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We can’t tell you if pollies face corruption allegations – but it’s OK, they can

JOURNALISTS will be jailed for six months or fined thousands for telling Queenslanders whether candidates they’re voting for in the October state election face corruption allegations.

In a shock move condemned as an attack on democracy, free speech and people’s right to know, the Palaszczuk Government has introduced new laws gagging the fourth estate from reporting on complaints or allegations made to the corruption watchdog during election periods.

But candidates won’t face the same steep penalties as journalists, with AttorneyGeneral Yvette D’Ath confirming they could tell constituents about Crime and Corruption Commission (CCC) allegations, while newspaper, radio and television reporters could not.

News organisations, the

Media Entertainment and Arts Alliance (MEAA), rightto-know campaigners and the LNP Opposition have universally criticised the move.

The laws will cover the caretaker period of a state or local government election campaign, after writs are issued, and carry a six-month jail term or $6672 fine. Journalists will only be able to report such allegations if they give the CCC three-months’ notice they intend to do so, which Ms D’Ath said was enough time for the corruption watchdog to decide whether a complaint had merit.

THE laws were recommended by the CCC in 2016 and again this year after the investigation into the appointment of the new Inner-City South State Secondary College principal, which cleared ex-Deputy Premier Jackie Trad of corruption allegations. They will now be fast-tracked through parliament’s committee process and passed in a month.

Ms D’Ath said government was adopting the “independent and considered advice” of the CCC in introducing the laws.

A spokesperson for the Australian Right To Know coalition of media organisations including News Corp Australia, publisher of the Bulletin, condemned the laws: “Gagging reporting of corruption at any time, and particularly before elections, unjustifiably undermines the Queensland and Australian public’s right to know about how the state of Queensland is, and could be, governed and administered.”

Professor Peter Greste, who spent 400 days in an Egyptian prison on terrorism charges for his reporting on the Muslim Brotherhood opposition and is a spokesman for the Alliance for Journalists Freedom, said he wasn’t aware of any laws like those proposed: “I’ve never heard of it in any jurisdiction I’ve ever worked in as a journalist and I’ve worked in many authoritarian regimes.

“The most important time for freedom of communication is during an election.”

He said there would be vexatious and baseless complaints to the CCC from time to time.

“But I think there is a far greater imperative towards freedom of communication and press freedom, particularly during an election when the character and conduct of our candidates is under scrutiny,” he said. “That’s the whole point of an election campaign.”

It was “troubling” the legislation was being rushed through in less than a month as that was not enough time for required public debate, he said.

Opposition Justice spokesman David Janetzki accused Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk of attempting to “cover-up her government’s appalling integrity record and silence whistleblowers”.

He said a “conga line” of Palaszczuk ministers had been reprimanded by the state’s corruption watchdog in the past five years. “Annastacia Palaszczuk has delivered five years of integrity scandals and Queenslanders deserve better.”

The MEAA’s Queensland regional director Michelle Rae said the change would “undoubtedly restrain reporting on allegations of substance”.

“It’s a process of battening down the hatches in a pre-election period,” she said. “It is desperate and unnecessary and the Queensland community should be gravely alarmed.”

She called for its scrapping, calling it “inconsistent with free exchange of information and implied right to free speech”.

“MEAA’s members are incredulous this is being tried.”

The Local Government Association of Queensland has called for laws to stop baseless complaints to the CCC to gain advantage during elections.