For the past two days I've been in Perth speaking to people who were here during The AWU Scandal.

There are lots of first hand witnesses still around - and the stories that are told today are like all oral histories, they vary and evolve with the telling.

To capture the mood and the detail of the time, there's nothing quite like a well constructed letter.

In the letter below, Tim Daly (the signatory is redacted, the letter was authored by either Tim Daly or Peter Trebilco, Joint Secretaries of the WA Branch of the AWU in April 1997) sets out his disbelief in the fact that Wilson had not hit the dock.

Somehow, Daly and the union have got their hands on Wilson's or Blewitt's personal bank account statements.   Again, the name is redacted, but specific known allegations that were made only against Wilson (of boosting his secretary's salary to subsidise her paying rent on a property he owned) and other details point a finger in Wilson's direction, but the name is redacted and we are surmising.

I don't know how AWU officials came to have Wilson's or Blewitt's personal bank statements - but in the context of a union official on around $50,000 salary, with no known other source of legitimate income, this letter makes for fascinating reading.   According to this first hand account from a senior union official at the time, Wilson (or Blewitt) was socking away plenty (para 7 page 2).

Makes the ABC 7.30 interview a little less convincing.