Page 5927 - Week 14 - Wednesday, 8 December 2010
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The minister addressed this in her speech today.
I do not agree with the thrust of (1)(i) and (1)(j). Paragraph (1)(i) states:
… the Minister deliberately chose to establish the inquiry into bullying and harassment claims in such a way that they could be covered up …
Paragraph (1)(j) states:
… the Minister for Health is avoiding any responsibility for the findings of the report by shifting the burden of decision making to public servants …
Mr Hanson claims to have some knowledge of health policy. He clearly has no knowledge of industrial relations policy. It was your predecessor, as already outlined, Mrs Carnell, who set up the public interest disclosure process that is to be used in situations like this. Privacy must be provided to complainants who do not wish to have their names known and their circumstances further discussed publicly.
Clause (2)(a) of Mr Hanson’s motion is completely inappropriate. It goes against the very spirit of whistleblower protections that were established in the public interest disclosure process. I fear that the steps taken by Mr Hanson are threatening whistleblower protections that took many years to put in place. There is a process established through annual reports where we are provided with the repercussions of each public interest disclosure, and I think this is the way we should continue. I propose an amendment to the motion that states that all members of this Assembly respect the Public Interest Disclosure Act 1994 and also respect those victims of workplace conflict that do not wish to have their workplace matters made public.
In paragraph (2)(b), Mr Hanson requests that the Minister for Health provide copies of the public interest disclosure findings of the inquiry to the people who made submissions. If Mr Hanson had read the public interest disclosure legislation, he would know that, quite clearly, under subsection 23(3)(d), the complainants can ask for what is called a progress report. If the investigation has been completed, the progress report has to include the findings of the investigation and any actions that have been taken or are proposed to be taken as a result of the findings. My amendments propose that the Assembly pay respect to those already established processes.
Finally, my amendments propose that the minister provide an update on what changes have been made to the bullying policies and procedures for ACT Health as well as how those policies are implemented. I am not completely assured through the first clinical review that the work has been undertaken, and yet it is at the core of the problem that has occurred. We do not want to see such an event occurring again in the future. Anti-bullying policies must be implemented to ensure that workplace conflict does not escalate to this kind of scale. We want healthy workplaces for our workers. I hope that members of this place can respect what is considered to be best practice when dealing with workplace conflict.
I note again that the whole point of public interest disclosure is to remove ministerial involvement and ensure that undue political interference does not occur. I am very
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