Public Interest Disclosure Bill

Second Reading

Adjourned debate on second reading.

(Continued from 5 June 2018.)

The Hon. K.J. MAHER (Leader of the Opposition) (15:58): I rise today to indicate that I am the lead speaker for this bill and to advise that Labor is supportive of the changes being implemented through the Public Interest Disclosure Bill 2018. We will, however, propose one amendment, which I believe was filed some time ago, and I will expand on that shortly.

This bill repeals the Whistleblowers Protection Act 1993 and establishes a new protection scheme for whistleblowers. The scheme regulates the disclosure of environmental and health information and public administration information in two different ways. The environmental and health information is required to relate to a substantial risk to the environment or public health, while public administration information is only required to raise a potential issue of corruption, misconduct or maladministration.

The Attorney-General's Department has provided advice that the bill is identical to legislation that the former Labor government introduced through the former attorney-general, the member for Enfield, John Rau, with the exception of the addition of clause 6, which allows a disclosure to be made to a journalist or a member of parliament but only after an appropriate disclosure as contemplated in the regime has been made. As the bill is currently drafted, a member of the public is only protected by this legislation for disclosures made about public health and environment information but not at all in relation to public administration information.

I flag that the Labor opposition has an amendment to the bill. We think there is some benefit in providing a member of the public who may be aware of public administration information that raises a potential issue of corruption, misconduct or maladministration with protection under this scheme. Let's say, for example, you work in a business that supplies a product to government and become aware of kickbacks or inflated prices. If you make a disclosure about that, as a member of the public, it may be reasonable that you are covered by this scheme, notwithstanding you are not a public sector employee.

Amendments are being filed to effect this change and I look forward to the chamber debating these issues and hearing from the government about why that one amendment should or should not be proceeded with. Once again, I reiterate the opposition's support for the changes being made and look forward to the committee stage of the bill.

The Hon. J.A. DARLEY (16:01): I rise in support of this bill, which is the same as the bill which was presented to parliament last year before the election. The bill reforms the Whistleblowers Protection Act and allows people to make disclosures in the public interest without fear of reprisal by providing immunity for those who make disclosures in line with the act, and also provides protections against victimisation for making a disclosure.

Disclosures can be made to a responsible officer who has an obligation to advise the person making the disclosure whether the matter will be investigated or not. If not, reasons why not must be provided. If action is taken with regard to the disclosure, the responsible officer must make efforts to keep the person making the disclosure updated on the action or outcome of the action taken. Importantly, the bill outlines that a person who has made a disclosure in line with the bill can then approach a journalist or a member of parliament if they have not been notified within 30 days of disclosure, or if they have not received an update on action being taken within 120 days.

Each government agency and council will have a disclosure policy which would outline who the responsible officer is, how disclosures can be made, and obligations under the bill. The opposition's amendments are in relation to extending the protections under the bill to all persons, not just public servants who make a disclosure on public administration matters. I understand the government has indicated that such protections are unnecessary, as members of the public will not require protections if they are disclosing information relating to public administration, as the scope for retribution for the disclosure would be minimal.

I also question whether the protections will include those public servants who are directly affected by the disclosure, and a clear answer has not been provided. At this stage, I reserve my position on these amendments. I indicate my support for the bill overall as I believe it is important that people are given the confidence to speak out when they see something wrong, and can do so in the knowledge that they will not be victimised because they are doing the right thing. These often involve very delicate and sensitive matters, and I hope that by improving these provisions, it will encourage more people to speak out.

The Hon. M.C. PARNELL (16:03): As other speakers have said, we have seen this bill before. This bill before us now is very similar. The Greens supported the last bill and will be supporting this bill as well. We have already agitated debates around appropriate disclosure, including reference to journalists and to members of parliament, so we will not need to reagitate that, I do not think.

The Labor opposition has introduced a new concept that we will need to have a think about and that raises a question about whether there are people who need the protection of this law who are not currently protected, in particular people who are not in a general sense public servants. We will hear what the opposition has to say when we get into committee, but I think my concerns are similar to those expressed by the Hon. John Darley: we are not sure what level of protection these people might need. If we go back to the origins of whistleblowers' protection legislation, the original harm to be overcome was people who were not just ostracised in the workplace but were bullied and sacked and ultimately paid a heavy price for having reported wrongdoing.

Whistleblowers' protection legislation came in in all states and territories and, it is probably fair to say, with limited success. Certainly, it is far more difficult for a big government agency to sack someone who has been a whistleblower and has made appropriate disclosure, but I have seen, in various reviews of this legislation in various states and territories, that there are some things it is pretty hard to legislate for. It is hard to make people be nice to you in the tearoom. It is hard to stop people turning their back on you at the water cooler. There are still consequences of blowing the whistle and not being a team player and not letting some of these indiscretions or illegalities go through to the wicketkeeper.

There is a price to be paid, but our job as legislators is to put in place a regime that protects these people as best we can. I am not sure whether people outside of the Public Service need that level of protection. Generally, they are not facing the sack because they do not work for the Public Service. They are going to make their disclosures to ICAC or to the police or wherever they go. We will hear the debate, but the Greens will need some convincing in relation to that.

Certainly, whilst this bill does what it does, we know that there are still some notorious cases out there of people who have blown the whistle and paid the price. Many of us have been appalled at what is happening at the commonwealth level, where you have someone who basically blew the whistle on illegal spying that our country undertook on one of the poorest countries in the world, East Timor. When that came to light, the response of the government, even today, is to prosecute these people for drawing the public's attention to the appalling and illegal conduct of Australian authorities. How remarkable.

We have to get to a point where whistleblowers' protection legislation reaches much wider. I am not suggesting a state law is going to impact on national security personnel, but I think this debate is a broader one that we as a nation need to have at the state level, at the federal level and even internationally, where one of the world's most famous whistleblowers, I think, has just been denied a visa to come to Australia, as a person of poor character whom we should not be hearing from. The disclosures that that person—

The Hon. I.K. Hunter: She got around that one. Technology.

The Hon. M.C. PARNELL: As the Hon. Ian Hunter interjects, technology is a way around. You do not physically have to be in a country to have your voice heard, but it is still an interesting case study in how we treat whistleblowers at all levels of government. With those brief words, the Greens will be supporting the legislation and we look forward to hearing from the Labor Party about why they feel it needs to be extended in the way that they have proposed in amendments. We look forward to the committee stage.

Debate adjourned on motion of Hon. I. Pnevmatikos.