The Australian government’s complaints umpire has been accused of letting down academic whistleblowers, after claiming that it receives no funding to police the management of public interest disclosures (PIDs) and does not “revisit” past cases.
Commonwealth Ombudsman Iain Anderson has dismissed a senator’s questions about his office’s failure to compel the Australian National University (ANU) to release information about its handling of a 2017 PID from the former head of its music school, Peter Tregear.
A 2019 report from consultancy Deloitte, which had been contracted by ANU to investigate Tregear’s complaints, found no evidence to substantiate them. The Commonwealth Ombudsman, whose role includes overseeing compliance with the PID Act, assigned an investigator to review ANU’s handling of Tregear’s disclosure.
The investigator formed the view that Deloitte’s report “did not adequately explain the basis” for some of its findings, according to a submission Tregear lodged with last year’s Senate inquiry into university governance. But after ANU ignored her repeated requests for more information, the investigator terminated her probe. “In…light of the ANU’s failure to respond to requests for information, she ‘did not think that further investigation would be likely to result in a different outcome’,” the submission says.
Tregear’s PID included claims of nepotism, manipulation of financial accounts, a culture of disregarding health and safety issues and a managerial intent to...
QUEENSLAND— A nurse in Australia has been formally reprimanded after admitting he submitted forged documents to Qantas (QF) in an attempt to secure a refund for a non-refundable airline ticket. Th...