In October 2013 Julia Gillard was appointed as a visiting fellow at the Brookings Institute.

Here's part of what we published to help introduce her.

Brookings Institute nonresident senior fellow Julia Gillard was Prime Minister .... of the most incompetent and untrustworthy government in modern Australian history.

 Students will work on real-life "Cases of the scandalously wasteful" while studying Ms Gillard's "circus-ring" style of leadership and service delivery.

 Ms Gillard will deliver tips on introducing the value "untrustworthy" into a team.    She'll emphasise the importance of incompetence 

For students taking the degree course in internal disunity, Ms Gillard brings no end of personal scandal and dirt-files held on others.

The USA's RICO racketeering provisions will be applied to a whole lot of grubby deals Ms Gillard delivered in order to try and perpetuate her power.  

 The Gillard Fellowship and lecture series will follow the traditions of the Gillard government and deliver to Brookings the embarrassing spectacle that Ms Gillard is famous for.

Soon after that Ms Gillard was appointed to the position Hillary Clinton lined up for her, Chair of the Global Partnership for Education................

 

Introduction

 

Within a few months of our August 2012 start up, this website had reached an audience of more than one million unique devices.  Lots of people have two (say a phone and computer at home), so let's say around 500,000 people came here and clicked through to look at a page.

We settled down to a regular monthly audience of about 100,000 individual people (that means at least one visit here in a 30 day period).   There's always been a reliable hard core of about 10,000 individuals who have come here every day.

We had a real family feel, a sense of belonging with people we knew through the comments on this site (I've read more than half a million of them!!!) 

I know there's been a change in the things I've focussed on here with the Clinton Foundation research over the past several weeks.  

So I want to do 3 things.

 

Houston, we have a problem.

I've heard you, I've seen the numbers and the data as well as your notes - and there's been a lot of them.  

You're right, there's been a lot of time and words here on the Clinton issue.

Today I had the chance to sit and think about you and what you're trying to tell me.  I hope I understand what you're saying.  

To see if I'm correct, I'll have a stab at summarising your feedback.

 

Is this summary selection of quotes accurate?

This Clinton stuff is tedious, it's not relevant in my life and it's boring. I look at the page and there are huge slabs of black writing and I don't even know where to start.  

I can't make sense of it.

I think I can just skip through a bit to see if I'd be interested in reading it, but I can't even skip through it so I just skip the whole site.  

I started coming here because I saw what happened to Smithy at 2UE and it really affected me and I was offended that she was getting away with it.  

This website was always about Australia and our holding corrupt politicians and their union mates to account, now it's off with the fairies.  

If Michael Smith wants to go and work in America he should just come out and say so and good luck to him, but don't expect me to stick around while he's speaking to an audience I'm not a part of. 

I'd put up with your Muslim stuff as long as there wasn't too much of it.I used to like your fishing stories so bring them back.  But wall to wall Clinton for page after page, or sudden 3 days with nothing, sorry mate, I'll be gone.

I saw what happened to you and Glen Milne mate, I was there.  I listened every day that week you had Bob Kernohan in the studio and Gillard shut you down.  Then when you got taken off the air, it was like it had happened to me, like something had been taken from me.  That's why I followed you here, to try to do something about it, because if it could happen to you, it could happen to anyone.  And that's not the sort of country I want to live in.

What have you done Smithy?  It's like your turning your back on us!!!!!!

 

What have I done?   And why.

One of the biggest shocks in my life was getting pulled off the air at 2UE.

First News Limited folded to Gillard's demands, pulled a news story, pulled bits from Piers Akerman and Andrew Bolt's blogs, sacked Glen Milne, apologised to Gillard broadly for publishing 'defamatory and false' stories about her and then didn't publish anything further on the scandal for about a year (she wanted it banned forever).

After News folded, getting Greg Hywood in the lycra shorts at the Fairfax gym or cafe onside was a breeze.

You saw what happened, I felt it as it happened, it was bad and we were right to stand up to it.  

Australian taxpayers paid for the current Attorney General George Brandis to attend my most recent wedding.  I think that gives you every right to hear what he said back in the day when he was all care but no responsibility.

In his speech, George told my mum and two extended families that I'd "acted on behalf of the people" with "conspicuous distinction" in the blue with Gillard.  He said what Gillard did to me, she did to all of us.  

He told Maureen that her boy Michael was a "hero of the people"  who unlike the members of the herd in the press gallery was unafraid to speak the truth even when the price was having his professional reputation assassinated.

"But there is some consolation, Maureen.  He is here and he is continuing to fight the good fight. At least we don't live in a country like the former Soviet Union, where it's not just the reputation that's taken out the back and shot!  We should all thank God for the freedoms we enjoy in Australia that allow principled journalists like Michael to find the truth on our behalf and to tell us all about it".

This website started operating in August 2012, about a year after I left 2UE.  From the start we made open enquiries, we generally posted what we found as we found it and we shared what we had discovered with no exclusivity.

Many of the big stories of the past few years, particularly those involving Gillard, Slaters and the AWU have been based on documents first revealed to the public here.  I've spent countless hours in briefings for politicians and journalists and it didn't escape my attention that they were getting paid for the time when I wasn't.  I've never had a politician or journey put one cent into this site and the irony's not lost on me.

On one particularly busy day in June 2012 I spent hours on the phone first with a prominent Labor politician who gave an important speech then with two coalition politicians who wanted briefing notes for their historic speeches in reply.

In August 2012 as we started publishing, Ms Gillard faced the daily certainty that this website and the newspapers were on to her.  Her duties seemed to come second to other priorities.

Hillary Clinton's emails tell the story of Gillard's insistence on a starring role at the 2012 Pacific Islands Forum for a gender announcement - the US Ambassador for Women was called in to solve the drama, shift people around and get the program settled.  Gillard flew to the Cook Islands in our 737,  then turned around before the show had finished and she returned home. 

Gillard arrived in Vladivostok for the G20 Summit when her father died.  She cancelled all duties at the G20 but remained in Vladivostok that day and overnight locked in her hotel room before returning to Australia without attending any of the G20 functions.

Gillard flew to New York for the UN leaders week late that September.  She cancelled a dinner with Obama, a speech to the Asia Institute and the first session at the UN.  But she went to every one of the engagements Hillary Clinton had arranged for her.   Along with Madeleine Albright whose daughter Alice would become CEO, Gillard was chaperoned by Clinton to a range of appointments that, looking back, were stepping stones to the Clinton aligned Global Partnership for Education that Gillard would soon chair and into which she'd funelled hundreds of millions of Australian taxpayer dollars.

Just before she left for New York the Australian Government pledged a $14M donation to the Clinton Foundation for work it was already being paid for by the Rockefeller Foundation. 

Here's a timeline of the subsequent events.

11 October 2012 - Ralph Blewitt alleged Gillard had committed a serious indictable offence re power of attorney -transcript here

12 October 2012 - I asked PM Gillard asked for her side of the story, she did not respond.

17 October 2012 - Formal crime report to the Chief Commissioner of Police in Victoria, the report was actioned that day and and action confirmed in writing.

23 November 2012 - Ralph Blewitt made 3 statements to Victoria Police under the penalties of perjury and without any immunity from prosecution.  

On 28 November 2012 Gillard named me in the Parliament and said my website was the basis for every question the Opposition put to her.  She also was clearly reading this website daily, thank you MichaelTDA.

Gillard announced that she'd be a "global philanthropist" when she retired from politics.  She sacked long-standing No1 NT Senator Trish Crossin and said she was replacing her with a black woman telling her "I've got to consider my legacy".  Her legacy and future had clearly been on her mind for a while.

16 January 2013 - a Victoria Police detective attended at Kawana Waters police station in Queensland and interviewed Olivia Palmer (nee Brosnahan, the paralegal executive from Slater and Gordon)

Victoria Police command approved Operation Tendement to investigate Gillard, her former defacto Bruce Wilson and Ralph Blewitt.  Police allocated 8 detectives to a task force and  Detective Sergeant Ross Mitchell was appointed to head the team to investigate the offences disclosed in the AWU Scandal.  DETSGT Mitchell flew to Sydney and spent one week in my home while I provided him with the exhibits I'd accumulated and the chronology described in the course of assembling this website.

On 28 January I published this article confirming my interactions with police and the nature of their enquiries into Gillard and her co offenders.

On 15 May 2013 Magistrate Martin directed police to search Gillard's former law firm in a search warrant - the Magistrate was satisfied on the sworn evidence of a Detective Senior Sergeant of the Victoria Police Major Fraud Squad that evidence of the commission of serious indictable offences was present there and he directed police to seize and bring before his court:

 

Gillard shared an apartment with best friend Julie Ligetti until the she moved into the prime minister's official residence with her "partner" Tim.   That was the first night she'd spent under the same roof as him.  Ligetti was chief of staff to one of Gillard's ministers - when Gillard became PM Ligetti moved to Gillard's former law firm as "government liaison officer" or Gillard's eyes and ears.   Gillard was informed of the raid and its consequences.

On 15 June 2013 Prime Minister Gillard flew to her home town and announced a $100m grant to the University of Adelaide.

On 19 June 2013 Alice Albright, the newly appointed CEO of the Global Partnership for Education came to Australia to confirm the arrangements to top up the  Foreign Affairs statement promising $270M between 2011 and 2014.  Alice's mum Madeleine had been at the CGI 2012 meeting that spawned the global philanthropist.

On 27 June 2013 Gillard's Party removed her as Prime Minister.

On 4 August 2013 Gillard retired from the Parliament.

During August this website became aware of a proposed professorship the University of Adelaide was considering for conferment on Ms Gillard following her $100M payment to the University just weeks prior.

 

ACT ONE

On Sunday, 1 September 2013 after studying the University of Adelaide Act, I wrote to the Vice Chancellor of the University of Adelaide Professor Warren Bebbington.

On Wednesday, 4 September the Vice Chancellor's staff replied to let me know my letter had been noted - the University proposed to take no action.

On Thursday, 5 September I prepared an article setting out the authority and processes by which the University of Adelaide appoints Honorary Professors.  It particularises the University's requirement that Honorary Professors adhere to its Code of Conduct and other policies particularly in relation to disclosing material matters which include the fact of being under investigation by police for a major fraud.

On 11 September 2013 I published an article with the headline

Act Two

 

Gillard was in New York with the Clintons for the 2012 Clinton Global Initiative preparatory to the announcement of her chairmanship of the Clinton aligned Global Partnership for Education.  Madeleine Albright, whose daughter Alice was lined up for the  CEO slot at the GPE was there along with President of the Brookings Institute, Strobe Talbott was there too.

Talbott's professional relationship with Clinton extended beyond business hours.

A schedule from February 2012 shows Clinton, her husband and Talbott met for dinner.

Here is a selection of the emails between Clinton and Talbot on her personal server while she was Secretary of State.  More are redacted.

In October 2013 Gillard was appointed as a Distinguished Fellow at the Brookings Institute.

We published a couple of articles about her appointment including the introduction you read at the start of this article.

Brookings Institute nonresident senior fellow Julia Gillard was Prime Minister .... of the most incompetent and untrustworthy government in modern Australian history.

 Students will work on real-life Cases of the scandalously wasteful while studying Ms Gillard's "circus-ring" style of leadership and government service delivery.

 Ms Gillard will deliver tips on introducing the value "untrustworthy" into a team -  using the carbon tax as a recent example.    She'll emphasise the importance of incompetence 

For students taking the degree course in internal disunity, Ms Gillard brings no end of personal scandal and dirt-files held on others.

The USA's RICO racketeering provisions will be applied to a whole lot of grubby deals Ms Gillard delivered in order to try and perpetuate her government in power.  

 The Gillard Fellowship and lecture series will follow the traditions of the Gillard government and deliver to Brookings the embarrassing spectacle that Ms Gillard is famous for.

The Institute was inundated with emails from readers of this website attaching evidence of the fraud allegations against, the fact of the police investigation into her and the search warrant a court issued and which police executed at her former law offices, naming her as a subject of the investigation.

On 26 January 2014 the time arrived when up with The AWU Scandal my former wife could no longer put.  The ancient Statesman was packed to the rafters with the chattels and ephemera, the credit cards were maxed and the mortgage became the permanent home for money I was putting in.  

I know me, I find my life difficult to live.  I can't imagine the difficulty of living it with me.  I am proud but stretched by not seeking a cent in settlement, I chose to make the decisions I made, my former wife didn't.  Our first date was to a black tie with medals dinner Her Excellency Governor (now) Dame Quentin Bryce hosted in my honour at Government House Brisbane.  Partnering in the life of the website host was a little less tolerable.

Money was a bit of an issue but it was about to become a huge issue.  Our readers have always been good to me and we kick along OK together.  I slept on the sofa at my sister's place and kept costs to a minimum.

On Saturday 8 February 2013 I took the bucket and rods down to the secret spot near the Sydney airport - a couple of readers spotted me for a chat and a photo - and their little grandson had a bit of a fish with me.  It was a beautiful day.

But some very, very dark storm clouds were brewing and I had no idea my income and follower numbers were about to be slashed.  Only now do I know why it happened.

 

ACT Three

On Sunday 9 February I awoke to about 150 emails.   That grew steadily through the day.  By Sunday arvo I was inundated with readers using a range of browsers on a range of devices who, when they typed in www.michaelsmithnews.com instead of seeing my website, saw this unremovable screen filling reputation killer.

I spent that entire day with web experts and security people of all stripes and colours.  

My website is hosted on a professional blog-site service, Typepad which boasts amongst the tightest security on the web.  What Google did to me is analogous to you having a Facebook page which Google intercepts and replaces with their Google site blocker banner (above) but on your Facebook page and yours alone.  

There was no malicious software on my site.   There was none on Typepad's.  By the end of the day we had installed every piece of software Google had demanded of us, I had stripped the website of commercials, never to have them return and WE HAD RECEIVED A CLEAN BILL OF HEALTH from Google.

The second half of this post shortly - there's a lot more to come.

For now, I think you might find a few minutes of this video with Julian Assange interesting.