Employment Minister Michaelia Cash has told a Senate Estimates committee that she had no obligation to disclose the resignation of ABCC deputy commissioner and in-house counsel Anthony Southall QC and that she only became aware yesterday of his reasons for departing.
The ABCC's in-house counsel has resigned after just weeks in the job, in order to "totally disassociate" himself from the actions of the watchdog's former leader, Nigel Hadgkiss.
The Turnbull Government is poised to introduce legislation to force greater disclosure from union-related funds including redundancy funds, which have about $2 billion in assets.
Coalition senators, in a new Senate inquiry report, have rejected concerns about the "ensuring integrity" bill that introduces a public interest test for union mergers, while minority Labor and Greens senators have dismissed the legislation as "politically-driven" and "politically-motivated".
The AMWU says it will have to restructure due to loss of members from today’s closure of Toyota's Altona car assembly plant and the shuttering of Holden's manufacturing later this month.
The Department of Employment has told a Senate inquiry that it didn't consult unions on the "ensuring integrity" legislation until just two days before its introduction to Parliament.
The Federal Court has today ordered former ABC Commissioner Nigel Hadgkiss to pay the CFMEU an $8,500 fine for his "wrongdoing" when he breached the law "he was required to police", resulting in the dissemination of "false information" on right of entry.
ACTU secretary Sally McManus told a hearing in Melbourne today that the Federal Government’s "ensuring integrity" legislation would impose harsher standards and punishments on unions and their officials than the Corporations Act does to employers.
The ROC has launched an inquiry into the HSU's Tasmanian branch over an alleged "termination payment" provided to former state secretary and current national secretary Chris Brown, while the CEPU has dismissed an ROC investigation into reporting breaches as a scare tactic.
The ACTU has taken aim at the proposed public interest test for union amalgamations, saying there is no basis for the Turnbull Government's claim that it is the equivalent of the competition test for corporate mergers.
