Foreign Affairs Minister Julie Bishop greets journalist Peter Greste ahead of his address at the National Press Club of Australia in Canberra on Thursday. Credit:Alex Ellinghausen

"This comes back, as uncomfortable as it is, Minister, we need to have access, we need to see what's going on," he said.

"And as difficult as it is for the government, if we close that down, if we make it hard for journalists to do their jobs, then we end up with dark spaces where things happen that really shouldn't be happening."

Greste, a free speech campaigner who was last month freed after spending more than 400 days in an Egyptian jail on terrorism-related charges, had earlier expressed his gratitude to Ms Bishop for the diplomatic work done to secure his release. But to much applause he said the government must not block the media from doing its job.

"We hired the government, they work for us, not the other way around. And if we lose sight of that, if we lose sight of the public's need to know and to make decisions and to make democracy work, then again I think we run the risk of losing control," he said.