The Trade Union Royal Commission heard evidence this week about sham invoices issued by the AWU to the Thiess/John Holland JV for the payment of $100,000 per annum.

Thiess paid Bruce Wilson's AWU WRA Inc $100,000 in corrupt payments for each year of WA's Dawesville Channel project.

The system of corrupt payments seems to be part of the culture of each organisation.

The Royal Commission's interim report found that Thiess executives were deceived by Wilson about workplace reform and training.

The Royal Commission did not hear this evidence - an on the record statement from Thiess executives involved with the Dawesville project, reported in the Sydney Morning Herald on 30 July, 1996.

The "WA Inc" accounts affair - as AWU insiders are calling it - represents a dynamite scandal for a trade union movement facing an aggressive, new, conservative Federal Government and ever-declining membership.

Between 1992 and 1995, about $370,000 flowed through two Perth-based accounts - operated in the name of the "AWU Workplace Reform Association Inc" - which, until last month, had never been heard of in the AWU's national offices in Sydney.

All the money came from the big construction group Thiess Contractors, which says the payments were legitimate, arising from a tripartite agreement between it, the AWU and the West Australian Government.

Indeed, says Thiess, the Government paid it money for an employee training program at a $58 million Thiess construction project and it then paid the AWU. But once in union hands, it seems, the funds went walkabout when the AWU branch in WA was crying poor and running up a debt with head office approaching $1 million.

Thiess states that the payments from the BCITF were related to the Wilson invoices.   That is not the story Thiess has given to the TURC, nor is it reflected in the proposals or returns to the BCITF.  It's a cover up, a false story concocted to divert attention from the truth.

False stories are good evidence of someone having something to hide.   What was wrong with the truth if it was true?   Thiess executives now say they were deceived by Wilson, really?   This statement at the time sounds more like a statement from someone complicit with him.

The TURC should reopen the AWU WRA matter.

UPDATE

You can add this further statement from Thiess about "the money originating from the WA Government".  

The missing money involved with the latest revelations came from Thiess Contractors, owned by national construction industry giant Leighton Holdings, which also owns Leighton Contractors, builders of the $700 million Sydney Harbour Casino.

Thiess has confirmed it forwarded about $370,000 over three years in "open/documented transactions", which represented money originally provided by the West Australian Government to support an employee training project.

Thiess can hardly state it didn't know about the AWU WRA Inc given this letter Thiess sent to Ms Gillard's corporate love-child.   Why wasn't the AWU WRA Inc included in the BCITF submissions?  

And an even bigger question given Thiess claims this was Government money, why weren't the invoices or payments to "the AWU" referred to in the BCITF returns?