Michael Lawler’s rush to join Kathy Jackson’s US trip

­Michael Lawler pressed Fair Work to pay for a flight to New York, enabling him to travel with girlfriend Kathy Jackson.

Flying high

Fair Work vice-president ­Michael Lawler pressed the commission to pay for a last-minute business-class flight to New York, enabling him to travel with his girlfriend Kathy Jackson on one of her trips paid for with funds rorted from the Health Services Union.

The Australian has established that Fair Work was given three days’ notice to book the one-way ticket — costing upwards of $6000 — in July 2011. Mr Lawler told his boss — then Fair Work president Geoff Giudice — that he planned to attend an industrial relations conference in the US. Mr Lawler’s Qantas flight from Melbourne to New York on July 22 matches travel on the same day taken by Ms Jackson, according to Federal Court documents subpoenaed from Qantas.

Mr Lawler’s travel arrangements are contained in Fair Work records released to The Australian under Freedom of Information. The requisition form reveals that Mr Lawler’s travel was approved by Justice Giudice on July 18, 2011.

The purpose of Mr Lawler’s travel, according to his request for Fair Work to pay his airfare and five days’ travel allowances covering accommodation and ­incidentals, was to attend the American Association of Labor Relations Agencies’ conference at the Hyatt Regency in Jersey City, outside New York. Accommodation costs alone are likely to have added several thousand dollars over the five-night stay, all at taxpayers’ expense.

Flying high

Mr Lawler was neither a speaker nor a listed participant at the conference, but was to attend as a visitor.

The paperwork was countersigned at Fair Work on July 19. Mr Lawler departed for New York on QF93 from Melbourne at 9.30am on July 22. After landing in Los Angeles, he took QF107 to New York.

Ms Jackson flew Qantas from Melbourne to Los Angeles, and then from Los Angeles to New York, on July 22, 2011, commencing a four-week international holiday.

It was a period in the couple’s life when they were accustomed to top-shelf treatment. In September 2011 they took a flight between Canberra and Melbourne, according to documents lodged with the Federal Court this year, with Mr Lawler’s and Ms Jackson’s tickets marked to show they were members of the elite, invitation-only Qantas Chairman’s Lounge. Mr Lawler is understood to have been accredited to the Chairman’s Lounge by dint of his position at Fair Work, with Ms Jackson ­accredited as his partner.

The Australian revealed this year that Mr Lawler took sick leave for more than nine months from May last year on full pay of $435,000 a year — time that overlapped with his work on court matters, affidavits and other documents for Ms Jackson, a former boss of the HSU who faced allegations she had stolen $1.4 million to fund personal shopping, payments on her mortgage and ­extravagant holidays.

On October 11 this year, following The Australian’s investigation into Mr Lawler’s use of sick leave and his alleged abusive behaviour towards an industrial advocate ­appearing before him, Employment Minister Michaelia Cash ­announced an independent ­inquiry.

The appointment of retired Federal Court judge and barrister Peter Heerey QC was announced on October 19, together with terms of reference that include whether Mr Lawler should be removed by parliament for misbehaviour or incapacity. Mr Lawler is understood to have checked himself into a mental health facility soon after the commencement of the Heerey inquiry.

Ms Jackson has entered mental facilities a number of times during critical points in HSU legal action against her.

Fair Work commissioner Greg Harrison was the official Fair Work representative at the ALRA conference, which celebrated the organisation’s 60th anniversary from July 23-27, 2011. The conference had been a year in the planning, with speakers from across the US and Canada.

While Mr Lawler attended conference sessions, according to others Ms Jackson did not attend presentations, but joined Mr Lawler at social sessions afterwards. However, following Mr Harrison’s speech on industrial relations developments in Australia, Mr Lawler took the podium for a few minutes.

According to some present, he used profanities that shocked his audience — saying that he knew the Australian system was “f..ked”, but had not realised “how f..ked the US system was”. It was a performance that drew barely a clap.

A report of Mr Harrison’s trip was included under the heading “member activities” in the 2011-12 Fair Work Australia annual report. This followed protocol for all members travelling domestically or overseas.

Mr Harrison’s entry stated he had addressed the ALRA on contemporary workplace issues in Australia. Mr Lawler’s trip was not listed in the annual report.

After the ALRA conference, Ms Jackson travelled to London, and arrived back in Melbourne four weeks later on August 21. It is unknown who paid for Mr Lawler’s return airfare. He did not request a return trip in his Fair Work travel requisition form, suggesting he had plans for a holiday following the New York conference.

The Australian sent questions to Mr Lawler asking whether he had taken work trips or vacations with Ms Jackson on any dates which the Federal Court found she had taken using funds rorted from the HSU and whether he had benefited from any funds Ms Jackson was found to have misappropriated. Mr Lawler did not respond.

There is no suggestion Mr Lawler accessed funds misappropriated from the HSU.

Ms Jackson’s itinerary on the July-August 2011 trip to New York shows that two weeks after arriving in New York, she booked another trip, paid in English pounds. Finally, on August 17, she flew from London to Hong Kong, staying for five days before returning to Melbourne on August 21.

The Fair Work website shows a Full Bench including Mr Lawler published an appeal decision on August 8. The hearings had been held nine months before.

There was no indication of whether Mr Lawler was in Australia or overseas when the decision appeared on the site.

Three days after returning on August 21, 2011, from her trip to New York, Ms Jackson referred allegations of theft against her HSU predecessor and Labor MP Craig Thomson, to police. She ­appeared on the ABC’s Lateline to press her case. Asked by host Tony Jones about Mr Thomson and whether misappropriation of union funds was a crime, Ms Jackson responded that she believed it was. She went on to say: “Our members that work in aged-care facilities and in other health sector instrumentalities are the working-class people. They earn less than $20 an hour doing work that nobody else wants to do.”

At this point Ms Jackson, ­according to this year’s Federal Court findings against her, had ­almost finished siphoning $284,000 from a union account, much of it for holidays and shopping — as well as running up personal credit card expenditure and cheques of a further $500,000.

Ten days after referring Mr Thomson to police, and a week after claiming she had found a shovel on her doorstep, Ms Jackson was checked into a mental health unit by Mr Lawler. He told journalists that he believed she had suffered a breakdown caused by the pressure she had been under for weeks over the Thomson allegations.

Ms Jackson had been holidaying in New York, London and Hong Kong less than two weeks before.