Senate Economics Legislation Committee, , 5:44:22 to 5:47:55
Update on the statutory review of tax and corporate whistleblower protection frameworks and the government's response to urgent reform calls.
Topics: Whistleblower protections, Integrity
Speakers: Speaker 29, Michael Quinlivan, Hon Katy Gallagher, Senator Lisa Darmanin
We'll take it on notice.
Thank you. Um I wanted to go to whistleblowers and a couple more minutes I can rotate. Yeah, great. So Treasury is also conducting a review into issues in the relation to tax and corporate whistleblowing frameworks. I've asked you about them before. How is that review of whistleblowing reform going? When do you expect uh an outcome and legislation to be progressed?
Senator, so we've we've undertaken that public consultation period, which we discussed previously.
Um sorry, can you see if we can get the volume up on this microphone? It's quite hard to hear you, Ms. Quinn Quinn 11.
Is that okay? Um we're considering that feedback. We've provided initial advice to the minister. Um and we are preparing the report, uh, the statutory review report that we are required to prepare. Um the government's required to table that once they um uh 15 days after they sitting days after they receive it. Um it's in a similar spot to the auditing work and requires consideration by government as to final decisions and then how to take those forward.
Do you plan to publish all the non-confidential submissions?
Yeah, so as part of that 70, there was a um there was a range of confidential submissions and also anonymous submissions, as you would appreciate from your engagements with those um that group of people and similar to the usual practice would be to publish the uh non-confidential submissions.
So on the um 9th of July, the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Corporations and Financial Services, chaired by my colleague to my left, wrote a joint public letter to the Prime Minister. This is a question for you, Minister. Um we was signed by all eight members uh from across all the parties on the JPC. It's very explicit letter uh pointing to long-standing recommendations going back to 2017 and using language that is unusually firm about the need for urgent reform. We talk about urgent enhancement needed, there's an overwhelming case, it should be done with haste as soon as practical. I don't know how many adjectives we need to use to impress on the government how critical this is and how long we have been waiting and how many repetitive examples created by the risks to our financial system of the absence of a decent whistleblower regime. So I would like to know what where the response to that letter is at, please.
And that was a letter to the Prime Minister.
Yes.
Uh well um that would really be a matter that um PM and C estimates would have to deal with, not this one. I'll see if there's any anything I can provide that um Treasury might be involved in in formulating that. Uh there's a certainly a lot of work underway, and as you would know, Senator Pocock from the recent uh KPMG review done by um Dr. Watt also traverse some of these issues.
So we're all in in furious agreement about it. And the letter was provided to relevant ministers. It wasn't just didn't just go to the Prime Minister, it went to the Mr.
I'll see if there's any update I can provide you.
I'm gonna have to read the.
Thank you. Thank you.
Thank you. Uh Senator Smith.