• EXCLUSIVE
  By PIA AKERMAN
• THEAUSTRALIAN
• 12:00AM NOVEMBER 29, 2012

Despite their different opinions on who was the mastermind behind the AWU slush fund fraud, Bruce Wilson and Ralph Blewitt agree on one thing: Mr Wilson was not amused to learn Mr Blewitt's preferred hiding place for a big stash of cash was a hole in his backyard, with just a plastic bag to protect the once-crisp paper bills.

"We thought it bloody humorous, but Wilson was a bit pissed off about it," Mr Blewitt said yesterday as he confirmed he had kept bags of money from the AWU Workplace Reform Association in the garden of his Perth home in the early 1990s.

"Under his instructions I was withdrawing money from the Commonwealth Bank, I was holding it for him. I had so much money I had to put some somewhere so I stuck it in a plastic bag. I think that bundle of money was 10 grand from memory, it all got soggy and wet."

The solution, Mr Blewitt told The Australian, was to take the dirty money to the Reserve Bank to swap for nice clean notes. Mr Wilson this week said Mr Blewitt had "confessed" to taking out cash from the AWU Workplace Reform Association account and accumulating it.

"He had been - and I know this sounds crazy - but he had been packaging it up and burying it in his backyard, of all things," Mr Wilson told the ABC's 7.30. "I said to him, well he better dig it up and get it back into the bank. I told him that I would go to the police."

To hear Mr Blewitt tell it, however, it was Mr Wilson who had issued directions to withdraw the cash and keep it somewhere safe.

"Wilson just kept saying to me, 'Draw out five ($5000) today, five in two days time'. I had so much bloody money floating around I didn't want to be caught with it," Mr Blewitt said. "I had to hide it some-bloody-where.

"I didn't want my missus knowing anything about it. I couldn't leave it lying around the house. I thought I'd sealed it up properly but obviously some worms or something got into it."

ENDS

PS - with fond regards and much love for the late Bill Leak.