Health Services Union

Last updated

Health Services Union
Founded1911 (as Hospital and Asylum Attendants and Employees Union Australia)
Headquarters Melbourne
Location
Members
98,535 (as at 31 December 2022) [1]
Key people
Gerard Hayes (National President)
Lloyd Williams (National Secretary)
Affiliations ACTU
Website hsu.net.au

The Health Services Union (HSU) is a specialist health union with around 102,000 members working in the healthcare and social assistance industries across Australia. [2]

Contents

The membership of the union includes doctors, and allied health professionals such as physiotherapists and radiographers, ambulance officers, clerical and administrative staff, managers and support staff.

The HSU National Office is located in Melbourne, Victoria. Its current National Secretary is Lloyd Williams.

Branch structure

The HSU is a federated union, with branches in every state and territory of Australia. Each branch of the HSU covers different workers depending on the state they reside, their workplace and their occupation. Below is a list of the nine branches of the HSU.

History

The union officially came into existence in 1991 with the amalgamation of two existing unions, the Hospital Employees' Federation (HEF) and The Health and Research Employees Association (HREA). [3] But its origins date back to the early years of the twentieth century when organisations of hospital employees were first formed in Australia.

Over the years the membership of the unions that eventually came together to form the HSU has been based around a nucleus of hospital staff and psychiatric care staff. But it has gone much further to include ambulance, aged care, community health, disability sector, hospital scientists, mental health and drug and alcohol workers.

Financial controversy

A former HSU national Secretary, Craig Thomson, faced allegations from 2008 [4] that he used an HSU union credit card to pay for escorts and other financial improprieties with the card. Amid the allegations, the Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU) suspended the HSU's membership. [5] Thomson maintains his innocence, but in May 2012, a report by Fair Work Australia recommended that civil court action be taken against Thomson for what the report says was a "substantial misuse of members' funds". [6] On 31 January 2013, Thomson was arrested and was expected to face 150 fraud charges in Wyong Local Court. [7]

Following regulatory and administrative investigations, criminal trials and a subsequent appeal, on 15 December 2014, Thomson, a former Labor politician, was found guilty in the Victorian County Court of thirteen charges of theft and convicted and fined A$25,000. [8] [9] [10] Forty-nine charges of obtaining financial advantage by deception were dismissed [10] following an earlier finding in the Melbourne Magistrates Court on 18 February 2014 against Thomson of defrauding the HSU in order to pay for personal expenses. [11] [12] [13] [14] On 25 March 2014, Thomson was convicted on 65 charges of fraud and theft for using Health Services Union funds for personal benefit and sentenced to twelve months imprisonment, with nine months suspended over two years. Thomson's legal team immediately lodged an appeal against the conviction and sentence and was granted bail. [15] [16] [17] [18] [19]

Related Research Articles

Gordon Richard Nuttall is an Australian former politician who represented Sandgate in the Queensland Parliament from 1992 to 2006. He was a member of the Labor Party and served as a minister in the Beattie Ministry from 2001 to 2005. In 2009 he was found guilty of corruptly receiving secret commissions during his time in office and jailed for seven years. In 2010, he was found guilty of five charges of official corruption and five charges of perjury and, ultimately, jailed for an additional seven years, the longest jail term for corruption handed to a Commonwealth politician. He was released on parole in July 2015.

Queensland Health is the public health system in Queensland, Australia, comprising sixteen statutory Hospital and Health Services (HHS'), the Department of Health and Queensland Ambulance Service. Each HHS provides health services to its local area, with Children's Health Queensland supporting state-wide paediatric specialist services. The Department of Health provides corporate support such as payroll, finance, information technology and procurement, and provides clinical governance over the health system's operations. Queensland Health provides free or low-cost health services to Medicare card holders in Queensland, and some services to New South Wales and Northern Territory patients where services are unavailable locally.

Ian Michael Macdonald is a former Australian politician and currently undergoing court proceedings and was a member of the New South Wales Legislative Council from 1988 to 2010 representing the Labor Party. Between 2003 and 2010, Macdonald held a range of ministerial responsibilities in the Carr, Iemma, Rees, and Keneally ministries. Macdonald, who joined the Labor Party in 1972, had his membership of the party terminated in 2013 for bringing the party into disrepute.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tony Mokbel</span> Australian criminal (born 1965)

Antonios Sajih Mokbel is an Australian criminal who has been convicted of a number of offences, most prominently commercial drug trafficking. He has spent most of his life in Melbourne, Australia. Operation Purana alleged that he is the mastermind behind the Melbourne amphetamine trade. He has been linked to Carl Williams, and charged but not convicted of two murders in the Melbourne gangland war. He disappeared from Melbourne while on trial in March 2006, and was arrested by Greek police in Athens on 5 June 2007. Since being brought back to Australia he has remained incarcerated.

The Federation Against Copyright Theft (FACT) is a British organisation established in 1983 to protect and represent the interests of its members' intellectual property (IP). FACT also investigates fraud and cybercrime, and provides global due diligence services to support citizenship investment and trade, business, financial and legal compliance.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Craig Thomson (politician)</span> Australian former politician

Craig Robert Thomson is an Australian former trade union official and a former politician implicated in the Health Services Union expenses affair.


The Health Services Union East (HSUE) is a specialist health union with over 35,000 members working in all areas of healthcare across New South Wales and Victoria. It was formed by the merger of the NSW Branch with Victorian Branches 1 and 3.

Kathy Jackson was the national secretary of the Health Services Union of Australia (HSU) between January 2008 and February 2015. In August 2015, Jackson was found by the Australian federal court to have misappropriated union funds and was ordered to repay $1.4 million in compensation, with a criminal investigation pending.

Michael Alexander Williamson is an Australian former trade union official implicated in the Health Services Union of Australia (HSU) expenses scandal. In October 2013 Williamson pleaded guilty to two charges of fraud totaling nearly A$1 million, one charge of fabricating invoices and another charge of recruiting others to hinder a police investigation. The same day that he pleaded guilty, Williamson declared himself bankrupt. An earlier independent report commissioned by the union detailed that companies associated with Williamson and his family had allegedly fraudulently received more than $5 million from the union in period from 2006 to 2011. In the District Court of New South Wales in March 2014, Williamson was sentenced to seven–and–a–half years of imprisonment; with a non–parole period of five years.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gillard government</span> Australian government led by Julia Gillard (2010–2013)

The Gillard government was the Government of Australia led by the 27th prime minister of Australia, Julia Gillard, of the Australian Labor Party. The Gillard government succeeded the first Rudd government by way of the Labor Party leadership spill, and began on 24 June 2010, with Gillard sworn in as prime minister by the governor-general of Australia, Quentin Bryce. The Gillard government ended when Kevin Rudd won back the leadership of the Australian Labor Party on 26 June 2013 and commenced the second Rudd government.

A case of Medicaid fraud was carried out in 2010 by an Armenian-American organized crime group called the Mirzoyan–Terdjanian organization. The scam involved a crime syndicate which created 118 fake clinics in 25 states and used stolen medical license numbers of real doctors and matched them to legitimate Medicare patients whose names and billing information were also stolen. The group submitted more than $163 million in claims and received $35 million of that before they were caught. Prosecutors charged 73 individuals in several states with allegations of racketeering conspiracy, bank fraud, money laundering and identity theft.

The Health Services Union expenses affair was an Australian political scandal that concerned criminal activities associated with the financial affairs of the Health Services Union of Australia (HSU), between 2006 and 2007; and the Health Services Union "east branch" (HSUeast) between 2006 and 2011.

The Essendon Football Club supplements saga was a sports drug doping controversy that occurred during the early- and mid-2010s. It centred around the Essendon Football Club, nicknamed the Bombers, a professional Australian rules football club based in Melbourne and playing in the Australian Football League (AFL). The club was investigated starting in February 2013 by the Australian Sports Anti-Doping Authority (ASADA) and the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) over the legality of its supplements program during the 2012 AFL season and the preceding preseason. After four years of investigations and legal proceedings, thirty-four players at the club were found guilty of having used the banned peptide Thymosin beta-4 and incurred suspensions.

The Royal Commission into Trade Union Governance and Corruption was a Royal Commission established by the Government of Australia to inquire into alleged financial irregularities associated with the affairs of trade unions. The Australian Workers Union, Construction, Forestry, Maritime, Mining and Energy Union, Electrical Trades Union, Health Services Union and the Transport Workers Union were named in the terms of reference. The Royal Commission inquired into the activities relating to slush funds and other similar funds and entities established by, or related to, the affairs of these organisations.

Kathryn Anne McClymont is a journalist who writes for The Sydney Morning Herald. Notable for exposing corruption in politics, trade unions, sport, and horse racing, she has received death threats because of her exposés. She has won many awards for her reporting, including the 2002 Gold Walkley Award for her work on the Canterbury Bulldogs salary cap breaches. She is best known for her series of articles and book about New South Wales Labor Party politician Eddie Obeid.

Salim Mehajer is an Australian convicted criminal, property developer and former deputy mayor of Auburn City Council. In March 2018, Mehajer was declared bankrupt and in April 2018 was found guilty of electoral fraud, and sentenced to 21 months in prison with a non-parole period of 11 months. In April 2021, he was sentenced to 2 years and 3 months for lying to court. In May 2023, he was sentenced to seven years and nine months for domestic violence and fraud offences, with a non-parole period of three-and-a-half years. He will be first eligible for parole in July 2025.

Project Wickenby was a long-running joint-agency investigation initiated by the Australian Government in 2005 to combat offshore tax evasion. The investigation was jointly run by the Australian Taxation Office, Australian Securities and Investments Commission, the Australian Federal Police and the Australian Crime Commission.

References

  1. ↑ "Membership size of registered organisations – 2023" (PDF). Fair Work Commission. Retrieved 16 September 2023.
  2. ↑ "About Us". Health Services Union. 16 November 2015. Retrieved 16 November 2015.
  3. ↑ "The HSU: anatomy of a Labor nightmare". ABC News. Australian Broadcasting Corporation. 3 May 2012. Retrieved 4 May 2012.
  4. ↑ "Embattled Thomson suspended from Labor Party". ABC News Australian Broadcasting Corporation, 29 April 2012. Retrieved 7 May 2012 (updated)
  5. ↑ "ACTU suspends Health Services Union". ABC News. Australian Broadcasting Corporation. 5 May 2012. Retrieved 7 May 2012.
  6. ↑ Wright, Jessica (7 May 2012). "Fair Work moves on Thomson over 'misuse' of HSU funds and escort services". Sydney Morning Herald. Retrieved 7 May 2012.
  7. ↑ "Craig Thomson arrested by fraud squad". The Sydney Morning Herald . 31 January 2013.
  8. ↑ Cooper, Adam (17 December 2014). "Craig Thomson convicted and fined $25,000". The Age . Retrieved 17 December 2014.
  9. ↑ "Craig Thomson appeal: Former federal MP escapes prison term over theft from Health Services Union". ABC News . Australia. 17 December 2014. Retrieved 17 December 2014.
  10. 1 2 Carlyon, Peta (15 December 2014). "Craig Thomson appeal: Former MP not guilty of 49 fraud charges, guilty of theft". ABC News . Australia. Retrieved 15 December 2014.
  11. ↑ Akerman, Pia. "Craig Thomson found guilty of defrauding HSU". The Australian . Retrieved 18 February 2014.
  12. ↑ Davies, Anne (18 February 2014). "How Craig Thomson came undone". Sydney Morning Herald . Retrieved 18 February 2014.
  13. ↑ Cooper, Adam (18 February 2014). "Craig Thomson found guilty of fraud, theft charges". Sydney Morning Herald . AAP . Retrieved 18 February 2014.
  14. ↑ Donovan, Samantha (18 February 2014). "Thomson found guilty on fraud/theft charges". PM . ABC Radio . Retrieved 18 February 2014.
  15. ↑ "Craig Thomson: Former Labor MP sentenced for defrauding Health Services Union". ABC News . Australia. 25 March 2014. Retrieved 25 March 2014.
  16. ↑ "Former MP Craig Thomson sentenced to three months' jail". The Herald Sun . 25 March 2014. Retrieved 25 March 2014.
  17. ↑ Cooper, Adam (25 March 2014). "Craig Thomson sentenced to 12 months' jail, nine months suspended". The Sydney Morning Herald . Retrieved 25 March 2014.
  18. ↑ Akerman, Pia (25 March 2014). "Craig Thomson bailed ahead of appeal over jail sentence for HSU fraud". The Australian . AAP . Retrieved 25 March 2014.
  19. ↑ "Prosecution error clears Thomson". au.news.yahoo.com. 15 December 2014. Archived from the original on 15 December 2014. Retrieved 15 December 2014.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.