Communications Minister Malcolm Turnbull arrives for Question Time on Monday. Credit:Alex Ellinghausen The Communications Minister spoke to Prime Minister Tony Abbott and Attorney-General George Brandis on Monday about the stand-off. He was then authorised to reach out to Labor communications spokesman Jason Clare and legal affairs spokesman Mark Dreyfus in an attempt to strike a deal. Negotiations over the bill are said to have, in effect, reached a dead end at that point. The Coalition believes it had had a handshake deal with Mr Shorten until days ago to pass the laws, but the Opposition Leader had walked away.

Labor MP Ed Husic's warning about a lack of consultation is the first major complaint to be made about Bill Shorten's leadership style by colleagues. Credit:Alex Ellinghausen Late on Monday, and after Mr Turnbull had spoken to Mr Clare and Mr Dreyfus, the Coalition caved into Labor's demands that journalists' sources be better protected. Labor now says it will support the change subject to the wording of the amendment, which the government is currently drafting and the controversial data retention laws are set to pass Parliament by the end of next week. It was the direct intervention of Mr Turnbull – widely touted as an undeclared leadership challenger to Mr Abbott - that helped ensure the compromise was reached, even as other figures in government were working to reach a deal.

Spooked by the angry response of media companies to new metadata retention laws, the government and Labor bargained with each other and ended up agreeing that a warrant would have to be sought for crime fighting authorities targeting a journalist's source.

Under the new laws, a person's metadata, or communication and phone logs, would be stored for two years. Currently they can be accessed by crime fighting authorities without a warrant. The information tells police when a person makes contact with someone else, but doesn't include the contents of the communications. Media companies wanted journalists completely exempt, fearing the laws could be used to expose whistleblowers and leakers. Mr Shorten had written to Mr Abbott on Sunday, warning the Opposition reserved its right to amend the third set of new counter-terror laws to better protect journalists. Government sources said the Coalition immediately began working on a response and on Monday, in a formal response to Mr Shorten, the Prime Minister said he would be willing to amend the legislation so that warrants would be required to access a journalist's metadata for the purpose of identifying their source. Mr Abbott sought Labor's assurance that it would pass the bills by the end of the sitting fortnight and agree to kill off a parliamentary hearing scheduled for Friday, in which media companies were expected to appear and forcefully argue against the laws.

Mr Shorten said Labor would agreed to the government's terms, "subject to the text of the amendment". The Media, Entertainment and Arts Alliance issued a strongly worded statement saying that, even with the changes, the law "still permits an outrageous attack on press freedom". "[It] would have a chilling effect on journalism in Australia leading to whistleblowers being fearful that they risk exposure if they seek to reveal instances of wrongdoing, corruption, waste, illegal activity and dishonesty," MEAA chief executive Paul Murphy said. Loading "What needs to be understood is that no journalist, anywhere, can ever allow the identity of a confidential source to become known – that is a guiding principle of journalism the world over."

The development appeared to come as a surprise to Mr Brandis who, under questioning, told the Senate that the matter had been addressed and cited the old plan of ensuring the Attorney-General of the day would be informed of access to a journalist's metadata.