Tony Smith (Speaker) Share this | Hansard source

I have received a message from the Senate informing the House of a resolution of the Senate referring the following additional matter to the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Corporations and Financial Services.

The message read as follows—

That the following matters be referred to the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Corporations and Financial Services for inquiry and report by 30 June 2017:

(a) the development and implementation in the corporate, public and not-for-profit sectors of whistleblower protections, taking into account the substance and detail of that contained in the Registered Organisation Commission (ROC) legislation passed by the Parliament in November 2016;

(b) the types of wrongdoing to which a comprehensive whistleblower protection regime for the corporate, public and not-for-profit sectors should apply;

(c) the most effective ways of integrating whistleblower protection requirements for the corporate, public and not-for-profit sectors into Commonwealth law;

(d) compensation arrangements in whistleblower legislation across different jurisdictions, including the bounty systems used in the United States of America;

(e) measures needed to ensure effective access to justice, including legal services, for persons who make or may make disclosures and require access to protection as a whistleblower;

(f) the definition of detrimental action and reprisal, and the interaction between and, if necessary, separation of criminal and civil liability;

(g) the obligations on corporate, not-for-profit and public sector organisations to prepare, publish and apply procedures to support and protect persons who make or may make disclosures, and their liability if they fail to do so or fail to ensure the procedures are followed;

(h) the obligations on independent regulatory and law enforcement agencies to ensure the proper protection of whistleblowers and investigation of whistleblower disclosures;

(i) the circumstances in which public interest disclosures to third parties or the media should attract protection;

(j) any other matters relating to the enhancement of protections and the type and availability of remedies for whistleblowers in the corporate, not-for-profit and public sectors; and

(k) any related matters.

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