Page 3370 - Week 08 - Thursday, 23 August 2012
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positions of responsibility are also able to receive public interest disclosures under the bill. This is in keeping with the “no wrong door” approach that is essential to effective complaint handling frameworks.
Once it is established that someone is in receipt of a disclosure, part 4 of the bill places an onus on the receiver to inform a designated disclosure officer, which is the first step in the reporting chain that is established under the bill. Part 4 aims to establish the link between those making a disclosure and the person able to effect action. That chain will ensure the flow of information to enable efficient and effective actioning of disclosures. Part 4 exists to ensure that on receipt of a disclosure, appropriate action is taken. It establishes an investigation, referral and reporting hierarchy, clarifying the roles of those likely to be involved in actioning a public interest disclosure. It also ensures that the discloser is kept informed about progress and removes the blanket prohibition on reporting on the outcome of a public interest disclosure investigation that existed in the 1994 act.
While it makes sense that as a first step disclosures should be handled internally, part 5 of the bill covers external disclosures. This is new terrain for the territory, but not new terrain for Australian jurisdictions. New South Wales has provided for external disclosures for many years, and Queensland also introduced external disclosure provisions in its 2010 act. The idea behind these external disclosure provisions is to provide a final avenue for those who are suffering manifest injustice due to sustained incompetence by those managing a PID internally, or to cover instances of deep-seated corruption. The bill permits a disclosure to be made to a member of this Assembly or to a journalist when their claims are not adequately handled internally, or where there is a real danger if they were to report it internally. It is acknowledged that this avenue opens a door on what will likely become a very public inquiry, but it is worth remembering that the cases where an external disclosure is justified will be limited. This is borne out by the experience of Queensland and New South Wales, where external disclosures have been very rare.
I should also be very clear that this is not a general permission or avenue for leaking to the press or providing information to members without proper permission or process. These provisions provide no protection to those who choose to leak information. What they create is an avenue of last resort for genuine whistleblowers to make a protected disclosure to a journalist or an MLA.
Part 6 of the bill is pitched at the level of broader management of the PID scheme by the well-established integrity arm of government, the Ombudsman, but also clarifies the role of the Commissioner for Public Administration. It gives the commissioner an oversight role in relation to the management of public interest disclosures. While public sector entities must respond and manage their own disclosures internally, it is envisaged that the commissioner’s role will be to provide advice as needed to those in receipt of a disclosure, and those undertaking public interest disclosure investigations. This will be further elaborated in the commissioner guidelines. Under the bill, there is also a positive obligation on the commissioner to monitor the progress of disclosures and review how they have been managed. There is also a reporting role given to the commissioner whereby they will provide advice to the relevant minister about
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