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By\u00a0Mark Pearson<\/a>\u00a0\u00a0@journlaw<\/a><\/p>\n 5th February 2014<\/p>\n Politicians are free expression chameleons. Regardless of their political colours, they are inevitably staunch advocates of a free media and the free flow of information while in opposition.<\/strong><\/p>\n When they win government they tend to shut down criticism and negative press by implementing policies and passing laws to limit scrutiny.<\/p>\n Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott \u2026 called the ABC \u2018unpatriotic\u2019. [Image: Google free usage]<\/p><\/div>\nWe saw this happen in Australia this week Prime Minister Tony Abbott\u2019scriticisms of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation<\/a>\u00a0on the eve of his government\u2019s announcement of an\u2018efficiency study\u2019<\/a>\u00a0on the independent national broadcaster.<\/p>\n Less than a year ago, the former Gillard Labor government\u2019s proposed media regulations which risked journalists and media organisations being shackled by a\u00a0new privacy bureaucracy<\/a>.<\/p>\n Less than two years ago theFinkelstein Report<\/a>\u00a0had journalists potentially being jailed or fined for disobedience of its proposed regulatory regime.<\/p>\n At the time I blogged about the potential implications of the Finkelstein recommendations (The Drum:\u00a0\u2018Media Inquiry: Be Careful What You Wish For\u2019<\/a>) and then communications minister Stephen Conroy\u2019s\u00a0poorly named<\/a>\u00a0News Media (Self-Regulation) Bill. [Also see my commentary in\u00a0The Conversation<\/a>\u00a0putting all this in an international media freedom context.]\n Those proposals arose in a highly politicised context where the then government believed some media outlets were biased against them.<\/p>\n The new Abbott conservative government \u2013 despite having\u00a0opposed those reforms<\/a>\u00a0under the banner of press freedom \u2013 now seems to have adopted the public soap box and budgetary strategies with the ABC directly in its sights.<\/p>\n Prime Minister Abbott used a populist radio program to\u00a0label the ABC \u2018unpatriotic\u2019<\/a>\u00a0following the broadcaster\u2019s publication of claims by asylum seekers that they had suffered burns during an Australian navy operation. [Well detailed by former ABC Media Watch host Jonathan Holmes\u00a0here in\u00a0The Age<\/i><\/a>.]\n In the same radio interview Mr Abbott criticised the ABC\u2019s reportage of the Edward Snowden NSA leaks, including the revelation that Australia\u2019s spy agency had secretly tapped the phones of Indonesian president Susilo Bambang Yudohoyono and his wife in 2009. He questioned the funding of the ABC\u2019s FactCheck Unit which\u00a0a few days earlier<\/a>\u00a0disproved his claim asylum seekers who alleged mistreatment by the Navy were breaking the law.<\/p>\n His criticisms came only hours prior to the Minister for Communications Malcolm Turnbull announcing an\u00a0\u201cefficiency review\u201d<\/a>\u00a0of the ABC and its sister national broadcaster SBS (Special Broadcasting Service). The review will be looking for cost-saving measures in the lead-up to the May budget.<\/p>\n Reporters Without Borders has a long history of dealing with governments that demand national broadcasters be more patriotic in their coverage under threats to withdraw funding. But these cases rarely occur in Western democracies with a relatively high media freedom ranking. (Australia\u2019s was 26\/179\u00a0in 2013<\/a>).<\/p>\n A free news media and a truly independent national broadcaster should be neither patriotic nor unpatriotic \u2013 such calls to nationalism are anathema to genuine truth-seeking and truth-telling in society.<\/p>\n An independent national broadcaster is not the equivalent of the marketing arm of a large corporation.<\/p>\n The ABC\u2019s reportage of both the asylum seeker allegations and the spying scandal is understandable given the Australian Government\u2019s policy of withholding information about the fate of asylum seekers who have attempted to reach Australian shores by boat.<\/p>\n The Australian Government\u2019s policy of\u00a0refusing to provide the media<\/a>\u00a0with details of such operations and in\u00a0limiting media access to detention centres<\/a>deprives Australian citizens and the international community of important information on a key human rights issue.<\/p>\n When journalists are deprived of basic information they are within their rights to publish serious allegations like those of the asylum seekers who claimed to have been injured at the hands of Australian defence forces, particularly if government sources are refusing to offer information about the circumstances.<\/p>\n They are simply reporting the truth that the allegations have been made. Authorities and other media or citizen journalists can set the record straight with evidence if the allegations are unfounded.<\/p>\n It is quite different from false allegations about an individual citizen \u2013 where that person could sue for defamation.<\/p>\n There is a policy reason large corporates and government entities like the Navy cannot sue for defamation over such allegations: in a democratic society such assertions deserve circulation so citizens can weigh their credibility.<\/p>\n Even if ultimately proven false, the allegations of mistreatment of asylum seekers had an element of plausibility when made because the Australian authorities \u2013 including the Navy, national security agencies and the border protection regime \u2013 had \u2018form\u2019.<\/p>\n It may be unpatriotic to say this, but documented incidents suggest it would be na\u00efve to give Australian governments (of whatever persuasion) and agencies the benefit of the doubt in such situations.<\/p>\n They include (at the very least):<\/p>\n The free flow of information is crucial to the democratic standing of a country like Australia. Such attacks by political leaders and calls for patriotism are what we expect from nations ranking much lower on RSF\u2019s\u00a0World Press Freedom Index<\/a>.<\/p>\n The Australian Government should direct its energies to improving the free flow of information in society and granting better access and information to journalists and other citizens instead of name-calling, threats of fund cuts, and bizarre calls for media patriotism.<\/p>\n![\"Tony_Abbott\"](\"http:\/\/journlawdotcom.files.wordpress.com\/2014\/02\/tony_abbott.jpg?w=300&h=421&resize=300%2C421\")
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