Page 4594 - Week 15 - Tuesday, 6 December 1994
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I believe that the report is a good one. I regret that Mr Berry could not bring himself to support the recommendations, because I believe that the recommendations of this report are intended to improve the environment in which public servants work. If they were adopted, I believe that we would have a better law than we currently have, and it would be one in which public servants could operate, knowing that if they blow the whistle on somebody they are not going to be considered as pariahs and the person about whom they are laying the information is not necessarily going to be subjected automatically to some kind of disciplinary treatment. So, I urge the Assembly to examine the report carefully, to read the argument which is contained in chapter 3 about the merits of the Public Sector Management Act on the one hand and the Public Interest Disclosure Bill on the other, and to consider the recommendations that we have made in the light of that argument. I believe that our recommendations are sustainable and eminently sensible. I would ask the Assembly to adopt them.
MS SZUTY (8.16): I recall a rather strange debate that we had several weeks ago about whether the Public Interest Disclosure Bill was currently being considered by the Standing Committee on the Public Sector. Members may well recall that both Mr Berry and I indicated that we believed that the Bill was currently before the committee, and we did not see why the committee could not consider further the issue of whistleblowing, picking up a recommendation of the former Select Committee on the Establishment of an ACT Public Service. Recommendation 12 of that committee's report, which is identified in this report of the Standing Committee on the Public Sector on page 4, states:
the stand alone whistleblower legislation, when drafted, should be referred to [the Standing Committee on the Public Sector] before being debated by the Assembly.
Those words are in brackets because the committee did not have a title at the time. Madam Speaker, this is what we have proceeded to do in the weeks following that debate, the result of which is this report which the committee is presenting to the Assembly today.
I note Mr Berry's dissent from the committee's report. Mr Berry also draws attention to his dissenting remarks in relation to the report of the Select Committee on the Establishment of an ACT Public Service. In fact, I agree with Mr Berry in one part of his dissenting remarks. In the third paragraph he states:
As I noted in the report of the Select Committee I believe that the provisions of the Public Sector Management Bill, in relation to whistleblower protection, form a comprehensive package to deal with this matter as it may apply in the government service.
Madam Speaker, it could well be argued that that is the case, although it is important to note that the majority of the committee actually go further than that. We believe that whistleblower provisions should be extended to people beyond the public sector. I think it is one of the most important parts of what we are reporting to the Assembly that we actually do believe that those provisions should be extended further.
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