Warnings may be old but we haven't learnt the lessons

as posted here ... Warnings may be old but we haven't learnt the lessons

Three guesses. Who said this? ''Our institutions - Parliament, all liberal thought, free speech and free criticism must go on. It would be a tragedy if we found that we had fought for freedom, free belief, and the value of every individual's soul and won the war, but lost the things for which Australia was fighting.''

And this? ''Terrorists see our democratic freedoms and institutions as a source of weakness. I refuse to let that be the case. Our way of life needs to be protected.''

The former was Bob Menzies in September 1939. The latter was Philip Ruddock in 2007. Both Liberals.

There's always going to be a bogyman from whom we need to be protected - whether it be Germans, Japanese, commos, terrorists or boat people. If there isn't a bogyman, one will be invented so politicians can make hay out of our ''national security''.

In 1917 Billy Hughes used wartime powers to censor Hansard if someone made an anti-conscription speech. Under John Curtin, the censors were obsessed with prohibiting anything that could create ''false impressions abroad''.

In May 1940 things were so dire the director-general of information (Keith Murdoch) insisted on a new regulation to give him power to dictate the wording of newspaper and radio news. The idea was that he would be editor-in-chief of Australia, a position to which his son has sought solemnly to adhere. Funnily enough, by 1944 most of the Commonwealth censors were former journalists.

But the sorts of things being censored on the grounds of national security had little to do with national security. For example, news reporting about a tramways strike and a miners' strike were prohibited.

In April 1944 Rupert Henderson, then managing director of Fairfax and the chairman of the Australian Newspaper Proprietors Association, wrote a missive complaining that censorship was being applied for political purposes unrelated to the nation's safety. His article, to be published in The Sunday Telegraph of April 16, 1944, was censored.

Naturally enough the commos had a bad time of it. It was an offence under the Commonwealth Conciliation and Arbitration Act, of all things, to make seditious comments and pro-Soviet comments were seditious. That landed Lance Sharkey and Gilbert Burns in the clink.

History is riddled with false alarms. The security agencies have not rested. Busily and successfully they have persuaded successive governments that they need more and more powers to protect us from hobgoblins. In a terrorist-troubled world there is potentially no end to the array of blunderbusses and catapults that can be stashed in the national security armoury to keep us safe.

For instance, when it comes to reporting the trials of people accused of terrorism offences there are lots of barbed-wire entanglements. Australian academic Lawrence McNamara has been studying how the counter-terrorism laws affect media reporting. His research encompasses conditions in Australia and Britain and in the process he has interviewed lawyers, journalists and security officials.

As far as Australia is concerned, the main direct impediment to media reporting is the National Security Information Act, which controls media coverage of terrorism-related trials. The legislation says the court can decide, on applications by the attorney-general, to prevent the disclosure of evidence. Even potentially more restrictive, the prosecution and defendants can ''agree to an arrangement'' about the disclosure of evidence.

Other terrorism legislation - such as the Crimes Act and the ASIO Act - has a less direct effect but creates a culture of secrecy and the potential to chill reporting.

The biggest terrorism trial we've had in this state is known collectively as the Elomar case. At a recent public seminar Justice Anthony Whealy, who presided over Elomar, said prosecution-defence suppression agreements were now ''part of the furniture'' of these trials.

Nowhere in the legislation is there a requirement that applications for suppression have to be weighed against the principle of open justice.

This sort of furniture has to be bad for the decor, if only because it contemplates a far wider incursion into open justice than might even be dreamed up by the attorney-general on behalf of the spooks. And for what purpose?

If history is our guide, we're entitled to be entirely sceptical that these lavish claims for secrecy really do protect our national security. After all, ASIO has been insisting in the Sagar and Faisal cases (both former Nauru residents under the kindly auspices of the ''Pacific solution'') these refugees could not have access to their security assessments. Further, they posed a risk to Australia. The United Nations Human Rights Council ultimately arranged with Sweden to take Sagar, where he has failed to be a security threat. Subsequently, ASIO had another look at Faisal and decided he wasn't a risk at all and could be admitted to the Land of Oz with permanent residence. However, as part of the cloak and dagger apparatus, his security assessment remains a secret.

We need go no further than the Haneef case to be reminded that from time to time secrecy also serves the useful purpose of shielding from the public gaze the incompetence of security agencies.

Still, the manufacturing of new machinery to fight the battle proceeds apace. Before Parliament can be found the National Security Legislation Amendment Bill 2010. It seeks to further tighten the reporting of terrorism-related events by requiring judges to decide before a trial or hearing whether to close the entire proceedings if matters of national security might arise.

The definition of national security is delightful. ''National security information means information (a) that relates to national security (b) the disclosure of which may affect national security.''

That just about covers it. We're fast losing the things about which Pig-Iron Bob warned us in 1939.