Guest Episode: Barrister James Catlin on Whistleblowing Law

This week we are joined by special guest James Catlin, a previous journalist and political advisor turned barrister who has particular expertise and interest in protected disclosures (whistleblowing).

In addition to working as a solicitor, he has worked as a finance journalist with Australia’s two leading news entities The Herald and Weekly Times and Fairfax. He was a Press Secretary and Advisor to the Premier of Victoria. He briefly worked with Julian Assange in 2010. He is a chairman of Blue Print for Free Speech which specialises in developing and promoting world’s best practice whistleblower legislation and lobbying for its enactment world wide.  As part of Blueprint’s empirical research, James has interviewed high profile whistleblowers in the UK, and co-wrote Blueprint’s submissions to the UK House of Commons review of the Public Interest Disclosure Act 1998. He was the lead writer on the Victorian Parliamentary IBAC Committee’s Review of the Victorian Protected Disclosure Act. 

He joins us this week to discuss protected disclosure law in Australia, if Assange will ever be free, ways of holding governments to account, whether IBAC could be more effective, the current Victorian political landscape and more.