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Planet Jackson: Power, Greed and Unions
Kathy Jackson was hailed as a heroine for blowing the whistle on the million-dollar fraud of Michael Williamson, the corrupt boss of the Health Services Union (HSU). She endured bitter personal attacks from enemies in the Labor Party and the union movement.
But what if Jackson was just as corrupt as Williamson? Or worse?
While Jackson was being portrayed as a Joan of Arc figure, she was spending vast amounts of her own union members' money on international holidays, fashion, jewellery, a mortgage, and even part of a divorce settlement.
Nothing, it seems, was off limits. This is the real HSU story—the staggering misuse of the union dues of some of the lowest paid workers in Australia. The HSU scandal is more than a dark morality tale marked by high drama and farce. It exposes deep problems at the heart of the union movement and the Labor tribalism, nepotism, a misplaced sense of entitlement and the misuse of other peoples' money.
But what if Jackson was just as corrupt as Williamson? Or worse?
While Jackson was being portrayed as a Joan of Arc figure, she was spending vast amounts of her own union members' money on international holidays, fashion, jewellery, a mortgage, and even part of a divorce settlement.
Nothing, it seems, was off limits. This is the real HSU story—the staggering misuse of the union dues of some of the lowest paid workers in Australia. The HSU scandal is more than a dark morality tale marked by high drama and farce. It exposes deep problems at the heart of the union movement and the Labor tribalism, nepotism, a misplaced sense of entitlement and the misuse of other peoples' money.
- GenresNonfictionHistory
336 pages, Paperback
Published August 1, 2016
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Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews
September 23, 2016
4.5★
“On Planet Jackson, Kathy came first and members last.”
. . .
“The total payout facing Jackson would reach $2.5 million once legal costs and interest were added. Of course, she would pay none of this penalty unless her bankruptcy trustee could find money squirrelled away.”
. . .
“She wanted the truth revealed about union officials ‘living an obscene millionaire’s lifestyle’ off the backs of their members. Kathy Jackson got her wish.”
Whoa! While tracking corruption in the Australian Health Services Union (HSU), Brad Norington has not only left no stone unturned, he’s left no little bit of dirt or slime uninvestigated, if you can follow all the double negatives. It’s all here. We know politics makes strange bedfellows (actually, Shakespeare said it was misery, not politics, which I thought was ‘misery loves company’, but I digress). Well, union politics makes for really dangerous alliances (and bedfellows, as it happens).
There are no spoilers here, since this is all public knowledge, but boy does it read like a sleazy movie plot, so I can't help quoting. :)
“ The Kathy Jackson show had become turbocharged and tasteless. It had everything: a charity shag, a personal vendetta, skin in the game, judicial gang rape, circling vultures, a barber’s chair for Friday night sex, and imaginary long lunches followed by aquatics in the Red Turbo Spa Room.
On Planet Jackson, facts were no longer distinguishable from fantasy. In her haste to attack anyone who did not perceive reality from her perspective, Jackson was willing to make up nonsense if she thought people might believe it. Her wild, unsubstantiated claims undercut the believability of other utterances that had merit. Altogether, these shenanigans provided a wonderful diversion as Jackson sought to shift attention from mounting suspicions she was just as corrupt as the crooks she helped expose.”
Fascinating reading for anyone interested in the ins and outs of Aussie unions, their power, their politics and their connection to the Labor Party. Certain parliamentary seats are considered union seats, and the unions expect to pre-select the candidates for election. There’s more here than I’m ever going to remember, but Norington has obviously done his homework and written a detailed expose, almost down to the last travel rort and local liquor store expenses.
Kathy Jackson was a young, bright, go-getter, the daughter of Greek parents in Melbourne who sent her to a good school to give her the best start. Eventually she got a job with a small Victorian union branch.
Union branches are managed by volunteer branch committees, I believe the same sort of volunteer committees that I am familiar with where the manager / coordinator / CEO is actually the only person who really knows what’s going on, manages the budgets and balance sheets, and the committee members meet monthly or quarterly to discuss what the manager chooses to put on the agenda.
A long-term member and former chair of a volunteer committee that I know (not union) said whenever they knew there was a review by a government funding body coming up, they got together over a weekend and wrote up a bunch of policies as needed. Easy-peasy. Job done. Box ticked.
That’s pretty much how Kathy Jackson ran things – she managed it all. One problem. She swore in court that she informed her committee about everything she did and that they had authorised all of her activities. Nothing to see here. Move along.
However, one of her 15-year-long committee members was actually paying close attention and signed an affidavit confirming that almost everything Jackson said was a lie. Confirmed in detail.
Oops. Nail. Coffin.
When the union received $250,000 from a settlement (details in the book – and that seemed dodgy, too), Jackson opened a new bank account and gave it a union-sounding fund name, the National Health Development Account, but it was in her own name only. She had the office keep transferring money into the NHDA account and spending it and continued to say she was authorised.
Her mentor, Michael Williamson, who enjoyed an extremely lavish lifestyle, was hardly a good role model for the young up-and-comer. His main HSU offices in Sydney were relocated.
“The big convenience for Michael Williamson when he relocated his union headquarters in 2003 was its proximity to lunch. Williamson’s newly refurbished office on level two of 109 Pitt Street was nowhere near the hospitals employing his low-paid members, but he landed a magnificent choice of steakhouses in Sydney’s CBD.
. . .
An extended lunch for two with several bottles of wine was enough to gobble up a union member’s $600 annual dues at one sitting.”
Mentor he may have been, but Jackson eventually turned him in and was loudly praised as a courageous whistle-blower by the media and especially the conservative side of politics. But, as it transpired, she had siphoned off a lot more than fancy lunch money herself.
Mind you, once she’d blown the whistle and opened that particular can of worms (hoping to take over Williamson’s job and hide her own indiscretions, we suspect), the worms just kept multiplying. I know, worms, stones turned over, it’s a bit mixed up, but it’s all dirty and slimy, just the same.
In the early days, she was besties with current Federal Labor leader Bill Shorten’s first wife, but she and Bill seriously fell out when he left for his new wife and family. Bitter, much? Yes. No love lost there, and if Jackson can damage him, she will. She's tried.
Then she and her second husband, Jeff Jackson, split, and she took up with Michael Lawler, vice-president of the Australian Fair Work Commission, the national industrial dispute tribunal. Conflict, you’d think? Later, when things blew up, there was a mesmerizingly uncomfortable ABC Four Corners program about the two of them, The Eye of the Storm.
http://www.abc.net.au/4corners/storie...
Craig Thomson features heavily, the Labor MP who was the last slender thread by which then PM Julia Gillard clung to government. Aussies will know him. He actually sounds brighter and “nicer” than Williamson and some of the others, and said Jackson was mad and dangerous, but he was also a system-rorter. One trick, suppliers padded invoices (by a lot!) to keep their customer and then kicked back the excess to the union.
“McMillan, Williamson and Thomson were all issued American Express cards by John and Carron Gilleland, the husband-and-wife team who produced the union’s monthly magazine. Williamson compensated the Gillelands by directing that they inflate the price of their services as union suppliers. They charged $690,000 a year to produce the HREA members’ journal and do some other work—it was later argued that the publication could be done for a fraction of the cost.”
They held confidential meetings where all papers were distributed at the meeting and turned in at the end, so nobody could take them home. HOWEVER, in one instance:
” the source took advantage of folders sitting idle on a conference table during a coffee break: ‘I took photos in the toilets and scribbled notes.’”
There’s plenty of background on all the Labor personalities, including Bill Shorten, although he seems to have escaped the dirt and the bugs.
But there was no escape for Jackson. She did have some sort of breakdown and had novel ways of explaining herself. She really did live on another planet.
Questioned in court by Jeremy Stoljar, SC:
“Jackson now introduced a novel description of the transferred funds: she insisted that once the money left the HSU No. 3 branch’s general accounts and arrived in the Commonwealth account she controlled, it ceased to be union members’ money.
Stoljar was now more than sceptical. He asked how it was possible that HSU money could suddenly be ‘cured of the characterisation’ that it was the members’ funds once it landed in her private bank account. Surely it continued to belong to union members?
‘I didn’t see it that way,’ Jackson said.”
I won’t even try to talk about the elderly barrister Jackson and Lawler seemed to have adopted as he descended into dementia, writing and rewriting his wills (to include her, the daughter he never had). ACK!
“The only positive result from Jackson’s actions in the HSU saga was her exposure of Williamson’s crimes, even if her motives were based on a desire to take over the union and hide her own corruption. Williamson wrongly thought Jackson could never bring him down because of what he knew about her past that could be used in retaliation.
Thanks to NetGalley and Melbourne University Publishing for the preview copy from which I’ve quoted extensively. If you have any curiosity at all about this colourful time, you must read it. I've barely scratched the surface.
“On Planet Jackson, Kathy came first and members last.”
. . .
“The total payout facing Jackson would reach $2.5 million once legal costs and interest were added. Of course, she would pay none of this penalty unless her bankruptcy trustee could find money squirrelled away.”
. . .
“She wanted the truth revealed about union officials ‘living an obscene millionaire’s lifestyle’ off the backs of their members. Kathy Jackson got her wish.”
Whoa! While tracking corruption in the Australian Health Services Union (HSU), Brad Norington has not only left no stone unturned, he’s left no little bit of dirt or slime uninvestigated, if you can follow all the double negatives. It’s all here. We know politics makes strange bedfellows (actually, Shakespeare said it was misery, not politics, which I thought was ‘misery loves company’, but I digress). Well, union politics makes for really dangerous alliances (and bedfellows, as it happens).
There are no spoilers here, since this is all public knowledge, but boy does it read like a sleazy movie plot, so I can't help quoting. :)
“ The Kathy Jackson show had become turbocharged and tasteless. It had everything: a charity shag, a personal vendetta, skin in the game, judicial gang rape, circling vultures, a barber’s chair for Friday night sex, and imaginary long lunches followed by aquatics in the Red Turbo Spa Room.
On Planet Jackson, facts were no longer distinguishable from fantasy. In her haste to attack anyone who did not perceive reality from her perspective, Jackson was willing to make up nonsense if she thought people might believe it. Her wild, unsubstantiated claims undercut the believability of other utterances that had merit. Altogether, these shenanigans provided a wonderful diversion as Jackson sought to shift attention from mounting suspicions she was just as corrupt as the crooks she helped expose.”
Fascinating reading for anyone interested in the ins and outs of Aussie unions, their power, their politics and their connection to the Labor Party. Certain parliamentary seats are considered union seats, and the unions expect to pre-select the candidates for election. There’s more here than I’m ever going to remember, but Norington has obviously done his homework and written a detailed expose, almost down to the last travel rort and local liquor store expenses.
Kathy Jackson was a young, bright, go-getter, the daughter of Greek parents in Melbourne who sent her to a good school to give her the best start. Eventually she got a job with a small Victorian union branch.
Union branches are managed by volunteer branch committees, I believe the same sort of volunteer committees that I am familiar with where the manager / coordinator / CEO is actually the only person who really knows what’s going on, manages the budgets and balance sheets, and the committee members meet monthly or quarterly to discuss what the manager chooses to put on the agenda.
A long-term member and former chair of a volunteer committee that I know (not union) said whenever they knew there was a review by a government funding body coming up, they got together over a weekend and wrote up a bunch of policies as needed. Easy-peasy. Job done. Box ticked.
That’s pretty much how Kathy Jackson ran things – she managed it all. One problem. She swore in court that she informed her committee about everything she did and that they had authorised all of her activities. Nothing to see here. Move along.
However, one of her 15-year-long committee members was actually paying close attention and signed an affidavit confirming that almost everything Jackson said was a lie. Confirmed in detail.
Oops. Nail. Coffin.
When the union received $250,000 from a settlement (details in the book – and that seemed dodgy, too), Jackson opened a new bank account and gave it a union-sounding fund name, the National Health Development Account, but it was in her own name only. She had the office keep transferring money into the NHDA account and spending it and continued to say she was authorised.
Her mentor, Michael Williamson, who enjoyed an extremely lavish lifestyle, was hardly a good role model for the young up-and-comer. His main HSU offices in Sydney were relocated.
“The big convenience for Michael Williamson when he relocated his union headquarters in 2003 was its proximity to lunch. Williamson’s newly refurbished office on level two of 109 Pitt Street was nowhere near the hospitals employing his low-paid members, but he landed a magnificent choice of steakhouses in Sydney’s CBD.
. . .
An extended lunch for two with several bottles of wine was enough to gobble up a union member’s $600 annual dues at one sitting.”
Mentor he may have been, but Jackson eventually turned him in and was loudly praised as a courageous whistle-blower by the media and especially the conservative side of politics. But, as it transpired, she had siphoned off a lot more than fancy lunch money herself.
Mind you, once she’d blown the whistle and opened that particular can of worms (hoping to take over Williamson’s job and hide her own indiscretions, we suspect), the worms just kept multiplying. I know, worms, stones turned over, it’s a bit mixed up, but it’s all dirty and slimy, just the same.
In the early days, she was besties with current Federal Labor leader Bill Shorten’s first wife, but she and Bill seriously fell out when he left for his new wife and family. Bitter, much? Yes. No love lost there, and if Jackson can damage him, she will. She's tried.
Then she and her second husband, Jeff Jackson, split, and she took up with Michael Lawler, vice-president of the Australian Fair Work Commission, the national industrial dispute tribunal. Conflict, you’d think? Later, when things blew up, there was a mesmerizingly uncomfortable ABC Four Corners program about the two of them, The Eye of the Storm.
http://www.abc.net.au/4corners/storie...
Craig Thomson features heavily, the Labor MP who was the last slender thread by which then PM Julia Gillard clung to government. Aussies will know him. He actually sounds brighter and “nicer” than Williamson and some of the others, and said Jackson was mad and dangerous, but he was also a system-rorter. One trick, suppliers padded invoices (by a lot!) to keep their customer and then kicked back the excess to the union.
“McMillan, Williamson and Thomson were all issued American Express cards by John and Carron Gilleland, the husband-and-wife team who produced the union’s monthly magazine. Williamson compensated the Gillelands by directing that they inflate the price of their services as union suppliers. They charged $690,000 a year to produce the HREA members’ journal and do some other work—it was later argued that the publication could be done for a fraction of the cost.”
They held confidential meetings where all papers were distributed at the meeting and turned in at the end, so nobody could take them home. HOWEVER, in one instance:
” the source took advantage of folders sitting idle on a conference table during a coffee break: ‘I took photos in the toilets and scribbled notes.’”
There’s plenty of background on all the Labor personalities, including Bill Shorten, although he seems to have escaped the dirt and the bugs.
But there was no escape for Jackson. She did have some sort of breakdown and had novel ways of explaining herself. She really did live on another planet.
Questioned in court by Jeremy Stoljar, SC:
“Jackson now introduced a novel description of the transferred funds: she insisted that once the money left the HSU No. 3 branch’s general accounts and arrived in the Commonwealth account she controlled, it ceased to be union members’ money.
Stoljar was now more than sceptical. He asked how it was possible that HSU money could suddenly be ‘cured of the characterisation’ that it was the members’ funds once it landed in her private bank account. Surely it continued to belong to union members?
‘I didn’t see it that way,’ Jackson said.”
I won’t even try to talk about the elderly barrister Jackson and Lawler seemed to have adopted as he descended into dementia, writing and rewriting his wills (to include her, the daughter he never had). ACK!
“The only positive result from Jackson’s actions in the HSU saga was her exposure of Williamson’s crimes, even if her motives were based on a desire to take over the union and hide her own corruption. Williamson wrongly thought Jackson could never bring him down because of what he knew about her past that could be used in retaliation.
Thanks to NetGalley and Melbourne University Publishing for the preview copy from which I’ve quoted extensively. If you have any curiosity at all about this colourful time, you must read it. I've barely scratched the surface.
October 11, 2017
When Kathy Jackson was revealed as the whistle-blower on million-dollar fraud in the Health Services Union it's hard to believe she couldn't have foreseen her own fate. Even after reading PLANET JACKSON it's still impossible to believe that somebody with their own snout so deeply in the trough of union funds could not have seen that her own behaviour would be revealed.
Allowing for the slightly anti-union whiff about this book, it's an appalling story, detailed and frankly gobsmacking. Much, quite rightly, has been made about the millions of dollars ripped out of a union representing some of the lowest paid workers in Australia, but officials of any organisation with such a blatant disregard for other people's money, for propriety and for decent and lawful behaviour should be outed and punished accordingly. The fact that in this case those sorts of people were also mixing in the upper stratosphere of political circles as well seems to go a long way towards explaining the general contempt that many have for so-called "leaders" in some sections of the community these days.
The story in PLANET JACKSON is appalling. This woman and her like are appalling. The book is interesting, although there's something slightly off-putting about the anti-union subtext. This particular incident occurred within a union - there are plenty of other examples of self-serving, greedy, white-collar criminals - it's not just a "union" thing.
https://www.austcrimefiction.org/revi...
Allowing for the slightly anti-union whiff about this book, it's an appalling story, detailed and frankly gobsmacking. Much, quite rightly, has been made about the millions of dollars ripped out of a union representing some of the lowest paid workers in Australia, but officials of any organisation with such a blatant disregard for other people's money, for propriety and for decent and lawful behaviour should be outed and punished accordingly. The fact that in this case those sorts of people were also mixing in the upper stratosphere of political circles as well seems to go a long way towards explaining the general contempt that many have for so-called "leaders" in some sections of the community these days.
The story in PLANET JACKSON is appalling. This woman and her like are appalling. The book is interesting, although there's something slightly off-putting about the anti-union subtext. This particular incident occurred within a union - there are plenty of other examples of self-serving, greedy, white-collar criminals - it's not just a "union" thing.
https://www.austcrimefiction.org/revi...
September 14, 2016
‘Jackson’s rise was sudden and dramatic.’
Once upon a time, a very long time ago, I used to be a member of one of the unions that became the Hospital Services Union (HSU) in 1991. Because of this, I was particularly interested in what became known as the ‘Health Services Union expenses affair’ involving Michael Williamson and Craig Thomson. And, like many others, I considered Kathy Jackson a hero for having the courage to expose Michael Williamson’s million-dollar fraud. Members of the HSU include some of the lowest paid workers in Australia, and these were the people whose membership dues were being used to fund Michael Williamson’s lavish lifestyle and Craig Thomson’s credit card misuse. Outrageous!
‘There was widespread acclamation for Jackson’s exposure of Williamson. She instantly became a national heroine.’
But it became clear that Michael Williamson and Craig Thomson were not the only officials misusing HSU funds. Kathy Jackson herself had a fairly lavish lifestyle, and union funds were used to fund holidays, jewellery, a house mortgage as well as part of her divorce settlement on her husband Jeff Jackson (himself a HSU official).
Reading Brad Norington’s detailed account made me angry. Did Kathy Jackson really think that she could get away with it? How much attention did the ACTU (and the Labor Party) pay to the good governance of unions? Or do the ACTU and the Labor Party no longer care about the workers whose interests they are supposed to represent? Are all union officials these days only motivated by the possibility of pre-selection for a safe seat in parliament? While this book is primarily about Kathy Jackson, it touches on other aspects of union mis-governance and trade-offs. Fewer and fewer Australians belong to trade unions now: is it any wonder?
‘All of the HSU’s problems could be boiled down to one thing: a lack of oversight.’
These were not only problems for the HSU, they are also problems for the Australian Labor Party and the union movement. It certainly damaged Julia Gillard’s minority Labor government, having to rely on Craig Thomson’s vote. What can you say about the decision (attributed to Sam Dastyari in the book) to pay Thomson’s legal bills to prevent him from bankruptcy (and being automatically disqualified from parliament)? Whatever happened to ethics and principles?
Brad Norington has written a book which I found very hard to read, and impossible to put down. Read it and think about politics and unionism in Australia. Read it and weep.
‘She wanted the truth revealed about union officials ‘living an obscene millionaire’s lifestyle’ off the backs of their members. Kathy Jackson got her wish.’
Note: My thanks to Melbourne University Publishing for providing me with a free electronic copy of this book for review purposes.
Jennifer Cameron-Smith
Once upon a time, a very long time ago, I used to be a member of one of the unions that became the Hospital Services Union (HSU) in 1991. Because of this, I was particularly interested in what became known as the ‘Health Services Union expenses affair’ involving Michael Williamson and Craig Thomson. And, like many others, I considered Kathy Jackson a hero for having the courage to expose Michael Williamson’s million-dollar fraud. Members of the HSU include some of the lowest paid workers in Australia, and these were the people whose membership dues were being used to fund Michael Williamson’s lavish lifestyle and Craig Thomson’s credit card misuse. Outrageous!
‘There was widespread acclamation for Jackson’s exposure of Williamson. She instantly became a national heroine.’
But it became clear that Michael Williamson and Craig Thomson were not the only officials misusing HSU funds. Kathy Jackson herself had a fairly lavish lifestyle, and union funds were used to fund holidays, jewellery, a house mortgage as well as part of her divorce settlement on her husband Jeff Jackson (himself a HSU official).
Reading Brad Norington’s detailed account made me angry. Did Kathy Jackson really think that she could get away with it? How much attention did the ACTU (and the Labor Party) pay to the good governance of unions? Or do the ACTU and the Labor Party no longer care about the workers whose interests they are supposed to represent? Are all union officials these days only motivated by the possibility of pre-selection for a safe seat in parliament? While this book is primarily about Kathy Jackson, it touches on other aspects of union mis-governance and trade-offs. Fewer and fewer Australians belong to trade unions now: is it any wonder?
‘All of the HSU’s problems could be boiled down to one thing: a lack of oversight.’
These were not only problems for the HSU, they are also problems for the Australian Labor Party and the union movement. It certainly damaged Julia Gillard’s minority Labor government, having to rely on Craig Thomson’s vote. What can you say about the decision (attributed to Sam Dastyari in the book) to pay Thomson’s legal bills to prevent him from bankruptcy (and being automatically disqualified from parliament)? Whatever happened to ethics and principles?
Brad Norington has written a book which I found very hard to read, and impossible to put down. Read it and think about politics and unionism in Australia. Read it and weep.
‘She wanted the truth revealed about union officials ‘living an obscene millionaire’s lifestyle’ off the backs of their members. Kathy Jackson got her wish.’
Note: My thanks to Melbourne University Publishing for providing me with a free electronic copy of this book for review purposes.
Jennifer Cameron-Smith
August 17, 2016
If I hadn't already seen the Four Corners program featuring Kathy Jackson and Michael Lawler, you would be entitled to consider this a book of fiction. Instead, it's an incredibly well researched portrayal of union corruption. Some of these people are total train wrecks and while you could almost laugh off the level of hypocrisy from the main protagonist it's far too sobering the plight of those she was supposed to represent. Well done Brad Norington.
September 29, 2016
I cannot believe the characters in this book and their sense of self entitlement with other peoples money. Powerful unions that are supposed to be protecting the interests of their members but who are ripping them off to live the high life and try to get a lucrative government position with the ALP. Despicable!
October 21, 2023
Fascinating analysis of the union corruption scandals involving Michael Williamson, Craig Thomson and Kathy Jackson. Also touches on Julia Gillard's and Bill Shorten's involvement.
Sometimes the details of the corruption becomes a bit overwhelming but I think we need to be overwhelmed by the scale of the corruption that happens in some unions.
Sometimes the details of the corruption becomes a bit overwhelming but I think we need to be overwhelmed by the scale of the corruption that happens in some unions.
September 19, 2016
Loved this book. Couldn't put it down. What people will do for position and influence is blood chilling. Williamson was effectively the boss as his branch had the numbers and his young protégées followed suit as happens worldwide. ....absolutely disgraceful and morally bankrupted people...A riveting read!
July 9, 2020
Well worth reading. A story navigating the personal and professional life of Janet Jackson, an Australian union identity, who became known as a whistleblower.
As these matters may currently be subject to criminal proceedings, following the charging of Janet Jackson, I will say no more other than to recommend you read the book and make your own decision.
As these matters may currently be subject to criminal proceedings, following the charging of Janet Jackson, I will say no more other than to recommend you read the book and make your own decision.
November 25, 2016
Doesn't matter that it was a tale I knew. A recitation of excess and corruption kept me riveted to the end. Strangely felt like light relief - but maybe that was the impact of the myth shattering!
September 10, 2016
Many of the names in the book are well known. The stuff they didn't wasn't all that surprising but the cost involved just blew my mind. Every page.
Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews