Categorisations of Corruption

Black/White/Grey Corruption

One categorisation of corruption that may be useful for the whistleblower (or potential whistleblower) to consider, is the Black – Grey – White categorisation of corruption.

Parliamentary Committees may consider this description of forms of corruption for adoption in their analyses and reports.

Black corruption is where both the community and the government or government agency regard the matters disclosed, if proven, to be a form of corruption. Individuals selling government approvals may be a form of ‘black’ corruption according to the current government and the current community in Queensland. This may not be the case for some forms of government approvals in other jurisdictions in other countries.

White corruption occurs when both the government and the community give disregard to the illegality or waste alleged in the whistleblower’s disclosure. Mistreatment of minority groups feared or disliked by the larger community may be an example of white corruption.

Grey corruption occurs where the government or government agency has a view different to that held by the community about whether or not the activities disclosed constitute corruption.

Grey Type II corruption occurs where the community regards the activities disclosed as corruption, but the government or the government agency do not agree. Unfortunately, certain treatments imposed on whistleblowers in Queensland, such as punitive transfers in the public service, may be an example of Grey Type II corruption in the Queensland and Australian jurisdictions.

Grey II corruption is typified by an associated excuse or incorrect legal opinion given in support of the decision not to enforce the law on Grey II corruption matters.

The rationale is only available to the government because the government holds the public purse, and the affected community members cannot match the funds necessary to take the rationale before an independent court.

An example of such an excuse is where watchdogs argue that the systemic failure to enforce the law is not corruption because it is widely known that that law is not being enforced, or because enforcing the law would not be in the public interest.

An appreciation as to why the government or government agency is defending the alleged wrongdoing can be useful in developing preparations for making the disclosure or dealing with alleged reprisals.

Whistleblowers need to be careful to find evidence of this rationale before incorporating this into their disclosure, as the assertion of this rationale without a reasonable basis for this belief may reduce (or be used to reduce) the credibility of the total disclosure.

The rationale is often political, but it can be operational. For example, an Ombudsman Office is not provided with enough funds to address all complaints directed to it, and so it discards large numbers of complaints without proper investigation.

The rationale can also be strategic.

For example, a dam construction agency is running out of economic sites for, say, hydro-electric or flood mitigation dams, and, for its survival, acts to falsify the figures on economic analyses for new sites, so as to gain approvals and funding for the building of further dams, and thus for the continued survival of the agency.

Examples of Grey Type I corruption are where a government regards certain acts as forms of wrongdoing, but large sections of the community may not, in respect of, say, certain forms of tax avoidance, and making Public Interest Disclosures.