After sitting on it for several days at the request of law enforcement agencies, The Australian's Cameron Stewart broke the story of Operation Neath on Tuesday, August 4, 2009, after receiving the go-ahead the previous evening from the Australian Federal Police. Our handling of the issue was praised by the then attorney-general Robert McClelland, the then-AFP commissioner Mick Keelty, the Media Entertainment and Arts Alliance, and later, by the AFP watchdog, the Australian Commission for Law Enforcement Integrity.
Other noses, however, were badly out of joint, especially that of former Victoria Police commissioner Simon Overland, who accused the AFP of hogging the glory for the successful raids carried out in conjunction with Vic Pol and ASIO across Melbourne early on August 4, 2009. Mr Overland complained that copies of The Australian reporting the raids were available in Melbourne before the warrants were executed. The newspaper, however, had honoured its arrangement with the AFP, the main source of the story. The Australian was never told what time the raids would be. We were asked only to run the story in our last editions, which we did. And as a senior policeman later admitted, there was no danger because police already had the suspects' houses surrounded, were monitoring any communications and knew they were unarmed. A year ago, three men convicted of the terror plot were sentenced in the Victorian Supreme Court to 18 years' jail. It should have been the end of the matter.
As late as yesterday, however, the Director of Melbourne University's so-called Centre for Advanced Journalism, Margaret Simons, persisted in her long-running, online vendetta against The Australian, claiming "there was no public interest in the Operation Neath scoop" that had put a source "in harm's way". Dr Simons has focused on an investigation by Victoria's Office of Police Integrity into the alleged leaking of sensitive information related to Operation Neath to The Australian.
The OPI, which is about to be scrapped, investigated the matter at the behest of Mr Overland, from whom the OPI was ostensibly independent. On Friday, the OPI revealed that former Vic Pol detective Simon Artz had pleaded guilty to making an unauthorised disclosure to Stewart about Operation Neath. A further seven charges against Mr Artz, including the more serious offences of wilful misconduct and making an unauthorised disclosure that could endanger life, were dropped. That was no surprise. As a source, Mr Artz was a bit player, tipping Stewart off on July 30, 2009, that the AFP and Vic Pol were preparing to raid a small group of Somali and Middle Eastern men suspected of funding a terror group in Somalia. The real scoop - that the raids were to stop an attack on Holsworthy - was based largely on information provided by the AFP. As Stewart has suggested, the OPI's decision to recommend criminal charges against Mr Artz over what was an internal, disciplinary matter was "fuelled by the toxic, high-profile atmosphere injected in this case from day one by Simon Overland".
During her unctuous campaign that would shame a first-year journalism student, Dr Simons sought to harm Stewart's reputation, claiming that he breached journalism ethics in naming Mr Artz, a confidential source, in his interview with the OPI. As revealed during the court proceedings against Mr Artz, Stewart gave sworn evidence in relation to Mr Artz reluctantly and only because Mr Artz had voluntarily signed - and later reconfirmed the validity of - a written deed of release, waiving Stewart's ethical obligation to keep secret his identity and the content of their discussions. As the journalists' union, the MEAA, stated, "once released, Stewart was under ethical, moral and legal requirements to co-operate with the law". Simons, foolishly, has not apologised or corrected the record, breaching the journalists' code, which states: "Do your utmost to achieve fair correction of errors." The ABC's Media Watch has corrected the matter on its website.
Simons also claimed that The Australian tried to suppress an OPI draft report in 2010 because it criticised Stewart's conduct. In fact, the report did not criticise Stewart. And in a rebuttal addressing more than 100 points, The Australian sought a permanent injunction against the draft because it was riddled with inconsistencies and factual errors - an action supported by ACLEI and the judge.
In order to understand why a news story on a planned terror attack provoked a saga mired in police politics, it is necessary to understand the modus operandi of Mr Overland, the man Dr Simons told the Finkelstein media inquiry "would probably still be the commissioner of the Victoria Police" if not for what she termed the "campaign" against him by The Australian. As Hedley Thomas reported in 2010, Mr Overland admitted in a 2007 affidavit to the OPI that he "fed" local journalists to steer them away from "digging through the back door and finding stuff" (that he did not want published). Thomas did precisely that, incurring Mr Overland's wrath by revealing his involvement in the dubious Operation Briars in 2007, when he was deputy commissioner under Christine Nixon. Based on the word of a career criminal whose own lawyer did not believe him, the operation destroyed the careers of two of Mr Overland's rivals - former assistant commissioner Noel Ashby and former police association boss Paul Mullett. The matter should be investigated with rigour by Victoria's new anti-corruption commission.
Contrary to the claims of Mr Overland and Dr Simons, The Australian handled the reporting of Operation Neath with the utmost responsibility and propriety.
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