Andrew Wilkie (Clark, Independent) Share this | Hansard source

I second the motion. I am very grateful to the member for Mayo for allowing me to speak for her remaining time and to emphasise that a free press is obviously an essential building block of a healthy democracy. We must do everything that we can to ensure that the media can do their job to report to the community what is going on in this country and, very importantly, to inform the community when there is wrongdoing or allegations of wrongdoing. Remember: the press is important, but their sources are equally important, and we must do what we can to allow their sources to have their say and to speak up and shine a light, particularly when there is misconduct.

This country is a better country for its whistleblowers. This country is a better country because of people like Toni Hoffman, who it was revealed in 2005 had for two years been reporting misconduct by Dr Patel at Bundaberg Hospital. As a direct result of Toni Hoffman, that doctor was banned from practising in Australia. This country is a better country because in 2005 a report written by Customs officer Allan Kessing in 2003 about shortfalls in security at Sydney Airport was revealed in the media. As a direct result of Allan Kessing's heroic whistleblowing, Sydney Airport was upgraded by $220 million and we are all safer for it. This country is a better country because in 2013 it was reported in the media that Witness K had been party to the illegal bugging of the East Timorese parliament. This country is a better country because of WikiLeaks and Julian Assange publicising, in particular, that in 2007 US Apache helicopter aircrew had committed a war crime by murdering journalists in Baghdad. This country is a better country because of a 2017 media report on the 'Afghan files'—in particular the allegations by David McBride—about misconduct by Australian special forces in Afghanistan. This country is a better country because of Richard Boyle blowing the whistle last year on misconduct at the ATO. This country is a better country because of the work by Annika Smethurst last year in warning us that there was active consideration at the Australian Signals Directorate of being allowed to spy domestically. This country is a better country because, this year, 2GB journalist Ben Fordham reported on his program that there were a number of boats holding asylum seekers en route from Sri Lanka to Australia.

All of these cases have relied on brave whistleblowers telling the media what they know and brave journalists doing their job, and we must do everything we can to allow that because, if we don't allow brave whistleblowers to go to the media and if we don't allow journalists to do their jobs, who knows what will go unreported? Who knows what governments might have that they don't want revealed? Remember that every one of those whistleblowers has taken grave risks. Behind every one of those stories, there are heroic whistleblowers who took grave risks—people who lost their jobs, who risked jail, who lost their marriages and friends, whose personal safety was put at risk and who were burdened by financial enormous costs. It is unsurprising that in this country the suicide rate for whistleblowers is markedly higher than the baseline rate in the community.

Why am I talk so much about whistleblowers? It is because they are central to this story. At the end of the day, the media must have freedom to report what their sources tell them. So we must do what we can to ensure the freedom of the media, but we must also do everything we can to strengthen the safeguards for their sources. It is very unfortunate that our current public interest disclosure legislation for both the public and private sectors remains inadequate. So good on the member for Mayo for progressing this. It certainly has my full support. I am very proud to second the motion by the member for Mayo.

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