Brian Martin
Published in The Whistle (Newsletter of Whistleblowers Australia), No. 118, April 2024, pp. 4-5
Cynthia Kardell, in her article “Whistleblowing has never been more dangerous,” (this issue, pp. 2-4), makes devastating criticisms of Australia’s whistleblower protection laws. She points to a fundamental flaw in the laws: they assume that the people running organisations can be trusted to handle disclosures that implicate the leaders of those organisations.
One of those organisations is the Australian federal government. Its leaders and officials can’t be trusted to handle disclosures revealing that responsibility for corruption goes right to the top. This is dramatically shown by the government’s prosecutions of Witness K, Bernard Collaery, David McBride and Richard Boyle. The hypocrisy of saying “Speak out, you’re protected” while prosecuting those who do speak out has never been more striking.
Cynthia puts her hope in reforms to whistleblower laws, for example setting up a Whistleblower Protection Agency. Reforms would certainly be nice. Imagine exposing abuse and corruption, and being supported all the way by an independent authority.
Yes, it would be nice, but I don’t think it will ever happen. Furthermore, there’s a risk of putting too much effort into applying pressure on the government to reform the laws. The effort might be better spent in other ways.
The Australian political and economic system is built on entrenched inequality in power and wealth, and it’s only to be expected that those at the top will use any means possible to stay there. Why could we possibly imagine that they could be convinced to set up a system that could expose misdeeds at the top, and bring those implicated tumbling down?
This would mean that a single individual, an otherwise powerless worker or citizen, could speak truth to power — and win. It would be like a single dissident bringing down a tyrant. It has never happened this way. Repressive regimes are only toppled through mass resistance. Similarly, in places like Australia, the only thing that has a chance against entrenched corruption and unfairness that reaches the top is when lots of people demand change. And even then it may not happen.
In the US, where whistleblower protection laws have an even longer history than in Australia, whistleblowers continue to be persecuted and prosecuted. The US government is even claiming its prosecutorial reach extends internationally, to non-citizens. Just ask Julian Assange.
Imagine for a moment that a truly effective agency was set up, an agency that started exposing big-time malpractice. The pressure on such an agency would be immense. Funding might be cut, legal challenges mounted, and efforts made to nobble it, to convert it into a lapdog. That’s what’s happened to lots of watchdog agencies that become friendly with those they are supposed to regulate.
Rather than chase the mirage of genuine, effective whistleblower protection, I think it would be better to encourage development of skills in understanding organisations, collecting evidence, building support, leaking to journalists and action groups, and remaining on the job to collect more evidence. This would be a genuine threat to those at the top. Why do you think managers of organisations are so willing to set up whistleblower reporting systems, with all the formal procedures associated with them, and so seldom organise training for employees on how to detect corruption and expose problems without being identified?
We should learn from Cynthia. Don’t trust Australia’s whistleblower protection regime. Don’t trust what those at the top say about their good intentions. Instead, look at what they are doing, and beware.
Brian Martin is vice president of Whistleblowers Australia. The ideas here are developed at greater length in the book Official Channels (https://www.bmartin.cc/pubs/20oc/).
Brian Martin's publications on suppression of dissent