Last Thursday Commissioner Heydon closed his Brisbane hearing with this message, "31 December is a date which weighs heavily on me".
Here is the Commission's schedule for what might be its last month of hearings.
Monthly Schedule
Please note, this schedule may change at short notice.
| October | Hearing description | Location |
|---|
| Thursday 1–Friday 2 |
Public hearing: CFMEU NSW |
Sydney |
| Monday 5 |
Public holiday |
|
| Tuesday 6 |
Public hearing: CFMEU Funds |
Sydney |
| Wednesday 7–Friday 9 |
Public hearing: CFMEU ACT |
Sydney |
| Monday 12–Friday 23 |
Public hearing: AWU |
Sydney |
| Monday 26–Friday 30 |
TBC |
Sydney |
On 25 September 2015 the Commission published a Practice Direction about the AWU hearings:
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Between 12 and 23 October 2015 the Commission proposes to hold further public hearings into the Australian Workers Union including its dealings in relation to:
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the Thiess John Holland Joint Venture Pty Ltd and the construction of the Eastlink Toll Road;
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ACI/O-I Glass Packaging;
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Downer EDI Pty Ltd and the Yolla Gas Offshore Platform;
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Cleanevent Pty Ltd;
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Unibuilt Pty Ltd;
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Winslow Constructors Pty Ltd; and
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Chiquita Mushrooms Pty Ltd.
The Commission adheres to natural justice principles which mean November and December will largely be confined to:
- Service (on parties affected) and publication of Counsel Assisting's Submissions as to what the Commission should find, including Counsel's recommendations for charges.
- Submissions in response by affected parties.
- Submissions in response to the Submissions of persons affected by the 1st round of affected parties submissions
- Counsel Assisting's response to those submissions
At the end of that, the Commissioner will complete his report. The interim report findings that have not been revisited this year will presumably become final findings.
And that's it......... unless there is a compelling reason for the Commission's term to be extended.
Any work done in lobbying Tony Abbott can be put down to experience! Consider it a live-firing exercise, good practice but it won't determine who wins the war.
The new Turnbull Government "doesn't want to wage war on the unions" and has a brand new Minister scarcely across her brief - Minister Cash is unlikely to make controversial decisions without help.
In human affairs, nothing changes until the pain of staying the same exceeds the pain of change. Staying the same means a "Thank God that's over" deadline of 31 December. The Government isn't going to feel any pain in staying that course.
If nothing changes (ie the pain of staying the same - at present not much - remains less than the pain of change, quite a bit of that) the Commission will be disbanded on 31 December.
Unless you help, the history of the nation will record Julia Gillard "did nothing wrong" in the AWU-WRA scandal.
The Final Report of a Commission of inquiry into union corruption will contain no evidence or answers from Bill Ludwig.
The MUA will receive scant attention - here's its one day at the Commission.
Maritime Union of Australia (MUA)
Witnesses
Witnesses are called before the Commission to give evidence under oath. Witness lists are published once the hearing schedule has been confirmed. The name of a witness is published in alphabetical order, not in the order of appearance and may be subject to change.
Transcripts and evidence
The full transcript of the hearing and documents presented to the Royal Commission will be available soon. The documents have been provided in a PDF format. If you require these documents in a different accessible format please contact [email protected].
The notorious MUA secretary Paddy Crumlin wasn't heard at all. More than $1M in dodgy "donations" to the MUA were discussed during that one day hearing - and Paddy Crumlin was not asked a single question about it.
About 4PM that day The Commission heard this:
MR STOLJAR: The final witness is Mr Crumlin. I did have some questions of Mr Crumlin but given the hour, I might just tender his statement as well and reserve what I wish to say for submissions.
THE COMMISSIONER: Yes, very well.
MR STOLJAR: I tender his statement of 25 September 2014.
THE COMMISSIONER: Mr Crumlin's statement is received into evidence.
STATEMENT OF PADRAIGH CRUMLIN DATED 25/9/2014
And that was that.
Dawesville, Thiess, Gillard, the AWU WRA Inc, Bruce Wilson, Hugh Morgan and Carmen Lawrence.
If it wasn't for this website and our submissions, the Commission's report on the AWU-WRA would have recorded that Thiess won the Dawesville Channel $60M contract as a result of submitting the superior bid in a publicly contested Tender process.
As it stands, The Commission's Interim Report does not tell the complete story, it says
The Western Australian State Manager for Thiess Contractors Pty Ltd was Nicholas Jukes. He negotiated with the Western Australian Department of Marine and Harbours for Thiess to obtain the contract. (page 93 Interim Report, AWU-WRA case study)
The truth is the Lawrence Labor Government's Cabinet made the decision to cancel a public tender process which had commenced and the Cabinet decided in secret to hand the contract exclusively to Thiess.
The Commission's report states:
According to Ralph Blewitt, Bruce Wilson also negotiated with Australian Labor Party officials and the Western Australian government to ensure this outcome.41 Since many of Thiess’s employees were members of the AWU rather than the CFMEU, he had a motive to do this, and it is possible that he did. (page 93)
More than just possible - but the Commission didn't look for any other motives or evidence to support the lobbying claim against a vulnerable Carmen Lawrence. A key figure at the time was Hugh Morgan, CEO of Western Mining Corporation who told Hedley Thomas and me in an interview published in The Australian newspaper:
AWU leader ‘said he would destroy premier’
A UNION boss accused of major fraud in the AWU slush fund scandal had intimidated and threatened to destroy the political career of a premier, Carmen Lawrence, according to a mining executive.
One of Australia’s most respected resources-company leaders from the era, Hugh Morgan, the former chief executive of Western Mining, said that Dr Lawrence had confided the threats to him when she was the West Australian premier.
Mr Morgan, who has battled unions and been a strong Liberal Party backer, said he would give evidence to the royal commission into unions if it called him as part of its investigation of the slush fund and the allegedly criminal conduct of former AWU boss Bruce Wilson.
An investigation by The Weekend Australian into the delivery by Dr Lawrence’s cabinet of a $60 million building job to Thiess Contractors without a public tender has raised concerns about taxpayer-funded contracts that are likely to be part of the royal commission’s probe.
After receiving the $60m contract following a late change that prevented a public tender process, Thiess paid more than $300,000 into Mr Wilson’s slush fund over the course of the building works. The slush fund, the AWU Workplace Reform Association, had been set up and registered with the legal advice of Wilson’s then girlfriend, Julia Gillard, who was a solicitor at Slater & Gordon. The former prime minister has strenuously denied any wrongdoing.
Mr Wilson’s trusted AWU ally, Ralph Blewitt, has told The Weekend Australian and police that Mr Wilson used his powerful union influence to threaten key ministers in Dr Lawrence’s Labor government that they would not receive preselection or support if Thiess did not get the job.
Asked for comment about the claims of Mr Blewitt and Mr Morgan, Dr Lawrence said yesterday: “This does not ring true.”
Dr Lawrence added that she had not had time to refresh her memory on the events.
She said she did not wish to make further comment until she had recollected the circumstances surrounding the matters that The Weekend Australian emailed her about on Thursday.
The deputy premier and minister for state development at the time, Ian Taylor, now retired, said the assertions by Mr Blewitt were “ridiculous”.
Mr Taylor said he had no recollection of Mr Wilson ever raising the building project, known as the Dawesville Channel.
Mr Morgan said he became aware of Mr Wilson’s remarkable hold on the then Labor government when he had a meeting with Dr Lawrence amid a backdrop of AWU strife at WMC.
“Bruce had done everything he could to avoid signing an (industrial) agreement,” he said. “But finally, we got him to sign. I went to Carmen Lawrence and she said to me very directly, ‘Hugh, I cannot fulfil that because Bruce has informed me that if I go ahead with that agreement he will ensure that I do not get my preselection for the next election’.
The Commission will report with no reference at all to Hugh Morgan's evidence, it didn't hear from him nor will it speak of Carmen Lawrence.
Nick Jukes and Joe Trio appeared at the Commission. Wilson stated that Jukes knew all about the separate entity - that would make Jukes a party to providing a secret commission. Unsurprisingly, amongst the many stories Jukes and Trio have told about the AWU-WRA, the one they settled on for the Royal Commission was that they genuinely believed they'd contracted the AWU-WRA Inc to provide training and workplace reform. No work was done, no checks were made, nothing at all was ever even perfunctorily created except invoices. But Wilson got $300K in monthly payments that continued until the agreed total amount, $300,000 had been delivered. Even though the construction was completed had 8 months earlier and the site was inundated with sea water, as all good channels should be.
When Counsel for Bruce Wilson started to quizz Jukes about the discussions Wilson said they'd had about the real nature of the AWU WRA - Counsel Assisting the Commission Jeremy Stoljar objected to stop the line of questioning.
DR HANSCOMBE: Q. You certainly knew the words because
5 6 you put them on the letter.
6
7 7 A. Someone's - and I wouldn't have written "AWU Workplace
8
9 8 Reform Association" unless somebody told me it existed. My
10
11 9 evidence to the police in 1997 was I thought Mr Trio had
12
13 10 told me, and that's still the best recollection I've got.
14
Joe Trio says he told Jukes no such thing. And how could he have - the Association didn't exist and only the person who would word the legalese knew what it was going to be called.
Back to the exchange with Hanscombe/Jukes
12 12 Q. You think Mr Trio told you those words, to address it
13
14 13 to the Workplace Reform Association?
15
16 14 A. That's the best as I can recall and it's in my
17
18 15 statement to the WA police in 1997.
19
16
17 17 Q. My puttage to you, my instructions are that you were
18
19 18 told that it was a separate entity and you were told that
20
21 19 in early 1992?
22
23 20 A. I find that hard to believe given that I have seen
24
25 21 evidence that it wasn't registered until months after the
26
27 22 letter went out. So if it was a separate entity, it was
28
29 23 somebody's - a figment of imagination at that point in
30
31 24 time.
A figment or creation of someone's imagination. Someone who was instructed to set up a separate legal entity to receive money from the Dawesville Channel Project. Wilson's instruction were that he wanted control of that money, not the AWU. Wilson gave evidence that he sought Gillard's advice as to how to achieve his stated end.
A short time later during the cross-examination, just as Dr Hanscombe was getting somewhere with Jukes, this happened:
32 MR STOLJAR: Commissioner, I object to this. The reason
33
34 33 is this: Mr Jukes has come back to give a limited
35
36 34 statement in reply. There has already been
37
38 35 cross-examination generally about Mr Jukes' evidence
39
40 36 including this letter on the last occasion. I am conscious
41
42 37 of the fact we still have three witnesses to get through
43
44 38 this afternoon. Leisurely cross-examination on matters
45
46 39 that really relate to his evidence-in-chief, in my
47
48 40 submission, is not appropriate.
49
41
42 42 THE COMMISSIONER: Yes. I am worried about the passing of
43
44 43 the time.
A few more questions and that was it.
The ad for the Association was in the newspaper on 6 March, 1992
10 days later on 16 March 1992 Jukes "wrote" this:
The letter was exquisitely well addressed in a form identical to the hand written description by Gillard on the Application for Incorporation - a form which wasn't submitted until one month and 12 days later:
How did Jukes know what Gillard was going to write on the form? How did he invent the legalese in the letter he "wrote" to the Association in such precise terms. Only one person knew the final name - and it wasn't Ralph Blewitt, he couldn't be trusted to write it right.
During those weeks, Gillard's proposed entity opened bank accounts, issued invoices and banked cheques with the AWU's name in the payee section. Its invoices went out on letterhead of an entity that no one knew about because it didn't exist. That name was written in Gillard's hand-writing on the Application for Incorporation so that Ralph didn't stuff it up and it was important that the name was correct - for legal reasons. The cheques it banked went into the accounts the operation of which were described in Gillard's Objects for the Association - well in advance of its actual authorised incorporation.
Someone had good reason to fight for that name getting the tick from the Corporate Affairs department if - heaven forbid - the Application was knocked back.
We know who - it was Gillard who went in to bat when Corporate Affairs initially said no.
Gillard told the Royal Commission in her sworn evidence that she knew at the time that no unincorporated association existed. So there could be nominated Secretary or Treasurer. It was a fraud to put forward an application for incorporation from an Association that did not exist. It couldn't have authorised the application, it couldn't have had the requisite meetings, nor were there the requisite number of members to satisfy the Act. And Gillard knew it.
I tracked down and interviewed the Corporate Affairs acting Commissioner - the man who could tell the Commission about the deception. The Commission did not take evidence from him.
All the details are here
There are further interviews between me and Mr Neale clearing up details
here.
Mr Neale was a public official who was deceived. He told me he was deceived by the lawyer Gillard. He is prepared to tell the Commission the same thing. But it didn't hear from him.
I also tracked down his subordinate Ralph Mineif and interviewed him in Sydney in February this year. There's some background correspondence to my interview with Mr Mineif here:
http://www.michaelsmithnews.com/2015/02/
You can hear some of the interview that I published with Mr Mineif below - remember he was the man responsible for the Gillard AWU WRA file, reporting to Ray Neale.
http://www.michaelsmithnews.com/2015/03/direct-documentary-evidence-from-the-time-was-corporate-affairs-officers-on-unions-and-incorporated-.html
The Commission didn't hear from Mr Mineif either.
Now here's the clincher. After the first correspondence with Ray Neale, Gillard directed Ralph Blewitt to send this clearly fraudulent letter to further deceive the Corporate Affairs Commissioner.
Remember Gillard didn't trust Ralph to get the name right in the Application, that's why it's in her handwriting. God help Ralph in composing legalese like that in the letter above. Gillard did it.
Gillard gave sworn evidence to the Commission that she knew there was no Association in existence at the time. She was party to a fraud, she wrote on behalf of people who had not given her that authority. They could not because they did not exist. That means the Association could not apply for incorporation. She lied in the application and then further set out in writing instructions for Blewitt to lie again to further deceive a public official.
Eventually the Association was incorporated, months after Thiess started paying money in to the slush fund designed and fought for by Julia Gillard. 
24 June 1992 was the first time someone who wasn't "in the know" could have lawfully been told that an Australian Workers' Union Workplace Reform Association Incorporated actually existed.
Bruce Wilson, whom the Commission credited with occasionally telling the truth, says that Thiess knew all about the separate entity. More than three months earlier, Nick Jukes wrote to it in excruciatingly precise legalese, using the exact nomenclature that Ralph couldn't be trusted to get right - the words Gillard hand wrote on the application form.
Thiess started paying months before the Association existed. It paid for work that was never done. The money was used to pay for renovations at Gillard's house. It also paid for a house purchased at an auction she attended. Her firm did the legal work on that conveyance and it provided some of the purchase funds through a mortgage from the firm. Gillard wrote off the fees for her de-facto Wilson's transactions. He didn't want the house in his name so Gillard wrote up a Power of Attorney document to put it in the fall-guy Ralph Blewitt's name. Ralph says Gillard wasn't in Perth when he signed it. He says her declaration that she witnessed him signing, sealing and delivering the legal deed is false. Could she have been motivated to cut corners to help out her de facto? The Commission currently says no, it treated Gillard's involvement as at arm's length and legitimate - she was the victim of Blewitt's deception is what history will record.
But surely there must have been a good reason for Thiess to pay out all that money for work that was never done. Could it have been that Wilson influenced the Lawrence Government to give the contract to Thiess? Not according to the Royal Commission - it had a better idea than that.
Could it have been to buy industrial peace from the firebrand Bruce Wilson's AWU? Not according to the Commission. It found a much more cogent theory.
Here's what the history of Australia will record as to why Thiess shareholders paid out $300K on Dawesville, then a further $80K on Melbourne Water (with Gillard's best friend Robyn McLeod installed as the chief AWU contact, then as a director of a Thiess board, then as a Thiess employee, then onto the staff to the Bracks Labor Government helping to direct work Thesis's way). Some of that fraudulently obtained money was used to buy Wilson's house in Blewitt's name with free legal work from Gillard. Gillard just happened to be at the auction when the house was purchased - and later lived in the Wilson pad while her own place was renovated. And who paid for some of her renovations? Thiess via the same slush fund.
It was charm. Thiess had nothing to gain, not industrial peace, not Wilson's lobbying services on the Lawrence Government. Charm. That's the cogent and persuasive theory according to the Commission.
Here's the relevant paragraph which will be there forever, unless enough of us protest and get it set right:
Bruce Wilson must have possessed immense charm in 1991-1992. That charm has not wholly fled from him even now, after more than 20 years’ battering by failure and disappointment. It is a measure of that charm that the hard-bitten and experienced Thiess executives, toughened in years of struggles with equally hard- bitten union officials, proprietors and contractors, should have agreed to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars in return for so ill-defined a promise. (page 94 - interim report, AWU WRA case study).
Charm. That's it.
And that will be "it" forever unless the Commission revisits the matter.
It's up to you - let me know whether you're happy for things to stay the same. It's going to take a lot of pain for things to change. Are you up for it?
I am. Write a comment below and let me know if you are too.
There aren't many of us left who've stayed the course. Let's not die wondering what might have happened if only........
