The Official Secrets Act (which was updated in 1990) applied to all British test personnel, military and scientific, in Australia, while the Crimes Act covered Australian personnel. Both limited what participants could say about what they knew and saw. The British legislation was especially rigid, stipulating lengthy prison sentences for breaches. Many of the people who took part in the tests would have found this sufficiently threatening to silence them, and certainly to constrain them from talking to the media. The Australian Crimes Act was not as prescriptive, and the penalties for talking to journalists were less severe. However, the laws of both countries placed real restrictions on potential sources for journalists. But while that side of the equation – the potential sources – seemed under control, knowledgeable insiders could still surreptitiously disclose information to the media. The D-notice system was established to manage the other side of the equation, the media themselves.
As in the UK, D-notices in Australia operated without a legislative foundation. They began in the UK as a peacetime mechanism, less onerous than more restrictive wartime media controls, and this remains the case. In their heyday (and particularly during the Cold War), D-notices flattered media organisations by treating them as equals with as much a stake in patriotism and national honour as the government. D-notices also provided an orderly mechanism whereby media could publish agreed information on national security matters without risking litigation or being harried by security authorities generally. D-notices in Australia are largely unknown, even after they were publicly revealed in 1967. They never became an entrenched feature in Australia. One scholar, Pauline Sadler, believed this was partly because ‘the print and electronic media in Australia never had specialist military correspondents of the calibre of those in the U.K., such as Chapman Pincher’. (Pincher, who lived to be 100, tested the limits of the British D-notice system of media self-censorship with a 1967 story on the interception of communications by UK security authorities. Ultimately no action was taken, though, because he had not actually broken the UK Official Secrets Act.)
The British Government had exerted pressure on the Chifley government to adopt a D-notice system in Australia when it decided to test missiles at Woomera. Chifley acted to control the coverage of the missile program by ensuring public statements about it could come from only himself or his Defence minister John Dedman, but he was reluctant to commit to a D-notice system. After several informal approaches, Edward Williams, the UK high commissioner, made a formal approach on 28 January 1947. A subsequent discussion between Chifley, Williams and Lieutenant-General JF Evetts, the British officer in charge of Woomera, led to some action on publicity arrangements for the Woomera project, but nothing regarding D-notices. An account of this discussion later prepared for Menzies noted that the British high commissioner had inquired whether D-notices could be extended to Australia since, like Canada, the government was ‘in possession of much secret information supplied by the U.K.’ and was ‘responsible for trials and defence research based thereon’. He had also pointed out that in December 1949, the Australian Defence Committee had suggested ‘that every endeavour should be made to obtain the co-operation of the Press in the adoption of a system of “D” notices’.
Despite the pressure being applied by the British, the Chifley government was unreceptive, possibly because of a perception that the D-notice committee itself might leak information. Security issues continued to dog the government as the Cold War worsened, but D-notices progressed no further until Menzies came to power.
One of the most painful episodes in the dying days of the Chifley government concerned the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), forerunner to the current Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO), Australia’s leading scientific research agency. CSIR under its chair David Rivett became mired in controversy over its role in defence science and the adequacy of its security controls. Rivett famously gave a speech titled ‘Science and responsibility’ in 1947 saying CSIR should not be involved in any research that could not be openly published and discussed in scientific fora. A political and media debate ensued around the loyalty of CSIR’s scientists and management in light of the allegations of communist infiltration. This ultimately led to legislation to create CSIRO, removing the capacity to carry out defence science. Defence science was shifted to an organisation within the Department of Defence now known as the Defence Science and Technology Group. Nuclear weaponry, its associated espionage and official secrets imposed new limits on what scientists could do and say.
For the British, plans to test nuclear weapons in Australia made the issue increasingly urgent, so the UK stepped up its pressure on the more amenable Menzies. The secretary of the Australian Department of Defence Sir Frederick Shedden – a long-time supporter of an Australian D-notice system – secured Menzies’ agreement.
Menzies had previously approved mechanisms limiting the media. During his wartime prime ministership, he had placed the entire Australian media under the control of the director-general of information. The influential Australian newspaper proprietor Keith Murdoch, father of long-time News Corp head Rupert Murdoch, held this position briefly. (Wartime restrictions placed upon Australian newspapers were maintained – possibly even strengthened – by Menzies’ Labor successor, John Curtin, straining the relationship between Curtin and the press.) Even by wartime standards many deemed this measure excessive. An editorial in the Sydney Morning Herald commented:
The new regulations give the Director-General, subject only to the direction of the Minister – the Prime Minister, Mr Menzies, in this case – absolute power to compel any newspaper or periodical to publish any statement or material supplied on his behalf in whatever position is required and without limit in respect of the space occupied… These regulations, if they were literally and arbitrarily enforced, would render the Press of Australia completely subservient to the will of the Government and the Director-General.
In his second stint as prime minister, Menzies was alive to the potential problems of free-ranging media under Cold War conditions. He took a central role in the implementation of the D-notice system and attended the first meeting of the committee that guided its development. He wrote personally to editors of newspapers and heads of media associations requesting their co-operation before the system was implemented. For example, in November 1950 he wrote to Eric Kennedy, the president of the Australian Newspaper Proprietors’ Association (and influential owner of the Sun newspaper chain), to ascertain how an attempt to introduce D-notices would be received. He wrote in similar terms to the president of the Australian Newspapers Council, the general manager of the ABC and the president of the Australian Commercial Broadcasting Stations. In his letter to Kennedy, Menzies confirmed that the UK had suggested the D-notice system for Australia, and gave an overview: ‘For many years there has been an understanding in the United Kingdom between the press and publishers on one hand, and the Defence Ministries on the other, whereby the former agree not to print, without prior reference, any matter relating to subjects specified in “D” notices’.
In Kennedy’s absence, the acting president R Doutreband replied. Doutreband said he had gauged the attitude of members, which he summed up thus:
All members are anxious to co-operate with your Government to the fullest extent in ensuring the security of secret information. Their only concern has always been that measures designed to safeguard the genuine interests of national security should be used to cover political matters that have no relation to national security. Members, however, feel that the proposals you now put forward offer the prospect of a real and lasting co-operation between the Service Departments and the Press in these important matters and they will be glad to assist in the introduction and smooth working of the scheme.