Sign up for the Breaking News Australia email<\/a><\/p>\nSusan decided to speak out, making complaints internally.<\/p>\n
But any faith in the whistleblower protections afforded to those working for NDIS providers was short-lived.<\/p>\n
She was discouraged from raising the issue, then scapegoated, and eventually forced out.<\/p>\n
Worst of all, the laws that governed the NDIS made it impossible for her to go to the one body which might have been able to act: the NDIS Quality and Safeguards Commission.<\/p>\n
For the past decade of the NDIS, it has been a common story.<\/p>\n
Until parliament belatedly passed reforms this month, the protections for whistleblowers contained in the NDIS Act have remained outdated and weak.<\/p>\n
The NDIS has been in operation since 2013.<\/p>\n
Experts say that the weaknesses of the whistleblower protections have allowed misconduct, fraud and wrongdoing to flourish in the 12 years since it began.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe other people that were concerned about what was happening just resigned,\u201d Susan said. \u201cThey just resigned, they walked away, they went into another role in other organisations. Maybe they\u2019re a little bit smarter than me.\u201d<\/p>\n
The system that has existed for a decade gave no protection to former workers of disability providers who wanted to blow the whistle, for example. It also robbed them of anonymity by requiring that a person \u201cinform the person to whom the disclosure is made of the discloser\u2019s name before making the disclosure\u201d.<\/p>\n
It also imposed a rule that, to be legally protected, whistleblowers must have been acting in \u201cgood faith\u201d when blowing the whistle.<\/p>\n
The \u201cgood faith\u201d test meant that a subjective assessment of the whistleblower\u2019s motives could rob them of any protection, an outdated approach at odds with all other public sector whistleblower regimes.<\/p>\n
The Human Rights Law Centre whistleblower project, a service designed to advise and support whistleblowers, said whistleblowers in the NDIS were too often left unprotected by an outdated and weak regime of protections, that has lagged well behind those available to others.<\/p>\n
The federal government this month agreed to changes to improve protections available to whistleblowers in the scheme, including extending legal protections to former employees of disability providers, allowing anonymous disclosures and repealing the \u201cgood faith\u201d requirement.<\/p>\n
Susan said it was like \u201cclosing the barn door after the horse has bolted\u201d.<\/p>\n
The Human Rights Law Centre lawyer Madeleine Howle said the whistleblower protections, while improved, were still inadequate.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis must be the start of the journey towards more comprehensive reform,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cEven with these reforms, NDIS protections remain piecemeal and out of date. That silences the voices of workers, participants and advocates.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe urge the Albanese government to undertake comprehensive whistleblowing reform and establish a Whistleblower Protection Authority to ensure transparency and accountability in Australia.\u201d<\/p>\n
A spokesperson for the NDIS minister, Jenny McAllister, said the recent reforms delivered \u201cfundamental protections\u201d for whistleblowers to safely report concerns about unsafe or unlawful practices.<\/p>\n
\u201cPeople involved in the NDIS who see something illegal or unsafe will now have the protection they need to say something,\u201d the spokesperson said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThese practices often only come to light because someone comes forward at great personal or financial risk.\u201d<\/p>\n
* Name changed for privacy<\/p>\n
In Australia, support is available at Beyond Blue on 1300 22 4636 and Lifeline on 13 11 14<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When Susan* came across wrongdoing at her disability support provider, she faced a choice. Say nothing, and allow…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":600946,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[64,63,44],"class_list":["post-600945","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-australia","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/600945","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=600945"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/600945\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/600946"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=600945"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=600945"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=600945"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}