KATHY JACKSON'S PATH FROM WHISTLEBLOWER TO BANKRUPT
2008
January - Kathy Jackson takes over from Craig Thomson as Health Services Union general secretary and finds accounts in the Melbourne office in disarray
May - Audit sent to Jackson raises "concerns about evidence of misuse of union funds by Craig Thomson"
December - Instructs lawyers Slater and Gordon to engage tax specialists BDO Kendall to investigate
2011
- Jackson makes formal complaint to NSW police about corruption by former HSU general secretary and national president Michael Williamson
- Admitted to a Melbourne psychiatric hospital, a week after finding a shovel on her doorstep in an apparent death threat
2014
March - Thomson jailed for one year for misusing funds while HSU national secretary. After an appeal he is convicted of theft but cleared of obtaining financial advantage by deception and in December is fined $25,000.
- Williamson jailed for at least five years for "leeching" the HSU of almost $1 million and then recruiting others to hinder a police investigation
June - Royal commission into union corruption holds hearing into HSU
- Jackson denies misusing more than $1 million in union funds
- Commission hears Jackson set up an unaudited fund, using a $250,000 payment to the union, and used it as a slush fund, or as she put it, a fighting fund for union campaigning and administrative expenses
August - Ex-husband Jeff Jackson tells commission he received $50,000 from the union she controlled as part of a divorce settlement
- Jackson loses bid to stop her being cross-examined by union barrister Mark Irving, with whom she had an eight-week affair 21 years earlier; she tells media it was a "charity shag"
- Accuses Opposition Leader Bill Shorten of being part of a group that set out to get her after she exposed corruption at HSU
November - Federal Court trial put off due to Jackson's health; HSU suing her for $1.36 million, alleging she spent $660,000 of members' funds on personal expenses
2015
February - Formally replaced as HSU national secretary by Chris Brown
June 22 - Loses bid to stop civil case; argues she was targeted by union and ALP figures for bringing down Thomson and that documents vital to her case had been lost or destroyed by HSU
June 24 - HSU seeks to freeze her assets; Court hears she has no assets left and running out of money to pay legal fees
June 29 - Two-week hearing put off after Jackson declares bankruptcy.
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