Bill Shorten ‘bet’ on HSU race

BILL Shorten has been accused of directly involving himself in elections for the troubled Health Services Union.

Former Health Services Union official Marco Bolano at the royal commission yesterday. Picture: Cameron Richardson

BILL Shorten has been accused of directly involving himself in elections for the troubled Health ­Services Union when he was a senior member of the Rudd government by donating $5000 to a candidate’s campaign.

Marco Bolano, a key ally of HSU whistleblower Kathy Jackson, told the royal commission into union corruption yesterday he was “stunned” when he was told the now federal Labor leader had contributed to his 2009 ­campaign.

When Mr Bolano asked “why on earth” Mr Shorten would pay the money when he backed a Jackson-Bolano opponent, he said his campaign manager, ­Stephen Donnelly, told him: “He’s having a bet both ways.”

Mr Shorten is a former national secretary of the Australian Workers Union, and was Kevin Rudd’s parliamentary secretary for disabilities at the time of the ­alleged payment.

He later became minister for workplace relations in the Gillard government with ministerial responsibility for fallout from an HSU scandal after Ms Jackson ­exposed its now-convicted leaders Craig Thomson and Michael Williamson.

Mr Shorten has continued his involvement in union faction politics since entering parliament in 2007 because he is a senior figure in the ALP’s Victorian Right, and union delegate numbers are ­important to holding power in the party.

But it is unusual for a senior Labor MP to give money to an ­individual union candidate.

A spokesman for Mr Shorten dismissed Mr Bolano’s allegation last night, saying: “The claim is completely untrue.”

Mr Bolano said the alleged Shorten donation was the “buzz” of his campaign phone room one night as the news spread.

He did not know if the alleged donation came from “some fund” or Mr Shorten personally. He said he asked that the money be returned to Mr Shorten — but he doubted it was handed back ­because his campaign manager, Mr Donnelly, “laughed my ­suggestion off”.

It is the second time Mr Shorten’s name has been dragged into the royal commission. Last week former AWU official Bob Kernohan claimed that — as an ambitious AWU official in 1996 — Mr Shorten told him to “think of your future” and drop pursuing slush fund allegations involving AWU leader Bruce Wilson and his then girlfriend, Slater & Gordon lawyer Julia Gillard.

Mr Shorten denied Mr Kernohan’s claim through a spokesman in 2012 and again last February.

Mr Bolano said yesterday another senior Victorian federal Labor MP, David Feeney, was responsible for raising funds for his election campaign in the HSU’s No 1 branch in 2009.

According to Mr Bolano, Mr Feeney arranged for Mr Donnelly, Mr Feeney’s chief of staff, to be his campaign manager for the 2009 HSU election. He said he learned later that tobacco company Philip Morris had contributed to his HSU election campaign and he was “perplexed” why a cigarette maker would want to contribute to a cam­paign in a health union election.

Mr Feeney told The Australian last night: “The idea that Bill ­donated to the Bolano campaign is a nonsense. Never happened. Never even heard the suggestion before.”

The Labor MP said he stood by comments to Fairfax Media last month that he had “not solicited any donation from Philip Morris for any purpose since 2004”.

Mr Feeney, who is close to Ms Jackson, also noted that Philip Morris had denied the claim. He was happy for Mr Donnelly to provide Mr Bolano with campaign advice, he said, but the role could not be reasonably described as campaign manager.

As reported in The Australian yesterday, counsel assisting the royal commission, Jeremy Stoljar SC, confirmed at the hearing later this week he would put allegations to Ms Jackson that she used hundreds of thousands of dollars of HSU funds from her union’s No 3 branch in Victoria for a slush fund and personal expenses.

Mr Stoljar said the commission would hear evidence from Ms Jackson in relation to allegations she used $1 million in members’ funds to pay off two personal credit cards between 2000 and 2011; did not gain authorisation or make proper disclosure of almost $250,000 in union funds paid to the “National Health Development Account”; withdrew $220,00 in cash using HSU bank cheques between 2007 and 2010; and was involved in a “slush fund”.