The mood in the elevator was shock and surprise, then someone said “The Fix Is In” and the rest of the packed lift agreed, muttered and nodded.

This was in the elevator I shared with members of the media as we headed back up to the media room after the testimony of Craig McGregor the current Secretary of the Number 3 branch of the HSU, Kathy Jacksons former branch at the Royal Commission today.

More on that later.

The day started off with questions over whether Kathy Jackson was going to appear, or whether it would be later in the week, most did not expect her.

Quite unexpectedly Jackson showed up before proceedings commenced coming in through the front door of the building.

There to support Kathy throughout was her partner Michael Lawler, the Fair Work Commissions Vice President.

So keen to show his support was Lawler that he came in a different entrance to Kathy and did not sit with her in the royal Commission hearing room, in fact it would seem that Lawler goes to extreme lengths not be seen or photographed with the woman he supports.

I wonder if this should be taken as indicative of his opinion of the allegations against her?

First witness up for the day was Katharine Wilkinson, who is the former Vice President of the Victorian Number 3 Branch whist Kathy Jackson was Secretary.

Wilkinson testified on a few interesting points, the NHDA slush fund, another fund for Jacksons “discretionary spending”. The exorbitant pay rises. And how much members of the BCOM were paid for their services.

Wilkinson started out by saying that she had thrown out branch financial statements, something that I found quite alarming for someone in her position. Some may even call this destruction of evidence.

One can only imagine the outcry if Michael Williamson’s Vice President had been throwing away financial documents.

Wilkinson testified that she was unaware of the NHDA slush fund.

When it came to Michael Williamson and his approximate 30% pay increase that was recommended by Jacksons close friend Beth Jenson as part of a HSU East Wilkinson was shocked that Williamson should receive such a huge pay increase.

Jacksons friend also recommended massive pay increases for Jacksons factional pals, including a 66% rise for Jackson and a 70% rise for Bolano who in his previous campaign had campaigned on lowering the wages of union officials.

Fortunately for both of them Jackson and Williamson were still working closely together and Williamson pushed through their enormous pay rises despite what I’m sure were deafening howls of derisive protest.

A point that I found intriguing however was Wilkinson’s testimony regarding Branch Committee Of Management (BCOM) payments.

Wilkinson’s sworn statement asserted:

51. The amount received was usually $100 cash per meeting. I recall that the BCOM had resolved for the payment of higher sitting fees than this amount and that the BCOM members had agreed to contribute the difference towards expenses associated with protecting and advancing the interests of the union.
52. In this way, amounts would be withdrawn from time to time in cash. Some of the cash was used to pay the $100 sitting fees and the balance, representing the donated portion of the sitting fees was retained by Ms Jackson.

No matter how many times I read this the donated portion appears to be donated by the union itself. The BCOM members agreeing to take higher payments only to donate them back seems like robbing Peter to pay Paul. Except Paul in this instance is Jackson, as she is the one that retains the cash.

Perhaps the way of “protecting and advancing the interests of the union” would have been just leaving the money in the union bank account.

Wilkinson claimed that there were anywhere between 10 and 15 members of the BCOM.

At its best attended meetings at $100 a head times 15 that would make a maximum of $1500 expenditure.

Jane Holt, Kathy Jacksons branch bookkeeper was up next and told another version of the sitting fees story.

Holt testified that BCOM meetings cost $8000, which is different to $1500. Vastly so.

This can be explained by Wilkinson’s statement re the extra “donated portion” paid by the union to BCOM members and given to Jackson for “discretionary purposes”.

That leaves $6500 into what I’ll call the Jackson Discretionary Fund.

Given the signed statement of Reuben Dixon, a BCOM member says that the BCOM generally met monthly that makes a tidy little $78,000 Jackson Discretionary Fund each year.

Not a bad little expense account for someone on a $270,000 salary.

I wondered if when Holt testified of Jackson bring her “often vague” receipts in a shoe box she meant a Jimmy Choo shoebox.

One of the things that both Wilkinson and Holt testified about was what has become known as the Peter Mac money which totalled $250,000. A quarter of a million bucks.

The money was owed to workers who were incorrectly paid entitlements, and the $250,000 was a settlement between the union and Peter Mac.

Both Wilkinson and Holt described this money as a “windfall” for the branch.

I find this claim disturbing, disgraceful, and I am offended by it on behalf of the members who didn’t receive their entitlements.

This should have been a windfall for those workers, not a bunch of union officials.

Unions are supposed to chase down entitlements for their members, not pocket the entitlements of members, under Jacksons watch however this would not appear to be the case.

Holts statement also shows the payments into the notorious NHDA slush fund, these payments totalled $284,500. Holt also testified that these payments were budgeted for which would indicate that they were pre-planned.

Next up was the auditor used by Jacksons branch, Mr Agostinelli.

Mr Agostinelli testified that he was satisfied that listing slush fund payments as campaign contributions was appropriate as in the case of the NHDA slush fund allegedly controlled by Kathy Jackson.

Agostinelli also had the strange view that cards that bore the name Kathy Jackson were all official union cards and were to be treated as such. As a result three credit cards that most, including the banks, would deem personal cards he viewed as union cards, therefore making direct debits from a union cheque account to pay for them was acceptable.

Kathy’s Diners Club card Agostinelli testified as an example was used for things like travel and accommodation. Travel may explain why statements on my resource page show the purchase of a car.

After lunch it was Craig McGregor’s turn to take the stand, Craig is the current secretary for Kathy Jacksons former branch, number 3.

There was much expectation amongst the media who were all keen to hear details of the case against Jackson.

Then the unthinkable happened.

In the media room the video feed went down just as Craig was to take the stand, as did the sound, all we had to work with was the transcript feed.

Desperate attempts were made to fix the issue whilst we missed Craig’s testimony, however we were told that it would be at least half an hour till it would be fixed.

With that most of us headed for the elevators and waited for a lift. Then we travelled from the 19th floor down to the 5th floor where the hearing room is located. Then it was just a matter of going past security via an X-Ray machine and metal detector and heading into the hearing room.

I found myself sitting directly behind Jackson, Bolano, and Hart throughout what was left of McGregor’s testimony which was quite difficult to hear, particularly with the childish giggling and carry on by Katrina Hart and Marco Bolano in front of me. Despite efforts by Jackson to settle them down the pair behaved in a manner that was highly inappropriate and disrespectful.

What was extremely obvious however was the change in attitude of Counsel Assisting Stoljar who chastised McGregor like a parent disciplining a child.

Considering this was the only witness this week to not be singing Jacksons theme the difference in questioning was quite stark and quite telling.

Only those in the hearing room however had the chance to witness this as the video feed for the website was also down.

Whist Harts prior testimony had been about how bad Williamsons allies had been for not responding to her queries, something Stoljar had seemed keen to labour over, expand upon, and explore, McGregor was criticised for not requesting information from the auditor enough times when they failed to supply what was requested.

While Bolano and Jackson were praised for taking information to the media to force a response when they couldn’t get answers, McGregor was chastised for doing the same. At one point Stoljar even raised his voice as if scalding a child.

However it was not what Stoljar chose to ask McGregor that was significant, it was what he chose not to ask him that was most telling.

Stoljar chose not to pursue the very things that the media were waiting to hear, the Million Dollar Plus expenditure on credit cards, Neranto #10, the child care, and the extravagant spending.

After McGregor’s testimony the feeling amongst the media seemed to be that we had all been short-changed.

There was talk of the “fix being in” blatant displays of bias, and being witness to an orchestrated witch hunt while some of the most questionable characters seem to be protected.

This was reflected in articles published that continued to raise questions over Jackson rather than praising her as they used to. Even News Ltd attacked Jackson in both the Telegraph and The Australian.

The only sign of a good news story for Jackson came from Michael Smiths blog site, which may be explained by the fact that he was not at the hearing.

Those that were in attendance thought differently.

It should be noted that as yet nobody has witness has been cross-examined, and so witness claims remain unchallenged with the apparent exception of McGregor’s.

Yesterdays witness statements are also available on my resource page.

Today Kathy Jackson takes the stand and the media will be waiting to see how hard she is questioned by Counsel Assisting compared to his questioning of Craig McGregor.

Let’s hope for a level playing field.

 

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