'Whistling While They Work' was a three-year collaborative national research project into the management and protection of internal witnesses, including whistleblowers, in the Australian public sector.
The project was led by Griffith University and jointly funded by:
- the Australian Research Council
- the five participating universities, and
- 14 industry partners including some of Australia 's most important integrity and public sector management agencies.
The protection of whistleblowers and other internal witnesses to corruption, misconduct and maladministration is a great unsolved problem of public sector governance. This first national study of internal witness management has described and compared organisational experience under varying public interest disclosure regimes across the Australian public sector.
By identifying and promoting current best practice in workplace responses to public interest whistleblowing, the project has endeavoured to use the experience and perceptions of internal witnesses and first- and second-level managers to identify more routine strategies for preventing, reducing and addressing reprisals and other whistleblowing-related conflicts.