Allegra Spender (Wentworth, Independent) Share this | Hansard source

I rise in support of this motion, and I thank the member for Clark for moving it and the member for North Sydney for seconding it. I echo the words of the member for North Sydney that the prosecution is unjust. The community will look at the prosecutions of Boyle and McBride, and it will have a chilling effect on whistleblowers standing up in this country. I think the government accepts that whistleblower protections are inadequate, and I appreciate the Attorney-General's comments on this. Given that those protections are inadequate in the government's own words and own mind, I think that it is urgent for the government to intervene in these two cases for Boyle and McBride, both of whom have been vindicated in terms of the pieces of information that have arisen out of their whistleblowing. The country is better for knowing what they have identified in those whistleblowing cases, yet those are the people on trial. So I rise in support of the motion.

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