Tree of Knowledge

The Australian’s Legal Affairs Editor, Chris Merritt thinks the PMC’s efforts to track down the source of the Ferguson Fuel Watch Leak is a reversion to the Howard days of closed government:

THE federal Government fell into line with the Howard government’s approach to leaks yesterday by making the resources of the commonwealth available to find the person responsible for Tuesday’s front-page lead story in The Australian.

The Prime Minister’s department has been made available tohelp track down the person who leaked a letter showing a deep split within the Government over its FuelWatch price monitoring scheme.

Before last year’s election, Kevin Rudd promised whistleblowers in the public service he would introduce “best practice” laws to give them legal protection. At the time, he said Labor would break “the code of silence that has developed after 11 years of the Howard government”.

The article in The Australian argues that the leak was analogous to the prosecution of whistleblower Allan Kessing:

Mr Kessing, a former Customs officer, was prosecuted and convicted under the Howard government for leaking Australian reports that revealed weak security at the nation’s airports, subsequently reported in The Australian. Mr Kessing denies leaking the reports.

However, are the cases really analogous? Does someone who is leaking documents about a policy disagreement deserve whistleblower protection?

The Whistleblower Association of Australia argues that the definition of a whistleblower:

should include only public-interest whistleblowers, such as staff who reported corruption, waste, etc., and not those with grievances or internal corporate disputes

Similarly, the Australian Parliamentary Library suggests that the commonly accepted definition of a whistleblower is:

… the disclosure by organisation members (former or current) of illegal, immoral or illegitimate practices under the control of their employers to persons that may be able to effect action

Was Martin Ferguson’s view of Fuel Watch “illegal, immoral or illegitimate”? (No cheeky answers)

I think a friend of mine, hit the nail on the head when she noted:

The leaking of this letter is not about whistleblowers, it’s about someone wanting to big note themselves leaking. Protecting whistleblowers is about people that uncover illegal or corrupt practices. There is nothing illegal or corrupt about cabinet ministers writing to each other in budget deliberations and putting their view forward on this or that.

Does someone deserve legal protection for that?

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