Without press briefings, how can journalists hold Morrison to account?

Journalists should not be mouthpieces for the immigration minister – by taking away the opportunity for them to scrutinise his policies, his statements will largely go unchallenged

    • theguardian.com,
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Scott Morrison
Scott Morrison. Photograph: Nikki Short/AAP

Rewriting press releases is not journalism. One of the roles of journalists is to challenge the statements made by public figures, and to determine their accuracy and truthfulness. Unfortunately for readers, the announcement by the immigration minister, Scott Morrison, on Tuesday that he will scrap his weekly press briefings poses real difficulty for journalists who are trying to evaluate how the Coalition’s immigration policy is faring.

When a witness takes the stand in court, they have the right to give their evidence. But those statements are then tested in cross examination. The value of the minister’s weekly briefing was for reporters to test the statements he made in public, to determine whether his policies stacked up, and whether they were achieving their stated goals.

Sometimes they did, but not always. On one occasion, the minister was forced to issue a clarification following incorrect statements he made about unaccompanied minors being on Manus Island. The minister also came under fire after initially denying there was a pregnant woman with twins on Nauru, although it was later revealed she had been transferred off Nauru just a day earlier.

Likewise, take one of Morrison's earlier announcements, in which he said the government was for the first time “getting the upper hand” on people smugglers. He pointed to no single policy, but rather the government’s entire approach. One fact he relied on is that boat arrivals had decreased by 70%. The questions in the briefing afterwards provided journalists with the opportunity to assess how accurate those statements were:

Scott Morrison: It's interesting you describe a more than 70% reduction in the number of illegal arrivals to Australia as a small decline, but you can explain that to your readers.

Journalist: What's the time frame for that 70% decline?

Scott Morrison: That's the exact period balanced between what has happened since the commencement of Operation Sovereign Borders and prior.

Journalist: But is there a statistical significance in a month's worth of boat arrivals, though?

Scott Morrison: Well, as I said, we're not claiming anything based on arrivals, solely. And we're not claiming anything about arrivals going forward, I was very clear about that. But based on our - based on the information we receive, and working through the region, and speaking to people who are doing this every day, there has been a shift, there has been a shift, and we believe we are now getting the upper hand against the people smugglers, which is in stark contrast to the last five years where arrivals topped out at over 4000 people a month.

Without these conferences, statements like these can go unchallenged. The opportunity to test the minister’s statement will now be only sporadic, on an “as needed” basis.

There’s also a more critical difficulty for reporters. Crucially, what journalists are not being told is how many asylum seeker boats the Coalition is turning back. Without that information, it is difficult to accept the claims made by the minister about the Coalition’s entire offshore processing regime and its efficiency.

A core rationale for "stopping the boats" is undertaking the journey places asylum seekers at grave personal risk. “Anyone getting on a boat should not think that there is an Australian safety net waiting for them. If they get on one of these boats, they put their lives in the hands of people smugglers and far too often we know how that can end in the most fatal of consequences," Morrison said in one of his last briefings. Comments like these appeared on a weekly basis.

But if a boat is turned back, those people have still made the dangerous journey, at least partly. If the journey is attempted, the risk still remains. To say there have been no boat arrivals when there have been turnbacks is therefore an incomplete statement, and it should be subject to scrutiny. If the policy is not working as an effective deterrent to curb boats leaving Indonesia, then it needs to be assessed. Journalists will have no opportunity to do that, and Morrison has given no indication that turnback information will be provided. Other information given to journalists in press releases (as opposed to live briefings) about transfers will also be devoid of context and the opportunity for them to be expanded on.

Because journalists can’t ask Morrison the questions they should be able to, there’s one they will have to ask themselves: without the opportunity to test the statements made, should the Friday press releases be reported on at all?

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