Parliamentary Committee system broken: says Law Council president Arthur Moses

Speaking at the National Press Club on Wednesday, Mr Moses said it was disappointing the government had ignored a bipartisan report from the powerful Joint Parliamentary Committee on Intelligence and Security on laws to keep Australians accused of being connected to terrorism from returning to the country for up to two years.

"It's self evident who broke it, it's the government," Mr Moses said. "Because it ignored what the committee said."

"I would be taking very close notice and attention of what they're saying in respect to this legislation rather than ignoring it."

Mr Moses said there was no point in holding hearings and organisations like the Law Council spending significant resources on making submissions and giving evidence if the reports of the committee were to be blatantly ignored.

"That's not accountability," he said.

Earlier Mr Moses said evidence given to the intelligence and security committee's inquiry into press freedom by Home Affairs secretary Michael Pezzullo had showed the investigation wasn't about national security, but Canberra games.

"That is a game between two departments. That should never be the trigger for there to be a raid on the home of a journalist in respect of gathering information, certainly trying to find the source of the journalist's story," he said.

"That comment is regrettable, but it demonstrates the real issue at play here and I think, again, we need to be careful about legislation to ensure that we narrowly define these concepts when you are providing broad powers to law enforcement agencies to investigate these matters and then have people prosecuted."

Earlier Mr Moses had given a speech warning about the "creeping erosion of media freedoms" and called for greater protection of freedom of speech and press freedom.