Page 4592 - Week 15 - Tuesday, 6 December 1994
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This committee reviewed the Public Sector Management Act and the private members Bill put forward by Mrs Carnell some time ago, in the light of the additional legislation that is now being considered in most States of Australia and at the Federal level. Reading those documents alone introduces a new dimension to this whole question of whistleblowing and, I believe, adds even greater weight to the original recommendations of the select committee, which the standing committee very largely proceeded from. We took the report of that select committee and the recommendations that flowed from it, and they are repeated in chapter 2 of our report. They represent the point from which the committee began.
Madam Speaker, in coming to a conclusion on this matter, we had the Public Sector Management Act, section 12, which is currently the law of this Territory, and we had, by way of comparison, the Public Interest Disclosure Bill put forward by the Leader of the Opposition. We went back and picked up the issues that had been raised during the earlier consideration of this matter in the select committee. Those issues are dealt with in chapter 3. They relate to such things as to whom disclosures may be made. In chapter 3 of this report we compare the provisions of the Public Sector Management Act with those provisions that would apply were the Public Interest Disclosure Bill to be enacted into law.
So, we looked at to whom disclosures may be made. We compared the Bill and the Act. We looked at what is disclosable information. We compared the provisions of the two documents, and in each case we made a judgment about which of the two documents we believed was superior. We looked at the question of disclosable conduct. We looked at the question of protection of the whistleblower - who needs to be protected and in what manner they can or should be protected. I am working my way through chapter 3 of the report.
We looked at procedures for disclosures - how somebody who wants to make a disclosure which he or she believes to be in the public interest goes about doing that. We considered the alternatives available to us in that respect. We looked at the obligation to disclose conduct. Finally, we dealt with matters such as false or misleading information; reporting requirements; progress reports, which we believe that the administration should provide to the person who disclosed the information in the first place; and the question of disclosures of anticipated conduct, which is where the conduct is not something that has been done already but is something that intended to be carried on in the future.
Madam Speaker, we believe that the committee has made a very comprehensive review of the issues that were raised in earlier debate on the matter. We have looked at the two documents that are currently before this house - the Public Sector Management Act and the Public Interest Disclosure Bill. We have considered all of those issues in the context of what almost every other State of the Commonwealth has enacted or is enacting and draft legislation which is before the Federal Parliament at this time in the form of a private members Bill. We have drawn some conclusions and we have made some significant recommendations, which I ask the Assembly to consider very seriously.
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