Our readers were able to send their good wishes for a speedy recovery to John Howard after we told you about his hospitalisation on Thursday this week.
Fairfax has apparently just heard about the news, reporting from about 11.30 today.
Here's 2UE's lead item from its 1PM news bulletin.
Here is a 1991 report to the Corporate Affairs Commissioner from his legal officer about an Incorporated Association that appeared to be a trade union.
The report sets out the way the Commission dealt with enquiries of this type.
The Commission engaged an investigator who visited the Association's officials and conducted interviews and other enquiries. The Report sets out the precise definition of "Trade Union" for the purposes of the Associations Incorporation Act.
You'll hear more from former official Ralph Mineif soon!
Here are a couple of photos from The Australian Worker magazine, April, 1990.
Lots happening at the moment!
Michael Smith
National Australia Bank
BSB: 084-855 Acct No: 53-765-0476
I met with Ray Neal, the former WA Corporate Affairs Commissioner in January in Perth. Ray Neal gave me the name of an official who worked with him at the time of the AWU WRA incorporation - Ralph Mineif.
Well after a month of searching and with a little help from our friends I met with Ralph Mineif today.
I've recorded a few interviews with him, he's as sharp as a tack, now retired on a large block to the west of Sydney. He is ready, willing and able to appear before the Royal Commission - he's also emphatic that the AWU WRA would never have been incorporated without a direction from a Minister of the Crown. A Labor Party Minister.
We know from the Royal Commission's findings that left-wingers don't engage in fraud, here's Royal Commissioner John Dyson Heydon AC QC commenting on Julia Gillard's non-propensity for dishonesty:
But Julia Gillard did not know it was fraudulent. Had she known the truth, she probably would have been shocked. She would have terminated the retainer – and not only the retainer. In 1992 she was a young woman. She had ability. She had honourable ambitions. One ambition was professional – to become a leading light in Slater & Gordon, in which she had already risen fast, and which had been growing fast. Another was political – to enter Parliament. It is notorious that she had had a long and successful career in student politics. As early as 1993 she stood for pre-selection for the seat of Melbourne – then a safe Labor seat. Only two years later she stood for the Senate. Both her professional ambitions and her political ambitions would have suffered a severe setback if she became involved in fraud. She had every reason, professional and political, to avoid being involved in fraud. Further, her counsel urged that her reputation be taken into account.123 She had the reputation, merited or not, of being very left-wing. Robert Kernohan claims that William Shorten said on numerous occasions that he despised her ‘because of her links to the Communist Party’.124 People with a left-wing reputation are usually keen to preserve it by avoiding involvement in fraudulent conduct. If she had known of Bruce Wilson’s and Ralph Blewitt’s frauds, it would have been an act of insensate folly to have gone along with them. It is quite improbable that she committed that act of folly.
This was Sydney yesterday morning.
Here's the Daily Telegraph's report
THE driver who caused gridlock across much of Sydney on Wednesday after she crashed on the Harbour Bridge admitted to police that she had smoked cannabis before getting behind the wheel.
The 37-year-old woman fell asleep and drifted into oncoming traffic about 6.30am, causing a five-car accident that led to traffic snarls for 21km in all directions. Experts estimated the loss of productivity across the city would run to $50 million.
Police said that drugs and fatigue were alleged to be the major factors involved in the costly accident.
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