Mr. Noel McGree:

I will come in on that issue. What the Deputy is describing is fantastic and it is the type of remedy that is probably required for whistleblowers. The difficulty is in the setting up of that and the importance of the words used in respect of it. For example, whistleblowers are very familiar with the phrase "an independent external investigator". I have dealt with nine different external investigators at this stage to whom I have been referred. These are firms that would perhaps have an expertise in the audit world, the human resources world or the legal world. They are professionally very equipped to carry out the kind of investigation the Deputy referenced. They are private firms but are paid for from the public purse. As I said, the difficulty is in the wording. While these are independent external investigations, I have experienced difficulties in that the terms of reference for the investigation were set by my Department. It has then immediately got control of what the independent external investigator can investigate. The external investigators I have dealt with - as I said I have dealt with nine - were all extremely professional, were very sympathetic to me, were very kind people and were very capable within the sphere of influence of the work they were doing, but their hands were completely tied by the terms of reference. I could mention other events, factors and incidents but the investigator would be precluded from investigating them by the terms of reference set by my Department, so exactly how independent is this external investigation?

The next problem are the phrases in the current legislation and in the proposed amendments referencing the updates that will be provided to whistleblowers so they will not be left in this black hole. What is an update? What does it mean to you and what does it mean to me? I received an update recently, which was a one-line email stating that the investigation of my protected disclosure was ongoing. That was it. The Department I was dealing with met its obligation to provide me with an update, but the update provided me with nothing new. I have no new time period and I was not given any new information. This is the type of difficulty we are up against.

We are all familiar with the phrase "lessons have been learned". The only ones learning lessons are departmental public servants, public service departments and Departments within government. They are learning how to circumvent the Protected Disclosures Act on issues such as external investigations. They are finding ways of delivering what is prescribed under the Act but not in a way that is delivering any redress, any answers for whistleblowers or actually delivering anything proper. I have experienced senior public servants using public money to retain honest, professional and good independent external firms to produce investigations and reports that everybody knows are going nowhere and will not solve a problem. They are effectively wasting public money on ineffective reports just to tick the box to say, "oh, we had that protected disclosure investigated externally and independently and it wasn't upheld". This is what we are up against and what we are dealing with.