Page 1893 - Week 07 - Tuesday, 14 June 1994
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incorporate whistleblower measures in legislation. That has been included in the public sector legislation, and the committee, in its recommendations, in many ways has endorsed the provisions as they now apply in the Public Sector Management Bill. Mr Humphries raises his eyebrows. The report says:
The Committee recommends that the whistleblowing provisions of the Public Sector Management Bill ... should remain in place until such time as stand alone legislation is passed by the Assembly.
So the committee has faith in the whistleblowing provisions of the Public Sector Management Bill. I do not think there is any question about that; otherwise they would have chosen to alter them.
Mr Humphries: That is a long bow, Wayne.
MR BERRY: It is there in black and white. The committee also recommended that the legislation should protect whistleblowers both inside and outside the public sector. I did not hear from anybody from the private sector during the course of the committee's deliberations on that score, and if it was going to apply to people in the private sector I would want to hear something from them. From my point of view, it fits comfortably in the legislation. I think it should be left alone. The committee set up by recommendation 1 of the report will provide us with an opportunity to look at that issue as a matter of principle before we go down the path of applying it to people outside the public sector. Whether they are people in the private sector or people who are dealing with the public sector, I would want to look at all of the issues.
If you are going to look at the private sector, you have to listen to some of the people in the private sector as well; and we did not. That was not avoided by the committee, as far as I could make out; but, again from my point of view, if you are going to look at these issues of principle, not only should you talk about people who might be affected by their association with the public sector, you should also look at what might happen in the private sector where they have a potential for a whistleblower. I do not think that would be welcomed, on the face of it, by the private sector; but I still think it ought to be looked at. I have spoken about whether the legislation ought to stand alone. If the committee found that there was no need for it to apply to the private sector, that would be the end of the matter and the provisions as they stand in the Public Sector Management Bill would remain there quite naturally.
I also note that the committee recommends that the Public Interest Disclosure Bill be considered as a basis for stand-alone whistleblower protection legislation. I disagree with that. In many ways the committee saw some of the frailties of the legislation that was put up by Mrs Carnell, and one of its recommendations reflects that. The committee recommended that clause 237 of the Public Sector Management Bill be incorporated into the stand-alone whistleblower protection legislation. It also said in recommendation 10:
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