If someone told me ON THIS DAY 4 years ago that you were really the person I called Julie Bishop I wouldn't have believed them.
This is how I felt about you then Julie.
Tony was spot on in November 2012 when he said:
I think the sooner the Prime Minister responds to the questions that have quite legitimately been put to her, the better for her and the better for our polity. I am very keen to try to ensure that as far as is humanly possible, people can respect our polity, can have trust in our leaders and when these sorts of questions are put but not properly answered, when they're stonewalled, I think it is much harder for people to respect our polity and respect our leaders than would otherwise be the case.
We need political leaders who will tell the truth. The obscene AWU Scandal led directly to Ms Gillard's path to the Prime Ministership. Now it appears to be forgotten by both sides of politics. That the concealment and coverup of the previous 23 years might continue with the official seal of a selective Royal Commission does not augur well for Australia's future.
It's great to talk about the madness of the Rudd Gillard Rudd days. Madness you not only renewed with CHAI but did an AWU Workplace Reform Association on us as well.
You helped the Clintons coverup the illegal Clinton HIV/Aids Initiative Inc (dissolved by Massachusetts regulators) CHAI, and magically suggest it was the Clinton Health Access Initiative CHAI when you signed the star-f**kers photo cut out and keep MOU with Bill.
But all of that pales into insignificance compared to the deal you created, continued and will wear exquisite personal responsibility for.
MONDAY, 17 OCTOBER 2016
Julie Bishop's latest deal with the Clinton/Giustra dodgy brothers
For well over a year we've been reporting alarming news about the Clintons ripping off Australian taxpayers.
They're also ripping off some of the poorest people living around us. The Clintons treat people like trash. The poor, the disadvantaged and the sympathy created by their plight are money making opportunities for the Clintons and mates.
Their conduct is indefensible.
I've written to DFAT and kept Julie Bishop posted. We've passed on the evidence.
Julie Bishop's focus has apparently been elsewhere.
Bishop has ignored the warnings, tried to defend the indefensible and thrown salt into terrible wounds by doing another deal with Clinton and his dodgy mate Frank Giustra just a couple of months ago.
Bishop has apparently decided Indonesia's coconut sugar producers can no longer get along without Clinton and his Foundation's "help".
So what value does Clinton and dodgy mate Giustra bring to the deal?
None. Bugger all. They're trying to find a consultant who can help with ideas for cooking down coconut sugar on home stoves, communal stoves and bigger stoves too.
In Indonesia, a pilot is underway for a farmer services & aggregation enterprise, Acceso Indonesia, which will significantly improve the country’s coconut sugar value chain.
Consultancy Description
CGEP is seeking an Expert Consultant (“consultant”) to identify, analyze and propose multiple processing designs to cook coconut and palm sap into sugar. The consultant will review existing solutions, including investment costs, operations costs, and cooking and operations efficiency, developed for small to medium scale sugar processing as well as technology that could be transferred from other processing solutions. The consultant will propose a minimum of three solutions to respond to three distinct processing needs: household kitchens for smallholder farmers, multi-unit communal kitchens and semi-industrial processing for community plantations. If CGEP is satisfied with the consultant’s performance of this contract, further contracts to select and deploy the selected solutions are possible. To apply for this short-term consultancy, please submit CV and summary of relevant past experience. CGEP will provide qualified candidates additional information so that a detailed cost proposal can be developed.
ENDS
They're also looking for a consultant to help them work out the best place to grow coconut trees. Why Indonesia needs Australia to fund American Bill Clinton to hire an expert to tell Indonesians the best spots in their country to grow coconut trees is beyond me.
In the DFAT promotional material (the cost of which would have fed several Indonesian families for years) Bishop promotes the Clinton's Shared Value Initiative.
I hope AAP has it wrong in suggesting Julie Bishop said none of the Rudd Gillard agreements had been renewed.
There are two remaining positions Ms Bishop could hold if not. Neither pleasant.
The Clinton Health Access Initiative did not exist until 2010.
This is shades of the AWU Workplace Reform Association Inc passing itself off as the AWU.
In early 2008 Clinton HIV/Aids Initiative Inc (CHAI) was deregistered - but we were still giving money to CHAI until 2010.
So in 2010 a second entity Clinton Health Access Initiative (CHAI) is registered.
Julie Bishop now tells us All DFAT funding agreements are with Clinton Health Access Initiative - a separate legal entity from Clinton Foundation since 2010 – to deliver HIV/AIDS treatment to a range of Asia-Pacific countries.
The allure of meeting Charismatic Bill must be very, very strong.
Australia and the Clinton Health Access Initiative transforming health in the Asia Pacific region
Media release
22 September 2014
Former US President Bill Clinton and I have witnessed the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) committing Australia and the Clinton Health Access Initiative (CHAI) to work together to transform access to health in developing countries over the next five years.
The MOU will support Australia’s $5 billion aid program, which encourages innovation in research and new technologies to promote sustainable economic growth and alleviate poverty. It will also build expertise and networks in facilitating public‑private partnerships, civil society, and private sector financing for health investments.
Australia has previously worked with CHAI in Papua New Guinea, Indonesia, Vietnam and China to build capacity in government health services and systems, improve access to life‑saving technologies and lower the costs of treatment.
The Australian Government will pursue these innovative partnerships to strengthen health systems, improve maternal and child health and tackle communicable diseases, including control of drug-resistant malaria and tuberculosis.
I have announced the establishment of a Development Innovation Hub within the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade which will test creative ideas and strategies to address different development challenges.
Since 2006, Australia has contributed $88 million to CHAI and its sister organisation, the Clinton Foundation.
Media enquiries
Minister's office: (02) 6277 7500
DFAT Media Liaison: (02) 6261 1555
ENDS
PS - check the note from DFAT again Former US President Bill Clinton signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with the Australian Government in 2006 in his capacity as the Founder and Representative of the William J Clinton Foundation.
Wrong again, he was not the founder, he is a liar, a perjurer, a fraudster and because of his impeachment unfit to hold public office or be responsible for public funds. But I suppose if the currency you're interested in dealing in is celebrity and star f****ing that doesn't worry you too much.
PPS
It also says No donations were provided to the Clinton Foundation.”
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.
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.
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.
1 November 1984 Wilson was appointed an AWU WA Branch organiser and gave his address as 21 Haines st. Port Hedland, a house that was apparently owned by the AWU. He's kicked on a bit since then.
UPDATE - to an original report I made to the Attorney General about the forgery of a letter which evinces identity theft of the Western Australian Commissioner for Corporate Affairs in 1992.
Who steals my purse steals trash; 'tis something, nothing; 'Twas mine, 'tis his, and has been slave to thousands; But he that filches from me my good name Robs me of that which not enriches him, And makes me poor indeed.
Consider the urgency that would attend the correction of a US Government endorsed report that gave standing to a forgery of President Obama's birth certificate.
Two decent Australian men stand implicitly accused of serious unlawful conduct in a forgery published by the Trade Union Royal Commission here.
Ray Neal was an officer of the Western Australian Government at the time this forgery purports to have been made. He was engaged in the genuine business of a professional consideration of the creation of a corporate personality named in the forgery.
The forgery purports to describe Mr Neal, a natural person with significant earning potential in his future life, as a man who has acted unlawfully in coming to the agreement described in the letter - that is an offer to exceed his powers and to act Ultra Vires by incorporating an entity ineligible for incorporation.
The absurdity of the offer Mr Neal is purported to have made is obvious. The imputation that Mr Neal was so incompetent as to make the offer is an imputation of serious damage to his good name, published with the endorsement of your government and in circumstances where it's of wide public interest.
But the implication that an already controversial entity was unlawfully incorporated carries a more sinister imputation - that a reasonable person could easily make. "Why would a public officer make an offer to act unlawfully to advance the interests of a reputed thief and admitted fraudster Ralph Blewitt, a reputation of such strength that it is recorded in the Arhives as having been confirmed by the country's prime minister."
Any search that sent Google enquiries to the forgery would through the attached material send them to the undamaged Prime Minister of Australia and her public statements that Ralph Blewitt is a reputed thief, that is a person who in the opinion of those who know him, would steal if given the opportunity. Putting to one side the falsehood of the prime minister's accusations and the malice that motivated her, at present the proven findings give good standing to both the provenance and contents of the Neal letter - and to his actions delivering an unlawful benefit to a man the nation's then in office prime minister is on the government's records as confirming as precisely the type to offer the bribe that might explain the otherwise inexplicable.
I am not personally thus damaged but I feel like I am. I can't imagine how Mr Neal must feel about the care his government is exercising in the way it's treating him.
What now for you little fellow?
Mr Neal is supported by colleague Mr Mineif, the other person at the office of corporate affairs who handled this particular matter.
Attorney, why the delay? Mr Neal's own words should be ringing in your ears. He did not create the forged document and what are you waiting for in correcting the grievous damage to his reputation implicit in his purported offer to act unlawfully for a reputed thief?
Yours sincerely,
Michael Smith
I propose to treat this communication as an open and public communication with you.
ENDS
PS - to the folks at home. I have received no acknowledgement.
To add salt to that wound the Attorney's ministerial colleague Michael Keenan released some reports on identity crime, the most prevalent, damaging and underreported category of property offence we have.
This is one of my last broadcasts at 2UE before the intervention.
Wednesday 31 August 2011. You chose not to answer my questions.
I refer to the questions I put to you before I was taken off air at 2UE, while I was accredited as a broadcaster and after written receipt of an opinion from a QC I had personally engaged in addition to the external defamation lawyer for 2UE Bruce Burke who cleared my work for broadcast.
I provided certain assistance to the Tendement Task Force.
I crystallised obligations upon discovering the letter which provides the basis for an alibi in your repudiation of the actual contents of the WA Office of State Corporate Affairs records is a forgery (false instrument).
The apparent fact of that forgery renders the Trade Union Royal Commissioner's report into your conduct unsafe. I will ask that it be set aside.
Should the report stand, the fact of the forgery and your false evidence about it triggers the proviso made in the Commissioner's finding on your conduct that describes sufficient actu reus for offences, with generous allowance of doubt as to your mens rea. He was definitive as to what follows.
The reputations of the persons who genuinely worked at the WA Office of State Corporate Affairs (not the Commission as the forgery refers to it) are affronted by the proposition that the purported offer to do an unlawful act to the benefit of those behind the AWU WRA Inc sham (through the ultra vires offer to incorporate the association upon an un-enforcable promise to right the unlawful incorporation 30 days down the track through an undefined process of a change to its objects to include rule 3A) described in the false instrument you used in the face of Commissioner Heydon AC QC should remain unchallenged on his important report as a representation of their work.
You should be on notice for the receipt of the civil process to remedy that wrong.
That's why I reported the serious indictable offences in the first instance to the entity responsible for indictments on the Federal Offences flowing from what appears to be premeditated use of these false instruments and in the making of false statements, ie your perjury to the face of the Royal Commission directed to enquire into your behaviour
The Commonwealth DPP can pick up and continue an indictment presented by any citizen to a court of competent jurisdiction and continue the prosecution. I put you on notice that in the absence of satisfactory explanations to the evidence which tends to support the view that the Neal letter is a forgery, if the police do not present you on indictment to answer the allegations, I will.
The fact that the Director of Public Prosecutions is the Sarah McNaughton SC who was personally involved in the Trade Union Royal Commission and brought singular distinctive competence to investigating various criminals who trod the Commission's carpet is a bonus. I understand the benefit of Ms McNaughton's bonus experience would accrue to the community not you, but given your constant repetition of the centrality of the Australian national interest in your life I thought you'd like to know.
I believed you then.
Ms McNaughton will of course excuse herself from involvement in this matter because of the conflict created by her experience of corrupt unionists and their hangers on. But I know the People's interests will be advanced by her ambitious staffers, keen to impress a competent boss through the diligence and completeness of the thoroughly professional prosecutions in this matter.
I know that the Director and her staff are not an investigative agency. I know that there's risk in the Public Prosecutor's reliance on the demonstrated unreliability of police forces who are doing the investigative leg work to support the allegations I've made.
That's why this first instance report of serious indictable offences to a competent authority was made to the authority responsible for the prosecution of those offences. Police have a different reaction to instructions for DPPs from those accorded mortals of lesser positional importance.
There are parallel efforts afoot to obtain the requisite sworn Affidavits a competent and apolitical police force would, as a matter of course, be obliged to obtain on the direction of the DPP to investigate the report of the serious indictable offences made out in my letter.
From: Michael Smith [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: Tuesday, 25 October 2016 5:53 AM To: CDPP Subject: For Ms McNaughton SC - report regarding serious indictable offences arising from Trade Union Royal Commission
Dear Ms McNaughton,
On 13 May 2014 the following documents were tendered to the Trade Union Royal Commission and received into evidence marked as Blewitt MFI7:
The letter purporting to be from Ray Neal is a forgery.
I have interviewed the purported author Ray Neal. He tells me he did not write the letter and did not authorise any other person to write a letter on his behalf.
He stated that his office held a rubber stamp to affix his signature to Certificates of Incorporation and in an initial conversation he stated it may have been affixed to the letter by another staffer on his behalf.
I asked him to compare the rubber stamp impression (taken from a Certificate of Incorporation he issued to the AWU WRA Inc) with the signature on the forged letter. He states the rubber stamp was not used on the forgery, eliminating the possibility that another official in his office may have produced the letter on his behalf.
He nominated Mr Ray Mineif (who was in charge of incorporated associations at the time of the purported letter) as the only other person who may have had a lawful right to author or send a letter such as the reported forgery.
I interviewed Mr Mineif at his home in Sydney and he was 100% certain that he did not and would not author such a preposterous offer.
I audio taped my interviews with Messrs Neal and Mineif and the recordings are located here:
There are several forensic indicators pointing to forgery compared with genuine correspondence from the Office of State Corporate Affairs at the time - to do with font, formatting, Officer handling the matter details/phone number, internal reference etc.
However each of Ray Neal and Ralph Mineif point to the preposterous nature of the purported offer-to-incorporate the subject association on the vague promise of it changing its rules 30 days post-incorporation.
The offer is beyond the powers granted to the Commissioner in The Act. The Association was ineligible for incorporation under its existing rules and objects and the Commissioner had no power in those circumstances to incorporate it. Each of Mineif and Neal told me there was strict compliance with the Act at the time and no ultra vires actions were ever contemplated much less taken.
The new "Rule 3A" is not described, nor is there any reference to the origin of the proposed rule. Further the letter refers to "the Commission" being prepared to grant incorporation - The Act defines a Commissioner but there is no Commission to perform the function described in the letter.
Each of Neal and Mineif were intelligent lively men with their wits about them. Each was emphatic in stating no such offer would or could have been made by their office. Each appeared offended at the proposition that this letter has standing in the Final Report of a Royal Commission of Enquiry as a unchallenged record of their work.
Bruce Wilson in his Witness Statement describes the circumstances in which he "found" the letters in a box in 2013. They were tendered by Dr Hanscombe QC on Wilson's instructions for the purpose of cross examining Ralph Blewitt as to his purported role as the architect and responsibility-taker-in-chief for the AWU WRA Inc fraud.
The consequent Memo from Julia Gillard to Ralph Blewitt is itself a dubious document. Had it been sent and complied with Ray Neal would have been alerted to the forged letter in 1992.
On 10 September 2014 Julia Gillard gave extensive evidence on her oath in answer to examination by Jeremy Stoljar SC before the TURC. Much of the evidence about these two Exhibits is false.
As the Commissioner noted, before 13 May 1992 the WA Office of State Corporate Affairs notified Ralph Blewitt that his application to incorporate the AWU WRA Inc had been refused as the entity was a trade union for the purposes of the WA incorporated associations act.
The Act sets out the only recourse available to an applicant refused incorporation on the ground the entity is more suited to incorporation under another act (the Trade Unions Act in this instance). That is a request for a review of the Commissioner's decision by the Minister. The fee for that review is $22 - and a cheque for $22 was the first cheque drawn on the fraudulently opened CBA Bank Account for the AWU WRA Inc cheque account.
The WA State Records Office holds a file for the Office of State Corporate Affairs 1992 correspondence on the AWU WRA Inc. It is there in the archives, I've held it in my own hands. It is empty. There is no record of the refusal to incorporate, the appeal to the minister, the representations made on behalf of the AWU WRA inc by Julia Gillard urging incorporation and arguing that the entity was not a trade union.
Nor is there any record of the Ministerial direction to incorporate the Association.
Ralph Mineif remembers the matter and recalls the Minister's intervention and direction to incorporate.
Julia Gillard argued the case to the Minister in written representations and perhaps in person. She flew to Perth apparently immediately on notification that the application had been refused. and was there during the relevant time when the application for a review of the Commissioner's decision was made.
Gillard must have therefore known that the Commissioner did not merely make enquiries about the status of the association as a trade union. He refused the application.
She must know of the appeal to the Minister because she made it. She must have known that her appeal was successful because the Association was incorporated under the Act on the instructions of the Minister.
It follows that she must have known that the purported Ray Neal letter was a forgery and not a very good one at that.
I have published summaries of some of the relevant evidence that you may find useful here:
I give you an undertaking that my communication with you will remain confidential to me and my advisors in advance of your reply. If you ask me to maintain that confidentiality regarding my report to you I will honour your request.
If you've not given me any guidance on the confidentiality issue by the end of the week I'll consider my confidentiality undertaking to have lapsed.
I have further details to support this report and the original audio evidence as well as my observations regarding the provenance of the Exhibits each of Mr Neal and Mr Mineif commented on.
For the avoidance of doubt, I am reporting this matter to you as a report of serious indictable offences. Given the use of the apparently false instruments at the TURC in the process of it hearing false and misleading evidence and the Commissioner's acceptance (in the absence of any enquiries having been made about their provenance) of the Exhibits as good and valid copies of the documents they purport to be, the use of the false instruments is an ongoing offence (particularly to the purported author) and the record should be corrected.
Yours sincerely,
Michael Smith
ENDS
Rest assured it was delivered and received. I also state for the record that this letter was written by the people it shows as having having written it. Unlike a forgery which even probationary constables know is a document which tells a lie about itself, like a letter from Ray Neal that Ray NEAL can prove he didn't write, particularly if every single forensic indicator backs him up, as does the statement I've recorded from every person genuinely associated with his workplace at the time.
Stacked up against all of that evidence, a considerably better rabbit will need to be pulled from the last one whose miracle of phonation is limited to "I did nothing wrong".
ON 29 November 2012 Ms Gillard made her comments about Mr Blewitt - a full two years before I got the court file on which she based them. As in many cases with Gillard, she relied on media incuriosity and the known knowns to give her the chutzpah.
Maybe Freud was helping us
It proved useful to search for the recycled defamation matter you dealt with in the past.
"People who know Mr Blewitt (say) he's a complete imbecile, an idiot, a stooge, a sexist pig, and a liar".
Dear Ms Gillard,
Who are these people who say Mr Blewitt is a sexist pig, an imbecile and all of those other things?
Are they the people who formed a delegation to complain about Mr Blewitt's inability to perform the role of State Secretary, or as you put it, the role of Mr Wilson's "Stooge"?
Are the members of that delegation Sue Ellery, Mick Baker, Henry Rozmaniac, Len Gandini, Colin Saunders, Mick Dayes, Glen Anderton?*
Was Stephen Booth excluded from the delegation because he was a little bit too much in the know?
Was the delegation received by the late Glen Ivory prior to it attending upon Mr Blewitt?
Is this your handwriting? It's just such a good extensive example of a "known" that's been compared to some of the more exotic unknowns, it'd be good to get your confirmation as we all help to unpervert the current twistings to which certain concealing and false evidence have subjected her current course.
Was Mr Ivory asked by you in conference with Mr Wilson to prepare a statement with verbatim accounts of who said what to whom and where?
The Ivory statement with its otherwise confidential notes for you and Mr Wilson was included at the eleventh hour of these proceedings, just before the disappearance of Mr Baker.
Its inclusion is in an attempt to justify the proposition that Mr Blewitt was the author of a rather unusual document within the class of "known" example of Mr Blewitt's art (a bit like the Jukes letter to your Association in that regard).
Are you at all embarrassed? Spying on people? Writing up notes about them that result in sackings? Then outing them in public by using the words that Baker got sacked for against another of your victims Mr Blewitt?
I ask those questions to the extent your answers might assist in the quantification of damages.
You provided information of such specificity as to allow for a reasonable person who put their mind to it to identify from the public records those persons to whom you refer in your exceptionally public statement of 29 November 2012 recorded in the national archives here:
Do you owe Mr Blewitt an apology for calling him a sexist pig, an imbecile, an idiot and such other terms as which had, in your own opinion provided sufficient cause for the various legal processes in which you had acted in Mr Blewitt's defence in the past?
Did you breach any confidentiality obligation you owed Mr Blewitt or any of the other people you outed in so doing?
Do you owe the persons quoted by you an apology for misquoting them now?
Or do you owe several of them an apology for vexatious litigation back then, in particular the matter commenced by the unlawful dismissal of Mr Baker which triggered this action in the Industrial Court?****
Or the Supreme Court Defamation action which kept Mr Gandini's life in miserable Gillard inspired turmoil until well after Mr Blewitt had left the AWU.
Did you act for Mr Blewitt in this matter? Are you the Julia Gillard referred to in this correspondence?
Is the copy of the notes Mr Ivory made and which are exhibited in full at RB2 the 2nd Exhibit to Mr Blewitt's Affidavit?
Was the order of the Court as set out in Mr Blewitt's Affidavit, sworn in somewhat unusual circumstances with him in Sydney on 19 November 1993 when at all material times he was nominally Perth Based? Is Mr Blewitt accurate in saying that until that point "his solicitors" had caused the various matters in the court to be transacted?
Mr Blewitt has recanted the evidence he purports to have given in this Affidavit. Mr Blewitt states falsely in it that the only document upon which he based the letter purported to be written either by him or an imbecile, fool, stooge or a person of applying those words for opposite purposes to the same person (make your mind up) was the statement put together by Mr Ivory.
You can read the unintended consequences of thinking you'll get away with it in the full glory of our current further and better understanding of the circumstances in which Mr Ivory was asked to "get it all down mate in writing" here
It's always painful when the worlds collide, so thank you for bearing with us Ms Gillard. Ask George Costanza about the consequences of the collision of the Georges.
Oh just one more thing Ms Gillard. Having been the fiduciary for the Second Respondent, did you apply sufficient diligence to your duty in ensuring that the President's orders in relation to production of documents in scope were complied with?
It's curious that a matter commencing before His Honour in September concerning documents in the custody and control of the WA Branch Secretary or chief executive officer of the 2nd named respondent caught him by surprise to the extent established in Ms Campbell's letter.
So thus far what do we know?
On 16 June Mr Ivory produces a written statement recording who said what and when to whom. The next night he gathers the all together for a meeting they all think will help the branch along but communicating in the best of intentions their concerns about Ralph. Ralph shared their concerns in his heart of hearts.
Baker is peremptorily dismissed one month later.
The letter dismissing him is this.
The first paragraph sets out that it was the 16 June meeting that got the guy the sack.
Here's what Mr Baker's team was after.
The Gillard team argued that those communications were privileged.
Schapper put up a good case that no litigation was anticipated at the time of Mr Baker's dismissal and thus any documents prepared were not covered by LPP.
In the end Gillard got up on the LPP claim. Combine the response of Blewitt that no documents exist beyond the one describing the 16 June note and (beyond the laughable proposition Ralph is lying when he says he didn't write that letter) and Gillard allowed the LPP coverage to prove her authorship. If she wanted to say now that Wilson did it, why didn't she say so at the time?
The period the court ordered for access to letters files etc commenced January 1991.
Given the further and better exposition of the minutes of branch meetings at the TURC, do you really believe the paltry contributions made to complying with His Honour's Orders that you made, Ms Gillard was an example of your best efforts?
I've attached a few bits and pieces of my own process of discovery beneath this note.
Did you accurately quote those persons in your use of their statements against Mr Blewitt on 29 November 2012?
What is your reason for excluding such further contextualising matters in their statements so as to further damage Mr Blewitt?
What was the true purpose of the record made by Mr Ivory and included as the 2nd Exhibit in Mr Blewitt's Affidavit sworn in Sydney?
Was that not the very first paragraph of the combined statements?
Didn't Mr Blewitt agree with them about their observations?
Were you lying when you said he was a stooge on 29 November 2012?
Or were lying 10 September 2014 when you told the Trade Union Royal Commission that he was the person actually running the show?
Did Ms Ellery who observed that Ralph was a sexist pig say that in the context of her broader observation
Was the statement of Ms Ellery included in the sworn evidence presented to the court here true?
Why did you deny Mr Blewitt the benefit of the context in which Ms Ellery called him a sexist pig?
Was the decision to dismiss Mr Baker based on his opinions of Mr Wilson and demands that Mr Blewitt be removed for incompetence?
Was that not the trigger for you to write this letter for Mr Blewitt, or as you referred to him "The Stooge" to sign?
Mr Schapper's application is supported by other evidence I hold. Did you write the letter dismissing Mr Baker?
I'll be back with more soon, I'll put the forgery allegations to you and the report to the Commonwealth DPP which you might care to comment on.
To everyone else not suffering the creeping lividity of puppet hands:
Given what you now know about Ralph and the way he was treated, here is a interview I did with him in December 2o14. The TURC inerim report on Gillard had not been handed down and I had not then established the industrial court file's association with Ellery/Gandini et al.
You are considerably more in control of your emotions than me if you can listen to every word of this without shedding a tear.
And the action in the Supreme Court of Western Australia against Mr Gandini for defaming Mr Blewitt?
This article from 1994 gives a reasonable understanding of Bill's moves from 1989/90 on.
UNION POWER GRAB CLAIMED
Author: By MATTHEW RUSSELL Industrial Writer Date: 22/04/1994 Words: 522
Publication: Sydney Morning Herald Section: News and Features Page: 13
A vote yesterday by the national executive of Australia's biggest right-wing union may consolidate control in the hands of a powerful Queensland official, Mr Bill Ludwig.
Mr Ludwig, the Queensland secretary and Federal president of the Australian Workers' Union, is one of the most influential union leaders in Australia.
He said the proposal to merge the Queensland and West Australian branches of the AWU was merely an administrative measure to formalise an existing arrangement between them. The merger would be dissolved after elections next year, he said.
However, the branch merger proposal was really a way of entrenching Mr Ludwig's national control, according to opponents from sections of the Victorian branch of Mr Ludwig's union and from the Federation of Industrial Manufacturing and Engineering Employees (FIMEE) - which is amalgamating with the AWU.
Opponents of the merger proposal have also alleged financial mismanagement and enormous debts in the Victorian and West Australian AWU branches, and say the problems will not be solved by a merger.
A ballot on merging the AWU's Victorian and West Australian branches was held yesterday by the joint AWU-FIMEE executive. The result will be announced on Tuesday.
Merging the Victorian and West Australian branches of the AWU would install the Victorian branch secretary, Mr BruceWilson, as secretary of the AWU in both States.
Mr Wilson is a Ludwig supporter and could guarantee a block of votes to shore up Mr Ludwig's Federal leadership of the AWU.
If the merger proposal succeeded, the union would face court challenges from the Port Kembla branch and estranged Victorian unionists.
The Victorian branch of the FIMEE, in particular, is understood to bitterly oppose a merger.
The FIMEE's Victorian secretary, Mr Bob Smith, has sent an anti-merger letter to the AWU-FIMEE national executive in which he says Mr Wilson should not hold office simultaneously in two branches.
Mr Wilson came from Western Australia and still influences his union's decisions there.
Union sources said there was a strong likelihood that Mr Wilson would not win an election in either State branch, but it is understood that Mr Ludwig urged Mr Wilson to stand and needs his support for national control of the AWU. Union sources said the merger would give Mr Wilson breathing space to canvass support in both State branches before deciding which one he would stand for.
The AWU was meant to hold elections two years ago but its amalgamation with the FIMEE has delayed them until next year.
If you want to come clean now, I'll tell you where I'm headed.
I believe that from 1989/90 when the Slater and Gordon partnership took on the AWU in Melbourne and you were thus first introduced to Mr Ludwig and Mr Wilson,:
That you Julie GILLARD were acting informally for a partnership to the extent any of its aims were lawful or a conspiracy including Bill Ludwig, Bruce Wilson and from time to time your self.
The reasons for my belief about actions for that partnership commencing in 1989/90 are set out here:
I refer you to this March 1996 article from the BRW on Portrait of a Man, Portrait of a Union about Bruce Wilson which you published some time ago. It helps with the timeline and also has direct quotes from Wilson, Keenan and Isherwood.
According to Wilson, in early 1989 after the National Executive Meeting at which he was a WA delegate (as a WA Vice President elected 1985), on a flight back to Perth with Keenan who was also a WA delegate in his capacity as Secretary of the WA branch, Keenan sacked him from his position as organiser of the WA branch. He was sacked for not following voting instructions. Keenan made Wilson’s position as a WA branch organiser redundant. Wilson was now without official standing in the WA branch but was still a WA delegate at National Executive meetings.
After he was sacked Wilson had talks with Ludwig about getting an appointment as a National Organiser in WA. The position of National Organiser did not exist. It was to be a new position.
Now Wilson says that he drafted a resolution to put to the Executive. That was put to an executive meeting on 28 June 1990 and his appointment was to take effect on 2 July 1990. There was a challenge to the validity of the resolution on the basis that it was not in accordance with the Rules.
At this point in time, Wilson has lost his job as a WA organiser. He does not have the backing of his WA union nor the services of their legal advisers. He is involved in a Court action before Justice Einfeld over the validity of the resolution as a Respondent.
Who gave him legal advice on the resolution for the position of National Organiser being within the Rules? Wilson said he drafted it.
Wilson had to get this position as National Organiser who was to be based in the Perth office of AWU WA branch to launch his campaign to unseat Keenan and with him Isherwood to become WA Secretary.
Gillard told her Partners – “…He had a falling out with the then secretary. The secretary had dismissed him. He had been appointed as a national organiser ‘cause he enjoyed national support. He had run in the elections as national secretary contender. He hadn’t been successful in that but he had run it close. He was AT THAT POINT basically stalking the then WA secretary with a view to getting him out and taking his position, and he needed some advice about arrangements to do that. And Graham Droppit asked me if I could give him some advice when I was over there about those things. So I ran the full bench appeal like a Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, something like that, and I stayed on in Perth on the Saturday for the purpose of meeting with Wilson.”
On 22 March 1991 Justice Einfeld ruled in favour of the resolution. I’d imagine that Wilson had not been able to act as National Organiser until his appointment was validated by the Court.
*(Sorry about the shock of the Anderton name appearing here, I felt the chill that would run up your spine at the record of Mr Anderton's presence - yes, it's that Mr Anderton, the one from the "basically stalking Joe Keenan" glory days, which just FYI the records have as commencing with Mr Ludwig's involvement and rather a good deal earlier than your information to Mr Gordon in the record of interview would suggest, but I digress)?
**Is that your Declaration? Does it have your signature and handwriting thereon? Did you swear to Almighty God that the Declaration you made therein was true and correct and that was your signature and handwriting thereon? (Sorry for tying you down, it's just it's such a good sample of "knowns" that it could assist in unperverting the course of justice to clear a few things up while we're on the way.)
***Was it your usual practice to pursue the purchase of such means of postal transmission as might be capable of providing the proof of service all by yourself? Isn't that a rather costly imposition on your client vis a vis the economic impact of having service effected by, say the less well paid people whose job it is to do such things? What was the reaction of those learned friends to whom was owed a duty by you of actions in utmost good faith if at some point they learned your client was not billed for the time thus taken?
****And the action in the Supreme Court of Western Australia against Mr Gandini for defaming Mr Blewitt?
How is it that you were able to conduct the complex litigation in which you acted for Mr Blewitt in 1993, as well as the complex matter in which you acted for him in the Industrial Court of Australia in the harmonisation of the state and federal based AWU Rules without a delegation of his powers to a local attorney?
Your persistence in those complex matters to completion without a delegation of his powers to an attorney local to you demonstrates your confidence on dealing with him long distance. The Auctioneer at the Kerr Street auction read aloud, as required by law, the statement that a bidder at the auction, as a right, may sign the papers in the Contract of Sale and at any time up until completion, nominate the person in whose name the sale will be effected. Your presence at auction and aural acuity is sufficient evidence to prove your knowledge, particularly with the confirmation of the Auctioneer that his auction was legally conducted. What was the true purpose of the Power of Attorney? Why did you deny to Mr Gordon knowledge of provision by your Socialist Forum colleague Mr Rothfield of a Mortgage using the firm's facility?
ENDS
Supplementary information
Thanks to our reader Dean who went on our behalf to the WA State Archives we now have the complete file in the matter of Mick Baker v Ralph Blewitt.
Baker had lost his job. He was in a very good position legally to be compensated, he had plenty of witnesses and helpful documents. He was all set to go with his lawyer briefed, ready for action and present at the court-room as the court was brought into session.
But Baker didn't turn up for the hearing. His application was discontinued on the grounds that his lawyer could not contact him to receive further instructions. Something made Mick Baker just cop his sacking sweet and disappear.
I'm told Mr Baker has since passed away. I have inquiries under way at present.
We'll try to find out what - or who - made him decide it would be in his best interests not to go to court or talk to his lawyer that day.
Supplementary reading.
Blewitt's election challenge, ruling of the court delivered in 1990
1989 - Bruce Wilson and Bill Ludwig ran on joint ticket as Secretary (Wilson) and President (Ludwig) of the AWU. Ludwig got up, Wilson didn't. Wilson was sacked from his job as an organiser in WA - Ludwig appointed him as a National Organiser based on Perth. They were very close.
An understanding of the Ludwig/Wilson/Gillard relationship is central to understanding the AWU Scandal.
disgraced now but then Justice Enfield ruled in Wilson's favour in this 1990 judgement on the validity of the appointment Ludwig made for Wilson in a tailor made job. This is intricately involved with the "stalking" of Keenan. I believe this was the legal advice Gillard gave the Wilson/Ludwig partnership.
Gillard's first legal work for Wilson was controversial to say the least - she gave advice on how to unseat the incumbent AWU state secretary so Wilson could take his job.
Here's Gillard in her departure interview describing what she did to advance Wilson's personal interests against those of Keenan and Isherwood then representing the AWU.
On 2 May 1991 Bruce Wilson was appointed Secretary of the AWU WA Branch after a coup d'etat in which secretary VJ Keenan and President Joe Isherwood "resigned".
That coup had a legal advisor, Julia Gillard.
In April 1991 Gillard was in Perth and spent at least one day providing advice about the rules of the AWU to help engineer Keenan's removal and Wilson's elevation. Here is an extract from her 11 September, 1995 departure interview from Slater and Gordon.
On 10 September 2014 Gillard gave evidence about this matter under oath at the Royal Commission
On the evidence above, Gillard provided legal advice to an AWU organiser, a relatively lowly paid unelected employee who had no authority to incur costs in a matter like this. The advice, on her own admission, related to the means by which he might depose an elected official he had been "stalking", the legally appointed AWU Branch Secretary.
The minutes of the 2 May 1991 meeting above show that Keenan was given a paid job as part of the deal. Joe Isherwood left his job as President on the same day and he was replaced by the now deceased Glen Ivory. This Federal Court judgement tells the Ivory/Isherwood/Wilson/Blewitt story, it was an expensive and protracted legal proceeding - it's also a fascinating read, more about it soon.
The first day of the two day Executive meeting concluded that this:
Here's a link to the Einfeld Order referred to above.
It appears that negotiations to finalise Keenan's orderly departure might have continued that night.
On 3 May 1991 the Executive meeting continued for its 2nd day - Keenan got an official portrait painted, expenses approved, appreciation for a lifetime of service and acknowledgement of the high regard he was held in. Isherwood had to make do acknowledgement of his contribution.
On 20 August 1991 Gillard gave this very detailed written legal advice regarding the effect of the rules of the AWU in another dispute over removing/replacing officials.
So by August 1991 there are several examples of Gillard providing detailed advice about the AWU's rules and its interactions with various industrial relations laws. She also demonstrated her willingness to provide formal legal advice to advance the interests of Wilson (an unelected and then relatively junior employee of the union) over the interests of the elected official office holders.
We will pass over the late 1991 developments about Dawesville, pass over the 1991/92 AWU WRA Inc and pass over the purchase of Kerr Street for the purposes of this post.
On Friday 3 July 1992 the WA Branch Executive again met, the minutes record Wilson's move to the Victorian Secretary role.
Also in those minutes is a record of Joe Isherwood's removal from the union and the Branch's decision not to pay the legal fees he incurred while he was President.
Those minutes refer to a Federal Court action brought by Glen Ivory which sought to overturn Isherwood's election as President. It's pretty rich that Wilson and his team were prepared to do that to Isherwood - read the judgement from the Federal Court here. Ivory wanted Isherwood's job and Ivory was supported by Wilson in this court action. The end result was that Ivory's application to the court was unsuccessful, he lost, Isherwood won, but by the time the Decision was delivered the coup d'etat was complete by other means, Isherwood was gone and Wilson and his mates decided the AWU would not pay his legal bills. Nice blokes. Lucky Bruce had Julia.
On 12 November 1992 the Executive met again. Wilson got an extra 3 months in Melbourne
Hidden away in those minutes was this report about the AWU WA branch solicitors (Slater and Gordon ie Gillard) updating the union's rules.
On 18 February 1993 the WA Branch Executive met (power of attorney time), the minutes are here.
Wilson was by then permanent Victoria Branch Secretary, so the first order of business in the WA Executive meeting was this:
Having been invited to attend, Wilson formally resigned and Blewitt was on that day formally appointed as WA Branch Secretary.
Ralph Blewitt had by then been acting WA Branch Secretary for 7 months. He tells me he did exactly as Bruce Wilson told him to do during the whole of his time as Secretary, both acting and after his formal appointment.
The last point noted in the February 1993 meeting was this heated exchange with Mick Baker, the Secretary of the WA Mining Division of the AWU - the significance will become clear shortly.
Blewitt says that it was around the time of this meeting, 13 February 1993, that Wilson handed him the notorious Power of Attorney to sign, in Perth, without Gillard.
On 22 March 1993 the Kerr Street purchase settled - it required a Power of Attorney.
On 10 June, 1993 the AWU WA Branch's new rules prepared by Ms Gillard were officially endorsed by the Australian Industrial Relations Commission
Deputy President Acton noted:
I listed this matter for hearing on 9 June 1993 in Sydney. On that
occasion Mr R. McClelland, solicitor, appeared for the
AWU and Ms J. Gillard,
solicitor, appeared for the AWU, WA Branch.
At the hearing Mr McClelland provided a revised S.202 agreement, which
was executed on 8 June 1993 and which it was intended be substituted for the
agreement earlier lodged in the Registry,
and took the Commission through its
contents. Ms Gillard then tendered an affidavit of Ralph Edwin Blewitt,
Secretary of the AWU,
WA Branch and Mr McClelland tendered an affidavit of
Michael George Forshaw, General Secretary of the AWU.
You'll find all the details here. Ms Gillard could transact that complex matter with Blewitt in person, even though he was in Perth, she was in Melbourne and the matter was heard in Sydney. But she couldn't complete a simple property purchase in his name without creating a Power of Attorney for her boyfriend Wilson.
That brings us to mid 1993. Wilson was in Kerr Street, renovators were in Abbotsford, wads of cash were in bib and brace overalls and some apparently very pissed off AWU officials were getting fired up in Perth.
In October 1993 Ralph Blewitt sued certain union officials in the AWU WA Branch for defamation after they'd produced flyers calling his leadership into doubt.
I have much more - you can access it all on this website holding the 5,500 posts I've made and the 338, 119 comments our readers have made along the way.
I'd ask that any competent authority reading this consider Mr Blewitt's contribution to his country in SVN in 67 but more importantly in his openness, self incrimination without any protection from prosecution and right now in the temporal protection of which he may stand in need.
May I ask that competent debriefers to brought to him so as to record in a useful way his unique living contribution to a part of our country's history, the importance of which will only be obvious many years from now.
After weeks of damaging media coverage and increasingly vitriolic internet commentary about her connections with a decades-old trade union fraud scandal, the Prime Minister resolved to tackle the critics head on.
At a Parliament House news conference, called ostensibly to discuss asylum seekers, Gillard dragged the proverbial dead cat into the centre of the room.
A silly mistake in that morning's Australian newspaper (it wrongly reported that she had been involved in establishing a union trust fund in 1992) led News Ltd to give her a formal apology and the toe-hold she needed to climb up and over the critics.
Brazenly conflating the mistake (it was a non-profit association she helped incorporate, not a trust fund) with a ''smear campaign'' driven by ''misogynists and nut jobs'' on the internet, Gillard declared: ''I have decided to come to this press conference today because this matter has got to the stage where we are starting to see recycled, false and defamatory allegations which I have dealt with in the past.''
Brava! Brava! Brava!!!!!!!
The reviews from a helpful media were amazing.
Next time Ms Gillard did a last-time-I'll-do-this conference, she arrived with a target.
Ralph Blewitt knew things that could damage her. She set out to damage his credibility. It was bad he was a former friend but much worse that he was a client and owed a duty of confidentiality when she took people to court for him.
As it stands the archives, the parliamentary hansard - anyone now and forever who wants to look will find this.
Ms Gillard gave the Gallery a line on Ralph Blewitt.
"People who know Mr Blewitt (say) he's a complete imbecile, an idiot, a stooge, a sexist pig, and a liar".
Dear Ms Gillard,
Do you want to tell the folks at home what diligent searching for a combination of the following terms might yield?
people who have known Ralph Blewitt
in a class recorded in musty files somewhere
whose statements about Ralph Blewitt jointly or severally include
those words marked for identification in the coward's colour above
+"Julia Gillard"
God forgive me for yielding to the temptation of suspecting you might have been up to no good.
I searched for evidence to help Ms Gillard. And I found it.
The shit might hit fan the cream of Australia's journalists FIND OUT WHAT GILLARD DID TO THE PEOPLE SHE QUOTED.
Much better for the admissions to come from you Ms Gillard than me.
Your spin or mine.
Make your mind up.
Yours sincerely*
Michael Smith
Ms Gillard was losing them a bit by then. Goodness me, imagine how they'll react now.
Note to self. People on the list to speak to about their headlines the first time around.
Michelle Grattan (headline Unimpressive Liar Smashed Victims of Wilson)
Judith Ireland. (My Word Against My Word on people who called Ralph a sexist pig etc that time I took them to court for it)
Leigh Sales - must let her know about something for 4 Corners - no, better not, for ABC730 long-form on the bullshit artist who called Ralph Blewitt a misogynist but is in reality the lawyer who took the people who made that observation about him to court for it.
*just in case
sincerely
sɪnˈsɪəli/
adverb
in a sincere or genuine way.
"I sincerely hope that we shall have a change of government"
synonyms:
genuinely, honestly, really, with all sincerity, truly, truthfully, wholeheartedly, with all one's heart, from the bottom of one's heart, earnestly, fervently, seriously; More
Gillard's pre-selection for her parliamentary position was a product of fraud.
A charge sheet to put the allegations before a court might include this information.
Julia Eileen GILLARD at Melbourne in the State of Victoria
did dishonestly obtain a financial advantage
with the intention to permanently deprive the Commonwealth of the said financial benefit
to wit
a revenue stream commencing 3 October 1998 when the Defendant took the seat for the Division of Lalor in the House of Representatives and
which financial benefit continues to enlarge in a unbroken stream as a pension and which other than by Order of the Court may continue as an imposition on the Commonwealth by her estate post the Defendant's death
by deception
to wit
in giving false and misleading information in answer to questions put to her during a formal interview with the intention to deceive
Martin FERGUSON
an officer of the Australian Labor Party who was at the relevant time appointed and authorised by it to inquire into the defendant's suitability for preselection as the candidate for election to the parliamentary division of Lalor and specifically about allegations he put to her regarding her conduct as a lawyer and fiduciary for and of the Australian Workers Union between 1991 and 1996
when she knew that FERGUSON's decision could approve her preselection or deny her preselection for a safe parliamentary seat held with such a margin of support for the said Labor Party that it was a statistically provable proposition that passage through the barrier of preselection by the Labor Party was the entry point to the seat, and that FERGUSON's decision if negative would bring that progression to a halt.
It's a bit of a shame the TURC didn't call Martin. But in other ways it's good. Less time for the defendant to prepare.
I spoke to him. And like Hedley have the notes to prove it - even a little video aide memoire. Or maybe even two. Find out when the notice to produce comes back. Till then, keep talking!!!!!
Young, naive and taken in by a con artist. Martin Ferguson talks about Julia Gillard's pre-selection.
Hedley Thomas in The Australian today reports on former ACTU chief Martin Ferguson and his willingness to assist the royal commission into union corruption.
Former Gillard minister Martin Ferguson to reveal knowledge of AWU slush fund
FORMER union boss and retired cabinet minister Martin Ferguson is offering to tell the national royal commission into union corruption his knowledge of controversial payments, key witnesses and other information in the AWU slush fund scandal that has dogged the Labor Party and Julia Gillard.
Mr Ferguson told The Australian that, if asked under oath, he would provide information including details revealed to him recently by a former Melbourne builder, Kon Spyridis, payments to whom have been part of an ongoing investigation by Victoria Police’s Fraud Squad into hundreds of thousands of dollars that flowed in and out of the slush fund.
Mr Ferguson, who was head of the ACTU when the slush fund was operating without his knowledge, said: “I am disturbed by the accounts of the slush fund in question and the involvement in it of both union and employer representatives.
“I’m concerned about the operation of that fund — the way it was operated — and the people from the union and business who were connected to it. It is fair to say that I have taken more of an interest in it in recent years. When the issues arose again (in 2012), I went and double-checked dates to check on certain things, including what positions I held at the time. It is not a question of whether I welcome the royal commission or not. There is an absolute obligation on the union movement to clean up its house. There is an obligation on the unions to put their house in order.’’
Mr Ferguson said Mr Spyridis, a constituent in the parliamentarian’s Melbourne electorate of Batman until his retirement at the last election, had recently disclosed information about the work he had performed for the AWU and Ms Gillard. There is no allegation of wrongdoing by Mr Spyridis.
“He came to my office for help on a migration matter because I was the local member,’’ Mr Ferguson said.
“He did raise with me the question of his previous involvement with the AWU and he indicated to me that he was being upfront about it, having done work on the AWU’s offices and some private work (at Ms Gillard’s house).
“I am not prepared to go into these details now. They are his interpretation of events. I would take seriously my obligations to talk to the inquiry if asked. I have absolute confidence in the integrity of the royal commissioner.’’
Ms Gillard has told journalists she paid for the renovations. However, in a tape-recorded 1995 interview during an internal investigation by her then employer, law firm Slater & Gordon, she said she could not rule out whether union money or slush fund money went into the cottage, saying “but I can’t see how it’s happened’’.
She added that “a series of tradespeople came in and did the renovation’’ on the instructions of AWU organiser Jim Collins.
Her former legal client, Mr Blewitt, a self-confessed corrupt union bagman, has told Victoria Police that he was directed by Mr Wilson to use slush fund cash to pay for renovations at her home.
Bank records indicate that Mr Spyridis received bank cheques from at least one of the slush funds controlled by Mr Wilson. Mr Spyridis has previously said: “I get my money and that’s it.’’
I was with a lawyer in Melbourne in November 2012 and we both happened to see Mr Ferguson walking towards us - it was the day that Ralph Blewitt made his statement to Victoria Police and the issue of Julia Gillard's involvement in The AWU Scandal was very prominent in the news. I've been sent this video that an onlooker took - small world huh!
Mr Ferguson confirmed that he had conducted an interview with Julia Gillard prior to the Labor Party pre-selecting her for the seat of Lalor. I'll bet he wishes he knew then what he knows now.
I know that Mr Spyridis was paid for work that he did at Julia Gillard's home in Abbotsford - that is the "And Bruce, while I was away decided that I should just get it done" renovations.
This cheque and the bank teller's notation on the back of it gives some insight into some cash flows that came from one of Wilson's corruptly operated bank accounts.
So $10,000 to the builder Kon Spyridis and $5,000 in cash. Here's the Daily Telegraph from November 2012
The fiery PM and that $5000 question
GEMMA JONES
THE DAILY TELEGRAPH
NOVEMBER 27, 2012 12:00AM
PRIME Minister Julia Gillard was yesterday unable to categorically deny receiving $5000 from a former boyfriend at the centre of the Australian Workers Union slush fund affair.
With the 20-year-old affair threatening to overshadow the work of government, a fiery Ms Gillard addressed questions about the fund and her relationship with the disgraced Bruce Wilson.
The PM revealed she had consulted the Commonwealth Bank and had hoped to release her account transaction record but the bank only kept them for seven years.
Former AWU official Wayne Hem signed a statutory declaration claiming that Mr Wilson, after a night at a casino, asked him to put the money in Ms Gillard's bank account in mid-1995.
Mr Hem said in 1996 he told Ian Cambridge, then AWU secretary and now a Fair Work Australia Commissioner, of the alleged transaction.
When asked about Mr Hem's claim, Mr Wilson said at the weekend: "It's possible, but I don't specifically recall."
At the time Mr Hem said he made the deposit on behalf of Mr Wilson. Ms Gillard was a Slater & Gordon partner and would have been earning about $80,000 a year.
While she said yesterday she did not recall the money being put in her account, she said that, even if Mr Wilson had given her $5000 - which today would be worth more than $8100 - it would not be wrong. She also dismissed stories about the AWU affair, claiming Australians "don't understand" them. Ms Gillard said: "On the day that claim came out publicly I referred to it as smear because it is a matter associated with my personal life.
"Whilst I'm going to answer your question, I just ask you for one moment to assume that that is true, that $5000 was put in my bank account by a person I was then in a relationship with, who the witness involved said had had a big night out at the casino. Can you piece together for me the personal wrongdoing involved in that? I doubt you can.
"On the actual assertion, I do not to the best of my knowledge, remember $5000 being put in my account."
Ms Gillard said she typically was surprised by how little money she had when she used an ATM "rather than happily surprised that there is extra".
"I do not have a memory of this money going into my account. However, it is a long time ago. So I have taken steps to try and check," she said of her approach to the Commonwealth Bank.
She described the financial relationship between herself and Mr Wilson as "garden variety" for a couple and there was not "lots of money around or lots of benefits I somehow couldn't explain."
"Nothing happened in the course of my relationship with Mr Wilson about who paid for what that you would say was in any way unusual for people in a relationship. We'd go for dinner, sometimes he'd pay, sometimes I'd pay, sometimes we'd split the bill," she said.
Ms Gillard said she ended the relationship with Mr Wilson when she heard rumours of problems within the union.
She faced questions about why she hadn't alerted the AWU around the same time of the slush fund for which she had provided legal advice for its incorporation but said she had no knowledge of its accounts or how it was used.
"You can't report things you do not know. I did not know about transactions on the accounts of the AWU workplace relations association," she said.
In parliament, Deputy Opposition Leader Julie Bishop used Question Time to focus on whether Ms Gillard had satisfied herself the establishment of the association did not breach AWU internal rules.
Ms Gillard repeated that her role was to provide legal advice to the two officials seeking to register their association, which was to be used for union election campaigning, and she had no dealings with the broader union executive.
Earlier, Ms Gillard had said she was aware of rumours - which she vigorously denied - that she received money from the union for home renovations. Ms Gillard told Slater & Gordon in an interview in September 1995 she had paid the builder $2000 and was "making arrangements to get $1780 ... to pay the rest". The transcript shows she was financially strained at the time with a mortgage and a personal loan - and had taken an advance on her salary.
