DAVID RINDOS and supporters have repeatedly portrayed the former UWA academic as a whistleblower despite strong evidence to the contrary.
Dr Rindos has claimed he reported management problems in archaeology in 1990 when he was acting head of the department. He believes he was denied tenure as revenge.
Last December, a document was tabled in State Parliament which is said to be Dr Rindos' notes of the complaints he made in 1990 to the head of agriculture and science, Charles Oxnard.
However, Professor Oxnard said in a 1993 document also tabled in Parliament that no problems were reported between June 1990 and early 1991.
Archaeology professor Sandra Bowdler later asked Professor Oxnard's successor, Mike Partis, to find any record of complaint by Dr Rindos in 1990 and none was discovered. Dr Rindos said his report was placed in files but then disappeared.
In February 1991, Professor Bowdler issued Dr Rindos with her first formal memo of complaint about the quality of his research, teaching and other behaviour.
Nine months later, complaints were made to a UWA archaeology review committee about Professor Bowdler.
But deputy vice-chancellor Alan Robson confirmed last week there was no evidence of financial mismanagement.
The president of Whistleblowers Australia, Brian Martin, of the University of Wollongong, was reported in the Sunday Times yesterday as saying Dr Rindos' case fitted the whistleblower pattern.
He said he would like to see a comparison between the output of Dr Rindos and Professor Bowdler.
According to Professor Bowdler's CV, she had several learned articles published in 1990. Her output was more than Dr Rindos achieved in 3 1/2 years.
Dr Martin also claimed there was a high number of PhD dropouts, but the department's statistics do not confirm that.
The Sunday Times also quoted an anonymous academic who claimed there was an atmosphere of fear at UWA. Yet the chief academic in support of Dr Rindos, Associate Professor Neville Bruce, has since been made head of the anatomy and human biology department.