The Abbott Government has agreed to include safeguards to protect journalists’ sources in its proposed data retention legislation, if Labor agrees to support the Bill.

Protection of journalists’ sources was one of the recommendations made by the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security (PJCIS), which has led to the committee’s role being extended to a further inquiry into how best to do that .

The new inquiry, which intends to hold its first meeting in Canberra on Friday, is expected to take a further three months to deliver its recommendations. Abbott is now proposing that it not meet, as the new safeguards will make it unnecessary.

Opposition Leader Bill Shorten wrote to Abbott over the weekend, saying that Labor believed a higher level of oversight, such as a warrant, should be required for police or other authorities to access metadata for the purpose of uncovering journalists’ sources.

Yesterday Abbott wrote back to Shorten agreeing to include such a proviso if Labor will ensure the Bill passes quickly: “I have decided that a further amendment be moved that will require agencies to obtain a warrant in order to access a journalist's metadata for the purpose of identifying a source. The Government does not believe that this is necessary, but is proposing to accept it to expedite the Bill.”

In his letter Abbott asked for Shorten’s assurance, by 5pm yesterday, that Labour would support the revised Bill in return for agreeing to close the PJCIS inquiry. There is no word yet as to whether Shorten met Abbott’s deadline, or what might happen if he did not.

Attorney-General George Brandis, the chief architect of the Bill, said in Parliament that the Bill as it stood did not represent a threat to journalists, a view not shared by the journalists’ union the Australian Media and Arts Alliance, which has come out strongly against the proposed legislation.

It says that no matter whether a warrant is necessary or not, the new laws will enable law enforcement agencies and other parties to “hunt down: journalists’ sources, which it says is a threat to press freedom and democracy.

The half-compromise may yet result in the Bill passing, with this amendment, but no-one is really happy. Shorten says Abbott is playing politics with data retention (really?).

Watch, as they say, this space. After all the huffing and puffing Australia will end up with a sophisticated state surveillance system already rejected by most Western democracies.