The Australian Federal Police used national security laws to access the metadata of journalists nearly 60 times in just one year, according to a new disclosure that will be used to pressure the Morrison government to strengthen press freedom.
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As Labor demanded answers over revelations the AFP asked Qantas to hand over the private travel records of a senior ABC journalist, documents submitted to a review of Australia's mandatory data retention regime have for the first time revealed the extent to which police have examined the communications history of reporters.
The 2015 laws, which force telcos to store their customer's detailed phone and internet records for two years, also require government agencies to obtain a warrant before accessing data that risks identifying a journalist's source.
The whole process is conducted in secret and anyone who reports the existence of a warrant faces two years in jail.
Documents prepared by the AFP show investigators were granted two special "journalist information warrants" in the 2017-18 financial year, and used those warrants to access journalist metadata on 58 separate occasions.
That activity occurred in the same financial year police were asked to probe the leaking of secret government material to ABC reporters Daniel Oakes and Sam Clark, as well as News Corp correspondent Annika Smethurst.
All three reporters were raided by police last month over their unrelated stories and acting AFP commissioner Neil Gaughan has not ruled out charges for publishing the sensitive information.
An AFP spokeswoman would not comment on whether the journalist information warrants were linked to those two cases, citing ongoing investigations.
The AFP's submission to the review does not include figures about how many times it accessed journalist metadata over the past 12 months, and does not disclose how many warrant applications were rejected.
Australia's Right to Know coalition, which represents major media organisations including the ABC, Nine, News Corp, AAP and the SBS, has urged federal MPs conducting the metadata review to abolish the journalist information warrant and insert a blanket exemption for journalists.
Journalists are not notified when a warrant application has been made and have no ability to argue against it.
The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age have been told some MPs recognise the journalist warrant system is flawed and needs strengthening.
The AFP will argue before the committee that no changes are needed to the overall metadata regime, including its mandatory two-year retention period.
"Access to telecommunications data is a critical investigative and intelligence gathering tool. It is used in almost all investigations into criminal activity, serious civil infringements and of intelligence matters," a spokeswoman said on Monday.
"Given its investigative value, it is important that Australia's law enforcement and security agencies continue to have reliable access to telecommunications data."
A separate parliamentary inquiry into press freedom is also slated to begin soon and report by mid-October.
Opposition Leader Anthony Albanese on Monday challenged Attorney-General Christian Porter to explain whether he stood by a previous claim that there was "no evidence" ABC and News Corp reporters were the focus of law enforcement action.
The AFP approached Qantas in March seeking details on flights taken by one of the ABC reporters who received and published top-secret government material containing allegations of misconduct by Australian troops in Afghanistan.
A Qantas staffer later accessed the internal booking system in search of the two flights that police were interested in.
Qantas handed over the information without being presented with a warrant, under a system used by other airlines and major corporations.
Under the procedure, the AFP accesses a Qantas portal and is required to state that they are conducting a criminal investigation and list the name of the act under which they believe an offence has been committed. Qantas was not told that Oakes was a journalist.
Mr Albanese said the document pointed to "a gap" between what the Attorney-General "says is happening and what is actually happening".
"He says that journalists aren't the target of these investigations, but the fact that there was a demand by the AFP for records of flights [of] a journalist from Qantas shows that that's not the case," the Labor leader said.
While Mr Porter would need to sign-off on any move to prosecute reporters, overall ministerial responsibility for the AFP rests with Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton.
Mr Porter - who declined to comment on Monday - has previously said he is "seriously disinclined" to authorise the prosecution of journalists.
Media, Entertainment and Arts Alliance chief executive Paul Murphy said the request to Qantas "underlines the seriousness of the situation we're facing".
"It's yet another example of the culture that's been created in this country of an absolute disregard for the role of journalists in an open liberal democracy, and absolute contempt for whistleblowers."
