Kathy Jackson cried once in the witness box - the surprise was that it didn't happen more often.
The details the Health Services Union boss gave of her battle to expose now-jailed HSU general secretary Michael Williamson's rampant corruption of union finances paint a harrowing picture.
Ms Jackson, who is national secretary of the union that represents low-paid hospital cleaners and aged care workers, told the royal commission into union corruption she didn't like what she saw in the HSU in 2011.
Mr Williamson had a luxury holiday house no-one on his salary could afford and the union's accounts were shrouded in mystery - executives could only see copies of the financial records for a few minutes at quarterly meetings before they had to hand them back.
After agonising about taking on the union and Labor powerbroker, Ms Jackson blew the whistle.
For her trouble she was ostracised, called a traitor and rat, received a midnight death threat and wound up in a psychiatric hospital.
It was recalling that hospital stay in September 2011, a week after the death threat, that triggered the tears.
"I have never been under such immense pressure or stress in my whole life," she said.
"I now understand what drives people to do certain things."
Ms Jackson made a formal complaint to NSW Police about serious corruption by Mr Williamson in September 2011 and was subsequently proven right: Williamson was jailed for a minimum of five years in March, 2014, for defrauding the HSU of nearly $1 million.
Her complaint, however, unleashed a stream of retaliation that included such petty matters as phones being cut off, records being destroyed and torrents of abuse at a national union convention.
That 2011 convention in Sydney featured Mr Williamson making a presidential grand entry to the theme from "Rocky" - a signal to Ms Jackson that power rested firmly with him.
Ms Jackson told the commission, "there were screeching banshees everywhere".
When she left, she told journalists outside: "They've all drunk the Kool-Aid and it's North Korea".
Apart from the momentary sobbing, Ms Jackson's much-anticipated appearance before the commission on Wednesday was composed and confident, even as questioning turned from her own mistreatment to accusations that she too had misappropriated union funds - accusations she has denied and labelled a smear campaign by her union enemies.
Ms Jackson faced questions over spending on three union-issued credit cards, the use of a union slush fund and payments to a company jointly owned by her and her ex-husband.
She appeared unconcerned, however, managing a smile at one point and stifling a yawn at another.
She has told the commission records were stolen from her office during a 2011 "ransacking" while she was in the psychiatric hospital and some subsequently appeared in the possession of Victorian police, who have investigated and dismissed the matter.
Share
