MINISTER CASH HAS QUESTIONS TO ANSWER OVER HADGKISS’ REGISNATION

Given Minister Cash has known about Nigel Hadgkiss’ breach of the law since October 2016, she must come clean and explain why she failed to stand him down.

For nearly a year after learning about the law breaking behaviour of her hand-picked appointment to the Australian Building and Construction commission (ABCC), Minister Cash stood by him and took no action.  

Minister Cash must now explain how he could have been in breach of section 503 of the Fair Work Act for almost three years, apparently without her knowing about it.  

When it did come to her attention, why didn’t she stand him down?

If he hadn’t resigned today, would she ever have stood him down?

Over the past three years, the conduct of Mr Hadgkiss has been called into question time and time again, yet the Minister has stood by him and his performance.

The Commonwealth Ombudsman questioned the behaviour of Mr Hadgkiss, when he was director of the Fair Work Building Commission (FWBC), saying he breached the confidentiality of people he was interviewing and used questionable interviewing techniques.             

This is in addition to previous statements by a Federal Court Judge and a Fair Work Commissioner that Mr Hadgkiss was “unjustifiably vexatious” in his attack on the union movement and prone to “unsubstantiated hyperbole”.

Federal Judge, Justice Tony North criticised the ABCC under Nigel Hadgkiss for being a waste of time and taxpayer money, saying:

 “For goodness sake, I don’t know what the inspectorate is doing.” 

 "I must say it's a terrible waste of everybody's time."

 

Minister Cash had Ministerial responsibility for Mr Hadgkiss as Commissioner of the draconian ABCC while the warning bells were ringing for more than three years.

 

Now, we find that under her supervision, Mr Hadgkiss was also breaching the very law he was supposed to be regulating – surely this Minister  will give up her desperate attempts to pretend that she stands up for the rule of law.

Unbelievably, The Turnbull Government took the Australian people to a double dissolution election in order to reinstate a botched watch-dog headed up by a dodgy Commissioner that they knew about since day one.