You’d be hard pressed to miss this week’s all-out campaign from the media sector on government attacks on press freedom. This remarkable collaborative effort should not be understated – to see Guardian Australia stand alongside the Daily Telegraph with aligned messaging and shared aims is virtually unprecedented in our increasingly polarised media landscape. But without a similarly concerted effort, we risk losing ground on broader issues of human rights that reach well beyond the newsrooms of journalists, and touch the daily lives of every Australian.

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Since the terrorist attacks on New York on 11 September 2001, dozens of national security laws have been passed by Australia’s parliament with support from both major parties. Many of these laws have targeted whistleblowers, journalists working on national security issues and the privacy of the Australian public. This cosy Canberra consensus, not reflected in the opinions of the Australian public, has left insufficient parliamentary conflict and scrutiny for the press gallery to provide meaningful and deep coverage of the issues at hand.

The laws used by Australian federal police to raid journalists’ homes and workplaces this year are part of a stream of dangerously invasive legislation that has received scant attention from most of Australia’s press. When mandatory metadata retention was introduced, the Media, Entertainment & Arts Alliance was able to carve out an extra warrant requirement for any targeting of journalists, but as these raids prove, this is narrowly framed and easily bypassed. Unwarranted access by police also goes unpunished, with police in the ACT alone shown to have accessed journalists’ metadata without a warrant over 116 times in just one year. There has been no sanction for this gross and illegal interference with the fourth estate.

This is a battle that absolutely needs to be had, to ensure that Australia maintains a free and open media landscape. We are the only democracy on the planet that has not enshrined the right to a free press in our constitution or a charter of rights. But it is only a part of the overall picture – one that shows a continued and systematic attack on privacy, security and other freedoms. This is not just about journalists, it’s also about their sources and what they represent.

Australia needs a human rights charter, with some state governments forging ahead with their own plans amid the dearth of federal action

The powers given to the AFP to seize and search anyone’s computers and other digital systems represent a considerable risk to any Australians who choose to expose wrongdoing. These powers have always been a gross abuse of national security apparatus – using them to reinforce a culture of secrecy and lack of accountability in our government and law enforcement apparatus. This abuse was seemingly lost on large sections of the Australian media right up until AFP officers began sifting through their colleagues’ bedroom drawers.

Many experts agree that Australia needs a human rights charter, with some state governments forging ahead with their own plans amid the dearth of federal action. While any worthy human rights charter must include protections for a free press either explicitly or through privacy and free expression provisions, the process of developing a comprehensive charter that encompasses the broad requirements of such a bill and securing enough support to pass both houses of parliament may take years.

Our federal parliament needs to act sooner to address the dangers highlighted by the media raids and the pursuit of journalists and whistleblowers. Without press freedom, the quest of other freedoms and rights becomes immeasurably more difficult. Simultaneously, we must see an active, engaged and empowered media sector that can continue to hold elected officials to account without fear of interference, intimidation or undue influence.

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The recent report into press freedom by Scott Ludlam and David Paris can serve as a blueprint for the next phase of this campaign. We must ensure that the focus is on acts of journalism rather than journalists themselves. If a disclosure of information is in the public interest it should enjoy the protections we give to journalism regardless of who wrote it, or where or how it was published. To isolate protections for professional journalists alone will leave many who work on these issues out in the cold – including the sources upon which the media depend – and divert energy into debating who is and who isn’t a journalist.

Public trust in our media is at an all-time low. This is a major challenge. People have valid reasons to be suspicious of industry self-advocacy – it is not a mechanism to create dividends for wider society and typically halts as soon as their own narrow goals are achieved. But if we see journalists willing to fight for the rights of the Australian people at large, we may see the balance of power shift to genuinely protect the right to report freely, regardless of who is the rapporteur.

• Tim Singleton Norton is the chair of Digital Rights Watch