Summary

Amends the:

to: provide that 'personal work-related conduct' does not fall within the public interest disclosure (PID) scheme; amend the process for authorised officers' handling and allocation of disclosures, and principal officers' investigation of disclosures; expand the scope of protections for disclosers and availability of civil remedies for reprisal action taken against a person who has made, or may make, a PID; remove the general secrecy offence; clarify the roles of the Office of the Commonwealth Ombudsman and the Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security in receiving and investigating complaints about the handling of a disclosure by an agency; establish a procedure for handling disclosures where there is a machinery of government change; amend the definitions of 'agencies', 'public officials' and 'principal officers'; exclude grant recipients from the application of the Act; provide for a review of the Act five years after the commencement of the amendments in the bill; and make minor amendments; and , and to make amendments contingent on the commencement of the National Anti-Corruption Commission legislation enacted in November 2022.