Union dumped seven tonnes of papers after subpoena served, audio suggests
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Version 0 of 1. CFMEU officials destroyed tonnes of documents after receiving a subpoena from the royal commission into trade union corruption, an audio recording suggests. Former CFMEU divisional president David Hanna was captured telling another union official that “seven tonnes” of documents were dumped and more papers shredded in the days after 1 April 2014 when the union received a notice to produce paperwork, the royal commission heard on Monday. The recording of the July 2015 conversation between Hanna and CFMEU assistant national secretary Leo Skourdoumbis was played during the commission hearing in Brisbane, where Hanna is being cross-examined. In the conversation on 16 July Hanna refers to having a receipt from a tip truck company “that dumped seven tonnes of documentation the day we got the subpoenas to provide all the paperwork”. He told Skourdoumbis that then-CFMEU divisional state secretary Michael Ravbar had organised the clear-out. Ravbar had his daughter come into the office to shred receipts, and two horse trailers were loaded with paperwork and taken to Hanna’s property to be burned or destroyed. It was “all CFMEU paperwork that was relevant to the subpoena”, Hanna told Skourdoumbis in the conversation at the Qantas Club Lounge at Brisbane Airport. But Hanna told the commission on Monday that he embellished some facts in the context of a power struggle between him and Ravbar. He said he wasn’t sure what date the documents were destroyed or whether they were relevant to the royal commission. “The reality is I had no idea what was in the documentation that was taken away from the office to my property and then later removed,” he testified. He is due to return to the witness box when the inquiry resumes on Tuesday. |