“Part of the curse, I suppose, was knowing so much, knowing how rotten it is… And so, do you do something with that knowledge or do you just turn our back on it and look after yourself and raise chickens?”

In this first episode of How to Make a Whistleblower, we investigate what happens to the whistleblower after the whistle has blown.

Two years ago, Maryanne Slattery was an unassuming senior bureaucrat living just outside Canberra with her three children and many chooks. For someone who would rather shun the limelight - how did Maryanne Slattery go from director of environmental water policy at the Murray Darling Basin Authority to public whistleblower?

What happens to the person who blew the lid on fraud, corruption or mismanagement by a company or government department?

Often there’s a headline-generating public scandal. Sometimes there might be a government inquiry or an institution will be forced to make changes, but too often the whistleblower’s life is left in ruins at the end of it all.

So how was it different for Maryanne Slattery? When so many other whistleblowers face long jail sentences, career ostracism and even poverty - how did Maryanne land on her feet?

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CREDITS

How to Make a Whistleblower is a special three-part podcast mini-series by the Australia Institute.

Written and produced: Jennifer Macey. Additional production: Lizzie Jack. Executive producer: Anna Chang. Music by Blue Dot Sessions.

For more information on this podcast and the Australia Institute’s research on the Murray Darling Basin, visit our website http://tai.org.au

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