Labor loses, no matter which way Heydon goes

LABOR is in a lose-lose position whether or not royal commissioner Dyson Heydon recuses himself tomorrow from continuing to hear evidence before the Royal Commission Into Trade Union Governance And Corruption.

LABOR is in a lose-lose position whether or not royal commissioner Dyson Heydon recuses himself tomorrow from continuing to hear evidence before the Royal Commission Into Trade Union Governance And Corruption.

Having run a full-time investigation into union corruption for nearly two years and having heard from 441 witnesses over 149 hearing days, the commission has developed a momentum that will be almost impossible to stop, no matter who is on the bench.

 Thanks to the ACTU’s legal representative Robert Newlinds, it has been established that the ALP and the trade union movement are “not just inextricably but … organically connected”, and that “the underlying premise that the unions have the ability to exert great control on the Labor Party ought to be taken as a given”.

 Further, it is “the unions’ stated public position and the Labor Party’s stated public position … that they don’t think that any law reform is necessary, they think the way they are structured is perfectly satisfactory,” he has testified.

 “They don’t think it is appropriate that they should have brought to bear on them — and when I say ‘they’, I mean people in control of unions — the same type of laws that apply to people in control of companies, and they think that the arrangements for superannuation and the like under the control of union funds is perfectly satisfactory.

” And that is precisely why the ALP and the trade union movement are on a hiding to nothing, no matter what action former High Court Justice Heydon decides to take.

 When the public weighs his decision to reject an invitation to give a prestigious address to a gathering of barristers and lawyers on learning that it was loosely associated with a minor body associated with the Liberal Party against the hard evidence given before the commission, there can be little doubt that his momentary uncertainty will be eclipsed by the degree of union criminality and corruption revealed by his commission.

 The commission has heard evidence that CFMEU officials Brian Parker and Darren Greenfield consorted with construction figure George Alex and that Alex’s friends and colleagues include the leader of the Rebels bikie gang, a former Comanchero and the two notorious ISIS recruits Khaled Sharrouf and Mohamed Elomar.

 It heard that Comanchero bikies were being employed as debt collectors throughout the Victorian building industry.

 Mike Kane, the head of construction company Boral, told the commission that it suffered a 75 per cent reduction in its market share after refusing to comply with the CFMEU’s unlawful demands.

 It also heard allegations that Victorian CFMEU official John Setka repeatedly made abusive threats to workers, including on one occasion where he threatened to rip the head off a concreter, along with the allegation that the private details of over 300 construction workers were leaked by the construction industry superannuation fund Cbus to the CFMEU.

 As a direct result of evidence to the commission, ACT police arrested former construction union organiser and previous Labor Party sub-branch president “Fihi” Kivalu.

 Police will allege that Kivalu had demanded tens of thousands of dollars in payments from tradesmen in return for getting them work.

 It has heard evidence that officials from the Health Services Union pressured their staff to cheat online right-of-entry tests in the names of their organisers and that the Australian Workers’ Union added workers to their membership roll without the knowledge or consent of those workers.

 It also heard that the Transport Workers Union arranged to have a superannuation fund pay its own Assistant Secretary $93,000 for 2½ day’s work and that the AWU received ­hundreds of thousands of dollars in unexplained payments from a series of companies.

 There can be no greater ­example of the threat posed to both the ALP and the union movement by the ­commission’s digging than the revelations that Opposition Leader Bill Shorten, when leader of the AWU, was ­negotiating contracts for workers that saw massive job reductions and cuts to conditions while the union was ­simultaneously receiving secret payments from the companies involved.

 Even the most rabid Labor supporter would find it impossible to defend union bosses who have so clearly sold out workers.

 Labor MPs, a majority of whom owe their positions to union-controlled preselection committees, unconvincingly assert that the various police forces could be as effective as the royal commission.

 The lie is given to that disingenuous claim by the CFMEU’s total lack of cooperation with the authorities, which is not surprising when the total amount in fines paid by the CFMEU and affiliates through the courts or the Fair Work Commission is now in excess of $6.

1 million.

 Former ACTU president Martin Ferguson, who served as a minister in the Rudd and Gillard governments, is adamant that the commission continue, as it will.

 “I just don’t see the royal commission as a political plaything,” he told the ABC.

 “I actually think it’s potentially going to be very important in reforming the trade union movement and the Labor Party.

” For the ALP and the unions, the battle with the TURC is a battle for survival.

 For the government it is battle against corruption and for greater economic stability through more transparency.