Gillard, Wilson and Ludwig used Make it Great Again in 1989 campaign, sorry President Trump
Wednesday, 23 November 2016
Gillard in her exit interview and in sworn evidence to the TURC said she met Wilson for the first time in April 1991.
She says she was in Perth for a full bench hearing involving the Clothing Union and she'd stayed on to help Wilson with some legal work to help oust incumbent Joe Keanen as WA State Secretary.
On 16 October 1989 the full bench took place. goo.gl/ViHyo6
On 22 October 1989 nominations closed for the AWU elections in which Wilson ran with Bill Ludwig. Wilson also ran as President of the WA branch against Joe Isherwood. Wilson got up on neither. I believe she began legal work then for the Wilson/Ludwig partnership.
Download Election brochure 1 Download Election brochure 2 and background and 3 Federal Court Judgements here.
The evidence that Gillard was lying again wasn't hard to find, it's in the BRW magazine report and the court and other documents I've pointed to. The final agreement with Keanan was done in February 1991. Here's a contemporaneous record of how filthy the dirty work was.
The Queensland AWU secretary, Errol Hodder, had replaced Gil Barr as federal secretary in August 1988. But before moving to Sydney Hodder had made an enemy of his Queensland successor, Bill Ludwig, as a result of having attempted to have Bob Boscacci from the northern district (the huge Queensland branch is divided in six districts) fill the powerful Queensland position.
All state and federal officials went to election in 1989. Hodder and Ludwig each ran tickets, with Hodder enlisting the New South Wales secretary, Ernie Ecob, as his running mate for national president; Ludwig put himself forward for the presidency with Wilson as secretary. The organiser from the west, who had never been a state secretary or president, was playing at the big table.
The outcome was the worst possible result for the union. Hodder retained the secretary's position, and Ludwig won the presidency. It guaranteed disunity, especially as the left had come to power in Victoria by pushing the right wing, under Ian Cutler, from office. Worse, Hodder wanted to introduce central funding in a union in which states had always jealously guarded their rights, especially their financial rights, none more so than Queensland.
Wilson says he had no burning ambition for the national secretary's position. "Hodder had created plenty of enemies and these people were looking for a candidate to run against him. None of the state secretaries wanted to run so it was suggested I put my hand up. I did, and nearly won."
Although Wilson now had a national profile, he also had a more immediate problem. In Wilson's words, Keenan, who was loyal to Hodder, in effect sacked him after the election by making his position as organiser redundant. "He gave me what amounted to a 'Dear John' letter on the flight to a meeting in the east," he says. (In the 1989 election Wilson had secured the position of vicepresident of the WA branch, as well as a delegate to the national convention.)
But the national executive, where Ludwig had the numbers and Queensland about 25% of the vote, had Wilson appointed a national organiser, based in Perth. It was the first time such a position had been created, and sent a message to the union that Ludwig would support anyone who opposed Hodder. It gave Wilson the time and resources to organise the numbers on the WA executive to ensure he was Keenan's successor.
Even by the AWU's standards of bitter infighting, the struggle for the secretary's position between Wilson and Keenan's preferred choice, branch president Joe Isherwood, set new lows. In correspondence with Hodder in February 1991, Isherwood detailed the campaign being orchestrated against him: "Because of the crap that has been meted out to me by way of pamphlets organised from within this office and distributed widely throughout the north-west, where the vast majority of our membership is, it has made it impossible for me to function effectively (as president). As an example, the cowards that they are, in early 1989, put out a pamphlet titled Joe Isherwood: An Agent for the Bosses."
Isherwood was not exaggerating. Among other things, the pamphlet alleged that Isherwood was:
* assisting Woodside to pick and choose union officials;
* allowing Woodside management to spy on union officials;
* participating in private and secret meetings with Woodside's management to prevent members from pursuing legitimate claims.
The pamphlet concluded: "The man is a deceitful traitor to the AWU and the union movement -- against those who should be able to trust him I He must not be allowed to continue under the banner of the AWU. He must go."
The blood between Wilson and Isherwood had always been bad, a reality that Wilson still acknowledges. So it was no surprise that on Wilson's accession to power, Isherwood was made redundant. By this stage Hodder, having failed to get the concept of central funding accepted, moved sideways to the Industrial Relations Commission in April 1991. His successor, Mike Forshaw, was quickly drawn into the dispute.
Ludwig was behind all sorts of legal efforts to oust Hodder. That work bears Gillard's hall marks and the plan to have Wilson replace Keanan was just a part of Ludwig's bigger picture.
In February 1991 the agreement for Wilson to replace Keanen was reached. Keanen was off by April. The May minutes clearly record the February agreement date for something Gillard says she helped via legal advice in April.
At the same time Keanan got his pay off, something green-lighted Gillard's house purchase and Wilson's investment property in Burswood. The AWU would pay for each of those properties in some way - Wilson's secretary Christine moved from Graham Campbell's office in Kalgoorlie to live in that house, her salary upped by $200 per week providing the rent to Wilson.
This from The Australian 23 November 2012 - it's a lengthy article, small bit of it here tells of Graham Campbell's patronage.
Wilson continued his rapid rise in the union movement with patronage from Campbell, who was the federal Labor MP for Kalgoorlie, as well as Labor state minister Julian Grill, who was serving in the government of Brian Burke.
Campbell tells The Australian he helped raise funds to elect Wilson as AWU state secretary because he was a talented union leader, and he even dipped into his own pocket for the campaign.
But he admits he was disappointed when Wilson moved to Melbourne soon after being elected to the Perth job so he could boost his powers by taking over the AWU's Victorian branch.
''I was disappointed because I thought I'd set it all up for him and he just abandoned it,'' Campbell says.
Isherwood reckons Wilson's overriding aim as a union official was to pursue a political career with the ALP. ''Wilson's goal was to become secretary of the state branch of the AWU with ambitions to become general secretary, and then ambitions to become prime minister,'' he says.
But as Wilson's stocks rose within the AWU, suspicions of fraud -- mainly based on allegations that he forced employers to pay ''hush money'' in exchange for industrial peace -- began to emerge.
Isherwood says he compiled a dossier on Wilson's activities and later spoke to a Victorian detective who travelled to Perth to interview him for more than two hours.
But after four months he called Victoria Police to ask about the matter only to be told that the detective, whom he estimates was aged in his late 40s, had ''retired''.
''I gave him a lot of information,'' says Isherwood. ''That information disappeared and so did he.''
Isherwood says he has waited for 25 years to speak publicly about his suspicion that Wilson, along with Blewitt, fraudulently used union funds.
''Wilson has led a gilded life,'' he says. ''He's got away with a lot of things that a lot of people know about.''
Strange too that the money to buy the Burswood place and refinancing of his family home came from Melbourne.
The University of Melbourne's "An Analysis of the Takeover of the Bank of Melbourne by Westpac Banking Corporation" by Julian Buckley and Rayna Brown shows all the branches were in Melbourne and there was no presence in Perth. 1991 is long before the internet age. Gillard and Slater and Gordon are the logical link.
Pass over the efforts to incorporate the AWU WRA for a moment. We'll come back to that.
In 1993 the AWU January conference discussed the amalgamation with FIME which took place later that year. The amalgamation meant the elections due in 2013 would not go ahead and persons in their jobs would have them confirmed as a result of the amalgamation.
In February 1993 Something triggered the first notable spending of AWU WRA Inc money with the Kerr Street purchase at Auction. Apparently Ms Gillard's rewards were triggered then too.
Gillard's renovations were found by the TURC to have been organised and paid for as set out in Athol James's evidence.
Wilson directed the work, produced the cash and Gillard laundered the money into her own cheques to pay the invoices - 24 Mar 93 to 1 Feb 1996.
By Sept 1995 the Blewitt and Wilson households were apparently getting the sort of advice about assets, liabilities and names that was missing from the Kerr Street purchase particularly for Mrs Blewitt.
And the finishing touches to Gillard's reno job were done as the money ran out for Wilson.
Hand in hand the whole way through.
Julia helped Bill into the AWU presidency.
Bill put Julia in the prime ministership.
Would've been helpful to know. Helpful as in helping the community avoid the costs we've paid for the drama, bashings, investigations, destroyed reputations and careers in the perverting of the course of justice that's kept your lies in bed.