The Heydon Royal Commission will turn its sights on the CFMEU next week, moving to Melbourne for three days starting on Monday, followed by one day in Sydney on Friday.
The Northern Territory's CLP Government has asked Unions NT to relinquish a lease over a valuable property in the Darwin CBD after the completion of a hotly-contested inquiry.
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The Queensland Government has repealed its requirement for unions to conduct a ballot of members before engaging in any political campaigning worth more than $10,000.
Unions lost almost 93,000 members in the 12 months to August last year and density plunged to new lows of 17% overall and 12% in the private sector, according to the ABS.
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.
Australia has been named as a "country of concern" at the opening of the third congress of the International Trade Union Confederation in Berlin, along with more usual targets of criticism.
There is no reason why proceedings shouldn't be launched to deregister the CFMEU's construction and general division, according to former Royal Commissioner Roger Gyles, who says NSW's Greiner-Fahey Government should have taken up his recommendation to eradicate one of its former predecessors, the NSW BWIU.
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.