Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus wants protections against prosecution of journalists for publishing classified and secret information written into Commonwealth law, as he reveals the federal government’s response to a wide-ranging review into the nation’s complex web of secrecy laws.

The review was announced in December last year, amid concerns too much legislative ground had been ceded to national security interests rather than protecting the public’s right to know about the inner workings of government.

In 2019 the Sydney offices of the ABC and the Canberra home of then News Corp journalist Annika Smethurst were raided by the Australian Federal Police over separate, unrelated stories they had written which were based on leaked classified information.

ABC journalists Dan Oakes and Sam Clark had published allegations in 2017 of unlawful killings by Australian special forces in Afghanistan, while Smethurst had reported in 2018 on plans to give the nation’s spy agencies greater surveillance powers.

The prospect of prosecution hung over them for many months, and eventually, the AFP revealed they would not charge the journalists.

At the time, then Attorney-General Christian Porter had issued a ministerial directive to Commonwealth prosecutors forcing them to seek his approval before pursuing journalists through the courts.

Now, Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus wants that enshrined in federal legislation.

The move would not rule out prosecutions of journalists in future, although some have suggested there would be little political appetite for putting journalists in the dock.

Dreyfus wants to ‘simplify’ the nation’s secrecy laws

The proposal is one aspect of the federal government’s response to the review, with the Attorney-General arguing it will “simplify” the nation’s secrecy offences.

Mr Dreyfus said there are 875 secrecy offences currently on Commonwealth books, relating to everything from national security legislation to tax law.

The government wants to strip criminal liability from 168 of those offences, meaning people who breach those laws will not face sanctions such as jail time.

“It is an unwieldy number,” he said.

“That will improve protections for press freedom and will improve protection for people who provide information to royal commissions.

“Secrecy offences play an important role in protecting national security, but there have long been concerns about the number, inconsistency, appropriateness and complexity of Commonwealth secrecy offences.”

The federal government has been criticised for pursuing prosecutions against whistleblowers, including David McBride and Richard Boyle.

The federal government will also create a new broad secrecy offence to target Commonwealth officials and people such as consultants who breach confidentiality rules.

The issue has been thrust into the spotlight in the wake of the PwC tax scandal, where a senior partner used confidential information from Treasury to benefit the firm’s clients.

That saga is subject to multiple investigations, including a criminal probe with the Australian Federal Police and a parliamentary inquiry.

Mr Dreyfus said the new offence will detail the need for genuine harm to be caused by sensitive information being put into the public domain.

“I don’t think that embarrassment alone to a government should ever be a reason for maintaining secrecy,” Mr Dreyfus said.

“I think that you’ve got to be looking at what actual harm is going to be caused to our community by breaching serious secrecy obligations.

“And that’s what the new general secrecy offence will do — it will go to establishing that there needs to be harm to our community in some way, and that’s why the secrecy has been protected.”