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“All that is needed for evil to prosper is for people of good will to do nothing”—Edmund Burke The Whistle NO. 38, JULY 2004 Newsletter of Whistleblowers Australia PO Box U129, Wollongong NSW 2500 Whistleblowers Australia Annual General Meeting 11.00am (provisional time), 27 November 2004 Melbourne Unitarian Peace Memorial Church 110 Grey Street, East Melbourne, Victoria The AGM will be followed by a conference on 27-28 November. Details will be in the next Whistle. Tentative agenda Nominations should be signed by two members • Introductions and be accompanied by the written consent of • Minutes of the previous meeting and business the candidate. arising In the past, we have consulted beforehand to • Reports of activities during the year, find suitable volunteers. If you are interested in including campaigns, submissions, publications, joining the national committee, it would be Treasurer’s report, etc. helpful to talk with one or more current • Strategy discussions members. (See back page for list of WBA • Election of the office bearers and ordinary contacts.) members of the national committee • Other business and close of meeting Proxies Nominations for national committee positions A member can appoint another member as proxy must be delivered in writing to the national by giving notice to the secretary (Cynthia secretary (Cynthia Kardell, 7A Campbell Street, Kardell) at least 24 hours before the meeting. Balmain NSW 2041) at least 7 days in advance of Proxy forms can be obtained from the secretary. the AGM, namely by Saturday 20 November. No member may hold more than 5 proxies. Media watch Stand up for Just as ethics have collapsed in cence in governmental secrecy, helped business, the ethos of service and duty bring the disaster on themselves.” whistleblowers’ rights is almost gone from the public service. How can we avoid this terrible Don’t give the government the facts, trend? Wouldn’t it be great if we raised Margo Kingston because it doesn’t want to know. money for a whistleblowers’ fund for Sun-Herald (Sydney), 18 April 2004 Without the facts, or honest risk and our nurses in NSW who spoke out effects assessments, the Government about the decay of our hospitals; Lance Why do they do it, these whistleblow- avoids taking moral responsibility for Collins, who spoke out about intelli- ers? Why do they dare speak out? what it does, and can safely lie to us. gence services corruption; Andrew Whether in the private or public sector, In return, senior public servants get Wilkie, who told us before the Iraq war often they lose their livelihoods, and “performance bonuses”, job security that the Government was lying; and the strain can damage their health, end and “status”. Why, they even get onto many others. So many “ordinary” their closest relationships and smash honours lists. people have turned their lives inside their friendships. Almost always they Funny, isn’t it, that Collins didn’t out for us. We need to show them it’s are smeared, threatened and put under get an official award for his work in worth it. There could be annual intolerable psychological pressure. East Timor. Courageous, ethical awards, but there’d be ongoing What do they get in return for their people who care for their country and financial support too, and hideaway courage, their defiant insistence that fight for its values don’t get honoured homes when the going got tough, and one person can make a difference and by governments in the main. Who will help in finding work. must, when faced with a choice honour our democratic torchbearers? The balance of power is so stacked between right and wrong, look the Web diarist Peter Gellatly wrote: against the ethical individual that powerful people in their world in the “All the evidence points to the public unless citizens do something to redress eye and say “No!”? having a very short attention span, and, it, we’ll run out of whistleblowers. They get pats on the back from subsequent to a fast but fleeting bout We’ll miss them when they’re gone. some of us for a little while, but in the of moral outrage, not really giving a end they’re alone with the friends they damn. This lack of public support is have left when the fair-weather ones responsible for a dearth of overt have gone. fearless principle in the public service. Lance Collins this week joined a The putatively courageous might be growing list of public service whistle- forgiven for concluding that the public blowers who’ve stood up for truth, the they serve does not value, and is public’s right to be told it, and the therefore not entitled to expect, the public interest. Mahatma Gandhi said whistleblower’s inevitable personal that whatever we do in the world is sacrifice — a sacrifice borne not just insignificant, but that it is very import- by the individual but by his/her ant that we do it. That’s because when family.” enough of us are brave enough to stand Web diarist Jamie Clark quoted up for what is right, the world will Stanford University professor of change. And part of standing up is philosophy Richard Rorty, who looking after our whistleblowers. believes the West is becoming post Unless we start doing what we can democratic: “The progress humanity to back them, the public service will be made in the 19th and 20th centuries beyond repair. It’s our public service, was largely due to the increased role of in the end, and its ethics and commit- public opinion in determining ment to the public interest are a government policies. But the lack of bedrock of our democracy. public concern about government Robert Menzies put it well in 1942 secrecy has, in the last 60 years, in one of his “forgotten people” created a new political culture in each broadcasts: “Do not underrate the civil of the democracies. In a worst-case servant. He is for the most part scenario, historians will some day have anonymous and unadvertised, but he is to explain why the golden age of responsible for by far the greater part Western democracy lasted only about of the achievements sometimes loudly 200 years. The saddest pages in their claimed by others. He provides, as a books are likely to be those in which witty friend of mine once said, ’a level they describe how the citizens of the of competence below which no democracies, by their craven acquies- government can fall’.” PAGE 2 THE WHISTLE, #38, JULY 2004 Articles Whistleblower legislation proven to have intimidated, harassed or 1995. These inquiries remain the most vilified fellow employees, to have their comprehensive discussion of whistle- long overdue assets become the means by which blowing in Australia, because they down-trodden employees are recom- examined more than 100 cases and Edward Regan pensed for the failings and vindictive- many variants of legislation. We need ness to which they have been sub- to establish a contemporary compre- Following on after the whistleblowers jected. hensive database on Australian whis- exposed inadequacies and incompetent Of course, this would include tleblowing. The existing state and dealings at Campbelltown and Camden people who are in a position to help Federal legislative frameworks are Hospitals and the unbridled anger of such disadvantaged employees, yet providing little information as to the the former NSW health Minister totally ignore requests by these disad- state of play of whistleblowing in towards the whistleblower nurses, we vantaged employees for review or Australia. The data is simply not being are now witness to an inhumane, assistance in combatting this evil collated. barbaric cruelty from various occupy- vilification and the resultant corrupt Secondly, the first two Senate ing forces in Iraq towards Iraqi prison- cover-ups. With the ongoing exposure inquiries were conducted in the period ers. of liars and cheats at every level in 1993-5 when there was no Federal Whatever advantages the Allies society and the general population legislation, and legislation in only one may have held, their position has been thirsting for more transparency, state. Whistleblowing legislation and seriously eroded by the disgusting especially at a government level, such the concept of protection were in its behaviour of a minority of soldiers, but legislation is long overdue. embryonic form. It is now opportune worse still the ensuing attempts to to revisit the issue given the existence cover-up this unforgivable behaviour of Federal legislation and the existence at a high level is corrupt in the of state legislations. The inquiry can extreme. Request for inquiry into then focus on the effectiveness of the On a personal level, I have wit- whistleblowing legislation. nessed a number of senior Australian Thirdly a Senate inquiry can also Protective Service officers being quite [Editor’s note: Longstanding member focus on other types of legislation, loose with the truth at my Federal Kim Sawyer has written, on behalf of which may assist whistleblowers, such Court hearing and various appeals Whistleblowers Australia, to several as changes in defamation laws, the US hearings as I sought to gain justice, as federal politicians requesting a senate False Claims Act, and legislation yet unsuccessfully. Now we have inquiry into whistleblowing. This is regarding public officials. In the last former disgraced NSW Police Officer one of his letters. Results from this 10 years, there have been many new Roger Rogerson and his wife openly effort will be reported in future issues developments in whistleblowing admitting that they both perjured of The Whistle.] legislation internationally. It has been themselves before the Police Royal the experience of other countries, most Commission several years ago and April 18 2004 notably the United States, that whistle- maybe are now subject to a lengthy blowing legislation needs to be prison sentence.

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