Whistleblower Cases

Whistleblower cases are a primary source of learning about the health of the anti-corruption system within government, and within the private and not-for-profit sectors, including learning about the threats to the protection of whistleblowers.

QWAG comes by such information from those non-members who contact QWAG for information or assistance, from members and non-members who relate developments in their cases at meetings of the Group, and from specific research on particular cases that are seen to have strategic value or to be providing strong insight into particular aspects of the whistleblower situation.

Particular cases that have been the subject of monitoring, and/or the subject of continuing monitoring, include the following:

The Fitzgerald Inquiry Whistleblowers

The transition from police corruption around illegal gambling and prostitution towards continuing and new areas of alleged corruption may have been initiated before the end of that Commission of Inquiry. Whistleblowers who disclosed matters occurring within and around and after the conduct of that Inquiry, include:

1. Inspector Colin Dillon
2. Constable Nigel Powell
3. Detective Sergeant John Phillips
4. Constable Gordon Harris
5. CJC Chair Sir Max Bingham QC

The Senate Unresolved Whistleblowing Cases.

The Senate Select Committee on Public Interest Whistleblowing Report, “In the Public Interest”, dated August 1994, lists nine cases from Queensland:

1. Teri Lambert – Submission No. 18
2. Peter Jesser – Submission No. 20
3. Gordon Harris – Submission No. 40 & 40A
4. Tom Hardin – Submission No. 43
5. Des O’Neill – Submission No. 64
6. Kevin Lindeberg – Submission No. 74
7. Robert Ozmak– Submission No. 108
8. Greg McMahon – Submission No. 110
9. Bill Zinglemann – Submission No. 123

A further two cases were added to the list by the Senate Select Committee on Unresolved Whistleblower Cases in its October 1995 Report, “The Public Interest Revisited”:

10. Jim Leggate – Submission No. 32
11. Robin Rothe – Submission No. 51

There was also a submission from another not included in the Senate list:

12. Eric Thorne – Submission 112

Within less than 5 years of that Senate Report, all these whistleblowers had lost their employment.

Whistleblowing Cases of National Significance

Three of the five cases holding this status in Australia are from Queensland and are described on the Advocacy page of this website:

1. Police Inspector Colin Dillon
2. Mines Inspector Jim Leggate
3. Public Sector Trade Union Organiser Kevin Lindeberg

This Advocacy page provides a summary of those cases with an update as to what has happened to them since they lost their employment. Of particular note is the case of Kevin Lindeberg, as a demonstration as to what happens when a whistleblower survives, how the pressure is maintained on the authorities to perform their duties and address the wrongdoing, but also new forms of alleged retaliation that may be occurring where a whistleblower has been able to survive and keep the disclosures before the authorities.

Environmental Whistleblowers

This is an example of where monitoring whistleblowing disclosures pertaining to an issue, widespread across more than one industry or one legislative jurisdiction, can yield insights regarding alleged systemic corruption that are relevant to emerging issues of the same genre:

1. Jim Leggate – disclosures of alleged non-enforcement of lease conditions on mining operations, leading to environmental harm to acquifers, coastal rivers and the Great Barrier Reef;
2. Dr Pam Swepson – disclosures of alleged mis-reporting to national funders of the progress of the National Red Imported Fire Ant Eradication Program – overstating the program’s progress and not reporting serious problems. Fire ants are one of the world’s worst invasive species. They are a threat to Australia’s environment, economy, unique wildlife, public safety and out-door lifestyle.
3. Whistleblower who wishes to remain anonymous – disclosures of alleged mismanagement of water supply operations and misallocations of water, contributing to environmental harm of flora and fauna in downstream regions and diminution and degradation of their water supplies;
4. Greg McMahon – disclosures of alleged mismanagement of flood operations through dams, placing downstream communities at risk in future floods.

Whistleblowers from within one industry or legislative jurisdiction

The accumulation of the cases over time of whistleblowing in single industries or particular legislative jurisdictions can provide insight into the causes of alleged corruption in that industry or jurisdiction. For instance, the first whistleblower to make disclosures of alleged mismanagement in the hospital system within the Bundaberg Region was one of the 1994 Senate Unresolved Whistleblower Cases, Director of Nursing, Teri Lambert.  A decade later, Queensland had to face up to the Morris QC then Davies QC Inquiry into hospital treatment in Bundaberg and several other hospitals in Queensland.

The accumulation of whistleblower cases in the Queensland Health system include:

1. Nursing Professional Teri Lambert
2. Dr Brian Senewiratne
3. Nursing Professional Wendy Erglis
4. Dr Con Aroney
5. Nursing professional Toni Hoffman
6. Senior Investigator for the Medical Board of Queensland Jo Barber

Learning Lessons

The earlier of these groupings of whistleblower cases can provide benchmarks against which current whistleblower situations can be compared. For example, the last of the eleven Senate whistleblower cases to be terminated from the self-proclaimed reformed Queensland Government occurred in 1999, after several months in an alleged “gulag”. This was less than five years after the Senate issued its report on these cases in Queensland Government, and less than four years after the Senate returned to these cases in a further effort to resolve the situation for these public servants. How long does it take now for whistleblowers to experience termination?

The more recent cases can indicate any alleged expansions to the forms of corruption alleged by earlier whistleblowers, and indicate the additions to the measures allegedly adopted by the authorities to suppress the disclosures and to move against the whistleblowers and their supporters, including their lawyers, if such things may have happened. Alternatively, the comparisons can show the positive impacts of any reform program by the government or by its watchdog authorities.