Michaelia Cash to front court over union investigation, police raids
Federal minister Michaelia Cash will front court this week over her involvement in a donations investigation into the Australian Workers Union and controversial federal police raids on its offices.
The union has launched civil action in the Federal Court in response to the investigation and raids carried out in 2017, arguing they were illegal and politically motivated.
The raids were carried out as part of an investigation by the Registered Organisations Commission (ROC) into donations to activist group GetUp! totalling $100,000 from two divisions of the AWU going back to 2006.
Maurice Blackburn principal lawyer Josh Bornstein, who is acting for the AWU, said the union was seeking a “declaration that the raids and the investigation were and are unlawful”.
“That is the ultimate objective of the legal case.”
Opposition Leader Bill Shorten was the head of the AWU when the donations were made.
Some of Ms Cash’s former staff members have also been subpoenaed to appear in court, with her former media advisor David De Garis taking the stand on Monday. Ms Cash is due to give evidence on Friday.
The ROC investigation was established to probe whether the donations to GetUp! followed union rules. The commission is responsible for monitoring and regulating unions and employer associations.
Journalists were tipped off about the 2017 raids, which were conducted by the Australian Federal Police. But Ms Cash, who was employment minister at the time, has denied she had any involvement in tipping off the media.
However, Mr De Garis resigned a short time later.
Earlier this year the federal police said they would not proceed with an investigation into how the raids were leaked to the press.
Outside court on Monday AWU national secretary Daniel Walton said the union had been waiting for the Australian Federal Police to conclude their investigation to bring on the legal action.
“We [began] this case because we believe the Minister Michaelia Cash misused her position by instigating an investigation into the AWU,” he said.
Mr Walton said he hoped Justice Mordecai Bromberg would see the minister’s actions had been a “massive overstep and misuse of political resources”.
“The AFP at the time of raiding our offices said they didn’t have enough resources to run terrorism matters, to investigate drug rings,” he said.
“Instead they were sent to our offices in large numbers to find a couple of pieces of paper relating to donations that were made over a decade ago and donations that were declared and made publicly available.”