Australia’s Media, Entertainment and Arts Alliance (MEAA) has called for journalists to be exempt from government access to phone and web data, warning that the government’s data retention proposal risks making it impossible for a free press to function.

The plan to retain web and phone data will mean that a range of telecommunications and service providers will need to keep an as-yet-unspecified set of data.

The bill does not limit the range of offences that can be investigated, which means that phone and web metadata may be used to investigate confidential sources and whistleblowers who provide information to journalists without the approval of the government.

The Media Entertainment and Arts Alliance secretary Chris Warren said if the bill was passed in its current form it would make it “almost impossible” for journalists in Australia to carry out the work of a free press.

“The legislation in its current form will prevent the media proper fulfilling its role in properly scrutinising the government and others in power, to the extent that it would be impossible for a free press to continue to operate in Australia,” he said.

“At the very least there needs to be with this legislation … a clear exemption and exclusion of the media and the operations of the media from these laws.”

Warren highlighted how journalists have been referred to the Australian Federal Police for investigation. Guardian Australia reported last week that a number of journalists from multiple news organisations have been referred to the AFP with a view to potentially prosecuting their sources.

Warren highlighted how telephone metadata had previously been used in these types of leak investigations for successful prosecutions of whistleblowers, such as the case of a former Customs employee Alan Kessing, who was convicted of leaking two Customs reports that exposed serious flaws in airport security arrangements.

“A whistleblower or a confidential source is committing a crime when they release information to a journalist. We know that those crimes are routinely referred to the federal police, and they are treated as a crime, and the police rely on metadata to prosecute,”

The comments echo the concerns of almost major news organisation in Australia, with News Corporation, Fairfax Media, Guardian Australia, SBS and AAP all expressing concern about the impacts of data retention on journalists’ and their sources.

In a separate appearance the Law Council of Australia also raised similar concerns for other types of information, and recommended exemptions for legal professional privilege as well.

The MEAA’s comments echo similar calls in the United Kingdom for exemptions for journalists. Draft guidelines are being considered in the UK that highlight the greater intrusions of privacy for different professionals such as lawyers and journalists, and recommend agencies consider whether applications should be made to a higher standard.

New South Wales police also appeared before the inquiry, and told the committee that two years mandatory data retention was the minimum period they would like to see records kept for.

NSW Detective Superintendent Arthur Kopsias said: “Whether it’s two years or seven years I’m not sure. Certainly from our perspective we wouldn’t like to go backwards.”

A number of organisations have also called for more prior oversight of phone and web data requests by law enforcement agencies, ranging from warrants to a form of public interest monitor.

The NSW police argued strongly against such an amendment, and Kopsias said: “I don’t think a warrant scheme would add more to the due diligence and oversight scheme in place at the moment … we have enough internal processes and accountability schemes in place to ensure governance and legislative safeguards are in place.”

The Australian privacy commissioner, the Human Rights Commission and other oversight bodies have argued for greater oversight of metadata requests from telecommunications providers. In the last year there were over 500,000 disclosures by telecommunications providers in response to requests from government agencies.