Third time lucky? Remember that late election donation disclosure by Bill Shorten that was all anyone could talk about a fortnight ago but that is now, strangely, forgotten?  We reported last week that the amount Shorten, or more legally correctly the Victorian branch of the ALP, had neglected to disclose wasn’t $40,000-odd but closer to more than $65,000. Well, since then there’s been an update. The original disclosure, sent two days after Shorten’s royal commission appearance, reported $42,968 from the AWU Victorian branch and $12,587 from labour hire company Unibuilt (paid before June 30 that year, so it was reported for the 2006-07 period), to cover the salary of Lance Wilson, who worked on Shorten’s 2007 election campaign. In addition, it also revealed a donation from the national AWU of $11,774. Well, last week the Victorians sent an amendment to that declaration to the AEC. According to that, the national AWU donation was actually $12,238 and the Victorian AWU donation was lot smaller, at $13,311. And now there’s a second Unibuilt donation, of $30,237 — which is around $500 shy of the difference between the Victorian AWU figures. So, Unibuilt paid for most of Wilson’s salary, it seems, rather than the AWU Victorian branch. That brings the undisclosed, eight-years-late amount to $68,373. And it still took them two goes to get it right — assuming there are no more amendments.

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