AWU ‘wrongly claimed’ jockeys, netballers

Jockeys and netballers were wrongly counted as Australian Workers’ Union members, it has been alleged.

Bill Shorten outside the AWU's Melbourne offices in 2005. Picture: Michael Potter

Jockeys and netballers were wrongly counted as Australian Workers’ Union members, it has been alleged, with the union potentially liable for “falsely inflating” union membership.

The AWU in Victoria claimed to have “welcomed to the branch” 168 jockeys between 2007 and 2009. But submissions from counsel assisting the trade union royal commission claim that “none of the jockeys became members of the AWU”.

“Membership application forms have been produced for almost none of the jockeys in question. It is a sufficient basis to conclude that they did not become members,” counsel alleged in the submissions published on Friday night.

It was open to Commissioner Dyson Heydon to find the AWU had contravened Registered Organisations rules, counsel said.

The 2005 Diamonds netballers signed to the branch in a much-vaunted deal spearheaded by Bill Shorten were also not members, the submissions allege.

“Were the netballers ever members of the AWU? Clearly they were not. No membership applications were completed and the required membership contributions were not made,” the submissions say.

After considering several cases, counsel concluded that “AWU membership numbers and membership revenue … were falsely inflated”.

Furthermore, “it is likely that there were further arrangements of this kind not deal with in the evidence before the commission”.

The Australian revealed the Diamonds had were not AWU members almost a decade after Mr Shorten claimed to have signed 120 players to the Victorian branch when he was national and state secretary.

Victorian branch secretary Ben Davis, who took over from Cesar Melhem, took the players off the membership roll after discovering the players were paying a “service charge” for advice, not a membership fee.