Slush fund story now 'over' says Burke

[Neferti]

Independent Judicial Inquiry into the AWUWRA

Joint Press Release at link.

http://www.scribd.com/doc/114851055/12- ... ge-Brandis

[mantra]

I listened to a contrived interview between Julie Bishop and Alan Jones this morning. Jones was the judge and Bishop was the aspiring pseudo barrister. One moment there was a million dollars stolen from the slush fund - then in the next breath it was $400,000. Bishop has tried so hard to make a case against Gillard, but it's eluding her.

A few snippets of her commentary sounded plausible, but her presumptive, unproven allegations and contradictions stuffed up her "forensic" work. She couldn't pin anything specific on Gillard because there was no paper trail after 20 years and there is only the word of an alleged criminal to back her up. Even the WA Commissioner for Corporate Affairs could not supply the evidence she wanted. Did it not occur to Bishop that if her allegations were true, then the Corporate Affairs Commissioner, as well as Slater & Gordon, could also be parties to this alleged crime?

The Coalition needs to let this go. People are sick of this crap. Gillard is obviously smarter than the opposition. Howard was too.

[mellie]

This whole affair is going to get uglier for Gillard before it get's better.

She needs to be more transparent with Australians, this and tell it like it is.

If there's one thing Australians are good at it's knowing a rat when they smell one.

[Rorschach]

Slowly but surely they are catching up with me...

Laughing off inconvenient truths
November 30, 2012
Mark Baker

ANALYSIS

THE Prime Minister and her minders are masters at splitting hairs and using the delicate strands to weave grand rhetorical constructions in the hope of dodging inconvenient truths.

In August a small slip in The Australian newspaper - in which an association was wrongly described as a trust fund - was enough for Ms Gillard to pocket an apology, claim the high moral ground and open fire on a raft of well-sourced revelations about the AWU slush fund scandal.

On Thursday she was at it again, claiming a ''false report'' in Fairfax newspapers discredited new information upon which Opposition Leader Tony Abbott accused her of involvement in ''unethical conduct and possibly unlawful behaviour''.

This time, editing changes to the Sydney version of the Fairfax report - wrongly asserting she had said the association had no union links - were the strand on which she built a ferocious counter-attack on Mr Abbott.

Fairfax newspapers and The Australian had revealed fresh details of the transcript of a 1995 interview in which Ms Gillard, a then salaried partner at Slater & Gordon, was interrogated by senior partner Peter Gordon about her role in helping establish the AWU Workplace Reform Association, from which her former boyfriend and AWU official Bruce Wilson later stole hundreds of thousands of dollars.

The transcript confirmed what Ms Gillard avoided saying five times in response to questions in Parliament earlier this week - that she wrote a letter to the WA Corporate Affairs Commission in 1992 that was instrumental in securing the incorporation of the association.

It verified that the authority had challenged the eligibility of the association because of its apparent trade union status and that she had responded formally denying it.

And it further challenged Ms Gillard's repeated assertion that she played a minor role advising on the incorporation by revealing she had drafted the rules of the association - without opening a proper file or consulting her partners.

Ms Gillard seized on a reference by Mr Gordon to the WA authority having suggested the association ''might be a trade union''. ''Saying it's not a trade union is a simple matter of fact,'' she told Parliament.

Clearly no one at the authority could have imagined that an application to incorporate an ''AWU Workplace Reform Association'' was about incorporating a trade union. Their objection was the apparent union character of an association Ms Gillard had written on the application form was devoted to ''changes to work to achieve safe workplaces'' but she had told Mr Gordon was a union election slush fund.

At no stage in her indignant responses in Parliament yesterday did the Prime Minister challenge the essential elements of what the transcript revealed about her pivotal role in helping establish the association - and the further issues that raised about her contradictory accounts of its true nature. Her answers did, however, confirm another disclosure in the transcript.

While Ms Gillard had spent most of this week telling her critics to direct questions about the incorporation to the man in whose name she helped set it up - the infamous AWU ''bagman'' Ralph Blewitt - it was in fact his ringmaster, Bruce Wilson, who gave the instructions and directed her to write the controversial letter to the authority.

Read more: http://www.theage.com.au/opinion/politi ... z2DfRHMhhO" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[mantra]

While Ms Gillard had spent most of this week telling her critics to direct questions about the incorporation to the man in whose name she helped set it up - the infamous AWU ''bagman'' Ralph Blewitt - it was in fact his ringmaster, Bruce Wilson, who gave the instructions and directed her to write the controversial letter to the authority.

Why can't the transcript be put on public display? In the transcript - did Gillard actually say she wrote the letter to the Commissioner? Someone might have, but there's no proof it was her. Where's the letter?

These opinions are all so ambiguous.

Even Abbott who apparently has access to the transcript can say nothing of substance.

"Opposition Leader Tony Abbott accused her of involvement in ''unethical conduct and possibly unlawful behaviour''.

[mellie]

LIBERALS FOR 2013!

[Neferti]

While Ms Gillard had spent most of this week telling her critics to direct questions about the incorporation to the man in whose name she helped set it up - the infamous AWU ''bagman'' Ralph Blewitt - it was in fact his ringmaster, Bruce Wilson, who gave the instructions and directed her to write the controversial letter to the authority.

Why can't the transcript be put on public display? In the transcript - did Gillard actually say she wrote the letter to the Commissioner? Someone might have, but there's no proof it was her. Where's the letter?

These opinions are all so ambiguous.

Even Abbott who apparently has access to the transcript can say nothing of substance.

"Opposition Leader Tony Abbott accused her of involvement in ''unethical conduct and possibly unlawful behaviour''.

What transcript?

[Neferti]

This one?

Thursday, 29 November 2012
A direct result of Bruce Wilson's 7.30 interview, thanks again Bruce

As a result of Bruce Wilson speaking publicly about the instructions that he says he gave Julia Gillard in the incorporation of the AWU-Workplace Reform Association (Inc), Bruce has made public what would otherwise have been confidential.

There's no prospect of arguing a case for Legal Professional Privilege and its attendant confidentiality obligations, when the client himself has made the issue of the instructions he gave to Slater and Gordon very, very public.

That led directly to Nick Styant Browne, a former partner in the firm, deciding to release what he had previously kept confidential - the extracts you've seen in the press today from Julia Gillard's departure Record of Interview with Slater and Gordon.

She gambled and she lost. She seems to be addicted to risk. The PM bet that the damning bits of her record of interview would remain safely redacted and she could cruise in to next year. Well it was not to be, we can now see what a dreadful deception she pulled on the WA Corporate Affairs Commissioner and I'm sure police are looking very carefully today at what she did all those years ago.

There's a bit of poetic justice here for the reputation of the WA Commissioner for Corporate Affairs in 1992 as well. In the Federal Parliament Ms Gillard has been trashing the judgement of the Commissioner, saying to the opposition that if it felt the AWU-WRA was improperly or unlawfully incorporated, it should criticise the Commissioner for improperly incorporating the sham Association. Now we know that the poor Commissioner was comprehensively deceived. A victim of fraud. Ms Gillard's own words make her intent clear. She vouched for a sham.

Fancy blaming the victim of the fraud!

Labor must move today to rid the nation of this terrible embarrassment. I hope the opposition takes no triumph, just let her go quietly, she's not worth anything more.

The police will take care of the rest.





PETER GORDON: All right, well, let's talk about the AWU Workplace Reform Association Account. That account, as you've said, is an account which was the account belonging to an incorporated association by the same name which was incorporated by Slater & Gordon at (Bruce) Wilson's, on Wilson's instructions following your advice to him which you described earlier.

JULIA GILLARD: That's right.

PG: And that happened in or about mid-1992.

JG: That's right.

PG: And last Monday I think you gave to Paul Mulvaney a follow-up which demonstrates that Slater & Gordon had drafted model rules for, for that, had submitted those rules to the relevant Western Australian government authority, that there'd been a letter from the authority suggesting that it might be a trade union and therefore ineligible for incorporation under that legislation, and that we had prepared a response submitted on Wilson's instructions to that authority suggesting that in fact it wasn't a trade union and arguing the case for its incorporation. My recollection is that all of that happened in or about mid-1992. Is that right?
JG: I wouldn't want to be held to the dates without looking at the file, but whatever the dates the file shows are the right dates, so . . .

PG: Yes. And to the extent that work was done on that file in relation to that it was done by you?

JG: That's right.

PG: And did you get advice from anyone else in the firm in relation to any of those matters?

JG: No I didn't.

PG: Did Tony Lang have anything to do with the model rules or the drafting of them?

JG: No, I obtained, I had just in my own personal precedent file a set of rules for Socialist Forum which is an incorporated association in which I'm personally involved. Tony Lang and I drew those rules some years ago. Tony more than me. And I've just kept them hanging around as something I cut and paste from for drafting purposes, and I obtained, I don't quite recall how now but I obtained the model rules under the WA act and I must have done the drafting just relying on those two sources. I don't have any recollection of sitting down with Tony or any other practitioner and talking through the draft of the rules.

PG: Do you recall whether when it was necessary to argue the case with the, with the relevant Western Australian authority, whether you consulted anyone else in the firm as to what would or would not get, become acceptable or appropriate?

JG: I once again don't recall talking to anybody else in the firm about it.

PG: Beyond that, and it seems from the file that after that letter it was successfully accepted as an incorporated association and duly was created and presumably accounts were set up. I should ask did we have anything to do with the setting up of the accounts or was that done by the officers of the incorporated association?

JG: Slater & Gordon didn't have anything, did not have anything to do with setting up bank accounts for that association. We attended to the incorporation.

PG: Can I ask you then following the last thing that we did to setting up the incorporation, which appears from the file to be the letter arguing that it ought to be not construed as a trade union, did you have anything personally to do with that incorporated association afterwards?

JG: No I did not.

PG: Right, to the best of your knowledge did anyone at Slater & Gordon?

JG: To my knowledge no one at Slater & Gordon had anything to do with it post that time.

http://www.michaelsmithnews.com/2012/11 ... bruce.html

[mantra]

Thanks Neferti. This must be it. Didn't think it had been made public. I see she's admitted to the letter - but it's nowhere to be found.

PETER GORDON: All right, well, let's talk about the AWU Workplace Reform Association Account. That account, as you've said, is an account which was the account belonging to an incorporated association by the same name which was incorporated by Slater & Gordon at (Bruce) Wilson's, on Wilson's instructions following your advice to him which you described earlier.

JULIA GILLARD: That's right.

PG: And that happened in or about mid-1992.

JG: That's right.

PG: And last Monday I think you gave to Paul Mulvaney a follow-up which demonstrates that Slater & Gordon had drafted model rules for, for that, had submitted those rules to the relevant Western Australian government authority, that there'd been a letter from the authority suggesting that it might be a trade union and therefore ineligible for incorporation under that legislation, and that we had prepared a response submitted on Wilson's instructions to that authority suggesting that in fact it wasn't a trade union and arguing the case for its incorporation. My recollection is that all of that happened in or about mid-1992. Is that right?
JG: I wouldn't want to be held to the dates without looking at the file, but whatever the dates the file shows are the right dates, so . . .

PG: Yes. And to the extent that work was done on that file in relation to that it was done by you?

JG: That's right.

PG: And did you get advice from anyone else in the firm in relation to any of those matters?

JG: No I didn't.

PG: Did Tony Lang have anything to do with the model rules or the drafting of them?

JG: No, I obtained, I had just in my own personal precedent file a set of rules for Socialist Forum which is an incorporated association in which I'm personally involved. Tony Lang and I drew those rules some years ago. Tony more than me. And I've just kept them hanging around as something I cut and paste from for drafting purposes, and I obtained, I don't quite recall how now but I obtained the model rules under the WA act and I must have done the drafting just relying on those two sources. I don't have any recollection of sitting down with Tony or any other practitioner and talking through the draft of the rules.

PG: Do you recall whether when it was necessary to argue the case with the, with the relevant Western Australian authority, whether you consulted anyone else in the firm as to what would or would not get, become acceptable or appropriate?

JG: I once again don't recall talking to anybody else in the firm about it.

PG: Beyond that, and it seems from the file that after that letter it was successfully accepted as an incorporated association and duly was created and presumably accounts were set up. I should ask did we have anything to do with the setting up of the accounts or was that done by the officers of the incorporated association?

JG: Slater & Gordon didn't have anything, did not have anything to do with setting up bank accounts for that association. We attended to the incorporation.

PG: Can I ask you then following the last thing that we did to setting up the incorporation, which appears from the file to be the letter arguing that it ought to be not construed as a trade union, did you have anything personally to do with that incorporated association afterwards?

JG: No I did not.

PG: Right, to the best of your knowledge did anyone at Slater & Gordon?

JG: To my knowledge no one at Slater & Gordon had anything to do with it post that time.

[Neferti]

Apparently, the file on this matter with the Western Australia Government Authority has mysteriously gone. "missing". Three other files have gone missing as well (although I think one has turned up). Files from WA, Qld and Victoria! The Victorian Fraud Squad have it "in hand". . Michael Smith has copies of lots of the original stuff, including letters, etc. with Gillard's signature. She may be considered innocent until proved guilty, but she sure is acting guilty. It will all come out in the wash, as they say.