Target has enough HR staff to not need legal representation; Data upload difficulties lead to time extension; Mental health provider given go-ahead to employ ATSI people only; Biggest ever electronic ballot gets go-ahead for DHS; and Former retail group head facing fraud charges.
Senator George Brandis has today announced that the Heydon inquiry will be given until the end of 2015 to produce its report, after the royal commissioner told the attorney-general that some union officials appeared to regard their organisations as immune from "any social or community standard shared by other Australians".
The HSU has told the Federal Court that bank records it has obtained while pursuing its $700,000 civil claims against national secretary Kathy Jackson reveal that she has incurred hundreds of thousands of dollars of additional unauthorised spending, but the union might allow "other authorities" to pursue the sums on its behalf.
The MUA is using its industrial muscle to extract up to $1 million from employers for training funds that the Heydon Royal Commission acknowledges are legitimate, the inquiry heard today.
Victorian police have won access to about 290 documents held by law firm Slater & Gordon that relate to an alleged slush fund run by former AWU official Bruce Wilson in 1992.
A former CFMEU construction and general division organiser has told the Heydon Royal Commission this afternoon that one of the inquiry's witnesses pulled a gun on him when he entered a construction site to complain about safety standards.
Employment Minister Eric Abetz says that no formal decision has been made to create an appeal jurisdiction for the Fair Work Commission, despite Prime Minister Tony Abbott flagging his personal support for the plan.
The Federal Court has fined the HSU and three former Victorian officials a total of nearly $68,000 for financial governance irregularities, and, in a first under registered organisations legislation, ordered one of them to repay the union more than $26,000.
Former Victorian Solicitor-General John Cain will give evidence tomorrow and former prime minister Julia Gillard on Wednesday as the Heydon Royal Commission resumes its investigation of the alleged slush fund linked to the AWU in the early 1990s.
ACTU computer records suggest a single person sat the online right of entry permit tests for six HSU Victorian No 1 branch officials according to counsel assisting the Heydon Royal Commission, but the branch's secretary Diana Asmar has flatly denied she gave instructions for such a practice to occur.
