Its obvious that this poison comes from the top echelons of the left, yet the party still gets a free ride from the the leftwing press by not perusing the tendrils that spread back from Williamson.While disgraced former Labor Party president Michael Williamson looks set to be jailed for stealing $1 million from his former union, a Fairfax Media investigation has uncovered a pattern of extraordinary criminality going back more than a decade.
The most serious of these is Williamson's alleged involvement in break-ins at the Health Services Union in which thousands of dollars were stolen.
In 1998, a day after almost $3000 was put into the HSU's safe on the fourth floor of the Pitt Street office, someone entered the union using an electronic key, opened the safe with the code and stole the cash. Williamson reported to state council that it was an inside job and that Chubb security officers were the suspects.
On July 22, 1999, $1435 in cash was stolen from the same place. This time Williamson said the break-in and theft were politically motivated and suggested his rivals in the forthcoming union election were responsible.
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Mark Hardacre, then assistant state secretary who was running against Williamson, was furious.
''I made inquires to the building manager who revealed that what Williamson had reported to state council was not the complete story,'' Mr Hardacre told Fairfax Media this week.
The building manager said all access to the building and to the various floors was recorded on a central computer. The key used to gain access for the break-in was one held by Williamson.
A tenant on the 10th floor had seen someone acting suspiciously at the time of the break-in but Williamson did not want the matter pursued.
Williamson received large repayments of cash after claiming he was mugged three times after withdrawing cash from an ATM. On the last occasion, when he claimed to have been mugged in Perth, the union's insurer refused to recognise the claim until Williamson provided his Commonwealth Bank statement to confirm the withdrawal date and amount.
''He kept saying I'll get around to it, I'll get round to it,'' Mr Hardacre said. ''Finally, [another union official] said 'Let's just drop it.' So he got away with it.''
Williamson was also reimbursed after claiming his briefcase containing $500 was stolen.
In the late 1990s union officials Alan Ivers and Bill O'Connor took action in the Industrial Relations Commission to see the union's books.
On Williamson's union-issued American Express card were purchases for Chanel perfume, jewellery, restaurant bills, a $1045 David Jones purchase, valet parking, a gas bill, a $308 bike, shoes, designer handbags, a mattress, a $579 purchase at Chippendale Cellars and more.
But they were also surprised to see that Williamson's mistress Cheryl McMillan also had a credit card on which she had racked up personal expenses.
This was THE PRESIDENT OF THE ALP!!! No wonder Gillard thought she could get away with buying a house with her boyfriend with stolen union members funds. They were all doing it and if you did it, you got to the top.
You only have to look at Shorten handing Randall a plum front bench when he lost his fucking seat
The ALP party is a party of fucking thieves and liars. I think I prefer the Greens, because they are a party of dimwits and fuckheads.
