Australia bans reporting of multi-nation corruption case | Hacker News Reader

Australia bans reporting of multi-nation corruption case

wikileaks.org

420 pointsabritishguy132 comments

I have no doubt that Australia has significant higher levels of fraud and corruption than what is usually perceived by society. The problem is that the press here reports virtually nothing, probably as a consequence of the strange defamation and libel laws that we have.

As an example, I have witness of two significant cases of fraud in the last 5 years. In the first, a lawyer stole more than $2 million from trust accounts. The second was a professor from a major university who misused close to $100K from grants. In both cases, the matters were dealt with internally (returning money, compensating victims, etc.) and no single piece of information about this went to the press.

you were directly involved in both cases?

He said he witnessed both. If you see a mugging, are you directly involved?

Those sound like pretty serious crimes. Are you saying that the police and media were informed and nothing was done about it?

The Australian Federal Police was informed of the lawyer fraud and showed a complete lack of interest. Actually, it was quite shocking.

This matter was never resolved criminally, just professionally. The Law Society simply disbarred the lawyer and put the law firm in administration. The Fidelity Fund (responsible for dealing with trust account fraud, which apparently is something quite normal in spite of public perception) returned lost money to clients.

Unfortunately, this seems to also apply to high level sports stars in Australia. Various "Judiciaries" punish players for criminal behaviour with penalties of missed matches, or bans, when they should be dealt with in front of a proper court.

This is how most trust fraud seems to be handled by the bar here in the US. I don't really hear of prosecutors getting involved.

Might the lack of reporting also be Rupert Murdoch related?

Murdoch is perhaps less powerful in Australia than in the US. In the early days, Murdoch went for the world, while Kerry Packer (now dead) went for the Australian market. AFAIK major Australian papers and news outlets are largely independent of Murdoch.

This is not true at all. News Corp owns 7 of the 12 major daily papers and sells close to 70% of all the newspapers sold in Australia. Murdoch is known to keep a close editorial eye on the Australian market, paticularly The Australian, his pet loss-making broadsheet.

Thanks for the info (I've been out of Australia for ten years). The fact remains that Australia still has quite a few solid independent papers (the SMH and Age) and two real public broadcasters (ABC and SBS).

Even though Murdoch doesn't own as large a proportion of the US market, I think his effect on the media here is actually worse than I ever found it to be in Australia (mainly owing to Fox News and the awfulness of its alternatives).

Fairfax isn't too bad here, but it's getting worse. They are shedding journalists and photographers at an alarming rate. Their online offereings are becoming more click-baity every week.

The ABC and SBS have both had their funding slashed and are in the middle of a poltical ideology shitstorm, with many serious people (MP's & senators from the coalition) calling for a complete governace overhaul or even selling off both of them.

Recently the ABC won a coveted license to be able to provide an english langauge news service inside China. The incoming goverment scrapped it completely because they don't like it's perceived anti-conservative bias.

I have no doubt that corruption is universal. Dismiss me as a pessimist or a conspiracy theorist, but, for example, my working definition of (high level) "politician", is: "professional thief and lier".

(For example, defamation and libel laws are not "strange". They work as intended.)

Australia's libel and defamation laws are worse than, for example, the US's — truth is not an adequate defense, and fiction is not immune.

Truth is a defense in Australia. one thing I like about Australian law is that large companies cannot sue for defamation.

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defamation#Australia

From the article: - The court made this order to:

"- prevent damage to Australia's international relations that may be caused by the publication of material that may damage the reputations of specified individuals who are not the subject of charges in these proceedings. These orders are made on the grounds that they are:

- necessary to prevent a real and substantial risk of prejudice to the proper administration of justice that cannot be prevented by other reasonably available means; and

- necessary to prevent prejudice to the interests of the Commonwealth in relation to national security. "

The court would be very careful about making such orders and Australia has one of the strongest separations between the courts and the government. This means that the decision is likely to be made for fair administration of justice rather than for political reasons.

Yes. Because secret court orders and censorship strengthen trust in the proper administration of justice.

Proper administration and trust in same are not the same thing. A 5-year moratorium on reporting of (possibly false) allegations could definitely be the proper approach.

Why not a 5 year moratorium on any details on any crime, since there could be significant defamation resulting from the trial? Why do these politicians have so much more protection that regular people? If international trade is so important, then why publish any details on any trading partner?

Some jurisdictions keep rape trials in camera for precisely this reason pending a guilty verdict. A great deal depends on the degree and credibility of the allegations made about the foreign counterparty, which I think the court is more qualified to assess than the public.

As for why yu treat some politicians and public officials with kid gloves, the short answer is because they run countries (to varying degrees) and a domestic legal issue, while important, may not be so important that it justifies the risk of destabilizing another country, since Australia will still need to deal with the country in question after the individuals in question have left the stage. Ultimately, the value of diplomatic relations may exceed that of short-term legal transparency, depending on the circumstances.

Shush! We can't have anyone be reasonable, now can we, when we are talking about democracy and transparency! Them corrupt fat cats are holding us down, and sunshine desinfectent something, and Assange is being framed, and Down With The Man!

Nonsense. Which jurisdictions? None of the jurisdictions that value law and order have a complete shutdown of news over rape trials.

This is political censorship. What's next? A ban on any political corruption trials on Australian politicians, especially the prime minster, because it could destabilize the stock market and cause a loss in confidence in the Australian Dollar, causing billions of dollars in potential damage?

Money is not more important than what is right.

Rape trials are commonly held in camera in India. There's a serious debate about preserving defendant's anonymity prior to conviction in the UK, ably summarized here: http://www.criminallawandjustice.co.uk/features/Anonymity-Ch...

I'm not sure there's a single objective standard for 'what is right.' I would be reluctant to accept economic stability as an argument for secrecy, but I would be equally cautious about the possibility of injuring another country's stability. diplomacy and transparency are often at odds, but I don't think that's a negative quality of diplomacy.

Yes, and India is not a bastion for consistent and progressive jurisprudence. You are the only one classifying it as a "serious debate". And since when does accused anonymity equate to a complete banning of reporting on the details of an alleged crime?

If a country's stability is so easily damaged by details of a corruption case, then maybe it's time for a change. Nothing is more important than the truth and the freedom to report the truth. Who should be trusted to judge what should and should not be reported, and how much "damage" the truth would cause someone? The answer is no one.

Lord Justice Leveeson's inquiry into the press (the context in which this discussion of defendant anonymity takes) place has been a very high profile event in the UK. You asked for examples, I supplied some.

I hold a different opinion. The media likes to wax noble about the truth when a great deal of the time it aims to exploit gossip or poorly-substantiated rumor for economic gain, cf. the tabloid press. I can see value in a temporary moratorium which does not distort the historical record but which does not facilitate exploitation of it either. As I've said before, what the public is interested in is not the same thing as what is in the public interest.

You didn't give me an example. The UK attempted example was for anonymity, not a complete shut down of the press.

A small percentage of the media may be involved in gossip, but when it comes to political corruption, we need to have complete transparency, without any compromises. Using the threat of economic consequences is a horrible reason to enable politicians to usurp power from the free press.

I gave you the example of India (which derives its court system from the UK), it's not my fault you didn't like it.

A small percentage of the media may be involved in gossip, but when it comes to political corruption, we need to have complete transparency, without any compromises.

You need transparency of result, but you don't need it immediately. Legal proceedings can feature a lot of untruths as well, some of which could cause great harm. The reality is that courts in civilized countries deal with sealed evidence/testimony on a regular basis for a variety of reasons, and this doesn't substantially impede the course of justice even though it may occasionally be perverted. I'm highly skeptical of arguments that reject any possibility of compromise, because they tend to assume the outcome will be a perfect process.

Using the threat of economic consequences is a horrible reason to enable politicians to usurp power from the free press.

I think you're projecting your imagination about what the case involves a bit here. I really don't see enough details to be sure. What if the allegations under seal turn out to be baseless or inaccurate, for example? Is the satisfaction of immediate total transparency worth the damage that may accrue during a multi-year legal proceeding before the court issues a verdict? After all, you can punish guilty parties following a conviction, but it's very hard to repair an innocent person's reputation.

Where senior officials of other countries may be involved in a case, in a variety of capacities from potentially culpable to entirely innocent, are you willing to risk plunging someone else's country into political instability before you've had time to fully assess the evidence? What if the people of the country think the legal proceeding is an attempt to meddle with their internal politics, whether or not this is actually the case?

I strongly disagree with you about transparency being an unalloyed good or a panacea for social ills. Within reasonable limits (and I think a 5-year period for a complex legal proceeding may meet that standard) it can be appropriate to employ judicial discretion.

Obviously, we're not going to agree about this, but I'll put a note on my calendar to follow it up in 2019 and see what the big secret was.

As I said, India is a highly corrupt country, and their judicial system is not worthy of discussion. In a country where bribing of police officers is commonplace, I'm sure everything is open for discussion.

All you are doing is spreading FUD. If you were concerned about innocent people's reputations, then you would want all trials to be "in camera" with no information for 5 years.

There isn't even a single example where having an open trial plunged a country into political instability with the likes of what you describe, let alone from a trial in another country. It's pure nonsense.

"But but but... it COULD happen!" No, it can't ever happen. It's never happened and it never will.

There is no justification to censor the press for any reason, especially political censorship.

You don't have to approve of India's judicial system to acknowledge the fact that it hold some kinds of trials in camera, which was all I asserted.

"But but but... it COULD happen!" No, it can't ever happen. It's never happened and it never will.

Really? Here's an example of a trial that resulted in the collapse of a government, the assassination of a central figure, and eventual reversal of the verdicts by a higher court that found serious irregularities in how the trial had been conducted.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rudolf_Kastner

But carry on, you clearly know far more about this stuff than I do.

Interesting example but still further nonsense. A no confidence vote isn't political instability, that's exactly how the government should be working, ie political stability, especially when you have coalition governments. A government losing power in a no confidence vote happens all the time. That's like saying the US was plunged into ypolitical instability when George Bush Sr. lost his second term because of the "no new taxes" misstep.

Political instability is what happened in Syria, Thailand, Egypt, etc over the last few years. Contrast this to Canada where the same coalition government broke down and cause several elections over a span of a few years. But an educated perso would never consider Canada to be politically unstable.

If you want a more obvious example you could just look at Thailand, but I didn't really want to bring that up because it's so current and it's so hard to tell whether legal actions against erstwhile prime minister Yingluck Shinawatra were brought in good faith or pursuant to the plotting of the military coup (she was dismissed from office by the Thai constitutional Court over the transfer of a national security adviser, which the court said was to facilitate nepotism).

If you're an American and you just posted that, you might as well set fire to your Bill of Rights.

It seems likely that the individuals named in the order are likely to be brought up in the case.

If - as a totally fictional example - allegations were made that the RBA's Note Printing division attempted to bribe the head of some fictional nation, that would almost certainly damage Australia's international reputation, especially if people within Australia later attempted to cover that up.

Does the public's right-to-know outweigh that damage? Clearly the court thinks not.

I'll just leave these links here:

http://www.afr.com/p/national/probe_sought_on_new_rba_bribe_... (Note that the Saddam/Iraqi link is a separate case)

http://www.aph.gov.au/parliamentary_business/committees/sena... - look at page 370

Cute that you say that we have one of the strongest separations between courts and the government, given what Queensland's government has been doing to the court system here. There's been a fair bit of press [1],[2] about the friction between the current government and the court system, due to the state government trying to bend the courts to suit their political desires (examples include the election of an allegedly biased chief justice, the VLAD laws).

I'd agree with you normally, but it seems that the federal government is following the Queensland state government's lead in trying to manipulate the courts to their favour. I dearly hope we see some stronger push-back against that though because the separation of courts and government is one of the best things about this country.

[1]: http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-07-21/queensland-premier-cam...

[2]: http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/queensland/barrister-quits-o...

While it's true about the QLD government, that's not to say our court system is largely healthy (esp compared to most other nations) and needs active awareness. Being aware of what the QLD gov does is not at decrement to the standing of the courts... it should strengthen it.

There's more than one court system in Australia; the order above was apparently made under Victorian jurisdiction.

It could be for neither justice nor political reasons, but simply commercial ones. These nations are often trading partners, but there are some shocking cases of bad behaviour we already know about: Mahatir Mohammed's shaky case against his political opponent Anwar Ibrahim for example. A lot of these nations are new, early, or pseudo democracies and don't like or understand free press.

...and don't like or understand free press.

That's a fairly ironic statement given the content of these documents.

Malaysia likes it even less than DFAT does.

Given the history in the UK: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_British_privacy_injunction... , the sentence "The court would be very careful about making such orders" carries little weight.

We've been round this a few times. It would be nice if there was some sort of general, fair, system for preventing people's lives from being ruined by intrusive scandal reporting or unsubstantiated allegations. The current system is the opposite: the press is free to report what they want, except in rare cases where people with a lot of money or power get to suppress substantiated allegations of wrongdoing that the proper authorities are unwilling or unable to investigate.

The Aitken and Archer libel cases stick in my memory; in both cases, conservative UK government ministers got substantial libel damages by lying on the witness stand. In those cases they were found out and eventually imprisoned for perjury. Since then I always read "prevent damage to .. reputation" as "suppress valid accusations of immoral behavior".

- necessary to prevent a real and substantial risk of prejudice to the proper administration of justice that cannot be prevented by other reasonably available means; and

- necessary to prevent prejudice to the interests of the Commonwealth in relation to national security. "

What a load of crap. Now that WikiLeaks has actually published the information in the public domain, pray what: 1. Damage has been done to Australia's international reputation?

2. What national security has been affected?

3. What justice has been prevented from being administered? All the Aussies involved in the case will be punished as they are Aussie, all the foreign nationals cannot be touched anyways because they are foreign.

This court order is simply about protecting Australian commercial interests as well as trying to shield the RBA. Securency and its subsidiaries bring in considerable amount of recurring income. Why reveal it's mod op?

And with that, I just made my first WikiLeaks donation.

The Australian media is dutifully reporting on an organisation that I will leave nameless.

http://www.smh.com.au/national/wikileaks-publishes-unprecede...

This appears to be about the Reserve Bank of Australia/Securency corruption scandal, which has already been all over the Australia media since 2009? Given the recent dates, though, apparently there's some juicy info in the affadavit (which was not released) that hasn't been leaked to the press yet.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-11-30/rba-officials-face-par...

It's interesting how transparently self contradictory the document is. Clause 5 simply says:

    > The purpose of these orders is to prevent damage to
    > Australia's international relation...

In other words, the entire purpose is political. However this was obviously insufficient grounds, so the next clause says:

    > These orders are made on the grounds that they are:
    >
    > necessary to prevent a real and substantial risk of prejudice to
    > the proper administration of justice that cannot be prevented by
    > other reasonably available means; and necessary to prevent
    > prejudice to the interests of the Commonwealth in relation to
    > national security.

So suddenly it is about "justice" and "national security". So the suppression order to suppress corruption is corrupt itself, and doesn't really even try to hide it, safe in the knowledge that it, itself, is supressed.

The law is a mechanism, not a policy.

Her Honour made the order according to law in her best judgement. You might not agree with the Commonwealth seeking the order, you might not agree with her reasoning.

But it is very silly to seriously propose that you've found a Hollywood-villain judge who is being deliberately evil.

If you don't like the decisions judges make, you need to talk to your MP about getting the law changed. Then the judges will make different decisions in accordance with the updated laws. That is how our system works.

>But it is very silly to seriously propose that you've found a Hollywood-villain judge who is being deliberately evil.

"Hollywood-villain judge who is being deliberately evil"?

There are tons of corrupt judges in most countries, including a huge percentage of judgdes that function in favor of this or that political party. It's utterly naive to think that a judge that rules in favor of a multinational / government etc because of interests (from being appointed by said government to direct bribery), is so uncommon as to be a "Hollywood-villain judge".

For tons of openly blatant cases (some proven in court, and some bringing down whole governments), study the history of places like Southern Europe, Latin America, Africa, etc. (It's not that it's uncommon in the west -- they just do it with more finesse and hide it better. Or, sometimes not, eg: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kids_for_cash_scandal ).

It's also naive to think that the terms of the order are "contradictory" and indicate a failed attempt by the judge to clothe political action in legal terms. The judge is just applying the legislation passed by Victoria's democratically-elected parliament. It specifically requires the judge to identify the "purpose"[1] and "grounds"[2] for issuing a suppression order.

[1] http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/legis/vic/num_act/oca201358o201...

[2] http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/legis/vic/num_act/oca201358o201...

So reference [1] says:

> in the case of a proceeding suppression order or an order under section 26(1), must specify the applicable ground or grounds

"applicable" would seem to be the operative word here. The problem is that the grounds are not applicable to the stated purpose. You would have to concoct quite an elaborate story to rationalise that saving some foreign politicians from embarrassment is supportable on grounds of national security.

>The judge is just applying the legislation passed by Victoria's democratically-elected parliament.

It's also naive to think "democratically-elected parliament" means much. Democratic control in modern democracies is a joke, a one in 4 or 5 years opportunity to vote a mere yes/no for tons of issues a party stands for.

All the examples you gave were in countries with important historical, cultural, legal and political differences from Australia.

Greed is greed, and interests are interests, everywhere. You can find the same things in the US and UK and Germany (actually one of the examples I gave was from the US).

And the US has important historical, cultural, legal and political differences from Australia.

I wasn't disputing the reasoning, or claiming something about the judge. My point is about the consistency of the document itself. It says a) we're doing this for political reasons, and then b) and the grounds are these other completely different things. Whatever Her Honour's reasons are, is it OK for me to expect her to express them in a cogent and consistent manner in the order and not a blatantly inconsistent and unsound manner?

See sjy's reply for more details on the separation of reasoning and grounds.

That's true in general, but how does that apply in the specific case of judicial decisions kept secret?

Holy fuck are you naive. Judges are people and are as biased as anybody, heck likely more so since they are commonly assumed to be above others.

You assume that she has made the the order according to her best judgement - what makes you assume this?

Typical "smear by association" (without any link whatsoever) from the left: "It is ironic that it took Tony Abbott to bring the worst of 'Asian Values' to Australia."

A smear? Tony Abbott is the idiot who

A) dissolved the Climate Commission, because he thinks climate change is a hoax

B) is destroying the Great Barrier Reef by removing the carbon tax

C) appointed a climate change denier Dick Warburton to review the alternative energy funding

D) directly cutting $435m from renewable energy agency, while removing the mining taxes

E) asked UNESCO to remove 74,000 hectares of Tasmanian forest from its World Heritage List

The guy is the classic right wing moron who only cares about a short term profit ala drill-drill-drill and doesn't give a shit if the environment or the whole plant goes to shit because of it.

Your points have NO relevance to this attempted association to high-level international corruption.

Can you provide any relevant information/arguments?

Uh, B. isn't correct. The risk to the Great Barrier Reef is to do with a new nearby port for coal exports. The dredging of the area is expected to unsettle seabed which could impact the nearby reef.

Despite all that, these are all unrelated to the original post.

I think what (B) is referring to is ocean acidification caused by atmospheric carbon dioxide dissolving. This also threatens coral reefs.

It was a stupid thing to add to the release - it not only attempts to smear Abbot, it is also borderline racist.

However, I'm not sure you can characterise this as a left vs right issue. Assange attempted to sue (former Labor PM) Gillard over some of her comments too.

While I'd probably agree with your implied view that Assange is "of the left", his political views don't align completely with many of the principles that right-wingers think the left holds. For example, his well-known suspicions of the role of government are more closely aligned with the libertarian viewpoint (which is often seen as right-wing).

I'd be more comfortable saying he is socially progressive, libertarian on government, with unknown economic views.

> It was a stupid thing to add to the release - it not only attempts to smear Abbot, it is also borderline racist.

Exactly my sentiments. Adding in commentary like this immediately weakens the broader points, which is unfortunate.

Adding in commentary like this immediately weakens the broader points, which is unfortunate.

Hmm.

Some would argue that by adding in commentary like 'Typical "smear by association" (without any link whatsoever) from the left' it immediately weakens the broader points, which is unfortunate.

Yes, I would be one of those 'Some', but preferred to respond to your characterisation of the issue.

You are right.

I should have just made the comment, like you, that I dislike having baseless links added to such releases, just because people don't like our current Prime Minister. It's completely irrelevant and detracts significantly from the seriousness of the information.

For what it's worth, I would make the same comment about any Prime Minister, regardless of party or persuasion.

That's a classy reply. Thanks.

The Abbot smear is silly, seeing that he belongs to the federal executive, and this order was made by a state judiciary. However, the "Asian values" comment is completely apt. I'll say no more, because the phrase alone could remind readers of certain people, and it's against the law for me to refer to those people in this thread. 8-(

From what I understand, he is such a lovely guy.

"I won't be rushing out to get my daughters vaccinated, maybe that's because I'm a cruel, callow, callous, heartless bastard but, look, I won't be."

“Abortion is the easy way out. It’s hardly surprising that people should choose the most convenient exit from awkward situations.”

“Jesus knew that there was a place for everything and it’s not necessarily everyone’s place to come to Australia.”

“What the housewives of Australia need to understand as they do the ironing is that if they get it done commercially it’s going to go up in price and their own power bills when they switch the iron on are going to go up.”

“Now, I know that there are some Aboriginal people who aren’t happy with Australia Day. For them it remains Invasion Day. I think a better view is the view of Noel Pearson, who has said that Aboriginal people have much to celebrate in this country’s British Heritage.”

I wish wikileaks would leak Gillian Bird's affidavit - this must be pretty juicy.

I hope they don't, the whole point of the ban is to ensure an untainted jury. The details will be released once the case has been heard.

Nobody reading wikileaks is ever going to serve on a jury.

What makes you think that?

If you have ever had the “pleasure” of being called up for jury duty then you will quickly see that anyone thought to have more than half a brain still functioning is excluded. I have been called up several times and been thrown off as soon as my title was noted (not that having a Ph.D means you have half a functioning brain).

Addendum to the why: - If you lean towards one side, the other side is incentivized to dismiss you. - If you're in a case with lawyers, both sides actually want jurors that they can influence, rather than jurors that will come to their own, unexpected, uncontrollable conclusions. That would be a dangerous wildcard.

[citation needed]

I have been a registered voter for 20 years and only called to jury duty once, and that one I missed because I didn't open the envelope.

My only hope is that I could keep my goddamn mouth shut long enough to actually get on one.

You are lucky. The whole process is incredible inefficient and wasteful of the potential jurors time - call in 100 people and make them sit around all day in the court house just so you can dismiss them all because the defence lawyer wants to play games. Shakespeare was on to something I think.

That was my experience the one time I got called in for jury duty. I was very curious about the process and disappointed when I missed the final cut. I did got into the court room, and had a look at the defendant, heard the charges...

I was hoping for an experience like '12 Angry Men'. Maybe next time.

Change your registered address: Seems like every time I move I get a letter. Still haven't served and it was only the first time when I had just turned 18 that I walked past the dock for selection.

This is nonsense, jury selections happen every single day around the world on cases that were thoroughly covered by the media. The selection processes is extremely strict in countries like Australia and makes sure the members are untainted.

Suppose you were right and it really was about jury impartiality. Why invoke national security? Quote from the article:

> The super-injunction invokes “national security” grounds to prevent reporting about the case, by anyone, in order to “prevent damage to Australia's international relations”

The leaked order doesn't mention fair-trial concerns, and explicitly claims a rather different motivation:

5. The purpose of these orders is to prevent damage to Australia's international relations that may be caused by the publication of material that may damage the reputations of specified individuals who are not the subject of charges in these proceedings.

(Off-the-cuff speculation: an Australian may be charged with either taking bribes from, or offering bribes to, someone high-up in another government. In which case, Australia wants to prosecute the Australian in question, but doesn't want to call out the important foreign official on the other side of the transaction.)

the whole point of the ban is to ensure an untainted jury

Not at all.

It's done to "protect Australia's international reputation":

The purpose of these orders is to prevent damage to Australia's international relations that may be caused by the publication of material that may damage the reputations of specific individuals who are not the subject of charges in these proceedings

The order doesn't even mention jury selection.

You should re-read the gag order, nowhere does it mention anything about tainting a jury or case of any kind. This is purely a political power move to prevent causing issues with trade partners/international relations and you should be concerned like the rest of us something like this is taking place.

Really makes you wonder what else is being hidden behind the Abbott government curtain? This definitely won't help LNP's already diminishing support and further plunge Tony Abbott's dismal approval rating down even further (if that is even possible).

Yet another reason for my home country of Malaysia to be in the news, and not in a positive way.

Malaysia, what happened to you?

Nothing happened since nothing has really changed. It is South East Asia after all.

Arguably, the Wikileaks summary goes too far in claiming that the order "forbids any discloures (sic), by publication or otherwise, of any information relating to the court case by anyone." The order is limited to disclosure that "reveals, implies, suggests or alleges" that various specified politicians received, attempted to receive, or were intended to receive a bribe.

It is not really clear that the orders themselves (sans the Bird affidavit) "suggest" that bribes were attempted or intended. It's also unclear whether the explicit inclusion of "the terms of these orders" is supposed to resolve this question or merely state that disclosure of the orders themselves could be an offence.

Perhaps this explains why the affidavit itself wasn't leaked.

The ABC has a writeup today about WikiLeaks publishing the suppression order, but gives zero information about what was in. I think that gives a good indication as to what the ABC's legal team thought about publishing the contents of the suppression order:

  http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-07-30/wikileaks-publish-details-of-suppression/5634800

It's going to be interesting to see what the papers say tomorrow. But even more importantly, it's going to be really interesting to see what MediaWatch has to say about this.

Is this around the RBA bank note printing scandal? Check out the Four Corners doco on it. http://www.abc.net.au/4corners/stories/2013/09/30/3857148.ht...

Good link, cheers for sharing!

np, I find the Four Corners stuff to be of super high quality.

I was going to bring this case up. Thanks for beating me to it. Interesting in this case of bribing officials in foreign countries and funding groups linked with terror cells by Note Printing Australia was that the AFP was asked to investigate and they simply refused.

Interesting tidbit on the drama in vietnam. http://m.canberratimes.com.au/national/envoys-link-with-viet...

Followup: With the leaked court order, the Australian government has been forced to make a media release to the effect that people (such as the President of Indonesia) mentioned in the order are not accused of any crime [1]. We have the amazing situation where Australian's are expected to swallow a media release, without being allowed to know what it is about. The mind boggles.

Mind you, this is the same system that is directing doctors not to report hundreds of cases of self harm among child refugees [2], so the culture of censorship is endemic.

[1] http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/indone...

[2] http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-07-31/detention-centre-inqui...

Can I publish a link to this page on my website? Or is this link now illegal in Australia? What about a link to this HN submission?

This is ridiculous. Unfortunately, authoritarianism is the norm in Australia; we are the quintessential nanny state.

This kind of censorship has nothing to do with being a nanny state. Despite things like this, RSF still rates the US as being less free than Australia when it comes to the press, and the US doesn't have much of a socialist, 'nanny' slant. Neither does authoritarianism have anything to do with 'nanny'-ism. Is China a nanny state? North Korea? Saudi Arabia? Eritrea? What about the continent-spreading empires of the last century that were run by mustachioed gentlemen, were they 'nanny' states?

As for whether it's a good thing or not to be a 'nanny' state, perhaps have a look at the quality of life in the 'nanny' versus non-'nanny' states.

> This kind of censorship has nothing to do with being a nanny state. ... Is China a nanny state? North Korea? Saudi Arabia? Eritrea? What about the continent-spreading empires of the last century that were run by mustachioed gentlemen, were they 'nanny' states?

It is related, because censorship is authoritarian, and nanny-statism is authoritarian. If the government of a democratic society thinks it should tell its people what they can and can't say, then it's likely that that government (i.e. society) also thinks it should intrude into people's lives and protect them from themselves, because personal responsibility is dangerous. This correlation certainly holds for Australia, which is why I mentioned it.

Those countries you mentioned - China, Saudi Arabia, etc - aren't democratic, so I don't think their authoritarianism reflects the societal will. Thus, the authoritarianism doesn't transfer to, e.g., the government telling people they can't ride a bicycle without a helmet. Authoritarian and democratic countries are nanny-states, almost by definition: e.g., the UK, Australia, Singapore.

> RSF still rates the US as being less free than Australia when it comes to the press

I love the Reporters Without Borders, but I don't think their Press Freedom Index has much merit. Not only is its methodology flawed and subjective, but the calculation of the index is highly opaque, and so I suspect it's somewhat politicized.

We don't know (1) the number of respondents from each country, (2) the kinds of respondents from each country, or (3) the distribution of answers to the questionnaire for each country. Without those things, we can't talk empirically about press freedom. As it stands, we can only speculate on what the simplified "index" means.

You mentioned the US as a comparison for press freedom: I'd like to point out that the US is home to a number of organizations that publish very controversial opinions, like Twitter, Reddit, 4chan, Cryptome, The Intercept, etc. I find it very, very difficult to imagine these organizations existing in Australia (or many of the countries at the top of the RSF's index) -- don't you? I mean, it's illegal to publish "racist" opinion here, and the majority of Australian society seems fine with that - any American I mention that to laughs in my face, and rightly so.

Furthermore, the US also has a number of excellent (at times) news organizations, like The New York Times, The Washington Post, NBC, and PBS. Sure, these organizations are influenced by the US government, but influence isn't quantitative. To say that the ABC, or the Sydney Morning Herald, or Nine are influenced by the Australian government less is mere speculation.

All news organizations are influenced by the society to which they serve, and the government to which they report on. You should always try to vary who and where you get your news from, and always be aware of bias.

> As for whether it's a good thing or not to be a 'nanny' state, perhaps have a look at the quality of life in the 'nanny' versus non-'nanny' states.

As an Australian, I don't think banning psychoactive drugs, nor banning "racist" speech, nor mandatory bike helmets, nor bar lockouts at 12pm, nor homeschooling restrictions do anything to improve the quality of life here. In fact, I think those policies harm the quality of life significantly.

Australia's economic success (and thus "quality of life") is thanks to its (small-l) liberal economic policies of the 80s and 90s, and the resources boom of the 00s -- not because I can't buy a joint at a cafe here.

FWIW, if you're basing your judgment of "quality of life" on the UN Human Development Index, know that that is another highly simplified and flawed index. I'll let you look into that on your own. The HDI certainly isn't a ranking of quality of life - but a well-traveled person like yourself would know that, right?

Generally, "nanny-state" refers to the presence or absence of a social safety net, and not so much to censorship. The US provides less of a safety net.

As for authoritarian-ness, the press freedoms in the US are greater (Australia's libel laws are terrible, for example) but the US also incarcerates its citizens at a frightening rate, executes people, seizes property, and runs a prison camp on an island specifically to deny inmates normal rights. You decide which is worse.

You've predetermined that you want to complain about life in this country, and will argue 'til you're blue in the face as a result. You keep on pointing out the US as being some weird bastion of freedom. Keep in mind that this is the country that gave us 'free speech zones'. Similarly. the US is the country that drives the Anglosphere's campaign against psychoactive drugs, so I'm not sure why you're singling out Australia there. As for RSF's methods being 'highly opaque', I guess them publishing their methodology and questionnaire on the same page as their index doesn't count for some reason? Parts of their method may be opaque, but 'highly opaque'? You're clearly playing the spin doctor here.

As for 'quality of life', I'm not basing it on any measure in particular. Note that 'quality of life' is not 'standard of living', and therefore isn't just a factor derived from economic success. It's just that the socialist 'nanny' countries like those in Scandananvia, Australia, or Canada are almost always in the top 10 for quality of life measures. I mean, you're complaining about some fringe parts of free speech (speech is actually pretty free in Australia - it's really not that much more strict than the US in practise) but missing things like public health, generally low crime, and despite the hype, a country that now has a general handle on tolerance, when compared against other countries.

Well, you're most likely Victorian, given these talking points (as am I). If you don't think that banning scare-quotes-racist speech makes life better, then you're clearly not a minority, nor particularly aware of the power of semantics. I have never seen a non-white argue against racist speech laws. Bar lockouts at 12am (pm is noon...) isn't particularly 'nanny', and if you think it is, you should probably travel more. It's pretty normal for bars to be required to close anywhere between 10 and 2. Bike helmets, maybe, but then you should also protest every other safety measure from stop lights to clean water. Homeschooling I'm not familiar with, but you can homeschool, you're just required to show that you are teaching your kids something. What is it about the homeschooling requirements that you think is so onerous? Is it really a 'nanny' state (in the pejoritive sense) if the government tries to protect children from negligent parents?

Similarly, I don't see a problem with Twitter nor Reddit in Australia (Whirlpool is a bit like Reddit). Yes, I doubt 4chan would have survived its early years, given the paedophile content, but there have been a few australian 'chans' over the years with plenty of strongly racist commentary. The other two I'm not familiar with.

Anyway, I love that you dismiss any particular measure that disagrees with you out of hand (no RSF, no HDI). So, give me some objective ways to measure what you're saying. Show me some objective measures that support what you're saying. Because all you've given me is selected data points and anecdotes, and a well-travelled person like yourself knows that those are trivially easy to spin, right?

Don't forget to click the "Read the full press release here" link for more context from WikiLeaks. For some reason, I thought that would just take me to the original document located further down the same page (so I didn't find the page until I got to it indirectly via search engine). I wonder if anyone else made the same mistake?

https://wikileaks.org/aus-suppression-order/press.html

> Subject to further order, order 1 does not prevent provision of material by the Commonwealth Director of Public Prosecutions to Note Printing Australia Pty Ltd and its legal representatives, provided any such material is provided together with a copy of these orders.

Unsurprising given:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Note_Printing_Australia#2007_co...

As an Australian, the suppression order forbids me from amending the above Wikipedia article to include a note to the suppression order (how meta):

"4.The prohibition on publication in order 1 applies throughout Australia."

If someone outside of Australia were to do this however...

Edit: 1 hour after I made this comment, nobody from outside of Australia seems to have updated the page :(

It appears to have been made under Victorian jurisdiction, which happens a lot because of their suppression laws. Strictly speaking, they can't prevent publication in other states, but they can punish anyone or anything in Victoria. That's why an order made in Victoria will stop the major media.

Even though it's a state issue, I still wouldn't advise an Australian resident to post anything, even if you're not in Victoria.

Still, 2 hours after my comment and a non-Australian has yet to take the hint to edit the Wikipedia page :(

Thank you, anonymous non-Australian for updating the Wikipedia page!

I think they can prevent publication in other states actually. Under s 2 of the Australia Act, State legislative powers can have extra-territorial operation. So even though there is no physical connection to Victoria, I think the situation would be the same as if a non-Victorian committed a murder (or any other offence) in Victoria.

Australia's head of state is the queen of England ruling them through her Governor General. What other things don't they don't know? Oh, and by the way same goes for Canada.

Not the Queen of England per se, since technically the Australian sovereign is the 'Queen of Australia' and the Canadian head-of-state the 'Queen of Canada'. They happen to both be Queen Elizabeth II, but legally they're distinct and these roles have little to do with the UK.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Queen_of_Australia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Queen_of_Canada

Since HN is not in Australia, what exactly is it that we are not allowed to know?

  ...unprecedented suppression order by the Australian Supreme Court in 
  Melbourne, Victoria...

Minor nit: It sounds like strictly speaking, this order is from the Victorian Supreme Court (state level), not the Australian Supreme Court, which is the High Court in Canberra.

http://www.supremecourt.vic.gov.au/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_Court_of_Australia

It really should be “an” not “the”. I would expect that most people outside of Australia (and unfortunately most within) are unlikely to know the correct terminology for the Australian court system.

I love how we have nine (state and territory) 'Supreme' courts, all of which are outranked by the one (national) 'High' court. Someone didn't get their semantics right, back in the day.

It is due to the fact that all the Australia states were once sovereign nations and each state’s “supreme” courts existed before Australian federation. The same exists in the USA with the state supreme courts.

> The same exists in the USA with the state supreme courts.

OTOH, a real violation of expected semantics occurs in the New York State court system where the ultimate appellate court is the "Court of Appeals", the trial court of general jurisdiction is the "Supreme Court", and the intermediate appellate court between the two is the "Supreme Court, Appellate Division".

Canada uses the same scheme. It isn't incorrect, just different. A "supreme" court is one of general jurisdiction and are the highest court to which an issue may be brought (as opposed to appellate courts which do not hear issues directly). They are supreme over courts of limited jurisdiction such as family or probate courts.

The US Supreme Court (federal) actually uses the same name scheme as New York and Canada. All district and appellate are limited geographically, with the supreme court being the only court of general jurisdiction (Amongst the fed. All US fed courts are technically limited). But some actions can still be brought directly to the SCOTUS such as disputes between states over land. So it is not purely an appellate court, hence the term supreme.

Did we not pick "Super Supreme" due to the existing association with a certain pizza perhaps?

Two national courts actually, there's the Federal Court too.

Then you have all the specialised courts, like the Family Courts, the Environmental Courts, the Court of Disputed Returns and many others that I can't remember off the top of my head.

And before the 1980's, you could technically appeal a high court decision to the Privy Council in the UK in certain circumstances, although I don't think that was ever used.

Yes appeals used to go the Privy council [1].

Talking about anachronistic ties to the UK, Australia should do something about all the UK citizens on the electoral roll. There are hundreds of thousands of non-Australian citizens (i.e UK citizens who arrived before 1984) who can vote in Australian elections. Really if you can’t decide if you want to be an Australian citizen after being here for 30 years then you really should stop voting in Australian elections!

[1]. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_Court_of_Australia

Unless something has changed recently, a citizen of a Commonwealth nation (e.g. Australia) can vote in UK elections without being a citizen, as long as they are a resident. Maybe it's about reciprocity?

Often a court is the same judges as another court, so the proliferation can be illusory. For example, justices of the High Court recently sat as the Court of Disputed Returns in that WA Senate cockup.

Victoria has done it before. The a series of the TV show Underbelly was banned temporally. The show depicted a true story of a crime that was still going through the court system. Australian Juries are not supposed to know anything about a case before it goes to court. If the story was on a very popular TV show before proceedings it becomes harder to ensure this.

Court hierarchy in Australia is: 1. High Court of Australia 2. Federal Court of Australia 3. State Supreme Courts 4. Magistrates / Local Courts

This means there are two courts of appeal above the Victorian Supreme Court where this order was made. This is not about prejudicing the jury as these sorts of cases are usually decided by a judge with no jury in Australia.

We also have District Courts, which are superior to Magistrates / Local Courts and and a whole bunch of different kinds judicial and administrative tribunals.

It's been a long time since I studied, but as I recall it the Federal Court is not superior to Supreme Courts. They are the lower courts for Federal laws. Appeals from either to the High Court is where the commonality comes in.

The hierarchy has branches; the Federal Court isn't above the State Supreme Courts in any meaningful sense. Appeals from a State Supreme Court go to a State Court of Appeal and don't touch the federal system unless they are ultimately appealed to the High Court.

Isn't this pretty normal? In the US a judge can bar the press from covering a trial in progress if they believe it could prejudice the jury or create a circus. They will still be allowed to report everything once there's a verdict.

This is not true. A judge can bar the media from their courtroom, but they cannot ban coverage entirely.

> In the US a judge can bar the press from covering a trial in progress if they believe it could prejudice the jury or create a circus.

No, they can't. In the US, a judge can bar media from proceedings and order people involved in a case (parties, witnesses, etc.) not to comment on it, and can thereby prohibit most ways in which the media would get information about it, but cannot generally order the media not to report on it (rules allowing that have in the past been adopted, and generally been struck down as unconstitutional.) The media are generally free to report material leaked in violation of such gag orders, although the leaker may be subject to sanctions.

You're right and that's an important distinction, but it looks that's actually what's in this order as well. They are not making it illegal to report, just to divulge the information. If It leaks, it's fair game.

Australian judges typically have more powers to issue suppression orders (especially in Victoria).

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