Shorten’s lawyer refuses royal commission’s apology

Federal Opposition Leader Bill Shorten has denied an apology made by the trade union royal commission, which delayed releasing documents that could prove Shorten’s innocence.

The Royal Commission into Trade Union Governance and Corruption released a statement and excerpts of submissions from its legal division, which proved that Shorten was not involved in any kind of wrongdoing during his reign as an Australian Workers Union official. Jeremy Stoljar SC headed the trade unions royal commission’s legal team and released the said report last week. But the same was released after a long interval on Friday after 8:00 p.m.

The submissions also suggested that AWU secretary Cesar Melhem might be involved in the wrongdoings and he was supposed to pay more than $100,000 to the union on per year basis. The same applicable is for construction ace Thiess John Holland.

Labor and the Greens criticised the decision of the royal commission on the choice of the time to release the submission, saying that it chose the time to ensure no media could cover the event.

As a result, the commission disclosed an email conversation between Shorten’s lawyer Leon Zwier and the commission’s legal official James Beaton that took place on Sunday. “Can you please explain why you chose not to send it to me on or before its release to the media?” Zwier asked, the ABC quoted. To the question Beaton replied, apologising for whatever occurred.

“[The submissions] were still being finalised on Friday evening and the team was working hard to get them out of all affected persons in accordance with the commissioner’s published deadline,” Beaton stated.

The main objective of the commission behind doing that was to comply with the legal deadline and honour the commitment to everyone impacted by the allegation as they would have only four days to respond to the submissions, Beaton added.

Beaton apologised to Shorten’s office on Monday for not getting back to Zwier on Friday night. “I am aware of reports that the release of the submissions was timed to avoid avoid media scrutiny, I can assure you that was never contemplated. The commission’s sole objective in releasing the submissions on Friday evening was to meet a legal deadline,” the commission’s lawyer added via the Sydney Morning Herald.

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