From Schwartz Media. I'm Ruby Jones. This is seven AM, and I'm here with my new co host, Daniel James.
Hi, Daniel, Hello, Ruby, Good to be here.
Daniel. Seven Am.
Listeners will know you from when you've been a guest on the show and also from your excellent coverage of the voice, but from today they'll be hearing you as the host of seven Am twice a week.
Yep, that's the plan, and I'm looking forward to gaining a deeper understanding of some of the issues that affect our listeners during this very tumultuous period in our history.
Well, it's an exciting time to have you on the show and I'm looking forward to your first episode.
Can you tell me about it.
We're looking at the climate crisis through the prism of whistleblowing. There's a lot of talk on what has been done both by big business and by governments around the country to address the climate crisis, but whistleblower is actually playing an integral role in exposing wrongdoing by big companies and
in some governments. So we're taking a closer look at that and really that whistleblowers are actually an integral part of our democracy and there's been a chilling effect on them recently through a bunch of legislation, but also a number of whistleblower is going to prison. So we look at how one can become a whistle blower and the impact whistle blowers have on some of our most important issues.
It's a dangerous but important job and we appreciate people doing it.
It sounds like a great episode.
Thanks Rebe.
It's Thursday, July eighteenth.
Regina Featherstone is a senior lawyer at the Human Rights Law Center's Whistleblower Project.
We started looking back at Australia's history of climate and environmental whistle blowers because while this is maybe a new name, we know that has a really, really deep and connected history of speaking up for our environment.
Regina has helped write a guide for how to legally and safely blow the whistle on climate crimes, big businesses, covering up malpractice, greenwashing, biodiversity hazards and more. And in doing that she's also looked at examples through history where whistleblowing has led to real change.
In the South Australian desert, this modern village is the nerve center of the new Atomic Proving Grounds at Marlinga. Here, scientists, technicians and servicemen prepared for a new areas of nuclear weapon tests.
Between nineteen fifty six and nineteen sixty three, the British Government used Marilinga in South Australia on unknown country on the end of the null Ball plane to test seven atomic explosions and engage with hundreds of other nuclear.
Trials humm who one zero.
The atomic testing carried out in Australia on behalf of the British government is a shameful and often forgotten part of Australia's history. At the time of the testing, the indigenous communities surrounding the sites went warned of the impacts of nuclear fallout known as Pullyu or black mist. Many communities close to the test sites were forced off their land and the amount of plutonium found at the site was far greater than expected.
While they said that they cleaned it up, we know that the Hawk government had a Royal commission into the ongoing debris that was left there. What came of that was the solution to do a really thorough cleanup, and Alan Parkinson was tasked with leading that.
The partial cleanup of their marrolling atomic bomb test site in South Australia was in two parts. The first part was to remove soil contaminated with plutonium and buried that sol in a very large trench.
But what happened was we know that they cut corners. There were budget cuts that by the time how a government came in that this private company was willing to use shallow trenches to put plutonium and uranium waste, which we know would have caused ongoing effects to the wildlife, to the unknew people and to the broader community.
The after repeated suggestion by the project manager was that we should simply bury the hundreds of tons of debris contaminated with plutonium, claiming it would be cheaper.
He was able to speak up and tell Australians that what the government was doing wasn't true. They were saying it was world's best practice, and we know that it wasn't. There were very detailed listings and requirements that came from the Royal Commission and they weren't being followed. Parkinson's actions show that we know the government is prepared to lie
and contract out of responsibilit for toxic nuclear waste. I mean, that's about as serious as it can get and it's really important that those sorts of pieces of wrongdoing come to light, that we know how our governments will treat communities, their health, their ongoing connection to land.
If they're going to lie about nuclear waste.
And so when we started looking into some of the whistleblowers who who have really championed this work, we couldn't really go past Alan Parkinson, the nuclear engineer.
And you've obviously chosen to look deeply at climate environmental whistle blowers. Why now are we seeing more of this type of whistle blowing emerge.
I think that we're at a really really key moment. It's crunch time.
We've just had the first year above one point five degrees across the globe, which we know is that crucial line in the sand that we have to mitigate the effects of global warming. And so it's a really really important time because the government is continuing to push one hundred and sixty new coal and gas developments by twenty thirty.
They've promised a one point five billion dollar subsidy to the petrochemical hub if it goes ahead Middle Arm in the Northern Territory, and so we need individuals to speak up about what is actually happening inside companies, inside the government as it relates to climate and environment risk.
So are there are other recent examples of people blowing the whistle when it comes to environmental distruction.
We've had a lot of people coming forward in the last year such that you know, we're extremely busy. There's a lot of wrongdoing that needs to be disclosed. We've been able to help people give evidence a Senate inquiries in relation to greenwashing. We've been able to assist individuals to come forward with the truth about biodiversity hazards experts in their field. We've had people come forward with disclosures of wrongdoing in the fossil fuel industry.
Senator Pocock, thank you.
I've got a few photos in a brief statement I'd like to table for the committee and then just ask a few questions, if that's all right.
Last year there was the Santos whistleblower who tabled documents in Parliament with Senator David Pocock showing that Santos lied about the impacts of an oil spill which killed dolphins and sea snakes off the coast of Western Australia near Varoness Island.
I might just read a few things while you have looked through the document. The tragedy of dolphin carcases amid a kilometer wide oil slick should be the story, but it's not. The story is Santos's subsequent cover up and total disregard for the values they say they hold dear values such as accountability and integrity.
Santos issued a public statement that no harm had come from.
That spill, despite tens of thousands of LEAs oil in the ocean. Santos had not mobilized environmental assessors to the island until a week after the incident. They could not have known the real scale of impact.
It was never checked.
This whistleblower couldn't sit by and allow Santos's lies to.
Enter out into the public.
He gave these documents to Senator David Pocock and essentially what happened from that was global media coverage. Santos commissioned an independent investigation into the spill.
Their executive bonuses linked to.
Environmental KPIs were suspended by the Santos board and ultimately their bonuses were docked. So that was in their latest company report, And that just goes to show that every day there might be a worker who sees something that's wrong, just an everyday person who is able to call out the lies, trigger accountability.
And effect change.
If they're able to do that with one of the biggest fossil fuel companies in Australia, I think that that's hugely important because they can show that these companies aren't above the law and that their actions do have consequences.
But when the consequences are often more severe for the whistleblower, how can you do it without repercussions? That's after the break. Regina Wivell heard chilling stories or whistleblowers going to jail for exposing wrongdoing, sometimes getting harsher penalties than the people or organizations actually doing the wrong thing. So just how difficult is it to be a whistleblower in this country At the.
Moment, I think whistleblowers are facing a huge challenge.
The fear of blowing a whistle is really real.
The chilling effect that recent prosecutions have had can't be understated.
Former military lawyer David McBride has been sentenced to five years and eight months jail in the Act Supreme Court for share and classified military documents with journalists.
You know the recent prosecutions, the imprisonment of David McBride, the upcoming trial for Richard Boyle, the Ato whistleblower.
Boyle tried to help a number of small business owners he believed we're being treated unfairly, eventually taking his concerns to the media. He now faces the likelihood of a criminal trial and potentially along jail sentence, one of several high profile prosecutions which highlight the lack of protections for whistleblowers.
I guess that's why we were set up at the Whistleblower Project. We are Australia's first dedicated legal service hoping to fill that gap, helping to add that support to whistle blowers. We're experts in what we do.
We know the law.
We know how to assist clients to make safe, protected disclosures and so that they can continue on with their lives by making a disclosure, having different accountability mechanisms like regulators to review that or courts or whatever it might be, having those enforcement mechanisms deal with the wrongdoing, and then that person's life isn't ultimately suffering detriment from it. But we know that that is a really real consideration, it's
a huge task to be a whistle blower. I think the difference for climate andvironmental whistleblowers compared to other whistleblowers that we might have thought about before is that the harm that climate and environmental whistleblowers are speaking about is harm that is best conceived of in a global scale. And while it may be an individual speaking up on their own, we know that every climate and environmental whistleblower is linked because the harm to the planet is all connected.
And so with this resource that we've created, the Climate and Environmental Whistleblower Guide, we're really hoping to empower people from the person who might be driving a truck who illegally dumps waste to the person who is responsible for crunching the numbers in the data sets of emissions reporting to speak up when there's wrongdoing because we need it now.
More than ever.
And what amount of evidence does someone need to blow the whistle? What do they need to come forward with?
So they don't really need evidence, They need their experience working on the inside of a company or a government body. They need to have witnessed some sort of wrongdoing that they can identify as being wrong it must be some sort of disclosable conduct which could harm the environment, for example, and.
They just need to disclose it. They don't need to gather evidence as such.
And in fact that's something that we really prioritize as an advice point. When people get that legal advice, it's really really important that they're empowered with that knowledge. I think the first thing that you should think about if you want to blow the whistle is what are you really hoping to get out of it? Can you affect change with your information? And if so, how do you get legal advice to try and take that initial step.
And when it comes to Australia, is we shill blow our protection laws? How do you know if what you're doing is covered under those laws.
It's a really really good question, Daniel, because I think the laws are confusing.
We have so many different laws.
Whether you're working for a private company, you might be covered by the Corporations Act, or if you're working for the public sector you might be covered by.
The federal or step legislation.
So to check if you're covered, what you can do is you can go to our legal resource that we've just created, the Climate and Environmental whistleblower guide, or you can seek legal advice and start to find out that information. Generally, all organizations, if you're in the public sector, for example, as a public sector entity, you'll have to have whistleblower
information readily available. Most companies now, big large companies in Australia have to have whistleblower procedures and policies readily available, and so they're also a really really good place to start.
The anger around the inaction on climate change in this country is reach balling point when it comes to protesting climate inaction. We're seeing groups like Extinction Rebellion become even more aggressive with their blockades and protests. Do you think we're likely to see a sparking climate whistleblowers?
Look, we know the science.
We know that what we're meant to do is that we're meant to stop the production of new fossil fuels, phase our current fossil fuel projects, transition to green and sustainable energy projects. Yet we know that that's not what the government is doing. And we know that fossil fuel developments aren't going to fix the climate crisis. Nor is the one individual climate and environmental whistleblower. But together they
can make a real impact. They can tell the truth on numbers of gas emissions which have been significantly underestimated, or speak to what is actually happening in government bodies as to this development. And so I do think that there's huge scope for climate and environmental whistleblowers to make an impact, and we're really hoping to encourage them to
come forward. And we've already seen such fantastic results. We have people that we assist just everyday, people doing this work, speaking truth to power in the fossil fuel industry, in banks superannuation.
But there's a lot more to be done.
You're right, Regina, Thank you so much for your time.
Thank you.
Also in the news today, Australia's top energy regulators estimate the country wouldn't be able to get nuclear energy online until around twenty fifty. During an industry event, the head of the Australian Energy Regulator, Claire Savage, said Australia was probably a decade too late to implement nuclear energy as recently suggested by the Coalition. And Telstra has been fined one point five million dollars for failing to adequately protect
customers from scams. An investigation by the TALCO watchdog, the Australian Communications and Media Authority, found Telstra failed to comply with regulations introduced in twenty twenty two unless thousands of customers at risk of serious harm. The watchdog did not find any evidence of losses directly related to the breachers. I'm Daniel James. Thanks for listening. Say you tomorrow.