Fair Work inquiry needed: HSU secretary

The national secretary of the Health Services Union (HSU) says an inquiry is needed into Fair Work Australia because of the way it has dealt with alleged irregularities by the union.

Fair Work Australia began looking in April 2009 at allegations of misuse of a union credit card by federal Labor backbencher Craig Thomson when he was national secretary of the HSU, but it did not begin a formal investigation until March 2010.

Kathy Jackson, the current national secretary of the HSU, said the investigation is taking far too long.

"There needs to be a competent, external inquiry into the goings-on at Fair Work Australia," Ms Jackson told ABC Television on Tuesday.

"Why has it taken so long? Why are we still waiting for answers? And why are we in this position? We need this to end."

Ms Jackson has been banned by the HSU from speaking publicly about the allegations and said she was speaking as a union member.

If Mr Thomson leaves parliament, Labor would struggle to hold on to the marginal seat of Dobell on the NSW central coast.

Ms Jackson said she would be disappointed if Julia Gillard's government fell as a result of the allegations against Mr Thomson.

"That would be a catastrophic outcome, but this is not of my making. It's not of the making of our union," she said.

"The government should have taken more care in preselecting their candidates. This was not a surprise to them."

Ms Jackson said she could not rule out interference by the government in the inquiry.

"Anything is possible, but what I've seen in the last six months has been nothing but appalling.

"The conduct of officials at the HSU, the conduct of certain government ministers about what they have been saying and not been saying privately to people, it all gets back to me."

And she took aim at elements of the HSU which she said were less than forthcoming with key information.

"There's critical information that the union is withholding from the membership.

"But the leadership in NSW is trying to gag debate within this union and I think they hope that it all goes away and it's not going away."

Ms Jackson said she would release more information to Fair Work Australia by Friday.

She is launching a website on Wednesday called Clean UP HSUEast in which she will detail more allegations.