Whistle Blowers get a Harsh Deal

In an article in SMH (5 June 2013) it is reported that informing a regulator like Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) of corruption may not be as easy as it might at first seems: "[i]f you've come across something rotten in the organisation you work for and are thinking of blowing the whistle to the corporate regulator, think twice".

The SMH report deals with a group of "whistle blowers" at the Commonwealth Bank who contacted ASIC in October 2008 with detailed information outlining "serious flaws" in the bank's financial planning unit. But, as reported, instead of ASIC moving quickly on the serious tip-off that one of the bank's top financial planners had engaged in systemic misconduct and his files were being "cleaned up", it took ASIC 16 months to take action and even more concerning is the lack of protection offered to the whistleblowers in the case.

One of the "whistle blowers" quoted said ''We dealt ASIC the cards to take 10 tricks but they settled for six . . . My whistleblower protection consisted of advising me to 'get out with what you have left'."

Although there have been Bills for proposed laws in four states (QLD, VIC, NSW and NT) as well as the CTH aiming to protect whistleblowers are in progress in those jurisdictions none have as yet been enacted  into law and all continue to use the terminology  "whistle blower" with all the pejorative connotations that Australian society connects to the term. Reading stories like this one  it is difficult not to wonder whether if citizens who take it upon themselves to do the right thing were not referred to as "whistle blowers" words which seems to evoke the view that such a person is a "tattle-tale" or "lag" instead of being someone who did the right thing, it might not go better for the said "whistle blowers". Is it our less than splendid origins as a penal settlement that seem to favour a less sympathetic disposition to people who take the often lonely path of revealing corruption, prejudice or deficient administration or even criminal activity by blowing the whistle on it?

Whistle blowing is right not wrong? To be encouraged and supported by government, policy and integrity commissions and regulators? More so than ASIC appears to have done in this case.

Source: Blow the whistle, face the music (SMH)