What is a Public Interest Disclosure?
On 1 July 2019 the Public Interest Disclosure Act 2018 (PID Act) replaced the Whistleblower Protection Act 1993. Certain information provided to the OPI is covered by the PID Act and treated as a public interest disclosure.
The PID Act provides protections for those who make appropriate disclosures and sets out processes for dealing with those disclosures.
Public interest disclosures aim to:
- encourage and facilitate the appropriate disclosure of public information to certain people or authorities
- provide protections for people who make appropriate public interest disclosures
- set out the processes for dealing with disclosures
- ensure disclosures cannot be ignored.
If you have received a public interest disclosure, you must notify the OPI about the disclosure and what action you have taken.
There are two types of public interest information:
Public administration information is the information that raises a potential issue of corruption, misconduct or maladministration in public administration.
If you make your disclosure to the OPI, we will treat it as a report under the ICAC Act.
Any public officer who makes a disclosure of public interest information will be protected by the Public Interest Disclosure Act.
Environmental and health information is information that raises a potential issue of substantial risk to the environment or the health or safety of the general public.
Anyone who makes a disclosure of environmental and health information (e.g. if a council fails to remove poisonous trees from a public park) will be protected by the Public Interest Disclosure Act.
