Slush fund story now 'over' says Burke

[Neferti]

Here is the rest of the Interview with Gillard (the above is the bits depicted in this one as "redacted") and other stuff.

Monday, 26 November 2012
A life of privilege,high flying, do what you want and the little people can fend for themselves

News Limited's reports on Bruce Wilson also include one paragraph about Ralph Blewitt's ex-wife.

This sentence in that report really made me think about heartless behaviour by a lawyer and the way that normal people feel when they see high fliers, and people who have great advantages in life rip people off.

Mr Blewitt's Australian ex-wife, who asked not to be named, also confirmed that she had no idea Mr Blewitt had bought a house in Melbourne in the 1990s with union cash despite the fact they were married at the time.

Julia Gillard was lousy to Ralph and his wife. Very uncaring. Bruce and Julia loaded up Ralph and
his wife with all the downside on the purchase of the Kerr Street townhouse - even though Gillard was supposedly acting for Ralph Blewitt and not Wilson.

This wasn't just another purchase, this would be Bruce's home - Gillard's lover. I'm sure it was an emotion-laden purchase for Julia Gillard, who'd personally dot every i and cross every t to make sure it all went to plan. Julia and Bruce found their pad and successfully bid to buy the place. But even though Bruce did the bidding, it was all care and no responsibility, because on the fall of the hammer, Ralph Blewitt was the person who was bound to come up with $207,000 to satisfy the contract of sale ($23,000 was paid as deposit, full price $230,000).

Ralph had more chance of knocking off Bill Ludwig as AWU President than coming up with $203,000.

He had no loan, no money, no means to pay anything. He was on a union organiser's pay of $45,000 PA and he already had a mortgage on his home in Perth.

The Power of Attorney document said nothing about lumbering Ralph (and his wife) with marital debt of $150,000. But that's exactly what "The Phantom Partner" at Slater and Gordon used the Julia Gillard-witnessed Power of Attorney to do. I say "The Phantom Partner" because Julia Gillard tells us she didn't know about the mortgage, The Phantom did it.

So Ralph Blewitt, owner of a $77,000 matrimonial home in Perth with a $74,000 mortgage, signs
this "piece of paper" to put Bruce's house in Melbourne into his (Ralph's) name. That was the deal.

Here's the Power of Attorney. Let me know if you can see how a reasonable person would think that POA provided authority to load Ralph up with debt.

The Power of Attorney file is too large to add here. If you want to read it click here, it will immediately pop up.

http://michaelsmithnews.typepad.com/.a/ ... 11a970d-pi

So now to the current issue, the proposition put forward by Julia Gillard that she did not know that Slater and Gordon had funded the purchase of 1/85 Kerr Street Fitzroy with a mortgage loan.

What did she think was going to happen after Bruce paid the deposit? Bones-of-his-bum-Blewitt would magically conjure the $203,000? A bank would hand him the money after his application by
ESP? Wouldn't you reckon the love birds would be making definite enquiries of Ralph, particularly with Julia acting directly for him and protecting his legal interests in the matter. But no one rang him up, not even Phantom Partner. That’s because Julia and Bruce were already sweet with Slater and Gordon for the money.

Jonathan Rothfield was a mentor to Julia and he would have explained that a loan from the Slater and Gordon mortgage register could not exceed 66% of valuation - about $150,000.

Bruce knew that there were sufficient funds in the AWU-WRA account to cover the purchase and costs. Julia Gillard too was numerate. Put yourself in her shoes for a moment. Bones of his bum Blewitt. Wilson with wife and two kids in Perth but a loaves and fishes wallet replenished regularly through his $50,000 union organiser's pay. But there's no drama coming up with the money for this purchase.

Just to refresh your memory, here’s what Julia Gillard said about the Blewitt purchase on 11 September, 1995.

But be warned, this is so cavalier and uncaring towards real people, particularly the last line about Mrs Blewitt, that it might make you feel a bit cross.

PG: When did you first
hear of an interest in acquiring a property for Wilson to live in?

JG: I think (was) either
very late 1992 or early 1993 Bruce talked to me about it. The flat he had in
Carlton he let go over the Christmas period between 92 and 93 when he returned
to Western Australia. I can't remember if before letting the flat go he said
something to me about it or whether it wasn't until he returned the following
year that he said something about it. But my understanding was what was said to
me at that stage was that Ralph had an interest in investing in a property,
that he had some excess money and that was what he was going to do, make a
property investment, and that Bruce had talked to him about making that
investment in Victoria rather than Western Australia because it would suit
everybody's purposes -- Ralph would have the investment that he wanted, and the
negative gearing consequent upon that that he wanted, and Bruce would have
somewhere to live that he wanted to live rather than in the ordinary
landlord/tenant situation. Ralph would have the benefit of knowing that he had
a tenant that, you know, wasn't going to do anything disastrous to the
property, so it suited everybody's purpose.

PG: That all made
sense to you?

JG: It, it made sense.
I didn't have any particular reason to question it in great detail, or at all.
It made, it made sense to me in the sense that Ralph, I'd heard Ralph talk in
the past about owning a flat or some flats. I, he's a, Ralph's a boastful
person if you had to think of an adjective to describe him; he was very full of
stories about what he's done and how good he is, and in the course of these
stories about how good he is and what he's done, he had sort of held forth
about what he had and how he had such a nice house, how his wife was involved
in a hairdressing business or owned a hairdressing business, how he'd owned
these flats, etcetera. He moved from Victoria to Western Australia. He's a
Victorian person originally. So, it all made, you know, relatively sort of
sensible sense that there was this man who had some money, it's not like
Victoria's the never-never to him, he used to live here.

(One page redacted)

PG: And so on the day
of the auction (a line redacted) and I think you attended too?

JG: Yes, I did.

PG: Who did the
bidding?

JG: Oh, Bruce did the
bidding.

PG: And that was
successful?

JG: That's right.

(Half page redacted)

PG: In your
discussions with Blewitt and Wilson, when you were going around the traps
looking at properties, do you recall whether there was a particular range,
price range that they were interested in, that Blewitt was interested in?

JG: My recollection is
he was looking around the $200,000 mark, a bit above in that range.

PG: Mmm Hmm. Did you
ever make enquiries as to the source of those funds from his point of view?

JG: No, I just, from
the discussions I had an understanding that he was going to put a deposit on
and that he was interested in then having a negative-gearing arrangement for
the rest so that he would get a tax break, so he was, I mean like one
ordinarily does, he was going to have a deposit and a mortgage.

PG: You assumed he had
the money.

JG: Oh, I assumed he
had the money for the deposit, and

PG: and

JG: and to meet the
mortgage repayments when they fell due.

PG: and, um

JG: I didn't have any
specific knowledge of how much deposit he was intending to put on but just that
he had the money to complete the transaction

PG: Or how much funds
he had?

JG: Or how much funds
he had but just that he had the money to complete the transaction.

PG: It's fair to say
that your view was that if anything like all this fellow said is to be believed
he's got a hairdressing business, he's got flats and he's a man of means who
can fund a $200,000 purchase if he wants to

JG: Yes.

PG: Is that?

JG: Yeah, I hadn't . .
.

PG: If you thought
about it . . .

JG: To the extent that
I thought about it, I hadn't made careful enquiry about his financial
circumstances, he's a middle-aged man, he's on his second marriage. From what
he says it's apparent his first marriage ended in circumstances where he didn't
have much by way of ongoing relationship with the children and I understood
that to be in the maintenance sense as well as the access sense.

He had worked here for
the Timber Workers Union. He'd sort of chugged that in, cashed that up and
usually union officials are worth a fair bit when they leave one union and go
to another. He'd gone to Western Australia. His wife worked. So, you know, they
weren't Mr and Mrs Onassis but they were relatively well positioned.

I love her "chugged that in" ... thought the term was "chucked".

[Aussie]

This pair are usually very astute.......great stuff!

Mantra, nowhere in that Record of Interview did Gillard acknowledge a recollection of this letter sent to the WA Registrar/Commissioner. She was asked if anyone else assisted her, is all. What is very noticeable (from a lawyers's perspective) is that nowhere in the Interview is it put to Gillard that there was anything untoward, inappropriate, dishonest, illegal or unethical about this letter. It is generally regarded as required in such a situation that if there is to be any suggestion of wrongdoing on the part of the interviewee, that suggestion must be clearly put to them, and the evidence in support shown to them.

I am very good at this stuff.

[mantra]

This pair are usually very astute.......great stuff!

Mantra, nowhere in that Record of Interview did Gillard acknowledge a recollection of this letter sent to the WA Registrar/Commissioner. She was asked if anyone else assisted her, is all. What is very noticeable (from a lawyers's perspective) is that nowhere in the Interview is it put to Gillard that there was anything untoward, inappropriate, dishonest, illegal or unethical about this letter. It is generally regarded as required in such a situation that if there is to be any suggestion of wrongdoing on the part of the interviewee, that suggestion must be clearly put to them, and the evidence in support shown to them.

I am very good at this stuff.

I know you are good at this stuff Aussie, but although there is no proof that there was anything untoward, inappropriate, dishonest etc. how does this extract from the transcript read to you considering there is no file remaining?

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.

Of course this is ambiguous lawyer speak, but the "response" - possibly prepared by both Gordon and Gillard, would have to have convinced the Commissioner that the AWU wasn't being misrepresented, or associated with this new company fraudulently.

The Commissioner might very well have been paid off. A lot of that sort of stuff went on in the 80's - paying off clerks of the Court, registrars, detectives, solicitors etc. No doubt it continued into the 90's and so on. It would still go on today, but to those involved it is not a big deal unless you're a primeminister.

Nothing can be proved, but it would be good to believe that our politicians are honest. I doubt any of them are.

[Aussie]

Mantra, the incorporation work was done in 1992, and this Exit Interview occurred in late 1995. Hardly surprising that she could not specifically recall the correspondence, and it is of interest that she was not shown the correspondence during this Exit Interview.

My guess is that the WA Commissioner, after receiving the application for incorporation, wanted to be assured that the thing to be incorporated was not a Union. As it was not a Union, it would be a trite and totally uncontroversial letter back from Gillard to the Commissioner saying exactly that. It was not a Union.

Much ado about bugger all.

To respond to some of your other general comments.....I was at the height of my litigious career in the 1980's and then moved on to commercial/corporate law after that. I know of not one instance where any corrupt payment was made as you have described. The process of Law generally runs very cleanly, but....all the Law can do is....say, assist a client, ABC with the paper work obtain a licence to possess a handgun. If, at some later time, ABC uses it to commit a crime, that has nil to do with the Law/Lawyer which facilitated the obtaining of the licence.

[IQS.RLOW]

assist a client, ABC with the paper work obtain a licence to possess a handgun. If, at some later time, ABC uses it to commit a crime, that has nil to do with the Law/Lawyer which facilitated the obtaining of the licence.

It does if said lawyer was told the licence was required for committing a crime

[Rorschach]

I am very good at this stuff.

Self praise is no recommendation Arsie.

[Aussie]

assist a client, ABC with the paper work obtain a licence to possess a handgun. If, at some later time, ABC uses it to commit a crime, that has nil to do with the Law/Lawyer which facilitated the obtaining of the licence.

It does if said lawyer was told the licence was required for committing a crime

Indeed it would. Produce your evidence that Gillard knew, at the time the Association was incorporated, it would be used for fraudulent purposes.

I'll give you fifteen minutes.

[Aussie]

Blewitt is not looking too good at all. His sister seems to know. I've read with mirth that Bishop can be excused for meeting with this filth because Gillard had a loose association with him in the 1990s. Surely, it needs not be pointed out that when Gillard's loose association was current, there is no evidence she knew he was anything other than above board.

But, when Bishop associated closely with him, she knew for sure, shit and certain that he is a lowlife scumbag.

[Rorschach]

That's a fine bit of pot kettle black re your speculation there, isn't it Arsie.

[Aussie]

That's a fine bit of pot kettle black re your speculation there, isn't it Arsie.

Really. Please explain?

You really are lousy at this.