Editor’s note: This story first appeared on HR Leader’s sister brand, Accounting Times.
Under the bill, introduced on Monday (10 February), a whistleblower protection authority will be established to oversee and enforce whistleblower protections, facilitate whistleblower disclosures, and safeguard whistleblowers from inside government or businesses that expose corruption and wrongdoing.
“Whistleblowers have helped reveal the harmful and unlawful robodebt scheme, elder abuse in the aged care sector, PwC scandal, just to name a few, where confidential government information was used to help private clients avoid paying tax,” independent MP Helen Haines said on Monday.
“Right now, Australia’s whistleblower protection laws are broken. Brave people who speak up about war crimes or corruption are facing criminal charges and even prison.”
In the wake of the PwC scandal, the government introduced whistleblower laws enforced by the Tax Practitioners Board for those who blow the whistle specifically on tax matters.
However, legal experts cautioned that this bill would overlap with other whistleblower protection measures and called for a uniform whistleblower protection act and independent authority.
“It is extremely undesirable that a single whistleblower could potentially be covered by three significantly different whistleblower protection frameworks,” Jade Tyrrell, senior lawyer at the Human Rights Law Centre, said.
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