So long, farewell, for now
That’s about enough I believe.
Let’s summarise the developments of the past two days as best we can.
- Bill Shorten sought an early appearance at the trade union royal commission to deal with a burst of anticipatory reporting about his past as a trade union official. His posture was cooperation with the process but his answers were lengthy, and in some cases, lacking in specifics. Shorten was rebuked on day two by Commissioner Dyson Heydon for seeking an early slot and then providing non-specific answers to various questions – not a great look, and perhaps a harbinger of the commission’s eventual reflection on him.
- Counsel assisting the inquiry, Jeremy Stoljar sought to make a case over the two days that the AWU under Shorten’s leadership was hopelessly conflicted through a pattern of behaviour where the AWU would seek payments from various employers at the same time as it was negotiating workplace agreements. Stoljar’s contention was the AWU was serving its own interests by seeking the income and not always adequately tending the interests of the workers, which it allowed to be paid below award wages and be transferred across to labour hire firms. Shorten’s response to that was it was common for unions to bill companies for services provided, and he said the commission was unable to demonstrate any clear conflict at an evidentiary level.
- When specific payments or arrangements were put to him, Shorten consistently told the commission he was not across the fine points, or he lacked a line of sight on the details, or the invoices were prepared by someone else – but he was confident nonetheless that he wouldn’t have participated in anything untoward. He said Thursday he would not have been a party to “bogus” invoices where the AWU pretended to provide services to justify payments from employers. He also thought it strange that the commission was seemingly rebuking an official who had tried to be cooperative and deal in a consensual way with the consequences John Howard’s labour market deregulation and of structural change in the Australian economy rather than pulling workers off worksites sites in an outbreak of futile militancy.
- Shorten was forced to admit on day one that a labour hire company had paid for a young campaign director to work with him in 2007 when he left the union and sought his seat of Maribynong. Shorten had, in essence, failed to declare a donation which was worth around $40,000 until eight years after the fact, and two days before an appearance at the royal commission. The company from which he’d sought the donation was again in and enterprise negotiation with the AWU. There was also an AWU donation not declared. Again not at all a good look, but unfortunately Shorten is just one of many politicians who fail to comply thoroughly with Australia’s highly ineffectual political disclosure regime. The law is an ass, but I’m not optimistic that it will change anytime soon.
- Shorten may have to reappear before the inquiry in the event another witness wants to challenge his account over the past 48 hours. Shorten’s lawyers will also have an opportunity to re-examine him if they so choose.
So, that was Shorten at #turc and it may not be over yet.
It is, however, over for now.
Thanks so much for your company. See you again soon.
While Shorten’s remarks about Commissioner Heydon pointed to a critique but stepped around the point, Shorten’s Victorian Labor colleague Brendan O’Connor carried the heavy freight, as he’s been doing for several days on the royal commission.
Shorten cooperative inside – commentary outside.
Brendan O’Connor, from earlier today:
It was quite remarkable that the commissioner chose to intervene and start giving gratuitous advice to Mr Shorten about the way in which he should handle questions and then make some prejudicial comments about him saying how he was not helping his case. You would never see a judge say that in a court of law in the way it was said today by the royal commissioner.
So whether or not he is a retired judge, the way he is conducting himself shows you the distinction between a court of law, with procedural fairness, where cross-examination is a right not a discretion of the commission. Where hearsay is not admissible in a court of law but is admissible in a royal commission.
These are the fundamental differences. And I think the public are becoming aware that this is not a court of law. This is an executive inquiry set up and run by Tony Abbott and paid for taxpayers’ of Australia.
Here’s a quick video grab.
No evidence demonstrated of any conflicts.
Every day I was union rep I was standing up for our members.
Bill Shorten answers questions from the media after facing the royal commission into union corruption #turc http://t.co/C9mILTAGFB
— Sky News Australia (@SkyNewsAust) July 9, 2015
The Labor leader @billshortenmp says he's put forward the case for party & union at #turc @TURoyalComm pic.twitter.com/vlyX2ezgjM
— Helen Brown (@hbrown10) July 9, 2015
Shorten told reporters despite Mr Heydon’s job to do (the inference is a job for Tony Abbott and the government which set up the inquiry), he was there to cooperate with the proceedings. He said he’s happy to put his record against Tony Abbott’s when it comes to defending the interests of workers.
Mr Heydon's got a job to do, I think we all understand that
Bill Shorten is telling reporters he said before the appearance he relished the opportunity to put his view to the commission. He said he answered all the questions put to him, hundreds of them.
I answered questions until the commission ended today, earlier than expected.
Shorten says the hearings produced no evidence of any conflict of interest.
Shorten was asked about the disposition of the commissioner, Dyson Heydon.
Mr Heydon’s got a job to do, I think we all understand that.
Updated
The Labor leader is coming up very shortly now. Stay strong, #turc(s)
Updated
Waiting for Bill.
— Mark Di Stefano (@MarkDiStef) July 9, 2015
So that’s it for Shorten for now.
I’ll remain live to see whether or not the Labor leader speaks to reporters on the way out – and of course, I’ll wrap properly now we are through the two days of evidence.
Returning after the adjournment, Shorten’s lawyers advised the commission they would no longer maintain the earlier request for confidentiality. Counsel Allan Myers said the person in the earlier document “has been contacted and she has said she no longer wants her name to be kept a secret”.
The commissioner noted that Shorten “deserves congratulations for his good sense both yesterday and today on this matter” [the request for confidentiality].
The commissioner rescinded the confidentiality orders made for those two names.
Commisioner Heydon:
Mr Shorten, thank you for attending over these two days. I do appreciate what an extreme inconvenience it is to you … You may or may not have to come back and every effort will be made to accommodate the least inconvenient possible time for you in view of your responsibilities.
There’s been a short discussion about whether a desire by Shorten to have some people’s names kept out of the commission will stand given journalists are pursuing the identity of these people and one person has already been named in evidence. A court judgment is invoked as part of the commissioner’s deliberations.
Shorten’s counsel fears a mountain is being made out of a molehill. He will need to take instructions from his client. The commission is having a short adjournment.
Rather abruptly, Stoljar pulls up stumps.
Commissioner Heydon offers Shorten’s counsel a chance to re-examine his client. That offer is declined, for now at least. Shorten’s counsel says he will seek the opportunity if other people are given leave to cross examination him at the commission.
Commissioner Heydon:
Of course there is one other possibility and that is that some other material comes to light, which may make a desire for Mr Shorten to address it – but the future is quite unclear on both of those.
Very well.
Stoljar has tracked back to Cleanevent now. We were in this territory yesterday. The commission is concerned to learn how an agreement covering Cleanevent passed the no-disadvantage test given it seemed to pay casuals below award rates.
The commission was just examining an arrangement between the AWU and Huntsman Chemical Company in which a former Huntsman employee (and AWU delegate) facing retrenchment went to work for the union. The 2003 agreement between the AWU and Huntsman Chemical Company noted: “The AWU agree to provide, and Huntsman agree to accept, the services of Alan Bugg within the Human Resources/Training Department of Huntsman, on the terms set out in the agreement.” The original deal was for 12 months but it was renewed several times.
Shorten said he drafted the arrangement. “I don’t know if he took retrenchment or not. He would have finished up his time at the company. In terms of the work he would have been doing at the union, I saw an opportunity for him to continue working with the union and the workers at Huntsman in a role of helping to develop education and training and best practice and productivity.”
Stoljar has been pursuing paid education once again, and the lack of any contractural obligation on the AWU to deliver the services for which it was being paid.
Shorten bristles a bit.
The union keeps its word. We would do paid education if we said we were doing it. We would do training and education of our members.
Shorten agrees that if the company stops paying union dues the coverage at the worksite would fall below 100%.
Stoljar has moved on now to a company called Huntsman, and a person called Alan Bugg.
Shorten is asked about his view on companies paying union dues. He says he’d prefer people paying their own dues, it tends to create a more engaged membership, but if it comes to being in a union or not, he’ll take membership.
Stoljar asks about evidence from the current AWU secretary Ben Davis. Davis has told the royal commission he won’t let companies pay dues because it weakens the union’s bargaining position.
Q: Do you agree with his proposition?
I’ve read what Mr Davis has said. He reflects my policy priorities from my time that we would rather have people paying their own union dues.
But what profoundly weakens union organising capacity is when people are not in a union at all.
Q: But you accept the proposition, don’t you, that what it makes it very difficult for a union to go hard for the members is when it’s receiving money at the same time from the employer?
Shorten says that isn’t borne out by the evidence.
I support people paying dues themselves, because the more people directly pay for a service the more they engage in the quality of it.
But in a beauty parade, union or non-union, union’s better for my way of thinking.
Q: Are you able to say in every case Winslow Constructors employees filled out membership forms?
Shorten:
I would have said so, that was the rule which I set, it was the union policy.
Q: You say that was the rule, you don’t have any way of checking whether that’s the case?
Shorten:
When I took over in 1998 I didn’t believe record keeping was up to scratch.
He says he took steps to improve this by requiring better processes including postal addresses for members.
Stoljar asks how did the process start of Winslow paying AWU membership dues? Shorten says it began before his time. He’s asked whether he knows anything about invoices being drawn up for OH&S services when it was actually union dues. Shorten says anything like that, if it happened, happened after his time.
Stoljar is wanting particulars of the membership rolls. Who had detailed knowledge of how AWU membership rolls were maintained in the late 1990s and early 2000s? Shorten writes down two names and hands them across. He says the information isn’t secret but he’s not naming people without their consent.
Shorten:
Not everyone wants to be mentioned in this royal commission.
Shorten is back in the witness box and Stoljar has moved on to Winslow Constructors. I presume he will pursue payments Winslow made to the AWU in 2005 and 2006 for membership fees.
What we learned this morning
Quick summary before the proceedings resume.
- In evidence this morning at the trade union royal commission, the Labor leader Bill Shorten has been asked about enterprise agreements covering Thiess/John Holland, ACI Glass and Chiquita Mushrooms.
- Shorten denied that he would have sanctioned “bogus” invoices to Thiess/John Holland while national secretary of the AWU. He said $300,000 paid by the joint venture to the AWU covered services delivered, from training, to ads in the AWU journal. He said the company’s decision to pay for services delivered by the AWU reflected the good will associated with the agreement, not bogus invoicing.
- Shorten was asked questions about payments made by ACI Glass and Chiquita Mushrooms to the AWU. He was asked why enterprise agreements weren’t all encompassing – they didn’t reflect oral “side” agreements between the employers and the union which netted the AWU significant income. Shorten repeated the theme he’d followed for answers about Thiess/John Holland.
- Counsel assisting the royal commission, Jeremy Stoljar sought to make a point about conflict of interest. Stoljar’s questioning invited Shorten to agree with the proposition that it was completely improper to pursue side deals where the AWU would seek money from employers while at the same time negotiating an agreement covering the workforce. Stoljar’s point was the side deals may have benefitted the AWU but the benefits for workers wasn’t entirely clear, given some agreements had traded away basic conditions.
- Shorten said he sought the best deal for workers, and sought constructive relationships with the various companies. His argument was the two goals weren’t mutually exclusive, or contradictory.
- Shorten was rebuked by Commissioner Heydon during his evidence for failing to give direct answers. Heydon said the waffling called into question his credibility as a witness. Shorten attempted after the rebuke to be a little more brief and a little bit more precise, but the dressing down certainly hasn’t led to a revolution in his approach.
Now, here comes the afternoon.
Stretch necks. Refresh beverages.
Day two for Shorten at #turc – some thoughts from me about "moments"
Given the live coverage of the royal commission, there is a tendency for media organisations to frame this event up in moments. What were the key moments?
Judgment and presentation by moment is not unreasonable, it’s a very common structure and convention in reportage of big events, form football finals, to election results – I’m just drawing your attention to that as something of a construct.
Given we have been bogged down in detail for several hours, the moment of the morning was doubtless the commissioner Dyson Heydon expressing a negative view on Shorten’s credibility as a witness. Heydon rebuked Shorten for failing to answer questions directly, a development he considered passing strange given Shorten had sought an early appearance at the commission to clear up various allegations that were being made in newspaper coverage and elsewhere.
If I was a smart alec I’d say Heydon would only have to tune in to one of the Labor leader’s regular press conferences to know that Shorten, like most other professional politicians in Australia, doesn’t generally trade in the currency of straight answers. Politicians tend to trade in formulations, and that was Shorten’s approach to walking around the various hot issues in this morning’s cross examination: provide a formulation, preferably at some length. This is typical of Shorten’s sometimes sludgy communications. But the formulations clearly weighed on Heydon’s patience (as they do on the patience of working journalists).
Obviously, being rebuked pretty sharply by the commissioner isn’t a good look, and Heydon was correct in substance. A number of Shorten’s answers about the Thiess/John Holland deal were entirely non-specific. I can’t remember, instead of yes or no. Shorten also made a reasonable retort, however, when he observed some propositions don’t have simple yes or no answers.
At the end of the day, how bad the commissioner’s rebuke plays for Shorten depends on whether or not the person consuming the moment believes that the royal commission is a fair process for the Labor leader.
If you think this is a quasi judicial process designed to deliver truth and justice, then you’ll be perturbed as a viewer by the Heydon rebuke. You’ll think Shorten has something to hide. If you think the royal commission is an Abbott-government initiated witch hunt then you won’t really care – this morning will only confirm your bias, not shift it.
I’ll post a summary of our collective learnings next.
Stoljar is back to conflict of interest. Was Shorten looking after the interests of the workers at Chiquita or the interests of the AWU?
Q: The problem is where you’re negotiating an EBA which contemplates drastic reductions of the numbers of workers and other changes to those workers, do you accept that there is a major conflict of interest when the union at the same time negotiates a secret deal pursuant to which payments will be made to the union?
Shorten doesn’t accept that.
The commission has broken for lunch.
I’ll be back shortly with a summary of what we’ve seen and learned over the morning session.
Shorten says the tough element of the negotiation with Chiquita was changing the piece rates system. (This is where workers are paid by the piece.)
Stoljar is back to paid education. He says there are more invoices. What does Shorten know about those? Not much, he says, but someone at the AWU would have known about it.
I would assume so if the company’s paying paid education leave, someone from the union might have raised that with them, yes.
Was there another oral agreement, Stoljar wonders, like the ACI oral agreement?
Shorten says he’s said previously in evidence to this commission that he doesn’t recall having a conversation about it. He thinks there may have been a written report at some stage recording that paid education leave had been secured.
Stoljar wonders whether or not Chiquita was paying $4,000 a month to avoid disruption to production through the use of independent contractors?
Shorten:
I certainly wouldn’t trigger a payment in that context.
Shorten says the company was looking to labour hire options – the company was shopping around looking for options to decrease their workers comp premium.
What I suspect reading this information you provided was that the company was looking to use labour hire companies who would automatically have a lower workers comp premium so that way it would decrease the on-costs of employing people.
For me the issue was how do you safely remunerate people and ensure their job security?
Some of these other matters are going to a level of detail which I simply wasn’t engaged in.
Stoljar doesn’t think that secure employment happens when employees got shifted over to labour hire firms.
Shorten:
Well, one of the problems is that if Chiquita’s workers comp bill continued on the astronomic levels it was this company would be out of business, then there’s no-one employed.
I wish no-one ever had to go to a labour hire company if they didn’t want to, but if what you’re implying is somehow the union’s got a magic wand and can stop workplace change or structural change ... I don’t know how you can say that.
Stoljar says here’s merely pointing to the diminution in the situation of some of these Chiquita workers, do you understand that?
Shorten says he would rather have someone working at a certain set of rates even if it’s for labour hire than for no-one to have any job at all.
I didn’t invent the problem of$6.5m workers comp premiums on a payroll of $13m.
I could bury my head in the sand and say ‘change is too hard, no way, out the gate, we’ll fight the bosses’ – brilliant!
And maybe that is, in fact, what you are suggesting I should do?
Back to normal transmission. The inquiry is hearing that work cover premiums for Chiquita Mushrooms went from $1.2m at time of the last EBA to $6.2m at time of subsequent negotiations.
Daniel Hurst tells me Commissioner Heydon smiled. I’ll take that as confirmation.
Shorten has perked up with the mushrooms.
What was happening is that you have pickers in their mushroom sheds. I don’t know if you want me to just briefly describe a mushroom shed? It just goes to the relevant ...
There is laughter in the hearing room for the first time in a day and a half.
Shorten takes that as his cue and ploughs on.
There are six trays of mushrooms, sort of like a greenhouse sheds ...
From glass to mushrooms.
Chiquita Mushrooms coming up now.
Shorten wants to expand. Stoljar says sure, go ahead.
Bill Shorten:
You talk about conflict of interest. I want to go to the general principle and a couple of the specifics you’ve said. Why is it some people assume that negotiating with a union in terms of improving the union’s ability to deliver services that there is a conflict of interest?
The truth of the matter is I don’t start my negotiations with a company assuming that we have diverse irreconcilable differences. My interest is in making sure members do well.
He says Stoljar’s characterisation of the agreements being secretive is not right.
Nothing’s secret, it’s all in the books. You make the point it’s untoward. I’m not saying I or members used to go to the ledgers, but it’s listed in the ledgers as paid education income.
It’s not what it isn’t, it’s exactly what it is.
(I’m not sure what Shorten means by this. I suspect he means it’s in the books, not hidden – but I confess I’m not 100% sure.)
Stoljar yanks his head out of the weeds. Does Shorten believe that when it comes to enterprise bargaining, his job is to go in as hard as he can for the members?
Bill Shorten:
Always have, always will.
Q: And your position is fundamentally weakened if at the same time you’re negotiating a secret deal whereby $500,000 gets paid direct to the union, do you agree with that?
Not at all. I don’t agree with your characterisation over the past minute and a half.
Stoljar is suggesting now that the ledgers in the AWU accounts are somewhat opaque for a glass worker. Shorten insisting the information is in the ledgers. Stoljar isn’t disagreeing with the broad point. He’s now querying the figures in the ledgers. Stoljar wonders if the AWU’s income from education went into consolidated revenue and was expended by the union however it saw fit.
Shorten said while he was at the AWU he diversified the union’s income streams so it could focus on education and training.
Was it Mr Gilhome from ACI? Stoljar wonders who was the party to the oral agreement at ACI.
Shorten:
Yes, I thought I’d answered that.
Stoljar wants to know whether the parties considered recording it in the EBA? Shorten says these arrangements were part of the common claims the AWU were making at that time. Counsel assisting repeats his earlier question: how exactly would the members find out about it if it wasn’t in the EBA?
Shorten says the levy amounted to 10 cents per member per hour worked. He says the AWU had a known commitment to paid education and the specifics were in the AWU’s annual accounts.
Stoljar has just cracked open the AWU accounts. He suggests it would be pretty hard for a glass worker at the Spotswood plant to get the detail from the AWU accounts, given paid education is represented simply as a line item of income.
Shorten says there are supporting documents. What supporting documents, Stoljar wonders? Ledgers, Shorten says.
Updated
Stoljar is back on invoices. We are still with ACI Glass. Stoljar is confused why ACI GLass is paying the union amounts adding up to about $500,000 without any legal obligation to do so.
Where’s the contract, Stoljar wonders? I don’t know, says Shorten, it was possibly an oral agreement. Who were the parties to the oral agreement, Stoljar wonders?
Shorten:
ACI and the union.
To the extent that I recall it would have been Mr Melhem, supported by myself.
Stoljar says so you were a party to it then? Shorten says in general terms. He didn’t know about specifics. Not ins and outs.
Updated
My kingdom for this transcript.
Let’s keep calm and carry on.
Updated
I’ll wait for the proper lunch break to post an explanatory summary but in case you are a bit lost in the weeds of this morning’s evidence, here’s the short version.
- Stoljar’s line of questioning is aiming to establish the impropriety of “side deals” the AWU did with various employers. The AWU had a practise of billing employers for services the union provided, like training, or ads in the union journals, or in the last EBA, education services.
- Stoljar is attempting to establish Shorten’s knowledge of the various agreements, like one with Thiess John Holland, and ACI Glass. Having established knowledge, he moves to the conflict of interest point. Do the workers know about these deals? Do the workers benefit from them, or does the union benefit?
That’s it, in a nutshell.
And here they are, back.
Updated
As the commission takes a very short recess, I can post this contribution from Daniel Hurst, who is hunkered down in the hearing room. I’ve asked him to send me the odd update about dynamics and atmospherics in the hearing room.
Bill Shorten has appears to have taken on a more sombre mood in answering questions after the commissioner, Dyson Heydon, warned him twice against giving lengthy answers. The Labor leader seemed relatively chipper in the first hour of questioning today, appearing to be firm in his belief that the enterprise agreement with Thiess John Holland for the East Link road project was a good deal for workers. He said he didn’t recall specific amounts of payments from the joint venture builder to the AWU being discussed during negotiations - and seemed frustrated when counsel assisting Jeremy Stoljar insisted on direct ‘yes’ or ‘no’ answers.
Heydon’s first intervention (for which the whole room was silent) obviously influenced Shorten’s subsequent answering style. A couple of time, Shorten seemed like he wanted to say more but he specifically referenced how he was “mindful of the commissioner’s suggestion”.
When Shorten said he wanted to explain the “chronology” of paid education leave, the commissioner warned him it would be “at your peril” if it turned out to be irrelevant. Shorten grinned and told the hearing: “I’ll take your gentle guidance and wait,”
There are fewer observers in the public gallery today than there were yesterday for Shorten’s first day of questioning. Like yesterday, former ACTU leader and cabinet minister Greg Combet is quietly watching the evidence while sitting with Shorten’s legal team at the desk.
Shorten says the agreement at ACI Glass was Cesar Melhem’s primary responsibility, reporting to him. He confirms the main negotiator at ACI was a Mr Gilhome. Shorten confirms “Mr Gilhome” was someone he knew well.
Stoljar wants to know if he spoke at Mr Gilhome’s farewell party? Shorten can’t remember. It’s possible.
We are heading back to paid education leave. Stoljar wants to know whether Shorten spoke to Gilhome about paid education leave and the concept of paying an employer levy. Quite possibly, he thinks.
Stoljar is asking about an AWU invoice worth $79,750 made out to Gilhome. What did he know about it? Shorten says Cesar Melhem would have said something to him along the following lines: Good news Bill, we’ve got a company willing to back your concept of an education levy.
Stoljar says there’s a second invoice. But he says paid education leave is not reflected specifically in the ACI enterprise agreement. What’s going on there?
Shorten says he wasn’t involved in the clause by clause negotiation.
Stoljar wants to know why the company is paying the AWU this money if paid education leave is not reflected in their workplace agreement. And did the members know they had an entitlement if it wasn’t reflected in their agreement?
Bill Shorten:
I believe there’s a number of ways members would have known.
Stoljar is back to conflict of interest and side deals.
Do you accept this is a conflict of interest?
Shorten:
No.
Updated
Stoljar is moving on to ACI Glass – another enterprise agreement.
Shorten thinks he might like to track back to a discussion a couple of moments ago about paid education leave. Commissioner Heydon suggests to Shorten that may not be in his interests at this point in time. Shorten says he will move on.
Stoljar wants to know whether the CFMEU had a comparable agreement to the AWU’s agreement with the joint venture. Shorten doesn’t know.
Stoljar asks Shorten whether he accepts that he has to work in the best interest of employees and whether a side deal involving payments to the union would be a serious conflict of interest?
Shorten says he knows the AWU was supplying specific services to the project. This was normal practice, he says.
Stoljar says why wasn’t the arrangement in the EBA? Aren’t EBA’s catch all agreements? Shorten says not always.
Stoljar asks whether Shorten had a pattern of seeking contributions from employers negotiating EBAs – contributions directly to the AWU?
Shorten says the union routinely sought contributions for training, or for ads in the journals and for education on site.
Stoljar is persisting on Shorten’s specific knowledge of the agreement with the AWU.
I would not have just said that the company should just pay the union.
Stoljar:
Are you evading my question?
Commissioner Heydon then chides Shorten for being non-responsive. He says Shorten is here at the royal commission to rebut some of the criticism that has been made about him in recent weeks. Heydon says he’s concerned about his credibility as a witness, and his self-interest. He says it’s in Shorten’s interest to curb his extraneous answers. Heydon says it is partly Shorten’s fault that we are proceeding slowly through the material. He says you are here to clear this up, so please proceed.
So chided, Stoljar asks the question again.
Shorten says I would have had discussions about the EBA and about how the AWU would organise after the EBA to deliver services at the site.
Stoljar asks is it a coincidence that the joint venture then started paying the amounts up to $100,000 to the AWU?
Shorten:
I don’t recall and don’t believe I would have said a specific amount.
"I don't remember that"
Stoljar wants to know whether Shorten spoke to “Mr Rzesniowiecki” (I will need to check this spelling when possible) or “Mr Sasse” about Thiess paying in instalments. Shorten acknowledges in general terms he spoke about matters pertaining to the agreement.
Stoljar moves on to the provision of red card training. Shorten says this was a legitimate purpose provided. Stoljar points to company correspondence saying John Holland ran red card training on the project (meaning the AWU didn’t have to provide the service because it was already being delivered by the employers.)
Shorten says the company didn’t have to pay for things like ads in the union journal, or a ball for the workers, but it did it to build good relations with the union and the workers.
The Labor leader then repeats his earlier formulations. He didn’t have a line of sight on all these invoices. But the relationships underpinning the invoices are actually the important thing to understand from his perspective.
Stoljar goes back to Mr Sasse and other joint venture executives. Did he have discussions about the agreement to pay the AWU $100,000 in instalments?
Shorten:
I don’t remember that.
Stoljar repeats the question.
Shorten:
I don’t particularly remember having discussions on what you’ve just put to me.
Updated
Stoljar is persisting with the invoices. He says they suggest that Thiess was making good payments up to the amount previously agreed with the AWU. Stoljar quotes joint venture correspondence stating “if we don’t reach the agreed sum we can address at the end of the year.”
Jeremy Stoljar:
It’s clear that what they are talking about is getting it up to $110, 000.
Shorten goes back to the agreement with the joint venture. He says his expectation is if AWU invoices went out it was for services provided. He says the East Link project saw value in the agreement with the AWU.
This is the summary of Thiess John Holland payments that #TURC is exploring, page 3 of 3. @murpharoo pic.twitter.com/Mc7n6twmEj
— Daniel Hurst (@danielhurstbne) July 9, 2015
Shorten’s point is Stoljar’s questions should be directed to Cesar Melhem, then secretary of the Victorian branch.
I was not administering the day to day matters of the Victorian branch.
Stoljar says hang on, weren’t you meeting with him regularly? Shorten says he was, but he wasn’t on site. His contact with Melhem was about national matters.
Shorten continues.
I cannot speak to invoices specifically issued after my time.
He says he can’t speak to invoices from the Victorian branch. He didn’t have a line of sight on those invoices. I didn’t inspect every invoice that went out.
Shorten repeats that he would not agree to employers paying the union for services that weren’t delivered.
Stoljar is moving on to advertising in the AWU’s journal, the Australian Worker magazine. Stoljar wants to know why the Victorian branch is charging for advertising when the national office actually produces the publication. Shorten says that shouldn’t have happened.
Stoljar says invoices were being issued to make up the $100,000 payments per year under the agreement with the East Link joint venture – with no regard to whether or not the services were actually provided.
Bill Shorten:
In my case, completely untrue.
Stoljar is asking about an invoice for HSR training of $38,750. What is Shorten’s knowledge of this? Counsel wants a yes or no answer.
Shorten isn’t inclined to give him one.
Mr Stoljar, in the interests of getting to the bottom of matters, some answers take longer than one word.
Stoljar is asking whether the joint venture agreed to pay the AWU $100,000 a year for the life of the agreement.
Bill Shorten keeps defaulting to the substance of the enterprise agreement between the AWU and the East Link joint venture. He says he was determined to strike the best deal possible, and get the best job security possible. Then we get to site organisation. Shorten says it is quite usual for companies to pay for various services on site.
Stoljar repeats the question. Was there an agreement to pay $100,000 a year?
Shorten says that is not his recollection. He says the services the union provided while he was at the AWU could always be explained by training delivered.
Bill Shorten:
This is entirely sensible workplace relations.
Just for clarity, the $300,000 is total payments from Thiess John Holland to AWU Victoria and the national office between 2005 and 2008.
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Shorten begins his evidence
Counsel assisting Jeremy Stoljar is opening his line of questioning on the joint venture between Thiess and John Holland. This is the East Link project. A bundle of documents has just been dropped.
Stoljar is asking Shorten about a $300,000 payment to the AWU in Victoria. Stoljar is asking whether the AWU in Victoria did research into back strain in the period leading up to 18 January 2006. The witness doesn’t recall this specific piece of work.
Shorten notes back strain is a big issue in civil construction. Stoljar doesn’t doubt it but he wants to know about these specific invoices.
Q: Is this a bogus invoice claiming for work never done?
Bill Shorten:
I would never be party to issuing bogus invoices, full stop.
Having worked through the substance of yesterday, and shared various reflections on it, just a thought about tactics before we blast into rapid fire element of the day.
Shorten’s approach to the commission has been to play the whole process in a low key fashion, cooperating with the Stoljar questioning, biting back only when provoked and then in low key fashion.
Outside the commission, Labor has been attacking the process as stacked against the opposition, a witch-hunt and all the rest. One option Shorten would have is to bring some of that critique inside the proceedings today rather than maintaining the current separation between the way he’s presenting and the political attack going on outside.
It’s a more risky way to go, and I make no predictions about it whatsoever. I’m just noting there are different ways you could approach the proceedings.
Underway in a minute now. Refresh your beverages.
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Let me point you in the direction of a couple of good analytical pieces besides the one posted by Gay Alcorn covering Wednesday’s hearing.
The gentleman of Australian political journalism, Age political editor Michael Gordon, says Bill Shorten held up well in the morning onslaught but the exhausting nature of the grilling took its toll in the afternoon. Gordon also highlights an almost surreal edge to the #turc inquisition – a process set up by a Coalition government (who deregulated the industrial relations system and campaigned against union militancy) now taking a moderate union official to task.
The more substantial question is whether Mr Shorten acted in the best interests of his members when he led the Australian Workers Union and, while it is premature to draw conclusions, there is an almost surreal edge to this inquisition. Here is the party that wanted to abolish the no-disadvantage test for enterprise agreements taking Mr Shorten to task for allegedly failing to uphold it in one instance.
John Lyons at the Australian notes that whether or not the royal commission is a witch-hunt, it remains Shorten’s big test. Lyons thinks the Unibuilt donation knocked Shorten about in the witness box.
[Shorten’s] former ministerial colleague Greg Combet looked on anxiously as an often defensive Shorten sought to explain away the many unsavoury elements of the Unibilt deal. Was it not a breathtaking conflict of interest that Unibilt was paying for Shorten’s campaign director at a time when Unibilt was about to begin negotiations with the AWU for a new enterprise bargaining agreement? Cue a nervous reach for a glass of water, before Shorten admitted that he had not initially revealed this donation-in-kind in his declaration to the Australian Electoral Commission, only rectifying this days before he was about to appear before the commission.
It was the most damaging moment for Shorten in what was a day-long, bruising battle with Stoljar.
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Good morning and welcome to our live coverage of Bill Shorten’s second day in the witness box at the trade union royal commission. Shorten is giving evidence about the period he was secretary of the Australian Workers’ Union Victorian branch – from 1998 to 2006. Shorten also served as the union’s national secretary from 2001 until he entered federal parliament in 2007.
Before we launch into #turc day two, let’s recap the highlights from day one.
- The Labor leader, under questioning from counsel assisting the royal commission, Jeremy Stoljar, told the commission on Wednesday a labour hire firm – Unibuilt – had paid for a Young Labor activist, Lance Wilson, to run his 2007 campaign for Maribynong.
- The donation was only disclosed to the Australian Electoral Commission on 6 July – two days before Shorten’s appearance at the royal commission, and eight years after the fact. Sadly, Bill Shorten is not the only Australian politician to be tripped up by incomplete donation disclosures. Shorten’s undisclosed donation is certainly not a good look, but because Australia’s disclosure regime is only half serious, this sort of tardiness is relatively common.
- The donation came at a time when the AWU was negotiating an enterprise agreement with Unibuilt. Shorten said he didn’t believe Unibuilt was seeking something in return for the donation, and he said he was capable of separating his personal interests as a would-be member of parliament from his obligations as a trade union official to safeguard the interests of workers. Shorten told the commission this is how Australian politics works – you’ve got to use your network to fundraise and seek in-kind contributions – everybody does it.
- Stoljar moved on in the afternoon to a workplace agreement the AWU struck with Cleanevent in 2006. Stoljar was very interested in clauses of the agreement that seemed to pay casual cleaners below award rates. He wondered how this agreement could have passed the industrial law’s no-disadvantage test – the one that makes sure workers can’t be made worse off. He pointed to a statutory declaration from the AWU to the industrial relations commission which didn’t highlight the discrepancies in the casual rates. Shorten said he relied on advice from the relevant AWU industrial officer and a positive vote from the Cleanevent workers in reaching an opinion that the agreement was beneficial for the workers.
So that was Wednesday in the witness box. A couple of additional resources to help you prepare for today.
If you need to walk back a couple of steps from the specifics of Wednesday, and read up on what this inquisition is all about, you can find a very useful primer by my colleague Daniel Hurst here. Still in primer territory, I linked to this yesterday and will again today. Our colleagues at Fairfax have produced a list of questions Shorten needs to answer.
If you would like to try and decode Wednesday a little further and contemplate some bigger systemic issues about fundraising and political culture highlighted by Shorten’s testimony at the royal commission, another colleague, Gay Alcorn, has written a terrific analysis which you can find here.
If you’d just like some comic relief, you can find First Dog on The Moon’s depiction of the opposition leader, Stiff Breezington, in the #turc witness box, here.
Shorten is due to take the stand at 10am.
We’ll continue to read in gently until he appears. The Politics Live comments thread is now open for your business, and you can find me, today, and most days, and some evenings and weekends, depending on how much my family wants to talk to me, on the Twits @murpharoo
Buckle in young #turcs. Here comes B-Day 2.0
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