The Turnbull Government is seeking to make a direct link between the Heydon Royal Commission's findings and the ABCC legislation that looks set to be a double-dissolution trigger, but there is no concrete policy connection between the two, according to a leading IR academic.
The Victorian County Court has given suspended jail sentences to two former Cbus employees who pleaded guilty to giving false and misleading evidence to the Heydon Royal Commission.
RMIT academic Professor Anthony Forsyth has told a forum on the Heydon Royal Commission that he has shifted his position on whether a specialist regulator of unions and employer organisations is justified, and now believes unions should accept the Coalition's proposed Registered Organisations Commission.
The Turnbull Government is threatening a double dissolution election if the Senate refuses to pass the Bill it reintroduced today to re-establish the ABCC.
The Turnbull Government will tomorrow re-introduce legislation to re-establish the ABCC, aiming to win enough support from the Senate crossbenchers for it be passed by early March.
The Heydon Royal Commission has recommended that the Turnbull Government introduce special legislation to disqualify officers of the CFMEU who are deemed by Parliament to be not to be fit and proper persons, while stopping short of recommending the union's deregistration.
The Heydon Royal Commission has confirmed it will deliver its final report - which will run to "several volumes" - to the Federal Government by the end of the year.
The NUW's troubled NSW branch faces a complete $250,000 write-down on its investment in a failed media company, Manic Times Pty Ltd, while the union's national secretary has confirmed it proceeded with a fundraiser that came under fire in the Heydon Royal Commission.
CFMEU construction and general division Victorian branch leaders John Setka and Shaun Reardon will go to a contested committal hearing in March next year on the blackmail charges brought by the Royal Commmission police taskforce over the 2013 Boral concrete bans.
Victoria Police have today charged CFMEU construction and general division Victorian branch secretary John Setka and his deputy Shaun Reardon with blackmail, for allegedly pressuring concrete supplier Boral over its relationship with the builder Grocon.