Royal commission to examine whether Electrical Trades Union officials placed interests of the ALP above obligations to members in providing unsecured loan

This article is more than 5 years old

This article is more than 5 years old

A trade union handed over a half a million dollar loan to the Labor party without keeping an official record, a national inquiry has been told.



The $500,000 loan to the Labor party’s NSW branch dominated proceedings on Monday – day one of the latest round of hearings in the royal commission into trade union governance and corruption.

There was no record of the loan in the minutes of a meeting of the NSW branch of the Electrical Trades Union (ETU) on 20 December 2010, the commission was told.



It was also told several union members, including Bernie Riordan, then-secretary of the union and state president of the ALP, would give evidence the loan was raised and approved at that meeting.



Yet there was no record of the loan in the minutes from the meeting, and the official who took those minutes, ETU assistant secretary Paul Sinclair, told the hearing he had no memory of the loan being brought up.



“Could you have just forgotten, just missed the fact that there was discussion about a loan?” counsel assisting Jeremy Stoljar asked.



“No,” Sinclair responded. “I have no recollection of a loan being discussed at that meeting on that evening.”

In a witness statement tendered to the commission, Sinclair accepted there had been tension after Riordan allegedly torpedoed his bid to become ETU secretary.



But he denied having an axe to grind against Riordan, now a Fair Work Commissioner.



The royal commission is examining whether the loan, one of three received by the ALP from unions before the 2011 election, was given without the proper approval of the union council, as required under the union’s rules.



It is also looking at whether officials placed their own self-interest, or the interests of the ALP, above their obligations to union members.



“The loan was unsecured and made in circumstances where the borrower’s financial position would have made a commercial lender uncomfortable,” Stoljar said in his opening address.



The ALP finished paying back the loan, plus interest, in 2013.



Joanne Crowder, then a personal assistant to Riordan, told the hearing she broke with protocol when she put the $500,000 payment through.



She said she acted on the order from Riordan in the absence of a pink slip, which usually indicates approval.



“Were you concerned about that?” Stoljar asked.



“A little,” she said.



“But Mr Riordan was the boss, so I did it.”



Riordan is expected to give evidence next week.

