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ABC News
23-05-2025
- Politics
- ABC News
Inside the fall of Labor powerbroker and Health Workers Union Secretary, Diana Asmar
When union boss Diana Asmar took the stage at a black tie dinner last October, it was clear this would be a speech to remember. "My lawyers have told me not to say this," she allegedly told the crowd. "But I want to speak". Union organisers swapped glances across the sea of white tablecloths in the function room of the Novotel Preston. What Asmar said next wound up being picked over in Federal Court. There are traitors in the Branch, she declared, and they would get what is coming. They hadn't seen what was coming, but they would get it. But in a twist in this very Shakespearean drama, it is not the so-called "traitors", but Asmar herself who has lost her place on the stage. After 13 years, Diana Asmar has been dislodged as the boss of the Health Workers Union, once a key strategic asset to the Victorian Labor Right. It was Asmar who rebranded the Health Services Union's number one Victorian branch as the "Health Workers Union" to distance it from the union's history of corruption scandals. Now, she's embroiled in a scandal of her own, with the Fair Work Commission having commenced proceedings against her in the Federal Court for allegedly misappropriating almost $3 million of union funds. The allegations have not yet been tested in court and Asmar has denied them. Despite the gravity of the claims, it took the national office of the Health Services Union (HSU) eight months of fighting in separate Federal Court proceedings to unseat Asmar from her elected position as leader of its largest Victorian state branch. Last week, just as the HSU's proceeding was due to begin, Asmar signed a deal with the national office to walk away, leaving the Victorian branch under administration until its 2026 elections. But according to union insiders, Labor powerbrokers are "already circling" to take over the embattled branch next year. To understand why, you need to understand the power the branch afforded Asmar — at one point allowing her to pull the strings of the mighty Dan Andrews. On the eve of the 2018 election, Dan Andrews stood in a hospital kitchen surrounded by food workers in hairnets midway through sandwich prep. He was announcing millions of dollars in funding for these workers to undertake training on violence in the workplace. What the kitchen staff didn't know is that the group who would be leading this training — their union — had no experience in training at all. This deal had been negotiated away from the cameras, behind closed doors. The Department of Health was dead against it, arguing that such an outlay of public money should involve a public tender, or at least a registered training organisation. To cynical observers, the funding looked like an election-eve peace deal between Andrews' Left faction and Asmar's power base on the Right. Whatever the case, Victoria's anti-corruption watchdog found it to be "grey corruption" on the part of the political advisers who insisted on the deal. Jenny Mikakos, who inherited the dubious deal when she took over as health minister, told IBAC "the premier would bend over backwards to accommodate any union concerns". And having the ear of the premier was exactly where Diana Asmar hoped to land when she first ran for leadership of the union in 2012, according to those who orchestrated her campaign. Diana Asmar ran for leadership of the Health Workers Union, twice, citing lofty ambitions to return it to the members after years of misappropriation scandals. But if you ask political operatives who helped run her campaign, she ran "purely for ALP factional purposes". The Health Workers Union was "an important chattel to the ALP in Victoria", says senior journalist, Brad Norington, who wrote a book on the union. "It had a large number of members, which translated to the potential to gain delegate numbers [at state level] and potentially have control over preselection of candidates [to run for parliament]." The political power afforded by this large membership is one of the reasons Asmar was accused of inflating numbers over the years. Norington recalls breaking the story of when the former union leader sold pathologists memberships for $2, while existing members paid hundreds. Behind Asmar's campaign were Labor figures aligned with Bill Shorten's Right faction: her husband, the alleged branch-stacker David Asmar, and the controversial political blogger, Andrew Landeryou. On her second attempt, Diana Asmar won the leadership in 2012. It was a win for the Labor Right: the branch would later become valuable to Shorten, who "needed the numbers … to prop up his dominance of the ALP in Victoria", according to Norington. The job change also came at an opportune time for Asmar: Darebin Council, where she was deputy mayor, was under investigation for a possible breach of the Local Government Act. But she didn't wrest complete control of the branch from the previous administration. It had run its own ticket, backed by national secretary, Kathy Jackson, who was later found to have misappropriated some $1.5 million of union funds. And one of the organisers working for the branch, Leonie Flynn, had been elected as assistant secretary. That meant Asmar's second in command was from the opposing faction. They shook hands and agreed to work together — but for a powerbroker, such a scenario was untenable. One of Asmar's core crew at the time, Rob McCubbin, later alleged in the trade union royal commission that there was open discussion around how to "get rid of Leonie". One idea was to have a male organiser "flirt with her and set her up for a sexual harassment claim", he told the commission. In the end, McCubbin testified, they settled on something simpler: freezing her out. "Nobody was allowed to speak to me at work or say hello," Flynn says. While Flynn was supposed to share leadership duties with Diana Asmar, she alleges she was "completely obstructed" from the role she'd been elected to perform. Instead, Diana Asmar brought in her best friend as general manager — the late Labor senator, Kimberley Kitching. Kitching and her husband, the blogger Andrew Landeryou, were factional allies who'd helped orchestrate Asmar's campaign. Flynn told the royal commission that Asmar hired a number of political allies and supporters, many with no industrial experience. In her own evidence, Asmar responded that they were highly competent people able to get the job done. Whatever the case, industrial work wasn't all that was taking place at union headquarters. Flynn says when she returned to the union office in the evenings, she saw people "in suits in the boardroom" who weren't union employees. She wondered what they were planning. Then one day, she says she emptied an overflowing bin in her office, and found materials from Kimberley Kitching's Labor preselection campaigns. She told the royal commission that union resources and staff had been utilised; Kimberley strenuously denied that. Then, Flynn found something else that pointed to Labor party machinations. " I remember this one morning, there were all these bits of paper just on the kitchen bench, and I sort of looked at them and said, oh, what's that?" Flynn recalls. The "bits of paper" were gift cards. When Flynn checked their transaction history, she saw they'd been used to buy Labor party memberships, in what appeared to be a branch stacking manoeuvre. As the end of the financial year approached, Flynn grew increasingly nervous, having to sign off on the financial records as treasurer. Flynn claims her view of the financial records had been limited — a claim that Asmar denied. But what she could see unfolding at the branch concerned her. "It was just like full-on parties," she claims. "If we went out to a Lygon Street eatery, everything was paid for and they'd just get blind drinking … like pigs in a trough." She still recalls one of Diana's associates "ordering a kangaroo steak at 50 something dollars and then couldn't be bothered eating it". Eventually, Flynn demanded to see the books, but alleged receipts for overnight stays and air travel only heightened her concern. Then, there were $160,000 in legal fees to a firm that had represented Diana during her campaign. "I just thought that was ridiculous, what do they need the lawyers for?" Flynn says. Armed with evidence from her overflowing bin and the tea room, Flynn turned to the Fair Work Commission for help. Then, there was a new development: "Tony Abbott bit the onion and called a royal commission", she recalls. Flynn travelled from her home in Gippsland to the big smoke of Sydney to take the stand. "I could hardly string two sentences together, I was that nervous. I thought I was going to lose my house," she recalls. Convinced she was going to be framed by her colleagues, she rehashed the dozens of allegations she'd made to Fair Work. Then, Flynn told the commission how Rob McCubbin, Asmar's former offsider, had alleged that her car had a "black box" tracking device on it. Flynn told the commission that hours after this warning, she was leaving a Lygon Street eatery when a car pulled in front. "I recognised the number plate and I thought, 'Oh, that's Diana's'," she told the royal commission. "I did flash my lights just to let them know that I'd seen them at the time." She told commissioners she took it as evidence "they were checking to see where I was", and that it "traumatised" her, leading her to leave the union on stress leave. The commission never addressed the alleged incident in its findings. Instead, it focused on the allegation that Kimberley Kitching had taken several organisers' tests for their right-of-entry permits. It suggested the Commonwealth DPP consider whether criminal charges should be laid against Kitching, Asmar, or any of the organisers allegedly involved in this activity. But no charges ever transpired. Both Kitching and Asmar denied bullying Flynn, and her allegations that the branch was being mismanaged. Ultimately, the royal commission found the evidence was not strong enough to suggest that, "whatever her failings", Asmar had fallen below the professional standards for a trade union official. But it said all the evidence "supported Leonie Flynn's submission" that "the branch, under Diana Asmar's leadership, was highly dysfunctional … home to a culture of unhappiness, bitterness and fear". It seems that Asmar didn't take the critique to heart. According to union insiders, she continued to run the branch in the same fashion for the next ten years, while her influence only increased. Over that decade, the Health Workers Union's finances declined while Diana Asmar's political power increased. In 2016, the branch was on the brink of insolvency, but Asmar's closest ally, Kimberley Kitching, was elected as senator. Two years after that came the lucrative contract to train health workers on the eve of the 2018 state election. Then, in the midst of the pandemic in 2020, health minister Jenny Mikakos resigned after a crusade by Diana Asmar that the nurses' union branded "ALP left and right politics". Even Kimberley Kitching's untimely death devolved into politicking as Diana Asmar blamed "mean girls" in Albanese's Left-faction leadership team, weeks out from the federal election. Asmar then took the fight to the High Court, where she lost a battle with federal Labor over preselection control, leaving her isolated in the party, according to a party insider. But in the background, Victoria's anti-corruption watchdog, IBAC, was investigating Asmar's political influence over the Andrews government. And it discovered something that risked Asmar losing her representation in the Labor party altogether. In August, Fair Work launched proceedings in the Federal Court, alleging Asmar misappropriated almost $3 million of union funds. More than $120,000 allegedly took the form of inappropriate reimbursements, including for food, alcohol and cinema tickets. Asmar is alleged to have paid $2.8 million of union funds to a printing company, despite no goods being provided. Fair Work alleges $1.2 million of those funds were handed back to Diana and David Asmar personally, with meetings taking place in Melbourne cafes. The Asmars have invoked their right not to respond to the allegations, in case they later face criminal charges (though in an earlier affidavit, Diana denied them). They did not respond to questions from Background Briefing. In the months before the proceedings began, word of the investigation spread in the branch, and Diana Asmar finally faced a power challenge. Across 2024, two senior employees filed formal union complaints calling on the branch's management committee to stand Asmar aside. How she responded to those "traitors" shocked one of her inner circle so much it caused him to join the national office in its Federal Court proceeding to remove her. Asmar's then Communications Director, Jake McGuinness, described being summoned to Asmar's home last August, in affidavits filed by the national office. According to McGuinness's account, Asmar's associates discussed sacking one of the branch employees who'd made a formal complaint against her. "You don't know what I'm up to, mate. I am going to kill her, do you understand?" Asmar allegedly told McGuinness. "She's going to regret the day she was born. "I haven't started yet. You wait and see what's going to happen." According to this evidence, Asmar then allegedly discussed revoking the employee's IT access so she couldn't gather "evidence", and disconnecting her phone. Then, McGuinness said, "Ms Asmar discussed leaking personal photos of [the employee] in a state of undress to the media". In a preliminary judgement, Justice Dowling noted that Asmar and her associates had not sought to counter any of this evidence. The court was also told that Asmar had allegedly solicited complaints against this woman in a bid to stand her down — which she'd successfully done with the other complainant. Justice Dowling never made a final determination on any of these allegations because the case settled last week. But his preliminary judgement found there was a "serious question" as to whether Asmar had engaged in "reprisal conduct" against the woman, who's now launched her own case. McGuinness gave an extensive interview to Background Briefing but a few days before publication, a legal development prevented the ABC from publishing his comments. When it became apparent last September that he would give evidence against Asmar, the backlash was swift. He too lost IT access, and the court was told that he had been isolated in the workplace, apparently as retribution. The next month, he watched Asmar vow revenge on "traitors in the union" at the branch's black-tie dinner, before handing over to her longtime ally, John Setka, the disgraced former secretary of the CFMEU. After the speeches, the HSU's national office filed further affidavits in which McGuinness described an Asmar associate putting his arm around him at the dinner. McGuinness's account was that the associate told him he'd "fucked up by betraying the group" and would "pay the price" — his "career was over", he was now on the associate's "list" and the associate "has friends, and you don't know what they can do". The associate denied threatening McGuinness in his own sworn affidavit. A week after the dinner, in early November, McGuinness was stood down. In the following weeks, five employees he'd brought into the branch were terminated. Justice Dowling ultimately ordered that McGuinness be reinstated and found there was a "serious question" that he too had suffered "reprisal conduct". Under Asmar's deal to walk away, an administrator will continue running the branch until its 2026 elections. But according to union insiders, this isn't the end of the story. One of the very factional players who helped Asmar take over the branch in 2012 has warned that history may repeat itself next year. The former operative told the union's national office in a leaked letter that Labor powerbrokers already have their sights set on the branch. "[ALP factional players] are already circling," he wrote. "Discussions and plans are underway." The unionist begged the national office to disaffiliate from the Victorian Labor Party until 2030, to end the branch's "long history of being a target for factional alignments". His plea to save the branch from "outside influences" ended on a sobering note. "To be perfectly honest, it may be too late." This story is part of a special miniseries called Agents of Influence by the ABC's Background Briefing program. Follow the series on the ABC listen app.
The Star
29-04-2025
- Politics
- The Star
Asean member states share information to strengthen anti-trafficking cooperation
Malaysian Immigration officers arresting an Indonesian woman working as a smuggling syndicate transporter in Ampang in March 2025. The Kuala Lumpur workshop's objectives were to increase and strengthen cross-border investigative cooperation among law enforcement agencies within the Asean region. KUALA LUMPUR: Brunei's delegation participated in the Asean Workshop on Strengthening Transnational Investigative Cooperation under the Head of Specialist Anti-Trafficking Unit (HSU) Process Mechanism in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. The workshop, on April 23 and 24, was one of the initiatives under the Asean Multi-Year Work Plan 2024–2028, endorsed ad referendum (for further consideration or ratification) by the Asean Senior Officials Meeting on Transnational Crime (SOMTC) on August 12, 2024. It aimed to strengthen cooperation among Asean member states in addressing key issues related to combating human trafficking in the region. Representatives from the Human Trafficking Investigation Unit of the Criminal Investigation Department at the Royal Brunei Police Force, the Security and Legal Division of the Prime Minister's Office, as well as the Immigration and National Registration Department attended the workshop. A representative from Brunei Darussalam presented 'Transnational Trafficking in Persons Case Identification and Formal and Informal Cooperation Mechanisms for Trafficking in Persons Cases among Asean Member States' during the information-sharing session. The workshop's objectives were to increase and strengthen cross-border investigative cooperation among law enforcement agencies and SOMTC focal persons under the HSU mechanism within the Asean region. It also aimed to enhance the operationalisation of the HSU Terms of Reference by updating bilateral and regional cross-border investigation processes into the HSU Process Mechanism. The programme also demonstrated the importance of Asean's collective efforts to combat trafficking in persons, strengthen regional cooperation, and reaffirm the commitment to protecting vulnerable groups. A total of 33 participants from 11 countries, including Timor-Leste as observers, attended the workshop. - Borneo Bulletin/ANN
Yahoo
10-04-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
Major push to grant Aussie workers extra 12-days paid leave per year: 'This is not sick leave'
Giving Australians 12-days of paid reproductive leave would help cushion the $21 billion per year productivity blow from workers pushing through, or taking leave, to deal with often unseen conditions. The Health Services Union (HSU) has renewed a push for universal reproductive health leave entitlement, which would cost $1.7 billion annually, or $140 per worker. However, a report into the Costs and Benefits of Implementing a Universal Reproductive Health Leave Entitlement in Australia found the policy would improve mental health and workforce retention. The policy would largely benefit women, but would also cater to men undergoing vasectomies. 'Women represent half of our population, and for most, that comes with menstruation which can bring pain, as well as conditions like endometriosis, IVF, miscarriage, and menopause,' HSU national senior assistant secretary Kate Marshall Aussie mum painful endo-battle sparks idea for six-figure business: 'Gave up $50,000 savings' Mark Bouris issues blunt retirement message for young Australians: 'Accept it now' Woolworths cleared to make major move into $1.9 billion sector: 'Strong price competition' 'By rolling out a universal entitlement of 12 days a year, we will give all workers, particularly women, dignity and agency to be a part of a workforce that doesn't currently reflect our needs." The 12 days would represent a day each month of the year. But Marshall said: "This is not sick leave." 'Work can be extremely difficult when you are dealing with pain or reproductive conditions,' she said. Nearly one million Australians live with endometriosis, a debilitating condition that has no cure. Kellie Johnson was diagnosed with stage 4 endometriosis in her twenties but has been living with menstrual pain since she first started getting her period. The 41-year-old Central Coast resident told Yahoo Finance the pain was so severe that she would often throw up or lose consciousness. Johnson said endometriosis had a huge impact on her career journey, admitting there was a time she 'never spoke' about what she was going through. 'At so many workplaces I've had, I've had to alter the way I work in some way just to try and survive,' she said. 'For example, I've had periods where my endo got really bad so I would be in hospital a lot, so I would take my laptop with me and work from hospital. 'You just worry that people will think that you're being lazy or that you're not taking your job seriously.' Endometriosis Australia found many people were fearful of raising the issue in their workplace, with one in three passed over for a promotion due to their endometriosis, and one in six losing their jobs. The group's research found endometriosis was costing the Australian economy $9.7 billion annually due to medical costs, absenteeism and presenteeism. 'I think when you feel like you're struggling with pain all the time, you almost feel like you have to work harder to try and prove yourself,' Johnson said. The report, released yesterday, highlighted how prevalent the impact of reproductive illness was on the Australian workforce. Menstrual pain affects more than 50 per cent of working women, and 74 per cent of women aged 45 to 55 reported menopause symptoms, with 17 per cent requiring extended leave. Vasectomies and hysterectomies are also common, particularly for men and women aged 35 to 44 years. Miscarriage affects up to one in three women, and 8 per cent of women aged 25–45 undergo IVF annually. Workers surveyed for the report said they often used sick leave or unpaid time off, with 44 per cent taking unpaid leave when they had symptoms. This was not out of choice but a lack of leave options. "By rolling out a universal entitlement of 12 days a year, we will give all workers, particularly women, dignity and agency to be a part of a workforce that doesn't currently reflect our needs," Marshall said. In 2024, the Queensland government introduced 10 days of paid reproductive leave for the state's public servants. A concerning 68 per cent of those surveyed said they had not disclosed their condition to their manager. HSU national secretary Lloyd Williams said reproductive needs were still "highly stigmatised". "Workers fear discrimination for taking leave for anything relating to their reproductive organs," Williams said. "That shouldn't be the culture we accept." 12 days of paid Reproductive Health Leave (RHL) would cost an average of $3.6 billion to implement, but would save $1.88 billion for businesses directly. These implementation costs are small in comparison to the annual $21.3 billion cost to businesses of lost productivity from workers having to manage reproductive health in to access your portfolio
