The ABC must not betray its sources by surrendering footage from tonight’s Four Corners

Tonight, the ABC’s Four Corners will air an investigation into the escalating response from Western Australia’s authorities to climate campaigners opposing the biggest fossil fuel project in the country, Woodside’s Burrup Hub. In response, the WA Police Force (and WA Police Minister Paul Papalia) have ordered the ABC to hand over all the footage Four Corners captured while producing the story, as though to prove the point of the program before it’s even aired.

Incredibly, the ABC appears to be entertaining the idea of surrendering the footage to police, despite the objections of their staff, the media union, a host of civil society groups, and the sources for their story — of which I am one, as media adviser for the Disrupt Burrup Hub campaign. The ABC’s managing director David Anderson has said the broadcaster never has and never will reveal sources, but has not explicitly ruled out handing the vision to the police.

In a few weeks’ time, I will be on trial in a Perth court charged with failing to obey multiple data access orders for phones and laptops that WA police seized from me earlier this year. The maximum penalty for this offence is 20 years in prison, theoretically, yet it never crossed my mind to give police access to the material on my devices. In my defence, I will argue I had a “reasonable excuse” under WA laws: the obligation to protect my sources. The same defence is open to the ABC.

Although I don’t call myself a journalist, I work across a range of media roles, all of which involve sharing sensitive stories to drive change, both personal and political.

As media adviser for the Disrupt Burrup Hub campaign, I facilitated the Four Corners story and have the details of people who have participated in campaign events on the condition they not be identified for fear of state reprisal. This year, more than a dozen homes have been raided by WA counter-terror police, in the process seizing dozens of electronic devices from young climate campaigners.

I am also a housing advocate and I campaign with Aboriginal families and communities on homelessness, cultural heritage and First Nations justice issues, and sometimes I also do some journalism. Almost every day, people come to me with highly sensitive stories that they want to share to have a voice. 

On the basis of strict guarantees of anonymity, doctors have risked their jobs to tell me about the collapsing state of the WA health system. I’ve spoken with First Nations families who’ve lost children in custody, in hospital and while homeless on the streets of Perth. And I’ve worked with traditional custodians holding sensitive material about their cultural heritage and sacred sites that could prevent further destruction of their Country if brought to light.

They want to ensure their story will be told in the right way with the right platform — and not exposed in a way they have no control over. Stories framed properly are empowering, but anything taken out of context can be incriminating or damaging. Power and trust are everything in this equation. It has never crossed my mind to allow any of these stories to fall into the wrong hands.

When we negotiated Four Corners’ access to the Disrupt Burrup Hub campaign, it was on the same conditions. At no point was there any prospect or possibility that any of the footage filmed as a result of that understanding would be provided to police. 

To do so now would necessarily breach the agreements between the ABC and their sources for this story. It might also discourage other people from coming to the ABC in future with vital public interest stories that the public broadcaster should be sharing.

I strongly encourage you to watch the Four Corners story tonight — it has gotten closer than ever before to how power operates in WA to protect powerful fossil fuel interests at the expense of the future of our only home. But that access came with certain preconditions, which Four Corners undertook to preserve. I am confident the program that airs tonight will honour that undertaking, but the promise dissolves as soon as the footage is handed over to WA authorities.

This would not just betray the confidentiality of people who were given explicit guarantees they would not be identified. It would also destroy the most fundamental principle of media ethics, the protection of sources, and damage the trust that is the essential precondition of sharing sensitive stories safely in the public interest.

No-one is suggesting this is an easy decision for ABC management. But nor is it an easy choice for young climate campaigners to send a message about the impacts of Woodside’s Burrup Hub to the largest fossil fuel company in Australia. In response they’ve been charged with serious indictable offences, had their homes and cars raided, and faced aggressive counter-terror policing.

These young people are risking everything to fight for their future by standing up, speaking out and sharing their stories. They are a source of pride and inspiration, and must be protected.

Any real journalist would agree.