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Legislative Council - Fifty-Fifth Parliament, First Session (55-1)
2025-11-13 Daily Xml
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Whistleblower Protection

The Hon. H.M. GIROLAMO (Deputy Leader of the Opposition) (14:45): I seek leave to make a brief explanation before directing questions to the Attorney-General regarding the lack of protection for whistleblowers under the Public Interest Disclosure Act 2018.

Leave granted.

The Hon. H.M. GIROLAMO: On 29 August, The Advertiser reported that nearly half of South Australian public servants are afraid of losing their jobs if they report suspected corruption. This finding, drawn from an ICAC report, highlights a concerning culture of fear and a lack of effective whistleblower protections. My questions to the Attorney-General are as follows:

1. Is the minister concerned that nearly half of public servants fear job losses for reporting corruption and that the Public Interest Disclosure Act 2018 is failing to provide genuine protection for whistleblowers?

2. Given these widespread concerns, what action, if any, is the minister taking to provide assurance to public servants that they will in fact be protected should they speak out against suspected corruption?

The Hon. K.J. MAHER (Deputy Premier, Minister for Aboriginal Affairs, Attorney-General, Minister for Industrial Relations and Public Sector, Special Minister of State) (14:46): I thank the honourable member for her questions. Certainly, the ability to draw attention to where there are concerns in public administration is an important one in terms of the integrity in our system. We have a number of integrity agencies in South Australia that look into these sorts of matters, the Ombudsman and ICAC, obviously, being major ones. I meet regularly with ICAC and the ICAC commissioner.

I believe there is a report due out next year that will look at ICAC, OPI and the Ombudsman doing work in relation to public interest disclosure in particular, and I look forward to receiving that. I will go back and check the status of that report and bring back a bit more information, but I look forward to that. I know that both ICAC and the Ombudsman and, of course, OPI (the Office for Public Integrity) do a significant amount of proactive education work to make sure that people know not only where they are able to but where they are obligated to report these sorts of things.

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