Journalist Dake Kang wants Uni Sydney to release emails about research into the origins of COVID-19. The university declined and the NSW Civil and Administrative Tribunal AGREES

Mr Kang is a serious journalist, a 2021 Pulitzer Prize nominee for investigative reporting, who is pursuing a serious subject.

Tribunal member Kaye Ransome makes this clear in citing his argument, “that the public should know whether the university’s research partnerships with Chinese research institutions are taking place in an open and transparent manner. He states that the emails caught by his access request may produce information that could inform the public about whether the university’s virologists are being pressured not to say certain things. He submits that, if that is the case, it would have a direct impact on the university’s ability to educate members of the public on topics such as the Chinese government’s handling of the outbreak.”

She also notes both “the general public interest in favour of disclosure” and specific reasons for publication, “disclosure could reasonably be expected to facilitate public scrutiny of and promote transparency in research and that disclosure could reasonably be expected to increase understanding of the sequence of events that led to the COVID-19 pandemic, the origins of the pandemic and the initial health response to it by governments.”

However she concludes that questions about what is in the (unpublished) emails are misplaced, that there is nothing in them “about pressure being applied to the university’s researchers by the Chinese authorities or, indeed, by anyone else.”

She also finds, “the withheld information, in my opinion, would not assist in the identification of any alleged misconduct or negligent or improper conduct.”

And she accepts “there has been serious harassment and intimidations of individuals” who appear in the documents Mr Kang wants public.

And so she concludes, “Mr Kang urges that the balance fall in favour of release and asks whether protecting the reputation of the few prominent scientists should outweigh the potentially enormous ramifications for public health, with millions of lives and trillions of dollars at stake, which may result from nondisclosure. There is no doubt that these are weighty matters and that there is … an extremely strong public interest concerning disclosure of all information relating to SARS-CoV-2. However, on balance, I am satisfied that the public interest considerations against disclosure outweigh those in favour of disclosure even though the considerations in favour of disclosure are substantial.”