Cabinet minister Christopher Pyne says the royal commission into trade union corruption is bigger than Labor leader Bill Shorten, who has been cleared of any wrongdoing.
The commission announced in a press release late on Friday that the inquiry's lawyers had made "no submission that Mr Bill Shorten may have engaged in any criminal or unlawful conduct" when he was a union boss.
Mr Pyne says the commission is doing very important work regardless of the findings on Mr Shorten.
"I know that he might have a narcissistic personality but the trade union royal commission is not all about Bill Shorten," he told Sky News on Monday.
"Just because Bill Shorten has had a positive finding, and I'm glad that he has ... doesn't mean that the trade union royal commission is not doing really, really important work."
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The commission's late night announcement, which missed many media deadlines, sparked suggestions it tried to bury the story.
Liberal Democrat senator David Leyonhjelm said the timing of the release late on Friday night reflected either incompetence or a conspiracy.
"Usually when you've got a choice between those two, you choose incompetence because conspiracies require more brain power," he told reporters.
Shadow attorney-general Mark Dreyfus said concerned parties should have been advised by the commission prior to it being announced publicly by media release.
"This is no way to conduct a royal commission," he said.
Mr Shorten's lawyer Leon Zwier has written to commission lawyers James Beaton and Shelley Scott asking why they didn't notify his client before the press release was issued.
"Can you please explain why you chose not to send it to me on or before its release to the media?" he asks in the letter.
The commission insists submissions were released to affected people before the media, within a timetable set by Commissioner Dyson Heydon in October.
Mr Shorten appeared before the royal commission over two days in July to answer questions about his time at the head of the federal and Victorian Australian Workers' Union before he entered parliament.
