The Government has asked the Department of Justice to investigate allegations of misuse of grant funding by Unions Tasmania.
The previous Labor-Green government provided a $190,000 grant for the Worker Assist program from the Solicitors’ Guarantee Fund in 2013.
Allegations that this grant has been used for other purposes by Unions Tasmania were raised by The Australian newspaper today.
The $190,000 grant was supposed to be used to expand the Worker Assist program run by Unions Tasmania, in line with the intention of grants from the Solicitors’ Guarantee Fund, which is to support legal assistance programs or similar projects.
However, in light of the allegation raised by The Australian I have asked the Department of Justice to investigate how exactly this grant funding was used.
Advice from the department is that under the previous government there had not been a formal process in place for ensuring grants from the Solicitors’ Guarantee Fund had been spent on the intended purpose.
I will work with the department to address this before further grants are distributed from the fund.
Vanessa Goodwin, Minister for Justice
