Some words that might be used to describe this conduct include reprehensible, unconscionable, unimaginable, unethical and for those of us with a reasonable man's view of the law........well thankfully the reasonable men of the Fraud Squad will get to present that to a court for it to determine.

Peter Gordon was the Managing Partner on the date Slater and Gordon heard the "new information" that disclosed an irreconcilable conflict of interest in S&G's duties to the AWU and to Wilson/Blewitt.   That was July, 1995 and Gordon said the decision to cease acting for both parties was immediate.

I have been told that the relevant Slater & Gordon files reveal that certain relevant 'new' information was made to Bernard Murphy in July 1995, and very shortly thereafter to Ms Gillard. No evidence in any of the firm's records exists that information as to any matter which can incontrovertibly be described as wrongdoing was available to or known by either of them before this time. Shortly after this time, this 'new' information was passed on to the other partners. There was a small delay in the transmission of this information by Mr Murphy to the rest of us which I interpreted as mediated only by the serious deterioration in our relationship and the mental strain under which he obviously labored at the time. When the information was conveyed to the other partners, the firm immediately ceased acting for the AWU, for Mr Wilson and Mr Blewitt. The leadership of the AWU had passed at this time from Mr Wilson to a new administration which retained Maurice Blackburn. Both Maurice Blackburn and the new administration were aware of the relevant allegations and was to our satisfaction, in a position to protect the union's interests insofar as those interests may have been affected.

All partners in a law partnership have constructive knowledge of the actions of their partners. Ethical partners discharge their obligations to fully inform their partners through opening files and making accurate records.   Gillard was unethical and did not.   Her unethical actions to July, 1995 were atrocious but possibly the result of compromised judgement.   But her considered actions from July in acting overtly and actively against the interests of her former client the AWU defy belief.  From this time her actions in support of her man and their joint personal interests were directly in conflict with and detetrimental to the AWU.

Wilson had been advised, formally, that he was being referred to police and would be charged under the union's internal rules.

How do you, as a reasonable person, think the union's best interests would have been served by its lawyers?   By opening the books, by examining the transactions, cooperating with authorities?

Slater and Gordon did not do that.   It states it discharged its obligations by simply ceasing to act, not by telling what it knew.  That explanation is not presented simply as a record of a decision taken at the time by the then partnership.   It is a statement made by the current Managing Director of the entity Slater and Gordon Ltd, a company whose shares are traded on the ASX with an obligation of continuous disclosure of information that could affect its share price.

If Slater and Gordon did cease to act for Wilson after it found out about him in July, that would at least be something positive.

But it did not.   It continued to act, not for the AWU, but for Wilson and for the interests of Wilson's people who left the union at the time under identical terms as part of the same negotiated deal that allowed Wilson to walk.

Wilson was sprung trying to steal $160,000 in cash from the union.

It's clear he was in real trouble and why.

Wilson was a signatory to an AWU Members Welfare Association No 1 account in which he admitted AWU funds had been mixed with "private" funds.   But the sham association AWU Members Welfare Association had two bank accounts.   

His associates Telikostoglou (who was on nick-name terms with Julia Gillard, he was the big fat Greek bullshit artist), Murray and Barnes were office holders in the same association, but then so were Wilson and Collins who presented themselves to the Commonwealth  Bank at a different branch in control of a different bank account in the name of the same "entity".

The AWU was until July, 1995 a client of Slater and Gordon.   In acting secretly for her man until that time, Gillard was in breach of several provisions of her obligations to the law and the AWU.

But things changed drastically in July.  Wilson was a suspect in fraud involving the AWU.   From the moment that Peter Gordon describes as the firm receiving "new information", Slater and Gordon had a duty to discharge.   Peter Gordon says the firm recognised an irreconcilable conflict of interest in its obligations to Wilson et al and to the AWU.   He says it remedied the conflict by immediately ceasing to act for each of them.

But Peter Gordon's statement is not accurate.   Gillard continued to act for Wilson and the group of 6 until 17 August, including negotiating on their behalf against the AWU.  Not only did she continue to act for him in response to allegations about AWU Association based frauds, but she did not disclose evidence of unmistakably similar facts in the creation and operation of the AWU Workplace Reform Association.  Her conflict of interest in continuing to involve herself in acting for Wilson was then compounded by her own interest in concealing her own involvement in the creation and abuse of the AWU Workplace Reform Association Inc (" I'm unable to rule out the the Association or the union paying for my renovations").   This was at a time when Wilson with wealth unexplained by his known salary income minus deductions for his family in Perth had instructed an employee to deposit $5,000 cash to her personal bank account.

So continued to act for Wilson et al until a deal that was satisfactory to him and the group of 6 was agreed. It included bogus redundancy payments.   At the same time tainted money received by Wilson in the bogus AWU Members Welfare Association Account was repaid to the company that paid it in.

She went in to bat for Bruce.   She kept the undiscovered association undiscovered.

It's useful to note her reaction and behaviour in a circumstance of similar facts in the course of her involvement in The AWU Scandal.  

In 1993 a union official in Perth made credible statements about financial mismanagement in the WA Branch when Blewitt was the AWU WA Secretary (in her record of interview on 11 September, 1995 Gillard said Blewitt was installed as state secretary of the AWU  "at Bruce's behest".)  So Gillard/Murphy were presented with a credible report, from a named person with standing as a union official, who had put in writing his concerns about financial irregularities in the AWU's  WA branch.  He called for the branch's finances to be audited.  What was the duty of a fiduciary of the AWU, what was the duty of a lawyer paid by and acting for the AWU?   Here is an account of the AWU's WA branch finances from the financial accountant there at the time:

A KEY former union accountant has undermined Julia Gillard's depiction of a slush fund she helped set up in 1992 as being a legitimate association needed to help finance union election campaigns.

Ms Gillard - then a salaried partner at law firm Slater & Gordon - gave extensive legal support to the establishment in Perth of the Australian Workers Union Workplace Reform Association from which more than $400,000 was stolen by her then boyfriend.

She told a media conference in August that she understood the association's purpose was to gather money from payroll deductions and other fund-raising events ''where it would be transparent to people that the money was going to support their re-election campaign''.

After it was revealed in 1995 that the association had been corrupted by Ms Gillard's boyfriend and senior AWU official Bruce Wilson, she told senior partners at Slater & Gordon: ''Every union has what it refers to as an election fund, a slush fund … so that they can finance their next election campaign.''

But the man who was the West Australian branch accountant of the AWU at the time says the union already had an election fund and there was no precedent to establish such a formal legal entity as the Workplace Reform Association for such a purpose.

Russell Frearson said the association was operated in complete secrecy by Mr Wilson and his crony, AWU state secretary Ralph Blewitt, with a separate bank account and post box address.

Mr Frearson said neither he, other branch officials nor the AWU's auditors knew anything about the association until its operations were exposed in 1995. ''They kept it very close to their chests. No one knew what was going on,'' he told The Age.

Mr Frearson - an ally of Bruce Wilson who joined the state administrative team when he took control of the branch in 1991 - said the union already had a dedicated election fund in operation when the Workplace Reform Association was incorporated in June 1992.

''Once Bruce took over we had set up an election fund for officials and everyone was contributing $30 a week,'' he said.

Gillard and Murphy did the same thing back then as Gillard would do again in August, 1995.   They went in to bat to protect the interests of Wilson/Blewitt, not the interests of the AWU. The man who made the allegations was sued for defaming Ralph Blewitt with an agressive defamation suit that was agressively and unrelentingly pursued.   He was pursued to shut him down, not to find the truth or otherwise in his allegations.

So here we have allegations about union finances and clear calls for audits and investigations in 1993 - then again in July 1995.  The July 1995 allegations are clear cut and the accusers are more senior.   They won't be shut down by a dodgy defamation proceeding. So what did Gillard do this time?

If she had innocently stuffed up by acting for Wilson and the AWU in the past, now was the time to come clean.   She had a duty to stop acting for Wilson at that point that was crystal clear. She had no choice but to tell him to go down the road for advice.

But she did not.   She knew the AWU, its confidential information, its accounts, the vulnerabilities of individual officers.  And she disgracefully acted for Wilson against her former client.   She continued to act, to represent, to advise and to be present when the funds for the redundancy payments arrived from Sydney.   Part of the deal that at least one of the group of 6 states was negotiated on their behalf by Wilson/Gillard was that the lawyer would confirm that "redundancy payment" funds from the AWU had been cleared, as a condition precedent to Blewitt, Barnes, Telikostiglou, Murray, Collins and Wilson signing resignation letters.   And the bank manager stated that he required lawyers for the Bob Collins incoming AWU/FIME Victorian management (ie Maurice Blackburn) and the other party to the dispute, Wilson and the group of 6 (Slater and Gordon) to be there to ratify the deal that would lead to the unfreezing of the accounts.   I have an impeccable source who states that Peter McArthy, the CBA manager said that the lawyers were in his presence when the deal was completed.

Imagine your own divorce.   You approach a lawyer and engage her. You spend a year with her on your side, she also advises you on your role as Executor of your mum's will who passed away during that awful year.    She supervises your assets and liabilities as you and your husband prepare to battle it out in the Family Court. You listen to every word she says, you take her advice, she's acting for you.

Until the day you find she's been having an affair with your husband the whole time.   And advising him while being paid by you.   And when it's discovered and it's time to clear up the fallout, she continues to represent him and advise him and negotiate on his behalf, all the while knowing each and every one of your secrets.

That is the ethical nature, the unworthy character of Julia Eileen Gillard.

You are entitled, as a jury will be entitled, to put together each of the acts in the course of conduct of The AWU Scandal.

The "redundancies" were bogus.   Bruce Wilson had been the running mate of Bill Ludwig, the union's president on a joint ticket for the secretary/president leadership of the AWU.   Reckon Bruce might have known a thing or two about his running mate and vice versa?   Or that his girlfriend the AWU's lawyer would have picked up a thing or two about the AWU along the way? You have to wonder why the bogus redundancies were never recovered.

You'll see that at the Commonwealth Bank that 17 August, money was returned to each of the companies that had responded to Wilson's call for a payment to the AWU Members Welfare Association.

Ian Cambridge referred Wilson to the National Crime Authority, who passed the file to the Victoria Police Fraud Squad who investigated.   Police wrote the complaint off back then.   The Victoria Police reported that the money the companies paid to Wilson was to be used for union purposes.   But just in case it wasn't going to be used that way, it got paid back when Wilson was sprung.   Like the bank teller who was always going to pay it back.   I'd love to see the entire file (most of it not released under FOI) to understand how the policeman came to the view that Wilson's use of AWU Members Welfare Association No1 account money, including the attempt to deposit $160,000 of it into another private slush fund which Blewitt and he operated was legit.

Police would have done well to look at the front and the back of this $15,000 cheque from the AWU Members Welfare Association No1 Account for the builder of the dodgy brick wall and awful windows and for a lazy $5,000 like the one Wayne Hem deposited into Julia Gillard's bank account as needed.

There is one damning thing that Gillard did not do, at the same time as she did not cease to act for Wilson.   This thing is of such a guilty character as to defy attempts at innocent explanation.   Wilson admitted misconduct to the AWU Finance Committee that he had "private funds" in the AWU Members Welfare Association No1 Account.   Bill Ludwig's affidavit is crystal clear, including the Bob Smith prediction "I reckon you'll go to the slammer".

But Gillard had knowledge and was herself involved in setting up a similar sounding entity, the AWU Workplace Reform Association.   She couldn't rule out at the time that its money had been used when Bruce, while she was away, just decided to renovate her house.   She knew its incorporation was dubious.   She described it as a re-election slush fund, something it had never been used for, never been referred to as and which is in no way reflected in the documents she used to incorporate it.

He was her man and to a large extent their personal interests mixed.   He was under investigation for frauds involving AWU associations, and she had guilty knowledge about her personal unlawful, secret and unethical involvement in establishing one of them.

Not the AWU Members Welfare Association No1 Account - provider of cash cheques and $160K 

Not the AWU Members Welfare Association No1 - Big Fat Greek Bullshit Branch

Not the Construction Industry Fund, receiver of cheques from Thiess right up to December, 1995

No the WA Election Fund account which paid for cabinets and the like 

But the grand daddy of them all.   The Slush Fund that Julia built.   The one that drew up this cheque made out to Julia's partnership to pay for the house Bruce bought at auction with her.

But she negotiated for Bruce against the AWU.  And she didn't tell the AWU about the workplace reform association.

The AWU didn't find out about it in August, 1995 when Gillard negotiated the terms of the agreement for Wilson, Blewitt, Telikostiglou, Collins, Barnes and Murray to leave the AWU with extra money.

The AWU didn't find out about her workplace reform association at all from her. Or from anyone at Slater and Gordon. Or when the house at Kerr Street was sold the next year.   The house that Slater and Gordon co-financed with the AWU Workplace Reform Association.   And the AWU didn't get a cent back.

No, the AWU had its first glimpse into just how steely and formidable a performer Julia Gillard is, how strong and resilient a leader, how powerful an example to young women and how they're bred tough, the Gillards in April, 1996.

Imagine the strength of character, resilience and personal confidence it would have taken to go into those negotiations on Bruce's behalf, to get him the money for him and the others to leave and all the while to resist the temptation to act honestly.

Imagine if she had been acting against the AWU instead of for it.   And what a shock to discover that she'd do a deal with you and me about the carbon tax, and then blow me down, do a different one on the same issue with Bob Brown.   

AWU leader Ian Cambridge's surprise as slush fund revealed

The diary of Ian Cambridge, a Fair Work commissioner who was national joint secretary of the AWU in the mid 1990s, reveals his surprise when the Commonwealth Bank advises him that a national search has identified bank records showing the existence of an AWU "association".

"It is now 11.35 and a short time ago I concluded a telephone conversation with a Mr Andrew Chalker from the Commonwealth Bank," Mr Cambridge states in the entry for April 3, 1996.

"Mr Chalker rang me, indicating that he was undertaking certain activities in respect to our request for the names of accounts held by the Commonwealth Bank which may relate to the AWU.

"Mr Chalker then indicated to me, and in fact asked me, if I had knowledge of a Workplace Reform Association, to which I responded that I had never heard of such an organisation before, and I asked him if that was one of the names that had been thrown up by his computer search.

"He said that was something which had been uncovered in the search to date and I indicated to him I thought that may well be something that we would have some interest in further investigation of."

The Prime Minister's role in helping set up the AWU Workplace Reform Association for her boyfriend, AWU official Bruce Wilson, was not known outside law firm Slater & Gordon until three months ago - when a former equity partner of the firm released a statement and secret transcript of a September 1995 interview with Ms Gillard.

The September 1995 interview was part of an internal review by the firm into Ms Gillard, then a salaried partner. She told the firm at the time that the association was a "slush fund for union elections".

After becoming aware in August-September 1995 of fraud concerns relating to Mr Wilson over a different AWU slush fund in Victoria, neither the law firm nor Ms Gillard alerted anyone in the AWU to the existence of the association that she had helped to set up.

The law knows that sometimes people will see a series of events that make you go hhmmmmmm.

That series of events is a circumstance.   Evidence so derived is called circumstantial evidence. In a recent Queensland Commission of Enquiry, the Commissioner, former judge The Honouble Tim Carmody QC said,

So it is for the defendant to tell us why all of the things done by the defendant are innocent things, each with their own, independent, reasonable and entirely innocent explanation.

"I did nothing wrong" could be put forward in an attempt at exculpatory explanation.   The verdict likely to follow suggests something more substantial might be needed to beat the wrap.

What a disgrace that Labor would lumber us with her.   What a scandal that Australia's media supported her and pilloried those who spoke against her.

When 2UE and I had editorial differences that precluded me broadcasting Bob Kernohan's story, I had new evidence not before put to the Australian public.  It was the expert evidence of Paul Westwood OAM, the country's preeminent forensic handwriting analyst.  He confirmed my layman's observation that her handwriting was on the for seeking the incorporation of a slush fund she'd denied setting up.

Bob Kernohan wasn't powerful.   But he was right.

Every touch leaves its trace.  Justice is coming like a steam train.