The AWU scandal won't go away until there's a Royal Commission - if only the ALP hadn't abolished grand juries

Aug 13, 2012, 02:44 AM

There are still hard questions to be answered to put the AWU scandal to rest.
As Michael Smith has explained on a series of videos on www.cando.org.au , a sham AWU non-profit entity was set up in the nineties.
Its purpose was to siphon funds to two AWU organisers, Bruce Wilson and Ralph Blewitt.
Bruce Wilson was romantically involved with Julia Gillard, then a partner in a Melbourne law firm. Vast sums were withdrawn in cash. The sham entity was even used buy a house. Ms. Gillard’s firm acted without charge.

They even arranged a first mortgage.
And when the solicitors asked for a bank cheque to pay for the balance, this was actually paid by a cheque on the sham entity.
But when the fraud was exposed, Ms Gillard denied knowing anything about Wilson and Blewitt’s illegal activities.
She said that she was young and naive.

Although she had said that she was not going anywhere, she soon left the law firm.

When she is asked about this, she says her answers are on the public record.

They aren’t. Robert McClelland, who subsequently became Kevin Rudd's Attorney General, called for a Royal Commission but there was no enquiry into the fraud. When she became PM he was replaced as Attorney General.. The affair has resulted in some significant collateral damage, as the Americans say. This is the law firm Slater and Gordon. They have one of the largest and widest networks of law offices in the country specialising in insurance claims, commercial, family and asbestos-related law. Slater and Gordon's managing director, Andrew Grech, put out a press release last Friday. They are asking their former clients permission to reveal details of the transactions.

You see communications between lawyers and their clients are privileged. Only the client can waive this
Understandably, the present partners of Slater and Gordon are tired of being dragged into the mud by this scandal in which they are no way personally involved . And isn’t it time there was a Royal Commission into the financial affairs of the AWU, the HSU and other unions?

The public is sick and tired of these powerless enquiries that cannot compel the production of documents or the sworn testimony of witnesses.

Only a Royal Commission can get the answers to the “hard questions” which Australians are demanding be answered.

CANdo, on a tiny budget and using volunteers has done what the mainstream media cannot or will not do. Once Julia Gillard huffed and puffed, they all went to water.