Former HSU leader Marco Bolano has told the Heydon Royal Commission this morning that he was "surprised" to discover that tobacco giant Philip Morris had contributed funds to his 2009 election campaign and "stunned" that political "enemy" Bill Shorten had done likewise.
Future Prime Minister Julia Gillard told a Melbourne builder in 1993 that AWU leader and her then boyfriend Bruce Wilson was paying for her home renovations, the Heydon Royal Commission has heard.
Fair Work Commission member Ian Cambridge, a former national secretary of the AWU, will appear this week before the Heydon Royal Commission, which will resume its hearings into the union’s Workplace Reform Association "slush fund".
The Heydon Royal Commission will give parties advance warning of evidence in in which they are "substantially and directly interested", under the terms of a new practice note.
Labor and the Greens have combined in the Senate today to defeat the Abbott Government's legislation to establish a Registered Organisations Commission and align penalties for union and employer association officials with corporations law.
Former TWU national president and WA branch secretary Jim McGiveron has dismissed as "a complete fantasy" a claim by former AWU WA branch leader Ralph Blewitt that he was given $5000 cash in a brown paper bag to help win control of the transport union's state branch two decades ago.
The Heydon Royal Commission into trade unions will begin its public hearings with the former AWU official Ralph Blewitt, in evidence that is expected to touch on the role of former Prime Minister Julia Gillard as a young lawyer.
The ACTU has called for the Heydon Royal Commission to investigate all political slush funds, after the revelations of NSW Liberal Party donations that have emerged from the state's Independent Commission Against Corruption.
