The corrupt actions of former union boss and national Labor president
They should direct their fury not just at the man who this week admitted his guilt, or the union that allowed him to spin his webs of deceit, but also to the Labor party whose rotten structures Mr Williamson climbed so successfully. A party dedicated to dispensing power and patronage through its union fiefdoms is congenitally incapable of stamping out corrupt behaviour in its ranks. The NSW corruption commission hearings into the state Labor branch revealed how union leaders and party apparatchiks control parliament pre-selection so the likes of former left-wing minister
For the HSU, its role in shoring up the numbers in NSW and Victoria for the right-wing union fiefdoms trumped concerns over its probity and its duty to the low-paid health workers it is supposed to represent. This whole sordid affair is the result of the unions’ control of our left-of-centre political duopolist and the industrial relations system’s legal protection of trade union mutuals. The ultimate response should be for Labor to end its dominance by the unions and, for the market, for employee representation to be opened up to genuine contestability, including by private bargaining agents.
The Australian Financial Review