Report: Australia sliding into secrecy.

According to a major report, there is a growing culture of secrecy in Australia that is chipping away at press freedom and denying public access to critical information.

The "Right to Know" report--produced by Irene Moss, former chair of the NSW Independent Commission against Corruption, and a coalition of leading Australian media outlets--identified at least 1,000 court suppression orders in force, restricting media reporting or the release of information to the public.

According to The Australian, the report condemns governments across Australia for imposing unprecedented levels of secrecy on the flow of public information. It describes commonwealth laws protecting public service whistleblowers as "glaringly inadequate" and says federal shield laws to protect journalists from being prosecuted for refusing to reveal sources are "a sham."

The report also assesses the impact of all restrictions on the the free flow of information around the nation, warning that free speech and media freedom are being whittled away by gradual, sometimes almost imperceptible changes.

"I believe there are indeed grounds for concern," Moss said. "I do not see a crisis. Rather, I see a subtle shift, which means we need to be vigilant."

According to the report, there are at least 500 pieces of legislation in Australia that restrict the media, and 335 acts of parliament containing secrecy provisions. It also reveals that governments sometimes refused to provide documents and other information to their parliaments so as not to subject themselves to scrutiny.

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Moss' report identified Victoria as the state where open justice is most imperiled. The state's judges currently have 700 suppression orders in force--seven times the number in New South Wales, for instance.

Australia's federal Opposition had promised to overhaul the country's freedom of information laws, pass better whistleblower laws, and improve shield laws for journalists. Attorney-General Philip Ruddock said the government already has systems in place to protect whistleblowers and added that it is "more than happy to pursue recommendations in line with" the report from an independent research project that is considering the impact of whistleblower laws.

Ruddock also offered to establish a national register for suppression orders and suggested that the government's current inquiry into the FOI system would consider costs and delays.

"The Government has attached a great deal of importance to the FOI Act," he said. "We would consider it appropriate that issues such as delay and cost be examined as part of the Australian Law Reform Commission review."

Moss said current FOI laws are not serving the public well. "Sometimes the FOI provisions, which were intended to help people get information, are used as an excuse to deny it," Moss said.

John Hartigan, chairman and chief executive of News Limited, told The Australian: "Australian democracy is not as free, not as open and not as transparent as it should be. Some of the rights and freedoms we cherish are threatened. The Moss report shows that the slide into secrecy and censorship is evident at all levels of government and among political parties."