Socialist Australia : PM Madame Gillard refuses to answers questions about past Lovers Union Scam / Slush Fund

The $5000 question - claims Julia Gillard's ex-boyfriend Bruce Wilson put cash into her account

The Daily Telegraph
November 14, 2012 12:00AM

JULIA Gillard's past continued to haunt her last night, with allegations emerging that in June 1996 a union employee told the national head of the Australian Workers Union that he deposited $5000 cash into her account.

The allegation, outlined exclusively in The Australian today, is that the cash had come from the Prime Minister's then boyfriend, AWU official Bruce Wilson.

Ms Gillard has always denied any wrongdoing over the creation of a union slush fund on behalf of Mr Wilson and union official Ralph Blewitt during her time as a lawyer for Slater and Gordon.

The allegation comes as Mr Blewitt indicated he is willing to speak openly about his role in the union scandal but wants the police to guarantee him immunity from prosecution.

The Australian reports that then national AWU head Ian Cambridge, now a Fair Work Australia Commissioner, recorded in his 1994-1996 diary allegations by union employee Wayne Hem that Mr Wilson, after a night at a casino, had given him a wad of cash totalling $5000 along with Ms Gillard's bank account details and told him to deposit it.

The report also states that Mr Hem's allegations formed part of a statutory declaration sworn to the newspaper in Melbourne three days ago during a lengthy interview.

The report stressed it was not known from where Mr Wilson got the funds and there was no evidence, nor was it suggested, Ms Gillard asked for the payment or knew of its origins. Ms Gillard yesterday repeated her denial of any wrongdoing.

Her spokesman issued a statement to The Australian saying: "The Prime Minister has made clear on numerous occasions that she was not involved in any wrongdoing.

"I also note that despite repeatedly being asked to do so, The Australian has been unable to substantiate any allegations of wrongdoing."

Mr Hem told The Australian that he told Mr Cambridge about the bank deposit on June 7, 1996, during a drive to Melbourne. During this time Mr Cambridge was investigating AWU fraud.

Mr Cambridge's June 7, 1996 diary entry notes Mr Hem telling him "about an event that took place in about July last year (1995)", The Australian reports.

"This event involved Bruce Wilson handing Wayne an envelope which contained approximately $5000 in $100 and $50 notes and Wilson instructed Hem to deposit this $5000 into a personal account of Julia Gillard."

Mr Hem provided further detail on the allegation in his statutory declaration to The Australian, saying he had been asked to attend Mr Wilson's office. "I went down and he handed me about five grand," Mr Hem said in the report.

"Then Bruce handed me a piece of paper with the account number and a name on it, and it was Julia's name.

"He said 'Go put this in Julia's account'. I said 'OK'.

"He (Wilson) made a comment about not saying anything. I just went down to the bank, put it in, came back, gave him the receipt.

"I didn't know if it was for Julia or if the account was a private account or a Slater and Gordon account. It just had Julia Gillard's name on it and I put it in the bank account."

 Read more on this story at The Australian.
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/investigations/whistleblower-wayne-hem-alerted-awus-national-secretary-to-5000-payment-to-julia-gillard/story-fng5kxvh-1226516225346

AWU man ready to open up on fraud

Steve Lewis 
The Daily Telegraph 
November 14, 2012 12:00AM

POLICE have asked the lawyer for a key player in the Australian Workers Union scandal whether his client would provide details about an alleged "slush" fund used by Julia Gillard's former boyfriend Bruce Wilson.

In a move that could shed fresh evidence on the 15-year-old union fraud, Victorian detectives have confirmed they are willing to speak with former AWU official Ralph Blewitt.

Now living in Malaysia, Mr Blewitt's testimony could be explosive and include details of an alleged "slush" fund that was used to help purchase a Melbourne property.

Prime Minister Gillard, whose former boyfriend Mr Wilson was the mastermind behind the union fraud, provided advice on a number of matters while a lawyer at Slater & Gordon, including helping to register the AWU Workplace Reform Association which Ms Gillard admitted was used as a "slush" fund by Mr Wilson and Mr Blewitt over a three-year period.

Mr Blewitt has indicated he is willing to speak openly about his role in the union scandal but wants police to guarantee him immunity from prosecution.

Last night, Mr Blewitt's Melbourne lawyer Bob Galbally said his client was happy to co-operate with Victorian fraud squad officers. He expected the police would seek to investigate the scandal "on a wide basis" including details of a "slush" fund used by the two former AWU officials.

"My client is happy to make a statement to the police about the purchase of the Kerr St property. The purchase was with stolen funds," Mr Galbally said.

He said Victoria Police had said they "are prepared to investigate the matter".

"Before I take (Mr Blewitt) in for a statement, I am seeking approval from the police to him making a statement with a proviso that it should not be used in evidence against himself," Mr Galbally said. He said he expected police would "investigate on a wide basis".

Known as the AWU Workplace Reform Association, the fund was used to misappropriate $400,000, according to an investigation carried out by the union management.

Eclipse Down Under

Australia: Royal Commission into Paedophilia announced

Today's abuse victims must be kept in focus

Miranda Devine 
The Daily Telegraph
November 14, 2012 12:00AM

IT'S hard to separate the royal commission into child sexual abuse from politics and anti-Catholic agendas, in the fetid atmosphere that currently exists in Canberra.

The prime minister at least appears genuine in her decision to set up the inquiry, after serious allegations of paedophilia and cover-ups in the Catholic Church in NSW and Victoria.

She has broadened the inquiry, as she should, to include other institutions where children may have been abused, both religious and state-run, as well as the police, giving it much the same remit as the 1995 Wood Royal Commission into the NSW police service.

The Wood inquiry was a horrendous eye-opener.

In the associated successful trials of predatory paedophiles Dolly Dunn, a teacher at a Catholic school, and businessman Phillip Bell, prosecutor Margaret Cunneen insisted the worst details be made public. A video of Dunn sitting on the edge of a bed, undressing a little boy of about eight, is seared into my memory.

Cunneen wanted people to know what paedophiles are capable of, because in the past they have been protected by our refusal to believe anyone is capable of such depravity, especially men who seem on the surface so normal.

But paedophiles like Dunn and Bell inveigle their way into institutions and families with charm and trickery. Their aim in life is to have sex with children and fool everyone.

That is why institutions like the church were perfect covers, and it is to those institutions' eternal shame they didn't realise they were being used.

But since the Wood Royal Commission, and the Catholic Church's Towards Healing program, there has been significant reform, which led to a flood of historic cases coming before the courts in recent years.

In his report, Justice Wood praised the response of the Catholic Church, describing its response as a "model" for others. "While a good deal of evidence and assistance was provided by the Catholic Church, it 

is not the case that the Commission finds particular fault with that church or its constituent bodies. Indeed, the response to the matters disclosed to the Commission is held up as a model for other churches and religious organisations to follow."

Cardinal George Pell set up the process which has been so lauded in 1996, in which complainants are told to go to the police to report any criminal abuse and which uses independent experts to investigate complaints.

He can defend himself, but I will point out that the attempts to hound him to resign resemble a witch hunt.

For instance, last month he was smeared at the Victorian Parliamentary Inquiry into the Handling of Alleged Criminal Abuse of Children by Religious and Other Organisations.

It was claimed to the inquiry that in 1969 in Ballarat, a boy complained of being raped by a brother and Pell refused to see him. Pell rejected the allegations as false.

He was lucky he had records and could prove he was out of the country, studying in Rome and Oxford from 1966 to 1971.

But the defamation remains. Those accusations remained yesterday on the ABC website, and elsewhere, almost four weeks after they were made, with no correction.

In such an atmosphere, a royal commission may be the best way of clearing the air and discovering if there still is abuse and institutional cover-up of abuse, and to ensure victims are helped, the vulnerable 

protected and the guilty punished.

But some police officers working in child protection are concerned that focusing on historical abuse will divert resources away from children in need today.

"We can't investigate kids being raped two weeks ago properly," said one officer.

NSW Police should be commended for the effort it is putting into investigating historical cases of child abuse, but there are questions over whether enough is being done for crimes that are occurring today.

For instance, the NSW Bureau of Crime Statistics found in 2010 there were 4886 sexual offence incidents involving children that were reported to police. Criminal proceedings were commenced in 590 cases.

In other words, just 12 per cent of reported cases of child sexual abuse end up with an offender being charged.

The NSW Ombudsman is understood to be working on a report on the NSW police handling of child sex cases.

There are understood to be thousands of cases when police have not charged a perpetrator because the child victim did not want to commence proceedings.

Unlike in domestic violence cases, where police are compelled to press charges even if the victim is unwilling, in child sex abuse allegations the child must agree.

"Parents want to protect their child from going through court proceedings," said the officer.

Historical cases are easier for police to take to court because the victim is an adult who has built up the courage to come forward.

This police officer is worried that another inquiry into abuse that occurred decades ago will give a cover to paedophiles operating today because it "will distract the authorities, create hysteria, and nobble juries' objectivity".

Let us hope that's wrong.

Australia's Finest Sapper Curtis McGrath