The Rockliff Government's accountability crisis is pushing aside Tasmanians’ right to know
OPINION | Democratic Freedoms
Tasmania’s whistleblowers cannot safely go to the media or parliamentarians.
The result is a silencing of public interest stories, while fraud, misconduct and corruption remain hidden.
By Regina Featherstone and Madeleine Howle
Human Rights Law Centre
Tasmania is in the grips of a crisis of accountability. The Integrity Commission is toothless, the 2023 Commission of Inquiry has exposed some of Tasmania’s darkest historical secrets, and the decade delay on the State of the Environment Report revealed an alarming decline in the state’s environmental condition. With Australia’s most outdated whistleblower laws and slowest responses to freedom of information requests, Tasmania will need more than a ministerial shakeup to restore accountability and trust.
The Rockliff Government came to the 2024 election with a promise of “stability and certainty”. A recent ministerial reshuffle and proposed reforms in response to concerns about the unethical behaviour of government businesses show the government is prepared to make change. But unless the Rockliff Government makes substantial reforms to address the pervasive culture of silence and secrecy, these promises will be meaningless.
The expanded crossbench has indicated appetite for action, just recently passing a vote of no-confidence against former Deputy Premier Michael Ferguson MP over the Spirit of Tasmania delays.
But there is so much more that can be done.
Whistleblowing laws, right to information, ministerial accountability, functioning integrity bodies – these all are all fundamental to an accountable and transparent government.
But all too often, the public's right to know is pushed aside by Tasmania’s broken integrity frameworks meaning the Tasmanian government's actions can go largely unchecked.
Tasmania’s public sector whistleblowing laws - designed to protect public servants in exposing public sector wrongdoing - have been largely untouched since their inception over two decades ago, making it the most outdated whistleblowing law in Australia.
In the 2022/2023 Tasmanian Ombudsman Report hinted at a review of the Public Interest Disclosure Act, alongside other legislation including the Right to Information Act 2009, with a $44,000 price tag for the work. The Human Rights Law Centre sought information on the status of this review under a right to information request, but the Ombudsman declined to release information so we have no update on how or when these broken laws may be fixed and how they will be amended.
The consequences of these delays are enormous. Public servants who witness wrongdoing have few options other than to raise their concerns internally, or go to the Integrity Commission or the Ombudsman - both of which are chronically underfunded and under resourced.
Unlike other jurisdictions, Tasmania’s whistleblowers cannot safely go to the media or parliamentarians. The result is a silencing of public interest stories, while fraud, misconduct and corruption remain hidden.
Because the laws are broken, they are not utilised. In 2022-23, the Tasmania Police reported no public interest disclosures received for 2022-23 – it is unlikely that this is because there is no wrongdoing in the Tasmanian Police Force. The recent Commission of Inquiry and the outcome of the Weiss Independent Review into former police officer Paul Reynolds, has shown us that wrongdoing does occur, it just doesn’t come out.
From Bob Brown, to Grace Tame, Alysha Rose and Andrew Wilkie MP - Tasmanians have a strong history of speaking truth to power. Just recently, whistleblowers risked their livelihoods and careers to speak up about animal abuse in a labradoodle breeding facility in the state’s north. Concerningly, it was recently reported that the RSPCA is considering legal action against the whistleblowers who reported the wrongdoing. This culture of going after those with integrity, who blow the whistle, needs to change.
Meanwhile, Tasmania’s Right to Information (RTI) scheme is the slowest and most secretive in Australia. The Environmental Defender’s Office found in 2023 that Tasmania has the highest rate of rejections in Australia for freedom of information requests, and applicants are waiting up to three years for reviews to be completed, by which point the information is rarely of use anymore.
The Rockliff Government needs to pursue urgent and substantial reform to its public sector whistleblowing laws, including supports for public officials who speak up, increase funding and capacity of the Integrity Commission, and reform the RTI scheme to reduce delays and inefficiencies. The Independents and smaller parties who promised accountability are critical in holding the government accountable to its promises. Tasmanians need to be given a fighting chance to speak up and hold power to account.
Regina Featherstone and Madeleine Howle are in the Whistleblower Project team at the Human Rights Law Centre. You can learn more about the team's work here.
This article was originally published by the Hobart Mercury.