The Turnbull Government is seeking to make a direct link between the Heydon Royal Commission's findings and the ABCC legislation that looks set to be a double-dissolution trigger, but there is no concrete policy connection between the two, according to a leading IR academic.
Former Federal Labor MP Craig Thomson deliberately misled the House of Representatives when he denied using HSU credit cards to withdraw cash and pay for escort services, a new report has found.
RMIT academic Professor Anthony Forsyth has told a forum on the Heydon Royal Commission that he has shifted his position on whether a specialist regulator of unions and employer organisations is justified, and now believes unions should accept the Coalition's proposed Registered Organisations Commission.
The Heydon Royal Commission has recommended that the Turnbull Government introduce special legislation to disqualify officers of the CFMEU who are deemed by Parliament to be not to be fit and proper persons, while stopping short of recommending the union's deregistration.
The Heydon Royal Commission has confirmed it will deliver its final report - which will run to "several volumes" - to the Federal Government by the end of the year.
Former HSU national secretary Kathy Jackson has today failed in her attempt to appeal a Federal Court decision for her to repay about $1.4 million to her old union.
The Federal Court has this morning ordered former HSU national secretary Craig Thomson to pay about $458,000 in compensation and fines for inappropriate spending during his reign.
Former NUW NSW branch secretary Derrick Belan has rejected legal arguments by his old union that he was largely responsible for its governance problems.
CFMEU national secretary Michael O'Connor has been described in Federal Parliament as the "Sepp Blatter of the union movement" by a Nationals senator in tabling affidavits by three former CFMEU officials who continue to claim they were driven out of the NSW construction branch for whistleblowing.
A partner at Keddies Lawyers, a former leading workers' compensation firm accused of gross overcharging of clients, has been granted a barrister's practising certificate, despite staunch opposition from the NSW Bar Association.
