Right now, a Whistleblower Protection Authority is the missing piece of Australia's national integrity landscape.
It was first recommended by a unanimous Senate Select Committee on Public Interest Whistleblowing in 1994, and proposed as part of the landmark National Integrity Commission Bill and Australian Federal Integrity Commission Bill introduced by Independent MPs Cathy McGowan and Dr Helen Haines in 2018 and 2020, respectively.
It was most recently endorsed by the bipartisan Parliamentary Joint Committee on Corporations and Financial Services in November 2024. These design principles were developed by Transparency International Australia, the Human Rights Law Centre and Griffith University, firstly published in Making Australian Whistleblowing Laws Work: Draft Design Principles for a Whistleblower Protection Authority. Feedback on the document was gathered through in-person roundtables and bilateral consultations from a diverse range of stakeholders across Australia.
The shared insights and expertise of representatives from civil society, academia, and the corporate and regulatory sectors—as well as international experience—ensures an informed framework for an authority that can support whistleblowers, organisations managing whistleblowing reports, and regulators across the private, public, and not-for-profit sectors.
Together with other overdue law reform, this robust and practical approach will achieve a stronger, fairer framework for protecting public interest whistleblowing in Australia.