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Whistleblower defence dismissal ‘major blow for Australian democracy’
The Attorney-General has been urged to discontinue the prosecution of Tax Office whistleblower Richard Boyle and fix whistleblower protection laws after his defence was dismissed.
Lauren Croft
On Monday (27 March), the South Australian District Court dismissed Mr Boyle’s whistleblowing defence, prompting the Human Rights Law Centre to call on the Attorney-General to make regulatory changes to whistleblowing protection laws.
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This came after Mr Boyle blew the whistle on wrongdoing at the Australian Taxation Office in 2017, at first internally and then to the ABC. He was charged with a number of offences in 2019, despite several independent inquiries finding that his concerns were well-founded.
In front of the District Court, Mr Boyle argued he was immune from criminal prosecution due to the Public Interest Disclosure Act, which protects federal public servant whistleblowers.
However, Judge Liesl Kudelka dismissed the application.
Senior lawyer at the Human Rights Law Centre Kieran Pender said that this decision was a “major blow for Australian democracy”.
“Whistleblowers should be protected, not prosecuted — and the Public Interest Disclosure Act was enacted to ensure just that. The court’s decision that Boyle’s whistleblowing on wrongdoing within the Australian Taxation Office was not covered by the PID Act shows that the law is utterly broken. When whistleblowers speak up about government wrongdoing, human rights violations and corporate misfeasance, they make Australia a better place.
“Our laws need to reflect that. This prosecution, and that of war crimes whistleblower David McBride, are unjust and undemocratic. The whistleblowing laws enacted by Mark Dreyfus when he was Attorney-General in 2013 have now failed both men. There is no public interest in either prosecution, and it is high time that Dreyfus intervened to drop both cases, just as he dropped the Collaery case,” he said.
“The decision today only underscores the urgent need for law reform to ensure whistleblower protections are real and don’t just exist on paper. The Attorney-General should prioritise comprehensive reform to the PID Act and the establishment of a whistleblower protection authority.”
The judgment was suppressed on an interim basis, with a further hearing scheduled for Tuesday afternoon. Amendments to the PID Act are expected to be debated before the Senate on Tuesday.
