The government has come under fire after proposing new secrecy laws which could imprison journalists for publishing or even handling classified files.

Rowan Dean says the move is hypocritical as politicians support a federal integrity commission but want to tighten what journalists can publish.

Rowan tells Chris Smith the media’s job is to expose corruption.

“Let’s be clear, this new law says that if a journalist or individual even handles classified material that ultimately is shown to be detrimental to the government of the day…they can spend up to 15 years in jail.

“That’s your independent, freelancing, free-working system designed to look at all levels of government and expose either incompetency, corruption, waste of money. That’s what good journalists do.

“To be on the one hand trying to stifle that and on the other hand saying, ‘well, actually where politicians are corrupt we need an integrity commission’, that just makes no sense.”

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