On the 4th of June, the Australian journalist Annika Smethurt had her personal home raided by the Australian Federal Police, in relation to a report she wrote revealing increasing power of government spy agencies in Australia. The subject of her report was concerning enough: it described proposed laws that would allow undercover access to secret bank records, email, and text messages, by the Australian Signals Directive. But the cowardly response of fear from the Federal Police is what's most astounding in this issue. After arriving unannounced, police spent the day sifting through all of Smethurt's belongings, an intimidating and frightening _seven hours_ in which her phone, computer, papers, and all her physical belongings were searched. The raid did not end in an arrest, but that's not the point - it is the principle of persecuting individual journalists for their contribution to society which is most troubling to me - it represents a lack of support for a transparent and honest system of governance.
To understand this situation, it helps to put yourself in the shoes of the prime minister. Imagine, for a moment, that you are our beloved Scott Morrison, with some level of influence over almost every aspect of running the country. Of course, it would be ridiculous to try and govern a country by yourself, so you have to delegate the majority of matters to other specialists, whilst you act as the "face" of the leadership. Occasionally, your employees will make decisions that go against public opinion, whether they are necessary or not. And as the leader of the country, you don't want to dissatisfy your people by making a big deal of these unfavourable decisions. But what if some of these decisions are so broad that they affect _every_ Australian on some level? What if they are favourable for leaders, but not for civillians? This is the case where it becomes very appealing to hide these things from your people - after all, you don't want to bring them too much bad news. It's a natural response.
On the 4th of June, the Australian journalist Annika Smethurt had her personal home raided by the Australian Federal Police, in relation to a report she wrote revealing increasing power of government spy agencies in Australia. The subject of her report was concerning enough: it described proposed laws that would allow undercover access to secret bank records, email, and text messages, by the Australian Signals Directive. But the cowardly response of fear from the Federal Police is what's most astounding in this issue. After arriving unannounced, police spent the day sifting through all of Smethurt's belongings, an intimidating and frightening _seven hours_ in which her phone, computer, papers, and all her physical belongings were searched. The raid did not end in an arrest, but that's not the point - it is the principle of persecuting individual journalists for their contribution to society which is most troubling to me - it represents a lack of support for a transparent and honest system of governance.
To understand this situation, it helps to put yourself in the shoes of the prime minister. Imagine, for a moment, that you are our beloved Scott Morrison, with some level of influence over almost every aspect of running the country. Of course, it would be ridiculous to try and govern a country by yourself, so you have to delegate the majority of matters to other specialists, whilst you act as the "face" of the leadership. Occasionally, your employees will make decisions that go against public opinion, whether they are necessary or not. And as the leader of the country, you don't want to dissatisfy your people by making a big deal of these unfavourable decisions. But what if some of these decisions are so broad that they affect _every_ Australian on some level? What if they are favourable for leaders, but not for civillians? This is the case where it becomes very appealing to hide these things from your people - after all, you don't want to bring them too much bad news. It's a natural response.