|
||
|
|
|
 |
|
|
|
||
|
|
Issue No. 164 | 06 December 2002 |
|
||
|
||
|
|
|
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
The Politics of Security
Interview: Trade Secrets Industrial: It’s About Overtime, Stupid Unions: Full Steam Ahead Bad Boss: The BBQ Battle Axe Economics: Different Dimensions of Debt History: Raking the Coals History Special: Wherever the Necessity Exists History Special: Learning from the Past History Special: A 'Cosy Relationship' Politics: Regime Change for Saddam International: World War Corporate: Industrious Thinking Review: Jack High Culture: Duffy’s Song Satire: A Nation of Sooks Poetry: Mr Flexibility
The Soapbox Awards The Locker Room Bosswatch Month In Review
 Old SilverThe Golden (Th)OngOvertime Cap is FlawedOutsourced Education
|
|
|
News We Paid Witnesses Who ‘Lied’
Workplace Relations Minister Tony Abbott was this week forced to defend the payments to witnesses whose evidence against the union was described by a Federal Court judge as ‘manufactured’. Senate Estimates hearings have heard the Advocate was at the centre of an effort to stitch-up the CFMEU using secret tape recordings and lies. When the Judge threw out the case and ordered costs against the Advocate's witnesses, the Federal Government bailed them out to the tune of $96,000. Further, Employment Advocate Jonathan Hamberger, admitted to a Senate Estimates hearing that while his office used the discredited witnesses to pursue its freedom of association action against the CFMEU, it didn't pass to the ATO evidence that at least one of them was a tax evader. The Advocate's latest credibility crisis stems from its ongoing campaign against the union. In 1999 it launched a controversial case, alleging the CFMEU had breached the Workplace Relations Act by requiring one John Lyten, a painting supervisor, to join the union. Lyten and the principal of Carson Painting, Lee Carson, secretely taped a CFMEU Melbourne site delegate the day after meeting with Geoffrey Hanley from the Office of the Employment Advocate. The OEA was given the recording and sought to use it as the basis for its prosecution. 'Artificially Manufactured Confrontation' However, Justice Marshall found Lyten and Carson had "artificially manufactured a confrontation"; told untruths and that their recording had been illegally obtained. So critical was he of their behaviour that, in dismissing the case, he took the relatively unusual step of awarding costs against the witnesses personally. The Court was also concerned that, in earlier proceedings, the Advocate hadn't disclosed the meeting prior to the manufactured confrontation. It further found the OEA did nothing to discourage the illegal recording and should have foreseen the possibility of it occurring. Then in December, 2000, former Workplace Relations Minister Peter Reith decided the taxpayer should meet the $96,000 liability of the two OEA witnesses. He took that decision after the Judge had ruled on their credibility and with evidence to Lyten's tax status on the public record. Faced with these accusations in Parliament this week, Abbott said his predecessor had acted with "perfect propriety". He again failed to reveal whether or not evidence of Lyten's tax evasion had been forwarded to the ATO. Shadow Workplace Relations Minister Robert McClelland is challenging Abbott to come clean by "releasing all documents associated with the indemnity and revealing all payments made under it". Modus Operandi The Advocate's modus operandi - ignoring clear evidence of illegal activity by "shonks" prepared to level allegations against the country's largest construction union - became a recurring feature of the Royal Commission into the Building and Construction Industry. The $60 million Commission was established by Workplace Relations Minister, Tony Abbott, on the strength of an 11-page report from Hamberger in which he conceded he didn't have evidence to back key allegations. Office of the Employment Advocate staff were seconded to the Royal Commission where they undertook investigations and prepared witness statements. Some of the most sensational evidence they helped gather was subsequently discredited by Police and Telstra records. Repeatedly, employer witnesses referred to the Hamberger-led agency as the "Employer Advocate". The Office became even more clearly politicised in the run-up to the Victorian state election when it was at the centre of a stand-off between Federal and State Governments. Abbott withdrew tens of millions of dollars in Federal support for the MCG redevelopment after the Bracks Government rejected provocative conditions, including a fulltime OEA presence on the largely-CFMEU site.
|
| Search All Issues | Latest Issue | Previous Issues | Print Latest Issue |
|
© 1999-2002 Workers Online 
|
|
