I submitted a public interest disclosure (PID) about alleged bribery and blackmail by a high-ranking university manager in March 2021.
Internal audit didn’t take action until late May 2021, more than two months later, to formally recognize my PID. But just three days after that, the first false misconduct allegations arrived.
This was a surprise, given my decade-long tenure at the University of Sydney and my roles as president of the university’s association of professors and co-founder of the Australian Association of University Professors. However, these organisations naturally put pressure on managers who stamp on academic values like honesty and integrity.
The first fabricated misconduct case involved a security camera. I’d discovered two original Alzheimer’s disease cases, both over 100 years old, during my academic career, which spanned multiple decades and six countries. This material requires special protection, so when theft occurred near my office at the University of Sydney, I followed management directives and installed a basic motion-triggered still security camera (Raspberry Pi) for use in my locked office when I was away. Later, when commercial cameras became more affordable, I upgraded to a better one in 2019.
The purchase receipt clearly states that these cameras are for security not surveillance as they aren’t built for continuous recording. Despite this, management spread the lie that I’d installed a surveillance camera, which they’ve repeated even in their submissions to court, allowing willing journalists to further propagate this misinformation. One manager went so far as to falsely claim I’d installed another surveillance camera without any evidence.
The second false misconduct case was fabricated shortly thereafter by breaching my research-only contract, which had been in place for a decade. After management repeatedly tried to unilaterally alter it, I insisted on my rights, and that was used as the second false misconduct claim.
The third false misconduct case is a concoction of multiple blatant lies by managers, culminating in the false claim that I didn’t act in the best interest of my students when, in reality, they’d already been unfairly targeted (which I first flagged up in 2019) and terminated at the time the new false claim was made by corrupt managers.
I invite the public to follow this unfolding spectacle closely. As it stands, no whistle-blowing case has been won in the federal court in Australia so far, but I feel compelled to take this risk because I fear for democracy: