AFP raids Australian Workers’ Union headquarters in Sydney and Melbourne
THE Australian Workers’ Union has launched legal action in response to police raids on its Melbourne and Sydney offices which it describes as an “outrageous abuse of power”.
NSW
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THE Australian Workers’ Union has launched legal action in response to police raids on its Melbourne and Sydney offices which it describes as an “outrageous abuse of power”.
Representing the AWU, Maurice Blackburn Lawyers today sought an urgent hearing in Victoria’s Federal Court to challenge the validity of the raids.
“This is an outrageous abuse of power and a farcical misuse of police resources that raises serious questions about the conduct of both the ROC (Registered Organisations Commission) and federal minister Michaelia Cash, who instigated the investigation,” lawyer Josh Bornstein said in a statement.
Earler, Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull said the AWU and Bill Shorten have questions to answer, despite the union categorically denying destroying documents related to a watchdog investigation.
“The AWU should comply with the law,” Mr Turnbull told reporters in the NSW town of Sutton today.
“The AWU has got questions to answer, Bill Shorten has questions to answer.”
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Mr Shorten today accused a “grubby” Turnbull government of using federal police to conduct a political witch-hunt against him and the trade union he once led.
“I know that this government will keep digging and digging and digging, and wasting taxpayers’ money right up until the next election,” he told reporters in Canberra.
The AFP launched simultaneous raids on the Sydney and Melbourne offices of the Australian Workers’ Union on Tuesday, amid fears documents about the questionable use of its members’ money were being concealed or destroyed.
Union watchdog the Registered Organisations Commission requested the raids as part of its investigation into more than $150,000 in donations made by the union when Mr Shorten was in charge.
Labor immediately slammed the probe as a “witch hunt” and accused the PM of colluding with the AFP and treating them as his “play thing”.
A disgrace. Media alerted before union. ROC inappropriately using AFP resources. Turnbull is trying to destroy the voices of Aust workers
— Luke Hilakari (@lhilakari) October 24, 2017
The AFP raided the union’s national headquarters in Sydney and its Victorian branch, with up to 10 plainclothes officers entering the Sussex St headquarters shortly after 4.30pm as uniformed police stood guard at elevators below the 10th floor offices.
At the same time in Melbourne, another team of officers in unmarked cars descended on the union’s Spencer St offices.
The ROC is probing a $100,000 donation made in 2006 to help launch activist group GetUp! when Mr Shorten was also a director of the self-described “independent movement’’.
The Commission said last night it had received information “which raised reasonable grounds for suspecting that documents relevant to this investigation may be on the premises of the AWU ... and that those documents may be being interfered with (by being concealed or destroyed)”.
