None of the politicians are talking about it, but threats to freedom of speech have emerged in three different guises in the first three weeks of the election campaign. First there was the assailing of…
Senator Sam Dastyari, who has been involved in scrutinising the banks, and former Commonwealth Bank employee turned whistleblower Jeff Morris.
Stefan Postles/AAP
When Gay Talese signed a confidentiality agreement with a motel-owning voyeur, he got access to the voyeur’s journals and secret viewing perch. But he also allowed the spying to continue for over a decade.
Professor Allan Fels speaks about the compensation process for underpaid 7eleven workers.
Julian Smith/AAP
People who expose wrongdoing – whether it’s cruelty against animals or corporate misconduct – deserve better protection and even financial incentives to do the right thing, as the US has shown.
Former Commonwealth Bank employee Jeff Morris struggled for years to reveal breaches by his employer.
AAP/Stefan Postles
It’s likely that many people knew Volkswagen was cheating on emissions tests, including the engineers who built the ‘defeat device’. But why did no-one at the car maker blow the whistle?
Great leaders listen and observe, as well as show self and social awareness.
Expression by Shutterstock
A staggering 20% of senior management positions remain empty in the NHS – a figure that goes up to 37% in mental health. As demand for health and social care services go up in a context of recession and…
Richard Marles said that whistleblower protection laws still apply when it comes to the Border Force Act.
AAP/Alan Porritt
Despite doctors voicing fears they could be jailed for disclosing abuse of refugees, Richard Marles says whistleblower protection laws would still apply in relation to the Border Force Act. Is he right?
Lawyers and asylum seeker advocates are concerned that the Border Force Act will have a ‘chilling effect’ on whistleblowers working in detention centres.
AAP/Eoin Blackwell
The Australia Border Force Act further entrenches the culture of secrecy around our asylum seeker policy at the cost of open and transparent government. That is something we should be worried about.
Would reporter Bob Woodward have been able to protect Deep Throat’s identity from today’s surveillance tools?
Reuters/Alex Gallardo
Four decades on, in a digital era of surveillance and data storage, Watergate remains a useful yardstick for assessing the value of source confidentiality.
A Swedish court decision means Julian Assange will remain confined to the Ecuadorean embassy in London. Like the muckrakers of old, he offends the powerful, but his journalistic cause is just.
Many of your online activities leave a digital trace that can reveal your identity.
mikael altemark/Flickr
Avoiding the metadata retention laws and sending messages entirely privately is harder than it might seem.
Proposed laws requiring covert footage of animal cruelty to be handed promptly to authorities would make in-depth investigations much harder.
Animals Australia
Proposed laws requiring immediate reporting of animal cruelty sound like a good idea. But in practice they will make it harder to mount comprehensive investigations like the ABC’s greyhound expose.
Truth is noble, but do we really want to rock the boat?
Cool Revolution
Whistleblowing performs a public service that is celebrated in the media, condoned by the public, and increasingly protected by the government. So why are we so reluctant to do it? Recent research we published…
Attorney-General George Brandis has introduced laws that cast a blanket of secrecy over the use and potential abuse of sweeping national security powers.
AAP/Lukas Coch
It has been said that the line between good investigative reporting and inappropriate journalistic prying is never clearly drawn. Journalists usually complain long and hard when governments intervene to…