Disbelief, anger, shock: Kathy Jackson sentence doesn’t measure up

The leniency shown to Kathy Jackson for her systematic theft over a seven-year period was the headline issue for former colleagues and others wanting justice in a criminal case that has dragged on far too long.

“Unbelievable,” said a Health Services Union leader who once worked closely with Jackson. “It’s shocking,” said another.

The penalty given to the ex-HSU chief by judge Amanda Fox in the County Court of Victoria on Thursday — a two-year jail term, suspended — was no surprise as such.

During sentencing submissions last week, the judge repeated what she’d flagged at a plea hearing last month: that Jackson would not spend time behind bars.

Still, the HSU’s new crop of leaders had hoped against hope that Fox might opt for a custodial sentence that recognised the gravity of Jackson’s misconduct and set an example.

The first consideration, at its most basic, was Jackson showing zero remorse for stealing more than $100,000 of her union members’ money between 2003 and 2010 to fund a lavish personal lifestyle.

Overseas holidays, a Charles Blackman painting and even a car for Jackson’s former husband were all paid by the HSU. Jackson deliberately deceived her Victorian branch’s bookkeeper and branch committee of management by lying about her spending and disguising it in accounts.

Fox noted that Jackson’s fraud was “brazen” and “motivated by greed”. Yet this was punished with the equivalent of being slapped by a wet lettuce leaf while other white-collar criminals could expect some real jail term for helping themselves to $100,000 of other people’s money.

Further anger inside the HSU is based on more direct examples of comparative justice. Jackson supposedly blew the whistle in late 2011 on her former union ally, NSW HSU boss Michael Williamson, claiming he had misspent union funds for his lavish lifestyle.

Whether Jackson actually blew the whistle on anything is a matter for another time. What is pertinent for now is that Williamson later pleaded guilty to defrauding the HSU of $1m: he was sentenced in a NSW court to 7 ½ years’ jail and served five with parole.

Craig Thomson, a Williamson acolyte who was HSU national secretary before becoming a federal Labor MP in 2007, was originally accused of misusing more than $100,000 of union funds. After a bungled prosecution in Victoria, Thomson was convicted of stealing $24,538 and sentenced to 12 months’ jail, with nine months suspended.

On appeal, he escaped with a $25,000 fine when his thieving total was reduced to less than $5000. Without that appeal and more bungling, he was set for three months behind bars for stealing less than $25,000.

Fox is an experienced jurist, appointed a judge two years ago, and sentencing felons is a complex process.

Last week another of her rulings attracted attention when a 21-year-old Indigenous man was found guilty of common-law assault but not guilty of intent to commit a sexual offence. Fox sentenced the man to 42 days’ jail. He walked free after time served.

In Jackson’s sentencing, Fox played down her whistleblowing as a mitigating factor: she was unable to conclude whether Jackson was motivated by genuine remorse or self-interest. But she did take into account Jackson’s saving the court the time and expense of a second jury trial (after a first held in secret last October).

None of this wipes away the HSU’s exasperation: if you’re Jackson, they say, you can almost get away with it.