A South Australian court ruling has sparked concern over the protection of whistleblowers in Australia. 

Former Australian Taxation Office (ATO) tax officer, Richard Boyle, has lost his legal bid to be declared immune from prosecution as a whistleblower, potentially facing a life sentence if found guilty of 24 offences. 

Boyle's lawyers, Steven Millsteed KC, and junior counsel Lauren Gavranich, are considering an appeal. 

The 62-page judgement, which dismissed Boyle's application for immunity from prosecution, was subject to an interim suppression order. The case is the first major test case of protections available under the Public Interest Disclosure Act (2013).

In the unredacted sections of the judgement, Judge Liesl Kudelka determined that the PID Act was more confined than Boyle's lawyers argued, and did not allow whistleblowers to conduct their own investigation or gather evidence of discreditable conduct. 

Kieran Pender, a senior lawyer at the Human Rights Law Centre, has described the outcome as “catastrophic for Australian whistleblowers”, adding that it blows “a major hole in the protections available to whistleblowers”, and would make it “harder for Australians to speak up about human rights violations, government wrongdoing and corporate misdeeds”.

Boyle's lawyers had argued that the ruling would discourage whistleblowers from coming forward.

The judge noted that a public official might feel that they would not be believed without evidence to back up their disclosure, but argued that the PID Act did not protect public officials in the performance of an investigative role that it does not contemplate they undertake. 

Boyle had raised concerns within the ATO before making a complaint to the tax ombudsman and later went public with his revelations as a part of a joint Fairfax-Four Corners investigation. 

A Senate report later found that the ATO had done a “superficial” investigation into his disclosure about the ATO misusing its powers against small businesses.

Some are now calling on Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus to urgently fix the law. 

Pender argued that a narrow interpretation of the protections under the PID Act could discourage whistleblowers from coming forward. 

“The EU whistleblowing directive and laws in Britain, France and Ireland all explicitly protect reasonably necessary conduct related to the disclosure – such as accessing or securing relevant information. Australian law should, too,” he said. 

Mr Boyle's criminal trial is scheduled to start in South Australia's District Court in October.