Additional

The Commonwealth Ombudsman National Conference 8-9 November, at Hotel Realm and Parliament House (Canberra), will also include important seminars and plenary discussions on ‘innovation for good governance and public integrity’.

Keynote national and international speakers along with conference participants, will explore this theme, looking at the different integrity models, challenging perceptions and posing innovative solutions. This will include presentations and papers on the importance of having an effective public interest disclosure ‘whistle-blowers’ scheme.

For more information visit www.ombudsman.gov.au/national-conference (offline).

Commonwealth Ombudsman

The Commonwealth Ombudsman safeguards the community in its dealings with Australian Government agencies. The Ombudsman’s office handles complaints, conducts investigations, performs audits and inspections, encourages good administration, and carries out specialist oversight tasks. The Commonwealth Ombudsman is also the Defence Force, Immigration, Law Enforcement, Taxation, Postal Industry, ACT and Overseas Students Ombudsman.

Media contact: Media 02 6276 3759

Griffith University contact: Berry Belinda +61 7 3735 6741
Charles Sturt University contact: Wes Ward +61 2 6051 9906

Date of release: 7 October 2011

07 Oct 2011: Media alert: Launch of Whistling While They Work: A good-practice guide for managing internal reporting of wrongdoing in public sector organisations

Description: Hosted by Commonwealth Ombudsman Allan Asher and Robert Oakeshott MP. Professor Allan Fels will launch this important guide about whistle-blowing in the public sector.

Date: Wednesday 12 October (10:00am for 10:15am)

Location: Committee Room S16, Parliament House, Canberra

Key participants:

Robert Oakeshott MP, Federal Member for Lyne and Chair of the Joint Committee of Public Accounts and Audit
Allan Asher, Commonwealth Ombudsman
Allan Fels AO, Dean, The Australia and New Zealand School of Government (ANZSOG)
AJ Brown, John F Kearney Professor of Public Law, Griffith Law School, Griffith University (Project leader)
Peter Roberts, Senior Lecturer, Australian Graduate School of Policing, Charles Sturt University (Lead author).

Background information:

The Australian Government has committed to the introduction of legislation to establish a Commonwealth Public Interest Disclosure (whistle-blowers) scheme, to be oversighted by the Commonwealth Ombudsman.

The guide was produced as part of an Australian Research Council-funded Linkage Project, Whistling While They Work: Enhancing the Theory and Practice of Internal Witness Management in Public Sector Organisations (2005-2009).

The project collected data from over 300 Commonwealth, State and local agencies in Australia, including individual survey responses from over 10,000 individual public employees, managers and case-handlers (persons involved in the investigation and management of reported wrongdoing). Much of the empirical data was reported in Whistleblowing in the Australian Public Sector (Brown, 2008) and also published by the Australia & New Zealand School of Government and ANU E-Press.

In addition to the empirical data already reported, this guide presents new research based on the experience of 16 Commonwealth, State and local case study agencies, who participated in-depth throughout the project.

This guide shows how public sector organisations can better fulfil their missions, maintain their integrity and value their employees by adopting current best practice approaches to the management of whistleblowing.

The publication, Whistling While They Work: A good practice guide for managing internal reporting of wrongdoing in public sector organisations, is the final report of the research project into whistleblowing in the public sector, funded by the Australian Research Council and 14 industry partners. The project was led by Griffith University and involved four other universities including Charles Sturt University. It has resulted in a number of publications and has influenced the revision of public interest disclosure legislation in Queensland and New South Wales. The Commonwealth government and the Australian Capital Territory have also indicated that they are contemplating revisions to their legislation.

An electronic version of the guide is available