Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus has ruled out dropping charges against former ATO public-servant-turned-whistleblower Richard Boyle, who is set to face trial later this month.
Earlier this month, Mr Dreyfus ordered the Commonwealth to drop the prosecution of lawyer Bernard Collaery, four years after he was charged with conspiring to release classified information about an alleged spying operation in East Timor.
Following that decision, the Human Rights Law Centre and others are calling on the Attorney-General to similarly intervene in the case of two other whistleblowers who are facing trial.
They include Mr Boyle — who spoke up about unethical debt-recovery practices at the Australian Taxation Office — and David McBride, who blew the whistle on alleged war crimes by Australian soldiers in Afghanistan.
Former independent senator Rex Patrick has written to Mr Dreyfus about Mr Boyle's case, urging him to intervene and take the extraordinary step of dropping all charges.
The Attorney-General has powers under section 71 of the Judiciary Act to stop the prosecution.
However, last month Mr Dreyfus responded in a letter to Senator Patrick saying: "The Commonwealth Director of Public Prosecutions (CDPP) takes decisions about the commencement of prosecutions independently of government."
He said the Attorney-General's powers under section 71 were "reserved for very unusual and exceptional circumstances".
However, Mr Dreyfus did note that the government was "committed to reforming the Public Interest Disclosure (PID) Act".
A spokesman for the Attorney-General told ABC News the minister "does not comment on other cases he may or may not have received briefings about".
Trial first major test of public sector whistleblowers' protections
Mr Boyle's trial will be the first major test case of protections available under the act.
If he is found guilty of the alleged charges against him, he faces the prospect of life in prison.
Mr Boyle first made a public interest disclosure within the ATO internally, and then made a complaint to the tax ombudsman before he made his revelations public as a part of a joint Fairfax-Four Corners investigation.
Follow-up reviews found Mr Boyle's allegations of aggressive debt recovery practices at the ATO at the time were valid.
The CDPP has previously reduced the charges against Mr Boyle from 66 to 24 offences.
The charges were dropped days after a federal parliamentary report found the Australian Taxation Office (ATO) had conducted a "superficial" investigation into his public interest disclosure.
'Protect whistleblowers, don't punish them'
Human Rights Law Centre senior lawyer Kieran Pender is still urging Mr Dreyfus to reconsider his stance, and drop the prosecution against Mr Boyle.
"There is no public interest in this prosecution going ahead."
He said prosecuting whistleblowers could deter others from coming forward.
"Like the Collaery case, the prosecution of Richard Boyle … will have a chilling effect on prospective whistleblowers. This case warrants the Attorney-General's intervention to end it," Mr Pender said.
Executive director of Self Employed Australia, Ken Phillips said, given the Attorney-General had dropped the charges against Mr Collaery, "we ask Mr Dreyfus to now seriously consider the dropping of charges against ATO whistleblower Richard Boyle".
"Australian whistleblower laws are supposed to protect public servants who follow set procedures, principally issuing public interest disclosure documents," Mr Phillips said.
"The legislation on this supposedly 'enables people to make disclosures without fear of reprisal'."
