Ian Macdonald (Queensland, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Northern and Remote Australia) Share this | Hansard source

Sorry? Become a member? Do you mean I could apply for one of those top-end-of-town jobs. I am interested in asking the particular senator who was involved. Now that he is free to defend himself, I can name him—Senator Doug Cameron. I ask Senator Cameron what he received as a director of one of those superannuation companies.

Senator Cameron interjecting—

Senator Cameron says 'Absolutely nought'. I see there is a court case going on in Victoria, where a union delegate was on one of those boards. The union rules required that any fees that a unionist got on a board went not into the pockets of the particular unionist but back into the coffers of the union. That particular person was allegedly—I do not know the rights and wrongs of this; it is only what I read in the paper—pocketing the money and his union has sued him for its return. Senator Cameron tells me by way of gesture that he was not receiving anything, and I accept that. Perhaps he was getting something and giving it to the union. Whichever it is, one wonders about the interest that union bosses and leaders have in their members. Again, I can only refer senators to the Health Services Union, where nobody can tell me that the lowly paid workers who are members of that union got anything from their bosses.

Debate interrupted.