Fmr DETSGT McAlpine writes to Victorian opposition leader and shadow attorney general
Tuesday, 31 July 2018
In November Victorians will make their choice in a law and order election.
One sleeper issue is the appointment of John Cain Jr as Solicitor for Public Prosecutions, along with Graham Ashton as Commissioner of Police.
The trajectory of the investigation into the Gillard/Wilson/Blewitt/Thiess slush fund took a steep turn for the worse after the Andrews CFMEU government's election.
I hope the Victorian Liberals make that an issue in the upcoming election.
Yesterday, Dave McAlpine sent this open letter to opposition leader Matthew Guy and his shadow Attorney General John Pesutto.
David McAlpine
Thailand
30/07/2018
The Honourable Matthew GUY MLA
Leader of the Opposition, Victoria
Dear Sir,
I was the Detective responsible for the 1995 to 1998 WA police investigation of payments from Thiess Contractors Pty Ltd to a slush fund established by Julia Gillard, Bruce Wilson and Ralph Blewitt.
On 16 March 2017, Ralph Blewitt was arrested and charged with 31 offences in WA case number 09099610007489, the case number assigned to my investigation.
On 22 May 2018 the WA DPP dropped all charges against Blewitt.
He is the only person charged with offences arising from my investigation (and further investigations conducted by the Victoria Police Operation Tendement Taskforce.)
Blewitt has contacted me and passed on files containing prosecution evidence served on him. He told me he wanted to plead guilty to offences associated with unlawful and corrupt secret commission payments from the construction contractor Thiess, however, rather than secret commission offences, Blewitt was charged with defrauding Thiess in other words deceiving the construction giant into making corrupt payments.
In short, Blewitt says Thiess was “in on it”. Much of the offending took place in Victoria.
I have now seen the huge amount of evidence collected by Victoria Police Operation Tendement, I have also seen thousands of files obtained by the journalist, Michael Smith of www.michaelsmithnews.com. Those files contain overwhelming prima facie evidence of serious indictable offences with named and known offenders. The evidence includes confessions and hand-written statements from offenders.
As a result of my analysis of that evidence, I allege that the senior employees of Thiess Contractors Pty Ltd made corrupt secret commission payments to the Gillard/Wilson/Blewitt slush fund.
Gillard/Wilson/Blewitt went to considerable lengths to conceal the true nature of the slush fund and the payments it received. I believe the evidence supports one finding – that a criminal conspiracy existed between:
- Bruce Wilson - WA AWU Secretary
- Ralph Blewitt – WA AWU Assistant Secretary
- Julia Gillard - WA AWU Lawyer, Wilson’s secret de-facto wife and lover
- Bernard Murphy - Gillard’s managing partner at their firm Slater and Gordon
- John Cain Jr - AWU lawyer in Melbourne at firm Maurice Blackburn
- Martin Albrecht - Thiess Contractors managing director
- Nick Jukes - Thiess Contractors WA and later national general manager
- Joe Trio - Thiess WA manager
- Paul Darrouzet - Thiess HR and industrial relations manager
I am making serious allegations about serious crimes. I've been public in making those allegations because of the inaction of taxpayer funded investigators and the procrastination of both Vicpol and Wapol over these matters.
The official inaction on this matter can at best be characterised as negligence - it may well be corrupt.
Do you seriously think Bruce Wilson, Ralph Blewitt and Julia Gillard were entitled to the money they received from the AWU Workplace Reform Association slush fund? Do you believe that money was obtained by them lawfully? Do you honestly believe that they acted alone in this conspiracy or offences, there is absolutely no doubt they were assisted by others from within Thiess Contractors Pty Ltd.
Secondly, and more importantly, how is that one man, Michael Smith, an investigative journalist and very well credentialed former police officer, operating a website on the smell of an oily rag can locate me, then fly from Australia to Roi Et in Northern Thailand to interview me while neither the Trade Union Royal Commission nor any other investigative agency has even bothered to contact me.
As the officer in charge of this investigation while I was a serving WA Police Detective, I’m amazed that Smith has been able to collate such a wealth of compelling prima facie evidence of serious indictable offences - and that he's been able to travel to see me not once, but twice to advance his investigations. In part Mr. Smith has taken this investigation much further than I was able to while I was serving because I was instructed by the DPP to cease working on the file - however a $60M trade union (royal commission) and two state police task forces should have been able to do what Smith has done.
I will not drop the matter until justice is done.
Yours sincerely,
(original signed)
D McAlpine
ENDS