Australian opposition Labor Party leader Bill Shorten rejected suggestions that as a union head a decade ago he traded away workers’ conditions to strengthen his own position, as he struggles to reverse record-low poll ratings.
The Age newspaper on Wednesday said that an Australian construction company paid almost A$300,000 (US$233,200) to the Australian Workers Union after Shorten negotiated a 2005 pay package for workers on a Melbourne road project. Shorten led the union between 2001 and 2007.
Shorten’s battle to defend his career is helping the government as it tries to roll out contentious anti-terror laws and faces accusations it made payments to Indonesian people smugglers.
Photo: EPA
In an interview with the Australian Broadcasting Corp yesterday, Shorten dismissed the implication he passed over a wage increase for workers in return for company payments for union memberships that widened his power base.
“That is not true,” Shorten said on the program Insiders. “I’ve never ever not put the interests of members first.”
The payments were for employee training and health and safety measures, Shorten said
It is “possible” that employers at the time paid union dues for their workers, he said, but such arrangements did not signal wrongdoing.
Shorten is due to appear before Australia’s Royal Commission into Trade Union Governance and Corruption on July 8. His approval rating has tumbled to a record low of 28 percent, according to the latest Newspoll for the Australian newspaper. Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott’s rating was 34 percent, the poll showed.
Abbott’s government might introduce legislation on Wednesday that would let it strip citizenship from dual nationals convicted of terror offenses, the Australian newspaper reported on Saturday. The proposed law places more importance on court convictions than ministerial discretion, which has been criticized by legal groups, the newspaper said.
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