WITH five bedrooms, three bathrooms, a butler's pantry and a ''luxurious'' in-ground pool, it is anything but a house for a battler.

But the $1,125,000 pad in Oyster Bay, Sydney, was bought with union money to house Allen Hicks, the assistant national secretary at the Electrical Trades Union, one of Australia's biggest blue collar unions.

Statement in style ... the Oyster Bay home Allen Hicks is said to be leasing from the ETU. Credit:Peter Rae

The use of the union money to buy the house - which includes a French provincial kitchen and a spa bath - is the latest controversy to embroil the union movement after the Health Services Union scandals.

Title searches by the Herald confirm that the Electrical Trades Union's NSW branch bought the house for $1,125,000. That was despite Mr Hicks, a former official from Queensland, not even working for that branch of the union.