A Senate committee has recommended against establishing an independent whistleblower protection authority, citing concerns about regulatory duplications and other issues.
In February of this year, the crossbench put forward a bill to establish an independent whistleblower protection authority to oversee and enforce whistleblower protections, as well as facilitate public interest disclosures.
Independent senators argued that the bill was necessary to fix Australia’s “broken” whistleblower protection laws, which had left numerous whistleblowers facing lengthy legal battles and the prospect of prison sentences following their disclosures.
Last Friday (29 August), the Legal and Constitutional Affairs Legislation Committee recommended that the Senate should not pass the bill. The eight-person committee included three Labor senators, two Liberal senators, one Greens senator and two independents.
The vote came just a day after ATO whistleblower Richard Boyle’s legal ordeal came to an end, eight years after he first spoke out about overly aggressive debt collection tactics employed by the ATO.
Labor and Coalition senators opposed the bill, raising concerns regarding its duplication of existing regulatory and oversight bodies, conflicts of interest and a lack of protections for whistleblowers from liability.
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