David Shoebridge (NSW, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I move:

That the Senate—

(a) affirms that it is essential to protect whistleblowers, to expand their protections and to include a clear public interest test;

(b) commits to urgently reforming whistleblower laws and creating a Whistleblower Protection Authority;

(c) celebrates the return to Australia of journalist and whistleblower Julian Assange;

(d) notes with concern that Afghanistan war crimes whistleblower David McBride is in prison right now because broken whistleblower laws failed him; and

(e) recognises that Australian Taxation Office whistleblower Richard Boyle faces a potential prison sentence after broken laws were found to not protect his actions.

As millions of Australians and millions of people around the world have welcomed the freedom of Julian Assange, we need to take stock and remember those journalists and those other whistleblowers who are still paying the price for speaking the truth. Without whistleblowers, we wouldn't know about schemes such as robodebt or the abuse inside the Ashley children's prison in Tasmania. We wouldn't have seen the horrors of the 'Collateral murder' video of Iraqi civilians and journalists being murdered in cold blood by the United States military. We wouldn't know about how the New South Wales police colluded with the Hunter Catholic diocese to cover up sexual abuse by priests and avoid criminal prosecutions of priests.

Whether whistleblowers are telling the truth about US imperialism, the United States war machine and the complicity of Australia in those wars, talking about government misconduct, talking about the war crimes of Australian Defence Force personnel in Afghanistan or blowing the whistle on corporate misbehaviour—appalling overcharging by corporations of the public—we must stand with them. We must ensure that the legal structures we put in place are there to protect them, tell truth to power and, once they've told truth to power, not go to jail for the privilege. The fact is: Australia's whistleblowing laws are fundamentally broken. In some countries, if you blow the whistle and identify government money being misspent—often in the millions—there are laws in place that don't just protect the person who bravely blows the whistle but, in some cases, can actually reward people for doing the right thing in protecting the public interest.

In the United States, if you blow the whistle on state or federal fraud, there are laws in place that show that, if money's recovered, the whistleblower doesn't go to jail for disclosing the fraud; the whistleblower gets a modest but fair share of the money that's recovered by the public. Imagine Australia having laws that, instead of jailing whistleblowers, gives them a modest but fair share of the money that's recovered. That's not been on the agenda of the Labor government, and it was not on the agenda of the coalition government, but these are laws that have been in place for decades and decades in the United States.

In Australia, the more likely scenario is that, if you blow the whistle, you lose your job. Often you lose your home. You get dragged into the criminal justice system by the government with few, if any, protections. Secret evidence is led against you in court, and your own evidence is excluded by certificates filed by the Attorney-General, alleging national security, so that even the judge can't see your defence. And, as we've seen time and time again, you can face jail. Just occasionally, perhaps because a government in our region might intervene, like the government of Timor-Leste, you might be saved at the last minute from going to jail. But, of course, we know that this government is quite comfortable with jailing whistleblowers because they've done it very, very recently.

That might sound like hyperbole, but, in fact, you can prove it. The Human Rights Law Centre has undertaken a comprehensive review of Australia's whistleblowing laws and found that there had not been a single successful case brought by a whistleblower under federal laws designed to protect the public or private sector employees who speak out about wrongdoing.

You would think that a government that came in promising transparency and whistleblower protections would be urgently trying to fill the gaps, put in place a whistleblower's commission and protect people who speak the truth, but, instead, we've got a government that is scrubbing the speeches given by Prime Minister Albanese from his website if they've made any mention of transparency.

Before Prime Minister Albanese became Prime Minister, he spoke about some of this stuff as though it mattered to him. He made a speech about the core pillars of democracy. The Prime Minister, then the opposition leader, said one of the core pillars of democracy was transparency: FOI laws that work and whistleblower protections that work. He talked the big talk in opposition and then mysteriously, sometime, about March of this year, the speech that had been on his website for years was scrubbed—just rubbed off his website. And, within a matter of months, his government put David McBride in jail for blowing the whistle. Join the dots.

This is a government that talked the talk of transparency in opposition, but they've come in and, in some ways, been even worse than the coalition on this stuff. They are deeply, catastrophically underfunding the FOI system so that the delays in FOI are longer now than they were under the worst days of the Morrison government. This is a government where the current Attorney-General, when he was in opposition, even put an affidavit on in support of former senator Rex Patrick's case to try and get some transparency and accountability in the FOI system. He came into office as the Attorney-General and backed in the case to kill off Rex Patrick's case. He backed in the Morrison government's defence of their appalling FOI system.

Let's just talk about a couple of brave people, a couple of brave whistleblowers. Prime Minister Albanese stood near Canberra Airport and welcomed back Julian Assange, a brave whistleblower—and credit to the Albanese government for changing the tone and doing the work they did to get Julian Assange home. But it's pretty hard to take a Prime Minister basking in the glow of getting one whistleblower released after he had to plead guilty to a crime under a law that should never have applied to him, a law that the Prime Minister has never challenged, a law that the foreign minister has never challenged. It's pretty hard to take the Prime Minister basking in that, barely five kilometres away from David McBride, whom he put in jail for more than 5½ years for blowing the whistle on war crimes in Afghanistan. It's pretty hard to take that. I can imagine it's pretty hard for David McBride and his family to take that as well. It's pretty hard to take, because David McBride, just like Julian Assange, blew the whistle on war crimes, and our laws failed David. They failed him so comprehensively that he couldn't even present his defence in court, because of a certificate issued by the Attorney-General to squash the evidence. David is serving a 5½-year jail term for telling us the truth about war crimes in Afghanistan—what a comprehensive fail.

It is not only David McBride but also Richard Boyle. Richard Boyle blew the whistle on some of the most unethical practices in the Australian tax office. He blew the whistle because no-one would listen to him inside the ATO. He raised it time and time again, and no-one was going to stop the unethical practices—breaking small businesses, breaking small taxpayers, breaking them financially and sometimes emotionally. He blew the whistle because nothing else was changing it. He was backed in by a majority report from the Senate that said he was right in what he did. He was backed in by an internal review by the ATO. He was right to blow the whistle. And do you know what happened? The former government started a prosecution against him for telling the truth, and this government is continuing it. When he tried to say, 'I had to gather all this evidence before I could blow the whistle,' what did this government do? This government ran a case that said: 'The whistleblowing laws don't cover you gathering your evidence together. If you broke any secrecy law by pulling your case together before you gave it to a journalist, none of that is covered.' They've left him with no defence at all. Everyone independent who looks at the Boyle case says that it's proof positive that our laws are so fundamentally broken that no whistleblower can use them, and yet Richard Boyle is being ground through the criminal justice system, and he can see the jail in front of him, just like David McBride said.

Why is this happening? It's because the government wants to deter whistleblowers. And the coalition is quite complicit in it. They don't want anyone to blow the whistle. In fact, if you read the sentencing judgement that David McBride got—and they were remarks put in by the judge at the urging of the Commonwealth Director of Public Prosecutions—it keeps talking about deterrence. Why did David McBride get such a long jail sentence? It's because of deterrence. What does that mean? It means the court, on application by the government, on the urging of the office of the Commonwealth Director of Public Prosecutions, with evidence and money paid for by the Attorney-General and by the Albanese government, wanted to tell other whistleblowers, 'Don't you dare.'

We need a whistleblower commission. We need world-class whistleblower laws. We need to be protecting and rewarding whistleblowers, not putting them in jail. That's the urgent task that this parliament needs to adopt. So we say this, with millions of Australians behind us: thank God Julian Assange is back and can spend time with his family and his kids, and we thank him for blowing the whistle on war crimes, but let's not stop with freeing Julian Assange. Let's free David McBride, let's end the prosecution of Richard Boyle and let's change the laws so that whistleblowers become heroes and are rewarded for their public service, not put in jail by a rotten government that wants to hide the truth.

Jenny McAllister (NSW, Australian Labor Party, Assistant Minister for Climate Change and Energy) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The government opposes this motion. Of course we agree that it is essential to protect whistleblowers. That is why we are committed to delivering strong, effective and accessible protections for them, and we've taken significant steps in this regard since coming to office.

In June last year, the parliament passed priority amendments to the Public Interest Disclosure Act, which delivered immediate improvements to the public sector whistleblower scheme, and they were in place in time for the commencement of the National Anti-Corruption Commission. These were the first significant public sector whistleblower reforms since the Public Interest Disclosure Act was first enacted, a decade ago. The government is now progressing a second, broader stage of reforms. This stage includes the release of a consultation paper and public consultation on additional supports for public sector whistleblowers, including consultation on whether a whistleblower protection authority should be established. Submissions received as part of the consultation process are being used to inform the government's next steps. This is significant progress, but, of course, there is always more to do.

The motion before us makes mention of Mr Julian Assange. Over the two years since we took office, the government has engaged and advocated to resolve Mr Assange's matter. We are pleased Mr Assange has now arrived in Australia. The Prime Minister said yesterday, 'This outcome has been the product of careful, patient and determined work.' Sometimes just quietly getting on with the job can be more effective than shouting from the rooftops, which is something that the Greens political party obviously struggles to understand.

The motion also makes mention of cases that are currently before the courts or may be subject to appeal. It is not appropriate for the Senate to express a view on these matters, and it is irresponsible to propose that it do so. On that basis, this motion cannot be supported.

Dorinda Cox (WA, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise in obvious support of the motion that my colleague Senator Shoebridge brings before the chamber today. We know that we urgently need to fix our whistleblower laws. Our parliament supposedly has a progressive majority, so we should be able to make the changes that will protect whistleblowers in the future. Senator Shoebridge has articulated many cases, and, in moving this motion today, he has spoken at length about those cases. The current lack of action sends the wrong message to whistleblowers.

Polling shows that people do understand the need for whistleblowers and the need to keep them safe from persecution. The community absolutely values transparency. Whether it is in government or in other big institutions across this country, they value transparency and they value the truth. The continuing prosecution of whistleblowers goes against this tenor. It drives a stake right into the heart of those community values, saying, 'We don't think that they're important,' when we are capable of protecting whistleblowers, who are in fact trying to protect the truth.

The shared idea of the truth is fundamental to our democracy. We have nothing to talk about if we can't agree on a basic fact: when people are persecuted for telling the truth, our society is undermined at a fundamental level, because we can't even admit to the truth. We can't even admit that the community values the truth.

In today's Australia, whistleblowers are being persecuted, they're being sacked, they're being slandered and they are even being driven to suicide by government agencies and corporations in this country who seek to protect themselves from scrutiny. And, as Senator Shoebridge said, they're also being put in jail. All the while, our government talks about the contribution that whistleblowers make. The difference between the rhetoric and the reality is absolutely outstanding. It's gobsmacking.

As our laws currently stand, whistleblowers have very, very few protections. When the laws that currently exist are put under pressure by our legislators, who don't understand, in fact, the contribution that whistleblowers make, we have to defend the existing protections and shore them up with new laws. It is incumbent that we do that here in this place. It's why we are the elected representatives. The Albanese Labor government chose not to intervene in the shameful prosecution of David McBride, who now faces a long prison sentence. This prosecution should never have taken place in the first place. The laws that allow for prosecution must be changed. The government must do more than just talking about protecting whistleblowers, because talking about it is doing nothing. They must actively intervene when necessary. We saw the government intervention making a difference in the Assange case. Why was David McBride thrown to the wolves? How is that different? Oh, that's right—it was about war crimes.

My own office in my home state of Western Australia has been contacted by people, particularly in the state government department, who are living in fear after telling the truth about their employers. The issues can include a lack of cultural safety at work, discrimination and outright persecution from the people in power. What comes through is this sense of: 'There is no-one to talk to. I have no protection as a whistleblower.' A lack of independent oversight means that whistleblowers are supposed to report bad behaviour to the very people who are involved in that bad behaviour. How is that for irony? This kind of thing is a problem at every level of government and, in fact, in many large institutions across this country, including businesses and corporations.

A case for strong protections and for more independent oversight is easy to make, which only makes the lack of action more infuriating for those who truly know the truth. The Greens will continue to do everything we can to keep this issue at the forefront of the public debate until we see action.

Malcolm Roberts (Queensland, Pauline Hanson's One Nation Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Welcome home, Julian Assange. Thank you, Julian Assange. Thank you, the people who have pressured politicians to release a persistent and determined whistleblower. People power and some of us MPs eventually pressured a failing and flailing Prime Minister to do the right thing. Congratulations to Julian's family, his wife, Stella, his father, John, and his legal teams. We are all glad Julian's home. We are glad you've fanned what were the dying embers of good governance in America. That has important significance for the world. Julian Assange's work is helping the American nation. It's helping Americans, helping democracy and helping humanity, as I'll explain.

Firstly, as a servant to the people of Queensland and Australia, I remind everyone that, in a representative democracy, the people grant power temporarily to government to work for the good of the people, particularly in a proven constitutional monarchy such as ours in which our Constitution places we the people at the top of the hierarchy. Through you, Acting Deputy President, I thank Senator Shoebridge for his motion, and I want to read this from it:

That the Senate—

(a) affirms that it is essential to protect whistleblowers, to expand their protections and to include a clear public interest test;

(b) commits to urgently reforming whistleblower laws and creating a Whistleblower Protection Authority;

(c) celebrates the return to Australia of journalist and whistleblower Julian Assange …

I support this.

In this age of government overreach and distinct loss of our freedom of speech, I strongly support protecting our brave whistleblowers. It's essential. Whistleblowers need protection from retribution, particularly from overzealous governments who would prefer to keep the people in the darkness of ignorance and keep people uninformed and unaware of the dirty side of politics. That dirty side abounds throughout the world. Other villains include the mouthpiece media, the legacy media, the Big Brother globalist media who are always printing to their master's agendas and whose calls for freedom of the press ring hollow when they pick and choose, cull and remain silent on the day's most important issues. These issues include the lies of the safety and effectiveness of COVID mRNA injections, the failure to recognise the COVID jab injuries and the unnecessary destruction of the Australian economy through unfounded and often contradictory government directions, restrictions, mandates and lies.

COVID awakened people to the mouthpiece media's lies and contradictions being propagandist and to the shills pushing the lines and lies of big pharma and big government. The mouthpiece media, the globalist media, failed to report the truth. It failed its role of holding governments and politicians to account. Instead of watching over politics, the globalist Big Brother media became an arm of globalists pushing their global agenda through the American Democratic Party; the Democrats' owner, George Soros; and their crooked, inhuman flag-bearers, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama.

Some of the people who woke up have formed their own media enterprises. The alternative new people's media is telling the truth and driving the return of freedom. For example, there's Tucker Carlson; Joe Rogan; Tim Pool; ADH TV, in Australia; TNT Radio, globally and in Australia; Topher Field; the Australian Citizens Party; Youtube's In the Interests of the People; Spectator TV; Efrat Fenigson, the Light newspaper—to name just a few in Australia and around the world. Now that whistleblower voices are starting to be listened to, we must all recognise that the people's media and individuals are entitled to speak out without fear of retribution or censorship.

Why are governments opposed to this? Because they're scared of what the people will do when made aware of the lies and deceit that have led to the destruction of so many lives in Australia and in which government decisions played a huge part. Look at what happened to doctors and others who exposed the improper behaviour of agencies such as Ahpra and ATAGI, who mandated dangerous drugs while knowing that they had not been adequately researched or trialled to ensure their safety or even their effectiveness. Doctors and nurses were punished under Australia's new Stasi: Ahpra. Those doctors and other health professionals who were brave enough to speak up have been persecuted and had their careers destroyed. Where were the whistleblower protections for them? While I remind everyone that always beneath control there is fear, that knowledge is no comfort for honest, courageous whistleblowers under attack. How can we stand here in the Senate and still not be able to rely on safeguards that can encourage, not destroy, these people who see wrongdoing and that don't punish them for speaking out honestly? When governments withhold information, it's intended to control what may occur if the truth is exposed.

There exist, through state and Commonwealth governments, opportunities for making freedom-of-information or right-to-information requests to access government held documents. This is supposedly to allow transparency in government processes and to hold governments accountable for their actions. Misuse of this process allows governments to artificially create exceptions, thereby avoiding the production of a document that may embarrass the government. We've seen that—arrogantly hiding information on abuse of taxpayer funds or the misuse of authority that citizens have handed to governments temporarily on behalf of serving the people in the national interest. Examples of this hiding are arguing that the document was produced for cabinet consideration or must be withheld to protect commercial-in-confidence arrangements. These excuses supposedly warrant the information remaining hidden from sight. There are many examples where these arguments have been found to have been made unjustifiably to avoid scrutiny—so much for the Albanese Labor government's promised transparency. The other cheek of the uniparty were the Liberals under Scott Morrison. What's clearly needed is a full reform of whistleblowing protection across the board. It must cover the private and public sector.

Let's turn to discussing democracy. For a democracy to fully function it requires the contribution of participants and people in the process and freedom from any intimidation, including freedom from any intimidation that prevents free speech and the sharing of differing views. In a totalitarian state the people are scared of the government. In a true democracy government is scared of the people. What do we have in Australia? I'd argue that we have closer to a dictatorship.

The mouthpiece Big Brother media did not assist this process during the dark COVID early-response days. There was no publication of alternative views or information. Indeed, there was suppression of credible scientific and medical knowledge, facts and data—suppression of facts about COVID injections being killers, suppression that led to deaths of tens of thousands of Australians and perhaps millions of people globally and suppression at the hands of big pharma, big government, big tech, big media and globalist agencies like the UN and World Health Organization.

The result: homicide. Even the suggestion of alternative treatments like ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine or critical comments about existing treatments from big pharma were either suppressed or punished for not following the government's line. The government lies. I have to wonder how key decision-makers were bought off to destroy the whistleblowers, including highly respected, qualified and experienced doctors, scientists and allied health professionals, who were loudly sounding the alarm bells. Clearly the pharmaceutical companies where the big winners and the big controllers. It's the whistleblowers who deserve our thanks though. Thank you.

We now know that Pfizer did not do the research they claimed they did and the mouthpiece media told us they did. Pfizer held back unfavourable results—the deaths of more than 200 people in their trials. Pfizer lied to America's FDA, their drug approval agency. Pfizer lied to our TGA, Australia's drug approval agency, and other key bodies and decent organisations that will now, along with others, face massive lawsuits for the biggest medical fraud in history—for depriving people of their ability to live a normal life and for aiding homicide.

One of the best-known Australian whistleblowers is Mr Julian Assange—finally back and free in Australia. Look at the pain he's had to endure. He would be one of those whistleblowers who would have benefited from whistleblower protection. It's a pity that freedom-of-speech protections in the American constitution cannot be used to protect non-American citizens. The Australian Constitution does not provide protection for freedom of speech other than in the limited capacity of political communication, as Australia's High Court determined. Freedom of speech generally should be provided through Commonwealth and state legislation, as well as through specific provisions that provide protection for whistleblowers. Is there anything more important in a democracy? I argue there's not; it's fundamental.

This whole area needs to be reformed and improved, and I thank Senator Shoebridge for raising it. In a democratic system, it's the people who are central and it's the people who vote in their representatives to govern on the people's behalf—for the people. Australia is unique as the only country whose people were actually consulted on and, through a referendum, voted for their Constitution. Only the people can change the Constitution. It's the people who choose, via an election, who form their government. We Australians must be sure to respect and treasure our democratic process, otherwise things could go wrong, as happens from time to time in the United States.

We do not want a democracy that can turn a blind eye on the shenanigans of people like Hillary Clinton. Her practices were exposed in parts of the documents released through WikiLeaks that led to the relentless pursuit of Julian Assange. This is the woman who was a candidate for the presidency of the United States. One of her solutions of retribution was to propose droning Assange—murdering Julian Assange. No wonder she and the Democratic Party wanted to suppress Julian Assange.

Similarly, bureaucrat Mike Pompeo proposed an attempt to assassinate Julian Assange while he was taking refuge in the Ecuadorian embassy in London. Since when do people just come in and murder others, without even entering court? A democracy that entertains the notion of assassination of civilians abroad has fundamental problems.

Now, I love my country, Australia. I love some other countries—like Britain, from which our Australian nation sprang. I love America; I sincerely love America, which gave us so much, thanks to freedom: freedom of thought, freedom of faith, freedom of religious expression, freedom of speech, freedom of interaction, freedom of exchange, freedom of travel and movement, freedom of initiative, freedom of peaceful assembly, and freedom to defend oneself. I've lived, studied, and worked in America. My wife is an American, a dual American-Australian citizen. Our two adult children are dual Australian-American citizens. I've travelled to all 50 American states. I love the American people. They are truly caring people, generous people.

In the past, America as a nation was much admired. Worldwide, it was admired. At the end of the First World War, America was in a position to dominate the world. And what did it do? It withdrew back to its shores—an admirable precedent. Contrast that with America since 1944 and the globalist takeover of America. America became a ruthless imperialist power. In the past 80 years, globalists exploited their control over America and corrupted its government. America strode the world stage, overthrowing governments and starting wars that fed its massive military-industrial complex. As a proud friend of America, we need to question what it does and stop blindly following America into wars. We need to support the wonderful, generous, caring American people. Now, as a result of American imperialism and aggression, the world is changing. BRICS—Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa—is growing, and undermining the American dollar. America faces karma. Australia must be careful because of this and ask questions of our American friend.

Julian Assange exposed some of the inhuman dark side of the globalists hijacking and driving America. I wish to pay tribute to Julian Assange for standing up for truth and for freedom of speech, for exposing our country's friend, America, and its tilt away from civil democratic governments to unaccountable governments that drone American citizens without a court verdict, that drone people overseas without a court verdict—without even a prosecution, without even a case. It's appropriate that Julian can now have his family beside him and have the freedom he is entitled to enjoy.

Since being elected a senator I've supported the push for Julian to come home, and I congratulate Senator Shoebridge for his constant, unfailing efforts in marshalling support to bring Julian home. Well done to all involved for your efforts. Thank you for your efforts. We need to expand protections for whistleblowers to restore democracy in our country. That's right: I said 'restore democracy in our country'—and restore democracy in our allies, restore democracy globally. Democracy is fragile. It's beautiful, but it's fragile. To restore and protect democracy, every citizen must do one thing: speak.

Gerard Rennick (Queensland, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise because I believe we do need better whistleblower protection laws in this country. In particular, I'm speaking from the experience of having been contacted by many whistleblowers in our bureaucracy in my time as a senator. These people aren't known to the public. For example, one Sunday night I was approached as I got off a plane at Canberra Airport by a bureaucrat, who'd sat there all afternoon waiting to meet me because he had information that was contrary to what was in the public domain and being reported by the public. He is one of three whistleblowers who have approached me on various issues.

The fact of the matter is that we have a culture of fear in our Australian bureaucracy, and we cannot get the best out of our government if our bureaucrats are afraid to speak out. I often criticise the bureaucracy, but I know there are many good people in the bureaucracy who try to do the right thing but know that if they speak out they will lose their job or that their career progression will be halted. It was interesting: the other day I heard someone mention the term 'small-c corruption'. It made me think about it, because you often hear the word 'corruption' thrown around, and we tend to think of it as being brown paper bags exchanging hands, but in many ways it's just that often people don't speak up when they should. There's no doubt that, if we're going to stop what we're doing every day and try to fight every level of injustice that we see in the world, we'd never get anything done. But I don't consider that small-c corruption. What I consider small-c corruption is when people who have a fiduciary duty to do the right thing, when they're in a position of power, don't do the right thing in that position. That is what we see a lot. I've seen this time and time throughout the bureaucracy, most notably in estimates, where the bureaucrats won't answer questions properly, or when we pass an order for the production of documents here in this chamber and basically we're told, 'No, you can't have it.'

Just today, less than an hour ago, I was in the Economics Legislation Committee, because I want the RBA to release information on the gold bars from the Bank of England. Why? Because I believe that the RBA should be held accountable for their management of it. But, of course, the RBA put this big word, 'confidential', on the top of the page, and they're claiming that they have the right to withhold that information from the Australian people.

In particular, in regard to Senator Shoebridge's motion, I want to raise what is being done at the moment to Richard Boyle, a former ATO employee, who blew the whistle on the unjust and unfair treatment of small businesses by the Australian Taxation Office. It is absolutely reprehensible that the Australian government is going after this guy. He is out there. I'm calling on the Liberal Party to take a stand on that, because we're supposed to believe in protecting small business. We have people out there who are risking their jobs. He's now incurring hundreds of thousands of dollars just in legal costs to defend his position.

We are not going to have a true democracy. Democracy is all about accountability and transparency, and we are not going to have that when we have this culture of fear throughout the government, and in the private sector as well, where, if you speak up or speak out, your career is curtailed or, as I'm sure has happened in many cases, you lose their job. We have to make sure there are genuine whistleblower protections out there so that people who try to stand up and do the right thing are protected.

Dorinda Cox (WA, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The question before the chair is that general business notice of motion No. 540, moved by Senator Shoebridge be agreed to. A division is required. The division, because it's after 4.30, will be deferred until Monday.