Tag: Julia Gillard

Five thousand …

Interesting news in The Australian this morning and, in case you can’t reach beyond the pay wall, here it is …

A UNION employee who was concerned about wrongdoing told the national head of the Australian Workers Union in June 1996 that he deposited about $5000 cash into Julia Gillard’s bank account at the request of her then boyfriend Bruce Wilson.

The disclosure by Wayne Hem forms part of a contemporaneous and confidential 150-plus-page diary that was kept by the then AWU joint national secretary, Ian Cambridge, now a Fair Work Australia commissioner…

In a statutory declaration signed in Melbourne on Sunday and in lengthy interviews with The Australian over the past fortnight, Mr Hem declared he had deposited the money after being given the account details of Ms Gillard along with a wad of $100 and $50 notes by Mr Wilson, an official in the AWU’s Victorian branch.

Ms Gillard, then a salaried partner at law firm Slater & Gordon, was Mr Wilson’s girlfriend and solicitor at the time.

Ms Gillard had provided legal advice in 1992 that helped Mr Wilson and his union ally, Ralph Blewitt, set up a slush fund – the AWU Workplace Reform Association – which the two men used in the ensuing years to issue bogus invoices and fraudulently receive hundreds of thousands of dollars.

The Prime Minister issued a short statement through spokesman Sean Kelly.

“As The Australian is well aware, the Prime Minister has made clear on numerous occasions that she was not involved in any wrongdoing,” Mr Kelly said.

“I also note that despite repeatedly being asked to do so, The Australian has been unable to substantiate any allegations of wrongdoing.”

But remember …

But it is vital to highlight what the Hem entry does not say – and what Hem does not say now.

He does not say Gillard ever wanted her union boss boyfriend to ask Hem to put about $5000 into her account in mid 1995.

Nor does Hem say that she knew she was receiving a financial benefit. There is no evidence of that and there could be several innocent explanations for the payment. We do know, however, that Hem was concerned about dishonesty by Wilson and this prompted him to blow the whistle.

On Diaries …

The disclosure by Hem to Cambridge [in 1996 about the deposit] came eight months after concerns were first raised publicly by a Liberal minister, Phil Gude, in Victoria’s parliament, about Gillard allegedly getting a benefit in relation to the renovation of her house. Gude wanted a probe into what he was told at the time. He has insisted union officials had been to see him with evidence that Gillard was a beneficiary of union money.

Gude told the Victorian parliament in October 1995 that Gillard had been forced to leave her law firm; that she was directly linked to the misappropriation of union funds; that she had benefited from renovations to her own house; and that she had to pay money back to the AWU so that she and Wilson could “cover their tracks”.

Gude made his claims a short time after Gillard’s confidential tape-recorded interview on September 11, 1995, with Peter Gordon – and her abrupt departure from the firm. Its partners had lost trust and confidence in her.

Gillard told The Australian immediately after she was accused in the Victorian parliament in 1995: “Every allegation raised about me is absolutely untrue; there is not a shred of truth in any of it.”

On Hem …

BANK documents show the man who claims he was told to pay about $5000 into Julia Gillard’s bank account was entrusted to deposit more than $100,000 in cheques into an Australian Workers Union secret slush fund.

Wayne Hem, 58, told The Australian in interviews and in a statutory declaration that he was given the cheques in mid-1995 and told to put them into “a bank account for something I recall as the AWU Welfare Fund”.

He said that Ms Gillard’s then boyfriend Bruce Wilson, the corrupt branch head of the AWU, handed him the cheques on several occasions and told him to go to the Commonwealth Bank to make the deposits…

In a September 1996 affidavit filed in the Industrial Relations Court, the AWU’s national head Mr Cambridge named the Victorian Welfare slush fund account as one “used to hold and/or launder union funds, as a step in the conversion of those funds to unauthorised, invalid, irregular and possibly illegal uses”.

Mr Cambridge stated in his affidavit that the account was unknown to other union officials, and involved payments totalling $234,000.

Without principle …

The Australian, interjections and emphasis mine …

Ms Gillard has acknowledged helping to set up the AWU Workplace Reform Association, which she has classified as a “slush fund” for the re-election of union officials, but has repeatedly denied knowledge of its operations. It was used to defraud hundreds of thousands of dollars from the Australian Workers Union.

On Thursday, the Deputy Opposition Leader asked Ms Gillard in parliament why she did not “report the fraud” and cited former High Court judge Michael Kirby, saying it was a citizen’s duty to report serious crimes to the police.

Ms Gillard replied: “By the time the matters she refers to came to my attention, they were already the subject of inquiry and investigation.”

But, but, but …

… affidavit material shows the national leadership of the AWU did not know about the existence of the slush fund until the Commonwealth Bank told the union of related bank accounts in April 1996.

This was eight months after Ms Gillard had become aware, though an internal investigation by Slater & Gordon, of fraud concerns involving her client and boyfriend, Mr Wilson.

During the investigation, Ms Gillard was questioned by senior partner Peter Gordon.

She was asked about the slush fund; Mr Wilson and his fellow official and AWU bagman Ralph Blewitt; Mr Blewitt’s purchase of a $230,000 terrace house in Melbourne’s Fitzroy in 1993; and renovations at Ms Gillard’s house.

A Victorian Police Fraud Squad investigation requested by the AWU leadership in September 1995 was undermined because the union and police were unaware of the slush fund, with Ms Gillard and Slater & Gordon failing to disclose its existence to the union or authorities.

Simple as ABC …

Quality journalism means being right about everything and letting you know it.

Except at the ABC where it’s left, Pravda would be impressed …

A Mr Parker of Canberra wondered why the ABC didn’t cover the Gillard story and asked them. Nosey. The reply …

From: John Mulhall

To:

Sent: Tuesday, 23 October 2012 2:08 PM

Subject: ABC News query

Dear Mr Parker,

Thank you for your email regarding Mr Blewitt’s statements. The ABC is aware of these statements but we do not at this stage believe it warrants the attention of our news coverage.

To the extent that it may touch tangentially on a former role of the Prime Minister, we know The Australian newspaper maintains an abiding interest in events 17 years ago at the law firm Slater and Gordon, but the ABC is unaware of any allegation in the public domain which goes to the Prime Minister’s integrity. If indeed Ms Gillard has had questions to answer, ABC News reported those answers from her lengthy media conference of 24/8/12 in which she exhausted all questions on the issue.

However, if any allegation is ever raised which might go to the Prime Minister’s integrity, the ABC would of course make inquiries into it and seek to report it. As for matters concerning Mr Bruce Wilson, ABC News will cover the case against him as it proceeds.

Once again thank you for your query.

Best regards,

John Mulhall
News Editor, ABC News

Jeff on Julia …

In case you don’t have internet access to the Herald Sun let me share Jeff Kennett’s view of our PM …

WHAT sort of country are we becoming, when our Prime Minister becomes so desperate that she uses her gender to deliberately and personally attack her opponent in the most unbecoming way in Parliament.

To accuse Tony Abbott of being a misogynist, a hater of women, is as irresponsible as one can get.

It is a charge without truth and an insult to Abbott’s wife, Margaret, and his daughters.

But clearly our Prime Minister has no respect for the truth or the office she holds. Life is all about Julia, her interests, her desire to survive…

Julia Gillard and the party she leads have failed every measure of good government.

She now has only personal invective left in her arsenal on which to base her argument for re-election….

Many of you will have heard me on many occasions defend the Prime Minister…

But this latest abuse of her office has somehow broken my spirit.

I have given up… I will never again respect her for the standard of leadership she is providing this country.

It is personal, it is bitter, it is divisive, and it is short-sighted, and it is simply unprofessional.

Julia Gillard is insulting and demeaning the high office she holds.

Once more into the fray …

Back from the Goldfields, with not a nugget to show for it.

But little grapes, tiny little fetal grapelets on every vine. If they can just survive the frost for another month … most promising. The trouble with Victorian country life, though, is the total absence of broadband in my little hamlet. The local telephone exchange is not equipped for ADSL, will not be equipped for ADSL, and even if it were the copper wire is too small and too old to cope and the house too far from the exchange. Mobile phone coverage? Not at my house. Oh for the NBN.

So home  to Melbourne and a rush for the news. Not good so far as the NBN goes …

EXECUTIVES at the company building the national broadband network pocketed more than $600,000 in bonuses in 2011-12 despite the project running a year behind schedule.

The NBN Co annual report shows the company is spending 25 times more on executive salaries than it earned from selling broadband to customers …

The opposition’s communications spokesman, Malcolm Turnbull, said the report, released on Friday night, showed the roll-out of the network was a year behind schedule with 24,000 homes and businesses connected to the national broadband network at the end of last month. <SMH>

Julia, meanwhile calls sexism wherever she finds it …

 

Maybe she went on a bit long about the uranium sales.

She probably yearns for the good old days when the law firm she was working for brought this defamation action …

Concerns among union officials about financial irregularities and the conduct of the then branch secretary were silenced by Mr Blewitt in the Supreme Court defamation action brought on his instructions in October 1993.

The action came six months after Mr Blewitt, who now admits to being involved in fraud, transferred about $100,000 from the slush fund to buy a $230,000 Melbourne terrace for the use of Ms Gillard’s then boyfriend, union boss Bruce Wilson.

Ms Gillard attended the auction for the Melbourne property, helped in the transaction, and witnessed a power of attorney giving Mr Wilson control over the asset.

The Prime Minister has repeatedly and strenuously denied any wrongdoing, and said she did not know about the workings of the slush fund. <The Australian ( paywall)>

Taking a leaf out of her book, one of the punters she relies on to stay in power has threatened to sue anyone that suggests he may have had sex with prostitutes …

But the allegations FWA has presented to the Federal Court are detailed and extensive, listing dates and times in which Mr Thomson allegedly called escort services and paid for them with his credit cards. In all, there are 10 occasions where FWA alleges Mr Thomson called prostitute services and then used $9603 of union money on them. <news.com>

and he did sue Fairfax last year … but dropped the matter at the court room door. The Labor Party shelled out to keep him from bankruptcy.

Bankruptcy, there’s a thought, how’s that budget coming Wayne?

 

Handing out the mirrors …

What has come over the Fairfax Press … ?

Paul Shehan in the Sydney Morning Herald …

After sending out two attack dogs, Gutter and Sewer, to do the dirty work, after hiding behind two political zombies, Insufferable and Unspeakable, to stay in power, after using the Minister for Innuendo and the Compromise-General to play the gender card, the mask has finally dropped away to reveal the driver of the politics of hate in Australia.

The mask fell at exactly 2.42pm in the House of Representatives. Looking on were the member for Gutter, Anthony Albanese, the member for Sewer, Wayne Swan, the Minister for Innuendo, Tanya Plibersek, and the Compromise-General, Nicola Roxon, and the independents who will do anything to avoid facing their electorates, Mr Insufferable, Robert Oakeshott, and his fellow regional zombie, Mr Unspeakable, Tony Windsor.

Someone had to set Gutter and Sewer loose. Someone directed Innuendo and Compromise to play the gender card. Someone paid the bill for Insufferable and Unspeakable. Someone’s authority still rests on the vote of Craig Thomson. And someone had to approve making Peter Slipper the Speaker despite his being manifestly disrespected by either side of the house, a low point of political opportunism.

At 2.42 pm on Tuesday that someone rose to speak. The mask fell away. Julia Gillard came out snarling. The Parliament had before it a great issue, the dignity of the house itself, which had been traduced by the scandal that had attached itself to Slipper.

Instead of directly addressing the issue of a discredited speakership which had become engulfed in an expensive and degrading legal action that did no credit to anyone involved, least of all the Attorney-General, the Prime Minister wasted no timing in using misdirection and personal abuse.

She even invoked the name of dead father: “My father did not die of shame!” she thundered across the dispatch box.

No one in the Parliament ever said he did. Tony Abbott had said exactly the opposite when he spoke of her father.

Why tip a bucket of bilgewater into a fierce wind? Why invoke the accusation of misogyny, hatred of women, against an Opposition Leader whose chief of staff, Peta Credlin, is famously one of the most formidable woman in politics, whose mostly female staff is devoted to their boss and who has raised three daughters?

But then why did she mislead the Australian people before the last election on the carbon tax? Why did she leave her law firm under a cloud? Why did she shaft her own leader? Why did she depose a prime minister who had a mandate from the people? Why has she methodically deployed the politics of personal abuse?

Julia goes viral …

The video of Julia lambasting Tony Abbott in the House yesterday has, it seems, gone viral. Feminists everywhere are thrilled, it is featured by the Guardian no less, has been widely praised and is set to knock off GangNam Style in the popularity stakes.

Outside our shores, and outside its context, it can take on a life of its own. Feisty woman yells abuse at man in suit. Advanced abuse, multi-syllables. Colour and movement, flaming hair, etc.

Enjoy.

But remember, this virago is our Prime Minister, this tirade is in defence of a man who has shown himself to be devoid of respect for women by his language and behaviour but who is useful to the government. The abuse is aimed at the leader of the opposition who she says hasn’t done enough to distance himself from comments made not by him, not by a member of the parliamentary Liberal party, comments that Mr. Abbott has said he disagrees with, comments in stark contrast to his own words of condolence said so recently in the House. It is utter hypocracy, and it failed, Mr. Slipper had sufficient decency to resign.

It is not so long ago that this woman said “Game on.” It’s a game she’s losing badly …

… and what a sore loser she is