The hive-mind that is the Canberra Press Gallery has apparently decided that PM Julia Gillard’s activities at Slater & Gordon in the 1990s are to be deemed a non-story. Presumably they think the fact that she survived journalists’ probing for over an hour only a few weeks ago proves that there’s nothing in it, at least in the absence of evidence that she knew the money her ex-boyfriend union secretary Bruce Wilson used to buy a house in the name of his crony Ralph Blewitt was actually stolen from the AWU.
However, on a dispassionate analysis three stories published in the Fairfax media in the last few days raise new and very real and serious questions about Gillard’s behaviour at that time. See Property Links PM to Stolen Funds, The Man Who Knew Too Much and PM vouched for union body caught in corruption scandal.
Giving false information to officials?
In the last of these three stories it is reported that:
A TRADE union association from which hundreds of thousands of dollars were stolen by a former boyfriend of the Prime Minister, Julia Gillard, was only registered after Ms Gillard vouched for its legitimacy to authorities in Western Australia.
Ms Gillard – then a salaried partner with the law firm Slater & Gordon – wrote to the WA Corporate Affairs Commission in mid-1992 confirming that the Australian Workers Union Workplace Reform Association was a legitimate organisation under WA law.
In August the Herald reported that Ms Gillard may have breached West Australian corporations law by her involvement in setting up an association for her then-boyfriend Bruce Wilson, a senior AWU official, because the application documents, lodged by then state secretary, Ralph Blewitt, for the association stated its purpose was the ”development of changes to work to achieve safe workplaces”.
However, on Gillard’s own admission she actually knew that the real purpose of the Association was to serve as a “slush fund” to gather “donations” from AWU members to fund the re-election campaigns of Wilson and his cronies.((In fact it seems many of the “donations” were actually extorted from the WA corporate sector by union officials, but there is currently no evidence that Gillard was aware of this. ~ KP ))
As the Fairfax story explains:
The West Australian Associations Incorporation Act in force in 1992 prohibited associations designed to secure a pecuniary profit for members and broadly restricted their activity to benevolent, charitable or cultural purposes. Melbourne lawyers Galbally Rolfe – representing Mr Blewitt – have been pressing Slater & Gordon for more than a month to enable him to gain access to the association incorporation file.
Not only does this new information indicate that Gillard’s involvement in the affair was more extensive than to “provide limited professional advice about establishing the association”, as she asserted to journalists when being questioned a few weeks ago, but it also suggests the strong possibility that the PM may have committed a criminal offence, not only against corporations law but probably at general law. Section 170(1) of the WA Criminal Code reads:
(1) Any person who, being required under a written law to give information, whether orally or in writing, to another person, knowingly gives information to the other person that is false in a material particular is guilty of a crime and is liable to imprisonment for 3 years.
Of course it is possible that Gillard first learned about the true “slush fund” purpose of the Association at some time between 1992 when she misinformed WA corporate affairs authorities and 1995 when she was questioned about it by Slater & Gordon partners. However at the very least this information raises new questions about the Prime Minister’s integrity in the context of possible criminal breaches of the law.
Falsely witnessing a signature?
The same Fairfax story reports new allegations by Wilson crony Ralph Blewitt about the witnessing of a power of attorney signed by Blewitt and which was later used by Wilson to sign the contract and transfer for purchase of a Fitzroy unit in Blewitt’s name (Gillard accompanied her boyfriend to the auction):
WA police later confirmed that more than $400,000 had been stolen from the association by Mr Wilson, including about $100,000 used to buy a Fitzroy unit in the name of the AWU state secretary, Ralph Blewitt.
Mr Blewitt had not seen the property before it was bought at auction by Mr Wilson, in the company of Ms Gillard, using a power of attorney for Mr Blewitt that she prepared.
Mr Blewitt claimed this week he signed the power of attorney in Perth some time in the week of February 13, 1993 in the presence of Mr Wilson. He said Ms Gillard – whom the document shows as witnessing it on February 4, 1993 – was not present.
No doubt Blewitt is far from the world’s most credible witness, but If true this is an extraordinary allegation evidencing professional misconduct by a lawyer in falsely witnessing an important legal document. Even now it should not be difficult to establish by independent evidence whether Gillard went to Perth or Blewitt came to Melbourne at the material time.
Conduct of this sort has always been regarded as professional misconduct, as a recent VCAT decision involving solicitor Rodney Lamplugh illustrates:
Clearly, the courts and the community generally place great reliance on statements by solicitors that they have witnessed parties’ signatures to important documents such as mortgages and associated declarations. The same applies to statements by solicitors that they have explained the effect of executing such documents to the parties involved. The making of false declarations by solicitors undermines the trust which is placed in them, and for this reason constitutes professional misconduct.
Conflict of interest?
It also appears that Ms Gillard may have acted for the purchaser Blewitt, the proposed “tenant” Wilson and the mortgagee Slater & Gordon in the one transaction in relation to the Fitzroy unit:
Conveyancing files prepared in Ms Gillard’s office in early 1993 show Mr Wilson handled almost all of the matters associated with the purchase and that she waived professional fees totalling more than $1600.
The files show that $67,722.20 towards the purchase was transferred to Slater & Gordon’s trust account on February 22, 1993. That money was later revealed to have been taken from the AWU Workplace Reform Association.
The balance of the purchase was funded by a $150,000 mortgage with Slater & Gordon loan funds arranged by Ms Gillard.
Almost all of the correspondence relating to the settlement was addressed to Mr Wilson, who also swore a statutory declaration of behalf of Mr Blewitt to effect the mortgage.
A detailed letter dated March 17, 1993, outlining the conditions of the mortgage – including instructions on how to make the mortgage loan repayments – was sent to Mr Wilson’s then home address in Carlton and not copied to Mr Blewitt.
In another document Ms Gillard requested a memo from Slater & Gordon staff on how penalty interest was to be paid.
In her September 1995 meeting with the firm’s senior partner, Peter Gordon, and general manager Geoff Shaw – details of which were first revealed last month – Ms Gillard said Mr Wilson had persuaded Mr Blewitt to purchase a property where he would become tenant.
Acting for three separate parties in a transaction, each one of whom had clearly divergent interests, has always been a breach of professional ethics for a solicitor. Rule 8.5 of the current Victorian Professional Conduct and Practice Rules 2005 deals with the situation of acting for multiple parties to a transaction:
8.5 A practitioner must not act where the practitioner is acting or intending to act:
8.5.1 for both vendor and purchaser in connection with the contract for the
sale of land or a transfer of land for value at arm’s length
8.5.2 for both vendor and purchaser in connection with the contract for the
sale of a business at arm’s length;
8.5.3 for both lessor and lessee in connection with the lease of land or an
agreement for the lease of land for value at arm’s length;
8.5.4 for both financier and borrower in connection with the loan of money or
provision of finance or an agreement to lend money or provide finance;
or
8.5.5 for both the purchaser of land and the lender of money or provider of
finance intended to be secured by a mortgage of that land,
unless and until the practitioner obtains the written acknowledgment and agreement
of each party in or to the effect of Form 1 in the Schedule to these rules after first
fully informing that party in writing concerning the potential disadvantages to that
party of the practitioner so acting.
Did Ms Gillard explain the issues involved in acting for multiple parties in this transaction and obtain their agreement (formal or informal) to her so acting?
Whose money was it?
Another interesting question not so far made clear is whose money was the $150,000 in mortgage funds loaned to Blewitt/Wilson by Slater & Gordon at Ms Gillard’s instance? And what prudential processes (if any) surrounded the loaning of this money? Was it Slater & Gordon’s own money or client funds entrusted to the firm for investment on mortgage security?
Ms Gillard’s attitude to lending the money to Blewitt could at the very least be described as cavalier:
”What was said to me at that stage was that Ralph had an interest in investing in a property … and that Bruce had talked to him about making an investment in Victoria rather than Western Australia because it would suit everybody’s purposes,” she said, according to a transcript of the meeting.
The plan had ”made sense” to her. ”I didn’t have any particular reason to question it in great detail, or at all,” she said.
Ms Gillard also conceded she ”hadn’t made a careful enquiry” about the financial circumstances of Mr Blewitt – ”a middle-aged man on his second marriage”. ”His wife worked. So, you know, they weren’t Mr and Mrs Onassis but they were relatively well positioned,” she said.
Did Slater & Gordon have any other approval processes required before lending $150,000 to a client (a considerable sum back in 1992)? Or could such amounts be lent solely on the authority of a partner like Ms Gillard? Although practices became looser towards the end of the freeewheeling 90s, in 1993 it was normal lending practice for a mortgagee to require at the very least documentary proof of a prospective borrower’s savings record before approving a loan. Such a safeguard would surely be even more essential if the loan funds were client trust funds held by Slater & Gordon for mortgage investment. Perusal of Blewitt’s savings record would surely have provided a strong indication that he had not saved through his own efforts the $100,000 he paid for the deposit and stamp duty on the unit purchase, even if it didn’t clearly indicate that those funds were stolen.
In the circumstances you can understand the attitude of former S & G partner and now whistleblower Nick Styant-Browne:
”I was happy to remain under the radar for ever and had previously disavowed making any statements when the issue had been raised because I just thought it would go away,” Styant-Browne says. ”But when Blewitt emerged I formed the view, and Peter agreed with me, that the story had some traction and that it could rebound to us in a very unhappy way.
”And there was a lot of stuff on the internet saying that Slater & Gordon had worked with Gillard to cover up the improprieties of her boyfriend in relation to the AWU – that was the line. And so that concerned both of us and that’s why we started discussing extensively making a joint statement.”
With Styant-Browne still leaking to the media and Blewitt saddling up Melbourne law firm Galbally Rolfe, you can bet that this story still has a long way to go. I wonder when the Canberra Press Gallery will wake up to that fact and realise that there’s almost certainly more to this saga than just the odious utterances of the appalling Larry Pickering?
Update/reflection – Although we’ll see more on this story, it currently seems unlikely that it will be anything like a “smoking gun” for Julia Gillard’s leadership or the Labor government. Only simplistic slogans that catch the attention of disengaged swinging voters and “go viral” have that potential. Moronic and grossly exaggerated memes like “JuLIAR” or “Tony’s a sexist pig”.
These allegations aren’t in that category; they take some thought and analysis to understand, although to a limited extent they might feed the “JuLIAR” meme if they somehow get traction and are reported more extensively in the mainstream media.
However it’s currently difficult to see how that would occur. They are not grave offences and they occurred around 20 years ago. It’s highly unlikely that charges would ever be preferred or even a formal investigation ordered.
What these comparatively ancient events do suggest is that Julia Gillard has always had a propensity to adopt audacious, slightly dodgy and not very well-considered short term tactics. It’s a character trait about which her Cabinet colleagues perhaps should be more alert. Sometimes those tactics come off and sometimes they fail spectacularly. Labelling Tony Abbott a misogynist so far seems to have come off, while appointing Slipper as Speaker has been a crashing failure.
Ken
the rules for solicitors investment of trust funds were very tightened up in the late 90s …any implications?
Some have also commented that it is a little strange that this issue isn’t pursued by the opposition or independents.
My guess is that once an election is called this subject will be moved into focus by the Libs to stop the government establishing any control over the media cycle.The constant attacking will continue. Unfortunately this method could be the template for future hung parliaments….
It is quite a complex story too. For example the nuances about witnessing declarations.
It just doesn’t have the energy and appeal of slanging match.
The Australian ran with the story about a month ago, Fairfax in the last week, not sure what you mean by a non-story. If there is substance to it, what is the proper venue, the press, currently on a get Julia jag, the courts or where? Peter Gordon appears to have a different opinion on the issue than Nick Styant-Browne. Tony Abbott gave it a mention in response to the Article in ‘The Australian’. Maybe the Liberals don’t want to identify too closely with the attack in case another attacker self-immolates.
The issue didn’t rate a mention on ABC Insiders on Sunday, or earlier on the Sky equivalent or ABC Drum last week i.e. the TV panel shows that purport to discuss the big issues of the week. It seems to me that the new allegations on this story are more potentially significant than endless discussion about whether Tony Abbott is sexist or misogynist or whether the PM’s attack on him was a superb and timely declaration, a cynical but effective piece of political rhetoric, an attempt at distraction from the Slipper debacle that won’t work etc.
Ken – Your knowledge of the law in Victoria at the relevant time is a little hazy. It was not against practice rules to act for all parties to a transaction at that time. The rules were tightened much later.
With reference to the witnessing of documents it has been fairly common practice in legal firms that unwitnessed signatures on documents would have been routinely attested to (unless it was a statutory declaration). Lax practice I know but it was common. No doubt not many practitioners will admit to it now but there you go.
Hindsight never takes into account routine office practice. In each of the instances you cite there are explanations based on “common practice” at the time.
Don’t even get me started on the history between Nick, Peter Gordon and Julia Gillard. It’s Western Suburbs poison!
Lilit
To the best of my knowledge, the current Victorian Rules tighten the pre-existing rules regarding potential conflict of interest from acting for multiple parties in a single transaction only by requiring written acknowledgments from affected clients that they have had the situation explained to them and consent to the solicitor continuing to act. It has always been the rule that disclosure and informed consent was required, it just wasn’t necessarily required to be in writing (although a prudent practitioner would always have done so).
I’m sure in practice that many solicitors did not make disclosure or obtain informed consent in such situations, but just crossed their fingers and hoped that the potential conflict obviously involved would never become actual. However, just as it isn’t a good idea when acting for a drunk driver who got caught to submit to the judge that “everyone does it, my client was just unlucky”, the same applies if acting for a solicitor who took a punt that failed (whether they were motivated by financial greed or, as in Gillard’s case, misplaced love).
As for false witnessing of a signature, it may also be true that quite a few solicitors have breached their ethical obligations (and perhaps still do). But those obligations have always existed. Ethics lawyer Stephen Warne reviews the case law in this blog post, which highlights a case that occurred at almost exactly the same time as Julia Gillard’s alleged similar conduct:
Here is a recent interview with Bob Kernohan and Michael Smith.Bob swears that builders turned up at his office of the AWU demanding payment for work done to Julia Gillards property at Abbottsford. http://www.com/watch?v=wEBgxVo5gTA&feature=related_embedded
Sorry the youtube link to Bob Kernohan and Michael Smith is ;
Bob Kernohan was offered a safe Labor seat to shut his mouth but declined.He was sent 3 bullets and serverly bashed.The number of honest people on both sides of Parliament you could probably count on one hand
Reap what you sew.
Note the update/reflection addendum I have just added to the primary post.
Classy, quoting the ‘Juliar’ thing from Alan Jones, however if the opposition had any discipline it could have been in government. On reading Hansard, it was Tony Abbott who introduced the topic of misogyny and re-used Alan Jones comment about shame in his motion about Slipper.
Paul
What we have here is miscommunication. Maybe it’s my fault. I listed the JuLIAR meme only as an example of the sort of simplistic, short, sensationalist tabloid meme that is needed to capture the attention of the average disengaged voter. Abbott has been very good at those, and it largely explains his success in undermining the Gillard government (and before that KRudd). “Stop the boats”, “huge new tax” and “stop the deficit” are other and equally misleading or grossly exaggerated examples of memes that appeal to the average voter because they’re easy to understand and repeat without needing any thought at all.
In fact, as I’ve argued here at Troppo before, Gillard can’t honestly be accused of lying over carbon pricing. Indeed if you read what she actually said a day or two before the 2010 election, you can make a plausible case that she didn’t even break a promise about the issue.
I also agree that Abbott opened himself up to attack on sexism etc by the tenor of his remarks on Slipper and his disgusting recycling of Jones’ “died of shame” remarks. Nevertheless, Gillard’s actual attack, passionate though it was and in some respects apt and overdue, DID over-egg the pudding on Abbott. He has certainly made some sexist remarks over the years and his attitudes are as sexist, old-fashioned and in some respects hypocritical as any other devout Catholic. However, I don’t think one can honestly label Abbott a misogynist i.e. a woman hater.
Moreover, even as a short-term political tactic, it remains to be seen whether Gillard’s speech will play as well with average disengaged voters in general as it has with the Twitterati and their ilk.
OK
Can I say first that I don’t like either Abbott or Gillard – both are hypocritical and seem rather shallow. We could do with an upgrade in both cases. However, Abbott really has deserved a flea in his ear.
Perhaps it was an “overegged pudding”, rather than a “flea in the ear”, but it was still long overdue. Beyond that, the political journos seem to be “overegging” its importance. I would venture that the rubbish arguments on carbon tax and border protection policy are rather more significant items.
Surely, whether Abbott punched a wall near someone’s face and threatened them decades ago, and whether Gillard organised a dodgy union deal decades ago, is only noteworthy because people think it resonates with their current behaviour.
Perhaps we think that what people did when they weren’t conscious of being watched, and no political minders to restrain them, is a truer reflection of character? Why else would these old items be a hot topic?
The problem with your analysis is that you are trying to put a quasi legalistic framework around what was a failed political campaign intertwined with a bad relationship with the criminal activities of a partner trying to be linked to other party. You see new questions, I see the old questions being rehashed. My family has a saying, before you can be old and wise, you have to be young and foolish. It is clear that even back then, the PM was more interested in a political career rather than a legal career. The MSM once again would rather look backwards at a puffed up non-issue than deal with substantive matters while people like you try to intellectualise what is nothing more than a base political attack. Get a life. Move on!
Would have agreed , until Nick Styant-Browne made it obvious that , there are aspects of what went on that he purely for professional reputation reasons wants to clearly distance himself from and that he also believes that there is a real chance that ‘whatever it is you did, with whom’ could become public knowledge.
Ken- the yards are flying into the chickens :-)
I think this tactic of declarations of outright inability to understand that some wrong has been done will be known as the Obeid Defence cleverly combined with the Thomson Stony Face and often concluding with the Williamson Dash.
The eventual outcome influences the miscreant’s Tripodi Index- the availability of cushy sinecures for those left unable to find employment after their downfall…
I’m not sure you’d call Joe’s current apparent occupation of dodgy fixer/henchman of equally dodgy developers a cosy sinecure, not when you consider that he is having to thread his way through a bureaucracy presided over by a hostile if seemingly flat-footed state government. It must take some pretty fancy footwork (though probably not much in the way of ethics or honesty). Richo’s job as a tame poodle media political pundit looks much more like a cosy sinecure than Tripodi’s low wire act …
How was Julia and Labor able to get Michael Smith sacked from 2UE and silence both the Fairfax and Murdoch press on this seedy affair.Why is there no police investigation?
The banksters in the USA and Europe are too big to fail and gaol.Does this also apply to our politicians?
The fine art of the rhetorical question. No one will answer you because everyone knows the answer and you are only asking in order to annoy people.
Let me ask a more useful question: Will anything change?
We can vote for Tony Abbott, and instead of the unions getting political privileges and handouts, the big corporations will get political privileges and handouts. Small business might get a begging bowl, if they are lucky.
We can vote for the Greens and have a bunch of watermelon central planners switching on and off air-conditioners when it suits them, and along with them, comes a whole new bunch of vested interests and Solyndra style handouts.
We could vote for independents like Windsor and Oakshot who get NBN fiber laid out in their electorates and feel they have accomplished something (and you know, when the goalposts are set so low, maybe they have accomplished something, country people have had cynicism beaten into them).
We could vote for independents like Wilkie who have some good ideas and probably deep down might even be true believers, but show me where those good ideas helped anyone in the real world. As Paul Frijters likes to say, “Champaign for those who deliver, diet water for the rest.”
Seriously: Will anything change?
Tel too right.I want to annoy people out of their complacency.
Our Govts have signed onto the UN Agend 21, which will mean a Global Govt that we will have no say in.Both the major parties have us signed up to this fascist New World Order.
Either we fight oppression or be consumed by it.
Oh my goodness. We seem to have attracted one of those Lyndon la Rouche loonies.
Your last paragraph is a tremendous reach, Ken. As has been said, very little of what she did was out of the ordinary at the time. Her major sin was to choose the wrong boyfriend. If any bow can be drawn with her activities 20 years later, it is with her association with the Parliament of Australia, filled as it is with ne’er-do-wells and blaggards.
“As has been said, very little of what she did was out of the ordinary at the time.”
Said by one person on a blog?
I’d have to agree the signing of documents without being present is not unusual but when the circumstance is the very peculiar one that resulted in someone else living in her boyfriend’s investment property and using the other person’s name as the buyer wouldn’t you expect a solicitor to ask at least some questions? The mortgage was arranged for them by the PM by her firm and apparently due to the PM’s influence.Why the absence of documentation – the whole point of law firms is recording and documentation.
Then again perhaps Monty is correct – “at the time” all sorts of rorts were going off all over Australia – why change the habit that defines public life in our great country?
What better than a PM who gets the very way we all delude ourselves that we struggle along when really we are blinded to our good luck and comfortable conditions.
There is no denying that corruption and graft exist throughout Australian society it just seems to have reached an extent I never thought I’d see.
There is somebody in parliament who really hates Gillard, provably cares little about the rules preventing mutual assured destruction and who also has enough insider knowledge to rattle cages, No?
I have seen union abuse of union funds when I was o’ sooooo young and impressionable. This was a looooong time ago. I left the union, refused to be a member of any union all through my working life. Unions preach one thing and do another. Union officials are there for the perks, benefits and the opportunity to travel freely, use union funds to study (strangely) Law, and in some cases totally abuse union funds for personal gratification. My experience of union officials who seemingly fight on behalf of members actually have secret deals with management for personal gains. I’ve seen it first hand and was utterly disgusted. Perhaps there are great, trustworthy, honorable union officials but I suspect it is like looking for a needle in a hay stack. Even our PM is alleged to have been tainted as a union associate. My experience of unions is certainly one of corruption and abuse of member funds that I don’t ever wish to support or trust unions.
I thought there was some concern from the WA Government that their Corporate Affairs laws had been trampled on/mis-used and that they were going to take an interest. This would supposedly need to get an ‘ok’ from Premier Barnett and I have a feeling he is not quite the head kicker the Libs need if this line of action was to proceed.
Similarly Thiess who made big contributions to the ‘slush fund’ don’t appear to be outraged.
I’m with you Ken, this story has quite a bit to say about Gillard’s character.
The various statements and reports suggest that she always knew the association was a slush fund. Gillard said that she thought a fund to support the election of officials with a safety policy agenda was enough to meet the test. Unless she’s actually an idiot, I can’t believe she really thought that and I can’t believe she wasn’t laughed down during the press conference for giving such a flimsy justification.
Maybe Victoria is really different, but no question in my mind that falsely witnessing a PoA would have been a strike-off risk in Qld at that time.
I saw a purported photocopy of the cheque given to S&G on someone’s website, it was drawn on the Association account and so I expect that S&G would have issued the trust receipt to that account, which would have been a big conflict flag for me, especially given that the association was a non-profit. I suppose it could have been missed at the time, but it looks bad from here.
IIR, solicitor mortgage lending had come under significant scrutiny by the early 90s and so I would be surprised if a cavalier approach was acceptable at S&G. Again, unless Victoria is quite different from Qld, the solicitor’s primary client is the lender not the borrower. By that stage the QLS had esablished very formal conflict rules for solicitor lending because of problems that had become a bit endemic. I don’t know if that was the case in Vic at the time, but S&G obviously knew that a POA was being used to buy a property and borrow funds from another of their clients, and the attorney was the tenant of the property. I’m not surprised the former partners were worried about how that would look.
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/investigations/gillard-call-would-have-led-to-fund-inquiry/story-fng5kxvh-1226511057960
.
As I understand things this form of criticism is based on there being an obligation for a lawyer to report such events to the relevant authorities? Someone posted a speech by I think M Kirby about just such an example.
Would the legally experienced care to comment- this doesn’t seem to be such a significant omission or are is that incorrect?
The recent reports, if accurate, also provide a text book illustration of conflict of interest problems.
Come on Threadmasters this story is just growing and growing……time for a review of the latest developments?
The AWU revelations are opening up whole new veins of poor behaviour and criminality, stonewalling by the PM is reaching it’s us by date and the broader media is starting to ask it’s own rather timid questions.
How are the faceless ones dealing with this?
Mr Shortern believes “I actually think that what matters in Australia at this time is strong leadership, that’s what we’ve got.”
‘strong leadership’- the cage is definitely rattling.
@murph the surf.
“How are the faceless ones dealing with this?”
Well as usual … getting ready to stab someone else and then deny and keep denying. Gillard’s dealing and wheeling then and now can never surprise me. A leopard never changes its spots. Our PM attacked the affluent North Shore residents (“..real people live every where else except in North Shore”) …but she has now succumbed to wearing pearls herself … the very symbol of North Show women. Ha..ha ..ha.
Watching Rudd-Bull on Q&A last Monday made me despair. The brilliance of Rudd, his strategic mind, his convictions and clearly superior ideas & thoughts were swept away to make way for a conniving, treacherous and utterly untrustworthy puppet of the Unions. The current leadership is beholden to corrupt unions. I bet Shortten is waiting in the wings (with a prayer) for Gillard to topple. Unions and those beholden to unions are now running this country. Pity!! The toothless media is running scared of mounting probing questions just in case the media is accused of being ‘misogynistic’ or having a ‘gender bias’ by the PM. Consciously or unconsciously the PM’s gender accusation has become an effective protective shield for Unions & the faceless ones. Labor is in shambles. Corruption gets rewarded. And we call this progress.
This is like the Whitewater conspiracy against the Clintons. Nothing happened. A former partner of a law firm who is still griping that he didn’t get his way and a confessed fraudster are the latest in this sorry caste of no hopers being trotted in this fantasy world. The media should be scutinising those who are making the accusations. Styant-Brown claimed that the fax released proves that Ms Gillard new about the transaction in 1993 and not 1995, but it does not. There is a concept called chain of evidence where each step of a piece of evidence is linked. Where is the linkage of the fax to Ms Gillard. There is a difference between facts and assertions, and the media, using logic and rational arguments, should scutinize assertions. Yes there is a fax but it doesn’t necesaarily mean what Mr Styant Brown says it means. Mr Styant-Brown was done over and I am asserting that he is still trying to justify himself. Get over it for God sake. There are more important things in life that we should be concentrating on.
Here’s the chain of evidence on her knowledge of the mortgage:
1 J and W went to the auction
2 J prepared the POA under which all legal docs were signed by W, and she witnessed it;
3 J had her firm to the conveyancing and waived the fees;
4 A file note of the clerk says that J asked about the penalty interest provisions in the mortgage;
5 A fax about insurance was addressed to J
6 Another file note says J spoke to Blewitt.
W was her boyfriend of long-standing and despite all her obvious interest in the matter, she never had any knowledge of the mortgage? Come on!
A mere 2.5 years later J claimed to know nothing about the mortgage at the time it was issued. She made this claim when her Partners (to whom she owed fiduciary duties) were investigating her professional behaviour relating to Wilson. Now she says she either did not know or must have forgotten.
When it looks like people are dissembling about their role around bad behaviour it is not strange to think further investigation is warranted.
Gillard was the innocent victim on a smart con-artist 20 years ago. like all proud people, she wants to forget it ever happened and not believe she was taken in.