A few things Robyn McLeod may be able to help the TURC with
Friday, 04 December 2015
Robyn McLeod, Julia Gillard's best friend has a curious history. The TURC's final report would benefit from clearing up a few of the inconsistencies.
Ms McLeod worked for the Labor Environment Minister Barry Pullen until he lost office in the October, 1992 election.
Most of Ms McLeod's biographical materials have her moving immediately to the AWU after leaving Pullen's office, however here's what she told the Commission with quite some specificity:
Wilson came to Melbourne in July, 1992 - there can't have been too much dealing with Minister Pullen in his official capacity, perhaps Ms McLeod is confusing the more likely source of the introduction, her best friend Julia.
This article from The Age newspaper has Ms McLeod well and truly in the AWU in November, 1992:
Sewage flows unchecked into the Maribyrnong
|
|||||
| Millions of litres of raw sewage are pouring into the Maribyrnong River each day because of a blockage of the Epsom Road main sewer in Kensington.
At the beginning of this week, Melbourne Water announced the completion of repairs to the same sewer which collapsed in September, taking part of a road with it. The full cost of that collapse is expected to be about $3.5million. Even before the ``No swimming, no fishing" signs were removed from the river banks on Wednesday, a second collapse occurred. More signs had been added, a spokeswoman said, and users such as boating clubs have been notified not to use the river. Melbourne Water is also patrolling the Maribyrnong to warn the public. The Australian Workers Union has cited the blocked sewer in its attack on Melbourne Water's proposal to contract out basic sewerage maintenance work. An AWU industrial officer, Ms Robyn McLeod, said that having contractors do the work meant Melbourne Water would be one step removed from its specific obligation to maintain sewerage services during emergencies such as this one. |
This story from The Age published in January, 1993 has Ms McLeod not only involved in the industrial issues associated with the Melbourne Water maintenance outsourcing - but loudly arguing the case against contracting out the services.
In April 1993 Thiess was awarded the outsourcing contract, Leigh Ainsworth was the Thiess executive in charge of the work, here is part of his statement to the TURC:
Mr Ainsworth's statement is given some weight by what appears to be his internal checks made at the time about the way Wilson's branch did business with Thiess in WA.
Paul Darrouzet also made a statement to the TURC:
It may not be
Ainsworth, Darrouzet and Bruce Wilson have Ms McLeod present at the meetings when the AWU WRA Inc consultancy payments were discussed. Wilson reports that it was Ms McLeod's salary that was being subsidised as a result of the arrangement. Ms McLeod, however, has a different recollection, or should that read no recollection:
Always paid as an AWU employee? Ms McLeod did not tell the TURC the same thing that she told the Industrial Relations Commission and has said in many of her biographies. There's plenty of detail about her work history here, including a stint at Thiess:
Ms McLeod told the Commission in her sworn statement that she left the AWU in September 1994 - perhaps it's worth a few minutes to look at the months leading up to her departure.
By November 1993 Ms McLeod was the Socialist Left's preselected candidate for the state seat of Mordialloc.
This from April 1994:
Brumby's bid - party, policy people and ...patience?
|
|||||
| On Saturday, Mr John Brumby attended a Labor seminar on the environment, designed to throw up ideas for policy development.
Yesterday, the State Opposition Leader was knocking on doors in the seat of Mordialloc. Sound like there's a poll in the wind? Well, no, says Mr Brumby. ``I don't know if you could describe it as the start of our election campaign ... my guess is that Kennett will go early. He may well (call the election) in November or December `95. The next election is as little as 16 months away," he said. Mr Brumby elaborated that this was just stage two of the three P's he was dedicating himself to winning over - party, policy and people. Reformation of the party was achieved with the ALP's state conference's recent decision to preselect women in 35 per cent of all winnable seats within the next decade. In formulating policy, Mr Brumby believes the environment will prove to be a big issue. He intends to hold seminars to receive ideas which can broaden Labor policies. ``It's putting ideas in the policy pot," he said. Labor hopes that doorknocking will enable the public to have direct access to politicians - contributing to policy development while also improving the party's electoral chances. Following yesterday's campaigning by between 50 and 60 party members, Mr Brumby declared that the response had been ``very positive". Mr Brumby said recent ALP research indicated that uncertainties about policies and performance had resulted in a large pool of undecided voters in the four marginal seats surveyed. The state deficit levy, the quarterly flat-rate electricity charge, long-term unemployment and council amalgamations were among the key issues for householders, Mr Brumby said. While Labor would need a seven per cent swing to unseat the sitting Liberal member for Mordialloc, Mr Geoff Leigh, the results in the 1993 federal election translated into a Labor win in the seat, Mr Brumby said. Ms Robyn McLeod, Labor's preselected candidate for Mordialloc, said she had bared her knuckles on 400 doors, and the group had covered roughly 4000 houses - about one quarter of the electorate. |
And Ms McLeod certainly had a wide range of interests:
Table-top dancing becoming more explicit, report claims
|
|||||
| Table-top dancing has become more explicit and therefore more dangerous, says a report released at the weekend.
The report, by the Coalition for the Regulation of Sexually Explicit Entertainment, said naked women dancers were now performing on the laps of patrons at Melbourne's table-top dancing venues. Patrons were also able to ``paint" the dancers, or wrestle and shower with naked women. The coalition said the dancers were often poorly paid and were therefore encouraged to be more sexually explicit to earn more money. ``In many cases, the only money the dancers receive is that placed in their garters. The more explicit the performance, the more money provided, thus women are encouraged to become more explicit," the report said. Table-top dancing began in Melbourne in 1993. The coalition was formed soon after because its members believed table-top dancing was used to encourage people to drink alcohol, and created ``potential for violence, particularly towards women". The report, released by the ALP candidate for Mordialloc, Ms Robyn McLeod, said women had been harassed and abused by groups of men outside table-top dancing venues. |
She was certainly active in the AWU in May, 1994, campaigning against contracting out services in Melbourne Water:
A spokesman for the Government, Mr Stephen Mayne, rejected the Opposition claim.
``Rather than done on the basis on how close to the reservoir you are, it's more a basis of how efficient your company is. It's not going to be if you're closer to a reservoir you're okay, it's going to be how your company competes," he said, adding that prices would be uniform until 1994/1995.
A spokeswoman for the Australian Workers Union, Ms Robyn McLeod, has called on the Government to reassess its proposal, claiming it is impossible to achieve true competition from the carve-up.
``The Government's view is to create competition. The reality is if you live in one area you can't decide to get your water or sewerage treatment from another area of Melbourne," Ms McLeod said.
``Over the last 10 years the different empires have been pulled together into Melbourne Water. Now they plan to break up Melbourne Water and build the smaller empires back up. With three or four different empires, the efficiency-to-scale argument starts to go out the window," she said.
But right about then the public association with the AWU appears to abruptly cease.
Who knows, perhaps her campaign manager Julia Gillard felt the association with the AWU might be detrimental to Ms McLeod's electoral prospects - for whatever reason, Ms McLeod apparently went to work for Thiess.
On 2 August, 1995, Ms McLeod appeared at the Industrial Relations Commission on behalf of Thiess:
https://www.fwc.gov.au/documents/awards/tracee/agreements/pdf/AG766358.pdf
We have had a look at the Enterprise Bargaining Agreement here:
How could Ms McLeod have forgotten to tell the Commission about that? Perhaps the same way she forgot about the payments to the AWU-WRA to facilitate the workplace reform that is so prominent in the EBA she was involved in - on Thiess's behalf.
Finally there were 7 invoices from the AWU-WRA to Thiess in respect of Melbourne Water. One of them resulted in a cheque being banked into the AWU Members Welfare Association account - which finally brought Wilson undone. Thiess's response to the return of that cheque is hardly consistent with a company that was deceived or defrauded by Wilson - I prefer the sworn evidence of Paul Darrouzet that the AWU could violently disrupt Thiess's operations and it was better to just pay up.
Oh, one last thing. These initials appear on the last invoice processed by Thiess for payment to the AWU-WRA Inc, you can see it exhibited to Paul Darrouzet's statement to the TURC here.
Might just be worth a few hours of the time of a document examination expert, particularly when compared with the initials written in handwriting from Robyn McLeod's statement to the TURC here.
More soon.