Jew World Order

JULIA Gillard’s re-election campaign last year was fought from the Sydney premises of the union at the centre of the Craig Thomson scandal — and the union failed to properly declare almost $80,000 in rent concessions over the deal.

It has also emerged that the Health Services Union paid more than $1.5 million to the ALP while Mr Thomson was its national secretary, despite the union being in deep financial trouble.

The Australian has learned the federal Labor Party leased office space on Level 4, 370 Pitt Street in central Sydney from the NSW branch of the HSU, known as HSUEast, as the headquarters of its 2010 federal campaign.

The party’s federal secretariat continues to lease space in the building, which is used by federal party boss George Wright when he works from Sydney.

However, HSUEast has failed in its legal obligation to declare as a political donation the discount it offers the party for the offices – a total of $79,000 in rent concessions. The union says it is now “reviewing” all its political donations disclosures for accuracy. The deal was disclosed by Labor and there is no suggestion the party knew of the union’s oversight. National HSU president Michael Williamson – a close friend and mentor of Mr Thomson, who is now a federal Labor MP – said last night the omission was “a genuine oversight and the return is being amended now that it has been brought to our attention”.

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“The Australian Electoral Commission is aware of this in-kind donation as it has already been declared by the national secretariat of the ALP,” he said. “As a precaution, HSUEast is reviewing all other AEC returns to ensure there are no further omissions.”

The Labor Party’s financial disclosure for the 2009-10 financial year includes an “in-kind” donation of $79,070 from the HSU, believed to cover the discounted lease on 370 Pitt Street.

Mr Wright said last night: “I can confirm that the national secretariat of the ALP did run the 2010 federal election campaign from office space in Sydney which is leased from the HSU.

“Rent charged for the use of these premises does involve an in-kind donation to the ALP from the HSU,” he said. “This in-kind donation has and will continue to be fully disclosed by the ALP in its publicly available returns to the AEC.”

The fact the HSU continues to be Labor’s landlord in its Sydney premises shows some of the intricate connections that have made it increasingly difficult for Ms Gillard to distance herself from the chaos within the HSU.

Mr Williamson is a former president of the Labor Party. The NSW branch of the union has an impressive property portfolio worth more than $22m, according to its financial statements for the 2009-10 financial year.

Mr Thomson is accused of having misused union funds while he was at the HSU, with allegations that his credit card was used to pay for escort services and unexplained cash withdrawals of more than $100,000. Mr Thomson has strenuously denied the claims.

An investigation by NSW police and Fair Work Australia into allegations Mr Thomson misused his union credit card – including to pay for prostitutes – has raised wider concerns about the union’s finances and its donations to the Labor Party.

The $1.5m paid by the HSU’s Victorian and NSW offices to the ALP branches in those states between 2002 and 2007 while Mr Thomson was national secretary were made even though the union’s national office was losing money and was struggling to pay its debts.

The union’s strong financial support to the ALP between 2002 and 2007 was followed by Mr Thomson winning ALP preselection in 2007 for the federal seat of Dobell, north of Sydney.

The ALP recently gave Mr Thomson $90,000 to pay his legal fees for a defamation action against the Fairfax Media group.

An examination of the funding disclosure statements shows that between 2002 and 2007, the HSU branches in NSW and Victoria paid the ALP in those states a combined total of between $233,000 and $304,000 in each year.

These took the form of affiliation fees, donations and other unspecified payments.

Union sources said last night other parts of the HSU organisation, rather than Mr Thomson, would have probably made the final decisions about the size of the payments to the ALP.

The ALP records, held by the Australian Electoral Commission, show that between 2002 and 2007 the HSU in NSW paid a $10,500 monthly “subscription” to the ALP’s NSW branch, but that the union went further by paying one-off donations each year of up to $75,000.

The records show that the HSU, which has 70,000 members, paid more than $1m to the NSW branch of the ALP between 2002 and 2007.

Similarly, the union in Victoria was an active contributor to the Victorian branch of the ALP during that same period, paying more than $450,000 to its coffers between 2002 and 2007.

These generous payments were made at a time when the union’s national office was in deep financial trouble, with its 2007 financial accounts showing a “deficiency of members funds” of $174,076 that year and $135,519 in 2006.

The ACTU was reported to have intervened during Mr Thomson’s time as HSU national secretary to recover almost $400,000 owed by the HSU to the peak union body, although much of this debt was accrued before Mr Thomson became national secretary in 2002. The HSU has since repaid the debt.

Incomplete financial records during Mr Thomson’s tenure as national secretary have made it too difficult for authorities to gain a precise picture of the extent of the HSU’s financial problems.

Neither Mr Thomson nor the current HSU national secretary, Kathy Jackson, returned The Australian’s calls last night.

Additional reporting: Cameron Stewart and Anthony Klan