David Shoebridge (NSW, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

I seek leave to move Greens amendments (1) and (11) on sheet 1870 together.

The TEMPORARY CHAIR: You're seeking leave to move (1) and (11) together as opposed to moving (1) to (14) as a block?

Correct. Just for the convenience of the chamber, I will be moving them in three tranches. The first will be amendments (1) and (11), subject to leave. The second tranche, which relate to the meaning of public interest disclosure, will be amendment (2) and the other consequential amendments to that, which are (3), (6), (7), (8), (9), (10), (12), (13) and (14). Then, the third tranche will be amendments (4) and (5), which both relate to parliamentary stuff.

The TEMPORARY CHAIR: Leave has been sought to move amendments (1) and (11) on sheet 1870 together. It there any objection?

Leave is granted.

These amendments go to the meaning of public interest disclosure. They specify that when a person has genuinely attempted to comply with the requirements of the PID Act, but has nonetheless failed to comply with all further requirement in column 3 of the act, the court may also take into account if the disclosure is otherwise reasonable and in the public interest, having regard to all the circumstances. We believe this is a reasonable compromise to ensure the act is able to cover matters where a PID has been attempted to be made correctly and in good faith, the information should have been disclosed in the circumstances and the disclosure is reasonable and in the public interest. Those disclosures should have the public interest protections.

Two recent cases, those of David McBride and Richard Boyle, highlight the need for this reform. In both cases bona fide whistleblowers attempted to gain the protections of the PID Act. They made what they thought were PID Act disclosures. They stepped through the quite technical elements of the PID Act, including with legal assistance. But in both cases the courts have denied them protection under the PID Act, because of what can only be described as legal technicalities. As a result of this, both David McBride and Richard Boyle are exposed to serious criminal prosecutions.

In short, what these amendments seek to do is to say that, where you a public interest whistleblower who has had a bona fide engagement with the PID Act and sought to step through the technical requirements of the PID Act for the disclosure, but, in circumstances where there has been some technical legal misstep by them, they should also have the protection of the PID Act.

The McBride case, which is currently on appeal, would have to be the clearest demonstration of why we need this PID Act protection. A public interest whistleblower blew the whistle on what I think we all now agree is compelling and deeply, deeply distressing evidence of Australian Defence personnel engaged in war crimes in Afghanistan. Some of the evidence that Mr McBride put into the public arena has now been tested in the Federal Court and has been found to be compelling to make findings on the civil standard that those unlawful murders did occur.

What I find appalling is that the person currently in court who faces the most imminent risk of going to jail for those appalling circumstances is the whistleblower, David McBride. David McBride tried time after time to raise it within Defence. He was a serving member of the Defence Force. If anyone is deserving of a medal and a plaque and a place in the Australian War Memorial, it is David McBride, the brave whistleblower who put his career—and, as it turns out, his personal freedom—on the line to tell the truth about war crimes in Afghanistan. David McBride tried time after time to have it raised within the chain of command in the Australian Defence Force, and it was squashed. It wouldn't go anywhere.

After enormous frustration within that process, he then began to step through, as best he could, the public interest disclosure steps. Remarkably, a court—with encouragement from the legal representatives of the Commonwealth—found that David McBride's steps of gathering the evidence to make a compelling PID Act disclosure were not protected by the PID Act. Gathering the evidence to make a compelling disclosure is not, apparently, according to the current state of the law, covered by the PID Act. As a result, David McBride, who thought he had whistleblower protections, is utterly exposed and faces a series of criminal charges and years and years, potentially, in jail for blowing the whistle on war crimes.

What these amendments seek to do is to say that, if those actions of a whistleblower were in good faith, were in the public interest and were seeking to comply with the PID Act, even if there is a legal technicality, the court has discretion to extend the defences of the PID Act to protect the whistleblower. That's what these amendments do. For this government to not support them is to send a message to whistleblowers that they want to hang the next set of whistleblowers out to dry just like they've done to David McBride. Not supporting these amendments would be saying that you're happy to send a message to future whistleblowers that, if they make one tiny legal misstep, you're going to hang them out to dry, criminally prosecute them and try and put them in jail. I commend the amendments to the chamber.