Mr RANDALL (3:35 PM) —I am pleased to speak on this motion that the member for Batman has put before the House on the Clarke review of veterans’ entitlements, though I would prefer to refer to it as ‘contempt of court by journalists’. This motion is not very genuine in its stance on freedoms of journalism; it is more of a hatchet job on the former Minister for Veterans’ Affairs. In fact, in contributing to this debate I would like to quote an article by Paul Jacob, the US term limit senior fellow:

That is correct: there are so many varying forms of leak. There are leaks that are in the national interest; there are leaks that are in the interests of the people who leak them. However, there are other leaks which go to the whole security of a nation. For example, the Department of Homeland Security in the US has issued a warning for law enforcement agencies to watch out for Americans who ‘expressed dislike of attitudes and decisions of the US government’, implying that legitimate dissent could be equated with terrorism. The department, established in the wake of the 9/11 attacks, does not guarantee its employees protection for whistleblowers.

Where national security is at stake there is a different view of this whole issue. However, as I said, this motion is not a defence of the journalists and their codes of ethics but a personal attack on the former Minister for Veterans’ Affairs and member for Hughes, Danna Vale. To put it in context, I was one of the 13 members of the party room who saw that the Clarke report was inadequate. It is the democracy of our party room that, when we saw something seemed to be quite wrong with the Clarke recommendations, the Prime Minister committed to go away and change it. It is democracy in action from our party room that helped the veterans receive a better deal so that they got CPI or MTAWE, whichever was higher, on their entitlements.

Matt Price is somebody whom I know and for whom I have a lot of respect, but I did think it was a very cheap shot when, in the Australian newspaper recently, he actually used the article in defence of his colleagues. I thought it was a cheap shot that he should then decide that he would involve this particular minister, because there are so many other leaks and issues that even the other side have brought up about journalists receiving information.

The member opposite asked, ‘Was it the minister or the Prime Minister?’ with her own figures. The fact is that the department initiate these proceedings where they find leaks from their own department. As the member opposite said, there have been 111 investigations by the AFP into leaked government documents since 1997, 37 leaked inquiries have commenced between 2002 and 2005 and there have been 22 convictions of journalists since 1991. So this is not new or relevant to this government; this has been part of the whole make-up of government, certainly at a national level.

My point—and let us not get too cute about it—is that the member for Hotham came on national television and said that he had been able to download the travel entitlements of members from a public servant who had had them downloaded to him. He was dumping information himself, so he is no lilywhite in this cause. But it is not the journalists in this case who are at fault. The public servants who leak this information often sign confidentiality agreements and when they do so there is a civil obligation under law for them to stick to these agreements. They are signed legal documents. When they do it, they do it knowing that there could be consequences. I am not an apologist for journalists, but we do know, as the member opposite said, that these people are not always your friends. They certainly do not mind taking your head off if they get an opportunity—do not stand between them and a good story. What I do support in the member’s motion is the fact that Australia is not a totalitarian society, it is a democratic society, and I therefore support the reform of the laws in relation to the democratic rights of journalists to print material judiciously that they have received from whatever source.