Bill Shorten’s lawyers have issued the royal commission into trade union governance and corruption a sharp rebuke, saying that the opposition leader was not informed beforehand of recommendations that he be cleared of any wrongdoing.
Shorten’s lawyer, Leon Zwier, wrote to two counterparts at the commission, James Beaton and Shelley Scott, asking why his client had to find out about the recommendations from a press release issued late on Friday night.
“Can you please explain why you chose not to send it to me on or before its release to the media,” the letter asked. “Can you please ensure that all future TURC [trade union royal commission] media releases which directly refer to Mr Shorten are provided to me on before the proposed release.”
At 8pm Canberra time on Friday night, the commission released recommendations relating to Shorten’s time as the national secretary of the Australian Workers’ Union (AWU). It found that while some former AWU officials had questions to answer about wrongdoing, Shorten did not.
“There is no submission that Mr Bill Shorten may have engaged in any criminal or unlawful conduct,” a statement said.
Zwier said that he had sought clarification on the timing of the recommendations to be released by the commission’s senior counsel, Jeremy Stoljar.
“Last Friday 6 November I called and left messages for you to call me. I was told that you were in the hearing but the message would be passed on to you,” he wrote in the letter. “I was seeking to understand the proposed timing of the release of Jeremy Stoljar’s AWU submissions. My call was not returned.”
“As you will appreciate knowing this information about the timing of the release of the AWU submissions was important to my client,” Zwier said.
The commission released a statement on Saturday saying that the timing of the recommendations’ release was consistent with the timetable set by the royal commissioner, Dyson Heydon.
“There was no disrespect intended to any affected person by this process,” the statement said.
“If something’s coming out at 8 o’clock at night, I’m not going to speculate, but it does speak for itself,” Shorten told reporters on Saturday. “This commission cost tax payers $80m. People who are writing some of the reports are being paid millions of dollars. If you were being paid millions of dollars to write a report do you think you could do it in a timeline and not rush it at the last minute?”
Shorten appeared before the commission for two days in July. He has consistently questioned the purpose of the inquiry, labelling it “politically-motivated”.
On Sunday, the finance minister, Mathias Cormann, implied that while Shorten was cleared of any criminal behaviour, his reputation was tarnished.
“The royal commission, obviously, hasn’t issued its finding yet,” he told Channel 10’s The Bolt Report. “Other people will comment on these things. But from where I sit, I just look at what Bill Shorten himself admitted. He admitted that he was involved in secret deals, trading away conditions for workers and he admitted that he received an undeclared personal benefit from somebody who he was negotiating with on behalf of his members. Now, you know, people will pass their own judgements in relation to that.”
