Labour doesn't want to protect journalists after all

Last year, in response to several highly-publicised abuses by police, then-Labour MP Louisa Wall put a bill to protect journalists' sources in the ballot. It was lucky enough to get drawn, was given a first reading in October and sent to select committee. Today, the committee reported back. But rather than the usual amendments and recommendation to pass or not pass, they had this to say:

We received a letter from the member in charge of the bill on 20 August 2022 informing us of her intention to withdraw the bill. The member told us that there are insurmountable drafting issues with the bill, and that the bill would not achieve its intended policy outcome. In accordance with the member’s wishes, we therefore do not recommend that the bill proceed.

What are these "insurmountable drafting issues"? The Ministry of Justice's Departmental Report on the bill goes over the issues, which basicly boil down to the definition of "journalist" and associated questions around the scope of the bill, the proposed requirement to seek a production order for some information before seeking a search warrant, procedural requirements around production orders and search warrants, and the imposition of a general duty to protect the rights of journalists. That same report also included multiple solutions to all those problems, though it would require the bill's sponsor to make some choices (some of which might have been "this section doesn't work, ditch it"). The same report includes as a giant piece of fearmongering the consequences on non-police search powers, but those would also seem to largely be addressed if the core issues were, and by a few minor technical amendments.

But all that would have been work. And rather than do that work, or make those choices, the bill's sponsor (now Ingrid Leary, after Labour forced Wall out of Parliament) just decided to dump it. Which I guess tells us how much - or how little - Labour really cares about protecting journalists.

As for the solution, hopefully we'll see a tweaked version of this bill put back in the ballot by a Green MP. Because unlike Labour, they would actually care about it.

A loss for Labour

Louisa Wall has been one of the most effective MPs of recent times. She gave us marriage equality, she gave us safe zones around abortion clinics, she gave us a ban on revenge porn, and she's currently working on protecting journalists sources. And now she's resigning, having been forced out of Parliament by her own party:

Labour MP Louisa Wall has resigned from Parliament, ending a 14-year career marked by the passage of same-sex marriage legalisation but also clashes with her party.

Wall, who has been cast as an outsider in the party, specifically referenced in her resignation an internal stoush at the 2020 election which led her to be ousted from the Manurewa seat, which she has held since 2011.

“It’s been an honour to represent and provide a voice in parliament to those who are so often unheard,” Wall said on Tuesday afternoon.

This is a tremendous loss for Labour, but they won't recognise it. But the rest of us should. And it certainly makes you wonder what is wrong with a party which cannot accept her.

Protecting journalists

Back in 2014, the police raided and searched journalist Nicky Hager's home over his book Dirty Politics, seizing his journalistic work in an effort to identify his sources to please their political masters in the National party. The raid - and much of the police's related investigative work - was later ruled to be illegal, with a judge ruling that police had deceived the court by omission by failing to inform the judge issuing the search warrant that Hager was a journalist and the information sought was journalistic work-product. The police ended up paying substantial damages. Now, Labour MP Louisa Wall has a bill in the ballot to stop such an abuse of power from happening ever again.

The Protection of Journalists’ Sources Bill would firstly modify the Evidence Act so that investigative journalists as well as beat reporters would be explicitly protected from being quizzed in court about their sources. Secondly, it would make numerous changes to the Search and Surveillance Act to impose procedural safeguards for journalists, requiring warrants and production orders against them or which attempt to identify their sources to be issued by judges, explicitly requiring police to inform judges when they target journalists or sources, and requiring journalists to be notified of any production order (e.g. for phone, bank or travel records) against them or their sources so it can be challenged. It would also impose a general duty on everyone exercising powers under the Search and Surveillance Act, from judges and issuing officers down to the plods enforcing a search warrant to protect journalistic privilege. All of which creates opportunities for an invasion of privilege to be challenged and overturned.

The one thing that is missing is a change to the definition of "news activity" in the Privacy Act 2020 to ensure that investigative journalists are also protected under that Act and close the loophole exploited by the police and GCSB to access David Fisher's work on Kim Dotcom. Its an omnibus bill, and this would absolutely be consistent with its purpose.

This bill is desperately needed, and the sooner it is drawn from the ballot, the better. Alternatively, it seems like it would be a great opportunity for opposition MPs to show their commitment to freedom of the press by signing up to support it.

Spamming the ballot for marriage equality

Two weeks ago, Labour MP Louisa Wall released her Marriage (Definition of Marriage) Amendment Bill [PDF]. Today, the Greens' Kevin Hague has got in on the act, with his Marriage (Equality) Amendment Bill [PDF]. While the two bills have the same goal, they achieve it by slightly different means, and Hague's bill additionally does some consequential legislative tidy-up. Which should be enough to avoid SO 277(2), meaning double the chances for a marriage equality bill being drawn.

If anyone else wants to spam the ballot, and make it three bills out of sixty, there's another version here which ought to slip through (on the basis that it changes the law in a different way from either Hague or Wall's version).

The marriage equality bill

Labour MP Louisa Wall has released her Marriage (Definition of Marriage) Amendment Bill [PDF]. It's a simple bill, which adds a definition to the interpretation clause, and substitutes the schedule of prohibited degrees of marriage with a gender-neutral one. Contrary to my worries yesterday, there are no nasty surprises.

So, now its just a matter of waiting for it to be drawn from the ballot, and building support among MPs. The latest tally is 46 yes, 19 no, 5 undecided, and 51 unknown. 61 votes are needed for the bill to pass, so we need 15 more (and ideally more for cover). Time to make some clamour and start hassling those MPs...