Eric Abetz (Tasmania, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Twelve days ago, a full bench of the Federal Court, 3-0, brought to an end three years of desperate 'lawfare' by the Australian Workers Union in its attempt to shut down an investigation by the Registered Organisations Commission into alleged unauthorised use of AWU members' money by its former national secretary Mr Shorten. The AWU lost on every single issue of fact and issue of law it had pursued. This matter can now be very easily settled. Indeed, the AWU National Secretary, Daniel Walton, promised to release all documents once the legal process was completed, even if the union lost the current court case. It lost; it should release the documents.

The allegations facing Mr Shorten and the AWU and those that faced Craig Thomson and the HSU are disturbingly similar. Craig Thomson used money to finance his campaign for the seat of Dobell. Mr Shorten allegedly used AWU members' money to finance his run. Mr Thomson used money to make donations to what he considered worthy causes with which he was associated. Mr Shorten allegedly used union money to make donations to GetUp, of which he was a board member at the time. Mr Thomson was found to have breached sections 285, 286 and 287 of the registered organisations legislation, the same sections which Mr Shorten and the AWU continue to stand accused of breaching. In 2015 Justice Jessup found that Mr Thomson had used the money of the union without national executive authorisation. The same allegation is made against Mr Shorten. No wonder Mr Shorten threatened to defund the ROC if Labor won the last election.

In 2007 Mr Shorten used AWU money to employ an individual to work on his own campaign. This was one of the breaches for which Mr Thomson was found guilty. Justice Jessup found that to use the services of the campaign worker for his own purposes was the 'clearest of improprieties'. The questionable AWU transactions include donations totalling $150,000 to GetUp, which GetUp should of course repay. GetUp's lack of integrity will see them cling on to these funds and disregard the AWU memberships' entitlement. Labor has continually asserted that the ROC's investigation is nothing more than a fishing exercise through historic paperwork to find any kind of error—not a crime, an error. Justice Jessup, in the HSU case, strongly disagreed with such arguments, describing using money without authorisation as a 'conspicuous impropriety' and an 'unthinkable' breach of the duties of an office holder of a union. These are not small amounts. The impugned donations from the AWU totalled around $230,000. The amount that Justice Jessup found Mr Thomson had misappropriated was a lesser $184,000.

Not deterred by the failure of the court challenge, the AWU took to Twitter a month ago to describe the ROC's inquiry into the AWU as a witch-hunt. I remind listeners that Justice Bromberg completely shredded such claims by the AWU. His honour stated that the AWU had not presented any evidence or even suggested a case concept or narrative that provided a motive for the knowing and deliberate conduct that it ascribed to the ROC. Justice Bromberg found the AWU refused to cooperate with the most straightforward of requests for information by the ROC. It seems shiftiness and evasion are characteristics that are handed down the line of succession for national secretaries of the AWU. I commend the officers of the ROC for their commitment to achieving justice for the membership of the AWU, whose money has been allegedly used as a personal slush fund. Labor's vicious, personal and nasty attacks on these officers are unbecoming, now proven to be false and undertaken simply to distract from the issue at hand: AWU members' funds being misused by officials. Watch this space as justice ultimately prevails.