Post by juliar on Aug 18th, 2017 at 7:15am
Bull S. is running scared as he is being publicly depicted as the epitome of corruption - a real election loser.
No wonder the Lefties are worried and depressed and keep trying to change the subject and attack anyone who dares mention it.
Shorten ‘unaccountably shifty’, says Turnbull
Brad Norington Associate Editor The Australian 12:00AM August 18, 2017
If it's not corrupt it's not Labor
Malcolm Turnbull has launched an all-out parliamentary assault on Bill Shorten’s personal integrity, accusing him of “unaccountable shifty conduct” for using union money on himself to advance his political career, and taking company money as a union leader in return for trading away workers’ penalty rates.
The Prime Minister’s attack yesterday on Mr Shorten’s fitness to lead the nation came as Employment Minister Michaelia Cash referred the Opposition Leader to the Registered Organisations Commission for investigation over using $25,000 of union funds to finance his election campaign in 2007, possibly without proper authority. The referral is the second this week, after Senator Cash asked the regulator of unions and employer groups to investigate allegations that another Shorten donation, of about $100,000 in union funds to activist group GetUp! when he led the Australian Workers Union, might not have been properly authorised.
Mr Turnbull’s verbal barrage included accusations of serious conflicts of interest and “cowardly” & “shameful” behaviour. Referring to one AWU deal when Mr Shorten was its leader that involved accepting cuts to workers’ conditions at the Chiquita Mushroom company in Victoria while the company made payments to the union, the Prime Minister said Mr Shorten had “sold some mushroom workers down the river”.
He then broadened the attack on Mr Shorten’s credibility, accusing him of treating all his members like “mushrooms”. “He kept them in the dark & told them nothing,” he said.
Mr Shorten ducked questions yesterday about the authorisation of a $100,000 payment to GetUp! in 2005 when he was the AWU’s national and Victorian secretary, & of an AWU donation of $25,000 to his election campaign as the endorsed candidate for Maribyrnong, when he first ran for parliament in 2007 and was still in charge of the AWU’s national office.
The Australian revealed yesterday that Mr Shorten was apparently handed the power to give the $25,000 donation to himself after an AWU national executive resolution passed in November 2006 left requests to the union for funding of Labor candidates up to him.
AWU rules are clear that all donations of more than $1000 must be approved by the AWU national executive, but Mr Shorten is refusing to confirm if he followed the required rule.
Also unclear, despite Mr Shorten’s claim to the contrary, is whether the national executive approved the $100,000 donation to GetUp! that, as reported by The Weekend Australian, Mr Shorten arranged as seed funding in 2005 when he joined the activist group’s board.
The Labor leader said yesterday that the Coalition had “a whole royal commission” into union corruption, a “glorious waste of taxpayers’ money”.
He said he was proud of his record and claimed the government wanted to have another crack after the commission had made “no adverse findings” against him.
Opposition frontbencher Brendan O’Connor claimed on his leader’s behalf that it was wrong to suggest Mr Shorten’s authorisation of AWU funding for GetUp! & for his own election campaign were not covered in the royal commission. According to Labor, information on candidate disclosures was provided to the royal commission as requested, but it was the commission’s decision not to pursue the matter. If the ROC decides to formally investigate both matters following Senator Cash’s referrals, Mr Shorten’s legal authority to make the $100,000 & $25,000 union donations could be scrutinised in a way in which the commission apparently did not.
The ROC is a new federal authority set up to ensure greater accountability and transparency of industrial organisations. It was formed after the government passed legislation in the Senate late last year.
The Australian asked Mr Shorten yesterday if he recalled authorising both donations under rule 57 of the AWU, what criteria he used for making them, and whether or not there was a precedent.
Mr Shorten did not respond. Instead, Mr O’Connor, Labor’s workplace relations spokesman, accused the government of wanting to throw mud at Mr Shorten after wasting taxpayer dollars on a “witch-hunt to smear Bill, which had no adverse findings”.
The royal commission’s counsel assisting, Jeremy Stoljar SC, confirmed before the end of his inquiry’s hearings in 2015 it would not make adverse findings against Mr Shorten. But the commission later made adverse findings, including some recommendations for possible prosecutions, against the AWU and Mr Shorten’s Victorian branch deputies.
Mr Turnbull told parliament yesterday the government had passed laws to “ban” the practices of Mr Shorten from the time when he ran the AWU, adding: “All of the unaccountable shifty conduct he used to get on with, taking money from big companies in order to trade away workers’ penalty rates. That’s what the Opposition Leader did when he was running the AWU.
This too good to miss expose of Bull S. continues overleaf as PayWall
No wonder the Lefties are worried and depressed and keep trying to change the subject and attack anyone who dares mention it.
Shorten ‘unaccountably shifty’, says Turnbull
Brad Norington Associate Editor The Australian 12:00AM August 18, 2017
If it's not corrupt it's not Labor
Malcolm Turnbull has launched an all-out parliamentary assault on Bill Shorten’s personal integrity, accusing him of “unaccountable shifty conduct” for using union money on himself to advance his political career, and taking company money as a union leader in return for trading away workers’ penalty rates.
The Prime Minister’s attack yesterday on Mr Shorten’s fitness to lead the nation came as Employment Minister Michaelia Cash referred the Opposition Leader to the Registered Organisations Commission for investigation over using $25,000 of union funds to finance his election campaign in 2007, possibly without proper authority. The referral is the second this week, after Senator Cash asked the regulator of unions and employer groups to investigate allegations that another Shorten donation, of about $100,000 in union funds to activist group GetUp! when he led the Australian Workers Union, might not have been properly authorised.
Mr Turnbull’s verbal barrage included accusations of serious conflicts of interest and “cowardly” & “shameful” behaviour. Referring to one AWU deal when Mr Shorten was its leader that involved accepting cuts to workers’ conditions at the Chiquita Mushroom company in Victoria while the company made payments to the union, the Prime Minister said Mr Shorten had “sold some mushroom workers down the river”.
He then broadened the attack on Mr Shorten’s credibility, accusing him of treating all his members like “mushrooms”. “He kept them in the dark & told them nothing,” he said.
Mr Shorten ducked questions yesterday about the authorisation of a $100,000 payment to GetUp! in 2005 when he was the AWU’s national and Victorian secretary, & of an AWU donation of $25,000 to his election campaign as the endorsed candidate for Maribyrnong, when he first ran for parliament in 2007 and was still in charge of the AWU’s national office.
The Australian revealed yesterday that Mr Shorten was apparently handed the power to give the $25,000 donation to himself after an AWU national executive resolution passed in November 2006 left requests to the union for funding of Labor candidates up to him.
AWU rules are clear that all donations of more than $1000 must be approved by the AWU national executive, but Mr Shorten is refusing to confirm if he followed the required rule.
Also unclear, despite Mr Shorten’s claim to the contrary, is whether the national executive approved the $100,000 donation to GetUp! that, as reported by The Weekend Australian, Mr Shorten arranged as seed funding in 2005 when he joined the activist group’s board.
The Labor leader said yesterday that the Coalition had “a whole royal commission” into union corruption, a “glorious waste of taxpayers’ money”.
He said he was proud of his record and claimed the government wanted to have another crack after the commission had made “no adverse findings” against him.
Opposition frontbencher Brendan O’Connor claimed on his leader’s behalf that it was wrong to suggest Mr Shorten’s authorisation of AWU funding for GetUp! & for his own election campaign were not covered in the royal commission. According to Labor, information on candidate disclosures was provided to the royal commission as requested, but it was the commission’s decision not to pursue the matter. If the ROC decides to formally investigate both matters following Senator Cash’s referrals, Mr Shorten’s legal authority to make the $100,000 & $25,000 union donations could be scrutinised in a way in which the commission apparently did not.
The ROC is a new federal authority set up to ensure greater accountability and transparency of industrial organisations. It was formed after the government passed legislation in the Senate late last year.
The Australian asked Mr Shorten yesterday if he recalled authorising both donations under rule 57 of the AWU, what criteria he used for making them, and whether or not there was a precedent.
Mr Shorten did not respond. Instead, Mr O’Connor, Labor’s workplace relations spokesman, accused the government of wanting to throw mud at Mr Shorten after wasting taxpayer dollars on a “witch-hunt to smear Bill, which had no adverse findings”.
The royal commission’s counsel assisting, Jeremy Stoljar SC, confirmed before the end of his inquiry’s hearings in 2015 it would not make adverse findings against Mr Shorten. But the commission later made adverse findings, including some recommendations for possible prosecutions, against the AWU and Mr Shorten’s Victorian branch deputies.
Mr Turnbull told parliament yesterday the government had passed laws to “ban” the practices of Mr Shorten from the time when he ran the AWU, adding: “All of the unaccountable shifty conduct he used to get on with, taking money from big companies in order to trade away workers’ penalty rates. That’s what the Opposition Leader did when he was running the AWU.
This too good to miss expose of Bull S. continues overleaf as PayWall