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November 8th, 2015 
Awake Goy 
Michelle Grattan (TC) : Bill Shorten can heave a sigh of relief at the statement from the royal commission into union corruption that he didn’t do anything illegal in the activities it examined in his Australian Workers’ Union past.
If Jeremy Stoljar, SC, counsel assisting the commission, had recommended in his Friday submissions that the commission find Shorten might have breached the law, that surely would have killed his leadership.
Shorten has dodged a bullet, while Stoljar has said his union successor Cesar Melhem, now a Victorian state Labor politician, and construction company Thiess John Holland may have committed offences in the company’s payments to the union during the construction of the Melbourne EastLink project. Discussions on the matter started in Shorten’s time.
Nor is the commission necessarily all done on the subject of Shorten – commissioner Dyson Heydon’s report comes at the end of the year.
But assuming there is nothing seriously adverse for him there, Shorten’s allegiances with and obligations to the unions still present him with credibility problems as alternative prime minister.
The details of union corruption and thuggery that have come out at the commission are appalling. It is true, as Shorten and Labor keep saying, that the commission was set up as a political exercise with him as one of its targets. But that does not alter the fact that it has exposed shocking conduct.
Some of the worst behaviour has involved the Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union (CFMEU).
Surely that union should be disaffiliated by the ALP, or at least have its affiliation suspended until there is clear evidence the situation has been rectified.
But the CFMEU forms part of Shorten’s power base. It was vital at this year’s ALP national conference in helping him with the numbers on key issues, most notably the policy that allows a future Labor government to turn back asylum seeker boats.
The CFMEU’s influence was one factor in the very strong stand Labor took on the China-Australia free trade agreement.
And Shorten’s workplace relations spokesman, Brendan O’Connor, is the brother of Michael O’Connor, who is national secretary of the union.
In a September profile of Michael O’Connor, Ewin Hannan wrote in the Australian Financial Review that he “wields significant influence in both the union movement and the Labor Party. … [T]hrough O’Connor’s relationships in the ALP and with not only other unions but also the Senate crossbenchers and the Greens, he has been effective at stymying change that his members don’t agree with and driving home policies they support”.
Hannan also noted that colleagues said “the brothers are mindful of the obvious conflict of interest but watch each other’s
Source Article from http://nsnbc.me/2015/11/08/bill-shorten-needs-to-demonstrate-independence-from-the-unions/
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