Labor leader has lots to ponder during break

Australian Labor Party leader Bill Shorten. Photo / Mark Mitchell

With less than a fortnight to go before federal Parliament's long winter break, Bill Shorten has two problems: his apparent inability to win over voters and an impending appearance before a royal commission into trade union corruption.

The Opposition Leader, whose approval rating has dived to an all-time low, according to an opinion poll yesterday, insists he has nothing to fear from the Coalition-ordered inquiry. On the contrary, he said, after being called to give evidence, he welcomed "the opportunity to talk about my 21-year record of standing up for workers".

The Government is gleeful about the prospect of Shorten becoming entangled in murky revelations including that the powerful Australian Workers Union (AWU) negotiated a deal that deprived low-paid cleaners of A$2 million ($2.2 million) a year in weekend and holiday pay. Shorten, who is expected to testify in August or September, headed the AWU's Victorian branch from 1998 to 2006, and was national secretary from 2001 to 2007.

The Labor leader has denounced the Royal Commission into Trade Union Governance and Corruption as an "abuse of taxpayers' money to serve a political agenda". However, like Julia Gillard, a former industrial lawyer who has faced repeated attempts to draw her into a scandal involving an AWU slush fund, Shorten may find it difficult to shake off his past.

The royal commission has heard that the AWU's Victorian branch struck a deal with a cleaning company, Cleanevent, in 2006 for the union to be paid A$25,000 a year in exchange for no industrial action and workers forgoing penalty rates. Shorten's successor as state secretary, Cesar Melhem, a close factional ally, resigned last week as government whip in the Victorian Parliament over the affair. The inquiry has also heard that a Melbourne building company, Winslow Constructors, agreed to pay the union dues of its 105 workers, amounting to A$225,000 over five years - and that AWU Victoria disguised the arrangement by invoicing Winslow for health and safety training.

Although not illegal, the practice of companies paying union fees is frowned on. Last week, Prime Minister Tony Abbott accused the AWU of "ripping off workers", "padding its membership" and "boosting its power at Labor Party conferences at the expense of workers". For its part, Labor has called the A$80 million royal commission a "political witchhunt". "This is not the way royal commissions should be used," shadow parliamentary secretary Ed Husic told Sky News. "They should be done for matters of clear public interest ... [not] to pursue the Government's political interests of the day."

Even Abbott's conservative predecessor, John Howard, has questioned the wisdom of the union probe and another Royal Commission into Labor's failed home insulation scheme, which has concluded. Howard said he was "uneasy" about royal commissions being used for "narrow, targeted political purposes".

Shorten - whose approval rating has plummeted to 28 per cent, compared with Abbott's 34 per cent, according to a Newspoll in the Australian - has insisted that the AWU "always improved workers' conditions, full stop".