Gordon Reid (Robertson, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

During the election campaign, right across the electorate of Robertson, up in Dobell in the north and right across the nation, we had constituents talking about multiple different issues, from health care to aged care. But, more importantly, they continually brought up issues surrounding corruption and issues surrounding integrity, which our government, the Albanese Labor government, is absolutely committed to reform. We are delivering long-overdue reforms to the Public Interest Disclosure Act to ensure that Australia has a best-practice whistleblowing framework for the public sector, which will support the establishment of the National Anti-Corruption Commission.

The Public Interest Disclosure Amendment (Review) Bill 2022 will implement the key recommendations of the 2016 review of the Public Interest Disclosure Act by Mr Philip Moss AM and parliamentary committee reports: to improve protections for public sector whistleblowers and witnesses; to focus the disclosure scheme on wrongdoing, such as fraud and corruption; to make the scheme easier for agencies to administer; to clarify the coverage of the Public Interest Disclosure Act; and to enhance oversight of the scheme by the Commonwealth Ombudsman and the Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security.

I think it's important that we do focus on improving protections for public sector whistleblowers and witnesses. That's a big issue that's been discussed through the parliament. It's a big issue that's discussed in my community, on the Central Coast in Robertson, when we're doorknocking, when we're phone banking and when we have our mobile offices. It's part of that broader issue of integrity and holding government to account.

This bill will strengthen protections for public sector whistleblowers by expanding protections in the act to those who could make a disclosure. It will expand the types of detriment covered by the reprisal protections to encompass a broader range of harm that whistleblowers may suffer when reporting wrongdoing and corruption. It will also expand immunities for persons who witness wrongdoing to be equivalent to the immunities for whistleblowers.

To focus the scheme on significant integrity wrongdoing is consistent with the Moss review. The bill will remove personal work-related conduct from the scope of disclosable conduct under the act. This approach is not to suggest that agencies should ignore other forms of wrongdoing or workplace conflict, but it recognises that there are other frameworks better suited to dealing with such conduct, such as performance management or disciplinary conduct procedures. Whistleblowers will still be able to report personal work-related conduct under the Public Interest Disclosure Act if it amounts to reprisal action or is of such nature that it would undermine public confidence in an agency or have other significant implications for an agency.

We need to make the scheme easier for agencies to administer. Agencies are going to be given more flexibility in how they handle disclosures. This will ensure that conduct disclosures are investigated under the appropriate law or power, including by the National Anti-Corruption Commission. The bill will also facilitate improved information sharing between agencies in relation to disclosures through the removal of the general secrecy offence in the Public Interest Disclosure Act. And just to clarify the coverage of the Public Interest Disclosure Act: consistent again with the recommendations of the Moss review, the bill will expressly exclude staff employed or engaged under the Members of Parliament (Staff) Act from the scope of the Public Interest Disclosure Scheme to reflect the original intention of the legislation.

The Albanese Labor government supports appropriate whistleblower protections being provided to parliamentary staff and has taken the first step to delivering this outcome through the protections provided in the National Anti-Corruption Commission legislation for disclosures of corrupt conduct. The government will also consider whether other protections are appropriate for parliamentary staff who report misconduct in the context of implementing relevant recommendations in Set the standard: report on the independent review into Commonwealth parliamentary workplacesin particular, the establishment of the Independent Parliamentary Standards Commission.

We're also looking to enhance oversight of the disclosure scheme by the Ombudsman and the IGIS. The bill will enhance oversight of the scheme by the Ombudsman and the IGIS to ensure that agencies' administration of the scheme is effectively scrutinised. Agencies will be required to provide a copy of every investigation report to either the Ombudsman or the IGIS, as appropriate, and to respond to any recommendations that the relevant oversight agency makes in relation to the report. The bill would also implement recommendations 10 and 11 of the report on press freedom by the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security, to ensure urgent disclosures from intelligence agencies reach the IGIS as soon as possible and to provide for biannual mandatory reporting of statistics to the parliament on all public interest disclosures.

I'll just go into how the interaction's going to occur with the NACC, the National Anti-Corruption Commission. The bill will deliver immediate improvements to the public sector whistleblowing scheme that will be in place before the National Anti-Corruption Commission commences. Any reforms to the Public Interest Disclosure Act would be reflected in the NACC legislation through consequential amendments, as required, to ensure that the two regiments remain consistent and provide strong protections for whistleblowers.

Furthermore, this bill represents the first stage of a significant package of public sector whistleblowing reform. Following the passage of the bill, the government will commence a second stage of that reform, which will include public consultation on an exposure draft bill that redrafts the Public Interest Disclosure Act to address the underlying complexity of the scheme and also provide effective and accessible protections to public sector whistleblowers, and there'll also be a discussion paper on whether we need to establish a whistleblower protection authority or commissioner.

With that, this bill will make priority amendments to the Public Interest Disclosure Act to support the government's commitment to ensuring that Australia has effective frameworks to protect whistleblowers. In doing so, this bill reinforces our commitment to restoring integrity and reinforces our government's commitment to the rule of law—something that was missing for the last 10 years under the former coalition government and something we are committed to.

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