Law firm Minter Ellison will earn about $17 million from providing legal services to the Heydon Royal Commission, which will resume public hearings on Thursday.
The Heydon Royal Commission has begun referring its interim findings against unions and individuals to police and other investigatory authorities, including ASIC and the ACCC.
In a move that the government has dismissed as a political stunt, the ACTU has told Employment Minister Eric Abetz he should suspend his IR legislative agenda for at least a year to enable the Heydon trade union inquiry and the Productivity Commission Fair Work Act review to run their course.
The secretary of the HSU's Victoria No 1 branch, Diana Asmar, has been returned with a resounding majority, but still faces scrutiny over the branch's alleged failure to follow procedures for issuing entry permits to organisers.
The CFMEU says the Heydon Royal Commission will exceed its powers if it finds the union and its officers guilty of breaking the law, arguing it is only an investigative body.
The HSU has today resolved to provide Victoria Police with evidence that national secretary Kathy Jackson has wrongly spent more than $900,000 of the union's funds on non-union business, while TWU national secretary Tony Sheldon has referred allegations that former WA officials misappropriated $300,000, to both the FWC and the Heydon Royal Commission.
Independent Contractors Australia has challenged an ACCC ruling allowing the TWU to collectively bargain on behalf of a group of owner drivers engaged by Toll.
The ACCC is continuing investigations into allegations aired in the Heydon Royal Commission of anti-competitive conduct by the Transport Workers Union and Toll Holdings.
In a wide-ranging attack on the Heydon Royal Commission, ACTU assistant secretary Tim Lyons has dubbed it as part of a conservative agenda to restrict "organising, industrial action, right of entry, public campaigning, political action and expenditure, litigation, access to arbitration and the right to be self-governing".
