Mark Dreyfus (Isaacs, Australian Labor Party, Cabinet Secretary) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I move:

That the amendments be agreed to.

The government has moved amendments to the Public Interest Disclosure Amendment (Review) Bill which have been passed by the other place, which I'll briefly explain. Amendments (1) and (2) relate to personal work related conduct. These first two amendments would insert avoidance of doubt provisions to clarify how the framework will operate where a person makes a mixed disclosure that contains elements of both personal work related conduct, such as an allegation of bullying, harassment or undue performance management, and integrity related wrongdoing, such as fraud, corruption or maladministration.

The Senate Standing Committee on Legal and Constitutional Affairs recommended that the explanatory memorandum for the bill be amended to clarify the application of the personal work related conduct provisions. The government has implemented that recommendation and has tabled a replacement explanatory memorandum in the other place containing further detail on these provisions. These amendments go a step further to make clear that disclosures of integrity related wrongdoing will not be excluded from the public interest disclosure framework only because they also contain information or allegations about personal work related conduct, and they provide greater clarity for authorised officers in agencies about how to handle mixed disclosures.

The third amendment deals with notification obligations where an authorised officer decides not to allocate a disclosure because there is no reasonable basis on which it could be considered an internal disclosure. In this circumstance, the amendment would require the authorised officer to notify a disclosure of any other course of action that might be available to them under another law or power. This amendment would broadly mirror other existing requirements in the act for authorised officers to provide information about how else a disclosure may take forward their disclosure of wrongdoing where the authorised officer has determined that the matter cannot be dealt with under the act.

Question agreed to.