The line between safeguarding state secrets and protecting free speech can be difficult for democracies to tread in an age of digital information. That makes the new Attorney-General Christian Porter's slow backpedal on the government's proposed new espionage laws – the National Security Legislation Amendment (Espionage and Foreign Interference) Bill 2017 important and welcome. The bill, as proposed, currently gets the balance drastically wrong.

The bill would make it illegal for journalists, editors and even news organisations' legal counsel to "deal" in leaked classified documents: all could face jail time for even possessing and reviewing such information. It imposes broad and highly subjective standards on newsrooms: any reporting on national security or classified information that could "cause harm to Australia's interests" could be captured, as would reporting or comment that is not "fair and accurate". Laughably, articles that are deemed to cause "loss of confidence or trust" by a state government in the Commonwealth government could even fall foul of the new law.

Quality mastheads such as The Australian Financial Review understand the importance of national security, and exercising proper diligence in reporting of such matters. But the new laws – as currently proposed – would have a serious chilling effect on free speech.