we have had a referendum on this topic before and it was categorically refused[2] (though the constitutional amendment being proposed was incredibly weak and that might've been the reason it was refused).

[1]: https://www.aph.gov.au/About_Parliament/Parliamentary_Depart... [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1988_Australian_referendum#Rig...

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