How the unions gave Bill a hand
Slush fund allegations over Shorten’s leadership
BILL Shorten’s campaign to become Labor leader in 2013 was partly funded by undisclosed donations from an allegedly dodgy secret milliondollar union slush fund.
And in further revelations ions on crunch day for the royal oyal commission into trade unionnion corruption, it has also been discovered that one of Australia’s lia’s largest industry super funds,nds, controlled by the same union,ion, used thousands of dollarss of members’ money to regularly arly donate to the slush fund.
The discovery of links between the slush fund, a $4.5 billion super fund with 180,000000 union and non-union memembers and Mr Shorten’s bid d to become Labor leader comeses as the head of the royal commismission, Justice Dyson Heydon, don, today hands down his decisionsion on whether he will step down own amid accusations of bias by the unions and the Labor Party. y.
The Courier-Mail can reveal veal that Mr Shorten receivedived $5000 in undisclosed donaonations from a slush fund called alled IR21 associated with the National Union of Workers.
The money was paid to the ALP national secretariat undernder the “Shorten Leadership hip Campaign” on Septemberer 26, 2013.
It was alleged that IR211 was set up to dodge rules prohibiting unions from using members’ money to fund internal election campaigns.
Mr Shorten at the time was contesting the internal leadership of the ALP against Anthony Albanese.
One of the major donors rs to the IR21 slush fund was indusdustry super fund LUCRF (Labourbour Union Co-operative Retirement Fund), whose board was dominated by NUW officials.
The former secretary of the NUW Charlie Donnelly, who was named in the interim report as being responsible for setting up IR21, resigned from the NUW and became the CEO of LUCRF in 2014.
The damaging revelations of alleged links between the entities are contained within various chapters of the royal commission’s interim report of December last year.
But those links to Mr Shorten’s own bid to become Labor leader had not been established until now.
A senior Government source, aware of the timing of the revelations, argued that the dots had not been previously drawn.
“These alarming revelations from the Trade Union Royal Commission Interim Report highlight the serious allegations heard by the commission and the importance of it continuing its work,” they said.
“With union officials impli- cated in alleged criminal activity, it’s no wonder that Labor has sought from day one to undermine the integrity of the commissioner and the royal commission itself.”
Events held by IR21, set up by Mr Donnelly in 2003, are alleged to have raised upu to $300,000 a year.
NUW general secr secretary Tim Kennedy claimed no findings had been made by the commission against the N NUW.
He said he could not speaks directly for LUCRF but thatth it was routine for companie companies, individuals and superannu superannuation funds to buy tickets to eventsev such as those by IR21.
The Courier-Mail was last night awaiting a response from
Mr Shorten’s office.