The commissioner submitted an Interim Report[4] in December 2014, which found cases of "wilful defiance of the law" and recommended criminal charges against certain unionists.
[5] Following an extension, the Commissioner presented his final report to the Governor-General in December 2015, finding "widespread and deep-seated" misconduct by union officials in Australia.
[6] The only conviction of a union official from the process was a CFMEU staff member, sentenced to a $500 good behaviour bond after he accidentally disposed of documents that could have been requested by the commission.
The Australian Labor Party through their employment spokesman, Brendan O’Connor labelled the Royal Commission as modern-day McCarthyism and an outrageous intrusion into the personal affairs of Union members.
[8][9] Dyson Heydon, an avowed conservative was also revealed to have been directly involved with the Liberal Party and made highly partisan attacks on Labor prior to being appointed as the Commissioner.
The series of Fairfax reports revealed the involvement of the NSW Right’s powerful Transport Workers Union in a $500,000 takeover of its own Queensland branch with the backing of the disgraced former HSU leader Michael Williamson.
The Governor-General issued Letters Patent which formally appointed the Royal Commissioner, Dyson Heydon, and outlined the Terms of Reference for the inquiry.
[17] In July 2015, Opposition Leader Bill Shorten of the Australian Labor Party, a former official of the AWU, was called to give evidence at the Royal Commission.
Over two days of questioning, Counsel Assisting asked Shorten several times if he had had a conflict of interest in accepting, and not disclosing, large donations from employers while negotiating for the union on behalf of employees.
[18] Shorten admitted to the commission that he had failed to declare a political donation of around $40,000 from a labour hire company in the lead up to the 2007 election campaign, and that invoices regarding the payments for services were not truthful.
[20] Heydon intervened to tell Shorten that some of his answers were "non-responsive", adding "If I can be frank about it, you have been criticised in the newspapers in the last few weeks and I think it’s generally believed that you have come here in the hope you will be able to rebut that criticism or a lot of it.
[25] The Abbott government extended the term of the Royal Commission in October 2014,[26] and when Heydon was reminded of the address in March 2015, he confirmed his ongoing interest.
Heydon later declared that he had "overlooked" the fact that the event was organised by the Liberal Party, and that he had been asked to give the address only if the Royal Commission had finished.
"[citation needed] On 14 April 2015,[27][28][29] the NSW Bar Association announced that Heydon would deliver the 6th Annual Sir Garfield Barwick Address.
[39] On 19 August, it was reported that Heydon had said in a June 2013 panel discussion at the Centre for Independent Studies that Kevin Rudd's government had a tendency to "do non-substantive things".
As to the suggestion that anything in his acceptance of the invitation to deliver the Sir Garfield Barwick Lecture gave rise to a reasonable apprehension of bias, he said (para.
[14] Commissioner Heydon's 1817 page Report found that the Construction Union acts in "wilful defiance of the law", and he recommended criminal charges of blackmail be considered against John Setka, the state secretary of the Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union (CFMEU), along with his assistant Shaun Reardon and a number of other senior CFMEU officials.
They include that they operate largely in secret, have deficient or non-existent record-keeping and that candidates commonly plead ignorance on how money is raised and spent.
The report also recommended fraud charges be considered against former Australian Workers' Union officials Bruce Wilson and Ralph Blewitt for their use of a secret slush fund in the 1990s.
Justice Heydon said there were no grounds for prosecuting Ms Gillard, but agreed with counsel assisting Jeremy Stoljar's submission, that her conduct as a solicitor had been "questionable".
The report recommended seven past and present Health Services Union officials should be considered for charges for their role in an alleged right of entry scam...
The staffer was given a short suspended jail sentence and a $500 good behaviour bond with the judge finding that none of the documents were relevant to the Royal Commission or involved any corrupt acts.
[55] Frank Bongiorno, Professor of History at the Australian National University, has described this report as having "all the impact of last year’s telephone book being dumped in a wheelie-bin.