But now to more weighty matters and the vexing subject of media freedom.

Parliament this week will debate a bill requiring telephone companies and internet service providers to collect data from all their customers and store it for two years, so police and security services can get access.

The information they'll be required to keep is called metadata but as to precisely what it includes, no one is 100% sure, and even the Attorney-General, George Brandis, has had trouble explaining.

DAVID SPEERS: If I go the Sky News website, The Australian website, a more questionable website, is that what we're talking about here? GEORGE BRANDIS: Well, I, the, what you're viewing on the internet is not what we're interested in. — Sky News, 7th August, 2014

We'll come back to precisely what those phone companies and ISP's will be collecting on you and on journalists in a moment.

But first, here's what veteran investigative reporter Ross Coulthart recently had to say about what it all means for people like him:

ROSS COULTHART: It is the biggest threat to journalistic freedom ever ... Metadata tells you everything. If you know who I'm calling as a journalist and if you know who's calling me, and you can put together who that person is and where they're calling from, who I'm emailing, who I'm getting emails from, you almost don't need the content of the information, if what you're doing is investigating a journalist who's being leaked information. — ABC Radio National, Media Report, 12th February, 2015

The government says that metadata retention is vital for "the security and safety of the Australian public"

But what exactly is metadata? And what can it do?

Well, essentially it's the electronic trail we all leave on our computers and phones.

It identifies who we call and text ... and the people who call and text us.

It can also identify who we email or message on our computers ... and those who email or message us.

It could also include a record of the websites we visit. And possibly our browsing history, although the Government says it won't.

And it can track where we've been with our phones at any time.

And all this makes life almost impossible for investigative journalists and whistleblowers, as the West Australian's Steve Pennells explained to Media Watch.

STEVE PENNELLS: One of the bedrock principles we work on is confidentiality of sources. People talk, people talk to me and talk to other journalists, on the understanding and the promise that they'll, that those communications will be confidential and even the fact that we talked will be confidential. Now, I can't give that assurance, if, if the records of our communications or the fact we spoke are being kept and could be accessed by any number of agencies. — Steve Pennells, Chief Writer, the West Australian, 26th February, 2015

Journalists' call records and metadata have been legally available to police without a warrant since 1979.

And they've not only been used to keep us safe from terrorists.

Fairfax's investigative reporter Nick McKenzie told Media Watch:

Too often we've seen sources subject to witch hunts when they're clearly revealing information that isn't about national security and is clearly in the public interest. It's happened at least four times that I know of where my calls have been checked but there may have been more The Australian's Cameron Stewart has also had his phone records accessed by the AFP, and he told Media Watch he is one of many

CAMERON STEWART: In Australia last year, there were at least five instances of, of journalists' metadata being examined and I think they were for the, for the stopping the boats and all the refugee issues ... ... And the real worry there is that you're gonna get governments who are not doing it for any reasons of genuine national security but are simply doing it to stop embarrassment and, and basically will hunt down whistleblowers. — Cameron Stewart, Associate Editor, The Australian, 26th February, 2015

Hunting down whistleblowers on political stories that upset the Government has been a regular sport for Labor and the Coalition over the years, as one of our most respected political journalists discovered back in 2008 when Kevin Rudd was Prime Minister.

Federal police hunt for Laurie Oakes fuel leak source AUSTRALIAN Federal Police are sifting through the telephone records of Daily Telegraph columnist Laurie Oakes to find who leaked Cabinet documents which embarrassed the Federal Government. — The Daily Telegraph, 23rd June, 2008

The police also pursued journalists from The Australian in 2005 after this front-page story by Martin Chulov and Jonathan Porter revealed the findings of a secret Customs report:

Airport staff 'smuggling drugs' Secret Customs report exposes criminal links — The Australian, 31st May, 2005

The author of that Customs report Allan Kessing subsequently received a 9-month suspended jail sentence after a court found him guilty of leaking it to the paper.

Metadata showed that numbers at News Ltd had been called from a public phone near Kessing's home.

And in 2004, two journalists on Melbourne's Herald Sun were pursued by police after their story about denying benefits to war veterans embarrassed John Howard's government.

Secret papers show bleak plan for war veterans Cabinet's $500m rebuff revealed — Herald Sun, 20th February, 2004

Those two Herald Sun journalists, Gerard McManus and Michael Harvey, were famously convicted of contempt of court for refusing to answer questions about their source .

But the police reckoned they had found him anyway by cross checking the journalists' numbers along with hundreds of mobile phones and thousands of extensions at the Department of Veterans' Affairs.

Now it's important to point out that all this stuff has been and will continue to be available to police without a warrant

And in future there will be far more information to access and a far greater chance that whistleblowers will be caught, which means they're far less likely to blow the whistle.

STEVE PENNELLS: The consequences are huge for whistleblowers. I mean, In some situations it's jail time. So, I mean, that's why, that's why it's important. I mean they just wouldn't come forward. I wouldn't, I wouldn't come forward as a whistleblower unless I was absolutely sure that our communications were confidential and, and I don't know if you could give me that assurance. — Steve Pennells, Chief Writer, The West Australian, 26th February, 2015

And Steve Pennells and his fellow journalists are not alone in their concerns.

Dr Adam Molnar who lectures in criminology at Deakin University and sits on the board of the Australian Privacy Foundation says the bill:

... poses a very grave threat to the rights to free speech in this country. — Adam Molnar, Australian Privacy Foundation, 19th February, 2015

George Williams, Professor of Law at the University of New South Wales is also deeply critical, telling Media Watch:

The fact that we're the only democracy without a bill of rights means we lack protections for freedom of speech and the press. That makes our journalists uniquely vulnerable when it comes to whistleblowers being revealed. — Professor George Williams, University of NSW, 19th February, 2015

So what's the solution?

Well, one answer might be to make this data available to police only for criminal law enforcement and national security.

This is recommended by a joint submission to Parliament from Australia's combined media organisations, including the ABC, News Corp, Fairfax and others.

Another answer might be to make an exception for journalists by requiring the police and security services to get a warrant when they're chasing leakers.

After an official inquiry revealed how widespread such investigations have become in Britain, this is a protection the UK government is now set to adopt ....

Police will be forced to seek the permission of a judge if they want to retrieve the phone and email records of journalists, after the prime minister's snooping watchdog found that 19 police forces made more than 600 applications to uncover confidential sources in the past three years. — The Guardian, 5th February, 2015

The Australian government has not yet accepted either of those safeguards, but the all-party committee that's been reviewing the Data Retention Bill clearly believes something may need to be done, because it has recommended that the Commonwealth Ombudsman or Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security should be notified of any access to journalists' data.

And it has also recommended:

A separate review by this Committee of safeguards relating to the use of telecommunications data for the purpose of determining journalist's sources ... — House of Representatives, Media Release, 27th February, 2015

But, until there is some exemption for the media, what can journalists and whistleblowers do-if anything-to keep their conversations safe from surveillance?

CAMERON STEWART: I know journalists who juggle multiple phones, for example, but I actually think the only way you can really do it is to go back to the Stone Age. That's just, just stay off electronic communications, don't take a phone with you if you're meeting a source et cetera, et cetera. But then of course that raises the question, well how do you arrange those meetings in the first place? — Cameron Stewart, Associate Editor, The Australian, 26th February, 2015

So how do you arrange that meeting?

Well, there's an answer to that too. Even if it's one that many journalists and whistleblowers haven't yet thought of:

ROSS COULTHART: If I meet somebody for the first time and they're gonna be a useful source, the first thing I say to them is, 'never email me, never phone me', and then I explain to them the reason why they shouldn't is because if they do they'll leave a trace. So we communicate like spies do in cyberspace using dead letter drops and it's the only way to safely and securely protect a source. — ABC Radio National, News at Noon, 25th February, 2015

And our advice to those who want to remain anonymous?

Well for starters, don't ring from your home, office or mobile phone.

Ditto your home or office computer.

Send electronic information on a CD through the post.

And if you do choose an underground car park ... find one without CCTV, don't bring your phone, don't use your credit card nearby or your electronic travel card to get you there.

All in all, it's pretty hard for whistleblowers not to get caught.