SA’s corruption watchdog appears unlikely to support Nick Xenophon’s plan to pay whistleblowers.

SA Best leader Nick Xenophon proposed the reward scheme as part of a push for new measures including a whistleblower protection authority.

Mr Xenophon says that an independent SA whistleblower protection authority would help protect those who expose corruption, unsafe practices, administrative failure and wasteful spending from retribution.

The plan includes a scheme to reward those who expose wrong-doing in government based on highly successful US laws.

But in a 2014 review of the Whistleblowers Protection Act, SA’s Independent Commissioner Against Corruption (ICAC) Bruce Lander considered whether public servants who report wrongdoing should be given US-style bounties, rewards or other incentives.

Mr Lander said a case in favour had not been established.

“It would not be appropriate to reward public officers for performing a duty which they [are] already bound to perform,” Mr Lander wrote.

He also said the idea could impact the ethos of the public service.

“People who work in the public sector are expected to have, as their ultimate goal, serving the public good according to the will of the government of the day,” he said.

“A bounty scheme could have the unintended effect of providing a financial incentive for workers to move into areas where there is a greater prospect of obtaining a bounty.”

Mr Lander noted that US whistleblower rewards were sourced from a pool of funds created by the large fines imposed on corporate offenders.

With no similar financial pool from which to draw public sector rewards, he said the scheme would be harder to create and maintain.

“In my view there would need to be evidence of a very serious corruption in public administration in South Australia before it would be appropriate to introduce incentives in the public sector in such a radical way,” he wrote.

“The evidence indicates that a majority of public officers already feel obliged to speak out about serious public sector wrongdoing of which they are aware.”

A spokesperson for Mr Lander says he stands by the comments made in the 2014 review.