Royal Commission publishes Counsel Assisting's final submissions
Michael Smith editorial on the AWU Workplace Reform Association Inc submission by Senior Counsel Assisting TURC

Royal Commission asked to find that Julia Eileen GILLARD was the beneficiary of funds from Wilson

Here is the final paragraph of the comprehensive chapter in Counsel Assisting's submissions regarding the AWU Workplace Reform Association:

Lastly, for the reasons set out above the Commission should find that Ms Gillard was
the beneficiary or recipient of certain funds from Mr Wilson, consistent with the
evidence of Mr James and Mr Hem. It is not possible to identify after all this time the
precise source of the funds, since Mr Wilson seems to have drawn cash from the
accounts operated in Victoria as well as from the Association’s account. The skimpy
nature of the available evidence does not make it possible to infer on the balance of
probabilities that Ms Gillard was aware that she had received the $5,000 which Mr Hem
put into her bank account on Mr Wilson’s instructions. But she was aware of facts, had
she turned her mind to them, which would have indicated that the source of the wads of
bank notes cannot have been the low union salary of Mr Wilson of about $50,000 – a
man who was supporting his family in Perth, his own household in Melbourne, and his
relationship with Ms Gillard in Melbourne, and who was not shown to have had any income from property exceeding the cost of mortgage repayments – but must have been
some fund he did not own but did control. That is, she must have been aware of facts,
which had she turned her mind to them, would have revealed that Mr Wilson was
making payments to her in breach of some fiduciary duty.


In plain English, Wayne Hem, Ralph Blewitt and Athol James were right.

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