An insider at a government-contracted market research firm is alleging it was “standard practice” to fabricate survey data on potential defence recruits for a military recruitment project. The allegations were made as part of a formal disclosure process as the insider seeks corporate whistleblower protection under federal law.
Guardian Australia this week revealed allegations by a research interviewer for McNair yellowSquares, a frequent government contractor, alleging he was instructed to fabricate data on Indigenous Australians in regional areas and Adelaide for an Australian Electoral Commission project during last year’s referendum.
Now, the same researcher alleges similar fabrications were made during another, unrelated government project, during which McNair was collecting data for the defence department on recruitment of culturally and linguistically diverse (Cald) Australians.
The new claims
The whistleblower told Guardian Australia McNair had been tasked with surveying older siblings and other relatives of potential Cald recruits to inform a government advertising recruitment campaign.
The project, dubbed Top Gun, required McNair to interview and collect data from family members of specific age cohorts, including from older brothers or sisters of recruits aged 16 to 24.
According to documents seen by the Guardian, the research interviewer told his superiors at McNair and investigators at the corporate regulator, Asic, that “on multiple occasions, I was directed … to falsify the ages of survey responses”.
“The data requirements for the survey were difficult to obtain [because siblings had to be at least 34 years old],” he says in formal disclosures prepared by his lawyers. “In order to have any qualifying survey respondents, their demographic data was to be amended.
“As a result of this, falsifying data on siblings became standard practice.”
The research interviewer says on one of the occasions he was sent a text message giving him “permission” to enter false ages on his survey responses.
“As you may or may not remember from previous years for this project for Top Gun 3 the respondents need to be within a specific age bracket in order to qualify, so you have my permission to ensure that you enter them as such when conducting the survey,” the text message says.
“Eg they need to be either the parent, grandparent, guardian, older sibling, aunt, uncle or Godparent of a child 16-24 and they also themselves need to be aged 36-64, so please ensure you select a range of ages for respondents to ensure they qualify for the study.”
In his complaint to McNair and Asic, the researcher says he understood the message to mean “I was to enter ages of respondents that would ensure they would qualify for the survey, even if it was inaccurate”.
The man’s legal team, whistleblowing specialists at the Human Rights Law Centre, helped him make disclosures about the fabrications to McNair and Asic. Asic declined to investigate and McNair, they allege, has failed to properly respond, prompting a public disclosure to the Guardian.
McNair said it was aware of the allegations and was investigating.
“We take pride in the robustness, quality and accuracy of our work, always seeking to act impartially, with integrity and in line with best practice frameworks and processes,” the company said in a statement.
“If any employee is found to be misrepresenting survey data or requesting it, this is a major breach of our code of conduct, and further action will be taken.”
Defence did not comment. It is understood McNair acted as a subcontractor to a larger firm, which was engaged on the advertising and recruitment campaign project. The contracts were managed by the finance department.
The finance department said it was aware of the allegations and was taking them seriously.
“McNair yellowSquares is not contracted directly by Finance,” a spokesperson said, adding that the department had instructed its primary contractor that the matter needed to be “urgently” investigated. It also wants the integrity of the data reviewed.
Seeking whistleblower protection
The whistleblower told Guardian Australia he would have preferred to have his complaints dealt with internally. He recognises the harm going public could do to his career with McNair.
He said his disclosures were made as a genuine attempt to improve the industry that he loves.
“I don’t want to make this personal,” he said. “I hope this sends a wake-up call to the industry to put its house in order.”
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To attempt to achieve protection as a whistleblower under law, he was advised by his lawyers to follow a specific process: first he had to complain internally, then wait months before he made a formal complaint to an external body – the corporate regulator Asic – despite knowing that it likely had little remit to investigate his allegations.
He could go nowhere else. He could not, for example, approach the industry bodies responsible for complaint resolution in his sector and still hope to retain his protection as a whistleblower.
The researcher had not wanted to go public; he simply didn’t want the alleged wrongdoing to happen again. But he says he was left with little option after Asic said it could not investigate and McNair appeared not to act.
It is a case that yet again demonstrates the complex, cumbersome and inflexible nature of Australia’s whistleblowing laws, according to his legal advisers.
Even though he exercised the corporate whistleblower protections, which have been reformed more recently than those for government employees, the McNair employee would have struggled at each step without the support of whistleblowing specialists at the Human Rights Law Centre.
HRLC senior lawyer Regina Featherstone said the case showed that the law remained “clunky” and the process complicated and protracted. Still, she believes the law provides a “crucial accountability mechanism that protects the public’s right to know as much as it protects the whistleblower”.
Successive high-profile whistleblower cases have done much damage to the willingness of whistleblowers to speak out. Richard Boyle, a former tax official, is facing trial and potential jail time, if convicted, after gathering information and speaking out about the Australian Taxation Office’s mistreatment of small business owners and families.
The South Australian courts recently denied Boyle whistleblower protections despite the fact he took what he thought were the proper steps to guarantee he was protected. Other cases, including that of David McBride and Bernard Collaery, have also done much to fuel the perception that Australia is hostile to would-be whistleblowers.
The federal government is planning to reform the Public Interest Disclosure Act, the protections for public sector employees, which Boyle attempted to invoke. One of the chief aims is to simplify the process.
“A number of stakeholders have raised concerns that the current requirements to make a disclosure outside of government are too complex and difficult for disclosers to understand and use, particularly without legal advice,” the government’s consultation paper says.
Legal groups and transparency advocates have welcomed the reform process. But they are urging the government to go a step further and establish a well-resourced and independent whistleblower protection authority, a kind of one-stop shop advising would-be whistleblowers on the law and their rights prior to them making a disclosure and investigating alleged reprisals against those who speak out.
Such authorities have operated overseas successfully, including in the Netherlands, United States and Canada. “There is no shortage of precedents for such an authority internationally,” Dr Catherine Williams, the Centre for Public Integrity’s executive director, said in her submission to the reforms.
“The commonwealth, which was in fact the last Australian jurisdiction to legislate a protection regime for whistleblowers in its public sector, now has an opportunity to take a leading role by pioneering the long called-for independent whistleblower authority.”
The McNair researcher is clear about one thing: the alleged wrongdoing at his company never would have seen the light of day without a whistleblower.
“This is why whistleblowers are needed,” he said.
“Only someone internal would know … You wouldn’t have found this out in a million years. But there’s always [someone like me] in your organisation.”