 Today’s Brisbane Magistrates Court decision to fine award-winning documentary filmmaker and former ABC producer Anne Delaney for “interviewing” a prisoner undermines press freedom in Australia, the Media, Entertainment & Arts Alliance said today. The fine was brought under a controversial section of Queensland’s Corrective Services Act 2000 that prohibits anyone from interviewing or photographing prisoners without permission. It is a law unique to Queensland.
Magistrate Errol Wessling in the Western District Magistrates Court at Inala in Brisbane’s south-west gave Delaney a 12-month $750 good behaviour bond this morning (no conviction was recorded), for “interviewing” a prisoner, Louise Julie MacPhee - a woman convicted of the manslaughter of one of 8-week-old triplets.
Delaney had been facing two years gaol after being charged with conducting an illegal interview on April 24 this year with a Queensland prisoner under section 100 of Queensland’s Corrective Services Act. The current Queensland government introduced the law.
“We congratulate Anne for the strong stand she has taken,” Media, Entertainment & Arts Alliance federal secretary, Christopher Warren said.
The case against Ms Delaney was highly contentious. Delaney was apprehended while visiting Louise Julie MacPhee, a woman convicted of the manslaughter of one of 8-week-old triplets.
Delaney was carrying out a preliminary discussion with MacPhee to ascertain whether there were grounds for a future film on a possible gross miscarriage of justice which was based on a strongly dissenting opinion by a judge during MacPhee’s appeal against her conviction.
During the visit, which lasted 35 minutes before Delaney’s apprehension, Delaney did not conduct a formal interview. There was no notebook, pen or tape recorder. Delaney had also spoken to the Corrective Services department prior to visiting MacPhee.
The policy of Queensland’s Corrective Service’s department is that media access to a prisoner will not be granted if the purpose of the interview is “to investigate issues related to the offender’s guilt or alleged innocence”.
The Media, Entertainment & Arts Alliance calls on the Queensland Director of Public Prosecutions and the Director General of the state's Corrective Services Department to overhaul the Act. “The Queensland Government needs to move quickly to repeal this law,” Warren said.
"The public scrutiny of prisons is a vital part of a functioning democracy. Journalists that are confronted with repressive laws such as this cannot question, investigate or reveal information in the public interest," Warren said.
The Alliance knows of at least two other journalists who have been found guilty of an offence under this section the Act.
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