Introducing Whistleblowing

At present the Queensland (1993), South Australian (1993), New South Wales (1996), Victoria (2001) state public sectors have various forms of protected disclosure legislation. Who can make a disclosure, to whom and how varies.

Currently, no legislation applies to the Commonwealth public sector (although a number of bills have been proposed - see Summary Tables) nor any legislation to encourage protected disclosures in the private sector. Following the collapse of WorldCom and Enron the need for the later is now a mater of international debate. The USA's Sabarnes-Oxley Act requiring corporations to have systems for the internal reporting of misconduct - is setting a standard and leading the debate.

TI Australia's position is that;
 The introduction of protected disclosures legislation for the Commonwealth public sector is needed, as is
 legislation to give measure of protection to whistleblowers in the private sector and to punish company insiders who fail to reveal serious misconduct to senior company officials, auditors or regulators.