Bill Shorten ‘gave thousands’ to ALP branch stacker, claims Kathy Jackson

BILL Shorten has been accused of handing thousands of dollars in cash to a Victorian Labor “branch stacker” to pay for ALP memberships.

Kathy Jackson outside the royal commission into union ­corruption in Sydney yesterday. Picture: Braden Fastier

BILL Shorten has been accused of handing thousands of dollars in cash to a Victorian Labor “branch stacker” to pay for ALP memberships.

The potentially damaging claim against the federal Labor leader came from Health Services Union whistleblower Kathy Jackson just minutes before the ­conclusion of her evidence to the royal commission into union ­corruption yesterday.

Ms Jackson, who exposed ­convicted former HSU bosses ­Michael Williamson and Craig Thomson over large-scale fraud, admitted to the commission that she had used HSU union money running to thousands of dollars to pay for ALP memberships.

But in a surprise move, she then dropped Mr Shorten in the middle of rort allegations by claiming he told her one weekend at his house that he had given money to the same ALP branch stacker just after she had given the man $7000.

“That weekend when I did speak to Mr Shorten about giving Mr (David) Asmar the $7000, he laughed and said that he had also given him money, and you know, ‘the bastard must have double-dipped’ that week or that month,” Ms Jackson said.

According to Ms Jackson, the alleged payments occurred before Mr Shorten entered parliament in 2007, when he was national and Victorian secretary of the Australian Workers Union, a leader of the Victorian ALP’s Right faction and a senior office bearer in the party. The HSU whistleblower was on friendly terms with Mr Shorten at the time and a factional ally, although the pair later fell out; the relationship between them is now poisonous.

The alleged ALP branch-stacker, Mr Asmar, worked for Victorian ALP senator and faction boss Stephen Conroy.

Ms Jackson made the Shorten allegation after admitting she took HSU union cash for Mr Asmar from a “little steel box” that she regarded as a leftover kitty from “sitting fees” for monthly or quarterly committee of management meetings when she led the HSU No 1 branch in Victoria from 1996 to 2010. She said she withdrew $8000 for each meeting in union cash, and paid 13 other committee members $100 each to cover their travel ­expenses.

The big balance left over was kept in the box to pay expenses for members who travelled to union rallies or barbecues, or for other union interests, she said.

She revealed her $7000 payment to Mr Asmar as an example of how she used money from the accumulating union cash kitty, or from a slush fund containing $284,000 of union money that was given to the HSU as a “windfall” payment by the Peter ­MacCallum Cancer Centre after it had been “impossible” to track down a group of workers owed the amount in backpay.

A spokesman for Mr Shorten dismissed Ms Jackson’s alle­gation against the Labor leader.

“That is just untrue,” the spokesman said. “As Mr Shorten has previously said, this royal commission provides the ­platform for all sorts of people to try to settle old scores and make wild claims. He won’t be providing a running commentary every time someone mentions his name to try to get themselves on TV.”

The spokesman used the same terms to dismiss an earlier claim by Ms Jackson yesterday that the Labor leader had been part of an ALP campaign to smear her with a “dirt file” in the media and cover up allegations against the now jailed union boss Williamson.

She told the royal commission “smears” by Mr Shorten and others started after she went to police with fraud allegations against Williamson in late 2011.

Ms Jackson remains the HSU’s honorary national secretary but has been on sick leave due to stress for almost two years.

Yesterday, she defended herself against allegations she misappropriated union funds, denying she used HSU credit cards for more than $1 million in personal expenses, illegitimately siphoned off almost $250,000 in union money meant for former Cancer Centre workers to a slush fund or inappropriately paid $36,774 in union funds to Neranto No 10, a company of which she was co-director with her former husband, Jeff Jackson.