The Age first reported on the Industry 2020 fund in December 2012, when Melhem was Victorian secretary of the Australian Workers Union. At the time, it had raised about $500,000 over four years from unions and various big building companies making donations at union-organised events.

What the companies who donated thought they might get in return was never clear, but the money seems to have mainly been used to support the political activities of Melhem's right faction subgroup of the ALP, including funding for factional allies during a brawl for control of the Health Services Union in 2009.

Melhem was then parachuted into a safe upper house seat in May, 2013. Days later, he closed down Industry 2020, but there would be more allegations that the funds were used by Melhem for branch stacking and to further entrench his factional position in the party.

The Abbott government's union royal commission last month provided details of a string of cheques from the fund to various factional powerbrokers and various little-known companies. Counsel assisting the commission, Jeremy Stoljar, SC, went so far as to claim the fund had been used to build a personal "fiefdom" for Melhem.

But most alarming was a report in The Age earlier this month that Melhem racked up a $40,000 bill on a credit card linked to the fund – some of which he later paid back – with spending in international luxury hotels, restaurants, and on alcohol, electronics and cigars.

Now, we have even more cause for suspicion. Melhem has been ordered to reappear before the commission, amid fresh revelations he attempted to secretly hand over a cheque for almost $10,000 to a progressive think tank just days before he first appeared in September.

The think tank has refused to bank the cheque in the absence of an assurance it wasn't from a suspect source. None has been given.

The situation is, of course, different, but there are some parallels with the Craig Thomson saga that so haunted the Gillard government.

Allegations about Thomson's credit card use surfaced in The Sydney Morning Herald in April 2009. Despite lingering questions, the former union official was preselected by Labor to contest the 2010 federal election – a decision that would inflict massive damage on the Gillard government.

Likewise, you have to wonder whether state Labor's decision to parachute Melhem into a safe upper house seat will come back to bite Opposition Leader Dan Andrews. The allegations surrounding Melhem are not going to disappear. Yet, given the enormous factional power he wields, it is unclear what, if anything, Andrews might now do to avoid future pain. Any decisions relating to Melhem's future in Parliament will be up to the party.

Andrews seems powerless to act, beyond putting his head down and praying there is nothing worse to surface before November 29.