DYSON Heydon has given himself more time to decide if he’ll bow to union demands and quit as the head of the royal commission into union corruption.
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Speaking outside the royal commission ACTU secretary Dave Oliver said unions were not given a full set of documents they requested and were promised on Monday.
Newlinds pointed out that the test for “apprehended bias” had a “low threshold”, with a double “might”.
“I immediately appreciate that you are not going to embrace that submission because you made no secret of that fact”, Mr Newlinds said.
“This is another example of the political controversy that surrounded the work being done in the Commission”.
The commission would recommend changes to the laws that covered unions, which were supported by the Liberal party and opposed by Labor and the unions.
“Those allegations were widely reported in the media in Victoria and were relied upon by Liberal Party politicians during the election campaign”, its submission says.
If Heydon steps down a new commissioner can be appointed.
It says these matters were seriously compounded by Justice Heydon’s statement last week that he was not prepared to give the Sir Garfield Barwick address “at least whilst he is in the position of Royal Commissioner”.
Justice Heydon faces allegations of bias, conflict and incompetence.
The barrister for the union body leading the apprehended bias charge, the ACTU, told the hearing Mr Heydon’s status as a “truly brilliant” jurist would leave fair-minded onlookers mystified as to how he could have failed to latch on to the nature of a Liberal Party event he had agreed to address.
“(There’s) concern that the information that was released was at best a partial disclosure, if not a disclosure of a doctored document which had been edited to remove the reference to state donation”.
Senior counsel assisting the commission, Mr Jeremy Stoljar.
‘I don’t think any fair-minded Australian believes this commissioner can be seen to be impartial’. But he argued this did not affect the argument that not all documents had been disclosed. John Agius, for the CFMEU, said it was implausible that Mr Heydon didn’t understand the political nature of the event, given the branding and content of emails he had received from an event organiser.
“I think Mr Abbott should stop leaving his captain’s pick out there to do the political battering for Mr Abbott’s agenda”.
Earlier on Thursday, Workplace Minister Eric Abetz said that the government would continue the inquiry into unions even if Mr Heydon stood down. But things are unlikely to end there.
If he stays on, unions could still take court action if they wanted to pursue their case further.
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The deferral is a result of negotiations with Senate crossbenchers over the proposed motion, which would have sent a message to the governor general, Peter Cosgrove, asking him to revoke Heydon’s appointment because of his initial acceptance of an invitation to speak at a Liberal party fundraiser.
