STATEMENTS BY MEMBERS

Ms SPENDER (Wentworth) (13:33): I rise to speak about the fantastic news that last week whistleblower and Wentworth constituent David McBride was released from prison on parole. I send all my wellwishes to David, his friends and, of course, his dog. But the truth is that David should never have gone to prison.

A man who exposed alleged war crimes in Afghanistan was prosecuted by the Australian government and found guilty, despite attempting to rely on the public-interest defence, and then sentenced to five years and eight months in prison. David's name is well known. So is Richard Boyle's—prosecuted after exposing aggressive debt-collection tactics at the ATO.

But, for every name we know, there will be many more who saw wrongdoing and stayed silent because they watched and they saw what happened to people who spoke up. Our world and our country are better off for having whistleblowers. They can be one of the strongest mechanisms of accountability that both the public sector and the private sector have, but they cannot exist if whistleblowers are not protected.

We need a strong whistleblower protection authority, called for by successive governments and expert reviews. We need whistleblower protections consolidated into one clear act instead of scattered across different pieces of legislation. This government, who say they want to rebuild trust, should be encouraging people to come forward instead of deterring them by making public examples of them.

We should not wait for another brave individual to expose gaps in our laws by sacrificing themselves, their career or their freedom. We should be proactive in protecting them for the sake of our country.