Probe released into political donations made by AWU when Bill Shorten was national secretary

A four-year probe into political donations by the Australian Workers’ Union when Bill Shorten was national secretary is finally released.

Shadow Minister for Government Services and the NDIS, Bill Shorten. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Gary Ramage

A four-year probe into political donations made by the Australian Workers’ Union when Bill Shorten was national secretary found the AWU broke the law and breached its own rules 20 times.

The Registered Organisations Commission’s final report, effectively closing the AWU investigation, revealed the union contravened federal law nine times by lodging annual statements between 2006 and 2016 “outside of the statutory timeframe requirements or by not lodging a required statement at all”.

The report said in some cases the statements “were not lodged until years after the statutory periods had elapsed”.

“The AWU has admitted it failed to lodge a LGD statement at all in 2007 and has never met that obligation in circumstances in which its internal records showed that it made about $42,000 of donations that have never been disclosed to its members. This included at least three political donations totalling $33,000,” the report said.

“The AWU did not follow the processes set out in its own rules, in particular Rule 57, on 20 occasions between 2006 and 2008.

“While some records and the relevant minutes of the national executive have been produced and examined, the AWU has failed to, and admitted that it cannot, produce any evidence of express resolutions by the national executive authorising any of the 20 relevant donations.”

The ROC, which wrote to the AWU about its “failings and admitted contraventions as identified in the investigation”, said it was “not in the public interest … to take further regulatory action against the AWU or any individual in relation to these matters” unless new information emerged.

The AWU investigation was triggered after union sources told The Australian that Mr Shorten “was a founding director of the political activist group GetUp and that the AWU’s rules concerning donations were not followed when $100,000 was donated to GetUp”.

“Further media reports raised doubts about whether the former national secretary had gained proper authorisation for a $25,000 donation made by the AWU to the Australian Labor Party in the seat of Maribyrnong in the lead-up to the 2007 federal election,” the report said.

Mr Shorten entered parliament at the 2007 election after winning the seat of Maribyrnong. The former Labor leader slammed the ROC investigation on Friday as an “ideological smear job by a pack of gutless cowards”.

“After a 5 year … political witch-hunt that has cost taxpayers millions of dollars, this government has used the cover of the Russian invasion of Ukraine story to quietly just drop everything because of ‘the absence of sufficient evidence’,” Mr Shorten tweeted.

“I’m proud of what I did for workers. The Morrison government tried to lie and it’s failed and amounted to nothing just like the disgraced Dyson Heydon Royal Commission.”

Attorney-General Michaelia Cash said the AWU breached the law “on 20 separate occasions by both making unauthorised donations and failing to disclose them to its members or the relevant authorities”. Liberal senators Amanda Stoker and Eric Abetz said Mr Shorten had “serious questions to answer” and should “reconsider his future”.

Senator Cash said Labor’s pledge to abolish the ROC would remove “vital oversight into how the funds of union members are spent”.

Opposition industrial relations spokesman Tony Burke recommitted Labor defund the ROC and return its regulatory functions to the Fair Work Commission.

AWU national secretary Daniel Walton said Senator Cash owed the union an apology after the ROC “terminated” its investigation on Thursday night.

Mr Walton said the ROC had “effectively conceded that the whole thing was an enormous waste of time – four years too late.