“All that is needed for evil to prosper is for people of good will to do nothing”—Edmund Burke The Whistle No. 93, January 2018 Newsletter of Whistleblowers Australia (ISSN 2205-0299) Articles What we want — why the federal report’s admission, “What does that mean?” I hear you why now and what conceivably could ask. Well, when someone comes is a little respect! come of it in this parliament? knocking on our door for information Cynthia Kardell You’ll remember the Coalition only and support, we should be explaining agreed to the inquiry and to set up an why slavishly sticking to “the system” expert panel in order to secure senator as we know it, in the hope of protec- Nick Xenophon’s support on an tion somewhere down the line, usually unrelated bill. after you’ve lost your job and your Maybe the pressure of scandal family, is a mug’s game. No more piling upon scandal in the banking and keeping quiet lest we invite retribution financial sector left them with no place from our employers. No more having to go after nearly 25 years of looking to lie, to keep confidential what should the other way as whistleblower after always have been publicly known. No whistleblower was sacrificed so some more letting a bullying boss tie you in guilty executive could save face. If so, knots over it. No more hoping for is that the full extent of it, other than to crumbs to fall from the table. We need tinker around the edges some more: to to adapt what we know after nearly 25 tighten up the grounds on which the years of trial and error and use “the protections might apply, by asking the system” to our advantage, not theirs. whistleblower to do more? (No Here’s what I’m thinking. LAST SEPTEMBER the federal report on surprises there, I hear you mutter!) whistleblower protections in the corpo- The first thing is to take a reality Legislation usually follows change rate, public and not-for-profit sectors check. Don’t be naïve. Acknowledge and it rarely keeps up, because the by the Joint Parliamentary Committee the obvious. If you’re right about what on Corporations and Financial Services more conservative thinkers are con- you’ve uncovered, then the organisa- made the astonishing finding that cerned to keep their hands firmly on tion is probably not the organisation “whistleblower protections remain the levers of power. We’ve seen this in you like to think it is. So put aside any largely theoretical with little practical the way whistleblower legislation has romantic ideas about getting an effect in either the public or private been developed, because the weight of emotional mea culpa from your boss. It sectors.” It’s my emphasis. I couldn’t legislative change has been to hold us is probably not going to happen. Check let it go unnoticed as I think we need increasingly more responsible for fail- with Brian Hood, the Reserve Bank of ing to get protection. We need to turn to savour that admission, because it Australia whistleblower. He got the that around. We need to remember that has been a long time in coming — sack, like so many others before him legislation has never helped us, but nearly 25 years. and since. neither has it stopped us — from doing what we do — which is why I think what we do is the more important. Of course, we need to continue to press our legislators, employers and others to do what we know needs doing, even if at times we know that pigs won’t fly! They have a job and we should demand they do it. The way forward as I see it is to Brian Hood find ways for whistleblowers to do the things that we know work. The things Realistically, if they are prepared to that we think should be enshrined in scam the system then they have built law now, like being able to go to the up a network of likeminded souls, The federal whistleblower protection media without fear of being prosecuted some on the take and some not. So law has only been in place since and to blow the whistle, anonymously learn your lesson when it matters, not January 2014. I remember Labor’s or not, through a solicitor, media or after it costs you everything. Mark Dreyfus MP saying there was no other agent. We need to strike out in So don’t live in hope, don’t delude real appetite for it in a hung parliament our own direction knowing that what yourself. Let them do that, because with more pressing things on hand, and works for whistleblowers will eventu- history shows that crooks get cocky, that it was only ever intended to bring ally force the changes in law that we often when they shouldn’t. If we learn the federal jurisdiction into line with want. Frankly, I can’t see our legisla- to play it right, this might just give us the laws already operating across all tors or our employers willingly ceding the edge we need. state and territory jurisdictions, some power to whistleblowers any time Work out who has the levers of since 1993. So the question remains, soon. I doubt it’s even in their DNA. power, real or personal, and who is in 2 The Whistle, #93, January 2018 his or her debt and so on. Because you careful with what you allow your have only a little power, you need to lawyer to say and do on your behalf. leverage it to stay out of their reach If you’re a member of a union, and keep them in the spotlight. And it don’t wait until you’ve got a problem, can be leveraged, because they’re get your union’s rep or legal officer to scared! You need to keep them scared. be the post box and then, when things That means depriving them of a target, get scary, they will already have your by staying undercover one way or back. another and moving on them, when Either way, make sure you have they least expect it. proof of your prior work performance Keep in mind some of the better record as a benchmark. known stories as a way of explaining If you don’t mind being known, still how it might be done. For example, think about using a lawyer or union as Mark Felt’s story. an agent, even if they just act as a post box, because it will increase your chances of not becoming a target your- self. Make sure you get someone expe- rienced in the relevant areas of law. Or you might consider leaving, with Chris Masters the goods. In 2003 Andrew Wilkie MP re- Then there are the recent Murray signed after removing the documents Darling Basin and Crown Casino he’d need to prove the government had whistleblowers who remain unknown. lied about Saddam Hussein having They’ve managed to bring about inde- weapons of mass destruction. He then pendent investigations into the alleged told his direct boss what he was doing, crimes and to stay out of trouble. handed in his resignation with imme- Maybe one day, we’ll know them. diate effect and walked down the hill from the ONA to an interview with journalist Laurie Oakes. It went to air on the ABC that evening. Yes, Wilkie suffered a bit of name calling, but Mark Felt financially and psychologically he was already beyond their reach. He blew the Watergate scandal wide Ten years later in 2013, US analyst open in 1972 and was only ever known Ed Snowden downloaded classified as “Deep Throat” until after his death records of routine surveillance of the in 2005. He went to enormous efforts US public and left his country for to make sure the journalist didn’t know good. He is safely out of their reach in him, just the information he supplied. In each story the scammers and the Russia. You might think he paid too Then there’s Daniel Ellsberg who crooks were deprived of a target, big a price, but before he did anything broke his own cover in 1973 when it which kept them and not the whistle- he decided what he wanted to achieve was safe, after leaking the Pentagon blower in the spotlight. and what that meant if he was to suc- Papers on America’s war in Vietnam Not all stories will get a journalist to ceed. Tellingly, Snowden took quite a in 1969. He avoided prison because of come on board, but there are other, few months to persuade the journalist the Nixon administration’s illegal more simple ways of staying out of of his choice to do the job he wanted. attempts to destroy him. (I’ve just their reach and that are within your You might think that they are two learned a woman, Katherine Graham, control. extreme cases and they are, but it’s the the publisher at The Washington Post, You can employ a lawyer to provide strategy that’s important here. If you went out on a limb when her male col- a covering letter for a statement which want to keep them and not you in the leagues said no, way too risky. That’s sets out the evidence of wrongdoing, spotlight, get the documents offsite one for the ladies!) where other evidence can be found, and organise a new job before you Closer to home: two police officers only ever refers to you as “my client” move.