Ian Temby

The Health Services Union scandal continues to truck along with more charges for Michael Williamson, and two more senior union officials are likely to be charged.

But, why aren’t the members questioning where their funds have gone?

Former Health Services Union boss Michael Williamson has been hit with a raft of extra charges including money laundering and dealing in the proceeds of crime, which attract a potential 15-year jail term.

Mr Williamson, who appeared in Waverley Local Court on Wednesday morning, was also charged with 27 counts of cheat and defraud.

The new charges are believed to relate to allegations of fraud relating to Canme, a company registered to Mr Williamson’s wife Julieanne. Canme charged the union hundreds of thousands of dollars for archiving work that an internal inquiry by barrister Ian Temby QC and accountant Ian Robertson suggested was never done.

Mr Williamson, who was accompanied by his brother Darren and his solicitor Vivian Evans, was in court only briefly.

Outside court Detective Superintendent Colin Dyson, head of the Cyber and Fraud Squad, said that Mr Williamson had been charged with 27 cheat and defraud offences totalling around $600,000 of union funds. Each charge attracts a maximum penalty of 10 years.

Of that amount, $400,000 was allegedly laundered by Mr Williamson who was aware that the funds were proceeds of crime, Superintendent Dyson said.

The detective, who is heading Strike Force Carnarvon, said that two senior union officials may be charged over this matter.

He also said that one other person is facing charges relating to Mr Williamson’s alleged attempts to hinder the police investigation.

Dodgy union boss, Michael Williamson from the Health Services Union has been arrested and charged with 20 offences including “recruiting five other people to commit criminal acts by hindering a police investigation.”

The report, which was conducted by prominent QC Ian Temby and accountant Dennis Robertson, found that companies controlled by Mr Williamson and his family had received $5 million from the union over the past four years.

The report revealed that Canme, the company of Mr Williamson’s wife, Julie, was paid $385,000 from 2005 to 2009. That amount is likely to be double as the Herald understands Canme was being paid up to $15,000 every two months from about 2000. Mr Temby raised questions as to whether the work was actually done.

Within days of the release of the Temby report, Mr Williamson handed in his resignation.

He had been collecting a salary of just under $400,000 per year form the union, and another $150,000 in union-related board positions.

ᔥ Sydney Morning Herald

The Health Services Union scandal keeps on delivering in Australia. This Aussie union has rorted and ripped off its members, they are corrupt to the top, and still denying it.

I shudder to think what sort of malfeasance is going on in New Zealand with our lax supervision of union monies:

SUSPICIOUS procurement practices, nepotism and cronyism resulted in the union boss Michael Williamson, his family and friends reaping millions of dollars from the troubled Health Services Union during his 15-year reign.

The final report by Ian Temby, QC, and the accountant Dennis Robertson, which has been obtained by the Herald, paints a disturbing picture of the HSUeast branch. More than $20 million in questionable payments was paid to suppliers to the union without any form of tendering or contract.

More than $5 million went directly to companies operated by Mr Williamson and his wife, Julieanne, while $1.5 million of union funds was spent buying and renovating a warehouse, which was then used by his son Christopher, also an employee of the union.

The report found the union’s funds had been spent building a rehearsal studio for Chris Williamson’s commercial use. “This was stark favouritism,” it said.

United Edge, a company of which Michael Williamson was a third owner, received $4.7 million in the four years to September 2011. United Edge, which provided IT services without having to tender, operated rent free from the HSUeast headquarters.

Then there was the $384,625 Julieanne Williamson received for allegedly doing the union’s archiving from 2005 to 2009.

Mr Temby is particularly critical of this transaction. “Assuming that the work was actually done, and done by Mrs Williamson alone, and she worked a 37.5-hour week through out the 50-month period – collecting folders, dismantling and collating them for scanning, week after tedious week for 52 weeks of the year – then she was being paid at a rate close to $34 per hour plus GST . . . a high hourly rate for what appears to be basic clerical work.” Mr and Mrs Williamson declined to be interviewed by Mr Temby, but she wrote to Mr Temby saying: “I felt I should have been charging $200ph, as the work was downright disgustingly filthy”.

ᔥ Sydney Morning Herald

The Meatworkers Union has been hiding $4m of members money per year. Their hiding of money means that it is interesting to consider whether they are doing something like the HSU are in Australia.

FIVE companies, some associated with the Health Services Union boss Michael Williamson, received more than $17 million over a four-year period, a scathing report into the union’s procurement process has found.

Ian Temby, QC, and the accountant Dennis Robertson were hired by the union to conduct an independent investigation into allegations raised by the Sydney Morning Herald last September of cronyism and corruption within the HSU East branch.

The pair wanted their interim report to be released immediately because of the millions of dollars the union is spending each year without going to tender or obtaining price comparisons.

New Zealand needs a system where unions who are not transparent with members funds can be investigated and de-registered.

ᔥ Sydney Morning Herald

There is a massive scandal unfolding in Australia as more and more murk is exposed in the Health Services Union. It is becoming apparent that union bosses are positioning themselves as fat cats in the 1% by rorting and cheating their unions of cash…not to mention paying themselves huge salaries and benefits, the very actions they usually criticise the bosses of.

We are starting to see here now too that when you start looking into union monies that there appears to be significant issues in basic reporting…and that may well lead to other issues being revealed with a microscope look at the inside of unions.

Certainly no one ever thought there was a problem in Australia until Michael Williamson got caught out…now it is looking increasingly like other unions may well be ensnared in the scandal:

WHEN the lead organiser for the Health Services Union, Monique Irvine, complained last year that she was having trouble meeting her childcare costs, the union’s boss, Michael Williamson, gave her a $22,000 pay rise.

Ms Irvine is Mr Williamson’s sister-in-law. It is instances such as this extraordinary pay rise, which was not authorised by the union’s council and boosted Ms Irvine’s salary to an estimated $140,000, that have angered union members.

Mr Williamson himself is reputed to be the best-paid unionist in the country, with his $330,000 year salary boosted by the $150,000 from his various government and union-related board positions.

The union’s national secretary, Kathy Jackson, agreed at a Melbourne news conference yesterday that her own salary of $270,000 a year was ”obscene”. She blamed Mr Williamson for setting ”vastly inflated” wage figures for executives within the HSU and said she would be happy to take a substantial pay cut.

Nepotism and corruption within the union is being investigated by Ian Temby, QC, who was appointed by the union last year to carry out inquiries in the wake of allegations of wrongdoing raised by the Herald last September.

Mr Temby’s report is unlikely to be handed down before June as he will be overseas throughout next month.

Things are so bad that the HSU secretary has called for the state government to intervene to change the way unions run their internal elections:

Ms Jackson’s request yesterday for the state government to change the way unions run their elections has angered many union officials.

”Big money union elections means that it is now almost impossible for ordinary union members to stand for election in their own union with even a remote chance of winning,” Ms Jackson said.

”Nowhere is this more clear than in HSUeast. Michael Williamson recently bragged to another official that he had several million dollars for use in union elections. I believe the rampant corruption in HSUeast is caused in part by inadequate union election laws.”

The Premier, Barry O’Farrell, said he was ”happy to pursue what options are available in NSW to give the members of that union … the relief they’re seeking, which is the chance to actually have an election”.

In Australia it is. This morning I outlined the HSU boss Michael Williamson who was on $350000 per year.

It turns out he is being investigated for a series of other rorts to feather his own nest.

A separate audit being prepared by Ian Temby QC is expected to be damaging to Mr Williamson, who stood down in October after a series of revelations in The Sydney Morning Herald that he had milked the union through the abuse of credit cards and IT contracts worth $1 million a year granted to his company, United Edge.

That’s IT covered. What about crony board positions? Not a rort but he is probably earning more than most of his members in board positions on top of his salary.

Mr Williamson’s union-appointed positions include directorships – currently suspended – at state government-related entities, First State Super, State Government Employees (SGE) Credit Union and State Water Corporation, a $34,000 a year position he was appointed to by former NSW Treasurer Eric Roozendaal just before Labor lost office.
Mr Williamson’s union-appointed boardroom roles add more than $100,000 a year to his reported $350,000 a year as general secretary of the HSU.

Then he has what must be the highest paid secretary in the world. Maybe she provides “additional services” as well as secretarial services, and it is not a rort, just a long term arrangement that is cheaper than paying for hookers on the union credit card.

The Temby report is said to contain revelations that a further $400,000 a year has been flowing from the HSU to a company owned by his wife Julie for ”secretarial services”.

Huge money flows to unions every year in New Zealand.Does it flow to the union bosses who are the 1%?