taxpayers will foot Mr Hanson's legal costs after he was granted indemnity by the ACT Labor Government, which could leave the total bill hundreds of thousands of dollars higher.

Mr Hall said he had been "totally vindicated".

"It was only ever about an apology," he told the ABC.

"Unfortunately, it turned into a farcical process and took far too long and cost a hell of a lot of money for the ratepayers of the ACT.

"I apologise for that, but the reality is I needed my name to be cleared and this was the only process I could do it through."

The former CFMEU boss, who now works with the Tradies Group, was not awarded damages, but the payout compensates him for his legal costs.

The official apology from Mr Hanson. ( Supplied )

MLAsResearch & Development

NIST/JILA team demonstrates 'new way of lasing'

04 Apr 2012

High-stability “super-radiant” source based on rubidium atoms could have applications in atomic clocks and navigation systems.

An entirely new type of laser being developed by a team of physicists at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) affiliate laboratory JILA could lead to atomic clocks with an unprecedented time and frequency precision.

According to James Thompson and colleagues at the Boulder, Colorado, lab, basing the laser on rubidium atoms that are synchronized in the manner of a phased array makes the beam’s frequency thousands of times more stable than that of a conventional laser.

Thompson’s prototype design, described this week in the journal Nature, confirms theoretical predictions made by fellow NIST/JILA scientists Jun Ye and Murray Holland several years ago.