Julia GILLARD Deputy PM Alan JONES 2GB

http://www.deewr.gov.au/Ministers/Gillard/Media/Transcripts/Pages/Article_090326_121819.aspx

The Hon Julia Gillard MP E&OE

TRANSCRIPT INTERVIEW 2GB 715AM THURSDAY 26 MARCH 2009 ISSUES: PM meeting with President Obama; temporary guarantee of state borrowing; whistleblowers protection; Fair Work Bill; Building the Education Revolution; Bradley Review

ALAN JONES: Right. Kevin Rudd, to his credit, has said yesterday in Washington, just on this Sydney Airport carnage, that there’ll be zero tolerance of this rubbish that we’ve seen in Sydney Airport.

Back in 2005, the Australian newspaper published details of two reports relating to drug trafficking by airport staff and gaps in anti-terror security. Then followed the biggest overhaul, allegedly, of airport security in our history, so you’d question today whether the $200 million didn’t go down the drain, but the Howard Government chased the author of those reports, Alan Kessing. He was alleged to have leaked them, he’s always denied that, but he was the author of these reports. He was accused of leaking them, he denied it, the Government pursued him. He’s now a criminal - a nine month suspended sentence and guilty.

Now, Kevin Rudd spoke to Kessing in the lead up to the 2007 campaign and used that incident to rightly promise new laws to protect whistleblowers, but this bloke’s exhausted his superannuation; he’s broke. Last Sunday proved yet again the validity of what his reports were arguing. No one’s ever demanded to know, from Canberra, why the customs reports were not acted upon by senior bureaucrats or the relevant ministers. No one’s tried to find out why they were buried, but this bloke’s life’s been systematically trashed. Should your Government at least remain consistent to your support for him before the election by pardoning this man?

JULIA GILLARD: Well, Alan, obviously that’s a legal matter that’s been dealt with before we came to Government and there’s a reason we’ve got a strict separation between what Government does and what the courts do. What we’ve obviously promised - we did promise in Opposition and we are working our way through - is whistleblowers protection. And we also promised a better era of Government openness and transparency through changes to our Freedom of Information arrangements and our colleague, who would be well known to you, Senator Faulkner, obviously an important figure in New South Wales, made some important policy announcements about this at the Your Right To Know conference, which was earlier this week. So we are moving through to deliver exactly what we promised: better access to information, great Government transparency and openness, and we will move through to the whistleblowers protection legislation that is obviously needed.