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May 16th, 2012 
FAKE NEWS for the Zionist agenda A union movement that was established to fight bosses and employers has now pledged to destroy “the enemy within”.
Delegates at the triennial conference of the ACTU heard a new corruption-busting panel would help weed out dodgy union officials, with Australian Workers’ Union (AWU) boss Paul Howes saying the union movement had a moral duty to clean up its act.
In the first meaningful response to the Health Services Union scandal, new ACTU secretary Dave Oliver said the anti-corruption panel would improve governance, bolster financial controls and protect members’ funds.
“We cannot and will not allow the actions of a number of individuals to tarnish our great reputation,” Mr Oliver told about 500 delegates in Sydney on Wednesday.
The panel won unanimous support from members of the ACTU’s 46 union affiliates.
Mr Howes, leader of Australia’s largest blue collar union, said Fair Work Australia’s (FWA) investigation into the HSU scandal, that has shaken the foundations of the union movement, provided proof of “something going really wrong”.
“We have a moral obligation and responsibility … to ensure that we eradicate and we hunt down and we seek out to destroy those within – the enemy within – who seeks to line their own personal pockets,” he told the conference.
FWA’s report has made a series of findings against former HSU secretary turned federal MP Craig Thomson, including that he took kick-backs from a graphic designer and paid for prostitutes and dinners using a union credit card.
HSU boss Michael Williamson is also accused of corruption.
Mr Howes said the union movement must take collective responsibility and act to ensure officials cannot rort members’ funds again.
“If this happens again it will be our fault,” he said.
“We have an opportunity here at this congress to take responsibility collectively for our own actions and to police ourselves and to ensure that we never allow this to happen again.”
The new panel will be chaired by former Federal Court judge Rodney Madgwick.
It will feature Melbourne University’s Professor Danny Samson, Victorian lawyer Judith Bornstein and First Super chief executive Graeme Russell.
ACTU assistant secretary Tim Lyons will act as executive officer.
It will examine financial controls and accountability in other sectors and report back to the ACTU with recommendations on bolstering governance.
It will focus on ways to catch dodgy union officials and improve training standards for union officials with access to cash.
It will also advise on the use and investment of members’ funds and try to improve complaints procedures.
The panel’s report will be tabled to the ACTU executive before being released publicly.
Mr Lyons said members’ funds was the union movement’s first obligation.
“A union official who rorts members’ money is worse than any deadbeat boss,” he told the conference.
Meanwhile, the ACTU conference continued its campaign for sick pay and annual leave for casual workers on the second day of its conference.
Former deputy prime minister Brian Howe released his Lives On Hold report into insecure work, which looked at 520 submissions and held 23 hearings across Australia.
The report estimates that 40 per cent of workers have insecure employment as casual workers, contractors and labour-hire employees.
It called for the registration of labour hire firms and a ban on long-term casual employment arrangements.
ACTU president Ged Kearney said the executive was yet to decide which recommendations it would prioritise.
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