I seldom get as crook as I've been lately. I want to let you know why.
Some time in the 1950s my grandparents lost the key to the back door of 14 Gloucester Street Rockdale. The next time that door was locked was 40 years later when dad’s sisters sold the house.
When I was a kid a proud enamel “War Savings Street” sign was proudly bolted to the telegraph poles at each end of the street. These were people who relied on and trusted each other. There was immense pride amongst those Gloucester Street families in the community they’d created and the standards of citizenship they expected of each other.
The dad joke in our family circle was “Locks only keep the honest crooks out”. A lock was almost an insult to the other people who lived in that community.
Most of the families had a World War One veteran as head of the household. Those blokes had relied on each other to get through horrors we can’t imagine. That experience built an intrinsic sense of duty to each other that for the next 50 or 60 years built the greatest society on earth here in Australia.
A man’s word was his bond. It had to be. There were no weasel word support agreements to be wriggled out of on the battlefield. And because of that telling the truth and meeting obligations to each other were simply taken as read - as hygiene, background issues.
Until the late 1960s/1970s those characteristics of duty and devotion to the truth and something much greater than self was the dominant feature of our public life. Our leaders lived up to those public expectations because there was simply no alternative. To quote the military parlance, “blokes who went jack on their mates” didn’t last long and a man with a reputation for that sort of behaviour could forget about election to high office.
Back then the truth and the interests of the country were valued more highly than personal ambition or the interests of a political party. It’s simply unimaginable to picture a Curtin or Menzies overtly stating ‘I had no choice about lying to the parliament or supporting this man whom I know to be a thief. If I didn’t lie and help him get away with stealing from his mates I would have lost my parliamentary majority.”
Real leaders would rather die or lose their job if the price of keeping it was supporting a known grub - like say Slipper or Thomson. Or Gillard herself.
It’s analogous to the way we played cricket. If a man knew he was out his team mates expected him to walk. His pride and reputation demanded it. The interests of the game were valued more highly than any wicket or trophy or series. And perhaps most importantly that set of values was shared and a man who lost a match in the interests of the game was a hero.
Over the past couple of weeks I’ve been terribly troubled by changes in our society that fly in the face of those values. And the changes are becoming permanent.
The first thing to hit me was the treatment being meted out to Ralph Blewitt right now. I’ve spent a bit of time with Ralph of late and I’ve seen some recent and very disturbing correspondence concerning Ralph and justice.
Ralph Blewitt was Bruce Wilson’s lackey at the AWU. That’s uncontroversial. No one pretends that Ralph was running the show while Wilson was sitting on the beach.
At every step of the AWU frauds Ralph was put forward as the fall guy. He controlled and decided nothing. Wilson and Gillard decided it was Ralph’s name and signature that would be put forward on the documents seeking incorporation of the AWU WRA Inc. Gillard drafted the rule change letter for Ralph to satisfy the corporate regulator’s concerns. Ralph was the addressee Thiess wrote to setting out the terms of the AWU WRA’s engagement. Ralph did the invoices and banking and kept the diary entries about the banking transactions. Ralph carried and distributed the cash including to Gillard’s builders. Ralph’s identity was used for the Kerr Street purchase and for the mortgage loan to fund it. Wilson’s girlfriend Gillard took Wilson’s instructions to prepare a forged power of attorney document giving her boyfriend Wilson control of Ralph’s affairs. And when she was caught and called to account at her law firm, she nominated Blewitt as the deceptive mastermind and herself as the innocent victim of his deception.
Each of those steps was by design at the time. Ralph didn’t decide to set up the AWU WRA. He didn’t negotiate with the Thiess guys. He didn’t lobby the Carmen Lawrence cabinet for Thiess to get the contract. And he didn’t strike an agreement with Bill Ludwig about the whole deal. Perhaps most importantly, Ralph didn’t approach Gillard with the details of the whole complex fraud to seek her advice.
And yet as it stands the picture being considered for presentation to the criminal courts would present exactly that position. That it was Blewitt’s responsibility, Blewitt’s decision, Blewitt’s misrepresentations to authorities that were at the heart of the crimes.
Each of those steps using Blewitt as the fall guy was designed to distance Wilson and Gillard from responsibility. The idea that Wilson or Gillard would have done Ralph’s bidding is risible. Gillard confirms that with her public statements about her “imbecile” client. She was sleeping with Wilson. She was building a life with him. His influence as the controller of the substantial block of influential AWU votes at the Labor Conference was important to her. It was Wilson in concert with Bill Ludwig who personally controlled the AWU’s votes in Victoria and WA. It was Wilson who successfully threatened Premier Carmen Lawrence with the loss of her job if she did not do his bidding. And it was Wilson who controlled the AWU’s Labor Party numbers who could carry through that threat to Ms Lawrence. Blewitt had no influence and a demonstrated track record of doing exactly what Wilson and Gillard told him to do.
The notion that seasoned Thiess construction executives would have accepted the idea that Wilson’s lackey was behind this novel new training entity is laughable. That Thiess’s general manager would have entrusted the delivery of the purported $300K+ training program to this unproven, untested and uncompetitive AWU entity headed by the underling Ralph defies credulity. That Thiess paid for nothing and in particular paid sham invoices for the months before the project started and after it was completed is telling. That they were aware no work was possibly delivered confirms their state of knowledge about the sham arrangements.
Wilson says Thiess was a party to the payment of secret commissions via the sham AWU WRA Inc. Blewitt says the arrangement was a sham for the payment of slush fund money. Gillard said she set up the AWU WRA Inc as a slush fund. And yet no Thiess executive nor Gillard have been assigned any criminal responsibility in the frauds.
The powerful deny involvement and because of their positions those denials are accepted. The system seems happy to follow the fraudster Wilson’s lead and set up Ralph Blewitt to take the fall even now.
Thiess received the $60M contract without being subject to any competitive process. The market wasn’t tested. An extant tender process was cancelled and the contract directly awarded in Thiess’s favour. Blewitt says that Wilson lobbied successfully with the Carmen Lawrence Labor Government on Thiess’s behalf. His payoff was the $300K+ slush fund payment. While the WA Branch of the AWU under Wilson’s stewardship was insolvent, it made a record donation to Carmen Lawrence’s election campaign following the favourable Dawesville Channel contract award to Thiess. These facts are incontrovertible - the tender process was cancelled and Thiess was handed the job on a platter and from that contract Wilson received and controlled a corrupt payment of several hundred thousand dollars through a sham entity set up by his girlfriend Gillard.
And yet none of these circumstances were brought before the Royal Commission by its wantonly incompetent counsel assisting Jeremy Stoljar SC. And the recommendation of the Royal Commissioner thus represents an egregious miscarriage of justice - to the extent that his efforts to write each of Gillard and the Thiess executives out of criminal responsibility. Stoljar’s selective choice of evidence brought before the Commission borders on a perversion of the course of justice. And if police and prosecutors propose to bring criminal charges as recommended by the Commission on its review of that limited range of evidence the entrenched advantage of the powerful and the message it sends to the rest of us will be yet further hammered home.
I have seen letters from Victoria Police and the WA Department of Public Prosecutions. It is clear that authorities propose to charge Ralph Blewitt “pursuant to the recommendations of the Royal Commission”. To see Blewitt charged with offences which reflect his face value involvement (as the fall guy for Gillard and Wilson’s efforts at distancing themselves from involvement) represents a gross miscarriage of justice. But not just to Ralph Blewitt.
The bigger concern beyond Ralph Blewitt’s unjust prosecution is the message sent to the community. Those who make admissions (like Blewitt) carry the can because it’s easier. Powerful people make trouble. Those who make no admissions and lie to implicate others walk with impunity. The rewards and punishments are inverse - and for me it’s impossible to avoid the observation that the odds are loaded in favour of The Left.
It’s not just Gillard and the Thiess corporate fraudsters that have given me such pause and distress. More recently the same phenomenon is playing out on a larger scale in the United States. Dozens of American service men and women have been prosecuted and jailed for mishandling classified information. The FBI’s findings in relation to Hillary Clinton’s crimes are inexplicable at law. They are also consistent in tone with the Gillard case. A highly placed offender (of the Left) who denies everything, lies, disposes of evidence and misleads authorities receives public endorsement and great rewards. Beyond the reciprocal expectations of personal favours, the noble cause ostensible justification appears to be the advancement of The Left and its leadership “for the greater good”. As if spouting slogans in favour of the genuinely downtrodden and disadvantaged atones for crime.
Consider Bill Clinton’s atrocious history of mistreating women. And Hillary Clinton’s harassment and vicious pursuit of those women victims of Clinton’s assaults. Or the credible and continuing allegations of rape against Bill Shorten. Now compare those facts with the treatment accorded Trump over his boorish comment about groping women who “let you do it if you’re a star”.
Mature adults with their faculties who “let you do it’ are not victims of assault - and yet that is the accepted and false characterisation now of Trump’s bragging and distasteful comment. Likewise certain unfounded unproven allegations made against Ralph Blewitt were presented as fact by Gillard and pursued and broadcast by Mark Riley of the Seven network without the slightest hesitation about the defamatory and highly damaging nature of the publication. Nor was there any concern for the truth of the allegations. Compare that treatment of Trump and Blewitt with the treatment meted out to journalists presenting facts about Gillard or Ms Clinton.
These are very difficult societal developments for me to deal with. The analysis of fact has been replaced by the distribution of accepted positions promulgated by the tribal leaders - particularly of The Left. The media’s role in that development is central and highly influential - to the extent that for months on end the trade union royal commission’s agenda was set by skilful placement of stories in a compliant and complicit Canberra press gallery.
So while I’ve been down in the dumps and crook I’ve been thinking about whether it’s all worth while resisting the overwhelming influence of The Left. And I’ve decided that for me, it is.
I’ll fight for the right with everything I can muster. I will give it my all. And I won’t give up.
