No. It's a question of how much a reverse onus will be effective in achieving that result. I'm not saying that it's not important, but it's just one part of the mix for an effective regime. Certainly, there need to be clear rules that if there's a disclosure involved and detrimental action is shown, then certainly the onus should shift onto the respondent or onto the agency to be able to demonstrate that the adverse action that was taken was not taken as a result of or in connection with the disclosure.
There's no problem with that principle and it should certainly help, so that principle can be put in place as part of evidentiary procedure, as well as being legislation. If that can be entrenched, that can be a good thing. However, in and of itself, it's not going to necessarily make sure that the remedial provisions are actually well-calibrated to deal with the problem because the problems are very often almost like a no-fault issue.
Most of the problems that end up causing whistle-blowers' careers to go into decline are very often not caused by any intention or deliberate omission in relation to their treatment. It's caused by a failure of support. It's caused by unmanaged stress and it's caused by simple errors in the way that people are handled and managed. Those cumulative impacts are the ones that, in most cases, then end up causing that sort of detriment. In those sorts of cases, the evidentiary questions are quite different and the fundamental question then becomes whether the process should be intended to hold individuals to account or whether it should just recognize the organization or the responsibility to compensate that person irrespective of individual fault.
I think all the evidence is now showing that the law needs to be calibrated to deal with that broader organizational responsibility, almost like workplace health and safety responsibility, rather than it being a question of hunting down the individual who supposedly set out to cause some kind of a reprisal.