Former Health Services Union (HSU) boss Kathy Jackson has appeared in the Melbourne Magistrates’ Court, to face 70 charges of theft and deception. Jackson was charged last month following a royal commission investigation into union corruption. Last year the Federal Court ordered Jackson to pay $1.4 million to her former employer, the HSU. In court yesterday her lawyer Philip Beazley asked for more time to look through the brief of evidence, which was 5,000 pages long. The court documents revealed Ms Jackson is accused of stealing more than $270,000 from the HSU. She is alleged to have spent another $100,000 on travel, including trips to Hong Kong, Los Angeles and a stay at the luxury Bellagio hotel in Las Vegas. According to the documents, more than $110,000 was spent on reimbursements, including an alleged one-off HSU payment of $63,000, which was described as an “honorarium entitlement”. The documents also allege she spent more than $570 on flowers, $1,800 on posters and more than $1,000 for a treadmill. Jackson was granted bail on the condition she surrender her passport and not leave Australia.
September 20, 2016
A former Hawke’s Bay trainee doctor duped two district health boards into revealing confidential medical information about members of his family without their consent. Hirron Fernando then used the information from the Capital & Coast and Hawke’s Bay DHBs as evidence in a UK court case against the two family members. Staff at the DHBs were appalled and apologetic when they realised Fernando had deceived them into breaching privacy by falsely claiming he was treating the pair, a tribunal has heard. Details of the scam emerged on Monday at a Health Practitioners Disciplinary Tribunal hearing in Hastings where Fernando was found guilty of professional misconduct and struck off the medical register.
September 19, 2016
The longest-serving secretary of the federal Department of Health, Jane Halton, has resigned from the Australian public service, two years after taking up a job as secretary of the Department of Finance.
September 19, 2016
The car crushed by an express train at a Surrey Hills level crossing was not trying to evade boom gates and had its reverse lights on moments before it was hit, eyewitnesses say. The two elderly women, Denise Dobbyn and Carmel Iseppi, were neighbours in a Camberwell retirement village. The women, aged 73 and 71, died on Wednesday when their small black Hyundai was hit by a train travelling at 80km/h at a Surrey Hills level crossing.
September 19, 2016
The NSW health minister is concerned reports that paramedics arriving at work drunk will tarnish the service’s reputation, despite Deputy Premier Troy Grant saying he still trusts our “local heroes”. Stressed paramedics are reportedly taking opiates and administering drips to themselves to get through shifts. Health Minister Jillian Skinner said she was happy to consider anything that could help struggling paramedics, and admitted she was worried about the state ambulance service’s reputation.
September 19, 2016
Disability services provider Yooralla is on the hunt for a new chief information officer after the resignation of the organisation’s current IT chief, Michael Estcourt.
September 19, 2016
A man and a woman have been charged with a string of offences after allegedly stealing a handbag from an aged care nurse who devoted her life to helping others as as she lay dying after an horrific accident at North Gosford. Police allege the pair then went on a shopping spree with the victim’s credit cards.
September 19, 2016
Lane Cove Retirement Units Association Ltd is fighting a s.394 (Application for unfair dismissal remedy) implemented by an ex-staffer (Allan).
