Dr Babbage and other national security experts said they hoped a compromise could be reached over the laws, which could lead to journalists who received secret information from federal public servants being jailed.

The changes represent a tricky balancing act for the government. The media hates, and will campaign against, any restrictions on its right to report and publish information. The security and intelligence services say the current rules are so old - some date to World War I - that they don't cover many modern forms of espionage and foreign interference, including stealing trade secrets or planning to sabotage infrastructure.

Under assault from outlets ranging from Sydney's Daily Telegraph to The New York Times, Attorney-General Christian Porter last week said the government planned to drop a requirement articles based on leaked documents were "fair and accurate". The threat of jail terms for being in possession of classified information will remain.

Journalists' exemption?

One question the government must decide on is whether to exempt journalists from the rules governing possession of secret information, which is the major demand of the journalists' union.

Even national security experts said journalists were a special case because they could benefit society by exposing secrets.

ASIO staff deliver a safe to the ABC's Parliament House bureau to secure confidential files on February 1. ABC

Peter Jennings, the executive director of the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, said journalists should be subject to the same laws as everybody else and praised the ABC for withholding some secret information accidently found in two second-hand filing cabinets.


"I don't support carve-outs in the legislation for journalists," he said. "Perhaps what needs to be made clearer is to understand how the laws will be applied, so that we end up with outcomes like the recent cabinet leaks story."

'Unprecedented' foreign interference

The changes are driven in part by assertions by the head of the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation, Duncan Lewis, that espionage and foreign interference is at an "unprecedented" level. ASIO declined to make anyone available for an interview.

They will make it a criminal offence to ask someone to engage in espionage and expand the law to cover operations by foreign governments that isn't espionage but may harm Australia's national security or influence politics or government.

Security officials, who see this as their best chance to modernise the laws they work under in 50 years, are concerned about the backlash by media organisations, according to Alan Dupont, a former army intelligence officer who is chief executive of the Cognoscenti Group, a firm that provides advice on geopolitics.

"The last thing the national security community wants is for the legislation to become overly politicised and to lose public support, which is a real risk if mainstream media and legal criticisms are not addressed," he said.

A professor of public ethics at Charles Sturt University who has worked to expose Chinese government influence in Australia, Clive Hamilton, wants academics given similar protections to journalists.

"My view is that the legislation probably needs to be amended to protect free speech by journalists, academics and whistleblowers," he said.

"But we should remember that the objective of the proposed laws is to protect democratic freedoms in this country, and that's why I strongly support them becoming law."