The Labor leader, Bill Shorten, has been summonsed to appear before the royal commission into trade union governance and corruption on 8 July.
The commission confirmed on Thursday it had agreed to a request from Shorten to bring forward the date of a hearing to answer questions about the deals he reached with companies when he led the Australian Workers’ Union.
Shorten’s lawyers wrote to commission staff on Thursday asking for his scheduled appearance to occur during the winter parliamentary recess in July, rather than the originally earmarked timeframe of August or September.
The commissioner, Dyson Heydon, confirmed he had issued a summons on Thursday for Shorten to appear before him on 8 July.
“The commissioner has agreed to a request from lawyers representing Mr Shorten to bring forward the date of his proposed appearance from August/September,” a spokesman for the commission said in a statement.
“The commission’s preference had been to address all matters concerning Mr Shorten in one sitting. However, given Mr Shorten’s request to bring his examination forward by several months, this will now not be possible.”
The spokesman said the hearing would be in accordance with a practice direction “which means Mr Shorten will initially only be examined by counsel assisting”.
“Any person affected by Mr Shorten’s evidence will be able to apply for authorisation to cross examine him at a later date,” he said.
The request came as fresh questions were raised about the quality of agreements negotiated when he led the AWU, either as national secretary or Victorian state secretary, before he entered federal parliament in 2007.
Fairfax Media reported that the construction joint venture Thiess John Holland paid the AWU nearly $300,000 between 2005 and 2007. Fairfax suggested that workers’ conditions had been cut under the workplace deal presided over by Shorten. The workers were building the East Link tollway in Melbourne.
Labor frontbencher Richard Marles defended Shorten, saying it was “an absolutely impeccable agreement which paid record rates to the people involved for an urban civil construction project in this country”.
Tony Shepherd, the former audit commission chief who was the chairman of Connect East which subcontracted Thiess John Holland, told the Australian Financial Review it was “a great agreement” for all involved.
Shorten was due to be called to give evidence to the Abbott government-initiated royal commission in August or September, but has faced repeated questions at media conferences about the content of deals the AWU reached.
In a letter to the commission on Thursday, Shorten’s lawyer Leon Zwier said he had advised the Labor leader “not to answer questions or comment on the issues that may be the subject of his appearance before the commission”.
“Mr Shorten has therefore instructed me to write to you to request that the commission bring forward the date of his proposed appearance from August/September to July when the parliament is in winter recess,” Zwier wrote.
“Mr Shorten desires to bring forward the date of his appearance so that he may address all issues of interest to the commission at the earliest mutually convenient time.”
Zwier also asked the commission to provide him with “immediate access to all documents that concern Mr Shorten”.
Shorten was national secretary of the AWU from 2001 to 2007. He also was state secretary of the Victorian branch from 1998 to 2006.
Government ministers have argued Shorten had questions to answers about his time at the AWU.
The acting employment minister, Christopher Pyne, said Shorten should not wait until the royal commission hearing to provide a detailed explanation.
Pyne told parliament on Thursday: “Why did Thiess John Holland regarded payment of $300,000 to the AWU as an acknowledgement of the flexibility of the AWU deal? What does acknowledgement of the flexibility of the AWU deal mean? Now, these are matters that are within the knowledge of the leader of the opposition and that’s why he needs to answer those questions. He can’t wait until August.”
Shorten, in confirming last week that he would attend the royal commission, said he had always put the interest of workers first and had “zero tolerance for corruption or criminality in the workplace – whether you are an employer, employee or union representative”.
He has used a similar turn of phrase to answer direct questions about particular deals.
Marles said Shorten was “not running away” from questions and would answer them at the royal commission but would not be distracted from holding the government to account. Marles said he was was “completely confident” that Shorten had done nothing wrong.
“None of what we have heard – not in the Fairfax papers today, not from the prime minister last week – nothing have we heard from anyone in relation to Bill Shorten which suggests any illegality at all,” Marles said.
“The only thing that people are talking about is the quality of his industrial agreements. And the one which is highlighted in Fairfax papers this morning it turns out is an absolutely impeccable agreement which paid record rates to the people involved for an urban civil construction project in this country.”
