Former HSU boss Kathy Jackson guilty of misusing union funds
Health services union boss Kathy Jackson’s fall from grace has been enormous, with the former corruption-fighting whistleblower guilty of the same dodgy dealings she once policed.
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Disgraced health services union boss Kathy Jackson who was once dubbed a hero as a corruption-fighting whistleblower has been found guilty of misusing union funds.
In a massive fall from grace, a jury found Jackson, 53, guilty of two counts of obtaining financial advantage by deception — valued at $35,100 — on December 10 last year.
But verdicts of not guilty were returned on 18 theft charges relating to $284,500 worth of union funds, and a further charge of obtaining financial advantage.
The Herald Sun was prohibited from reporting the verdicts until now as Jackson was expected to face a second trial on 48 other fraud-related offences.
But the mother of three appeared via video link in the County Court on Monday where the second trial was vacated and she pleaded guilty to two rolled-up charges of obtaining financial advantage by deception totalling almost $68,000.
Her admittance brings an end to the long-running saga and comes after County Court Judge Mandy Fox last week indicated she would not send her to jail if the matter resolved.
Jackson, from the NSW coastal town of Wombarra, was initially charged with 166 theft and fraud offences following a probe into the misappropriation of $500,000 of union funds between 2004 and 2010.
The former HSU secretary denied any wrongdoing and pleaded not guilty to all charges.
She was ordered to face two separate trials in the County Court.
The first trial, held late last year, heard she had set up a secret slush fund and had a cookie tin in her office where thousands of dollars in union cash was stashed.
Prosecutor Mark Gibson told the jury Jackson had deceived the union with “back room dealing for her own advancement”.
“The evidence from this secret, non-union account was used for personal lifestyle spending, to drawdown on her mortgage, to pay to her own savings account or her joint savings account, to pay her husband Jeff Jackson, and as we have heard, as a source of cash withdrawals, many of them, in large sums,” Mr Gibson said.
“Ms Jackson deliberately and dishonestly, over a period of six years, spent the union’s funds at her own discretion.”
He said Jackson had not followed the rules and got approval from the Branch Committee of Management before transferring the funds into a separate account.
But the jury was only convinced Jackson had stepped out of line in two dodgy transactions, finding the dozens of other alleged theft offences were legitimate work expenses.
The first one was in August 2007, where she credited $13,100 into her personal Commonwealth Bank account, falsely representing to HSU it was for business-related expenses she incurred when attending meetings in the United States.
The second related to using union members’ money to pay off a $22,000 debt owed by her then husband, Jeffrey Jackson, to Daniel Chan, misrepresenting it as “legal expenses” for research conducted by Wai Quen Chan.
Each expense was accompanied by a note saying the invoice was missing.
The criminal investigation into Jackson was sparked after the Federal Court ordered in August 2015 that she repay $1.4 million in compensation to the HSU of misappropriated funds.
She had claimed bankruptcy a month earlier.
Giving evidence at the trial, Jackson said: “I just can’t believe it’s got to this.”
She said the court case had taken a toll on her mental health, adding: “I’m barely functional most days.”
“I have been dealing with this for about eight years now and I have lived and breathed this for eight years,” she said.
“I have been in and out of mental health facilities and maybe for the last three years.”
She has been diagnosed with major depressive disorder, PTSD and anxiety, she told the court.
Jackson said she joined HSU in the early 90s as a member while working in the kitchen of an aged care facility.
In 1992 and aged just 22, she applied and got the job as an HSU organiser/industrial officer, before being appointed the Victorian branch’s secretary in 1996.
Jackson went on to hold the role of national secretary of the union from January 2008 to February 2015 when she was forced out when the allegations of misuse of funds rose.
After she blew the whistle on ex-HSU bosses Michael Williamson and Craig Thomson, former Prime Minister Tony Abbott called her “heroic”.
Then Education Minister Christopher Pyne also described her as a “revolutionary” and “a lion of the union movement”.
Jackson will be sentenced at a later date.
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