Published in The Whistle (Newsletter of Whistleblowers Australia), No. 125, January 2026, pp. 3-4
Whistleblowers Australia was set up in the early 1990s to deal with a serious problem. Workers were speaking out about abuse, corruption and dangers to the public. But management, instead of investigating these concerns, attacked the workers. Many of them lost their jobs.
So what has changed since then? Beginning in the 1990s, all Australian states and territories passed whistleblower protection laws. Ominously, whistleblowers were not consulted then, or ever since, when these laws were drafted. The laws give the impression of protection but in practice it’s still risky to speak out. The laws are almost worse than nothing because some workers think they’re protected when actually they aren’t.
Many who have been active in Whistleblowers Australia (WBA) looked to governments to set up systems that would really protect whistleblowers. However, when governments are employers, they have been just as bad as any other. The poster cases for this are David McBride and Richard Boyle. They followed the rules for making disclosures and found out they weren’t protected. Furthermore, the federal government refused to drop their prosecutions, showing everyone that the laws are a sham. The treatment of McBride and Boyle has been a dramatic statement to other workers: dare to speak out, and this is what might happen to you.
Having talked with hundreds of whistleblowers, the sequence of events is predictable: speak out, suffer reprisals, and find that official channels don’t work. But there is something else vitally important. Whistleblowers hardly ever succeed. It’s hard to find cases in which significant improvements in organisational behaviour resulted from protected disclosures. Actually, one of the few cases is Richard Boyle, who triggered changes at the Australian Taxation Office. Perhaps that’s why he was prosecuted so relentlessly.
There’s an analogy to medicine. Nearly all medical treatment is curative, dealing with conditions and diseases after they’ve developed. That’s what hospitals are all about. Only a small percentage of the health budget is spent on preventive measures, like promoting exercise and good diet, and reducing exposure to environmental chemicals. Most of the whistleblowers we deal with have already spoken out and suffered reprisals, so we can only offer assistance after damage is done. How much better it would be to change organisational culture so speaking out is welcomed. Then WBA wouldn’t be needed.
In our early years, we had ambitions to deal with some of the restraints on speaking out. One of them is defamation law, which inhibits what people can say. It still does. Another restraint is laws limiting what government employees can say. These laws are effectively official secrets acts, and they haven’t gone away. In fact, things are worse, because now many corporate employers require workers to sign non-disparagement clauses so they can’t comment outside of work without risking being targeted. Josh Bornstein describes this well in his book Working for the Brand. Yet another restraint is secrecy. Freedom of Information laws were supposed to open up government bodies to scrutiny, but instead they have become ever more restrictive.
Things have also become worse because of new laws to maintain metadata about telephone calls and to permit spy agencies to enter people’s phones and computers and delete, change or add text. This means it is far more difficult to make disclosures while remaining anonymous.
After several years talking with whistleblowers, I felt myself sounding like a broken record, saying the same thing over and over, so I wrote The Whistleblower’s Handbook, published in 1999. By the time I prepared a second edition, titled Whistleblowing, published in 2013, two new chapters seemed appropriate. One was on leaking, namely anonymous whistleblowing. I now recommend remaining anonymous whenever possible, because reprisals are so likely and whistleblower protection is an illusion. The other new chapter is “Low-profile operations.” Rather than reporting problems to the boss, higher management or outside agencies, it can be more effective to subtly hint at the problems without being too obvious about it. In other words, the idea is to be a change agent without becoming a whistleblower and without paying the penalty for doing the right thing.
Workers need better skills at dealing with problems without being burned in the process. But how can WBA help in this? Most of the people who contact us have already spoken out and suffered reprisals. How can we get to workers before they speak out, before they make the mistake of speaking out without sufficient preparation? Years ago, we had a plan to distribute a leaflet about speaking out to workers via trade unions. We drafted a leaflet, appropriately titled “Speaking out: what you need to know,” but there was no follow-through to distribute it.
Some of us have given talks at conferences and university classes. However, as an organisation we’ve done little to raise awareness among young people. We haven’t developed an outreach programme aimed at schools, giving talks to students and teachers, or providing audio-visual materials for classroom use. We haven’t done podcasts or had a plan to approach filmmakers.
This means we remain stuck in the mode of trying to help whistleblowers who are already in a bad way. It’s important work, but it’s a rearguard effort, because the conditions that enable corruption and abuse are unchanged, and the focus by media and government on whistleblower protection distracts attention from the need for systemic change and the value of an informed workforce, with the skills to act effectively.
This sounds gloomy, but WBA does some things well. One is providing information and advice to enquirers. We have a contact list on our website, but only a few of us handle most of the enquiries. It would be good if we could find others willing to learn how to respond to whistleblower enquiries.
Perhaps we should do more to make our services known. Whistleblowers often contact those they read about in the news or who are active online, which is why prominent whistleblowers like Jeff Morris and Toni Hoffman receive so many enquiries, as does the Human Rights Law Centre due to the efforts of Kieran Pender. WBA used to have a media officer and hold press conferences, but no more. We are seldom in the media.
Besides responding to enquiries, the other thing we do well is put whistleblowers in touch with each other. This happens when we can refer a caller to a whistleblower in a similar area or with relevant experiences — to another teacher or police officer, for example — and happens at our conferences.
To sum up: WBA has survived for over 30 years, which is a major accomplishment in itself. Few countries have an organisation most of whose members are whistleblowers. We continue to offer information and advice — always non-legal advice — and to put whistleblowers in touch with each other, which is often what helps them the most.
On the negative side, our efforts are about helping people after the damage has been done. We’re not reaching people before they speak out, and we’re having little impact on systemic obstacles, including defamation law, secrecy provisions, and the drivers of abuse and corruption.
Keep going? For sure. But we can also be more open to new directions.
Most of WBA’s six office bearers are aged over 75. Old age does not mean incapacity, but eventually there will be a need for renewal, for a new generation to take over. If no one is able and willing to do that, what next? What would it mean if WBA folded up?
There would still be individuals with enough visibility to be nodes for others seeking advice. If our website were maintained, the contact list could still direct enquirers to experienced advisers. Individuals could organise online meetings with minimal cost. Not all would be lost. Is this the future?
Brian Martin is vice president of Whistleblowers Australia and editor of The Whistle.
Brian Martin's publications on suppression of dissent