Australian Strategic Policy Institute fellow Graeme Dobell has warned an all-purpose shroud of secrecy exists in many departments with information subject to ministerial approval and delay.

In a review of the Defence Department's media operations, Mr Dobell called for officials to be able to release material without approval and use "truth firepower to occupy the information high ground".

"To release information without reference up-and-down the chain and lots of checking becomes reckless institutional behaviour in Defence," he said.

"All the signals are that talking to journalists - and, via the hacks, to Australians - is dangerous business, best avoided."

Mr Dobell said the government's standard approach of "using and abusing" journalists to control a message was now outdated and antediluvian.

"Negative or unwanted yarns are subject to 'damage control' and 'rapid response' and 'clarification'. Even a carefully phrased denial," he said.

"At the centre of the mindset is secrecy, often an all-purpose shroud. Defence shares the secrecy habit with everybody else in official Canberra."

Mr Dobell, a former Canberra-based journalist, said Defence officials were limited in what they could say and delayed by ministerial approval and control.

"The defence aspiration for zero defects meets the minister's demand for no surprises and political advantage, producing media policy that's all about doing policy with as little uncontrolled media as possible," he said.

"To censor or limit information or to be slow to speak merely vacates the arena and allows other voices to define the issue or define you."

To improve communication, he called for new rules allowing defence to brief the public on operational and tactical matters without approval from the minister.

"Defence would get some freedoms that it might find confronting," he said. "Let off the ministerial leash, it would have to speak more openly and honestly about what it is and how it works."

"The Defence Minister is to be constantly and fully informed, but should have no veto over the timing of releases."

Senior ADF officers are prolific users of social media with many posting more than five times a day on different platforms. The platforms are often seen as a means of bypassing journalists.

Chief of Defence Mark Binskin and Vice-Chief Ray Griggs maintain more than 5000 Twitter followers each. Social media is often seen as an outlet to communicate directly with the public.

Mr Dobell's calls may not be welcomed by Australia's most senior public servants, who have called for freedom of information laws to be strengthened to conceal sensitive advice to ministers.

Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet secretary Martin Parkinson and Public Service Commissioner John Lloyd have supported calls to change the act to exempt sensitive advice.

"[This is] not to reduce our accountability, nor to protect us from stuff ups we may have made, but to enhance the capacity to give truly frank and fearless advice that good policy design needs," Dr Parkinson said.