Aussie press gag exposed

PETALING JAYA: WikiLeaks has released an unprecedented Australian censorship order on the media from explicitly naming present and past government officials of Malaysia, Indonesia and Vietnam and their relatives named in connection with a multi-million dollar corruption case there.
WikiLeaks said the super-injunction invokes "national security" grounds to prevent reporting about the case, by anyone, in order to "prevent damage to Australia's international relations".
"The court-issued gag order follows the secret indictment of seven senior executives from subsidiaries of Australia's central bank, the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA), on June 19.
"The case concerns allegations of multi-million dollar inducements made by agents of the RBA subsidiary, Securency and Note Printing Australia, in order to secure contracts for the supply of Australian-style polymer bank notes to the governments of Malaysia, Indonesia, Vietnam and other countries," it added.
The whistle-blower site stated the suppression order listed 17 individuals, including any current or former Malaysian prime minister, Vietnamese president, Indonesian president and current leader of the Indonesian Democratic Party (PDI-P) political party and 14 other senior officials and relatives from those countries, who specifically may not be named in connection with the corruption investigation, it said.
WikiLeaks said the document also specifically bans the publication of the order itself as well as an affidavit affirmed last month by Australia's representative to Asean, Gillian Bird, who has just been appointed as Australia's permanent representative to the United Nations.
"The gag order effectively blacks out the largest high-level corruption case in Australia and the region," the website said, noting that the last known blanket suppression order of this nature was granted in 1995 and concerned the joint US-Australian intelligence spying operation against the Chinese Embassy in Canberra.
WikiLeaks publisher Julian Assange (pix), said on the website: "With this order, the worst in living memory, the Australian government is not just gagging the Australian press, it is blindfolding the Australian public.
"This is not simply a question of the Australian government failing to give this international corruption case the public scrutiny it is due," said Assange, who called on Australian Foreign Minister Julie Bishop to explain why she is threatening every Australian with imprisonment in an attempt to cover up an embarrassing corruption scandal involving the Australian government.
"The concept of 'national security' is not meant to serve as a blanket phrase to cover up serious corruption allegations involving government officials, in Australia or elsewhere. It is in the public interest for the press to be able to report on this case, which concerns the subsidiaries of the Australian central bank. Who is brokering our deals, and how are we brokering them as a nation?
"Corruption investigations and secret gag orders for 'national security' reasons are strange bedfellows. It is ironic that it took Tony Abbott to bring the worst of 'Asian Values' to Australia," added Assange.