"I think fundamentally the court ruled that the AFP have the right to enter a newsroom, to fossick around in confidential files, [and] to take information about the way it undertakes its journalism with its sources. This should send a chill down all of our citizens' spines," Mr Morris said. "This is not the way a free and fair democracy works." ABC's director of News, Gaven Morris, outside the Federal Court in Sydney. Credit:AAP Mr Morris said urgent law reform is "clearly required" and said he's "not asking for journalists to be above the law". "What we're saying is within the laws, there are very simple things you can build into them which mean that there are protections for journalists going about and doing their jobs. That's what needs to be reformed right now," he said.

The June 2019 raid related to a series of ABC reports in 2017 called The Afghan Files, based on leaked defence documents. David William McBride, a former military lawyer, has previously admitted leaking material to the ABC that formed the basis of its reports and has been charged with a raft of criminal offences. AFP officers leave the ABC headquarters in Ultimo after the June 2019 raid. Credit:Wolter Peeters The AFP wrote to ABC reporters Dan Oakes and Sam Clarke in September 2018 and said they were suspected of criminal offences relating to the alleged receipt of information from Mr McBride. At a hearing in October, Melbourne barrister Matthew Collins, QC, for the ABC, told the Federal Court the raid was "nothing short of an intimidating attack on freedom of the press".

He said it sent a "sent a chilling message that there can be very grave consequences" for people exposing alleged wrongdoing to journalists. Loading "The warrant provided no protection at all to confidential sources," Dr Collins said. The ABC challenged the validity of the search warrant on a number of bases, including that the decision to grant it, made by a NSW Local Court registrar, was legally unreasonable. In written submissions, lawyers for the ABC said a "reasonable person" in the position of the registrar would have declined to issue the search warrant having regard to a range of factors, including "the very significant intrusion of privacy that the search warrant purported to authorise" and the "importance of the protection of sources".

The broadcaster also contended that the implied freedom of political communication in the Commonwealth Constitution served as a handbrake on the circumstances in which a warrant may be issued. Justice Abraham said the broadcaster's submission relating to the protection of sources "elevates source protection to a position which, on the current state of the law, it does not have". The protection afforded to journalists' sources was not absolute and "an informant cannot be promised or guaranteed anonymity". Justice Abraham said that while the ABC had "repeatedly stated it was not arguing for a position of immunity from investigation of offences for journalists, or for the proposition that there is a guarantee of anonymity for a confidential source", as a "matter of logic" those propositions "do underlie its arguments". The so-called "chilling effect" on the willingness of sources to come forward "would still exist" in any case, Justice Abraham said, unless the ABC was "contending for a position where no search warrant could be issued in relation to media premises (of the type and in the circumstances of this case) where there is a risk of such [confidential] information being held".

Peter Greste, spokesperson for the Alliance for Journalists' Freedom, said the decision was "a powerful reminder of the need to write the principle of press freedom into the very DNA of our legal code, so that the courts have a clear obligation to take it into account whenever they deal with these kinds of cases". "We acknowledge the important role of the security agencies in protecting national security. In seeking to enforce the narrow letter of the law, however, they have undermined the media's role in maintaining the health of our democracy, and as a result, made the entire system less transparent and less stable," Mr Greste said. Greens Senator Sarah Hanson-Young, chair of the Senate inquiry into press freedoms, said the ruling showed “our press freedom laws are broken”. “If the law won’t protect journalists then we must have legislated safeguards to guarantee the freedom of the press and whistleblower protections. These protections must be independent of the government,” she said. A government spokeswoman said: “A number of Parliamentary inquiries are currently on foot in relation to freedom of the press. The Government will consider the recommendations of these inquiries.”

In a joint statement, shadow attorney-general Mark Dreyfus and Labor spokeswoman for communications Michelle Rowland said the ruling confirmed journalists still faced the threat of prosecution and jail just for doing their job. “Labor has made clear our commitment to freedom of the press and the public’s right to know and we expect the government to quickly bring forward appropriate legislation to address the concerns of the Right to Know coalition [of media organisations, including the ABC and Nine].” The court heard the AFP advised the ABC months before the raid that it would seek a search warrant. In an email on January 24 last year, federal agent Ian Brumby proposed the broadcaster be given two to three weeks collate material within the terms of the warrant, which would then be collected by the AFP. Michael Rippon, a lawyer in the ABC's legal department, gave evidence in October that he had a further conversation with Mr Brumby in February last year in which the federal police agent said words to the effect of "we don't want any sensationalist headlines like 'AFP raids ABC'". The ABC declined to assist and the AFP raided the broadcaster's Sydney headquarters on June 5, a day after they executed a separate search warrant on News Corp journalist Annika Smethurst's Canberra home over an unrelated story.