As a prominent former whistleblower, I am contacted by potential whistleblowers on a weekly basis.
I was optimistic a year ago when the Australian Labor party entered government. For years, the Coalition government had failed to fix federal whistleblowing law and presided over the prosecutions of four whistleblowers who exposed things like alleged war crimes in Afghanistan, aggressive debt collection and other alleged wrongdoings.
My already pessimistic counsel to those thinking of blowing the whistle had become dire: those who speak up in Australia risking losing everything, all for doing the right thing.
Labor, particularly the attorney general, Mark Dreyfus, promised to change that. I wanted to believe it. At first they did act, dropping the unjust prosecution of Bernard Collaery, who was alleged to have blown the whistle on Australia’s morally bankrupt espionage against Timor-Leste. That was a good step forward.
But now, a year since taking government, Labor’s whistleblowing report card is looking less rosy. For all Dreyfus’s words about the importance of whistleblowing, it is his actions that count. And his actions and omissions do not seem to be those of someone truly committed to protecting and empowering whistleblowers.
First, law reform.
The government promised extensive improvement to the Public Interest Disclosure Act (Pida), enacted by Labor in the final days of the Gillard government. A decade of practical experience had shown the law to be deeply flawed....
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