This really is nauseating. Kathy Jackson, corrupt union official, who was ordered to repay 1.4m to the Health Services Union (representing some of the lowest paid people in Australia), Kathy, who demanded and got, money from a cancer institute (and used it for herself), has been found guilty of fraud and received….no jail time whatsoever.
Next time you read of someone who speeds and gets jail, think of Kathy. When someone gets overpaid a pension and gets jail, think of Kathy. When someone throws a punch in a pub and gets jail, think of Kathy.
If an ordinary person is charged with a crime in this country, they are put under enormous pressure from the word go to plead guilty. Legal aid lawyers will tell them to plead and get it over with. And mostly, our courts reflect that ‘churn and burn’ of quick guilty pleas. The guilty (but wealthy) however, exploit our useless glacial legal system with limitless funding and procedural challenges to eventually grind out plea deals like this one. Ironically, its only the richest people who can hide all their assets that receive the most legal aid funding.
If you are rich in this country, and you steal, nothing will happen. Kathy has, but of course, declared ‘bankruptcy’ (which in Australia means you are sitting on a fortune that others cannot touch).
Her pathetic ‘suspended sentence’ is a slap in the face for all the hard working union members, all the cancer workers, who funded her lavish lifestyle. Obviously as she’s not going to be rehired as a union official, she’s not going to be in a position to breach it (and of course, she doesn’t need any more money anyway). Right now, she’s likely got a huge smile on her face (and why wouldn’t she?). She got away with it.
Australia is run for the rich and well connected. Steal whatever you like, if you’re wealthy and well connected, no problems. Its only the ‘little people’ who go to jail (in greater and greater numbers).
Just remember, when you are regulated more and more; when you see more and more little people fined and hauled away to jail, that Kathy Jackson got away with it.