The D-Notice system and the question of trust

A series of Australian Federal Police (AFP) raids on Australian journalists in 2019 stimulated numerous reviews into press freedom and the impact of Australia’s secrecy laws on public interest journalism. One of the proposals that was subsequently put forward by the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security in 2020 with a view to ensuring journalists could investigate classified information “without the threat of investigation or prosecution” called for the reintroduction of elements of the long-abandoned Defence-Notice or D-Notice system. The D-Notice system was a voluntary press censorship scheme that was introduced in Australia in 1952 after years of sustained pressure from both the US and UK governments to increase Australia’s security and press control measures. Melanie Brand, who has been researching secrecy in Cold War Australia for her PhD in History, tells us more about Australia’s D-Notice system and its history.