Senator Nick Xenophon will renew a push to decriminalise leaks from the public service after the Centrelink debt recovery scandal.

This week the Department of Human Services sent a memo to its staff, reminding them that the improper leaking of information could result in disciplinary action or constitute a criminal offence.

That memo, which was itself quickly leaked, came after a series of damaging disclosures about the government’s debt recovery system.

Several Centrelink sources have spoken out about problems with the system, which they say are causing low-income and vulnerable Australians to be wrongly issued with debts.

Xenophon said those who had blown the whistle on Centrelink were clearly doing so in the public interest and should not face prosecution.

He has committed to introducing amendments to the Crimes Act to remove provisions that make it an offence for public servants to leak information externally. The offence carries a maximum penalty of two years in prison.

Xenophon told Guardian Australia he would draft amendments and introduce them as soon as possible. “I think it just highlights the need to amend section 70 and 79 of the Crimes Act, which makes it a crime for a public servant to leak information, or for a journalist or third party to receive it,” he said.



“Sections 70 and 79 of the Crimes Act are currently about protecting government from embarrassment, rather than from the public being informed of maladministration or malfeasance in government.”

Xenophon previously pledged to make similar amendments in August, after Australian federal police raids on senator Stephen Conroy’s office over leaks on delays and cost overruns with the national broadband network. He said his office had not been able to draft the amendments before the year’s end.

The Australian Council for Social Service has also called for protections for the Centrelink whistleblowers.

Its chief executive officer, Cassandra Goldie, stepped up her criticism of the system, saying the group had met with the human services minister, Alan Tudge, and demanded an immediate halt to the automated debt recovery program.

Goldie said the tweaks announced by Tudge last week did not solve fundamental flaws with the system.

“Acoss met with minister Tudge [on Wednesday] and again urged him to immediately halt Centrelink’s automated debt recovery program, which is operating as an aggressive abuse of government power, causing extensive stress, anxiety and harm amongst thousands of people caught up in the process,” Goldie said.

“We also repeated our call for the minister to convene a roundtable of key stakeholders and experts as soon as possible to design a humane and fair approach to debt recovery.”

Acoss also called for adequate resourcing of Centrelink and community legal assistance services.