A question of trust: Attorney-General George Brandis urged members of the Press Club to trust the Coalition. Credit:Andrew Meares Here, verbatim, is Brandis' convoluted reply: "If it's a whistleblower, the whistleblower protection laws still apply. If it's a journalist covering what a whistleblower has disclosed, then the journalist wouldn't fall within the reach of the section, because the relevant conduct is the conduct constituting the disclosure; so if the event is already disclosed by someone else and a journalist merely reports that which has already been disclosed, as it was by Snowden, then the provision would not apply." Well, for a start, as the Attorney-General must know, there is no chance at all that the whistleblower protection laws would apply to anyone disclosing information about an intelligence operation (let alone a "special" intelligence operation) to the media. Not a chance. Second, most whistleblowers do not act openly, as Edward Snowden did. They approach the media, seeking confidentiality. The first public disclosure of the information is by a journalist, either quoting a confidential source, or publishing a document supplied by that source. Is Senator Brandis really saying that the plain words of the act would not apply to that journalist? That interpretation defies belief.

Then there was the safeguard, Brandis continued, that prosecution of a journalist under this act could only take place with the express consent of the attorney-general. We journalists can rely on that "democratically accountable officer … to take personal and public responsibility for a decision to allow such a prosecution". Well, let's look at how the person who currently occupies that democratically accountable office reacted to the disclosures of Snowden. To many people – myself included – the publication by The Guardian and The Washington Post of Snowden's revelations was entirely justified. After all, they demonstrated that the National Security Agency and allied spook clubs, including the Australian Signals Directorate, had been routinely hoovering up vast amounts of information on millions of citizens, without the knowledge or authorisation of either the US legislature or our own. Brandis does not see it that way. "Those who doubted that Edward Snowden was a traitor were either of the 'self-loathing left' or the 'anarcho-libertarian right'," he told a Washington think tank. And we're supposed to feel relieved that before proceeding against a journalist under section 35P, the prosecutor will need to get the consent of George Brandis? Besides, the mere threat posed by the act would probably be enough. Suppose Snowden had been an Australian citizen, and had approached an Australian news organisation with his documents. It is inconceivable that any mainstream media outfit would publish leaked material of that kind without first approaching the government of the day for comment.

All the government would have to do to shut them up, under this new legislation, is to warn that publication would reveal information about one or more special intelligence operations, and would "prejudice their effective conduct". Publication in the face of such a warning (whatever Senator Brandis now says) would, , put reporters, their editors and publishers at risk of imprisonment for 10 years. Frankly, I can't see any major Australian news organisation taking that risk. End of story. Job done. Brandis told us last week : "The suggestion that section 35P … somehow constituted a constraint on the freedom of the press, is simply wrong." What rubbish. Of course the legislation is a constraint on press freedom. Of course it is. A month ago, Senator Brandis solemnly told the National Press Club that we should trust the Coalition, because "the side of politics which has in its DNA to keep governments small and to keep freedom large, can be better trusted to handle these matters without over-reaching than the side of politics which believes that expansion of the power of the state is the solution to every problem". Well, the Labor Party supported the security legislation, until Bill Shorten voiced doubts only days ago. But when it comes to countering threats to national security, it is the Coalition that believes most fervently in the expansion of state power. In his speech to the Press Club, Brandis said "the paramount duty of any government is to keep our people safe; there is no higher priority than that".

Safe. Not free. Forget all that rhetoric, as we remember the heroes of ANZAC, about how they fought for our freedoms 100 years ago. In Australia today, the mere threat that one innocent citizen might be randomly attacked by some brain-washed young ratbag with a knife and a smartphone is enough to justify our freedoms being fundamentally diminished. No, Senator, I don't trust you or your party's DNA. Not one little bit. Jonathan Holmes is a Fairfax columnist and a former presenter of the ABC's Media Watch program.