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Protect the whistlers, don’t punish them

Protect the whistlers, don’t punish them

Letter to Senator Xenophon: The article in the Age 161230 describes how whistleblower Brian Hood has had to sell his home because he could not gain further employment after becoming a whistleblower  about behaviour at the Reserve Bank.
He is one of many. It is utterly disgraceful that individuals who are so courageous as to risk everything, including jeopardising their future careers, are so poorly looked after. The article states that in Britain, the head of the Serious Fraud Office, David Green, says that financially rewarding whistleblowers ‘seems slightly distasteful’. (Presumably he has never had to contemplate anything to distasteful, himself.)  His view is contrasted with Mary Jo White, the outgoing chairwoman of the US Securities Exchange Commission, who sees “the advent of the US whistleblower reward and protection program in 2011 as a ‘game changer’ “.
I would advocate the American view, so that whistleblowers are regarded more as ‘quality control’ leaders in our society who do not so much have to fear persecution and financial catastrophe. (When it comes to police who are whistleblowers, I remember reading of one ex-policeman whistleblower about 15 years ago, saying that he would never be safe again.)
I urge you to do everything you can to persuade your whistleblower reform parliamentary committee of the need to protect and reward whistleblowers and to recommend it in their final report.
– Marigold Hayler (CLA member) Darley Vic
Copies sent to:  Malcolm Turnbull, Prime Minister of Australia; Barnaby Joyce, National Party of Australia; Bill Shorten, Australian Labor Party; Richard di Natale, Australian Greens Party

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