Kathy Jackson
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Kathy Jackson (born c. 1967) was the national secretary of the
Health Services Union The Health Services Union (HSU) is a specialist health union with around 102,000 members working in the healthcare and social assistance industries across Australia. The membership of the union includes doctors, and allied health professional ...
of Australia (HSU) between January 2008 and February 2015. In August 2015, Jackson was found by the Australian federal court to have misappropriated union funds and was ordered to repay $1.4 million in compensation, with a criminal investigation pending.


Career

Jackson was an official of the Health Services Union's Number Three branch which represents highly skilled health professionals like
radiographers Radiographers, also known as radiology technologists, radiologic technologists, diagnostic radiographers and medical radiation technologists, are healthcare professionals who specialise in the imaging of human anatomy for the diagnosis and trea ...
,
physiotherapists Physical therapy (PT), also known as physiotherapy, is a healthcare profession, as well as the care provided by physical therapists who promote, maintain, or restore health through patient education, physical intervention, disease preventio ...
, radiation therapists, speech pathologists, occupational therapists and psychologists from 1992, and was the Secretary of that branch until its merger with HSUeast. In 2008 she was appointed to the position of national secretary, the first female to hold that post. Jackson is also a member of the Victorian Branch of the
Australian Labor Party The Australian Labor Party (ALP), also known as the Labor Party or simply Labor, is the major Centre-left politics, centre-left List of political parties in Australia, political party in Australia and one of two Major party, major parties in Po ...
, as part of its
Labor Unity The Labor Right (LR), also known as Labor Forum, Labor Unity or simply Unity, is one of the two major political factions within the Australian Labor Party (ALP). It is nationally characterised by social democratic to Third Way economic policies ...
faction, aligned with former Senator
David Feeney David Ian Feeney (born 5 March 1970) is a former Australian politician. He was the Labor member for the division of Batman in the House of Representatives from 7 September 2013 to 1 February 2018. Before that, he was a member of the Australian ...
. She has taken high-profile positions on a range of issues including corporate and union donations to political campaigns. She told ''
The Australian ''The Australian'', with its Saturday edition ''The Weekend Australian'', is a broadsheet daily newspaper published by News Corp Australia since 14 July 1964. As the only Australian daily newspaper distributed nationally, its readership of b ...
'': "Without restrictions on donations and public funding... we'll end up like the United States with two parties owned by the corporations divided only on lifestyle issues like gay marriage." Jackson was occasionally critical of the Brumby Labor government in
Victoria Victoria most commonly refers to: * Queen Victoria (1819–1901), Queen of the United Kingdom and Empress of India * Victoria (state), a state of Australia * Victoria, British Columbia, Canada, a provincial capital * Victoria, Seychelles, the capi ...
. During 2007 and 2008, the HSU was embroiled in an enterprise bargaining dispute with the government, during which the Health Minister
Daniel Andrews Daniel Michael Andrews (born 6 July 1972) is an Australian former politician who served as the 48th premier of Victoria from 2014 to 2023. He held office as the leader of the Victorian branch of the Australian Labor Party (ALP) from 2010 and ...
used legal mechanisms under federal law to restrict the union's industrial action. Jackson said at the time: "It's also time that Mr Brumby wakes up and realises that Victorians did not endorse the use of
WorkChoices WorkChoices was the name given to changes made to the federal industrial relations laws in Australia by the Howard government#Fourth term: 2004–2007, Howard government in 2005, being amendments to the ''Workplace Relations Act 1996'' by the '' ...
for use against anyone, let alone their health workers. We will bargain lawfully, but we will not lie down."


Health Services Union corruption

Succeeding Craig Thomson as general secretary of the HSU in January 2008, Jackson was ordered by the National Executive to engage external
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s to investigate Thomson. Reporting in May 2008, the audit raised "concerns about evidence of misuse of union funds by Mr Thomson." In December 2008, the union engaged tax specialists BDO Kendall to "conduct an investigation" over the alleged improper use of Thomson's union-issued corporate credit card. ''
The Sydney Morning Herald ''The Sydney Morning Herald'' (''SMH'') is a daily Tabloid (newspaper format), tabloid newspaper published in Sydney, Australia, and owned by Nine Entertainment. Founded in 1831 as the ''Sydney Herald'', the ''Herald'' is the oldest continuous ...
'' revealed the allegations in April 2009. Thomson denied any wrongdoing and stated that an independent audit had not identified any inappropriate use of the card. He noted that other people would have been able to incur charges on the account, and said the accusations had been fabricated by rivals within the HSU. Investigations by
Fair Work Australia The Fair Work Commission (FWC), until 2013 known as Fair Work Australia (FWA), is the Australian industrial relations tribunal created by the ''Fair Work Act 2009'' as part of the Rudd Government's reforms to industrial relations in Australi ...
, the
Australian Federal Police The Australian Federal Police (AFP) is the principal Federal police, federal law enforcement agency of the Australian Government responsible for investigating Crime in Australia, crime and protecting the national security of the Commonwealth ...
,
NSW Police The New South Wales Police Force is a law enforcement agency of the state of New South Wales, Australia, established in 1862. With more than 17,000 police officers, it is the largest police organisation in Australia, policing an area of 801,60 ...
, and Victorian Police led to Thomson being charged with 140 offences relating to theft and fraud. He was tried in the Melbourne Magistrates Court and on 18 February 2014 he was found guilty of theft from the HSU and of defrauding the HSU. It was found that Thomson had misused his union credit card to pay for prostitutes, travel expenses and cigarettes, and for accommodation and dinners even after he'd left the union to run for Parliament. Allegations of improprieties in the HSU East branch (HSUeast) involving Craig Thomson and Michael Williamson, a former national president of the HSU, a former general secretary of HSUeast, and a former union and Labor right-wing factional power broker, were publicly revealed by ''The Sydney Morning Herald'' on 9 September 2011. On 4 October 2012, Williamson was charged with more than 50 offences relating to fraud and obstruction of justice, and was suspended as director of United Edge. Appearing before the Sydney Magistrates Court on 15 October 2013, Williamson entered a guilty plea to four major charges related to cheating and defrauding HSUeast, creating false documents with the intention to deceive and the recruiting of others to hinder a police investigation. All other charges were dropped. In June 2012, during proceedings that related to the appointment of an
administrator Administrator or admin may refer to: Job roles Computing and internet * Database administrator, a person who is responsible for the environmental aspects of a database * Forum administrator, one who oversees discussions on an Internet forum * N ...
to HSUeast, Federal Court
Justice In its broadest sense, justice is the idea that individuals should be treated fairly. According to the ''Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy'', the most plausible candidate for a core definition comes from the ''Institutes (Justinian), Inst ...
Geoffery Flick criticised attempts by Jackson, through her solicitors, to directly contact him while proceedings were under way. Jackson subsequently responded by sacking her legal representatives and asking the judge to disqualify himself from the proceedings. At the end of June 2012, Justice Flick ordered that former judge Michael Moore be appointed administrator of HSUeast, that all federal and state branch office holders lose their positions and the branch be demerged to become separate NSW and Victorian-based unions. Justice Flick found that Jackson should not keep her position in the HSUeast because "she is very much at the epicentre of the dispute". Jackson retained her position as national secretary.


Royal Commission

Partly as a consequence of Jackson's "whistle-blowing", a royal commission into the broader union movement was established after a change of government at the 2013 federal elections. During the royal commission it came to light that Jackson had spent HSU money on her own personal expenses, including paying Jeff Jackson (her ex-husband) $50,000 of union money. She claimed to have had authorisation to do so, but no records of such authorisation exist. In August 2015 the Federal Court ruled in a civil case brought against Jackson by the HSU that she had misappropriated union funds. The court found that she had used HSU funds to buy personal items for herself, including through cash withdrawals, misusing three credit cards, as well as funds from a payment made by a cancer hospital in Melbourne to settle a back-pay dispute. She was ordered to pay approximately $1.4 million in compensation. She was also reported to be the subject of a criminal investigation, and had declared herself bankrupt in an attempt to avoid paying compensation. On 7 October 2015, New South Wales police conducted a raid on Jackson's home, removing items from the house as well as from a shipping container in the yard. Jackson was subsequently charged with 70 counts of obtaining property by deception and other fraud-related offences. In October 2020, following a plea deal, she was convicted of two counts of fraud relating to the theft of $100,000 of HSU funds.


References


External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Jackson, Kathy Australian people of Greek descent Australian trade unionists Trade unionists from Melbourne Living people Year of birth missing (living people)