Union slush fund exit’s timing poses questions for Fair Work Commission appointee

Ben Redford back in 2011 when he was rallying the troops against a paint supplier for several big carmakers.

A bit of embarrassment over at the Fair Work Commission in recent weeks, with tardy disclosures over a union election campaign fund posing questions for new Commissioner Ben Redford.

Redford was appointed to Fair Work only a year ago from the United Workers Union. He was one of a slew of union appointees to the industrial commission made by Anthony Albanese’s government since taking office in an attempt – they say – to even the score after a decade of employer-side appointments made by its predecessors.

A former executive director of UWU, for a decade Redford was also a director and secretary of a curious little company called Your UTF Limited which appears, from its constitution, to be little more than a vehicle to fund the campaigns of approved candidates in UWU internal elections.

This version seems to be a little more formal than most, but election slush funds are pretty common in union circles. They essentially exist to bankroll the campaigns of the incumbent leadership (and their approved successors), and thwart efforts by dissident members and officials to wrest control of a union.

In the case of Your UTF, the directors, including Redford, were authorised to fund opinion polling, advertising, office space, even wages and travel for approved candidates.

Despite his Fair Work appointment, however, until early last week Redford was still listed in ASIC records as a director and the company secretary of Your UTF. On the face of it, a bit of a conflict of interest and a breach of the commission’s rules.

But then a week ago, curiously enough, Your UTF director Andrew Jones – who heads up UWU’s membership and organising efforts among casino workers – filed a belated update with ASIC, flagging that Redford had resigned from the company on July 9, 2024, a day after joining the Fair Work Commission.

Leave your union affiliations at the door.

When asked about Your UTF on Wednesday, Redford told Margin Call he’d resigned from his roles at the election funder a year ago, and “discharged all of his relevant responsibilities on this date”.

If there was an administrative delay in notifying ASIC, he said, that’s a matter for the company.

That’s an explanation that Margin Call is happy to accept, and there’s no suggestion Redford played any active role in either the UWU or Your UTF after his appointment. Though we’d note that, as the outgoing company secretary, surely it was still Redford’s job to make sure the paperwork got filed with ASIC on time?

The UWU declined to comment, saying it was a matter for the company and its directors.

But we’re still curious about the timing of the sudden disclosure.

Sometimes the simple explanations are the most likely, though.

The UWU heads into internal elections next year, likely to be scheduled around April or May.

Now is about the time that the union’s leadership is dusting off the campaign machinery – election slush funds included.

Perhaps a quick look in the pile of Your UTF’s paperwork (not stored at the union office, for certain), reminded Jones of his director’s obligations.

Kiwis up in arms

Secret lobbyist meetings, retrospective laws, and legislation to snuff out a New Zealand class action targeting two of Australia’s biggest banks; it’s a recipe for consumer outrage in Australia’s near neighbour.

All of that was aired in New Zealand’s parliament on Wednesday, as the Commonwealth Bank and ANZ edge closer to an extraordinary boost after the country’s Luxon government seeks to change the country’s consumer laws.

Under NZ law, banks are required to make sure borrowers have enough information to make an informed decision before taking out a loan – and also along the way, when changes are made to the loan fees and conditions.

Since 2021 a class action has been running alleging the ANZ and Commonwealth Bank subsidiary ASB owe up to 170,000 customers interest and fees for disclosure failures over existing mortgages. It’s a case which, if proven in court, could cost the banks hundreds of millions of dollars.

ANZ has already paid about $35m in repayments to customers over the failings between 2015 and 2019, blaming a coding error for misstating the interest payable through a loan calculator. ASB returned about $8m.

And while the banks say they should only need to repay the actual damage from their mistakes, lawyers for consumers argue they should face punitive costs to discourage the banks from writing off similar mistakes as just a cost of business.

ANZ has been vigorously defending itself against the lawsuit. Picture: Getty Images

It’s a case with a tortuous history in the courts, and the pair have been fighting the lawsuit, backed by litigation funder LPF, every step of the way. The case has caused outrage in New Zealand and not least because CBA and ANZ are the biggest players in its small banking sector, making an estimated $3bn a year from the country.

The intervention of the country’s conservative government earlier this year by introducing retrospective changes to consumer laws that would change the rules – and that specifically target the class-action case by name – could deliver the Aussie banks almost immediate relief.

But it was the bankers’ extraordinary lobbying effort to win the new laws that were on display in parliamentary committee hearings in New Zealand on Wednesday. Lawyers for consumers told the committee that, when new laws were proposed last year, they were told they would not be retrospective.

But New Zealand lawyer Scott Russell told the committee that, only a few months after receiving the assurance, government officials met with banking lobbyists – and retrospective laws were the result.

Russell said consumers affected by the changes weren’t invited – and the minutes of what was said at the meeting with bankers have been kept under veil of secrecy. Along with the reasons his class action has specifically been named in the legislation.

Good question. Not one that would be answered under Australia’s weak lobbying and freedom of information laws either, to be fair – and New Zealand’s appear to be worse.

The legislation is still to come before parliament, though, and needs the support of at least some minority parties to pass.

It would be a brave New Zealand politician, you’d think, who would back Australia’s big banks over their own constituents.