The fallout of the largest bugging operation in NSW history is set to go public, with a letter by Tony Abbott about to be centre stage.
The letter will be part of the evidence tendered by veteran journalist Steve Barrett as he prepares to sue the State of NSW for the damage that the operation has done to his professional life.
The letter is interesting in more ways than one — particularly in light of the revelation last week of the illegal accessing by the Australian Federal Police of an as-yet-unidentified journalist’s phone records.
In the letter, Mr Abbott said he was “shocked” that any Australian police force could “get away with” tapping a journalist’s phone.
He urged Barrett to “turn up the journalistic heat.”
Abbott told Barrett that he handed the case to the then Attorney General, Philip Ruddock, to check whether it was “kosher” from a Federal point of view, but Barrett has to this day never heard anything from that.
Thirteen year later, he is still fighting this battle.
It was July 18, 2004, and Mr Abbott was a member of John Howard’s cabinet.
The letter was to one of his constituents in his Sydney electorate, Warringah — Steve Barrett, then with the Nine Network’s Sixty Minutes.
While the journalist who was the target of the AFP’s recent illegal activity appears to have had their confidentiality breached once, Barrett had his breached repeatedly — as many as 52 warrants were issued against him.
It now appears that many of those warrants — if not all — were issued illegally.
At the time, Barrett was one of Australia’s leading investigative journalists, relying on being able to guarantee confidentiality for those wanting to give him information.
His ability to do his job was seriously damaged after these warrants were issued as part of a covert police operation driven by the internal affairs unit of the NSW Police, which included Andrew Scipione and Catherine Burn.
The unit also placed phone intercepts on Nick Kaldas, who would go on to become Burn’s rival.
Scipione would go on to become the NSW Police Commissioner and Burn the Deputy Commissioner.
Neither Burn nor Kaldas would succeed Scipione, both damaged by the consequences of this bugging operation.
All of this is set to go public with both Steve Barrett and Nick Kaldas suing — separately — for damages.
Both cases are expected in court in coming months.
Two things about this case astound me.
Firstly, that the new Premier of NSW, Gladys Berejiklian, has not moved to resolve this issue before it all goes public.
And secondly, why there has not been more outrage from journalists that the NSW Police could target a journalist with as many as 52 warrants.
Who else did they — or are they currently — targeting?
Journalism relies on sources being able to trust that if they are aware of illegal activity — even in their own organisation, trade union or company — that they can contact a journalist and have confidence that they will not end up losing their job for being a “whistleblower.”
What the NSW Police did to Barrett and what the AFP did recently to another journalist make people nervous about giving us information.
This increases the chances that improper or illegal activity can continue without any public scrutiny.
And there’s an interesting political footnote to Tony Abbott’s 2004 letter.
Having been “shocked” that any Australian police force could do what they did to Barrett, what did Tony Abbott — a former journalist — do to protect journalists when he had the chance as Prime Minister?
He pushed for greater powers for the police to use metadata laws, including against journalists.
At the time, Mr Abbott told journalists not to worry about police accessing their metadata.
“Well in the days when I was a journalist there were no metadata protections for journalists,” he said.
What Mr Abbott did not go on to say was that in the days he was a journalist at The Bulletin magazine there were no mobile phones and no internet.
The world has changed — it is now much easier for police to track down who someone talks to.
While this is obviously a great resource for police and intelligence services when trying to monitor potential terrorists and organised crime figures, if we believe that journalists have an important role to play in a democracy then these laws should not be used to intimidate journalists or — more importantly — potential sources of important information.
And regarding the AFP officer who has accessed the journalist’s records, who was his or her boss commander?
Did they know about it?
How many other journalists’ metadata has been accessed?
And will the AFP officer who has broken the law and accessed a journalist’s metadata be prosecuted?
Probably not — it was, said Andrew Colvin, the Commissioner of the Australian Federal Police, “human error.”
-PB