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A former volunteer firefighter who spent a decade fighting for her complaint of sexual harassment to be taken seriously is calling for an independent body for whistleblowers.
The Public Service Commission has released new standards for sexual harassment complaints, following a survey of public servants which found 12 percent of respondents had experienced harassment or bullying in the last year. Of those, 37 percent decided not to report it.
The new rules require agencies to communicate regularly with complainants, provide legal support in some circumstances and set out a ways for complainants to raise concerns outside their organisation.
In May, Fire and Emergency apologised unreservedly to Sarah Hullah for failing to properly investigate a series of complaints over 10 years and a independent report detailed 33 failings in FENZ's handling of her case.
Hullah told Nine to Noon the new standards were progress, but whistleblower protections remained inadequate.
"The new your complaint your rights document is useful in raising awareness of rights. But without an independent whistleblower authority, these changes still leave enforcement up to the individual who has to try and enforce these rights against an organisation that has control of the matter and is typically focused on wearing the whistleblower down," she said.
"In my case I continually pointed to my rights and the law and policy all the way through my case but there was no independent body to actually...
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