Updated May 28, 2012 10:05:42

Video: Tough week ahead for Labor (ABC News)

Related Story: Gillard hoses down talk of leadership rumblings

Related Story: MPs pledge support amid leadership speculation

Related Story: Anger over foreign worker import plan

Related Story: Gillard hits back over foreign worker backlash

Senior Labor figures have rallied around Julia Gillard amid fresh talk of a leadership challenge and anger in party ranks over the decision to let big miners import foreign workers.

Weekend reports that chief government whip Joel Fitzgibbon was canvassing numbers for a possible Kevin Rudd leadership challenge have thrown the spotlight back on Ms Gillard's leadership.

The other big issue facing the Government, the fate of suspended Labor MP Craig Thomson, will also feature today, with officials from Fair Work Australia set to get a grilling in Senate estimates hearings.

But the Coalition will not be able to question the author of the report into Mr Thomson and the Health Services Union (HSU) - because he is on leave.

Labor Caucus will meet tomorrow and one Labor MP has told AM there have been a lot of unhappy people in the Caucus - and they are getting unhappier.

Left factional heavyweight Doug Cameron is preparing to present the Caucus meeting with a motion on the controversial enterprise migration agreements which allow big miners to import foreign workers.

"My biggest concern is the lack of communication, the lack of coordination, the lack of consultation," Mr Cameron said.

He declined to comment on reports the Prime Minister did not know about government plans to allow mining billionaire Gina Rinehart to import 1,700 overseas workers until the last minute, or any implications it had for her leadership.

"I've got no comment about leadership issues, I don't think this has got anything to do with leadership," he said.

"People make mistakes, governments make mistakes, leaders make mistakes.

"It's challenging times for the Labor Party, I don't think anyone would be silly enough to say it wasn't.

"It's challenging times, but when the going gets tough, the tough get going, hopefully."

Video: Anthony Albanese speaks to ABC News Breakfast (ABC News)

Independent MP Tony Windsor says he was surprised by the Government's decision to rubber-stamp Ms Rinehart's applications to bring in foreign labour.

Mr Windsor is also the chairman of a parliamentary committee investigating whether 'fly in, fly out' workforces are good for regional communities.

He says the committee was not told about the workers being granted visas to work at Ms Rinehart's Roy Hill iron ore project in the Pilbara, and he wants the committee's terms of reference extended to include global foreign workforces.

"I think we need to know the fine detail here," he said.

"Who are these people that are coming in - I don't mean by nationality, I mean by profession. Are they highly-specialised workforces?

"I think the obvious question is, and I think all Australians would agree with this whether they're Right, Left or indifferent - is there an opportunity for Australians to fill those vacancies?"

Meanwhile, weekend reports Mr Fitzgibbon was urging MPs to dump the Prime Minister are fuelling the latest round of leadership speculation.

But another Caucus member has told AM the weekend stories were spread by Gillard supporters who have the most to fear from Kevin Rudd's return to the leadership.

On top of leadership speculation, the Government will have to deal with the latest chapter in the Thomson/HSU saga, with Opposition senators planning to interrogate Fair Work Australia president Iain Ross at estimates hearings.

Terry Nassios, the author of the 1,000-page report into Mr Thomson and the HSU, is on extended leave.

But Liberal Senator Eric Abetz says the contents of the report will be on his committee's agenda.

"The Opposition will be seeking to tease out from Fair Work Australia what they meant by Mr Thomson providing them with false and misleading information, and asking whether any of that false and misleading information came to Fair Work Australia via the Labor-funded lawyers," Senator Abetz said.

Discontent simmers amid more pressure on Gillard - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

By ABC's Marius Benson

Updated May 25, 2012 16:08:53

Photo: Opposition Leader Tony Abbott and Prime Minister Julia Gillard. (AAP: Alan Porritt)

The Gillard-Labor Government, on its long road to seeming destruction, has rewritten the political rule book and undermined some of the most cherished platitudes of politics watchers.

Platitude One: It's the Economy Stupid.

Gillard Labor has achieved an historically unprecedented disconnect between economic figures and its poll standing.

Anthony Albanese was proudly pointing out this week that Labor has lined up the economic ducks in an unprecedented row with all the key indicators - unemployment, interest rates and inflation - now tracking below 5 per cent.

That's possibly a first and it's certainly a unique achievement to put those numbers together with a primary vote for Labor at or below 30 per cent.

Platitude Two: The worst day in government is better than the best day in opposition.

This part of the orthodoxy needs to be re-written to add the word "majority" before "government".

Minority government looks to be much harder to run than oppose, based on the Gillard experience.

The Prime Minister was hailed as the deft negotiator when she patched together a bare majority in the weeks after the 2010 vote, while Tony Abbott was the clumsy, bullying loser who lacked her fine touch in cajoling others into the tent.

Both leaders were acting on the principle of: "Don't worry about the poison, just give me the chalice!"

But from the start the win looked like a qualified one, and the Gillard negotiating skills were put under new doubt this week when Andrew Wilkie caved in on his demands for new poker machine laws. He declared he would now settle for what the government was offering as that was all he could get.

This demonstrates a central weakness in the original deal settled between the Prime Minister and both Wilkie and the Greens - the price she paid was too high. In Willkie's case the mandatory limits that brought down the wrath of the clubs industry and with the Greens the carbon tax, which has been Tony Abbott's most potent weapon.

Andrew Wilkie's concession this week demonstrates the central truth that Julia Gillard should have exploited. That is that neither Wilkie nor the Greens nor the other Independents were ever going to do anything, finally, but back Labor.

They were never going to go with Abbott for two reasons, firstly they can't stand him, secondly they believed that at the first chance the Coalition would rush to the polls, confident of winning a majority in their own right.

The nearly two years of the Gillard Government have also undermined the belief that Leader of the Opposition is the worst job in politics. It looks a lot more fun most days leading the attack than trying to fend it off.

Platitude Three: In politics disunity is death.

If there is one quality the minority coalition has demonstrated its unity.

The Labor-Independent-Green allies have clung together in the face of the Abbott-led barrage like frightened kids watching a horror video.

On that evidence unity can also be death, or at least involve a strong sense of that final fate.

Platitude Four: A week is a long time in politics.

Political fortunes can pivot on a single event. John Howard's government was rescued from the depths by events like Tampa and 9.11. But at other times political life can be remorselessly unchanging.

The first several hundred days of Gillard Labor have seen it stuck in a ditch which has simply deepened with the passage of time.

And the next 500 days till election, or however long the government continues, show no sign of being any different.

If things don't change the case for the defence in Gillard-Labor circles will be that it was all worthwhile.

For all the mess, the scandals, the destruction of the party's standing, the grubby deals, the unlovely alliances - for all that; the hundreds of pieces of legislation passed will stand as a lasting achievement for the government.

But for how long? Tony Abbott is likely to be in a position to demolish the pivotal policy of the carbon tax, either by winning a majority in the Senate or by forcing Labor, after electoral decimation, to abandon its scheme.

Labor says it will never do that, but what else can they say at the moment? After any election, all bets are off.

The Gillard-Labor years have been a learning curve for all concerned and the lessons are many.

Marius Benson can be heard each weekday morning on NewsRadio's Breakfast Program and on his weekly podcast. View his full profile here.

Julia Gillard's game changer politics - The Drum (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

May 19, 2012

Opinion

Bob and Hazel Hawke (centre right) with travelling minstrels aboard the old VIP Boeing 707. The late Paul Lyneham (second from left), leads the chorus. Photo: Supplied

IT IS difficult to imagine it now when there seems such little music in the hearts of Australia's politicians, but not so long ago song and mirth spread a bit of magic across the national political landscape and clear into the skies.

This week there was a faint echo of the period when Bob Hawke, 82 now, broke into a bawling rendition of Solidarity Forever, the union movement's anthem, at the ACTU congress in Sydney.

It seemed so exotic that radio and TV stations replayed it from coast to coast.

The truth of it is he's been doing it for years.

In 1988, on the last night of parliament in the old white wedding cake that was Canberra's parliament house before its inhabitants moved up the hill to their new billion-dollar digs, Hawke and John Howard linked arms and bellowed Solidarity Forever together.

Hard to believe, of course, but there were plenty of pie-eyed witnesses and Howard (known those days for throwing the liveliest parties in parliament, true story) once told me he thought the occasion had proved he had a better singing voice than Hawke.

Hawke was keen to organise a musical extravaganza as soon as the parliament convened at the new big house on the hill.

He had been to Ireland, where the prime minister, or Taoiseach, Good Time Charlie Haughey, had treated him to a concert featuring the Chieftains, who had made traditional Irish music into a worldwide popular sensation. With Haughey about to visit Canberra, Hawke got his musical advisers to show the Irishman what Australia could produce.

The perfectly named bush band the Larrikins was engaged, and so was folk singer Eric Bogle. Bogle wrote a song specially for the occasion. To the tune of Rawhide he attached words unkind to Paul Keating, whom he called ''the Slasher''. Everyone but Keating thought it hilarious, and when the concert was over, the party moved to deputy speaker Leo McLeay's office, where the music continued close until dawn.

God knows what would happen if Speaker Peter Slipper were to try to emulate the occasion today. Bogle later recalled the night: ''A bunch of us musicians eventually ended up in some senator's office with Bob Hawke, who you may remember was our prime minister at the time, his then wife Hazel, and a few assorted pollies and journalists, all (with the exception of Bob and Hazel) intent on sculling back the free alcohol while it lasted, and having a rare old singsong. Of course, at one stage we all bellowed out The Internationale and as I was singing along with Bob, Hazel et al, I thought to myself 'What a great country this is. Could this happen at No. 10 or the White House?'''

In that same year Hawke took wing to the United States and found himself at a barbecue on the ranch of Texas tycoon John D. Byram.

Surrounded by open-mouthed good ol' boys in string ties, high-heeled boots and big hats and their good lady wives dripping with gold and the sort of flounce that passed for high fashion among the moneyed classes of Dallas and Austin, the Silver Bodgie couldn't help himself.

Accompanied by Australian journalists on piano and guitar, he not only bawled Solidarity Forever, but followed it with the socialist hymn The Red Flag. If the 450 invited guests - oil, property and beef capitalists all - were feeling a touch of the vapours at this bizarre turn of events, they didn't let on.

The matter of taste, anyway, was relative: John D. Byram's stupendous ranch house not only boasted a gun room with enough weaponry to fight a new civil war, but a ''game room'' festooned with a stuffed lion, a stuffed polar bear, a stuffed leopard and a stuffed seal, plus the trophy heads of rhinoceros, bison, buffalo and deer, most of them gunned down by the good John D. himself. The Australian travelling media dubbed it ''the abattoir'' and repaired to the margarita machine, revving themselves into a party that continued all night with much more song and at one point, a senior Australian public servant disporting himself with a champagne cork in each ear.

The old VIP Boeing 707 that flew a series of prime ministers around the world and has long since been canned was, in Hawke's day, something of a travelling minstrel show.

Craig Emerson, now a minister in the Gillard government, was a mere adviser in Hawke's office, and he took his guitar everywhere, regularly filling hours of travel with music. Hazel Hawke played piano, though the plane itself didn't run to such an instrument - she had to be content to wait until there was a keyboard on hand at whatever destination lay ahead. Peter Logue, an Irish-born press gallery journalist with an encyclopaedic memory of the revelry, played just about any instrument and always had his piano accordion at hand. Tony Allan of the ABC took both ukulele and banjo, and a fellow ABC journalist, the late Paul Lyneham, a long-time singer with a rock band called the Bitter Lemons, simply lent his voice.

The central cabin on the 707 became known as The Disco as Hawke and the band rocked around the world.

Hawke, unlike Keating the Mahler man, wasn't naturally attuned to the classics.

Once, visiting the Croatian city of Dubrovnik, he found himself treated to a recitation by a fine classical pianist. Hawke scandalised Yugoslavian officials when he requested that the journalist Logue take to the keyboard for party tunes once the recitation was complete.

You could hardly imagine such high jinks in these iPhone tweeting days.

Pity. We could do with something approaching rhyme and rhythm in Canberra, even if it were judged a bit off key.

When the Concert Party ruled politics

PHILLIP COOREY

May 19, 2012

Big in NSW ... Julian Assange. Photo: AP

THE WikiLeaks founder, Julian Assange, would stand a good chance of securing a Senate seat, most likely at the expense of the Greens, a new poll has found.

But he would have a better chance in NSW than his native Victoria.

The poll of 1000 voters was conducted at the end of last month by UMR Research, the company the Labor Party uses for its internal polling.

Mr Assange, who is still under house arrest in London fighting moves to extradite him to Sweden on sexual assault charges, signalled in March that he wanted to run for the Senate at the next federal election.

A statement issued back then by WikiLeaks said Mr Assange was entitled to run for the Senate, even if still detained abroad.

''The state Julian will run for will be announced at the appropriate time,'' the statement said.

The UMR poll found 25 per cent of those polled would be likely to vote for Mr Assange if he ran, while 14 per cent were unsure and 61 per cent would be unlikely to vote for him.

His highest level of support was among Greens voters and, overall, he was more popular in NSW.

The poll found 66 per cent of Greens voters had a positive view of Mr Assange and 39 per cent of Greens voters were likely to vote for Mr Assange in a Senate election.

Among Labor voters, 27 per cent said they would be likely to vote for him, as did 23 per cent of Coalition voters.

"There is clearly a significant level of support for Julian Assange which crosses party lines and is more concentrated amongst Green voters,'' the pollster John Utting said.

''At this stage Julian Assange stands a very real chance of being elected to the Senate should he run.

''In a half-Senate election he'd take the spot from the Greens.''

Senate support for Mr Assange is strongest in NSW at 27 per cent compared with 23 per cent in Victoria. At the next election, there is no Greens spot up for grabs; the only NSW Greens senator, Lee Rhiannon, is mid-term.

Mr Utting said Mr Assange's campaign was still at a very formative stage ''and the campaign could deliver up more negatives than positives''.

''His branding and what he stands for is pretty clear but he would certainly be vulnerable to a strong campaign emphasising his absentee status, should he of course still be held by authorities in the UK or Sweden.''

Mr Utting believes any extradition of Mr Assange to the US could increase his vote.

Popularity of an Assange run for Senate could leave Greens with envy

• Sophie Mirabella confronts Anthony Albanese QT showdown
• MPs embroiled in heated exchange on Parliament floor
• Liberal frontbencher said: "This is getting personal"

Liberal Frontbencher Sophie Mirabella points and argues with Leader of the House Anthony Albanese after Question Time. Picture: Kym Smith Source: The Daily Telegraph

Ms Mirabella has words with Mr Albanese after Question Time in the House of Representatives Chamber. Picture: Kim Smith Source: The Daily Telegraph

Mrs Mirabella cornered Mr Albanese and angrily jabbed her finger at him. Picture: Kym Smith Source: The Daily Telegraph

Related Coverage

• Private lives put on public display The Australian, 2 hours ago
• Labor 'paid Thomson bill to cling to power' Courier Mail, 2 hours ago
• Thomson to speak on HSU scandal Herald Sun, 1 day ago
• Abbott declines carbon tax rally The Australian, 22 Mar 2012
• Lib MP's expulsion eases tax passage Foundation, 12 Oct 2011

THE political battle over personal integrity exploded in Parliament yesterday afternoon after Liberal frontbencher Sophie Mirabella confronted Labor's Anthony's Albanese in a dramatic showdown.

Mr Albanese, the Government's chief tactician in the House of Representatives, had referred to court action estate of the family of Mrs Mirabella's late former lover, Melbourne QC Colin Howard.
At the back of the Chamber Mrs Mirabella cornered Mr Albanese and angrily jabbed her finger at him as she accused him of quoting from illegally obtained court documents.
Mr Albanese replied that his only sources were newspaper accounts of the case.
“This is getting personal," news.com.au was told Mrs Mirabella said.
“No kidding," replied Mr Albanese, who had just spent about half an hour listening to and fending off Opposition allegations related to Craig Thomson.

The encounter ended with them exchanging more finger jabs when Mr Albanese left the Chamber and Mrs Mirabella went back to her colleagues to tell her what had happened.
During Question Time the Opposition accused Prime Minister Julia Gillard of being part of “a protection racket'' looking after former Labor MP, now independent, Craig Thomson.
This followed revelations Mr Thomson had not formerly declared, as required by parliamentary rules, that the NSW Labor Party was paying his legal costs.
Mr Thomson has been accused of rorting around $500,000 in Health Services Union money on prostitutes and lavish entertainment when he was national secretary.
He has denied the claims and they have not been tested in court.
In answer to an Opposition question, the Prime Minister said she had not discussed the assistance with legal costs with Mr Thomson.
And he confirmed it on Twitter seconds later, saying: “Confirming the PM answer is 100 percent accurate.''
In reply, Mr Albanese revived 1978 newspaper reports that Tony Abbott, now Opposition Leader, had been accused of inappropriately touching a female university student. The court action was not successful.
Mr Albanese's point was that people should be given the presumption of innocence and raised Mrs Mirabella's case to make the same point.
He also revived the fact that Mr Abbott in 2010 had failed to declare a $710,000 loan for two years, breaching the same rules as Mr Thomson.
“He has the hypocrisy to come in here and authorise these attacks,'' said Mr Albanese, indicating Mr Abbott.
Meanwhile, Deputy Speaker Anna Burke, sitting in for Speaker Peter Slipper who is standing aside until allegations against him are dealt with, had troubled reining the bad tempered Question Time.
At one point she rose to her feet and glared at the MPs before saying: “The death stare will apply.''
Mr Albanese continued his battle with Opposition MPs at one stage yelling at Deputy Liberal Leader Julie Bishop: “That's the point you fool.'' He was ordered to withdraw the remark.
Ms Bishop had just told the House that allegations against Mr Thomson “will go before a court.'' 

Sophie Mirabella confronts Anthony Albanese as Question Time gets personal | News.com.au

Phillip Coorey May 11, 2012

COALITION hopes that the Craig Thomson affair will bring down the Gillard government have been set back with the independent MP Bob Katter saying the courts, not Parliament, should judge the former Labor MP.

Mr Katter told the Sydney Morning Herald he would not support any vote suspending Mr Thomson from the Parliament, or forcing his resignation, until the matters against the MP had been heard by the court.

He accused the Coalition of double standards for pursuing Mr Thomson's alleged misdeeds of past years when it turned a blind eye for more than a decade to the alleged indiscretions of Peter Slipper when he was a Coalition MP.

"I don't want to be cast in the role of judging" ... Bob Katter. Photo: Nic Walker

''There's no qualitative difference in the actions of the Liberal Party and the Labor Party here,'' he said.

''I don't want to be cast in the role of judging either of them.''

Mr Thomson was found by Fair Work Australia to have misused about $500,000 of members' funds while national secretary of the Health Services Union between 2002 and 2007.

The findings have been referred to the Federal Court for civil action but the opposition is demanding that Mr Thomson leave Parliament now.

On Tuesday it sought to have him suspended for 14 days but the motion failed because the crossbenchers Rob Oakeshott, Tony Windsor and Adam Bandt backed the government. Mr Katter abstained.

Mr Thomson will make a statement to Parliament the week after next and the independents said they will reserve further action until they hear what he says.

While they might support something that censures Mr Thomson, none will support anything that will bring the government down. Mr Oakeshott told the Herald that the Liberals should lead by example and expel the South Australian senator Mary Jo Fisher, who was found guilty of assault last year without a conviction.

The government gave notice it would fight fire with fire and tabled newspaper reports from 1978 when the Opposition Leader, Tony Abbott, was charged with the indecent assault of a female student.

The charge was later dismissed but the government's leader in the House, Anthony Albanese, noted that Mr Abbott was cleared by the court, not a politicised student council.

Mr Albanese also said Labor would start going after the Coalition frontbencher Sophie Mirabella, who is subject to civil claims over a deceased estate. Ms Mirabella remonstrated angrily with Mr Albanese afterwards.

The opposition pursued reports yesterday that Labor had been paying Mr Thomson's legal fees until his ALP membership was suspended two weeks ago.

The opposition frontbencher Christopher Pyne said that had Labor not paid the fees, Mr Thomson would be bankrupt, no longer eligible to sit in Parliament and the government would have fallen.

Meanwhile, the legal stoush over the contents of a black bag belonging to the HSU boss Michael Williamson will head to court after Mr Williamson's lawyer and police failed to agree on the nature of the documents in the bag.

During a police raid on the HSU East branch in Sydney on May 1, officers seized the suitcase from Mr Williamson and his son Chris, a union employee, in a nearby basement car park.

Mr Williamson's lawyer Vivian Evans claims the documents are of a legal nature and therefore attract legal professional privilege.

As the police are challenging that claim, the bag's contents have been sealed and taken to Parramatta Local Court.

With Kate McClymont

Labor safe for now as Katter demands ruling by court

May 10, 2012

Opinion

Let us pause for a moment to enjoy the majesty of Craig Thomson's magnificent gall, the gall on which Julia Gillard and her government have relied for the entire time Gillard has been Prime Minister.

The Thomson defence: Someone else misused his union credit card. They also misused his driver's licence. Then forged his signature on receipts. They misappropriated his phone and made calls near his home and from hotels where he was staying. The phone was used to call escort agencies. The $250,000 allegedly spent by Thomson to help get into Parliament but never declared was not spent on electoral matters.

He can also explain why his credit card, driver's licence and phone were never reported stolen. And why bills that included receipts from escort agencies and cash withdrawals were paid under his authorisation.

"Magnificent gall" ... Craig Thomson. Photo: Penny Bradfield

On Monday, Fair Work Australia finally released a report into the Thomson affair. It runs to 1100 pages. Thomson responded: ''This whole investigation has been nothing short of a joke.''

To appreciate the scale of the damage done to the reputation of the government, the Parliament, the Labor Party and the federal bureaucracy, the timeline is key. It is shocking.

FWA has a case to answer. The Australian Electoral Commission has a case to answer. So does the Prime Minister. And the Labor Party. And two independents, Tony Windsor and Rob Oakeshott, who have repeatedly voted to prolong this appalling charade.

More than three years have passed since Mark Davis broke a story in this newspaper on April 8, 2009, which began: ''The federal Labor MP and former union boss Craig Thomson faces allegations that his union credit cards were used to pay for escort services and to withdraw more than $100,000 in cash, as well as bankroll his election campaign for the central coast seat of Dobell.

''Documents provided to the Herald show that Health Services Union officials concluded last year that union credit cards issued to Mr Thomson - and other financial resources - were used for election campaign spending. These had not been disclosed under electoral law.''

Thomson initiated defamation proceedings against the Herald. In April 2011, shortly before the trial was to begin, Thomson's lawyers filed a notice of discontinuance. It was revealed the Labor Party had paid $150,000 to Thomson for his legal fees to keep the matter open for two years and stave off bankruptcy, which would have obliged Thomson to resign his seat.

On July 31 last year, in a radio interview, Thomson claimed he was a victim of fraud.

On August 16 last year, Gillard, by now Prime Minister, responded to a question in Parliament: ''I have complete confidence in the member for Dobell. I think he is doing a fine job … [and] I look forward to him continuing to do that job for a very long, long, long time to come.''

On December 14 last year, the Herald reported that Thomson had plagiarised various sources for a report tabled to Parliament after an overseas trip. It was also six months late.

FWA finally delivered a report on March 28. On April 4, a Senate standing committee asked when it would see the report. The general manager of FWA, Bernadette O'Neill, replied the next day: ''I consider that [providing] the report to the committee while I am considering these matters would not be in the public interest.'' She anticipated another four to six weeks.

On April 7, the leader of the opposition in the Senate, Eric Abetz, filed a Freedom of Information request asking for the report. FWA was obliged to respond within 28 days.

Gillard announced on April 29 that she had asked Thomson to remove himself to the cross benches, saying ''a line had been crossed''. She provided no specifics.

On May 7, the last possible day for responding to the FOI request without having to seek an extension, FWA released its report.

It found that Thomson's explanations were implausible: ''Mr Thomson claims that these transactions were incurred fraudulently by another person using his credit cards. However the [evidence] overwhelmingly support an inference that it was Mr Thomson who used his own credit cards to make these transactions.''

On Tuesday, in Parliament, the opposition proposed a motion that Thomson be suspended for 14 sitting days and provide a statement to Parliament in response to the adverse findings of the FWA report. The government defeated the motion with votes of Windsor and Oakeshott.

Yesterday, even though the FWA report concluded Thomson had spent up to $250,000 of union funds in undeclared campaign spending, the AEC said that, as the FWA report had taken three years to appear, the statute of limitations had expired.

The core revelations were placed in the public domain three years ago. The charade rolls on and the desperate buy more time.

Thomson charade still going as the players await a final curtain

• Notices issued to individuals involved
• Fair Work Australia instructing lawyers
• Union 'failed to protect members'

NSW Police raid the Pitt St offices of the Health Services Union. Picture: John Grainger Source: The Australian

CRAIG Thomson today denied any wrong-doing while national secretary of the Health Services Union after Fair Work Australia pointed to an abject failure to control finances of the union.

The former Labor MP, now an independent, said he would strenuously defend himself against any proceedings brought against him based on the FWA findings.

General manager of FWA, Bernadette O'Neill, today said she could not name those mentioned in the 1100-page document because she had no protection against defamation proceedings.

But she had forwarded the document to a Senate committee which could release the findings under privileged.

Mr Thomson attacked FWA and its report.

"This whole investigation has been nothing short of a joke,'' he said.

"It is unprecedented that an investigative body has such little confidence in its report that it seeks parliamentary privilege as a condition of the report's release.''

Mr Thomson said the Commonwealth Director of Public Prosecutions, which has forwarded the FWA findings to NSW and Victorian police, "has made it clear that there are no findings of a criminal nature in the report''.

"The Police have made it clear that there is nothing in the Fair Work Australia Report that is of a criminal nature. I'm very glad the police have seen it, because that is what I have always called for, for police to be handed the Fair Work Australia Report.''

Mr Thomson is linked to "the great majority'' of instances of inappropriate spending detailed in the Fair Work Australia, according to details released today.

These alleged breaches included spending of union money on "escort services, spousal travel, and excessive travel and hospitality expenditure".

The investigation of finances of the Health Services Union by FWA claims it found "an organisation that abjectly failed to have adequate governance''.

Proceedings based on the findings will be launched in the Federal Court. But these are likely to be under civil law and not criminal charges.

The FWA's Bernadette O'Neill said the contraventions related to the union's head office and two current officials, a former auditor, and one former official.

Mr Thomson has said he believes his name is mentioned in the report. He was the national secretary of the HSU from 2003-07.

And today he linked current HSU national secretary Kathy Jackson and East Branch president Michael Williamson to the group figuring in the FWA allegations.

"The investigation reveals an organisation that abjectly failed to have adequate governance arrangements in place to protect union members' funds against misuse,'' wrote Ms O'Neill.

"Substantial funds were, in my view, spent inappropriately including on escort services, spousal travel, and excessive travel and hospitality expenditure.

"After considering the report fully I have concluded that it is in the public interest to act on all of the findings made by the delegate (who investigated the HSU). I have decided that the public interest strongly favours acting wherever possible to ensure that organisations and their officers and employees are properly held to account for the expenditure of the union's funds.

"I consider that taking this action will have an important general and specific deterrent effect on this and other organisations.''

Mr Thomson said the findings were based on allegations and had not been tested in a court.

"These assertions are not based on proper evidence,'' he said.

"These allegations are burdened with claims by two people, Michael Williamson and Kathy Jackson, who are currently under criminal investigation.

"The investigation conducted by the Fair Work Australia delegate was not authorised and the report is beyond the power of Fair Work Australia.

"The investigation was not properly conducted and crucial witnesses were not interviewed. The report indicates bias on behalf of the Fair Work Australia delegate and a lack of fairness.''

HSU officials to be taken to court by Fair Work Australia | News.com.au

Sky News8 May 2012

• Bill Shorten disturbed and disappointed by HSU report
• Report revealed member funds spent on escorts, travel
• Thomson claims he didn't notice the bills on his card

The government hopes all eyes are on the budget today while new allegations against Craig Thomson arise.

Bill Shorten admonishes HSU conduct. Picture: Ray Strange Source: The Advertiser

CRAIG Thomson didn't notice that bills for Sydney escort services had been put on his Health Services Union credit card, the former Labor MP told investigators.

It wasn't raised with him by anyone else, Mr Thomson told Fair Work Australia according to documents released last night by a Senate committee.

But he did know that another union official, Jeff Jackson, had repaid $15,000 in union money spent on prostitutes. The FWA could not find evidence of anyone having paid back money.

The former Labor MP, now an independent, was confronted by FWA investigators with six occasions when his cards were used to pay for prostitutes.

The investigators at one point had to engage in a transcontinental hunt for who wielded the credit card and where.

The FWA investigators found Mr Thomson's Mastercard had been used to pay $330 to an escort service Aboutoun Catering, which operated in all states except Victoria and Queensland, on March 26, 2003.

Before then the report shows that on February 21, Mr Thomson's Diners Club card was used to pay for his $856.62 Qantas return flight from Melbourne to Perth, the same amount for the same flight for wife Christa Thomson, and the same flight and fare for Karen Walton. He attended a HSU executive meeting in Perth.

In addition, the card was used to pay for $270 worth of cab travel between February 17 and February 22.

On February 18 a union credit card was used to withdraw $300 from an ATM in Sydney, and on February 24 $300 from an ATM in Fremantle.

"I consider that Mr Thomson used his CBA Mastercard to purchase $330 in escort services from Aboutoun either during his visit to Sydney on 17 February 2003 or while in Perth on 26 February 2003," said the FWA investigator.

Earlier FWA general manager Bernadette O'Neill said she was sending the 1100-page document to the Education and Employment Committee which could name people without risk of defaming anyone.

The document has been kept confidential until last night but Ms O'Neill said it showed an unnamed person was alleged to have spent union funds inappropriately on escort services, spousal travel and excess travel and hospitality.

The FWA detailed an interview with Mr Thomson, who was HSU national secretary from 2003-2007 when he left to stand for the win the NSW central coast seat of Dobell for Labor.

He told investigators of the escort services charges: "I wasn't aware and didn't notice those on my credit card.

"It wasn't raised with me that there was no receipt for it, otherwise I would have made some inquiries as to what it was.

"I think it's called Keywed Restaurant or something like that. That didn't stand out, you know, to me. I just didn't notice that it was there."

On March 11, 2003, Mr Thomson's credit cards were used to pay two separate accounts with a Sydney brothel, each for $570.

"Do you recall these transactions?" asked the investigator. "No, I don't," Mr Thomson replied.

The Opposition is certain to use the findings to attack the Government and Mr Thomson, and disrupt the selling of tonight's Budget.

"The volume of the findings is disturbing. It is concerning," said Workplace Relations Minister Bill Shorten.

FWA said it was powerless to do anything about credit card use that occurred after Mr Thomson resigned from the union in December 2007, but it found three contraventions of workplace laws in relation to his election spending.

In the period after the 2007 federal election until February 25, 2008, Mr Thomson spent $1425.62 on taxis, a meal, parking and newspaper subscriptions, the report says.

The investigation found "no documents" had been produced to show the union's national council or national executive had authorised Mr Thomson to use the Mastercard or Diners Club cards after his resignation.

Mr Thomson told investigators he did not have a "clear recollection" of the credit card use, but he issued a statement yesterday denying any wrongdoing and said he would defend all claims in court.

The FWA investigation also found just over $196,000 of union members' funds was used in connection with two employees who were engaged in election activities for Mr Thomson and $71,300 was spent directly on the campaign.

While Mr Thomson said all of the spending was for "legitimate HSU purposes", according to the report, investigator Terry Nassios found that neither the union's national executive or national council had authorised the spending.

Of the 181 total contraventions of workplace laws and union rules identified in the report, 156 relate to Mr Thomson, who became union secretary in August 2002.

The FWA will take all 181 matters to the Federal Court.

One of the contraventions relates to general secretary Kathy Jackson and five relate to stood-aside president Michael Williamson.

The remainder relate to the national office and to former national auditor Ian Dick.

In an interview during the investigation, Mr Thomson denied using a HSU credit card to procure escort services.

But the investigator found "the preponderance of evidence is such that I can only conclude that it was indeed Mr Thomson who used his credit card to spend the amount of $5793 for the procurement of escort services.

"I have found that Mr Thomson has expended HSU funds for the procurement of escort services for no legitimate HSU purposes," he wrote in the report.

FWA found a union rule breach and three contraventions of workplace laws relating to the escort services payments, with the report saying the funds "were not expended ... on a purpose reasonably incidental to the general administration of the HSU".

- with AAP

Bill Shorten: HSU conduct 'disturbing, disappointing' | News.com.au

Updated May 08, 2012 12:42:21

Photo: Peter Slipper has been Speaker in the House of Representatives since late last year. (AAP: Penny Bradfield)

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Peter Slipper will don his robes and take the Speaker's chair for a short time this afternoon before entering his extended exile from the job.

Mr Slipper has indicated he will stand down as Speaker while claims of fraud and sexual harassment against him are investigated

The embattled Speaker is expected to briefly take the Speaker's chair when Parliament resumes at 2:00pm to make a statement and hand the duties to Labor's Deputy Speaker Anna Bourke.

He is then expected to take a seat on the crossbenches, alongside Craig Thomson, who has been suspended from the Labor Party amid claims he spent members' funds on prostitutes during his time as a Health Services Union official.

Mr Slipper's former aide James Ashby lodged documents in the Federal Court last month alleging that the MP for Fisher continually pursued a sexual relationship with him and misused taxpayer-funded Cabcharge vouchers.

Opposition Leader Tony Abbott is warning that a motion of no confidence will be moved against Mr Slipper if he tries to stay in the chair today.

"My expectation - and I think the requirement of the vast majority of members of Parliament - is that Mr Slipper not take the chair," he said.

"Now if he does what he says he has done and does not take the chair there'll be no necessity for the course of action [to declare a no confidence motion]."

Independent MP Tony Windsor says he will not try to stop Mr Slipper from making a brief statement when Parliament resumes.

"If it's purely Peter Slipper - who's still the Speaker - telling the House why he's vacating the chair for a period of time, then I can't see any real issue with that," he said.

Mr Windsor says Mr Slipper deserves to have a say.

"I think the Speaker - given he hasn't been convicted or even charged with anything - probably has a right to say why he's vacating the chair," he said.

Mr Slipper defected from the Liberal Party last year in a deal struck with Prime Minister Julia Gillard which saw him take on the Speaker role.

But at the end of last month, following the civil and criminal allegations made against him, Ms Gillard said she had asked him to extend his time away from the Speaker's chair.

The Federal Police are investigating the claims that Mr Slipper misused Cabcharge vouchers.

He has denied all allegations.

Slipper to take Speaker's chair briefly - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

Updated May 04, 2012 09:29:15

Video: Gillard promotes nation's food credentials (ABC News)

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Prime Minister Julia Gillard says Australia has the potential to become a global food superpower.

Julia Gillard addresses the Global Foundation summit at the National Gallery of Victoria. Photo: Justin McManus

Ms Gillard told an international summit in Melbourne last night that Australia needed to capitalise on the soaring regional need for food in the same way it currently did with resources.

"Just as we have become a minerals and energy giant, Australia can be a great provider of reliable, high-quality food to meet Asia's growing needs," she said.

"In doing this, we are not just an exporter of commodities but a partner in growing international markets and a provider of higher value products and services for the global food industry."

She says Australia needs to become a leader in the area of food production.

"It's not just about more exports. It is about developing the systems and services that add extra value to them and participating in the development of a market-based solution to food security across the region," she said.

"Building our food processing industry so that it can supply Asia's growing consumer markets and developing the research, technologies and logistics that strengthen irrigation, grow higher-yield crops and improve safety."

In September the Prime Minister commissioned former treasury secretary Ken Henry to author a White Paper to map out Australia's economic and strategic engagement with Asia over the coming decades.

'Hang on to your hats'

Ms Gillard says Australia is in the unique position of being close to the economic engine room of the 21st century.

"If you think the change we have lived through already in our region and in our nation is amazing, then hang on to your hats because so much more change is still to come," she said.

"Today, for example, 30 per cent of global output is created within 10,000 kilometres of Australia's shores. That may double by 2050."

"By 2030, China and India alone are forecast to account for 35 per cent of global energy demand."

But she has called on the country to become more "Asia literate" to take advantage of the boom.

"White Paper consultation has demonstrated that cultural literacy and understanding, or what Ken Henry describes as 'Asia-relevant capabilities' are vital to Australia's prospects in this century," she said.

"We need to encourage even more Australians to study and work in the region and maintain their connections over their lifetimes."

And she says Australian business must learn to adapt to the changing regional environment.

"Australian businesses must find opportunities in conditions where the dollar and terms of trade will remain high for the foreseeable future," she said.

"They will not do that by simply doing more of the same or by slashing costs and quality. They will need to offer products and services with distinctive value, based on real areas of comparative advantage.

"Indeed, the 21st century business model is likely to be very different from the successful business models of the last quarter of the 20th century."

Gillard sees Australia as future food superpower - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)