Former electrical union boss Dean Mighell has hit out at the unions royal commission, saying its highlighting of a consultancy deal he signed after retiring from the union movement was "muckraking".
Counsel assisting the Royal Commission into Trade Union Governance and Corruption, Jeremy Stoljar SC, detailed Mr Mighell's $15,000 a month consultancy arrangement with a union-preferred insurer during his opening address at the inquiry on Friday.
The commission heard Mr Mighell signed the agreement with ATC Insurance Solutions - including a $100,000 sign-up fee - in April, 2013, after resigning as secretary of the Victorian Electrical Trades Union (ETU).
ATC has an exclusive and confidential deal to provide income protection insurance to workers covered in the ETU's enterprise agreement, the commission heard.
However, when Mr Mighell took the stand, no questions were asked about the deal, which ceased earlier in 2014.
Outside the commission, Mr Mighell said he was disappointed the consultancy arrangement had been raised and said it was not relevant to the commission.
"It's what I expected from a royal commission - to just try and muckrake," he said.
"I was probably one of the straightest, yet strongest, union officials going around and I'm proud of that, but once I've left the union I don't expect to be attacked like that."
During the hearing, Mr Mighell defended arrangements which saw millions of dollars in fees and commissions flow to the ETU from income protection, redundancy coverage and long service leave schemes included in union enterprise bargaining agreements.
The commission heard the ETU and the electrical industry employer group, the National Electrical and Communications Association (NECA) shared millions of dollars in fees from the arrangements.
ETU and NECA officials were the directors of the trust companies managing the funds and were entitled to distributions of any income - 75 per cent to the ETU and 25 per cent to NECA.
Via a complex web of directors' fees, distributions and management fees built into income protection insurance and severance funds, the ETU received $4.55 million in the 2012/13 financial year, the commission heard.
NECA received almost $330,000.
Mr Stoljar said the commission would examine whether clauses in enterprise agreements used across the electrical industry in Victoria "inappropriately and unnecessarily inflate employers' costs and hence project costs".
Mr Mighell denied assertions by Mr Stoljar that the fee arrangements were not disclosed to employers and to union members.
"Certainly we made no secret of the fact that we got commissions or management fees as a result of those arrangements," he said.
"Certainly there's been no shortage of disclosure."
The royal commission will examine matters relating to the Australian Workers' Union next week, with former Prime Minister Julia Gillard due to be called to answer questions relating a slush fund operated by her former union leader boyfriend, Bruce Wilson.
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