Employment Minister Michaelia Cash has told a Senate Estimates committee that she had no obligation to disclose the resignation of ABCC deputy commissioner and in-house counsel Anthony Southall QC and that she only became aware yesterday of his reasons for departing.
The Turnbull Government is poised to introduce legislation to force greater disclosure from union-related funds including redundancy funds, which have about $2 billion in assets.
Coalition senators, in a new Senate inquiry report, have rejected concerns about the "ensuring integrity" bill that introduces a public interest test for union mergers, while minority Labor and Greens senators have dismissed the legislation as "politically-driven" and "politically-motivated".
The Federal Court has today ordered former ABC Commissioner Nigel Hadgkiss to pay the CFMEU an $8,500 fine for his "wrongdoing" when he breached the law "he was required to police", resulting in the dissemination of "false information" on right of entry.
ACTU secretary Sally McManus told a hearing in Melbourne today that the Federal Government’s "ensuring integrity" legislation would impose harsher standards and punishments on unions and their officials than the Corporations Act does to employers.
The ACTU has taken aim at the proposed public interest test for union amalgamations, saying there is no basis for the Turnbull Government's claim that it is the equivalent of the competition test for corporate mergers.
The CFMEU has told the Federal Court that significant penalties are required against ABC Commissioner Nigel Hadgkiss for causing incorrect information to be published on union right of entry, and has urged it to consider his unlawful conduct as spanning the full period it remained online.
The Turnbull Government will this week introduce legislation giving APRA greater powers to investigate superannuation funds, including the fees and sponsorships directed from industry super funds to unions.
Citizens of nine of the Pacific's most vulnerable island nations and Timor-Leste will soon be able to work in the aged care sector in regional Australia following a Federal Government decision to establish a new Pacific Labour Scheme alongside the existing Seasonal Worker Programme.