Public Interest Disclosure Act 2013: Commonwealth Whistleblower Protections

The Public Interest Disclosure Act 2013 (Cth) protects Commonwealth public officials, including many contractors, who report wrongdoing through an internal channel first and, only if that fails, through a defined external pathway.

This page covers whistleblower protection for Commonwealth (federal) public sector employees and officials under the Public Interest Disclosure Act 2013 (Cth), the PID Act, together with the related National Anti-Corruption Commission Act 2022 (Cth). It does not cover private-sector employees, who are protected under a different Act, or state and territory public servants, who are protected under their own jurisdiction's legislation.

Who Can Make a Disclosure

The PID Act protects "public officials," a term defined through a table of Commonwealth office holders, including agency employees, agency secretaries, principal officers and members of prescribed bodies.

Contractors are covered, but only conditionally. Under section 30, an officer or employee of a contracted service provider is treated as a public official for PID Act purposes, but only for conduct connected with entering into or giving effect to the relevant Commonwealth contract. This protection expressly extends even after the person has ceased working for the contracted service provider. The exact boundaries of this test are set out in further subsections of section 30 that go beyond the scope of this summary, so a contractor with a specific coverage question should confirm the current text or seek advice rather than assume the description above is exhaustive.

What You Can Disclose

Section 29 lists the categories of conduct that qualify as disclosable, including conduct that contravenes Commonwealth, state, territory or corresponding foreign law; corruption of any kind or conduct that perverts the course of justice; maladministration; abuse of public trust; scientific research misconduct such as fabrication or plagiarism; wastage of Commonwealth money or property; conduct that unreasonably endangers health or safety; and conduct that endangers the environment. Section 29 also picks up conduct prescribed by the PID rules, and separate catch-all provisions cover abuse of position and conduct that could ground possible disciplinary termination.

Section 29A excludes "personal work-related conduct" from ordinary PID coverage in most cases, meaning matters such as interpersonal conflict, transfers, promotions, discipline and termination are generally channelled to normal human resources or review processes rather than the PID regime. This carve-out is not stated here as absolute: the Act may preserve PID coverage for personal work-related conduct in some circumstances, and a reader relying on this distinction for a specific situation should confirm the current exception wording.

The Four Disclosure Pathways, Internal First

Section 26 sets out four types of disclosure, each with its own conditions.

An internal disclosure goes to an authorised internal recipient or supervisor, where the discloser reasonably believes the information shows disclosable conduct and is not simply performing their ordinary job functions.

An external disclosure can go to any person other than a foreign public official, but only where an internal disclosure of the same information was made first, the response to that internal disclosure was inadequate or too slow, disclosing is not, on balance, contrary to the public interest, and only the minimum information necessary is disclosed. A narrow exception applies to some intelligence-related material, with a specific carve-out for the Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission.

An emergency disclosure can go to any person other than a foreign public official where the discloser reasonably believes there is a substantial and imminent danger to health, safety or the environment, and, if no internal disclosure has yet been made, there are exceptional circumstances justifying that.

A legal practitioner disclosure allows a discloser to seek legal advice about making, or having made, a disclosure.

A claim that the 2023 reforms removed the requirement to disclose internally first before disclosing externally has circulated. It is not correct. The condition that an internal disclosure must have already been made appears word for word identical in the pre-2023 and current text of section 26. What the 2023 reforms actually changed is different: tighter coordination with the National Anti-Corruption Commission Act, new continuity provisions for machinery-of-government changes, and broader notice obligations to the Ombudsman and the Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security.

Protections and Immunity

The PID Act provides civil remedies for a person who has suffered as a result of a reprisal, including compensation, injunctions, reinstatement and other court orders, with costs generally awarded against a discloser only if their claim was vexatious. It also contains provisions restricting the disclosure or use of information identifying a discloser. These mechanisms exist within the Act's structure, but the exact operative wording of each remedy and each identity-protection provision goes beyond what this page details, so a reader relying on a specific remedy should confirm the current section text or seek advice.

The Reprisal Offence and Its Penalty

Section 19 makes it an offence to take a reprisal, meaning to cause detriment or threaten detriment, because of a belief or suspicion that a person has made, may have made, proposes to make, or could make a disclosure. An exception exists for reasonable administrative action taken to protect a person from detriment.

The maximum penalty is 2 years' imprisonment or 120 penalty units, or both. The dollar value of that fine depends on the current Commonwealth penalty unit, which is not fixed permanently in the Crimes Act 1914 (Cth) itself. Section 4AA(1) of the Crimes Act prints a base reference figure of $330, but the actual current value is set separately by the Crimes (Amount of a Penalty Unit) Instrument 2026, which fixes the penalty unit at $364 for offences committed on or after 1 July 2026. This is the same Commonwealth-wide indexation mechanism used across federal legislation, so it applies to the PID Act's section 19 offence the same way it applies elsewhere. That puts the current maximum fine for a section 19 reprisal offence at 120 penalty units, or $43,680, for conduct occurring on or after 1 July 2026, even though the compiled text of the Crimes Act itself still prints the older, un-indexed $330 figure.

Oversight: the Ombudsman and IGIS

PID oversight is split between two bodies. The Commonwealth Ombudsman's PID functions, under section 62, cover agencies other than intelligence agencies, and include assisting principal officers, authorised officers and public officials with the Act's operation and running education programs. The Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security covers intelligence agencies instead, and section 45A requires notice to the IGIS specifically for intelligence-agency-related conduct during allocation of a disclosure. The Ombudsman also has a standards-setting role under section 74, referenced here at a general level only.

The National Anti-Corruption Commission and the PID Act

The National Anti-Corruption Commission Act 2022 (Cth) has its own protections for people who make a "NACC disclosure," a defined term distinct from a public interest disclosure under the PID Act. Its substantive Parts 2 to 9, covering corruption-issue handling, referrals, investigations and reprisal offences, commenced 1 July 2023, the same day as the PID Act reforms.

Section 30 of the NACC Act makes reprisal against a person because of a belief or suspicion they have made, may have made, propose to make, or could make a NACC disclosure an offence carrying up to 2 years' imprisonment. Unlike the PID Act's section 19, the NACC Act's offence clause states imprisonment alone, with no penalty-unit or dollar fine written into the offence itself. Whether a fine can nonetheless be imposed under the Crimes Act's general default provision for offences that specify imprisonment but are silent on a fine is an open question that this page does not resolve; it should not be read as saying there is no possible fine, only that the offence clause itself specifies imprisonment only.

Section 31 of the NACC Act protects journalists' informants specifically, preventing a journalist, their employer, or a person assisting the journalist professionally from being required to disclose an informant's identity, subject to a search-powers exception. A broader confidentiality regime elsewhere in the Act also appears to protect the identity of a confidential source of information more generally, though this page does not pin that protection to a specific section number.

The two Acts work together, not as alternatives. Under section 35 of the NACC Act, a PID officer who becomes aware of a corruption issue while handling a PID Act disclosure, and suspects the conduct could involve corrupt conduct that is serious or systemic, has a mandatory duty to refer the matter to the NACC Commissioner, or to the IGIS or Commissioner for intelligence-agency matters. This referral duty runs alongside the PID Act process, not instead of it: the underlying PID Act disclosure and investigation can continue while the corruption-issue referral is handled separately.

If You Work in the Private Sector or for a State or Territory Government

This page covers Commonwealth public officials only. If you work in the private sector, including for a company, a not-for-profit, or as a contractor to a private entity, whistleblower protection instead comes from the Corporations Act 2001 (Cth) and the Taxation Administration Act 1953 (Cth), overseen by the Australian Securities and Investments Commission; see the separate page on corporate whistleblower protections.

If you work for a state or territory government instead of the Commonwealth, you are covered by that jurisdiction's own public interest disclosure legislation, or, in the Northern Territory, by Part 6 of the Independent Commissioner Against Corruption Act 2017. See the whistleblower protection overview for links to every state and territory page and a comparison of reprisal penalties across all eight jurisdictions.