There has been a few things going on lately with the Health Services Union aside from just the Royal Commission.

There have been elections, delayed elections, and all sorts of strange thing in between. Given this I thought it may be timely to give a run down on where things are up to with the ongoing HSU saga.

Let’s start off with Craig Thomson. Craig’s appeal against the guilty verdict relating to approximately $25K in spending on union funds is due in court next month.

Meanwhile The Australian has put its own unique spin on the Fair Work Commission decision to drop a massive chunk of its case against Thomson declaring in a headline;

“Fair Work tightens compensation case against Craig Thomson”

Tightens? Is that now what News Ltd call it now when a case against someone weakens to the point of having to drop vast amounts of it?

It makes you wonder what sort of negative spin they have in mind if the case against Thomson is dropped.

Thomson’s solicitor Chris McCardle meanwhile described it as less a case of “tightening” than a case of having;

“No fucking evidence”

The eloquence of his portrayal perhaps a sign of his frustration at this drawn out affair.

Meanwhile the results are in from NSW branch elections and they highlight a couple of things. The complete results can be seen via the link below.

HSU-NSW-Ballot-declaration

Firstly this tells us that the Jacksonville candidate Katrina Hart is about as popular as a sneeze in an Ebola treatment facility with the members.

Branch Secretary Gerard Hayes was quick to send out an email to members with the good news. Hayes told members that;

“Over 5,000 HSU members voted in this election, which is an excellent result.”

I have a different perspective. With over 30,000 members I would say that having less than 18% of members being interested in voting is not such an excellent result, I’d tend to use a word more along the lines of dismal.

The average turnout for a union election I am informed is 24%, which puts this one at more than 25% below average. But maybe the HSU members in NSW are less inclined than the average members?

The last election for the HSU NSW Branch had a turnout of approximately 29% of members, the previous one was around 34% and the election prior to that was in 1999 and had a turnout of around 65%.

So what does this mean then?

My gut tells me that this shows a distinct lack of enthusiasm for either candidate for Secretary.

It also makes me wonder what would happen if there were a candidate for Secretary that could put together a ticket without being either aligned with the Jackson faction, or the Right faction of the Labor Party. That might bring back some enthusiasm.

Meanwhile in Victoria things have gone a little off the rails.

Jamie Martorana a former (some would say current) ally of Kathy Jackson and Marco Bolano was running a ticket against current Secretary Diana Asmar.

This was being contested in Federal Court as Martorana had not been working in the industry since 2010 and therefore was not eligible to be a member of the union.

Martorana’s claim was that he was not able to work due to a mental health issue. However now he is well again he can not only be a member, but run the union as well.

I found it more than a little alarming that yet again we have a mental health issue as a part of a defence for someone from the Jackson faction.

We have Martorana claiming mental health issues for not being able to work, we have Marco Bolano claiming mental health problems to pick up a massive compensation claim, Leonie Flynn claiming mental health problems for her unreliable testimony and for not being able to show up to work, and of course Kathy Jackson herself in a psychiatric ward instead of Federal Court. Of all of these claims the only one I take seriously is that of Flynn whom I genuinely feel for and I hope she is receiving whatever assistance she needs and is not just being used as a puppet by people pretending to care about her, again.

Details have also emerged of Martorana’s package signed off by Kathy Jackson and Michael Williamson after Martorana had only been in the role for five months. It seems Martorana was receiving $240K, nearly a quarter of a million dollars of members funds over two years.

The matter finalised in court last week and the Court decided that both Jamie Martorana and Jayne McGovan who was running for assistant secretary were ineligible to stand for positions, McGovan thinking that she could stand for an officials position she was not even a paid member of.

The court is now waiting for the Martorana team to come back with a new number one and number two candidate, a situation that most would see as rather comical and makes the chances of their challenge succeeding less likely than a Muslim missionary converting Andrew Bolt to Islam.

Kathy Jackson’s old branch had no such issues as there were no challenges to Craig McGregor’s team. This indicates firstly that McGregor and his team are doing a great job for the membership, but also shows a weakening of Jackson’s faction and her support as her faction cannot even put a ticket together in her own old branch. It would seem her supporters are distancing themselves as they don’t want to wear the odour stemming from the stench that is permeating from Jackson’s crumbling faction at the moment.

Kathy Jackson meanwhile is reportedly still in a psychiatric facility where she is not due to recover until she thought the Royal Commission was due to finish. The matter however is due back in Federal Court on the 5^th November when her doctor’s explanation of her seemingly convenient condition will be examined in greater detail than the report provided to the Court last time that was reportedly only thorough in its vagueness. Although remarkably for a mental health condition was allegedly incredibly specific about when Jackson’s normal self would return, the 15^th January 2015.

For those who live with the suffering of mental health issues daily not just at times of convenience, please follow these links to contact Lifeline or perhaps Beyond Blue for support.

I was once told if it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck, then there is a good chance it is a duck. One doesn’t need to be David Attenborough to figure that out.

Now I don’t claim to be a doctor or any kind of expert on mental health, however when I see people like Marco Bolano running around intimidating people, I don’t think I need a degree to realise he is not incapacitated by a mental health condition. By the same token when Jackson runs out of options to further delay a case against her for approximately $700K and is suddenly suffering a mental health condition, I don’t think one needs to be a mastermind to recognise the convenience of the situation.

I am not saying that any of these people are faking conditions, I’ll leave that up to doctors to determine and for the public to make up their own minds.

However, mental health is a serious issue in this country. There are thousands of Australians suffering from terrible conditions that most of us cannot begin to understand.

It is not just Tony Abbott’s Coalition government that is doing harm to the mental health sector with its cutbacks though. It is those who make false claims of hard to diagnose conditions that create a stigma around mental health that can only make things worse for those who are truly suffering further increasing the burden these people are forced to shoulder. People seeking to use these conditions to evade prosecution or as an excuse for inappropriate behaviour not only help create a stigma they also waste the time and resources of an already over-stretched sector of our health services.

Whatever your views on the mental health status of the key players in the HSU saga, one thing is definite, there is rarely a dull moment.

Rest assured, I’ll keep writing about those moments that are worth reporting on.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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