Labor home affairs spokeswoman Kristina Keneally says she learnt of the raid while the party's leadership was meeting in Brisbane. From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Annika Smethurst (born 16 September 1987) is an Australian journalist. Law enforcement agencies should never raid journalists just because they are embarrassing the government. Mr Fordham said his producer was contacted an hour after the story was broadcast on Monday by a department official. Comments are moderated and will generally be posted if they are on topic and not abusive. ', 2GB radio host Ben Fordham tweeted Ms Smethurst his support on Tuesday before claiming he was the subject of a Home Affairs inquiry. 'We were told Home Affairs would investigate the disclosure and they would like me to assist that investigation,' he told news.com.au. The PJCIS says the bipartisan recommendations in the report would, if implemented, result in significant improvements to the law including improved legal protections for journalists and sweeping changes to the way federal warrants that relate to professional journalists or media organisations are issued and contested.
The Prime Minister has never recanted from that position – despite the High Court finding that the warrant authorising the raid on Annika Smethurst’s home was itself unlawful.
[15], On 15 April 2020, the High Court of Australia ruled that the search warrant used in the raid was invalid.
By Australian Associated Press and Kylie Stevens and Claudia Poposki For Daily Mail Australia, Published: 22:05 EST, 4 June 2019 | Updated: 23:46 EST, 4 June 2019. This absolutely cuts down any credibility this government may have had left on this issue. Stories from The Monthly delivered free to your inbox. [12] In her original report in April 2018, she "revealed top secret emails between Department of Home Affairs Secretary Mike Pezzullo and Department of Defence Secretary Greg Moriarty, discussing a plan to allow the cyber spy agency to snoop on Australian citizens." to activate your Schwartz Media account. Shadow communications minister Michelle Rowland pulled no punches: Today’s announcement about the NBN is the most extraordinary, wasteful, humiliating backflip in public policy in a generation.
If these processes had been in place when law enforcement agencies sought warrants for NewsCorp’s Annika Smethurst and the two ABC journalists Dan Oakes and Sam Clark, it is quite possible the outcomes, which caused international embarrassment to Australia, would have been different. As a Federal MP, I live my life under public scrutiny. Labor calls on the Morrison Government to urgently implement the bipartisan recommendations of the PJCIS – and use those recommendations as the starting point for further reform. The PJCIS accepted that law enforcement agencies should not be required to give journalists or media organisations prior notice of a warrant but recommends that warrants for journalists or media organisations must be contestable by a Public Interest Advocate before a senior judge. Since the extraordinary raids on Annika Smethurst’s home and the ABC’s Sydney Headquarters in June 2019, the Morrison Government has consistently maintained that the law does not need to change.
And as Mr Reid made clear, the fact that it took the High Court to finally put an end to the prosecution of Ms Smethurst was not evidence of a system that works.Our view is it's evidence of a system that is broken.
Prime Minister Scott Morrison has dismissed concerns about a police raid on a journalist's home, saying he's never troubled about laws being upheld. 'There are serious questions about the timing of the raid, why the raid occurred only at her home, and indeed what steps had been taken prior to the raid being conducted,' he told ABC Radio on Wednesday. MICHELLE ROWLAND . Twitter's Jack Dorsey and shirtless Sean Penn stroll on Hawaii beach after testy few months for tech CEO who faced ouster bid, accusations of censorship and Senate grilling, Trump rape accuser E. Jean Carroll's defamation case moves one step closer to trial after judge rejected attempts by the DOJ to step in and replace the President as the defendant, Instagram rolls out a major redesign to its home page that places a new Reels tab front and center as the firm gears up to place ads in the short clips, Trump's new legal strategy revealed: He wants to stop states Joe Biden won from certifying votes, creating chaos and stopping Electoral College electors being sworn in, Donald Trump tweets new conspiracy theory claiming that software 'switched' votes from him to Joe Biden - despite it already being debunked.
Annika Smethurst (born 16 September 1987) is an Australian journalist. “This may just be the start of a brand of politics I don’t want to be a part of.”.
Prime Minister Scott Morrison and his wife Jenny met with the Queen in London overnight. We are no longer accepting comments on this article. This absolutely exposes this minister, this embattled minister Paul Fletcher, as completely lacking in any knowledge of technology, economics or what Australian consumers need. Shadow communications minister Michelle Rowland pulled no punches: Today’s announcement about the NBN is the most extraordinary, wasteful, humiliating backflip in public policy in a generation. [7], In 2017, Smethurst won her second Walkley Award, also in the Scoop of the Year category, for her story about taxpayer-funded trips to the Gold Coast made by Sussan Ley MP, to buy a flat.
'This is a gross abuse of national security powers - using them to reinforce a culture of secrecy and lack of accountability in our law enforcement apparatus,' chair Tim Singleton Norton said. [11] She had been reporting on "alleged plans to allow greater surveillance of Australian citizens," with agents searching her computer, phone, and home.
There were more questions from the gallery on other subjects in Fletcher’s portfolio today, all of them important: why had so little been done on press freedom in the 16 months since the raids on the ABC and Annika Smethurst’s home, and why was a possible jail sentence still hanging over the head of ABC journalist Dan Oakes? Our approach consistently has been different – more careful with capital – and we’re maintaining that, in this next phase, by saying we’ll only build the fibre lead-in if the customer orders a service.”. He says he was comfortable with what happened with the raid on Ms Smethurst's home after originally telling reporters that AFP were better placed to comment on the ongoing matter. Please use another browser like Edge, Chrome or Firefox in order to get the best browsing experience. And I was sharing a hotel room with a photographer called Ray Bellisario and I didn’t understand why he was there because Ray Bellisario didn’t know anything about sport – or about the Games or … Campbell Reid, News Corp Group Executive, 12 August 2020 It has now been over two years since the Government asked the AFP to investigate the unauthorised disclosure of information to Annika Smethurst.
'It is the public interest for us to know of any plan for greater powers to monitor our messages,' it said in a statement. The PJCIS also recommended a range of new record-keeping and reporting requirements to ensure greater transparency for warrants relating to professional journalists and media organisations. A strong and independent media is vital to holding governments and oppositions to account and to inform the Australian public. Labor believes journalists should never face the prospect of being charged, or even jailed, just for doing their jobs. The raid was slammed by the media union, press freedom advocates and the federal opposition, while News Corp Australia described the raid as 'outrageous and heavy handed'.
They said ASD's cyber security function was being enhanced under laws establishing the organisation as an independent statutory agency within Defence. The Australian Federal Police searched the home, computer and mobile phone of Canberra-based News Corp Australia journalist Annika Smethurst on Monday - even rifling through her underwear drawer - more than 400 days after she wrote a story detailing an alleged government proposal to spy on Australians. From the beginning, Labor members did not believe that the PJCIS was the best forum for conducting a comprehensive inquiry into freedom of the press and the public’s right to know. [6] She also won two Melbourne Press Club Quill Awards for her work on choppergate. Mr Morrison is currently on his first official visit to the UK as Prime Minister and met with the Queen early Wednesday. #thinkingofyou,' Paul Flanagan tweeted. [2] She spent a semester of her degree at Bishop's University in Quebec, Canada. The Coalition can claim to have finished the NBN more quickly than Labor expected to, and that has proved fortuitous. [16], On 27 May 2020 the AFP announced that Smethurst would not be charged over her stories that "… relied on classified intelligence documents".
[9], In 2020, her book, On Secrets, was published by Hachette.
He plans to follow up the matter in Senate estimates hearings later in the year and question why AFP officers spent seven hours raiding Smethurst's home rather than her press gallery office. Die australische bundespolizei (afp) wird nicht lay vorwürfe gegen news corp journalist annika smethurst, nachdem er vor ihrem haus fast ein jahr raiding. Unlike the Morrison Government, Labor believes in freedom of the press and the public’s right to know. You don't go to the High Court unless something has gone wrong and the Court's findings in that matter, I think, raised in absolute capital letters what is wrong with the current system of execution and issuing of warrants to investigate journalists. Still, Fletcher was very much toeing the party line when he attacked Labor’s “deeply flawed” design strategy for the NBN.