Hard look at policy on whistleblowing
Banks have volunteered to create a whistleblower scheme to raise the alert if Australian-style abuses happen in New Zealand.
But the country’s leading whistleblowing expert, Michael Macaulay, said it should meet a soon-to-be developed ISO standard for whistleblowing schemes.
In a bid to stave off a costly royal commission into banking, the New Zealand Bankers’ Association (NZBA) said the industry was willing to undertake a number of projects to increase public confidence that banks have not been behaving in the same abusive manner towards customers as their Australian parent banks.
This included the NZBA reviewing banks’ whistleblowing policies and, ‘‘if appropriate’’, introduce a national standard.
‘‘One of the most effective ways of tackling misconduct is ensuring their are clear processes and safeguards for employees to raise issues safely,’’ NZBA chief executive Karen Scott-Howman said in a letter to the Reserve Bank and Financial Markets Authority last week.
The move mirrors that of the Australian banks in 2016, when they sought to stave off growing criticism of the way they had treated customers.
Macaulay, who is leading a trans-Tasman project on beefing up protection for whistleblowers, said New Zealand did not have a national whistleblowing standard yet, but that was about to change.
In perhaps as early as three months’ time there would be a new ISO standard for whistleblowing schemes against which the banks could measure their own schemes.
An ISO standard would be a world first, and would provide clarity for organisations such as the NZBA regarding the bestpractice standards their schemes should meet, including the processes to investigate whistleblowers’ concerns and protect them from being persecuted.
A successful whistleblower scheme included not only a written policy, but regular training of staff to use it.
‘‘The world over, the reason people usually don’t blow the whistle is they don’t know what to do, and who to turn to,’’ Macauley said. ‘‘It’s not that people lack courage.’’
Macauley said research indicated many people also didn’t trust their employers to protect them if they blew the whistle.
In addition to the ISO standard being developed, ministerial papers were being prepared on the Protected Disclosures Act, which is supposed to provide protections for whistleblowers.
Last year State Services Minister Chris Hipkins announced a review, saying there was ‘‘a strong view’’ the 17-year-old law needed updating to keep pace with international best practice.
In Australia, the Australian Bankers’ Association (ABA) commissioned a review of whistleblowing protections by banks, which concluded the elements of a ‘‘best practice’’ policy in a bank included making it crystal clear that an employee was not prohibited from communicating with regulators ‘‘at any time’’.
Whistleblowers within a bank should receive formal acknowledgement of their actions.
Whistleblowers also needed to be protected, including protecting their identities. Staff must be trained in the policy, including those responsible for handling whistleblower-prompted investigations, the ABA said. German carmaker BMW is extending its United Kingdom recall after it was discovered a number of models could cut out while people were driving them.
BMW recalled 36,410 cars last year over safety issues. Now it is recalling another 312,000 vehicles, the BBC reported.
The BMW 1 Series, the 3 Series, the Z4 and its X1 petrol and diesel models made between March 2007 and August 2011 are subject to the recall order.
New Zealand BMW car dealerships sell 3 Series, X1 and 1 Series models, and four of those models made between 2007 and
2011 are being marketed for sale at BMW dealerships.
Coombes Johnston BMW dealership in Tauranga is marketing an X1 model made in 2011.
‘‘We’ve received no information this morning,’’ the dealership’s general manager, Dave Briscoe, said yesterday.
‘‘I would expect if there was an issue with our cars, then we would have heard something.’’
The recall was first established after UK man Narayan Gurung and his wife crashed to avoid a broken-down BMW 3 Series car on Christmas Day in
2016. Gurung died in the accident.
The car that Gurung hit was owned by Mwape Kambafwile. When Kambafwile took the car to get inspected, he told the BBC that BMW employees told him a cable had burnt out and no current was passing through the car’s fusebox.
An investigation by BBC One’s Watchdog found the electrical fault could affect more cars than BMW had said.
Commenting on Watchdog’s investigation, BMW said: ‘‘We now recognise that there may have been some cases of similar power supply issues in vehicles not covered by the original recall ... We will take the proactive step of expanding the existing UK recall to cover all vehicles potentially affected by the power supply issue.’’
BMW New Zealand has been contacted for comment.