Page 1391 - Week 05 - Wednesday, 11 May 1994
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .
The Government believes that the powers of both of those bodies are already spelt out in sufficient detail in their own legislation. The Auditor-General has stated that he believes that our Bill gives him sufficient powers. I think that is important. Clause 21 of Mrs Carnell's Bill, Action by proper authority, actually duplicates powers in both the Audit Act and the Ombudsman Act. Any disclosure to an officer within the department would be dealt with, under the Government's legislation, by the discipline provisions, and I believe that that ensures that swift action, such as the suspension of an officer, can take place. It is important that that action does take place, to ensure that misconduct, or alleged misconduct, is dealt with immediately. Mrs Carnell's Bill simply does not allow for such action to be taken. Again, I think that is a significant omission from the Bill.
On procedural matters, clause 9 of the Public Interest Disclosure Bill, in my view, is overly prescriptive in its dealing with procedural matters. The Government believes that the public sector management standards are the more appropriate vehicle for that procedural detail. There are a number of advantages in using the management standards in this way. The first is that it gives some flexibility, in the light of experience with whistleblower provisions, in the bedding down of that legislation. It is an area where we do not have a great deal of experience to go on, and I believe that some sort of flexibility in allowing changes to the standards is desirable.
Putting the procedural provisions into the standards has another important advantage in that it ensures that information on the procedures is available to all staff and is available in plain English. I know that many members would agree that expecting staff to understand their conditions of service, their rights, purely from legislation is asking a great deal. If we can ensure that the information is accessible to our entire staff, we will be doing a better job.
In the definition of corrupt conduct in clause 4 of Mrs Carnell's Bill, she has included a number of matters that can all be summarised as misconduct. The Government does not believe that any of the reasons for disclosure included in Mrs Carnell's Bill that go beyond the Government's provisions warrant the need for disclosure under the whistleblower provisions. The Public Sector Management Bill does provide for misconduct matters to be dealt with under the discipline provisions of that Bill. Again, in the case of misconduct, I think the discipline provisions are the correct place for them to be. Secondly, I do not consider that there is a great deal of need to deal with these matters as whistleblower disclosures. Officers are required to disclose evidence of misconduct to either their supervisors or their chief executives in any case, and they cannot be subject to discipline or to criminal action for such disclosures. Again, it is something of a redundancy.
In Part IV, Division 1, Mrs Carnell's Bill deals with unlawful reprisals. The provisions are quite similar to those in the Government's Bill, but they do provide power to relocate an officer who requests to be so relocated. Again, I do not believe that that is a necessary provision. An officer can apply to a chief executive or to the commissioner for relocation, and in the circumstances that request for relocation would be considered to be justified.
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .