Helen Haines (Indi, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Attorney-General. Ahead of the anti-corruption legislation being introduced next week, will the government also establish an independent whistleblower protection commissioner as a one-stop-shop to support and protect the brave people who will report corruption to the anti-corruption commission and across the entire public sector?

Mark Dreyfus (Isaacs, Australian Labor Party, Cabinet Secretary) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Indi for her question. I'm looking forward to introducing to the parliament next week the legislation to establish a national anti-corruption commission, fulfilling a commitment that our government made at the last election and, indeed, at the election before that. To remind those opposite, it's a commitment those opposite made at the last election and at the election before that. It's long past time that this parliament moved to establish a national anti-corruption commission.

Going to the question from the member for Indi, the government is of course committed to ensuring that Australia has an effective framework to protect whistleblowers. Frameworks to protect whistleblowers are critical to supporting integrity and the rule of law. I'm very proud that when we were last in government, we brought to this parliament the Public Interest Disclosure Act 2013, and I was equally disappointed to see that, after the statutory inquiry—that we legislated for when passing that act in 2013—took place, and which was carried out by an eminent Australian, Mr Philip Moss, who reported to the former government at the end of 2016, there the report sat. Mr Moss made a number of very sensible suggestions for amendment to the Public Interest Disclosure Act. Regrettably, the former government simply sat on those recommendations by Philip Moss. I have said, since coming into office, that we have picked up Mr Moss's report and we are going to be looking hard at the recommendations that he has made. I am hopeful of bringing to the parliament, in coming months, amendments to the Public Interest Disclosure Act which pick up, and will, almost certainly, need to update the recommendations that Mr Moss made in 2016. Whether or not it goes to a whistleblower protection commissioner is something that the government is still considering.

I know that the member for Indi has a very keen interest in this matter. I know that in her anti-corruption commission bill that she had in the last parliament, she had provided for a whistleblower protection commissioner. That's why we are taking that particular idea very seriously indeed.