Page 3911 - Week 13 - Wednesday, 9 November 1994
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I would also like to point out that the report of the Senate Select Committee on Public Interest Whistleblowing - it was called In the Public Interest - also believes that any person making allegations should not be given any special exemption from the laws of defamation. Mrs Carnell thinks that she can draft a better Bill than the former Chief Justice and the bipartisan Senate select committee.
Madam Speaker, the Government has other concerns with the Public Interest Disclosure Bill as well. As a stand-alone piece of legislation, the Bill does not dovetail with either the discipline provisions or the grievance provisions of the Public Sector Management Act. These provisions are necessary to ensure not only that public servants are disciplined for any misconduct but also that officers who claim to be the victims of harassment because of allegations they have made do have recourse to the services of the Merit Protection and Review Agency. The necessity of the link with the Merit Protection and Review Agency, I should point out, Madam Speaker, was reaffirmed by the Senate Select Committee on Public Interest Whistleblowing. Of course, Mrs Carnell thinks she knows better than that. The Senate select committee also recommended that, under certain well-defined circumstances, whistleblowers can make allegations directly to the media. This is consistent with the Public Sector Management Act and in direct contrast to the Public Interest Disclosure Bill, which, ironically, does not allow public interest disclosures to the public. There is a little bit of an anomaly there, Mrs Carnell.
Madam Speaker, in summary, I would suggest that the enactment of the Public Interest Disclosure Bill not only is unnecessary for the effective and accountable administration of the Territory but also would be very wrong. Apart from the fact that provisions of the Public Sector Management Act are already in place, the differences between the Act and the Public Interest Disclosure Bill suggest that Mrs Carnell actually believes in a public sector that is riddled with corruption. I do not believe that. The more than four months now of operation of the whistleblowing provisions of the Public Sector Management Act certainly suggests that that is not the case, and that infringing on civil liberties through a system of protected informers - informers with total privilege, with immunity from the civil law - is not only unnecessary but totally undesirable. For that reason, Madam Speaker, the Government will be opposing this Bill.
MR LAMONT (Minister for Urban Services, Minister for Housing and Community Services, Minister for Industrial Relations and Minister for Sport) (11.07): I rise to support the comments of the Chief Minister in opposing this Bill. I find it rather surprising that the Leader of the Opposition would attempt, through private members business, to bring forward this Bill in this way.
Mrs Carnell: Why?
MR LAMONT: For the very simple reason that your colleague Mr Kaine, the former Leader of the Opposition and current chair of the standing committee of this Assembly required to oversight the implementation of the new ACT public service legislation and processes, has specifically before his committee the question of the whistleblower legislation and the provisions of the Act. It was quite clearly the view of this Assembly during the debates on the implementation and the introduction of a separate service in the ACT that the time needed to give consideration to all the complexities of the varying reports, as outlined by the Chief Minister and agreed to by Mrs Carnell this morning,
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