Wikileaks has released a secret Australian gag order blocking all reporting on a massive corruption scandal implicating foreign heads of state and Australian central bank officials. The court justified the censorship measures, which Wikileaks founder Julian Assange called “the worst in living memory,” by appeal to “national security” interests.

The gag order is surely one of the most blatant recent examples of censorship by an established democracy, but has received only limited attention in the Western press.

Issued by the Supreme Court of Victoria on June 19th and publicized on the Wikileaks website last Tuesday, the order forbids “disclosure, by publication or otherwise, of any information…that reveals, implies suggests or alleges” that any of a long list of prominent individuals received bribes or abetted illegal activity. The restrictions apply to “any current or former Prime Minister of Malaysia,” the current Presidents of Indonesia of Vietnam, a number of their relatives and several cabinet level officials implicated in the case. The court also censored the Australian media from discussing the contents of the gag order itself.

The scandal dates from 1999, when representatives of two subsidiaries of the Reserve Bank of Australia channeled millions of dollars in bribes to foreign officials in order to secure lucrative contracts to print polymer banknotes, according to reports in the Jakarta Globe and the Malaysian Insider. The case came to light in 2009, when Australian and Malaysian authorities initiated investigations which led to the secret indictment of 17 Australians. Charges were also filed against at least three Malaysians.

Governments have long cited “protection of national security” as a convenient pretext for hushing up potentially damaging revelations. The secret Australian court order went on to admit that its purpose was “to prevent damage to Australia’s international relations that may be caused by the publication of material that may damage the reputations” of the foreign officials specified, reflecting an extremely broad interpretation of the concept of national security, to say the least.

Reacting to the leak, Wikileaks founder Julian Assange, who remains trapped in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London, stated that “the concept of ‘national security’ is not meant to serve as a blanket phrase to cover up serious corruption allegations involving government officials, in Australia or elsewhere. It is in the public interest for the press to be able to report on this case, which concerns the subsidiaries of the Australian central bank.”

The Australian government defended the measure, telling the Jakarta Globe through its embassy that it “obtained suppression orders to prevent publication of information that could suggest the involvement in corruption of specific senior political figures in the region — whether in fact they were or not” and that it “considers that the suppression orders remain the best means for protecting the senior political figures from the risk of unwarranted innuendo.”

While South-East Asian media covered the scandal and subsequent cover up, as did the Times of India and Russia’s RT, few reports could be found in the West, with the notable exception of the Guardian and a short piece on CNN. This despite the fact that the court order applied only in Australia. Foreign publication of the censorship measures could have helped break the veil of secrecy in Australia, given the significant interpenetration of English language media systems.

In any case, all this illustrates the benefits of occasionally perusing the Wikileaks website for direct and unfiltered access to confidential documents of significant public interest. Other recent leaks published on the site include secret drafts of trade agreements with wide ranging implications for the environment, intellectual property rights and the financial services industry. As usual, these treaties are being negotiated behind closed doors with little public consultation or transparency.

We all have a vital interest in closely monitoring what our governments are doing in our name, particularly when they see the need to keep their actions secret. Wikileaks has again shown that it is a powerful tool in helping us break through the walls.

See the Wikileaks press release here:

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

and a PDF of the court order here:

Click to access WikiLeaks-Australian-suppression-order.pdf