Benched from Fair Work: Lawler battles for his union ‘mate’

Fair Work Commission vice-president Michael Lawler has taken six months leave as Kathy Jackson battles claims.

Lawler goes into battle for union ‘mate’

Fair Work Commission vice-president Michael Lawler has taken more than six months of personal sick leave in the past 12 months, as his partner, the former national secretary of the beleaguered Health Services Union, Kathy Jackson, has battled allegations of misusing more than $1 million in members’ funds.

Mr Lawler has been a familiar face at Ms Jackson’s side while he was on leave from Fair Work and as Ms Jackson confronted allegations in both the Federal Court and at the Royal Commission into Trade Union Governance and Corruption.

But with Ms Jackson’s next court hearing scheduled for Monday and a trial due to start on June 29 into HSU claims against her, concerns at Fair Work have focused on Mr Lawler and his public role in this bloody and internecine union legal war.

After Mr Lawler personally intervened in the Federal Court a year ago, seeking to represent Ms Jackson as her advocate, questions rolled through Fair Work about perceptions of a conflict of interest for this senior member of the industrial relations tribunal. Mr Lawler was understood to have been on sick leave from Fair Work at the time.

Neither Mr Lawler nor the President of Fair Work, Iain Ross, responded to questions as to whether Mr Lawler had permission to operate as a legal advocate in the Federal Court on behalf of a unionist whose union was frequently in front of the Fair Work Commission.

Fair Work has no legal capacity to require Mr Lawler to return to work. The terms of his employment in 2002 are silent on “sick leave” limits and he could in theory, continue to take sick leave for years unless disciplined by the Parliament.

Michael Lawler was appointed as a vice-president in 2002 by Prime Minister Tony Abbott, who at the time was the workplace relations minister in the Howard government. In his welcome speech, Mr Abbott offered personal insights into Mr Lawler’s character, extolling the virtues he would bring to the tribunal.

At Fair Work, Mr Lawler holds the status of, and enjoys the terms and conditions of, a Federal Court Judge. He is entitled to be called “Your Honour”, although not “Judge”. He is paid at a higher rate than a judge, with the previous Workplace Relations Act setting his salary at 103 per cent of the salary paid to a real judge. In Mr Lawler’s case this is $435,000.

In the past two years, case decisions by Mr Lawler have been reduced to a trickle as he has taken long periods of sick leave although the nature of his illness is not known by colleagues at Fair Work.

Mr Lawler did not respond this week to questions about whether he was currently working on any legal or advisory aspects of Ms Jackson’s court action with the HSU.

Justice Tracey in the Federal Court has set aside 10 days for Ms Jackson’s trial.

This former whistleblower on union corruption — whose revelations resulted in the jailing of HSU heavyweight Michael Williamson and the fall of former HSU national secretary and Labor MP Craig Thomson, has been mired in her own scandals for two years as the union turned its investigation her way.

Mr Lawler is believed to be on leave until August and there is trepidation at Fair Work over the potential for any involvement in Ms Jackson’s case to spill over again at the commission — after the bruising and very public damage sustained by Fair Work in 2012 when its associated administrative arm took three years to complete its Craig Thomson investigation.