Queensland Consolidated Acts Queensland Consolidated Acts(1) This Act provides a scheme that, in the public interest, gives special protection to disclosures about unlawful, negligent or improper public sector conduct or danger to public health or safety or the environment.
(2) Because the protection is very broad, the scheme has a number of balancing mechanisms intended to--
(a) focus the protection where it is needed; and
(b) make it easier to decide whether the special protection applies to a disclosure; and
(c) ensure appropriate consideration is also given to the interests of persons against whom disclosures are made; and
(d) encourage the making of disclosures in a way that helps to remedy the matter disclosed; and
(e) prevent the scheme adversely affecting the independence of the judiciary and the commercial operations of GOCs or corporatised corporations.
(3) The scheme gives protection only to a public interest disclosure, which is a particular type of disclosure defined by reference to the person who makes the disclosure, the type of information disclosed and the entity to which the disclosure is made (the appropriate entity).
(4) Certain types of public interest disclosures may be disclosed under the scheme by a public officer, which includes any officer of a public sector entity.
(5) The expression public sector entity is widely defined and a list can be found in schedule 5, section 2.
(6) Other types of public interest disclosures may be made under the scheme by anybody.