Protections under the PID Act

People who report wrongdoing need to be confident they will be protected from harm or disadvantage as a result of making a disclosure. Agencies need to accurately and quickly identify that a disclosure is a public interest disclosure (PID) because, if a report is a PID, the public official who made the report will have special protections under the Public Interest Disclosures Act 2022 (PID Act). These protections apply from the time the PID is received by the agency.

This guideline explains the special protections under the PID Act for people who report wrongdoing and outlines which protections are available to the makers of voluntary, mandatory and witness PIDs.