The campaign against the government using laws to suppress the media was started by Australia’s Right to Know Coalition.
Sydney| The Australian people today woke up to a strange pattern in all the newspapers. The front pages of all the newspapers in Australia were “Blackened” and a stamp named ‘Secret’ was printed along with it.
Apparently, the move came as the media houses united against the government. Australian Journalists claim that Australia’s National Security laws have stifled reporting and created a ‘culture of secrecy’. They allege that successive federal governments rather than working towards transparency, have instead made laws and rules that penalized whistleblowers.
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The campaign against the government using laws to suppress the media was started by Australia’s Right to Know Coalition. The campaign followed the raids on the ABC’s Sydney headquarters and the government raid at the homes of a News Corp journalists in June this year. Both the cases of raids are being challenged in the Australian High Court.
The Australian parliament has passed more than 60 laws relating to secrecy and spying in the past 20 years. The journalists in Australia have called for exempting journalists from these stringent anti-espionage and secrecy laws. However, Prime Minister Scott Morrison rejected it saying, “No one is above the law”.
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