Gillard should face jury: Top criminal lawyer

[IQS.RLOW]

Yes...Yes it is. You sound surprised?

It is a law of nature.
Now fuck off until you get it through your thick fucking head.

Good to see the standard of your political posts has stayed the same since 2007.

[Neferti]

gillard.jpg

[Neferti]

gizzard is on today!

LIVE steaming on here:

http://www.tradeunionroyalcommission.go ... fault.aspx

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-09-10/g ... on/5732268

http://www.skynews.com.au/news/top-stor ... ssion.html

[Rorschach]

I wonder how many I don't recalls or I can't remembers come up today?

Five questions Julia Gillard should answer
Date September 10, 2014 - 9:04AM
Aaron Patrick

One of the most uncomfortable questions in Australian politics is about to be aired: could Julia Gillard, whose career epitomised the best and worst of public life, have benefited from union corruption?

On Wednesday, the former prime minister will step into the witness box at the Royal Commission into Trade Union Governance and Corruption to answer questions referring to the early 1990s, when she dated the allegedly corrupt head of the Australian Workers Union's West Australian and Victorian divisions, Bruce Wilson.

A $400,000-plus slush fund run by Mr Wilson is one of the commission's top targets. Its existence is one of the reasons the inquiry was set up by the Coalition government. I don't have a preconceived view of what Ms Gillard did or didn't do. She is entitled to the presumption of innocence. Here are five questions that will help clarify what really happened.

To some extent, Ms Gillard is a victim of guilt by association. Her enemies have used her relationship with Mr Wilson to assault her reputation. Perhaps because she is a woman, Ms Gillard has been subjected to more political abuse than many male politicians, including Labor leader Bill Shorten, who wasn't pursued by the media when the police investigated him over allegations of rape.

But Ms Gillard and Mr Wilson were more than romantically involved. She was his lawyer. She helped him, perhaps unwittingly, set up a non-profit association that housed the slush fund.

You're intelligent, politically savvy and a successful lawyer. You knew Wilson personally and professionally. Why did it take you so long to decide he couldn't be trusted?

This is probably the question asked most frequently and the hardest for Ms Gillard to answer. In hindsight, the evidence appears compelling that Mr Wilson abused his position as a union leader in the early 1990s (he denies breaking the law). He bought a house in inner-city Melbourne with the proceeds of money extorted from companies, an ex-friend alleges. Ms Gillard was present at the auction and helped with the paperwork. How could she not see what was going on in front of her?

On the other hand, Ms Gillard was in the subordinate professional relationship. It was her job as Mr Wilson's lawyer to do what he wanted. She was a junior law partner. She had political ambitions. He was running a whole union, which made him a player in the Labor Party. Who hasn't misjudged someone they trusted in their 20s or 30s?

In your exit interview with Melbourne law firm Slater & Gordon in 1995, you said: "I can't categorically rule out that something at my house didn't get paid for by the association or something at my house didn't get paid for by the union or whatever." Why not?

This quote may be the most damming made by Ms Gillard. She told her bosses she had checked her receipts and couldn't see that anyone else helped pay for a renovation at a Melbourne house she bought in 1991. But the quote suggests her uncertainty that she didn't benefit personally from Mr Wilson's slush fund.

Supporters might argue that even if Ms Gillard did receive a few thousand dollars in free labour or materials from her client, 30 years ago, that is nothing compared with a career of high achievement or the benefits traded in business every day.

Why did you never open an office file for your work related to the AWU slush fund?

Ms Gillard has presented this decision as a minor matter during a busy time. It may have been. But it had big consequences. By not opening a file for the AWU work, no one else at Slater & Gordon was aware she was helping Mr Wilson set up a non-profit association that would be used to house a slush fund. If they had, someone more senior could have stepped in and saved her from herself. Lawyer to lawyer, an explanation for this oversight would be fascinating.

Were you forced to leave Slater & Gordon?

Ms Gillard has acknowledged that she left the Melbourne law firm in 1995 under strained circumstances but denied she was fired. She never went back to the law.

Her critics say she was forced to resign because her bosses were angry about her connection to the AWU slush fund. Nick Styant-Browne, who was the head of Slater & Gordon's commercial department, has said he doubted her explanation about the slush fund and thought there was a case for her dismissal. Foreign Minister Julie Bishop, the former head of a Perth law firm, said she would have fired her on the spot.

Slater & Gordon has now closed ranks behind Ms Gillard. But if her own colleagues at the time – without knowing she was a future prime minister – thought Ms Gillard's transgression serious enough to have her leave, that's pretty damming.

Do you believe union corruption is a problem in Australia?

Ms Gillard was a pro-union leader. She introduced the Fair Work Act, which many employers dislike. Given she came from the left of the Labor Party, that's hardly surprising. What many people following the royal commission would like to know is whether Ms Gillard thinks union corruption is a significant problem.

Slush funds, which preserve entrenched power and make it harder to remove corrupt union leaders, are clearly endemic in the labour movement. Officials in some unions, including the Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union, may have taken bribes from criminals.

Some of the lowest-paid members of our society, including thousands of members of the Health Services Union, have been preyed upon by rapacious union leaders.

The union movement is unlikely to be cleaned up unless its political leaders, which included Ms Gillard, acknowledge there is a problem.

Aaron Patrick is deputy editor (news) and author of Downfall, How the Labor Party Ripped Itself Apart.
The Australian Financial Review

Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/ ... z3CrYCklOs" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[GeorgeH]

I love the impotent fury of right wing nut jobs after Julia’s four hours in front of TURC. I admired her poise, her grace under questioning and even her natural humor that shone through at times.

[IQS.RLOW]

Everyone else hates the ranga fluffy bunnies fucking guts.

[GeorgeH]

Oh, diddums sounds a mite displeased. Did diddums really think Gillard would be shown to be guilty of wrong doing?

Gillard was one of the great PMs, up there with Curtin.

[IQS.RLOW]

Bwhahahahahaha

Even Richo reckons "history won't be kind to her"

You can't re-write the history on the ranga fluffy bunny. She is hated by everyone.

[IQS.RLOW]

This was a royal commission set up to get someone who was already got.

As prime minister, Gillard was hopeless. No one was more critical of her than I in the last few years of her prime ministership.

True the odds were stacked against her from the start. The electorate never forgave her for the method by which she came to power. The coup that unseated Kevin Rudd was as quick as it was brutal. Too many Australians were denied the chance to vote Rudd out and they resented that right being taken away from them. There was no legitimacy in her ascension to the throne and people never forgot it. She went through the most disastrous election campaign I have seen.

She made errors such as the citizens assembly, a body consisting of one person from each electorate in Australia, and they would decide what policy Australia would have on a carbon tax. Most of us thought that decision would be made by parliament, which was elected for precisely that purpose.

And the “real Julia” comment sprung to mind. Then there were the Rudd-inspired leaks that made campaigning on the issues of her choice truly difficult, if not impossible. After limping through an election that delivered a hung parliament, Gillard then faced another 12 months of hell from Rudd.

After fending off a Rudd challenge, she then had a long period where she could have demon­strated how good she was. Unfortunately, she proved conclusively to Australians that she was a political incompetent who had no idea what was being discussed around the dinner tables in suburban, regional and rural homes.

The penalty she paid for this incompetence was being thrown out a couple of months before the election last year by a desperate caucus who detested Rudd but believed he could save some of the furniture. Gillard then disappeared from view with an awful reputation and virtually no legacy.

History will not be kind to her and it is doubtful she has the pan­ache and overpowering intellect of a Gough Whitlam or a Paul Keating, who would rebuild themselves after humiliating election defeats.

[GeorgeH]

Whistling in the dark there, Codeine Boy.

Gillard is one of the greats, up there with John Curtin. Got through a huge raft of reforms and did that from minority govt with people whiteanting her within the party.

Howard is already forgotten, Gillard will never be forgotten.

In 2016 responsible govt will take over from the tribe of baboons currently pretending to be a govt.

When will all the 2014 Budget finally be presented? 2016 by the looks of it!