Protected Disclosures (Protection of Whistleblowers) Bill

on behalf of the Minister for the Public Service: I move that the Protected Disclosures (Protection of Whistleblowers) Bill be now read a second time.

The education—

💬 DEPUTY SPEAKER: Sorry, we understood that there was a legislative statement.

Sorry, yes, the legislative statement. I present a legislative statement on the Protected Disclosures (Protection of Whistleblowers) Bill.

💬 DEPUTY SPEAKER: That legislative statement is published under the authority of the House and can be found on the Parliament website.

Thank you, Mr Speaker.

💬 DEPUTY SPEAKER: So if you can move that.

I now move, That the Protected Disclosures (Protection of Whistleblowers) Bill be now read a second time.

The Education and Workforce Committee have considered the bill and reported it back with the proposed amendments. I accept the committee’s commentary and proposed amendments. Most of the amendments have been made in response to issues raised by submitters or questions from the committee. I’d like to acknowledge the work that both submitters and the committee have put into improving this bill.

This bill has had cross-party support both at introduction and through the select committee process. All political parties in Parliament understand the importance of protecting people who raise concerns about serious wrongdoing that they see in or by their organisations. I wish to acknowledge the differing view put forward in the select committee report by the Green Party of Aotearoa. Several of the issues that the Green Party raised were already in our programme for future work on the protected disclosures regime, while others have come to our attention as a result of submissions heard through the committee process.

Some of these issues will require a further consultation and policy process. The appropriate way forward will depend on the effect of the major changes in this bill or developments in other areas of law and practice. For example, the redress available to a discloser who experiences retaliation or victimisation is through the personal grievance and/or human rights complaint mechanism. Submitters have pointed out that both of these are challenging to use, and take too long. We can’t fix these processes through the legislation. If we establish something separate for protected disclosures, it might have exactly the same issues.

The biggest change between the Act and the bill is that whistleblowers will be able to disclose directly to an appropriate authority outside of their organisation. This is a huge change from the series of gates and hurdles in the current legislation, and I expect it to make a big difference to those who are disclosing. This bill also rewrites the Act so that it is much easier to follow and spells out things that the Act is largely silent on, such as what receivers of a disclosure are expected to do.

Having said that, I intend to progress some issues raised by submitters, or noted by the committee, through a Supplementary Order Paper before this bill is passed. I expect that Supplementary Order Paper to include: making it clearer that serious wrongdoing includes things that create serious risk to the health and/or safety of individuals, and improving protection for supporting disclosers and disclosures made under a duty of some kind. I also expect that the issues not addressed through the Supplementary Order Paper will form part of a planned policy work programme that will continue alongside the implementation of this bill. I commend this bill to the House.

The question is that the motion be agreed to.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. It’s my pleasure to stand and take a call on this, the second reading of the Protected Disclosures (Protection of Whistleblowers) Bill. Can I just support the Minister’s comments and acknowledge the Education and Workforce Committee that worked on this. I wasn’t a member of the select committee, so I can’t speak in great detail in terms of the work that has been done, but I have looked at the recommendations and the work that they did around those recommendations and acknowledge those as being very good. And, of course, reiterating the Minister’s comments, there is further work to be done in refining this bill to ultimately make sure that whistleblowers are afforded the correct protection and a speedy and efficient process which they can have confidence in to be able to bring information forward.

Can I just, very quickly, talk a little bit about my personal experience in this and why I support this bill and the work that’s being done on this bill and, fundamentally, why it is so important. Because New Zealand, we can be rightfully proud of the fact that we lead in most measures around the world as being the least corrupt country in the world. The reason for that is that we’ve got to be able to have good, safe mechanisms in terms of people being able to report poor behaviour or illegal behaviour inside the workplace. I was lucky enough to be on the C-suite in the management board of a big global logistics company—in 120 countries, with over 33,000 employees—and part of my role was to run the security and risk management for those employees, for the property and the assets of the company. Very lucky to have had a very progressive chief executive officer in Tarek Sultan, who recognised that making sure that employees were looked after and their welfare was cared for—right across 120 countries—had to be a sharp focus. That meant making sure that when you are working in different countries, where a business practice that may be accepted in one country would be seen as unacceptable in another country, meant a very robust system global system in which employees could come forward and report anything that they felt was not appropriate or legal.

So I became very aware of the fact that there’s lots of risks and challenges around that. One of them is that undeniable risk that an employee or a person can weaponise that system and they can take a personal grievance or disagreement with someone inside the organisation, and they can use the systems available to them to try and weaponise it and try and create problems for that person. I think this bill has been very good in clearly outlining and stating what the threshold is in terms of the type of complaint that can be received and actioned and, to some extent, it does mitigate the risk of that. But the overriding concern and the overriding issue that must be addressed in a bill like this—and it has done a good job of it—is ensuring that someone can, with confidence, step forward and make a complaint if they’re seeing poor behaviour or even illegal behaviour happening inside the organisation that they’re working for. Let’s not pretend that that is an easy thing to do. It’s not. It is often a very difficult thing to do, especially when there is often a power imbalance and the bad behaviour may be coming from a manager or a senior manager.

So I think this bill has been very clear in terms of outlining the steps that can be taken for an employee to have the confidence to actually step forward, make a disclosure, know that they’re going to be protected and that there’s the robust protections around them in terms of anonymity and that the complaint is going to be taken seriously and it’s going to be responded to in a timely manner. And I think that the 20 days, although that sounds a long time, actually I think that it is fair in terms of being able to initiate an initial investigation in terms of starting to substantiate and get a feel for exactly what the complaint is and the content contained within that complaint.

I think that the big thing for me, and what has been addressed, is the meaning of “serious wrongdoing”. Because, you could argue that something that one person considers is a serious wrongdoing someone else might feel is a bit more trivial and less serious. So I think that in legislation like this, it’s very important to be able to lay that out clearly. And it’s obvious that the select committee, along with some very good submissions that were made, had this highlighted and they really turned their mind to it. They have gone through and they have made some very good changes to section 10. If I’m just able to very quickly run through that, the meaning of serious wrongdoing. So, in this Act, serious wrongdoing includes one or more of the following by or in any organisation. And, of course, subsection (a) was changed; a very good change that made it much, much clearer and more simple. It went from “an unlawful, a corrupt, or an irregular use of public funds or public resources” to just “an offence”. So that means an offence has to be established. And I think that when you’re talking about the protections that this legislation is going to wrap around a whistleblower, or someone that’s bringing something forward, that, of course, is the first issue that must be established.

Section 10(b), “a serious risk to public health, or public safety, or the environment.” They’ve gone through it in a very good way—and can I acknowledge the advisers that have worked on this and obviously worked alongside the committee in terms of, I think, that they’ve made very clear and very succinct changes consistent with the comments that the Minister made around trying to make the Act a little more simpler to understand and to interpret. So actually, even someone that may not have a legal background or legal training can pick up the Act and have a look at it. If you’re an employee and you’re wrestling with trying to bring something forward, you can actually look at that. I think that would give them a large level of confidence that they understand what the intent of the Act is, the protections that they would get, and what’s incumbent upon them, and the process and the road map that they need to use to actually progress and come forward and make a complaint. So I just want to acknowledge the committee and the advisers on their work there in terms of making those changes around the meaning of serious wrongdoing. To me, that’s the heart of the legislation, really, because if that definition isn’t clear, then actually you could end up with a whole lot of complaints that actually could bog the system down and it could almost be counterintuitive in terms of what you’re trying to achieve through a piece of legislation like this.

“Discloser’s entitlement to protection”. This is extremely important in terms of being able to instil the confidence in people to be able to come forward and make that complaint. And, like I said, in my own experience in dealing with an internal system whereby we had a confidential hotline that was available to all employees globally, that they could come forward and disclose poor behaviour, or even illegal behaviour—and we did have plenty of disclosures like that, and a lot of them were upheld and it meant that we had to take internal action. But you also had to work with external partners as well to take action on that. I dealt with things as simple as passive-aggressive behaviour and targeting within the workplace on someone that was trying to do the right thing and put their hand up and highlight something that was not going right, right through to serious threats of violence against employees and their family members for coming forward and wanting to disclose poor behaviour or illegal behaviour in the workplace. So the “discloser’s entitlement to protection” is extremely important in this bill: “A discloser is entitled to protection under this Act for a protected disclosure made (in accordance with the section) to their organisation or to an appropriate authority.”

I think the other thing that the Minister highlighted and I agree entirely with is that there’s very clear avenues outside the organisation that an employee can follow as well if they’ve lost complete confidence in terms of how their complaint is going to be dealt with. And I think that that’s a very good part of the legislation. I know that it appears that there’s still going to be some refining around that and how that’s going to work, but I think that that’s critically important for an employee: to have a different pathway to be able to use to bring forward a serious issue or disclosure and have confidence in that process.

So I’d just like to say again that although I didn’t sit on the committee, I want to acknowledge all the committee members that are in the House today for the work that they have done on this bill. I think that it is a very good and an important piece of legislation, not only to provide employees with the confidence to be able to come forward and report bad behaviour or illegal behaviour and harmful behaviour, but also in making sure that we can continue to be a country that can be proud of having very low levels of corruption inside our public service. We should continue to work and protect that and provide the tools necessary to ensure that that proud legacy that we have as a country can remain for a long time moving forward. Thank you, Mr Speaker.

Kia ora, Mr Speaker, and thank you for the opportunity to speak on this, the second reading of the Protected Disclosures (Protection of Whistleblowers) Bill. I also want to acknowledge my colleague across the floor there, Mark Mitchell, for his contribution and making it quite clear that we as a Parliament are working together on something that’s really important. It’s around protecting people who should speak up, but often are fearful of that for whatever reasons, as was mentioned before, maybe a power imbalance.

I look at this piece of legislation and it’s replacing legislation from the year 2000, which is 21 years ago, and I was thinking just before about the way that the culture and the values of a business organisation in the 1950s are quite different to what it was in the 1980s, which was quite different to what it was in the year 2000, when this initial piece of legislation and the Act was brought in, which was actually world leading at the time. So 21 years later, it seems only fit as our culture, as our values of businesses and organisations change for us to come to this place to pass legislation and do it together as a whole Parliament.

I also want to say thank you as well to the Education and Workforce Committee for your hard work on this legislation, to the chair, Marja Lubeck, and for the constructive work to look at amendments, listening to what was said by submitters, and to come to a place where changes are being made.

This bill ensures that New Zealanders have strong standards and processes for disclosing serious wrongdoing in the workplace. This is critical in maintaining our nation’s reputation for our high standards of integrity, of openness, and of transparency, and I look forward to this passing through the House.

Thank you very much, Mr Speaker. I also have some pleasure rising to discuss the Protected Disclosures (Protection of Whistleblowers) Bill. Other colleagues have noted that it’s an important area of work. Important for the protection not only of the individuals who would make such disclosure but our confidence in the systems in which they are working and holding to account and being made robust. So I feel it’s absolutely important and right that speakers on both sides of the House, from the Minister onwards, have emphasized the protection that will extend personally to the discloser, but also the overall effect of allowing us to have confidence in the systems that they are operating to protect in that way.

The legislative statement talks about the public interest being promoted, and that’s a little bit of a sense of what I was trying to express there. I think it’s really important to acknowledge the importance of that phrase “public interest”, things that are important or of interest to the public, but not, in a sense, of merely being interesting or the subject of scandal or gossip for the sake of it. These are very specifically matters that are in the interests of the public to protect the institutions, the organisations, the application of public funds, and the welfare of those affected by the systems and processes in the first place. So I think, it’s probably just worth also adding on that quite high level, if I may before proceeding, that hopefully the existence of such legislation also provides a bit of a deterrent effect. It’s to be hoped that the fact that a person can make such a disclosure would give someone who was engaging in serious wrongdoing pause in relation to whether that would be a good idea or the matter might come to light under this legislation, and, therefore, they might do the right thing, even if for the wrong reasons.

In that spirit, I note that public sector organisations remain included, but they are not the only entities that are included within the ambit of the bill. I say “remain” because, of course, there is already legislation on our books at the moment. We have the Protected Disclosures Act 2000, which is operating in a pretty similar space. But I think it’s timely that the Government is updating that law effectively. Technically, this is not an amendment bill. There have been enough changes to warrant it being called its own piece of legislation. But in the semantic space, so to speak, the meaning, the content, the thrust is very much along the lines of what we already have. So it’s in the nature of an evolution for our public service and, indeed, other entities in New Zealand that we continue to think about how we can protect those who would blow the whistle on serious wrongdoing.

I’ve been using that phrase “serious wrongdoing”, and I hope it’s the correct one in accordance to the legislation, because that was certainly my intent. Indeed, it is, thankfully. So clause 10, it’s the meaning of “serious wrongdoing”, and that’s, as Mr Mitchell has pointed out, a list of different ways in which activity could be classed as being worthy of the protection of a whistleblower. I won’t go through all those but suffice to say they’re pretty broad, and I think that’s appropriate. So risk, for example, to public health, public safety, or the environment, and the maintenance of law and serious risks to that, along with various other ones, do indicate that the legislature is wanting to be very broad in the way that this will provide protection going forward. So for the sake of the record, in the way that the Hansard is occasionally used by the courts or by those working in the law to understand the meaning or the intent of the legislation, I would say, you know, for what it’s worth from me, an Opposition member of the House who didn’t sit on the select committee, that the intent, none the less, is pretty clear in what they’ve provided to us in the House on reporting back, that a very broad sense of serious wrongdoing is intended. We do expect and hope that the benefit of the doubt will go to someone who feels compelled to speak up, compelled in the good sense, not the ugly sense, feels compelled to speak up about something that is going wrong that is, in their view, serious wrongdoing because we do intend for them to have that protection, again, both for themselves and for the organisation as a whole and our confidence in these systems and processes.

I think it’s worthwhile that the internal procedures for public sector organisations do receive a bit of attention. There is a specific requirement in this legislation that the principles of natural justice must be upheld, or complied with, in fact. I think that’s really appropriate. In a way, it’s, perhaps, a matter that should go without saying. But, of course, that’s risking an assumption that would be leading to confusion, potentially. Just to be clear, we should have a system and a process followed where someone speaks up, they blow the whistle, they are taken seriously, and all of those who are involved or potentially affected have the right and the ability to speak to that matter, because, of course, by doing that, we have the best possible chance for the benefit of all involved, and, again, the system as a whole to understand the truth of the matter and where that lies. So the principle of natural justice, including the right to be heard, is a major aspect of that. I congratulate the Minister and also the select committee who have tuned their mind very specifically to that matter, of course.

One item I did want to highlight, more along the lines of something that I was less certain about, and I don’t mean that as a criticism, it’s genuinely something that I’m just trying to work through and understand, but I feel I might as well place on the record. Clause 12 has been renamed, presumably by the select committee in their proposal and report back, from the phrase “What receiver should do” to the following, “Guidance: what receiver should do”. While the title of a clause doesn’t necessarily change its meaning, it merely gives a guide, I think it’s interesting that it’s within 20 working days of receiving a protected disclosure that the receiver of the disclosure should do a number of different things. The language is almost mandatory. The thing is that they should do is to acknowledge receipt, for example, consider, check, deal with, and so on. But it doesn’t say that they must. I presume it’s that slight walking back from being completely prescriptive that the select committee intends by saying that those things should happen as opposed to that they must happen, and hence, the title of that section is specifically and explicitly “guidance” as opposed to something mandatory, as a process. So I found that interesting. No doubt others might have a view on that. I note that, of course, we have committee of the whole House stage of the bill. So if I have the pleasure of being able to participate in that, that will be a question that I ask genuinely of the Minister, to understand what she or whoever colleague is in the chair can provide by way of guidance in that regard.

I think the other point that I would make before I resume my seat is just something that looks, I guess, like a bit of a technical point, but actually, I think, pretty important. Again, I give kudos to the select committee for working through this detail. It’s clause 13. It’s talking about the “Discloser’s entitlement to disclose further”. Originally in the bill, the disclosure might be to the Minister or ombudsman. But, actually, what the select committee has suggested, I think sensibly, is that if the disclosure is in relation to serious wrongdoing by an Officer of Parliament or the office of the Officer of Parliament, then it wouldn’t be appropriate for that to be reported to the Minister. The Minister is, of course, part of executive Government, and there could be—well, it would be more appropriate for the Speaker who, of course, represents the House of Parliament, the legislative branch, as opposed to the Government of the day. So just a little bit of separation there. But that doesn’t mean, of course, that disclosures to the ombudsman wouldn’t be protected in some way because they do add a subsection which talks about disclosure to the ombudsman not being limited, elsewhere in the bill.

Final one I would just add, having said that previously but still having a minute left on the clock, and I wouldn’t want to deprive anyone of the opportunity for every second of 10 minutes. I’ve come down here after 85 days, you will allow me the extra minute, Mr Speaker, is in relation to intelligence and security information. This is really important because not only in the very obvious sense that sensitive information, perhaps of a national security nature, invariably classified or having some sort of marker of needing to be kept tight and secret, but also in the sense that there’s very much a culture in the defence force, appropriately, mostly, that there is a hierarchy and lawful commands must be obeyed and so forth. But this bill is really trying to wrestle with the tension that exists between that sort of hierarchical nature of such an organisation but, on the other hand, not wanting individuals or the organisation to be disadvantaged by hesitation for calling out genuine bad behaviour or wrongdoing. So that’s something, obviously, that we should continue to consider and grapple with as it continues through the House. But in the meantime, I support this bill. We commend it to the House.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. It’s a pleasure to take a call on the second reading of the Protected Disclosures (Protection of Whistleblowers) Bill. I just want to take a short moment to speak about a particular aspect of the select committee’s report, which was comprehensive, and I want to acknowledge the work done by the Education and Workforce Committee.

As the Minister mentioned earlier, there is a particular area that is going to be reflected in the bill through a Supplementary Order Paper which relates to health and safety. This is an area that I take quite a bit of interest in, having worked in this area before entering Parliament. I think that this element of the bill and the Supplementary Order Paper that will come will actually assist in ensuring that we can enhance workplace health and safety, particularly within the public sector and areas that may have significant areas of safety risk.

One of the challenges we sometimes face with our existing health and safety law is around the ability for employees to use some of the elements within that law, such Provisional Improvement Notices. We are starting to see more workers take up those opportunities. But in my view, having seen some of those Provisional Improvement Notices be used and sometimes then go through quite a long process over something that’s quite serious, it’s my view that having an extra layer, an extra option for employees to raise significant health and safety matters through this bill particularly when there may be real risk to people’s lives and their wellbeing, I think will be incredibly helpful. So I’m looking forward to seeing the Supplementary Order Paper introduced by the Minister and the next stages of this bill, and I commend this bill to the House.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. It is a pleasure to rise to speak on the Protected Disclosures (Protection of Whistleblowers) Bill for the Green Party. We are supporting this piece of legislation. It is long overdue. The initial piece of legislation was written in 2000, and since that time we’ve had some really high-profile cases that have disturbed us as a country. Certain members of our Public Service in particular, I think, are the memorable cases, because I think it goes to our sense of the integrity of our entire Public Service when people have managed to commit fraud despite flags having been raised by their colleagues at early stages of their offending, and that they had managed to carry on for a significant period of time because our existing legislation from 2000 was not working effectively.

It was in 2018 that the Public Service started a process of reviewing the legislation, in the wake, I think, of a particular case. They were working across the Public Service and with the private sector collaboratively for 3½ years, thinking about what was needed to get an effective protected disclosure regime. What we know is that this is a really critical and central piece of legislation in terms of ensuring integrity and safety for staff and for the confidence of the public in our Public Service and our businesses.

The Greens are supporting this bill but we also have a differing view following the select committee process, because, frankly, we are disappointed that after all of that work, right across the Public Service and with the private sector, what we’ve got in effect is a tidying up of the existing scheme, which is out of step with the research on what the best protected disclosure schemes are around the world. We really would have loved to have seen us bring in best practice, and we were given really clear evidence from Professor Michael Macaulay at the School of Government, who is an expert on this and has looked at systems right across the world and provided the committee and the Government with advice on what we would need to do to have the best practice system in place, and, sadly, it’s not this.

I heard Minister Woods in her opening speech acknowledge our differing view and say that these things are in the work programme and that other things have been raised at the select committee and will be followed up later. I want to reflect the frustration from the Public Service Association (PSA), representing the Public Service workers right across the country, that all of their input has not been picked up already. They see this as an urgent issue, and are, frankly—and I don’t think it is mischaracterising it to say—frustrated at the slow pace of change. I really want to bring into this discussion the fact that through the select committee process we heard submissions from people who had made protected disclosures, and had had—and it is no overstatement to say—their lives absolutely destroyed. They had been vilified in their workplace. Lies had been spread about them. They had lost their jobs and their reputations were damned right across their industry and community. And some of those people had then, years later, gone through the system to be proven right. So it wasn’t just a case of, “We’re taking their word on it.” They had eventually managed to get confirmation of their rightness of raising that concern.

But justice delayed—I think, is a timely kind of saying—is justice denied. There is no point in being validated years later after your life has been destroyed, and that is what we are trying to fix with this legislation. It goes partway to doing that, the ability to make the complaint outside of your agency in the first instance is critically important, because people do have that knowledge, in relationships with their colleagues, to in some instances be able to know if it’s not going to be safe to raise the matter internally. We have to trust that knowledge and enable them to take it outside of the agency in that first instance.

Also, it does create more of a requirement to think about how you protect that person who is raising the complaint. But this is where a lot of our concern is—that there is not enough detail around that. We’re told that it’s being done but we were wanting this done in terms of the public sector in the first instance, because of the importance of that for the work of the Government, for all of our resources as a country, our collective resource being used through the Public Service, as well as our amazing international reputation in terms of transparency and integrity. We want to maintain that. So what we were recommending, which was not our brilliant idea—it never is, really; it was coming from the experts, and Professor Macaulay in particular as well as the PSA—was the requirement for the public sector to have dedicated support persons for all people making disclosures, a little bit like we have privacy officers right across the public sector. It’s not a particularly difficult thing to require. We have a precedent for doing it. It can be done within the organisational structure, but it puts a system in place with somebody who has training and focus on actually just supporting that person, because doing a protected disclosure is a difficult thing. That is never going to be an easy situation. Those people need to know that they will have support.

There should be a requirement for risk assessment to be done when people are talking about notifying of a protected disclosure or taking it—an assessment of the risk to them to be able to take whatever relevant actions are necessary to protect them from any retribution. There should be an appropriate triaging for disclosures, consistent investigative protocols, and a communication strategy that offers data on disclosures as well as just the processes. That’s about giving people the confidence that the system will work for them, because, as we know, the reason for this legislation is that the history shows that it does not.

I would also say that the work that’s been going on in terms of this Parliament and the Francis review, in terms of cleaning up our act to make sure that this is a safe workplace for every person, and the struggle of getting that actual change in behaviour and making this a safe workplace, shows us the difficulty of that work. I suspect we should bring a bit more of that experience into our sense of urgency and the need for detail and depth to this work. Skirting over the surface will not deliver the change that we need, and education and training should be mandatory for all staff as well as appropriate and transparent remediation strategy.

I note that the Minister said—because we were calling for a specific agency, which was the advice that was given to the select committee, because in cases where retribution happens to people raising protected disclosures, our systems are failing them. As I mentioned earlier, the process and the time line for being able to get consideration and redress, or a decision, is just so long that it actively is causing harm and preventing people from raising issues. To say that a specific agency might just replicate that problem—I actually don’t buy that. I think that’s actually how you design the agency, and you can quite easily avoid that. So we support this bill but with disappointment.

I rise on behalf of ACT to take a short call in support of the Protected Disclosures (Protection of Whistleblowers) Bill, a bill that’s been around a while, well before my time here, and it replaces the Protected Disclosures Act, which, by all accounts, wasn’t used very often. A report review by the State Services Commission in 2017 found a number of reasons why the organisations and the disclosers were confused about when to use the Act. The processes, both internally and externally, were very confusing, and the fear of speaking up was very relevant and the disclosers lacked the confidence in the protections that were available to them.

The bill seeks to ensure that those three things are remedied, and that employees and the organisations are familiar with the Act and know when to use it, that the disclosers know who to report to and understand that support is available when they do make these disclosures, that the organisations know what is expected of them and they have the skills and put in place the skills and competencies for their organisation to handle those things effectively, and that the disclosers have a lot of confidence in the protections that are available to them.

The threshold of serious wrongdoing is a high one, and rightly so. There should be no confusion with what is serious wrongdoing and those issues that would be dealt with with a personal grievance process. New Zealand has quite a rigorous personal grievance process as it is, and the divide must be clear.

ACT believes this bill strikes a good balance with disclosers reporting issues and being confident they’ll be dealt with appropriately and protected—they will be protected—and the potential for false or vexatious complaints is dealt with in the bill as well, and any intentional abuse of the bill should be dealt with and treated very seriously. A review after five years will show any flaws or unintended consequences that can be sorted out then.

This is a good bill that addresses the issues. It should give confidence to disclosers of suspected wrongdoing. They’ll be better informed of who and when to report the serious wrongdoing, and the organisations will have things in place to actually deal with these complaints. This can only raise public confidence in the transparency and integrity of Government, and we support this bill. Thank you.

I am a big fan of those brave souls we call whistleblowers. As a former journalist, when I was freelancing for Campbell Live, we got some of the most important stories thanks to whistleblowers. There were stories about mental health patients who had been sprayed with pepper spray inappropriately. There were stories of cruelty to animals from circus workers, including small monkeys on tiny chains locked up in their cages for days on end with inadequate food. More recently, we’ve had Russell McVeagh have its Me Too moment thanks to whistleblowers, and in this House we’ve heard stories about ACC that brave people have dared to bring forward. Internationally, Facebook has had the lid lifted on the fanning of flames of ethnic bias and prejudice and on creating political tension. So whistleblowers are incredibly important. What I think this legislation does is it gives people the option to not necessarily have to take that giant leap to the media but to know they are safe going through a process where they can keep their identity and their privacy, and where there is the right to natural justice, the right to be heard, as raised by Chris Penk.

For me at the heart of this bill is the deterrent element: that this helps strengthen the culture of transparency, of good workplaces where bad behaviour doesn’t happen. There’s plenty of research to show that one of the considerations that leads to good behaviour is people’s fear of getting caught. So the cultural element of this, of increasing the security for whistleblowers and therefore deterring those who might behave badly, whether it’s misappropriating funds, or bullying, or other bad behaviour, is really important. For that reason, I think this is a great bill.

This is a split call. I call Simon Watts.

Mr Speaker, thank you very much for the opportunity this morning to talk on the Protected Disclosures (Protection of Whistleblowers) Bill, second reading. I obviously rise on behalf of National and as the MP for North Shore. Two speeches in the last hour—well, it’s good to be back in the House. The purpose of this bill, obviously, is to replace the disclosure bill of 2000. Obviously, a huge amount has changed since that point. But this bill covers two key aspects, obviously in terms of its updates. One is around changing the definition of serious wrongdoing, which is really important and also strengthens some of the disclosure elements within this bill, and I’m going to go into a little bit of that detail this morning.

Obviously, as I said, a lot has changed in 20 years. Actually, a lot has changed in Auckland in the last 85 days, but I’ll come back to that later on today. National support a secure and effective mechanism for individuals to make disclosures within that. It is a hugely important aspect and it is a hugely important process in which people need to be able to make disclosures to highlight serious wrongdoings. It is without doubt that the current bill in place at the moment that this will replace does not have the thresholds at a high enough level in order to meet requirements, and that’s why it is so important that this bill comes into play. I must say, while this bill doesn’t vastly change the regime, it does, importantly, I think, simplify and make it easier for that process. And I tell you what, we are all about simplicity on this side of the House, and keeping things simple.

I think we heard before from the Hon Mark Mitchell his personal experience—and, obviously, my background and experience in working for one of the largest banks overseas and also within the district health board system in New Zealand. I, like Mark, have seen a number of examples of individuals within both of those systems who have come forward, who have taken a risk—a personal risk, I think—in order to disclose wrongdoings and serious wrongdoings. I think one cannot underestimate the confidence and the concerns that those individuals have when they make a disclosure like that, and having a system in place in order to protect them is so critically important and obviously why National support this bill.

A couple of other aspects of why National is supportive—obviously, those protections encourage others to make disclosures, which is really, really important. We also want to make sure that the bill, or the legislation, gives assurances to those that make disclosures that they are not going to be unduly impacted by making that disclosure. Lastly, in terms of the key reasons why we support it, it is because it is well known that effective disclosure mechanisms, processes, and procedures actually are one of the most effective ways in order to get identification of corrupt practices and behaviours. We’re lucky enough here in New Zealand to have a country that is very much good in that regard, but, of course, as we know, that’s not the case around the world.

Actually, the previous speaker mentioned a couple of real life examples, and obviously ACC is a very timely example that was given around the privacy breaches of personal information. Personal injuries, individuals’ photos of their injuries, on Snapchat would not have been brought to light without someone making some disclosures of which this type of bill covers. I think the other aspect as well is around Oranga Tamariki, around some of the Newshub investigations that occurred earlier this year, which highlighted the critical nature or the critical importance of whistleblowing in terms of highlighting some of the key areas of corruption and issues around that.

I want to acknowledge the Education and Workforce Committee, who did an absolutely sterling job—sterling job—on this bill. They did a really, really good performance.

I want to finish with a personal disclosure that won’t be covered under this Act but I think is important for me to state in this House, and that is this weekend the Thames Valley Swamp Foxes are playing South Canterbury in the Meads Cup final. My disclosure to this House is that I expect them to win and the Hon Scott Simpson and Tim van de Molen, who are sitting at home and aren’t able, will obviously be pleased with that. I commend this bill to the House.

Thank you Mr Speaker. It’s good to be able to take a call on the Protected Disclosures (Protection of Whistleblowers) Bill that’s being read now a second time.

This bill is overdue. New Zealand has always been a world leader in the area of protection for whistleblowers. The 2000 Act was one of the first in the world to actually be put in by any country in the world. This current law is 20 years old and that leads to two possible outcomes: one, is people don’t know how to use the Act and to apply it, or, two, they don’t feel safe using it.

On the Transparency International Corruption Perceptions Index, we are consistently at the top and generally first equal with Denmark; even Finland, Switzerland, Singapore, Sweden, Norway, and the Netherlands—they all follow us. But in 2014, our rating slipped down one, and at the time Transparency International warned us and said if action was not taken to keep pace in areas such as access to information and environmental protection, further downgrades in the survey were likely to occur. So employees who uncover serious misconduct, fraud, and corruption in public and private workplaces need protection. This Act needed to be updated, so I commend this bill to the House.

Tēnā koe e te Mana Whakawā. I mean, it’s hard to follow such an excellent speech from Barbara Edmonds but I guess the point I would make is that whistleblowing is—the barriers to it have always been cultural. Even if the rules are in place for whistleblowing, we know that we need to shift the culture of an organisation to make whistleblowing an acceptable thing to do, that the default position of the company needs to be that we respect and, in fact, we want people to make those disclosures. This goes some way towards that, although ultimately it’s up to the organisations—public sector and private—as well.

It is good that it sets out the entities to whom the disclosure should be made, which is one of the things this legislation does—because that’s always been one of the difficult things, to know to whom should I disclose. And, of course, to make it clear exactly what is a disclosable wrong-doing—just giving more tools in the tool kit so that people understand exactly what triggers the protections, how it works, and who to go to, because once we get that right, a culture of disclosure, a culture of not tolerating wrong-doing within an organisation wherever it might be, will be engendered. As my colleague said, we have been world leaders in disclosure and in corporate responsibility. We have lagged behind, this bill catches us up, and I commend it to the House.

Thank you, Mr Speaker, and taking what will be a relatively quick call in this House to acknowledge my fellow Aucklanders on day 85 of the continued lockdown—85 long days, which despite the slight rule changes, bringing us to level π, I think it is now—3.14786—fundamentally, they’re still struggling. So this bill’s not going to help them, strictly, unless, of course, there’s more people within the civil service who would like to blow the whistle on this Government and the various activities that they are up to. Therefore, this is a good bill. This is actually, probably, one of the small aspects where you could say this is indicative of an open and transparent Government.

Why is this good? It’s fundamentally updating a piece of law which has been on the books—I think it’s important for people to understand we have had protections for whistleblowers before. There is existing law. But, like so many laws, it gets out of date, and this piece of legislation is timely. It sounds like it’s got support from across the House, which is not a complete surprise. First and foremost, it makes the law more accessible. It’s always going to be difficult to create a piece of legislation that is, if you will, in complete, plain English. We are dealing with legal concepts, ultimately. But this does make the law more accessible.

It doesn’t so much encourage whistle-blowing—I don’t think that’s actually the place of this legislature—but it makes the pathway easier. It explains the reasons of why and how someone can, if you will, blow the whistle. It’s expanding some of the areas which are protected. It describes quite clearly the pathways: who they can speak to and otherwise. Importantly, I think, the bill also makes very clear that if the whistleblower is wrong, and that will happen from time to time, they will still be protected.

I think a small point, as well—but it also illustrates where the previous legislation was outdated, and probably wrongly conceived, ultimately—is that the whistleblower under this new proposed legislation doesn’t have to quote the legislation specifically. What that shows is the previous—or, rather, the current—legislation is relatively prescriptive. You almost have to go through a rubric, a formula, to be protected. This is much more open and generous, and I think that is prudent.

So it’s a positive piece of legislation, as I said a little bit earlier. I hope it does attract the attention—well, it has attracted the attention of all the House—the support of all the House. It’s an encouragement, fundamentally, to people in New Zealand to speak up when they see things happening that shouldn’t be happening. I think it was actually Ingrid Leary who was speaking earlier who referenced several occasions, in both the public and the private sector, when people have stood up and spoken. Perhaps in these times, when our systems are under more pressure than ever—I renew that call at the start for those, particularly, in the civil service to speak up when they see things happening that they’re not comfortable with so that we as a democracy can grow stronger. With that, on this 85th day of lockdown in Auckland, I commend the bill to the House.

I welcome the member to the Chamber.

Tēnā koe, Mr Speaker. Thank you. It’s a pleasure to rise and take what, I think, is the final call on the Protected Disclosures (Protection of Whistleblowers) Bill. I just want to reflect on the contributions in the House already today, one in particular is around that this is not an omnibus bill in the pure sense, and it’s certainly not an amendment bill; in actual fact, it is a replacement for a piece of legislation that is not working—and that has been the case for 20-odd years.

I also reflect on the contribution of my colleague the MP for Mana, Barbara Edmonds, who talked about the fact that the particular change in this bill, in terms of its approach, is two-pronged. The first is around ensuring that people are actually able to know how to engage with the process, to use a particular Act; but, secondly, actually, those that are going to engage with this process—and an important one at that—feel safe being able to do so. I really can’t underscore enough the significance of the importance and safety that those that wish to speak out in the workplace, whether it be in the private sector or in the public sector, feel empowered to be able to do exactly that, because this is about protection for those in the workplace who identify some wrongdoing and wish to speak out. It is protection for whistleblowers, in that regard.

Colleagues around the House have referred to the fact that New Zealand as a country is world leading in terms of transparency, anti-corruption, that sense of openness, and integrity. So that fits quite nicely, I would suggest, with this particular bill.

This bill does relate to activities and conduct within the private sector but also within the public sector, as well, around the potential to expose fraudulent or criminal activities, and actually ensuring that that serious misconduct, whether it be in private or in public sector or spaces, is able to be disclosed by individuals within the workplace, without fear of it being an unsafe opportunity to do so, and also, actually, that when individuals feel as though they can make those disclosures, that actually they’re not going to be treated unfairly or with a threat of dismissal as a result of that. That’s something that they deserve.

I want to acknowledge the work of the Economic Development, Science and Innovation Committee. I know that they, in considering this bill, have identified a number of matters, I won’t go into a lot of detail around that, but I thank them for their work. I commend this bill to the House.

Motion agreed to.

Bill read a second time.