Following several recent high-profile whistleblowing cases, Australia must now reckon with its flawed whistleblower protections regime and seek to do better, writes Allan Fels.
A whistleblower reward scheme for Australia has long been debated, but has always been nipped at the bud, citing concerns that rewarding whistleblowing is fundamentally ‘un-Australian’, and that it may encourage bad faith claims and unreliable information. But, as other countries – including the United States, Canada, and South Korea – continue to reap the benefits of whistleblowers reward schemes, these concerns can no longer stand up to scrutiny. Indeed, whistleblower reward schemes are rapidly proliferating around the world – with the United Kingdom just the latest jurisdiction to adopt such a scheme.
The insider information needed to investigate and bring enforcement action against wrongdoers is expensive and difficult to attain. By actively providing this insider information, whistleblowers save time and money for under-resourced and overstretched regulators. It stands to reason that this benefit should be acknowledged.
Rewards are recognition of the benefits whistleblowers bring to regulators and to the public. And whistleblower information has been proven to lead to enforcement: whistleblowers in the US have helped regulators recover more than A$100 billion over the past 35 years, while whistleblowers have been rewarded approximately A$13 billion.
Rewards are also necessary incentives to...
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