Bill Shorten should have used the royal commission into trade union corruption as an opportunity to clean out criminal and corrupt behaviour within union ranks, former New South Wales powerbroker, Michael Costa, has said, just days after the commission effectively cleared the opposition leader of any wrongdoing.
Late-night submissions released on Friday night held no suggestion that the commission had found Shorten acted inappropriately as head of the Australian Workers’ Union (AWU), a post he held before entering federal politics.
“There is no submission that Mr Bill Shorten may have engaged in any criminal or unlawful conduct,” a statement from the commission said.
Costa, a former NSW treasurer, expressed disappointment that the Labor party had not used the royal commission as a chance for reform.
“I’ve been saying all along that the ACTU [Australian Council of Trade Unions] and the Labor party should have embraced its royal commission. It should be in the forefront of cleaning out all of these problems,” he told conservative commentator, Andrew Bolt, on his Sunday program, The Bolt Report. “The worst part about all this is most of these unions represent low-paid workers and you’re seeing these indulgences, this potentially corrupt behaviour, criminal behaviour.”
Costa, who left state politics in 2008, said the unions represented a “sectional interest” within the Labor party and “distorted” the party’s policies.
“All we have from the Labor party is an attack on the royal commission, which is absolutely absurd,” he continued. “Bill Shorten should have used this process as a process to reform the Labor party, to get rid of the undue union influence, which is distorting policy within the Labor party.”
The royal commission cleared Shorten but implicated his AWU colleague, Cesar Melhem, in wrongdoing, which he has denied.
Costa said the findings had left the ALP with “egg on their face”.
The federal finance minister, Mathias Cormann, implied that while Shorten was cleared of acting illegally, his reputation was tarnished.
“The royal commission, obviously, hasn’t issued its finding yet,” he told Bolt. “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.”
The former federal treasurer and Coalition heavyweight Peter Costello agreed.
“There are two issues here, aren’t there? There’s whether somebody has committed a crime. And there’s what somebody’s conduct is and what their judgement is,” he told Bolt.
He said there was a “culture” of impunity when it comes to “ripping off” workers and union members with some union officials.
“It’s not a culture that’s an exception. It’s a culture that’s the rule,” he said.
Shorten appeared before the royal commission in July, and was hammered over a deal he struck with Cleanevent when he was head of the AWU.
The deal led to a memorandum of understanding in 2010, after Shorten was no longer national secretary of the AWU, that meant Cleanevent would pay $25,000 a year in union fees in exchange for cleaners receiving a lower hourly wage.
Shorten has consistently questioned the motives of the Coalition in setting up the commission.
“This was a politically motivated royal commission set up by the Liberal party to throw mud and smear its political opponents,” a spokesman for the opposition leader said on Friday night.
“As Mr Shorten has always said, he has always acted in the best interests of workers.”
