Julian Assange’s newly formed Australian WikiLeaks Party (WLP) announced that if elected, it will immediately introduce a national shield law to protect a reporter’s right not to reveal a source, as current state-based shield laws are “inadequate.”

“Only a uniform shield law covering the whole Commonwealth is acceptable,” WLP spokespersons Cassie Findlay and Sam Castro said. “Government agencies, at federal, state and local level, are increasingly gaining powers to obtain information about individual citizens.”

The proposed law is the WLP’s first major policy announcement since it was formed as part of WikiLeaks founder Assange’s bid to become an Australian senator in the September 2013 elections in Victoria State.

The WLP plans to compete for Senate seats in Victoria, New South Wales and Western Australia in the September 14 election, with Assange running for one of the six Senate seats being contested in Victoria.

Findlay and Castro explained that journalists need to have an “unhindered access” to their sources so they could expose corruption, waste and incompetence. “Uniform shield laws legislated by federal parliament are the answer. That is what we stand for and that is what we will fight for if elected. Effective national shield laws go hand-in-hand with uniform whistle-blower laws, particularly covering media disclosures,” the spokespersons added.

The move is WLP’s challenge to proposed federal whistleblower laws, which they say fail to protect those who expose corruption or government crimes: “The proposed laws are not only unsatisfactory, they are a clumsy attempt by the major parties to protect themselves from embarrassing scrutiny.”

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