Jacinta Collins (Victoria, Australian Labor Party, Parliamentary Secretary for School Education and Workplace Relations) Share this | Hansard source

While the government recognises the importance of providing strong protections to workers who act in the public interest, it will not support these amendments. The government notes that the Fair Work Act currently provides some protection from adverse action where a person has or exercises a workplace right. A workplace right relevantly includes where a person is able to make a complaint or inquiry to a person or body having a capacity under a workplace law to seek compliance with the law or a workplace instrument, or if the person is an employee in relation to their employment.

The government proposes that the need for any amendment to the Fair Work Act should be carefully considered following the release of the government's response to the report of the inquiry into whistleblower protections within the Australian Public Service, which is scheduled for early in the parliamentary new year. For example, the proposed amendments are broad and seek to provide protections to a broad range of disclosures without any appropriate framework for who such disclosures should be made to. Nor do they provide potential disclosers with the certainty of whether their actions are legal or not, with the courts having to make decisions about whether the public disclosure was reasonable or not. The government considers this issue is too important to rush ahead of proper consultation and response to the report, and also highlights that these amendments relate mostly to the first tranche of recommendations from the Fair Work Act review panel. It is in this context that we believe these matters should be dealt with elsewhere.