The Human Rights Law Centre today urged the Attorney-General to discontinue the prosecution of tax office whistleblower Richard Boyle and fix whistleblower protection laws, after Boyle’s whistleblowing defence was dismissed by the South Australian District Court.
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 his whistleblowing being vindicated by several independent inquiries.
Before the District Court, Boyle had argued he was immune from criminal prosecution due to the Public Interest Disclosure Act, which protects federal public servant whistleblowers.
On Monday, Judge Kudelka dismissed the application. 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.
Kieran Pender, Senior Lawyer at the Human Rights Law Centre, said:
“This decision will be devastating for Richard Boyle and it is a major blow for Australian democracy. Whistleblowers should be protected, not prosecuted. 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.
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.”
Article re-published with the permission of Kieran Pender. Author is Thomas Feng, also from the HRLC. Leighton Associates owes its existence to a whistleblower retaliation event in 2014 and was established in 2019.
Link to original article here: Attorney-General must act as tax whistleblower set to face trial | Human Rights Law Centre (hrlc.org.au)