THE GUILTY PLEA by former ALP National President and Health Services Union head Michael Williamson to fraud charges totalling almost $1 million is a pivot point in a sea of enquiries into union corruption; the development strengthens calls for a Royal Commission into the union movement.
It’s hardly something to rejoice in the streets about given the gravity of the offences, but Michael Williamson’s guilty plea to fraud charges represents a welcome development in the plethora of criminal investigations into union figures that have been on foot for some time.
And considering the official pursuit of Williamson began with him trying to make off with a volume of incriminating documents as the HSU’s offices were raided by Police last year, Williamson might have even saved the taxpayer a little time and expense in the process.
Even so, criminal investigations are continuing into the Australian Workers’ Union (and specifically, the role — if any — of former Prime Minister Julia Gillard and her associates) with fraud Police undertaking an exhaustive forensic examination of allegations criminal misconduct occurred at that union during the 1990s.
There is also a criminal prosecution against former Labor MP (and ex-HSU official) Craig Thomson underway, relating to the alleged misappropriation of monies from the HSU during and after his time at its head.
Rumours and allegations of union corruption, bastardry, thuggery, criminal misconduct and other unsavoury goings-on have been rife — and well-known — for many years.
Occasionally something comes of them and someone is prosecuted, but for the most part they remain just that: rumours.
It is also true that as the law stands today, unions and their executives are not subjected to the same rigorous protocols of governance and disclosure as registered companies and their directors are: a situation that must be remedied as an urgent item of business for the new Liberal government.
It stands to reason that for every crook who is caught doing the wrong thing that there are others who get away with it; indeed, for the dodgier types in this world to become crooks in the first place it’s a reasonable bet that they give in to the temptation because others set a first-hand example in how to get away with it.
Clearly, it is not possible to legislate against stupidity, nor regulate people and institutions to the point they are impossible to rort; it is incumbent upon those who hold positions of responsibility to be accountable, and for this to occur a relationship of trust must exist — even if such relationships are, from time to time, abused.
The charges to which Williamson has admitted guilt are the result of such an abuse of trust.
The Thomson matters remain before the Courts and the investigations into the AWU are yet to be concluded, so it is not possible to comment on those specifically, although it is not necessary either.
Based on the development yesterday in the Williamson matter — and with an eye on the mass of anecdotal and circumstantial evidence that has accrued over time (to say nothing of silenced whistleblowers’ complaints) — it is reasonable to assert that what is currently in public view represents the mere tip of the iceberg.
This column openly and unreservedly endorses the establishment of a Royal Commission into the union movement in Australia, with sweeping terms of reference to investigate every aspect of unions’ operations, their financial affairs and governance, and any evidence of misconduct or criminal behaviour by their officials.
Nobody is advocating the wholesale disbanding of the union movement, although sometimes I think it wouldn’t be such a bad idea.
But those unions — and union personnel — with nothing to hide will have nothing to fear; indeed, coupled with a regulatory review to bring the standard of governance into line with that enforced upon the corporate sector, continuing unions would operate in the knowledge that their organisations, moving forward, were scrupulously clean and corruption-free.
Nobody suggests for a moment that new Labor leader Bill Shorten is remotely connected to any of the so-called revelations uncovered at the Health Services Union, so I insist readers take the remarks in the following paragraph as written.
I simply make the point that as the new leader of a party enmeshed with the union movement — and a very senior union figure prior to entering Parliament as the head of one of the unions being investigated at present — it would be shrewd for Shorten to offer the government bipartisan backing for such a Commission, with reasonable assurances in return that it wouldn’t degenerate into a witch hunt.
Australians generally — and union members particularly — must have confidence that unions are clean, well-administered, and corruption-free.
Far from selling his mates down the river, Shorten could claim credit for facilitating proof of the integrity of his beloved trade union movement if he offers constructive co-operation, rather than seeking to obstruct the government from establishing the enquiry it promised in its campaign to win office.
But as much as these considerations cast a pall over the union movement, so too do they affect the ALP.
Williamson wasn’t just a union man, he was the National President of the Labor Party, and that — with his status as the newly-minted Labor leader an exciting but unchartered reality for him to contemplate — should give Shorten something else to think about as well.
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