Shorten faces fresh union claims

The unions royal commission is likely to hear from Labor leader Bill Shorten again before it wraps up at the end of the year.

Australian Federal Opposition Leader Bill Shorten

Labor leader Bill Shorten (AAP) Source: AAP

Bill Shorten is expected to return to the unions royal commission witness stand to face further questions about deals struck as a union official.

The Labor leader and former Australian Workers Union secretary has said he is happy to further co-operate, after spending two days in the witness stand in July.

Mr Shorten is likely to face cross-examination following evidence to be presented in coming weeks by former John Holland Group executive general manager Stephen Sasse, the ABC's Four Corners program reported on Monday.

Mr Sasse was the chief company negotiator in talks with the AWU on the $3.8 billion Eastlink road project in Melbourne.

The road builders struck an agreement with Mr Shorten, which effectively made the AWU the lead union on the site and kept the more militant CFMEU at bay.

The commission investigated why Thiess John Holland paid the AWU $300,000 after signing a wages agreement.

The invoices covered training and research, which may not have been conducted, and the union ball.

Mr Shorten, who denied any of the invoices issued by his assistant secretary Cesar Melhem were bogus, was taken to task by royal commissioner Dyson Heydon who questioned his "credibility" as a witness.

Asked about Mr Shorten's evidence, Mr Melhem told the ABC: "The answer was given by Bill and that was the correct answer and I'll just leave it at that."

Former workers at Australia's largest mushroom farmer, Chiquita - which made a string of payments to the AWU while it negotiated worker redundancies - told the ABC they were "sold out" by the union.

"I thought it was terrible what they were doing," former worker Josie Hodgson said.

Employment Minister Eric Abetz told ABC that when the royal commission was set up in 2013 no one in government suspected Mr Shorten would be caught up in it.

"Nobody was aware of that, nobody suspected that, and I for one was not - it was as a result of the investigations that have now left Mr Shorten exceptionally vulnerable," Senator Abetz said.

Reflecting on Mr Shorten's initial bid for a seat in parliament in 2007, Mr Melhem said the now Labor leader believed he would be in the running for prime minister one day.

"We went through the names, who was likely to be his opponent, and his words were: `I'll be running against Malcolm Turnbull in 2016'."


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Source: AAP


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