No matter which side of the fence you sit on, no matter what you read, and no matter who you’ll vote for next, there is an issue unfolding in Australia this week that begs the attention of absolutely every one of us.
It has roused one of the most qualified voices in the country on the topic of censorship.
Peter Greste knows a thing or two about powerful people trying to control the narrative.
The Aussie journalist’s plight became a global story in 2013 when he was imprisoned in Egypt, convicted on “false news” charges that were widely condemned.
Working as a fill-in while a colleague was on leave, Mr Greste woke one morning to police in his hotel room accusing him of aiding a terrorist organisation.
He would spend the next 400 days behind bars as governments and campaigners around the world rallied for his release.
The story was so captivating that it was made into a movie. Billed as a political thriller featuring Richard Roxburgh in a grimy cell dealing with furious foreign cops, it may as well be put in the horror section.
To the casual observer, those stories might feel a world away — the unfortunate tales of people suffering in far off lands. But unfortunately, no country is immune from setting bad precedents.
This week, Mr Greste spoke with news.com.au about something he says he’s never seen before in his home country.
When One Nation leader Pauline Hanson banned journalists from publications she deemed too critical of her campaign this week, red flags went up for the man who once paid an enormous price for simply being associated with the press.
“I think it’s a dangerous precedent, and I hope it doesn’t become the norm,” Mr Greste said.
“Politicians have always moaned about critical coverage, and they’ve always got their journalists and outlets who they think are being unfair. But I certainly can’t recall — it may have happened — but I can’t recall other politicians explicitly banning certain news organisations.
“It’s really a public issue, not a journalism issue.”
He argues that a political party that wants to run the country overtly picking and choosing who gets to report on them was bad news for everyone, full stop.
Wait, we’ve seen this before
The US has given us a glimpse of what intense polarisation does to a country for a solid decade.
Australia appears to be slowly inching towards the same new normal, and Ms Hanson’s party has quite clearly planted its flag à la Trump 2016, haphazardly labelling huge portions of the established media as “fake”.
Mr Trump understands the public forum is where nuance goes to die, and masterfully capitalised on it by oversimplifying what may have initially been reasonable issues to criticise.
Through defiant demeanour alone, he wrote the new playbook for getting bums on seats and copycats are now emerging all over the place.
The slanging match against an institution that deserved criticism as much as any other made for great entertainment for the disaffected, and it appears One Nation has taken that leaf out of the MAGA book and run with it.
The only problem is, history suggests that when the press loses its freedom, the public usually starts losing theirs.
Mr Greste fears if we accept the precedent, the slope could get very slippery, very quickly.
“It happens incrementally,” Mr Greste says.
“Like that famous remark about bankruptcy, it happens very slowly, then quickly.
“These incremental hits against the media, against freedom of speech, they chip away at public confidence and concentrate more and more power in the hands of politicians.
“They create an atmosphere that politicians can leverage to turn a country into an authoritarian state. That’s really dangerous.”
News.com.au is not suggesting that is the goal of One Nation.
But these are the fundamentals you’d hope veteran politicians would understand in 2026. After all, we’ve only had a few thousand years to learn from.
Glassy-eyed humanitarian concerns aside, Mr Greste says Ms Hanson’s approach works to undermine both those who are denied access, and the ones who are allowed through the door.
“By shutting some outlets out, she’s implied those allowed inside the tent are effectively friendly media,” he said.
“There will inevitably be a public perception about that. That means everyone involved is going to be compromised. That’s not good journalism and it’s not good for democracy.”
Nobody wins in the end. Well, except maybe the party for a little while.
At that point, Mr Greste says, the notion of “journalism” begins to whittle away, with only a select few getting access to the full picture. Discontent continues to grow, only at a faster pace.
It also works to deepen the divisions in society, where many ordinary people, who may share very similar values, are encouraged by certain respective political influencers to belittle and ignore their opposition. Vicious battlegrounds over the minutiae emerge, all while core, bipartisan issues lay begging for co-ordinated attention.
Ms Hanson’s decision is clearly a reaction to what she believes is unfair, but even after 32 years in the game, it appears the Queenslander is ignoring a key principle inherent to the democracy she purports to preserve.
The principle applies across the board, where certain industry norms might generate hesitancy to question policy.
Whichever way you want to cut it, a healthy democracy depends on a culture that tolerates scrutiny of its leaders, particularly when pressure is at its peak.
To give Ms Hanson her due, she has said the excluded outlets engaged in “spin” and “gotcha moments” and treated One Nation differently from the major parties. She later said the ban was temporary and the organisations could return once the party received “a fair go”.
To her supporters, that may seem a reasonable response after years of hostile coverage prompted by her polarising positions on issues like immigration.
But to press freedom advocates, singling out particular outlets or reporters crosses a fundamental line.
‘This is about the public’
Discussing this issue is exhausting. Nobody really wants to be a preacher. Your friends will probably get tired of you, and nobody really wins.
But Mr Greste’s story serves as a very recent reminder of what a country can lose when it completely gives up trying to make sense.
He remembers sitting in prison trying to work out if he’d done anything wrong. Then another inmate said something he still hasn’t forgotten.
“‘It’s got nothing to do with you’,” Mr Greste recounts. “‘This isn’t personal. It’s about what you represent.’”
“It wasn’t about us,” he continued.
“It was an attempt to intimidate not just the three of us who were arrested, but all journalists in Egypt.”
So forget your party allegiances for a moment, whatever they might be, and play One Nation’s idea out.
Play any overreaching policy out.
Now put it in the hands of the party you trust the least.
The carousel will continue to spin and the precedents we set today are the ones we’ll feel tomorrow.
“One of the reasons we have a free media is because there’s an imbalance of power,” Mr Greste says.
“Politicians and governments have enormous power, and there is the potential to wield that both responsibly and irresponsibly.
“A free media is a check on that power.
“It’s a way of holding that power back. It’s a way of monitoring them, ensuring that the power is used responsibly.
“When the ability of journalists to scrutinise the powerful is suppressed in some way, then power gets concentrated in the hands of politicians at the expense of the public.
“It’s really a public issue, not a journalism issue.
“It’s not special pleading for journalists themselves. This is really about the public, about the voters.
“I know that sometimes it can seem very self-serving — and sometimes it is — but in this case it’s not.”
Read related topics:Pauline Hanson