Evidence Act 2006

68 Protection of journalists’ sources

• (1) If a journalist has promised an informant not to disclose the informant’s identity, neither the journalist nor his or her employer is compellable in a civil or criminal proceeding to answer any question or produce any document that would disclose the identity of the informant or enable that identity to be discovered.

  (2) A Judge of the High Court may order that subsection (1) is not to apply if satisfied by a party to a civil or criminal proceeding that, having regard to the issues to be determined in that proceeding, the public interest in the disclosure of evidence of the identity of the informant outweighs—

  • (a) any likely adverse effect of the disclosure on the informant or any other person; and

  • (b) the public interest in the communication of facts and opinion to the public by the news media and, accordingly also, in the ability of the news media to access sources of facts.

  (3) The Judge may make the order subject to any terms and conditions that the Judge thinks appropriate.

  (4) This section does not affect the power or authority of the House of Representatives.

  (5) In this section,—

  informant means a person who gives information to a journalist in the normal course of the journalist’s work in the expectation that the information may be published in a news medium

  journalist means a person who in the normal course of that person’s work may be given information by an informant in the expectation that the information may be published in a news medium

  news medium means a medium for the dissemination to the public or a section of the public of news and observations on news

  public interest in the disclosure of evidence includes, in a criminal proceeding, the defendant’s right to present an effective defence.