This is a message from the Australien Government
Have you witnessed a crime, cover-up or corruption in your government department?
Have your internal complaints been ignored
and you’re thinking of blowing the whistle?
If so, our whistleblower laws are here to protect you
Just kidding
You’ll be prosecuted, bankrupted and spend the rest of your life in jail lol
No seriously, you’re fucked
Like David, who blew the whistle on war crimes in Afghanistan
including the murder of children
An official inquiry confirmed the war crimes took place
the journo who published the war crimes got an OAM
the soldier who allegedly committed the war crimes got a medal
and the guy who helped reveal the war crimes?
He’s about to get life in jail
Cool and normal
As is Richard, who exposed how the ATO’s
debt-collection practices were ruining peoples’ lives
Both sought protection under our Public Interest Disclosure Act
Fools
The way the Act works is simple:
it doesn’t
Coz in the 10 years since we introduced it
the number of whistleblowers it’s protected comes to approximately…
fuck all
And that’s coz whenever someone exposes our shitfuckery in the public interest
we come up with a bullshit reason to deny them protection
Take Richard:
Three inquiries confirmed his concerns
the ATO ceased the unethical practices
But we still prosecuted him
for... uhh… recording evidence of the misconduct before exposing it
How else was he meant to blow the whistle?
He wasn’t, silly!
And David?
We prevented him from using key evidence and witnesses to defend himself under the Act
because... uhhh… National Security
thereby forcing him to plead guilty
And that is why, the first person to face jail in relation to war crimes in Afghanistan
isn’t a war criminal, but the guy who exposed the war crimes
[David Brent grunting sounds]
Some say this shows our whistleblower protection laws are broken
But we say: relax, they’re protecting us and our mates from whistleblowers just fine
That’s why they’re called Whistleblower Protection Laws
duh
Coz remember, here at the Australien Government, we’re America’s bitch
And that means keeping a lid on all the shitfuckery in the illegal wars
we blindly follow America into
Like Afghanistan
Which explains why we’re prosecuting David
And doing jack-shit to bring Julian home
Coz as you can see, you can’t spell Shitfuckery without an S
a T
an F
and a U
And the best way of teaching those four letters to all the other would-be truth-tellers out there
is by making an example of anyone who exposes said shitfuckery
But hang on, didn’t we promise to strengthen whistleblower laws if you elected us?
We did
And didn’t our Attorney General just write a big essay
about how he’s restoring trust in government with integrity and blahblahblah?
He did
While you wait… here’s his latest review of our secrecy laws
Just don’t read the fine print, where it says he’ll still prosecute whistleblowing
if it “undermines Australians’ trust in government“
Let’s unpack that together
What he’s saying is: if you knew what goes on here you wouldn’t trust us
So to make you trust us, we’ll make sure you don’t know what goes on here
Australien Government Ignorance is Strength
Of course, if we were serious about earning your trust
we’d establish a whistleblower protection authority
like the one we promised in 2019
We’d fix our broken FOI access
Hold public hearings under our new Anti-Corruption Commission
Stop withholding documents from parliament at an even higher rate than this guy
We’d bring Julian home
And of course we’d drop the prosecutions of whistleblowers, like Richard and David
But why do all that
when we can just write an essay about restoring trust in this government
and pretend we’re not just as big a piece of shit on secrecy as the previous one
Australien Government
Authorised by the Department for Whistleblower Prosecutions