Page 4593 - Week 15 - Tuesday, 6 December 1994
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .
I want to pay tribute to our committee clerk, Russell Keith. This report is really his work. I have to say that, in the sense of the complexity of the material that was before the committee, Russell Keith has done an excellent job in summarising it and presenting it in a form which is, in my view, quite readable. When people have read it, they will understand the issues. I want to pay particular tribute to Russell Keith for the manner in which he has put this report together. I think it is most commendable. One sentence in this report, at paragraph 3.5, states:
The effect of treating whistleblowing as a disciplinary matter is to miss the point of building a culture of service, responsiveness and accountability.
Those are the words of Russell Keith. I must say that they express, for me, the essence of what whistleblowing legislation is about. I think that is the difference between the Government's Public Sector Management Act and the Public Interest Disclosure Bill of the Leader of the Opposition. The Public Sector Management Act treats this subject as though it is a disciplinary matter. If any public servant makes a disclosure, in the context of the Government's own Bill, it immediately raises the question of disciplinary action - primarily against the person against whom the disclosures are made; but also, if the disclosures turn out to be frivolous, there is a question of disciplinary action against the person who made the disclosures. I think that those words express the essence of the legislation, or of what the legislation should be.
It should not be about discipline, because many things that people will wish to make disclosures about - in terms of the behaviour of a public servant or the information that is available in the system - will not, at the end of the day, warrant disciplinary treatment. It may be that the behaviour of the public servant is the result of a lack of information about the nature of his or her job, or a lack of understanding of the job that they are expected to perform or the standards to which they are expected by the public service culture to perform. I think that it is basically wrong to begin from the premise that, the minute somebody blows the whistle - that is, discloses information about a public servant's conduct - it is automatically a matter for discipline. I believe that that could not be further from the truth. To pursue the matter along those lines merely reinforces the culture of the public service - that you cannot and do not blow the whistle on anybody, because, the minute you do, somebody is in line for some disciplinary treatment.
What we should be aiming to achieve is a corporate ethic - a culture where it is acceptable and normal procedure for a public servant who has information that suggests that the behaviour of another public servant is unacceptable in the public interest, without any fear of reprisal or of putting his or her position in jeopardy, to bring that information out in the open and have it properly examined. If we proceed from any other assumption, then I believe that this legislation and the intent of this legislation will fail, because it will be contrary to the current ethic of the public service.
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .