Speaking on the ABC's Lateline program with Tony Jones, Mr Turnbull began explaining the current state of talks surrounding metadata laws, before offering his opinion on what he would do if he was a journalist again.

"If you're a smart journalist, and I said this in the house today ... and you are you are dealing with confidential sources, you as the journalist have an obligation to protect your sources and using encrypted messaging applications and taking care that you don't leave an electronic trail is very important," Mr Turnbull said.

Having just gone over why journalists should not tell sources if their communications records are being accessed via warrant, Mr Turbull's comments struck a chord with host Tony Jones who laughed about the Communications Minister's relaxed stance.

"The Communications Minister's advice 101 on how to be a good leaker," Tony Jones said.

Mr Turnbull just smiled, reinforcing his stance on journalists being able to protect their sources.

"I used to be a journalist, the Prime Minister and I both did ... but journalists and news organisations have got a duty as journalists to the public interest and above all to their sources."

The government has already agreed to a Labor demand that warrants would be required if authorities are attempting to identify a journalist's source but media companies want those warrants to be "contestable" in court.

If anyone publishes information about the warrants trying to be obtained by authorities, they can be subject to an offence provision which involves a maximum sentence of two years in jail.

Mr Turnbull - who has previously admitted to using the Wickr app,  which he says is a better way of messaging than SMS - has previously thrown his support behind a number of low profile messaging apps.

"I use Wickr as an application, I use a number of others, I use WhatsApp, because they're superior over-the-top messaging platforms; hundreds of millions of people do," Mr Turnbull told people at an Alfred Deakin Lecture speech in 2012.

He also joked, last year, that private networks (VPNs) could be used to circumvent data retention laws.

As for the issue of journalists feeling aggrieved at their data being obtained, Mr Turnbull said they must respect the laws already in place regarding the confidentiality of warrant applications.

"Journalists can't have it both ways," Mr Turnbull said. "You can't say: 'We want to preserve the confidentiality or our sources' but however, 'We want to breach the confidentiality of the warrant application in order to frustrate the administration of justice in the investigation of crime.'"