Canberra Liberals leader Elizabeth Lee will call on the ACT Government today to conduct an independent external review into the serious breach of public sector employees compensation data.

Last week, it was revealed that workers compensation data of nearly 30,000 public sector employees was publicly posted on the Tenders ACT website.

The data contained public servants’ years of birth, gender, occupation, ACT Government Directorate, information of injury, and financial compensation details.

The ACT Government said it would conduct an internal review, but Ms Lee said it was imperative that a matter of this serious nature be reviewed independently.

“This incident is very distressing for the public servants whose personal information was posted for public viewing,” Ms Lee said.

“We need to ensure that a data breach of this magnitude does not happen again. There is no doubt this breach has led to a loss in confidence of the ACT Labor-Greens Government’s ability to protect employee confidentiality.

“Both the Community and Public Sector Union and the United Firefighters’ Union have voiced significant concerns about the breach, yet the Labor-Greens Government refuses to take responsibility.

“Governments hold sensitive information on many of their citizens; we need to make sure that there are whole of government processes to protect that data.

“If this Labor-Greens Government has nothing to hide, it should have no problem with agreeing to an independent external review.”

Ms Lee’s motion calls on the ACT Government to table the Terms of Reference of the review, including the details of the reviewer, in the Legislative Assembly by the last sitting day in February.

It also calls for the findings of the independent external review to be tabled in the Assembly by the last sitting day in September.