Locke Keith: Protected Disclosures Amendment Bill — First Reading 
Locke Keith: Protected Disclosures Amendment Bill — First Reading 
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KEITH LOCKE (Green) 
: 
 The Green Party will be supporting the Protected Disclosures Amendment Bill going to the select committee. The Green Party supported the original legislation that this bill is amending and improving on. The whole area of whistleblowers is fraught with difficulty. We need to protect whistleblowers particularly when they expose very serious wrongdoing be it of a management type or of a financial type. Often the people doing the wrongdoing if they are in positions of authority in the public organisation have a vested interest in persecuting any potential whistleblower or any person who might support that whistleblower. 
In respect of the original legislation I remember we said at the time that there were some problems—in a certain sense there is an inevitability of problems—of the whistleblower having to go through the official management structure of the organisation in making a complaint in that sometimes the person he or she was complaining to was directly or indirectly involved in the wrongdoing. This bill helps to rectify that problem by providing a certain ability for the Ombudsman to say that he or she can see the whistleblower’s point and will direct that person’s complaint to a more appropriate authority or person who is clearly not accused of the wrongdoing being brought into the picture in the whistle-blowing. I think that helps as well. 
One of the issues involved in that of course is protecting the confidentiality of the whistleblower and that is sometimes difficult. In organisations people will ask who blew the whistle and word gets around and people start talking. The situation is somewhat difficult. Having more protections with the Ombudsman being involved in those protections is very important because if people think that both their jobs and their reputations will be threatened if they whistle-blow then we will not get very far. It is important not only to protect the whistleblower but also to protect those who as the bill states come forward on a voluntary basis and say: “Yes I would like to give information. I support what the whistleblower has said. There is corruption here that should be investigated and I saw an instance of it in looking through the books the other day.” or whatever the situation might be. 
Having the institution of the Ombudsman take more of a managing role in how the whistle-blowing complaint proceeds is I think quite useful too because the Ombudsman is a neutral party. The Ombudsman is experienced in these matters and can understand and build up the expertise of where organisations can go wrong in dealing with whistle-blowing. For most organisations it would be quite a novel event. Under the Protected Disclosures Act to date there have not been very many uses of the whistle-blowing legislation which indicates some problems with it. The management of most organisations would not be too experienced in how to deal with complaints because of that and the Ombudsman can help in that respect. The Ombudsman has a more technical role too in defining the information and other technical requirements in terms of applying the Act correctly. 
The bill’s explanatory note indicates that under the original Act if somebody did something a bit technically wrong and did not refer to the Act when making a complaint—and just said: “I want to expose some wrongdoing.”—or if he or she missed some step in the technical procedures then that person could get into problems. This bill is saying that as long as the whistleblower is acting in good faith in making the complaint even if he or she makes a few technical mistakes along the way the complaint should proceed and should not be undermined or ruled out because of that. The Ombudsman will play a role in determining that as well. 
The Green Party thinks that this is a very good bill. Whistle-blowing is so essential in keeping us as a robust democracy and keeping public institutions accountable. The more we can correct a situation where an organisation is secretive can hide its wrongdoing behind walls of secrecy and perhaps punish in one way or another people who object the more our democracy will prosper. Thank you.