I started out as a tremendous fan of Gillard. I wanted her to win when Kevin Rudd attempted to overthrow her. (Sorry to my Queensland Labor friends, I have just never understood Rudd’s appeal. He’s the Pointy-Haired Boss from Dilbert to me.) But I have to say that the allegations surrounding Gillard in relation to the AWU do worry me.
Over the last couple of days, I’ve seen some of my more Labor-oriented friends decrying the allegations made against Gillard in The Australian($), with the suggestion that it’s a mud-flinging witch hunt and she’s being persecuted for her taste in men. I must say that if all women were held to account for Bad Boys we’ve dated in the past, I think many of us would be tainted. But to me, it’s not about who Gillard was in a relationship with. Yes, she was in a relationship with Bruce Wilson, against whom allegations of fraud have been made in relation to the Australian Workers’ Union (AWU). That’s immaterial. I don’t really care who she was living with or sleeping with in the past.
What I do care about is the legal work Gillard did for Wilson while working at Slater & Gordon as a salaried partner. So, I’ll start out with my position on the issue, which is this: on the evidence we have available, Gillard’s actions were not unethical in the legal sense, but her actions in failing to open a file on the firm’s system in relation to the work done on the formation of the AWU Workplace Reform Association showed poor judgement and poor office management.
The impetus for writing this post was a non-legal friend asking me, “So what does it matter if she didn’t open a file on the firm system?”
When you take on a matter at a law firm, you open a file. This means that you get a manila folder and typically you stick some colourful letter and number stickers on the side – maybe three identifying initials for your client and three identifying initials regarding the matter. What do I mean by initials? Let’s say your client is the AWU and you’re opening a file to form an association for them. You might put the initials AWU ASN on the spine and edge of the file (standing for AWU and association – I was going to say ASS for association, but that doesn’t look so good). It’s a quick way of identifying files easily.
Then you get a file number which is allocated to the file (these days most likely by a computer system, or perhaps in those days it was allocated manually by the finance department). Let’s pretend the file number is 046782. So then you stick the numbers 046782 on the spine and the other edge of the file so that no matter which way it’s filed on your shelf, people can see what it is. You then enter various details about the matter into the firm’s central database or records (who the client is, what the work is about broadly, who’s responsible for it, is it pro bono and so forth.) In the actual physical file (a.k.a. the labelled manila folder mentioned before) you put all the correspondence, bills, file notes and relevant documentation. If the file is on the system, it means that other people can see what you’re doing. Then, if you leave, if you’re on holiday, if you’re hit by a bus, or if someone else needs to read it, they can easily find the file, read what’s happened so far, and get up to speed. I don’t know whether Slater & Gordon’s technology was up to it in the early 90s when Gillard’s particular matter arose, but certainly when I was in practice some ten years later, we had computer databases, such that if you had a file number you could also easily look at all work that had been done on the file via computer (eg, memos, pleadings, contracts etc) and look at the billings on the file.
According the timeline supplied by The Australian, what seems to have happened($) in this case is that Gillard was the lawyer for the AWU at Slater & Gordon from 1991 onwards. Around this time she also entered into a relationship with Bruce Wilson, an AWU official. In early to mid 1992, Gillard helped Bruce Wilson and another AWU union official, Ralph Blewitt to set up an entity known as the AWU Workplace Reform Association. The purpose of the association was stated to be the promotion of safety on construction sites. At that time, Gillard did not open a file on the firm system for this service, although evidently she did have some kind of physical file in her office. Wilson and Blewitt sought payments from various construction companies for the AWU Workplace Reform Association, purportedly to promote safety on site. Meanwhile the rest of the AWU was unaware that this Association existed or that it was raising hundreds of thousands of dollars. In her interview($) with then-Slater & Gordon partner Peter Gordon, Gillard said that she believed that the fund was in fact ‘a re-election fund, slush fund, whatever, which is the funds that the leadership team, into which the leadership team puts money so that they can finance their next election campaign’.
In 1993, Blewitt (through Wilson) purchased a house in Fitzroy with funds allegedly embezzled from the Association. Gillard was with Wilson when he bought the house at auction for Blewitt. In 1995, the AWU became aware of certain irregularities in its accounts and begin to pursue Wilson and Blewitt. It did not become aware of the existence of the AWU Workplace Reform Association until 1996. Wilson and Blewitt were made redundant by their branch in August 1995, against the wishes of some who felt that they had been fraudulent. Meanwhile, Slater & Gordon realised that the firm’s actions might be under scrutiny because of Gillard’s involvement with the creation of the AWU Workplace Reform Association, and started investigating. In September 1995, the firm questioned Gillard. A redacted version of the transcript($) of that questioning has since become available.
Imagine how the other partners at Slater & Gordon must have felt. One of its partners comes under question for certain legal services rendered to the AWU in relation to the AWU Workplace Reform Association, and allegations of fraud are made. Slater & Gordon go to find the relevant file…and the file is not on the firm system. Thus, they have no way of knowing what has happened on this file, where it is, or what its contents are. No wonder they called in Gillard for questioning. I imagine they must have been panicking.
From the redacted transcript of the questioning($), Peter Gordon, then a partner at Slater & Gordon, asks Gillard, ‘what are the circumstances in which we only got that [file regarding the incorporation of the Association] last week?’ Gillard readily admits that she did not open a file on the system saying, ‘…I must admit my recollection about the incorporation file was that I hadn’t opened a file on system and that I had had some papers and at some point I had given the papers to (name redacted).’ Gordon then asks Gillard why the file wasn’t opened on the system. Gillard responds as follows:
I don’t think there’s any great scientific explanation for that, I didn’t have an intention to charge on it, and from time to time I’ve done bits of work on files that I haven’t opened up where I’ve just done relatively small jobs for unions that I wasn’t intending to charge for. Ordinarily they would be kept on the union’s file.
We have a file for each union where we put little bits of free work or telephone attendances of advice we give, or they’re kept on my personal file JEG general. This, this was a more substantial job than that and really ought to have been opened on system, but I think, well, I don’t have a specific recollection of thinking to myself should I open it on system or shouldn’t I open it on system, but apparently I didn’t.
[my emphasis added]
Now, I should note that at this point there is no suggestion that Julia Gillard was involved in Wilson and Blewitt’s alleged fraud, or that she knew that the Fitzroy property was purchased from allegedly embezzled funds. Indeed, Slater & Gordon seems to have accepted that the failure to open a file was a genuine error on her part, and that she was not involved with and had no knowledge of the alleged fraud of Wilson and Blewitt. Nonetheless, in October 1995, Gillard left the firm and some months later she became an adviser to John Brumby, then Labor opposition leader in Victoria. There are conflicting accounts amongst Slater & Gordon’s partners and former partners on what their view of Gillard was when she left. One former firm partner, Nick Styant-Browne, now living in the United States, has alleged that the firm took a “very serious view” of Ms Gillard’s conduct, while the present managing director of Slater & Gordon has denied this, and has criticised Styant-Browne. Meanwhile, Peter Gordon (who now works with another firm) has released a statement in which he says, ‘I believed at the time that there was no explicit or indirect evidence that she [Gillard] was involved in any wrongdoing and that remains my view today.’ Nonetheless, he concedes that the relationship between the firm and the two industrial relations partners (Gillard and Bernard Murphy) was no longer a happy one, saying:
It is relevant to understand that these events occurred in the immediate aftermath of the Harris/Smith case, which had placed relations between the industrial department and the rest of the partners under great strain and damaged relationships. Ms Gillard’s previous public statement that after these events “working there wasn’t as much fun, to be honest” can hardly be doubted in the circumstances. Likewise, it is true that the balance of the partnership were less than thrilled with how our relations with Bernard Murphy and Julia Gillard had deteriorated. It was a partnership falling out and like many of them, individuals will have their own take on what happened, especially seventeen years later.
I have to say that if I had been a partner of the firm, it is likely that I would have been deeply disappointed with Gillard’s conduct because it shows very poor office management which may adversely affect the reputation of the firm. It is essential to the proper running of a firm that files are kept in a manner which allows other people at the firm to access them easily if needed, particularly if problems arise with a file. That’s not to say that mistakes don’t occur from time to time. I know I made some when I was in practice. That being said, I never failed to open a proper file – including when a partner asked me to do work on his wife’s personal matters. Maybe I’m just neurotic, but I like to cover my back by keeping proper records of things.
No, there’s nothing in the information we have which suggests that Julia Gillard has been in any way been unethical or fraudulent or anything of the like, and there’s nothing to suggest that she should stand down as Prime Minister (contrary to the calls from some of my friends on the Right). But to me, this whole thing underscores a certain lack of judgement on Gillard’s part which is deeply disappointing.
132 Comments
Very good post; sets out the mechanics very well, and I agree with the conclusions. Of course my opinion is with the benefit of near perfect hindsight, clouded only by the passing of a couple of decades, and the competing ‘interests’ of all participants – including our noble press.
Sometimes I think these things should be filed in a special “well, if that’s the best you’ve got” folder. Suitably indexed of course
At the risk of sounding precious the above quote is the most damaging to Ms Gillard in my eyes. If the fund was set up to promote workplace safety, I know quite a few lawyers who would think the above view was verging upon the questionable. And moving from that ‘grey area’ to the purchase of a house using those funds? I am hoping Ms Gillard was not aware of that.
Maybe I should just read the papers before commenting…
Is it normal practice to set up slush funds, for the benefit of union leaders (ie to pay for their personal campaigns), in the name of the union? Even on her own admissions of what she claimed to be doing it looks crooked to me. The fact that she did not open a file suggests she knew it was crooked and was keen to conceal what she was up to. I doubt she has broken any law but she fails a character test in my view and is not PM material.
To be honest I would be more forgiving if she had broken the law but had been true to her clients and partners in a professional sense. As it stands she let down the AWU and Slatter and Gordon. Towards both of which she ought to have displayed some duty of care. I would not want her on my team.
LE
You may have been a stickler for procedure as an employed solicitor, but I expect that there have been lots of little freebies of this sort done by partners of law firms for their friends or family for which files were never opened because, as JG said, no fees were going to be charged. I doubt if any professional liability exposure would have occurred to anyone. Opening a file could well cost more than doing the work itself. Of course that subverts a partnership’s control of conflicts issues, but in fact by the time any conflict issue came up for review the work would probably have been done anyway.
Hindsight shows why in this case that was an error of judgment and for that matter procedures have generally become stricter about this sort of thing since the early 1990s.
Terje P, I think you are eliding somewhat a “fighting fund” with what admittedly in this case apparently (and very apparently, apparently[!][legally cautious phraseology alert]) turned out to be a slush fund. That too is a question where hindsight plays a big part.
Marcellous, other friends who are still at firms tell me that it still happens that files are not opened for non-billable personal matters. One friend was totally blase about it. I was shocked. Maybe I’m just crazily neurotic. (Entirely possible? don’t answer that question)
Maybe my attitude also derives from a course I did when I was an articled clerk on risk management and solicitors (still have the little book on my bookshelf here at work). It was full of scary stories about people who took on personal matters and gave casual advice, or didn’t follow process with a friend’s matter, and got sued (or opened their firm to being sued). It really stuck with me – hence I opened a file to contest the partner’s wife’s matter and for other personal things!!! You just never know as a lawyer when things will turn around and bite you on the behind.
The reason I didn’t make a big deal of the ‘slush fund’ comment is that Gillard may have genuinely believed she was setting up an association for worker safety at the time she did so. It may have been only later that she became aware of the apparent nature of the fund as a ‘slush fund’ (which wasn’t its true nature anyway, as it turned out). I don’t really know, and thus I don’t think it’s proper to speculate without more evidence from Gillard herself. As both KVD and Marcellous comment, hindsight is a fine thing…
Looks like a duck, walks like a duck. I suspect it is a duck. In my mind she is crooked.
This raises the question – has there ever been a previous attempt to drive a PM out of office on the basis of poor office management, specifically a back-office function like raising a paper file (I went to my history books and found out what that was
) I would doubt very much that that’s happened because in the normal run of things, and by that of course I mean with a male PM, he would not be expected to be concerned with such things. Do we see Gillard’s alleged error with a piece of back office file creation, however crucial, as germane to her PMship because (like having children or having good hair) this is seen as something women should be especially good at, or a kind of “women’s work” for which she should have some kind of special affinity? Would we criticise Robert Menzies or Paul Keating for such a thing?
31 strikes me as very young to be made partner – albeit salaried rather than equity. I realize it is possible, of course, but surely a 31 year old partner would require remarkable commercial awareness and business sense, in addition to excellent academic results. Maybe one of those was missing for Gillard; I had (1) and (3) at 31, but not (2).
It’s not a feminist thing – it’s an efficient management of law firm thing. So, yes, if either did (or did not do, more accurately) the same thing in the same circumstances then they should be criticised – in much the same terms as LE’s post, and comments.
As someone that isn’t a laywer, I must say that I really don’t care about it — it just seems like smearing to me. Aren’t all lawyers supposed to be at least partially dodgy? To me this pales into insignificance compared to Craig Thompson and Peter Slipper (god knows how that one will end), where the allegations really are tangible to the average person.
It is about stealing money from union members
Simple.
KVD – I mean the difference between back office and executive functions.
I can well see a male PM being criticised for failing as a board or executive member in a private company, where the person is making decisions that set the direction for (or have an impact on) the whole organisation, but not for a back-office low-status task such as file creation.
H@8:
Sigh. Our politicians are being placed under a finer grained microscope with each passing year. Lord only knows why anyone would enter politics in this day and age.
There is little doubt that some of the hatred from the Right directed at Gillard involves an element of misogyny (look at the vile stuff on C@tallaxy coments threads) but there is no basis for playing the sexism card in this instance. By way of comparison, Obama is a bloke and it seems like hundreds of obsessed right wingers are trawling through every aspect of his past in the hope of finding some dirt. Obama’s college records seem to be the latest big deal.
Tony Blair also copped a malicious and highly personal mauling, I seem to recall.
On it’s own I couldn’t give a toss whether she opened a file or not. My concern is with stealing union funds. Whether it was for houses or for the reelection campaigns of individuals (eg fraud or slush) is moot.
Helen@13 these days to open a file a lawyer would simply fill in some bare details and with a centrally assigned file id press a button and a file would be created. To a very large extent physical file creation has been automated, but we are talking of early ’90′s where paper was God, and for the reasons LE outlined, was correctly so regarded. (Aside: I still remember a period of frantic activity occurring when all those heat-sensitive fax pages were re-copied when it was discovered they faded to unreadable after 12 months or so) Paper was and remains quite vital. In fact if you look back at history it seems to be the one reliable evidence trail capable of lasting more than one turn of the evolutionary wheel – and if you don’t believe that then I’ve got a box full of 5 1/4 and 3 1/2 inch “floppy disks” now incapable of being read. No doubt CDs and USB sticks will follow shortly….
The other thing slipping in here is the excuse that this was some sort of personal matter. But as I understand it, the matter was the setting up of a union fund – not just a favour for her ‘second best friend’. Her partners should have been given far more consideration, as has been mentioned several times above.
Helen @ 8: if Robert Menzies or Paul Keating had done a similar thing and someone raised it in the media, then yes, I would criticise them in exactly the same terms as above, without any doubt. I am not partisan, and I am not sexist.
The question you rightly ask is: would someone have raised it in the media? I noticed this with KRudd – for a while he was charmed in the media, and could put nary a foot wrong, even though I’d heard whispers of tantrums and etc. Then suddenly it was all over the newspapers that he was a psycho and all that. It’s like some people are charmed in media terms (and they are more likely to be men) but some people (i.e. KRudd) have the charm taken off them for unspecified reasons. I dunno that Gillard ever did have the media charm – if she did it was only for a matter of a few months.
Conrad – well that was my (non-lawyer) husband’s view too and I think compared to Thompson and Slipper it’s absolutely not in the same basket.
Incidentally in my professional opinion, we do not have enough information about what Gillard knew about any of this to draw any conclusions about her knowledge at the time the Association was incorporated, or her knowledge of the alleged fraud. If I was to make any conclusions, I’d want to see a proper cross-examination of a bunch of people including Gillard, Murphy, Wilson, Blewitt, Gordon etc. Yes, I’m cautious. You may have worked that out from the main post.
IMO (because I hate people who are alleged to have ripped off workers in the pretence of helping them) it’s a real pity charges were not brought against Wilson and Blewitt.
LE @17:
” I dunno that Gillard ever did have the media charm – if she did it was only for a matter of a few months.”
Gillard had a dream run as Deputy PM. The wheels fell off soon after she became PM because of certain revelations and missteps, for example, Gillard’s opposition to carbon trading when she was Deputy PM. Gillard began her PMship by shooting herself in the foot with utterly dopey ideas, such as the Cash for Clunkers program. For me, Cash for Clunkers was the final straw as I knew it to be awful policy as a result of my tertiary studies. Prior to that I was a firm Gillard supporter.
If this SMH editorial is factually accurate, then Gillard has to resign as PM and go to the back benches. Her behaviour in
(a) betraying her client, the AWU
(b) knowingly setting a slush fund and deliberately hiding its true purpose, and
(c) acting in a way that jeopardised the reputation of her firm without first discussing it with her fellow partners
are serious enough to end Gillard’s PMship notwithstanding the truth of the other allegation against her.
Seriously, can we please get over the whiney poor little white girl pantomine? It really is boring and truthless.
I’m with Mel@19
Those three points are serious. Her certificate to practice should be rescinded.
Mel@19 of your three points I agree with only (c) – unless of course you are writing with the benefit of further information not sourced from a hostile press? Your “factually accurate” proviso – even if you or the paper could prove so – infers a moral superiority that I would be uncomfortable supporting.
Surely there are far more recent and relevant stones to pick up and cast. Otherwise, basically your stance is embarrassing. (And I’m now wondering if she would float)
SL @ 9
In the early 90s a few high or quick fliers were still being made partner quite early, and S&G wasn’t such a top-tier firm as all that so the likelihood would have been greater then. I had friends from uni who made partner at quite big firms before they were 30 or just after.
In the late 60s and early 70s (thinking of solicitors who were partners in the firm I started in in the early 90s) customarily became partners after only a couple of years.
The game has changed as legal services have whooshed up in price, ratios of employed to profit taking partners have increased and law firms have turned more and more into big businesses.
Whoops for the second SL read S&G!
KVD@21 You’re writing like a lawyer (see LE’s thread on “how to think like a lawyer”)
This matter will be decided by voters.
Shorter LE:” How dare you politically correct people say it’s a mud-flinging witch hunt because she’s a woman. It’s actually a mud flinging witch hunt because she once had an untidy desk”.
One of the really interesting things about this particular witch-hunt is that no-one seems to have actually proved any fraud by Wilson, let alone Gillard. The whole thing is a complete beat up only sustained by the Murdoch press and some RWDB bloggers.
kvd @21:
Your comment is, as is so often the case, incoherent and odd. The SMH editorial is not hostile to Gillard nor is the general tone of the Fairfax press (other than maybe the AFR under its new editor?)
And again, my comment hinges on the accuracy of the SMH editorial. Did I not make that clear enough for you?
What we need now is a proper independent investigation to get to the truth of the matter.
ps. I bet the Ruddster is falling about in hysterical fits of laughter
Steve@24 I take that as a compliment – thanks! Although I’m only a humble Chartered Accountant, made partner in a small firm at 27, and accompanying the senior partner (age 38) on various advisory lectures to very (and I do mean top 8) large accountancy firms, I do remember basic training: loyalty and absolute transparency within my partnership; a fiduciary and confidentiality duty to one’s clients; remember always to take notes at the time to protect from others’ hazy recollections; and tax law sucked big time
You’d do well to carefully consider SL’s brief comment@9. None of us is perfect, and few of us ever go on to be PM.
DD, I am the last one to point the finger at people having untidy desks. Seriously, is that what you got from the post?
I wish the police had proceeded against Wilson et al. I don’t know why charges weren’t brought – the police were eager to do so.
Why? What possible national benefit is to be gained? I guess we might establish beyond doubt that JG at age 31 was less than perfect, but that wouldn’t be in any way new news – surely?
As I said, I wonder if she’d float. And you’ve got no stones.
Thank you LE. Great post. I have remained aloof from these matters because the mud obscures the vision too much. Fortunately there are people like you who are very good “cognitive cleansing sources”.
Meanwhile, over at The Cat, Gillard has been declared guilty of all manner of crimes.
Fixed, Marcellous! Interesting about the age thing – I suppose that’s what comes of being in a different generation as a lawyer.
And the comment up thread about not becoming a politician, ever? Spot on. The buggers want to go through the lint in your pockets.
kvd @29:
“As I said, I wonder if she’d float. And you’ve got no stones.”
Have you been eating fermented elderberries?
It’s a reference to witch trials where, depending on circumstances, if the woman floated this was taken as evidence of either guilt or innocence.
Where floating was consistent with innocence (it depended on the region) sometimes the authorities would cheat and weight the woman’s pockets with stones.
SL@33 yes I know that but I still reckon kvd may have overindulged in some of the fallen fruit in his backyard, or at least the portion he could wrangle from the swine he says he keeps
“Ms Gillard”, “Prime Minister Gillard” or “The Prime Minister”, surely?
Davis, I have used “Rudd” or “KRudd” to describe Kevin Rudd when he was Prime Minister (and I only used KRudd because I heard he quite liked the nickname – if it was a nasty one, I’d not use it). I’d use Keating, Hawke or Howard to describe some of our former leaders. I call Tony Abbott “Abbott”. I’m not treating Julia Gillard any differently to any man, nor am I intending to be partisan or disrespectful. It’s the same way I refer to all or any of them.
The convention (in editing) is that politicians, journalists and sportspeople lose their courtesy titles, while judges, peers and private citizens keep theirs. There can be blurry boundaries, of course. When the well known cyclist is referred to in a sporting capacity, he is ‘Chris Hoy’. When he is written about in other respects, he is ‘Sir Chris Hoy’ on initial description and ‘Sir Chris’ thereafter.
[Don't get to dust off my Fowler's very often, these days...]
Steve and Terge identify what matters.
This is a truly horrifying lesson to the unwashed about arrogance and selfishness of both powerful individuals and organisations.
There is Julia’s defence, one which I am sure would not be available to the rest of us. And it is one thing to excuse mistakes in one’s personal life, but it is absolutely not available for an excuse for gross incompetence at best as a professional. The contract that professionals have with our society means that the priveleges that they enjoy come with the price that they are also MORE accountable than ordinary workers.
In this case a million dollars of working men and women and the taxpayers has gone missing and we are to dismiss it as too long ago and Julia,s assistance to the crooks as the inadvertant actions of a sweet young thing. That the monies plundered include a miners death fund is truly gross. For those who missed it our sweet young thing travelled to the goldfields to help her boyfriend have their money transferred to his control. He used it to buy flats and I guess the widows could take out loans for the funerals. And thenthere is Gordon and Slater.
I do know that the law and its practitioners are a special entity and crucial to my rights but beyond the comprehension of us outsiders. We are often told so by this august group. So that is probably why I don’t get why Gordon and Slater bothered to let uss see avery redacted document, blanked out to leave mainly dribble. Blanked out because of the need to protect client confidentiality. Now I really don’t get that because I thought their client was the AWU and hence its members, but an association their firm set up is unknown to them for 4years, and in particular the year after they chatted Julia about it.
A major crime has been committed against the workers and taxpayers of Australia while Gordon and Slater, despite their pivotal role, seem to rate only protecting themselves,even grubby lawyers are more worthy.
Both Julia and Gordon and Slater portray themselves as warriors for the working man, but neither have expressed concern for them, or regret for their role in hurting them. Julia even has the hide to trot out that she als did free work for the clothing trades. A small poor union, since when has the AWU been so. And in her defence to Gordon and Slater she says that she thought Blewett at least was pretty comfortable,because union officials who move between unions are usually pretty well off.
And the political media,the legal insiders the politicians and some of the union movement are telling us, get over it there is the law for you,and then there is us. And if she says it was all because she was a nice person rather than an ambitious ruthless thirty plus, thenthat is how it is.
So what is important whether she didn’t open a file, or she behaved very badly as a professional in support of her ambitions and was therefore a facilitator of a major and disgusting crime.
Ros, I think Slater & Gordon released what they did because their reputation was starting to suffer. So they wanted to show that they did investigate it properly. As you identify, the reason why the statement was redacted was something called “legal professional privilege” which applies to legal advice given to clients. There’s nothing special about it in this case – it’s a common law doctrine which has existed for a long time, since enshrined in legislation. The idea is that you (as a solicitor or barrister) don’t have to disclose legal advice you gave to your client. The basic policy behind this is that your client should be able to trust you entirely and be sure that you will keep their privacy, and the client will instruct you fully. Of course being a curious person I’d love to know what was in the redacted bits, but presumably it turns on legal advice given to Wilson and the AWU more broadly.
If the allegations agaInst Wilson and Blewitt are correct (and remember, no charges were laid against them and nothing was proven in a court of law) an entity which was supposed to protect workers was used as a personal cash cow, which is an appalling abuse of trust. Personally I wish that criminal action had been taken against them, as I state above. I am a union member, and I can tell you that if someone in my union did that (or if someone in my union did what Craig Thompson allegedly did), I’d want them prosecuted good and proper. It’s my money and it’s supposed to be used to protect me.
It’s interesting and disappointing that no one has expressed regret for the whole thing – but I think it’s because no criminal offences were actually proven in a court of law. You’ll notice above that I say “if the allegations…are correct”. That is because I am a lawyer and I am cautious. I’m reluctant to conclude anything without having seen a determination by a person who has seen the evidence and deliberated it in accordance with law (i.e. a court finding). Gillard and Slater & Gordon are also lawyers and would share a similar reluctance (or would have been advised to share a similar reluctance).
Also on a pragmatic political level, I’m sure Gillard is not apologising because if you apologise, it looks like you did something wrong. I hate this aspect of human nature and the law – I wish people were more ready to apologise – but that’s how things are presently.
I really don’t want to live in a society where people get locked in cages without a serious charge that is proven in a court of law. However when we are not talking about cages we don’t need the sort of proof demanded by courts. One of the disappointing aspects of the Craig Thompson affair is this creeping legalism that expects proof beyond reasonable doubt before action can be taken. Thompson should have been booted from the ALP long ago simple on the basis of the bad smell. Gillard should be thrown to the voters.
Update: great article by my friend and colleague Linda Haller on the dangers of doing legal work for a client when you’re also sleeping with the client. This is something I didn’t really touch on in the post above. Naturally the lines between professional and personal get blurred, as does objectivity.
I hate this aspect of human nature and the law – I wish people were more ready to apologise – but that’s how things are presently.
Vaguely now, something I read a long time ago … a study on medical insurance issues found that when doctors were more honest about the relevant events the patient was much less likely to go down the legal road.
If there is one common human experience it is this: being extremely pissed off at people who won’t admit they did wrong when obviously they did wrong. That attitude invokes revenge.
TerjeP @40:
“However when we are not talking about cages we don’t need the sort of proof demanded by courts.”
Tony Abbott was charged with indecently assaulting a female in 1978. Should he resign? What about Archbishop George Pell, who shared a house with one of the Catholic Church’s most notorious pedophiles for over one year and has himself faced accusations of sexual assault and cover-up?
Terje, if you set the bar too low you will provide a perverse incentive for people of ill-will to stitch up people in power. That’s why I say some independent group, something like an ICAC, should investigate the allegations against Gillard. People shouldn’t lose their careers based on hearsay, gossip, slander and orchestrated media campaigns.
John H – I wrote a post on the importance of saying sorry in the law a long while ago (2008) which has some research on medical negligence claims being much easier to settle if the negligent doctor says sorry. Half the time what people want is a “sorry” and perhaps a “it won’t happen again”. Yes, you’re right too – if someone doesn’t say sorry when they ought it makes others feel vengeful towards them.
Mel says People shouldn’t lose their careers based on hearsay, gossip, slander and orchestrated media campaigns.
HEAR HEAR to that.
This is likely going to be the outcome anyway. The rusted on liberal voters will assume she’s a fraudulent liar. The rusted on labour voters will assume it’s a liberal party beat up. The rest of us will just become increasingly depressed over the inability of politicians or the media to rationally discuss things that actually affect the future of this country.
Thanks for the update LE. That was a very old memory and I don’t trust those! I suffered some very unfortunate iatrogenic conditions due to stupid diagnostic and surgical errors. Those conditions have severely limited my employment opportunities. If I work too hard my vision collapses. The last time I saw the surgeon was when I was 12 years old. I can clearly remember the expression on his face: one of regret, a knowing he stuffed up big time. He didn’t mean to convey that message but his facial expression gave it away. So at least I know that he acknowledges to himself he stuffed up.
John H, so sorry to hear.
In fact, one of the most famous medical negligence cases in Australia, Rogers v Whitaker [1992] HCA 58; (1992) 175 CLR 479, involves an eye operation. However, while the operation itself was performed with skill, the negligence lay in the failure to inform of risks. When the plaintiff was nine, she suffered a penetrating injury to her right eye, which left her almost totally blind in that eye. Nonetheless, she led a normal life for the next 40 years. However, she wanted to return to work after having kids, and was referred to a specialist, the defendant doctor. He advised her that an operation on the right eye would improve its appearance and would also probably restore significant sight to the eye. She undertook the treatment. However, not only was the sight of her right eye not restored, but the plaintiff unfortunately developed a condition called sympathetic opthalmia in her to lose sight in the left eye too. (Wikipedia says that it is rare, affecting less than 0.1% of surgical penetrating eye wounds. It seems to have an auto-immune basis – the fact that one eye has been inflamed causes an autoimmune response to ocular antigens). The chance was slightly greater when, as here, there had been an earlier penetrating injury to the eye which was operated on. Evidence was led at trial that many doctors would only have disclosed the risk had patient asked about it. The High Court found that the doctor was negligent in failing to disclose the risk.
Anyway, the point of recalling this is that it has left me with the lasting impression that vision and eye operations are chancy things.
LE,
The retina is a unique immunological environment, somewhat different from the CNS(though technically the retina is the CNS). Visual pathology can be exacerbated by a lack of Complement Factor H, which suppresses immune function. Both the CNS and retina have various processes to strongly limit immunological function. Many neuropathologies are exacerbated by a CNS active immune response.
Anyone considering eye surgery at the retinal level should think about a big vitamin D boost because it can impede unnecessary antigen responses and is very strongly associated with autoimmunity. Thus multiple sclerosis is often associated with low vit D status.
Because aging brains tend to demonstrate increasing intrinsic(microglial) and extrinsic(invading macrophages, T cells) immunologic activity, we need to take some extra steps to protect our aging brains. Lots of possibilities here: from meditation to lots of veges, low saturated fat intake, watch the sugars(get rid of the sugars for the most part!), sleep well and with a stable sleep pattern, don’t over stretch your brain(recent fascinating study highlighting how early Alz is preceded by heightened activity in some key cerebral regions), get good exercise, and be very bloody happy.
I did not have eye surgery. 4 major neurosurgeries, 2 of which on the basis of a wrong diagnosis, the 4th left me with optic nerve damage, ptosis, squint, and 4th cranial nerve damage, and probable minimal brain damage.
Couldn’t agree more. But you do my fellow rusted on conservatives a great disservice. For instance, we have graciously never yet once mentioned that she is Welsh. Just beware that this will come to the fore if we can but get to the nub of this matter
John H, I wrongly assumed the surgery must have been on the eye…even worse if it wasn’t even on the eye and your vision was affected by the optic nerve being damaged and the other injuries you describe.
This is a huge problem. It is like advertising. It doesn’t have to be true, it just has to tug at your guts, which makes for bad analysis. Politicians no longer sell ideas, they sell an image, a photoshopped snip cut and tuck image of themselves. The media has given up on selling complex ideas in an increasingly complex world. Here and there, amongst the increasing ruin of political rhetoric, are there any signs of a return to deep and relevant political rhetoric? Or is it going to increasingly become the politics of Jersey Shore ilk? Be afraid, be very afraid.
Julia Gillard’s conduct in relation to this entire episode is under scrutiny. As a novice regarding the law and how legal firms operate I would be most interested to find other lawyers who have become romantically involved with dubious people and set up associations for them which were subsequently used to, amongst other things embezzle funds to purchase property/renovate properties in which your firm carried out conveyancing and provided finance without opening a file or involving other partners who then record an examination as the senior team breaks apart. ie does this sort of thing happen often, rarely or never and what type of character might this happen to?
Becoming romantically involved with a client is not something which is generally recommended as good practice, as my colleague points out here. But as she also points out, it’s not an ethical breach or something which will lead to censure by legal bodies. Our codes of conduct are silent on the issue. (By and large, lawyers’ ethical rules are largely centred around how we deal with trust accounts, and in ensuring that we don’t steal clients’ money by defalcating from a trust account).
Personally, if I began a relationship with a client, I’d stop acting for them and get someone else to act for them, because I’d no longer have the requisite objectivity to deal with their matters, and the personal and professional might get blurred.
I’ve no idea whether this sort of thing is common or not. All I can say is that I never saw anything remotely like that happen when I was in practice, and I was with firms or organisations where it would have been very much frowned upon. On the other hand, it is not like it is for doctors, for example, where relationships with patients are an absolute NO-NO. I believe that lawyers do have relationships with clients from from time to time, and that no one quite knows what to do about it. Moreover, it tends to lead to problems (particularly if the intimate relationship breaks down). Perhaps it should be an absolute no-no in the law as well, and firms should provide guidance to their solicitors and partners discouraging such practices. Gillard’s tale could represent a cautionary tale of the risks therein.
LE @41, that is a great piece (disclosure: Linda Haller also taught me professional ethics). And she’s right – I’m afraid we in the legal profession are going to have to pull up our collective socks again.
Not sure any of that’s been established, so I’d be a little careful.
On the other hand, every single instance of ‘corporate infidelity’ would probably have involved a lawyer at the initial, setting up, stage – so that’s sort of like holding General Motors Holden responsible for road fatalities.
KVD, I think it’s been reasonably well established that Slater & Gordon did the conveyancing for Wilson’s property purchase in Fitzroy and also advanced a mortgage for the purchase. Styant-Browne (the Slaters partner who broke silence first) said:
As for renovating properties – it appears (from what we know) that union funds were used to purchase and perhaps renovate the Fitzroy property purchased by Wilson. It should be stressed, however, that Gillard has repeatedly and strenuously denied that any moneys deriving from the AWU or Wilson were used to do up her own home in Abbotsford.
SL @ 54: Yeah, it’s a fabbo piece isn’t it? I must admit I hadn’t really focused on the issue of lawyers sleeping with clients – but Linda nails it.
There’s gotta be some serious disconnect in play.
How else to explain the blithe talk of “performing for free small scale legal work for union officials”?
Not to mention the blithe references to “slush funds”.
O-M-G
Thanks LE@56. I stand corrected. Nevertheless, the conduct of the law firm seems unexceptional.
LE. In your article you say Ms Gillard was the S&G’s lawyer handling the AWU account for S&G. She was asked by her boyfriend (Wilson) to provide advice on setting up an assoc and advise on setting up bank accounts to handle incoming monies.
As the nominated S&G lawyer to handle the AWU business would she not have an obligation to the “parent client” the fee paying client to record the work she did for Wilson in at least the AWU file? I can buy the fact (maybe not understand why) there was no file created for Wilson because the work she did was pro bona or free or no charge. To not do so makes it look as if there was something to hide from the “parent and fee paying client” If as there was nothing to hide why would it not be on the AWU file.
One major concern I have in this affair is the contrast between Gillard’s claim of a slush fund and the application to the Corporate affairs office in WA. Surely, if she truly believed the association was to be set up as an élection fund rather than for ‘training and work related issues’then how can she have prepared the documents for the WA Coroporate Affairs office without concerns over the Association’s legality?
Can you clarify this for me SKEPTICLAWYER?
Barry @ 60: there is no legal obligation on Gillard to create a file on the firm system, and nor is it a breach of an ethical obligation in the legal sense to fail to do so.
This is a different question from whether it would be prudent to register a file on the firm system. The answer to that question is yes, it certainly would be prudent and to not do so opened the firm up to being sued. That’s what my post above is addressing.
Your other point is that it looks suspicious that Gillard did not open a file on the firm system. I suspect that this precisely is why the firm was very, very concerned when it discovered what had happened. It could be inferred from the failure to open a file on the firm system that there was an intention that the file be hidden from the view of the other partners in the firm and anyone else who might want to know about it. However, Peter Gordon stated in his draft statement (leaked to the press) that after interviewing her, he decided that Gillard should be given “the benefit of the doubt” and believes that it was a genuine oversight on her part, not part of a conspiracy to hide the file. I also note Gillard produced such documents as she had when requested to do so. And that’s about as far as we can go with the information we have, in my opinion.
Colin @ 61: This was discussed earlier in the thread. As noted in this piece in the Sydney Morning Herald:
The question is what Gillard believed and what she was told at the time when she actually set up the association. I don’t know that. All I know is that, by her own admission twice over, she was later aware that these associations were being used as electoral “slush funds”.
Moving away from Gillard’s involvement, a broader point seems clear to me in the wake of this affair and the Craig Thomson affair – unions need to be far better financially regulated, otherwise there is just far too much opportunity for graft and rorting in a way that rips off the very working people the unions are supposed to support.
Thank you for taking the time to answer my question,
So there was no legal obligation on her behalf to keep S&G’s fee paying client (AWU) aware of what a non fee paying employee of the AWU was up to with regard to a new assoc in AWU’s name and the funds connected to that assoc. With regard to Mr Gordons supposed response to her answers during the interview it reminds me that there is an old saying one uses you when you know/suspect someone is lying or taking the mickey out of you, it is, “do you think I fell off the last load of turnips” It means you must think I/we are dimwits and gullible. Obviously Ms Gillard and Mr Gordon think the Australian public are turnips.
Based on Ms Gillards work history it is reassuring that our Govt will be governing us to the extent to which they are legally obliged to. As having ethics and morals are not a legal requirement to govern I guess there is no need for them to bother having them.
Barry @ 64 and 65: Even if bills had been issued with regard to the Association file, sadly, I’m convinced they would have been sent to Bruce Wilson c/o AWU, given that he was the instructing client from the AWU. And given that they were for $0.00, no need for them to turn up in the AWU’s books or records (not that it sounds like Wilson was particularly interested in properly accounting for money?!) Thus I am not sure it would have made any difference to the AWU’s ability to uncover the fraud if bills had been issued. I’d need to know more to make any call on that. As I note in the main post, the organisation to whom it made an immediate difference was Slater & Gordon, because they couldn’t find the file once questions began to be asked.
I guess Gillard’s answer to your point about letting the AWU know about Wilson’s activities would be that would be that she thought Wilson was speaking for the AWU when he asked her to set up the Association and that she did not realise that it was not with the AWU’s knowledge.
A breach in terms of legal ethics is different to what an ordinary person might define as ethical. Yes, sad but true. As I said somewhere else in this debate, legal ethics mostly govern how we handle trust money, not this kind of stuff. We don’t even have rules preventing lawyers having intimate relationships with clients, which I think is a mistake.
My last point is that I suggest that people’s views of this are highly coloured by what they thought of Gillard before all this occurred. The ones who admired her before are sure she was duped by an unscrupulous fraud and is being unfairly hounded; the ones who disliked her before think the whole thing was a disgraceful and unethical fraud and that she is irredeemably tainted by it. Personally I’m disappointed with it all. However, prior to this I was already disappointed with Gillard in general — not as much as some, to be sure — but my high initial expectations have been dashed. So my point holds true in regard to my own opinion, at least! Ultimately, as someone else above said, if nothing else, peoples’ opinions will be tested for once and for all at the ballot box.
Why? What had she ever done in her entire life that was commendable?
Fired from the only private sector job she ever had. Spent her youth supporting the communists and her adult life leaching off the government.
What was it that made you a fan?
LE, …..I am aware I cannot win my argument but.as a former mine worker and AWU member in the 60′s and 70′s I am also well aware of the “goings on” within unions and the type of people who ran them. Many of our era were happy when the “silver bodgie” came along and brought some class to the union movement and Labor party and with the help of Keating enlightened the Labor movement and modernised our economy. Sadly, it looks like as soon as the silver bodgie left the scene those good old union boys and girls went straight back to their old habits., or more likely became more brazen in them. But, you are right, we can vote the dodgy politician and/or Govt out of office. Also, at this stage in most cases, it is now not compulsory to belong to a union. That may change if the current Govt has its way. But, we can never escape lawyers, both parties are choc a bloc with them but more concerning is that in many parts of Australia we are legally bound to use lawyers for all sorts of reasons such as when one purchases a home. So maybe a new Govt will not only have a RC into unions but they will also take a peek a boo at the legal fraternity and make it “law” that they operate with, and held accountable to both legal ethics and MORAL ETHICS. Now wouldn’t that have many in the legal profession ‘squealing like cut pigs’. We know it is important to keep Church and State separate but as the atheists tell us, you don’t have to be a believer to have morals. So lets not separate the State, Lawyers and morals.
Barry, I think that’s where we’re at cross purposes. I’m not trying to win an argument. I’m trying to look at what the law presently is, and what information we can rely on, and raise counter arguments to show that there are certain things we can’t say definitively at this point. I’m sure that as a former member of the AWU, you’d have an insider view as to the shenannigans that went on, and it totally explains your anger (I’d be so angry if it were my union). But all I can work with is the reliable information I have, and the law I have. I don’t want to make speculations about things I don’t know about or can’t know (yes, I’m cautious). I also like to consider arguments which can be made for the other side, because that’s what lawyers should do.
I would entirely support a legal ethics rule which said that you could not have intimate relationships with clients (just as doctors cannot). Gillard claims she was duped, but if this is so then a lot of that must stem from the fact that she was in a relationship with her client and wanted to believe whatever this fellow told her. Which is exactly why it’s a bad idea to be in a relationship with a client. Further, as I said in my comment to Colin @ 63, I would entirely support better financial management of unions. Moreover, the unions should take care not to bite the hand that feeds them. Union membership has been falling massively, and stuff like this and the attendant failure to deal with it cannot help but contribute to that.
Finally (and this may surprise you) I am entirely in agreement that there are too many lawyers in Parliament – I wrote a post on it a while back – it’s simply not representative to have a Parliament chockers full of lawyers – and we’re weird beasts who think about things in odd ways. What happened to ordinary people in Parliament: bus drivers, shopkeepers, teachers, etc…?
P.S. If you want to sell your house without a lawyer’s involvement, you can already. Conveyancers are not lawyers, and they’re much cheaper – I recommend it.
Yobbo, I felt that she dealt with things better than Rudd and was cool and calm when she was Deputy PM in a way that Rudd was not. I thought she was strong and capable. Naturally I didn’t know anything about any of this when I made that judgement of her. Moreover, I suggest that this whole saga would not be so much of a problem for her if subsequent events after she became PM hadn’t led people to question her judgment anyway (East-Timor/Malaysian solution anyone? Sheez) and her transparency and honesty (eg, “There will be no carbon tax” to “there will be a carbon tax”).
Le……. I was not actually referring to your good self re the argument, rather I realise my argument has no leg to stand on in law. In Qld a lawyer must do the conveyancing. I know in Perth a conveyancer has been able to it since at least since the 60′s, probably longer.
Barry, well I think we’ve demonstrated that the law on this sucks and should move with the times to (a) stop solicitors from acting for intimates, just like it does with doctors (so that this kind of stuff doesn’t happen) and (b) that the law should regulate union finances better so that the conduct of the kind allegedly committed by Wilson and Craig Thomson cannot occur easily. It’s actually in the unions’ best interests to stop officials ripping them off, and to impose transparent penalties for such conduct, but I don’t know if some of them have realised that yet. The unions will wither further if union officials continue to be exposed to allegations of doing that kind of stuff.
Unfortunately, the law doesn’t always reflect morality. The difficulty too is that law is often reactive (i.e. it’s made in response to some kind of a disaster once it’s already occurred) – this is particularly the case with judge-made law which depends on a suitable case being brought before the court.
I didn’t know that about conveyancers in Qld! I’m a Victorian, and conveyancers are all the go here. Just goes to show, you live and you learn.
Have you thought about updating/writing a new article in reference to all the new information that has come to light recently and especially in regards to a Specific Power of Attorney that Ms Gillard created.
If you need to acquaint yourself with this new information, then I’d suggest a good reading of this site: http://www.michaelsmithnews.com/
Hi Lurker, yes I saw the stuff about the Power of Attorney. If the allegations are correct (i.e. a Power of Attorney was witnessed by Gillard in the absence of the person who purportedly executed it and the POA was backdated) it is not good news from a legal ethics point of view.
But the kicker is “if the allegations are correct“. For me (as a lawyer) Blewitt’s say-so is not a foundation for any conclusion, as he has credit issues. By the same token, if Wilson says it was signed in Blewitt’s presence, it’s no more convincing, because he has credit issues too. And of course, Gillard is likely to say that Blewitt’s allegations are rubbish and that there’s no way as a reasonable lawyer that she’d have done anything like that. It’s all hearsay and circumstantial: one person’s word against another.
So not enough straw to build any bricks either way for me, at least at this point. As you may have guessed from the post above, I am cautious, which is a good thing in a lawyer. (No way I would ever have acted for my lover, for example, look what a mess it gets you into!)
Good article
Is it possible to update now there’s more information on the record?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PvKSMdzQgXU
And I particularly like the message here:
http://larvatusprodeo.net/archives/2010/05/22/guest-post-by-mr-denmore-the-failed-estate-ii-gareths-gaffe/
It doesn’t seem plausible that the failure to open a file was just sloppiness. The whole plan for Wilson relied on secrecy. Slater and Gordon (aside from Gillard) could not know and neither could their client, the AWU. Wilson would need to be confident beforehand that Gillard would disclose it to no one.
Blewitt says he was not in Melbourne on the 4th of February to sign the POA in front of Gillard. If he can prove that, what then?
I’m starting to worry these stories are gaining traction
http://www.afr.com/p/national/what_gillard_knew_about_the_slush_JbGcILLo9O59yt3QGFT68H
The PM can just out them all by making a statement in the Parliament surely?
‘b parker’ said:
.
A link to a blind search! What “message”? What relevance?
Legal Eagle said here:
It is, however, unusual and fits well within a consistent pattern of secrecy.
Apologies for not including this question in the last submission. Legal Eagle said here:
Apologies for not including this question in the last submission. Legal Eagle said here.
So why did Slater and Gordon have a taped interview with partner Gillard? Surely that is heavy stuff. Why did Gillard then leave S&G never to work in law again – if she did nothing wrong and nothing unethical?
Sean @ 81,
Well it depends who you speak to. To me, it seems highly unusual not to open a file, and I would never have operated in that way. My first reaction was one of horror and suspicion. But maybe my own practices arose because I was trained at a very large law firm (large firms tend to be sticklers for procedure) and the medium firm I later worked for also had a culture of strict compliance with that kind of stuff.
But what rocked my certainty as to the suspicious nature of it was an interaction I had with a solicitor friend in the wake of all this. I said this friend, “I can’t believe Gillard didn’t open a file!” and her comment was, “Oh I wouldn’t read anything into that, half the time we don’t formally open a file for freebies to major clients either.” (I should also note that she is someone who actively avoids politics, so she wouldn’t have a political bias either way). I must say I was a little shocked, but she was trained by a small firm and works with a different smallish firm. Thus, I wonder if it has something to do with the culture of the firms you were trained by and for whom you worked?
I am guessing that the culture of Slater & Gordon in its employee relations practice was probably one which gave frequent freebies to unions. I do not know, but perhaps it was de rigeur not to document them all that well? I’d need to know more about the culture of that firm, and how other firms of that size and nature operate, to draw an inference that the failure to open the file was an indicator of secrecy, as it could simply have been part of a well-entrenched culture at that time of failing to document free legal advice. I don’t have enough information presently to draw a conclusion.
To be honest, I wish the matter had been properly prosecuted. If the allegations are true, it sounds like both Wilson and Blewitt belong in gaol, and we’d have a much better understanding of what Gillard’s and Slater & Gordon’s role was.
And the part of this which really bothers me is the notion of acting for someone who you are sleeping with. It’s a bad, bad idea. If your lover does something dodgy on the basis of your advice there are two inferences (a) you were in on the dodgy stuff or (b) you were failed to notice the dodgy nature of your lover’s conduct because you were emotionally entangled with them. Of course, the opposition is saying it was (a), Gillard is saying it was (b). But (b) doesn’t cover you in glory either.
Sean @ 82 – to answer your question – on the information I have now, she did nothing which would get her in trouble with the laws governing legal ethics. So in a technical legal sense…there’s nothing to latch on to. But she got the firm into a whole heap of hot water (in which it’s still embroiled) and potentially implicated the firm and herself in criminal activities. So – not illegal, but the kind of thing which is going to get you kicked out of the firm. It was a stupid thing to do. If we take Gillard on her word – she was duped by her lover-client and sloppy in her record keeping. Another firm is not going to take her on, even if she insists that legally speaking she did nothing unethical and that she had no dishonest intent.
So – if we take the best interpretation of the facts for Gillard, she did something wrong and stuffed up big time – but that’s not the same as doing something illegal, nor is it unethical in the way it’s defined in the law governing legal practice. Does that make sense? On the best interpretation of the facts for her, she’s naive and downright wrong, but not illegal or unethical.
Thank you L.E. for taking the time to respond.
Legal Eagle said:
But as I previously raised in another comment, Wilson could not just hope that invisibility might be the case. He would’ve needed to be confident that Gillard wouldn’t divulge the existence if this fund to the AWU (her client and their supposed fund) or even to her S&G partners, lest they unwittingly spilled the beans to the AWU. On this basis alone, the secrecy seems unlikely to have been accidental.
Legal Eagle responded @ 84:
That might be so from a legal perspective but I have difficulty accommodating your previous rendering. This appears at the end of your original article and in the two appended ‘Trackbacks’:
I think that that unduly denies the suggestiveness of the circumstances. There is a lot of evidence mounting against her and very little for her. Her aversion to answering questions and saying that she has answered questions, that she hasn’t, adds to one’s suspicions. It’s all a bad look, and appearance and suggestion don’t live far from each other.
Do I think she will face legal charges? No I don’t, not even if more damaging evidence emerges.
As for whether Gillard should resign, I am not going to advocate that at this stage. But what if it had been Abbott in this position? Imagine the feeding frenzy by media and academics then.
Going back to your appraisal, that there is no evidence that Gillard did not unethical in not formerly opening a file (and keeping it secret) what is your take on this:
United Nations and the Rule of Law:
The embolding is mine. Are the ethics of Australian law different to that?
What gets me is that if Gillard was as innocent, young and naive as she has made herself out to be, then why, when discovering Wilson’s activities with the Association, did she not scream bloody murder – immediately notify S&G (who should have instantly notified their clients the AWU) and then all the aggrieved parties should have gone to the authorities (police etc). So the resultant silence and whatever effectively seems to be a cover-up is not a good look, especially with the non-answers and deflections. If she was innocent then she needs to move heaven and earth to prove her innocence, if she is guilty, then she needs to accept the consequences. It is a bad look for the country to have people seen to be above the law.
and
So…. what is this about?
Thanks for the laugh; quoting the United Nations on “avoidance of arbitrariness and procedural and legal transparency”. Too funny!
BTW, I’ve heard a nasty rumour that she’s Welsh! Looking forward to Ms Bishop demanding the release of her official birth certificate to nail her on that as well.
Lurker: she needs to move heaven and earth to prove her innocence – normally it is the other way round in law: it is impossible to prove innocence – as a wise old Roman once was alleged to have said.
It might be the other way round in law – however if my good name was being disputed then I’d be raising merry hell to prove otherwise, using every bit of available evidence to that fact. Which brings up another point, if she is being slandered, then why hasn’t she served a defamation writ. She was a lawyer, surely she’d use the law to prove her innocence.
L@89 look, I’m a conservative leaning voter, and all I can see in this is yet another embarrassing, snide, baseless, pointless attack by people who I should be aligned with. Seriously, do you think ‘our side’ (said with gritted teeth) is in any way advanced by the rehashing of decades old imputations upon the expertise and judgement of a newby lawyer who had a dodgy boyfriend?
Has Ms Gillard done nothing more, nothing worse, than this? Really, she must be laughing her socks off, if that’s the best Her Maj’s loyal opposition can produce at this point.
Too many words – as usual. Simply put, it is puerile, pointless, and embarrassing for all concerned.
Sean, I have no doubt that if it were Abbott in this position, the people calling for Gillard’s blood would be defending Abbott and giving explanations why he did what he did, and the people presently defending Gillard would be calling for Abbot’s blood. It’s one of the things which depresses me about politics. It’s one rule for My Side, another rule for the Other Side. I assure you, if this had occurred regarding Abbott, I would treat him in an identical fashion, with identical caution. I don’t really care what side of politics the person is on. I am not a member of any political party and nor have I ever been.
As for UN statements on the Rule of Law – they have absolutely no binding status in Australian domestic law, and impinge not at all on our legal system. Indeed, I must confess that as a private lawyer, I regard public international law with the greatest of suspicion – it’s more like a set of aspirational statements than law. Think of all the UN countries who have leaders who undermine the Rule of Law in most heinous ways?!!!
The Victorian laws governing legal ethics mainly centre around how lawyers govern their clients’ trust funds and their fiduciary duties towards clients (acting in the clients’ best interests), with some consideration of the duties of lawyers towards the court. There is now increasing regulation of the detail to be placed on bills to clients.
Thus, the law regarding legal ethics in Australia does not hold what Gillard did as unethical (unless it can be clearly proven that she was complicit in the criminal activities of Wilson and should be charged with criminal offences). Sadly, it’s amazingly difficult to get rid of lawyers where it’s not easy to prove what’s occurred. I can think of one guy who hung around for over 30 years in legal practice despite numerous serious allegations including perjury in witnessing an affidavit – it was alleged that a witness who purportedly swore an affidavit before this lawyer had been murdered the day before it was purportedly signed (!!!) and thus that the lawyer couldn’t possibly have witnessed the guy’s signature. If you are interested in reading about it, my colleague Linda Haller has written a paper charting the changes in legal regulation, using the career of this guy as an illustration of the problems and issues we’ve had in dealing with these kind of ethical dilemmas. (The guy was eventually disbarred in 2008). It’s a fascinating read.
Our rules do not stipulate when lawyers have to open files and under what circumstances. Nor do they even stipulate that lawyers must not act for a client when they are in a sexual relationship with a client!! Personally, I am increasingly thinking that the latter is a tremendous mistake, and that lawyers who act for a client with whom they are in a sexual relationship should be treated like doctors who are in a sexual relationship with a patient – struck off the practicing roll. It’s for their own good as well as for the good of the clients.
But I can only deal with what the law actually is, not aspirational statements from the UN or what people wish it was. And I am not willing to draw very serious legal conclusions on a public forum from evidence which is at present primarily circumstantial.
UN aspirational statement: “ho hum”. (and if you don’t believe me look up the definition of ‘aspiration’: 1. Expulsion of breath in speech.)
Somewhere above somebody linked to an AFR article in which it was reported that Ms Bishop was unsuccessful in seeking to table a copy of a cheque drawn on this ‘slush fund’ and questioning Ms Gillard’s complete lack of knowledge of the source of said funds. Problem is, the cheque was deposited in the Perth account of her law firm, for a conveyancing matter, being handled by a different department within her Melbourne office.
Hands up how many lawyers carefully investigate the source of all (any?) funds being deposited in their trust accounts? Someone… anyone?
As I said. Embarrassing.
KVD @ 90: I must say that I don’t regard Gillard as being a “newby” lawyer at the time. She was a partner at a law firm, and as such, held herself out as a person with expertise and skill. Yes, she was comparatively young at the time (32) but I don’t think that’s an excuse. If you can’t handle it, don’t take on the responsibility of being a partner and stay at senior associate level for a little longer. I don’t approve of what she did, and even on the best possible reading to her, it looks bad for her professionalism and judgement as a lawyer. I wouldn’t hire her at my firm after an incident like that.
But that was then, this is now. By getting too caught up in stuff from the past like this, I think you can miss the main game. The main question is: is she doing a good job now as Prime Minister? Personally I’m unconvinced, but I’m equally unconvinced by Abbott. No one’s convincing me. I don’t seem to be alone?
As for stuff going into the trust account – I believe I was always careful, but maybe that’s because I didn’t have lots of funds coming in? As a litigator, you don’t tend to deal so much with trust funds. You’re just cleaning up the mess.
Quoting me, kvd said @ 88:
The circling of the wagons, the Sergeant Schultz media, Gillard’s teflon coating. If there was someone else that didn’t get it, please let me know.
OK, closer to home then:
Kvd:
You know, I heard that very worrying apparently rumour too. In fact, I only saw it today, here. Hey, that’s you again!! Kvd, your protection of Gillard goes beyond intense; it extends into the bizarre.
LE@93 I’m not particularly concerned about how she ‘held herself out’ at that age. Fact is, myself included, people at that stage of life are absolute masters of the universe, and also know where the best coffee is to be had; by their paras of course.
Sean@94. Mate. What is your point? You have a great big pink block of text staring at you, asking you to expand upon 1) if you think she should face legal charges (“not”), and 2) should she resign (“not advocating this”) – and I simply asked “what is this about?”
And your detailed, thoughtful, response is …….
As for the Welsh, well, yes I have an interest. With a Cornish mother I have a deep regard for all survivors of the continuing English depradations. Balanced of course by a fair admiration of English cricket skills. (But if you feel that is bizarre, imagine my distaste for references to ‘the Kenyan’ elsewhere)
Sean, you need to either lighten up, or get real, because presently you are making ‘my side’ of politics into a joke, and I guess I’m just laughing at (not with) you.
Lurker @ 89: I’m guessing that Gillard has threatened to issue defamation writs. Have you noticed how careful the media outlets have been in their reports on this? I sure have.
Sean @ 94: again, statements about the necessity of transparency and accountability by a consultancy firm website are not the law. What I am concerned about the law which binds me and others: what can a judge actually rule on?
That being said, it behooves lawyers to behave in a way that is transparent and accountable – at least if we want to stop people hating us! But the legal obligation to do so is not as extensive as you seem to hope.
The joy of democracy is that people can exercise their judgement on the matter at the ballot box in the end. I imagine there are a number of people who don’t care about this kind of stuff at all and regard it as a beat-up, and others who will regard it as an indictment of the government. That’s up to them. We’ll see how it all plays out.
Meant to say earlier. Funniest thing I’ve read for yonks.
kvd said @ 90:
Yeah, and I’m Julia’s hairdresser. From what I see from here and from Googling elsewhere, and despite your curious claims to conservatism, is that you will go out of your way to defend Gillard and her government and leftist ideals while taking cheap swipes at Abbott and the Coalition. Even in your reply to Lurker, from the post I am quoting, you remark (embolding mine):
Laughing? Perhaps in your Julia dreams.
You even took an irrelevant swipe, at the Opposition in your reply to me, with this nonsense:
A quick search found these comments from you:
This, this, this, this, this and this.
I am confident that I could find many more without any weeding. You seem very consistent.
Getting back to Julie Bishop’s probe in Parliament. The Opposition looked like it was going to let the matter go. That was until your Julia came out with that misogyny speech. She wanted to make it big-time personal, “Game on!”. Two days later came the AWU probe in parliament. It must have frustrated the left that they (and you) couldn’t shriek, ‘Misogynist!!’ with a woman questioning Gillard – though they did make a failed attempt at directing their fury at Abbott (the archetypical ‘misogynist’ – note 1). There is no way they wouldn’t give it some sort of shot.
1. Refer to the new Macquarie Dictionary when it comes out
kvd said @ 97:
No doubt. I have marveled at your wit and humour.
So Sean, jokes aside, your detailed and thoughtful response is …….zzzz
And one other thing, @79 you complained about a “link to a blind search” . How’s that different to what you did @94?
kvd said @ 100:
My response was and still is:
In other words, Gillard has an enviable defense system. She has a very loyal media in commercial TV and even more so in the ABC. Already there you have the source of most people’s ‘news’. In the newspaper’s Gillard has the devoted Fairfax press.
There are some not-so-loyal jouranalists but early in the piece they could get the sack for airing the story.
Most had no desire to touch it, preferring to keep the heat on Abbott for whatever he was doing or for whatever could be made up. For many of the public this AWU-Wilson-Gillard mess is breaking news.
Then there’s this:
Legal files, that could shed light, have mysteriously vanished:
Now another file is mysteriously missing its documents, too:
Then there is the fact that Wilson and Blewitt were never charged despite the damning evidence against them. This tells us that Gillard will probably get through this and won’t even have to sit in the naughty corner with Slipper and Thompson.
kvd said:
Quite different. Mine was a typo while attempting to be very specific. I would have corrected it except that correction might have been messy and there were already sufficient clues. I had previously used the same quote and correct link twice, immediately above.
I said @ 101
Should be:
I think Sean has a point about certain sectors of the press not wanting to look into Gillard’s past. The political polarisation of the media these days bothers me. There’s sharply delineated lines as to who supports whom – you know certain papers are not going to go for Gillard’s jugular, just as you know certain papers are not going to go for Abbott’s jugular.
An exception to the above is Hedley Thomas, who I think is more an old-fashioned investigative reporter (and was involved in the Gillard story). I respect him, and I think that he looks into things carefully. Once he was involved in this, I was prepared to assume that he had his facts correct.
The position of the press should not be to promote the candidate they prefer in the best possible light and ignore possible flaws. It should be to investigate allegations about all sides of politics without fear or favour (that way, they’re all kept honest).
That’s what bothered me about the Kevin Rudd fall from grace, too – at the start he had the support of the press – and then suddenly (it was quite distinct) they turned and we heard all these stories about how they all knew what a crazy Rudd was. Why weren’t we hearing those stories earlier? Why the pack mentality? Shouldn’t we have both the good things and the bad things about a leader presented by the press at the start? I’d prefer to have a whole picture regardless of what side the politician is on. Anyway, my present approach is to read papers of every stripe and weigh it all up as best I can in the hope that this gives me a full picture.
But unless more concrete evidence comes up about Gillard (and yes, I am relying on the fickle press here), I think that continuing to speculate about this issue is flogging a dead horse. Better to concentrate on the here and now. And the ultimate judgement will come at the ballot box.
In my opinion what Gillard did (or didn’t do) in the past directly relates to the present, to the here and now
If we work on the supposition that she IS guilty of what is being alleged – then a whole host of other smelly issues come to the fore. There are other MPs, other Ministers of the Crown, a Judge, other movers and shakers who have backgrounds in the Unions and legal firms named in this AWU-WRA business. As an ordinary citizen I can only wonder just who is involved and if decisions these people are making in the here and now, are directly relating to saving their hides from the consequences of what happened in the 90′s. In other words, as an ordinary citizen (and not a member of any political party) I wonder if our Parliament might well be as corrupt as some of the less-democratic countries out there, and our smug ‘we’re-better-than-the-rest of you’, is simply self-delusion.
For the health of the nation any corruption needs to be identified and excised. I don’t care whose scalps might be threatened, whether they are judges, ministers of state, PMs, or heads of business. Australia needs a clean bill of health, and currently I feel that many people (including those in the media) are frantically trying to band-aid over a stinking, foetid, gangrenous wound.
p.s. I would be equally as disgusted if the Libs/Nats had a similar cloud hanging over them. This all comes down to the Australian people having trust in their Parliament and Law-makers/Law-Courts/Law-firms and Unions – until the stench of corruption is gone, I will look askance at all involved.
There’s plenty to be disturbed about in the here and now.
The ALP took government of the country with a hard won surplus and the promise of some relief from the pain of winning the surplus. On the excuse of a world wide recession they have blown the surplus and indebted the country far more heavily than ever before, this with our export income continuing to be greater than ever before.
Whilst doing this they have encouraged politics of division and hate.
L.E. said @ 192
Thank you. But I believe it is worse than that. I think that wit Fairfax press, one is liable to not even be made aware of happenings that are uncomfortable for Labor. It has essentially been a propaganda organ for Labor, hence its diving readership. Murdoch is arguably presently favouring the right, but I would argue that that is due to Labor’s form rather the due to intrinsic bias.
In the 2007 election the Australian supported Rudd. In 2010, the Sunday Telegraph said that Labor deserves a second chance. In 2007, David Penberthy of the Daily qrote an article titled “Why we are Supporting Kevin Rudd“.
Murdoch papers still have writers who haven’t changed their views. Until recently, Peter van Onselen, in the Australian, could be relied on to turn the latest Labor/Greens disaster into a story about the evils of Abbott.
There is the false belief being promoted, that the evil Murdoch controls 70% of the papers in Australia. That is not so, Murdoch controls about 30% but sells 70%, due to greater popularity, due to what I mention above. There have been Labor/Greens attempts to stifle Murdoch’s voice with new censorship laws.
Actually, the Labor doesn’t need to worry about that as much as they think. Very few people get their news from the newspapers. They get it from the TV media, very much a leftist domain.
Names that immediately come to mind are Laurie Oakes on 9, The Project on 10, Mark Riley on 7 and all of the ABC. These are people who won’t change their position no matter how diabolical Labor becomes, and diabolical they have already long been.
I am often depressed to find how oblivious are the people I know, as to what has been going on politically. This doesn’t seem to suppress confident pronouncements from their political wisdom, always based on what person they don’t like. I am sure that next time I ask someone what he hates about Abbott, he will look at me startled and splutter, “Well ….. er …. he’s a misogynist!”.
L.E. said:
In a following paragraph, you talk about a fickle press. I am not sure that the press was being fickle with Rudd per se, rather they were being consistent with their Labor propaganda. While Rudd was leader, demonising him was not politically correct. When he was booted and Gillard installed, the media needed to justify the assassination – which they did.
After the Gillard Government started dying in the polls, the media needed to work even harder at making things
rightleft.The trouble is that undergraduate journalists, the universities are leftist training camps. Look at these two idiots who heckled and and disrupted speeches by Tony Abbott and Martin Ferguson on two separate occasions. They actually stopped Ferguson’s speech for over two minutes. These ratbags are – wait for it – journalism tutors at Melbourne and Swinburne universities. Heaven help Australia because Labor won’t.
H@105 Australia is not remotely near (pdf) its record levels of public debt.
Sean, the press actually started lancing into Rudd before he was dethroned, and I believe that they contributed to his removal. I wrote about it here in 2010. It’s bothered me from that time onwards, because it makes me wonder: how accurate are the portraits we get of our leaders through the media?
Henry2 said @ 105:
Lorenzo @ 107 wrote:
A Clear Picture of Australia’s Debt
Plot 1.
Plot 2.
SMcH@109 I am not denying the Rudd-Gillard Government increased the level of public debt, that is not in dispute, just that it is nowhere near record levels. And graphing the total monetary value of securities is a bit misleading, since the economy is considerably larger than it was when, for example, the Howard Government came to office.
Lorenzo said @ 110
You inadvertently admit that Labor has managed to squander a surplus and max out the credit card during a boom period, a boom period that has now ended – along with the means of us repaying the debt instead of our children.
Oh, how much larger is it? And if you get a raise at work, does that mean you start spending like a drunken sailor, buying stupid junk?
SMcH@111 I am not defending the Rudd-Gillard Government’s budgetary policies, I am merely pointing out we are nowhere near record levels of indebtedness.
As to how much bigger the economy is, in 1996 GDP was $544bn. In 2011, GDP was $1,441bn. So, well over twice as big in money terms. Since the graphs you linked to were total monetary value of bonds outstanding, that is the appropriate comparison.
Lorenzo said @ 112
That wasn’t obvious.
It is not only the size of the debt, it’s how quickly they achieved after being left with a good surplus from Howard. The point is, they need to be stopped.
Why not start with 2008, close to the start of Labor’s time (late Nov 2007). The GDP then was $1.06 trillion. In 2011, it was 1.37 trillion. That’s about a third more. Compare that to the sky-rocketing debt for that period. In any case, just because the GDP rises, it doesn’t mean that the debt should.
We don’t need to see the pretty paddock next to the Labor train wreck.
Despite my comment @ 103, I should note in fairness that certain journalists within the Fairfax press have been in on the game for the last two months or so, despite Fairfax’s slow start on this issue – see eg, today’s article in The Age. The author agrees with me that Gillard can’t have been much of a lawyer if she missed all this stuff?
I noted with interest that The Age even had something on the issue the day after the misogyny speech. This indicates to me that there’s a certain section of the Fairfax media who are rightly prepared to report on the issue and investigate.
For now, I’ve nothing to add to the main post, and I consider speculation on the matter based on circumstantial evidence to be fruitless. However, I will continue to watch with interest and see what else (if anything) surfaces.
/blockquote>
“In fairness”, the slowness might be due to the fact that two reporters were sacked for trying to air this story and The Australian had Julia herself screeching threats down the phone at them. However, I have been following this story since June. You linked the article in The Age. Even that article recognised the worrying significance of the current evidence and the problems with Gillard’s testimony.
Fruitless in what way? You are essentially saying that all the evidence so far counts for nothing. Labor would just love that. Just because there mightn’t be enough for conviction it doesn’t mean there isn’t enough for warranted suspicion. As an analogy, one sees numerous examples of shysters getting away with ripping off people, where the law seems unable to touch them. We regularly see them on TV and we are warned about them. Would you knowingly employ any of these people with your money?
In Gillard’s case, we the public are the employer and the ones who must decide whether we want to employ the person again, not the courts and not the lawyers. We absolutely can speculate. There is a damn side more evidence against Gillard on this AWU matter than there is on Abbott with the ‘misogynist’ smear and Labor is getting great mileage out of that trash. Bear in mind that our scurrilous PM has hired an overseas smear expert to deliberately create a war between the sexes just to get Abbott. So please, let’s not get too precious about her right to the presumption of innocence. That isn’t guaranteed even in our legal system, let alone politics.
The evidence isn’t only circumstantial, however there is a growing amount of circumstantial evidence, enough to shift the probabilities well out of her favour:
1. There is the fact that she has been dodging questions and saying she has answered questions that she hasn’t. In other words, fibbing even there.
2. There is the fact that her signature of witness is on a POA when Blewitt says he wasn’t even in Melbourne that day, but in WA. That significant bonus of detail in his account increases the probability that he is telling the truth.
3. There is the fact that she never reported the matter to police or to the AWU when she discovered that there was fraud happening.
4. There is the fact that her story is changing. First she said she didn’t report it because that fraud was already being investigated by the authorities. That was false. Then she said that she didn’t report it because she didn’t know.
5. Aside from the falsehoods and contradictions, if she didn’t know, why did she break it off with her lover and why did she think she was having to leave Slater and Gordon?
6. Then there is the fact that there was no file raised in the system. She had kept the matter a secret from her firm, S&G and from her client, the AWU. Here I will repeat a point that I twice previously raised, without receiving an answer. I said, “Wilson could not just hope that invisibility might be the case. He would’ve needed to be confident that Gillard wouldn’t divulge the existence of this fund to the AWU (her client and their supposed fund) or even to her S&G partners, lest they unwittingly spilled the beans to the AWU. On this basis alone, the secrecy seems unlikely to have been accidental.”
7. Then there are the two other previously extant (presumably) files that mysteriously went missing, one at S&G and the other in the WA archives.
8. Then there was the fact that she actually attended the auction with her boyfriend, where a house was purchased with the defrauded money.
9. Then there was Julia saying that she couldn’t rule out that union money was used for the renovation of her own house.
10. Then there is the fact that, though the fund was disguised as being for workplace reform, she knew that it was nothing of the sort. She hasn’t even denied that.
11. There is her compounding of the above deception. When the WA Corporate Affairs Commission suspected and queried the registration, Gillard wrote back assuring them of its validity.
12. Point 11 by itself exposes the falsehood of Gillard’s claim, “I provided advice in relation to its establishment [of the association] and that was it.”
13. There is her claim that she wasn’t in charge of the conveyancing. How could she make the call to make it a freebie if she wasn’t in charge of it?
14. There is her defense that she was young and naive. A lawyer at thirty-five, who is a partner in a leading law firm, is young and naive?
It already has:
15. Slater and Gordon deny her denials that she was in charge of the conveyancing. “But Slater & Gordon managing director Andrew Grech has confirmed Ms Gillard ‘’acted directly’’ in the conveyancing work on the property purchase.”
Perhaps the mutual protection is becoming unsustainable and it’s now every
manperson forhimselfthemselves.Excellent post Sean, and I think you have covered every troubling detail. Like you I have been following this issue for a very long time – since I think Sept/Oct last year.
Do you recollect that the media were happily hanging, drawing and quartering Abbott over that teenage punching the wall episode – an episode that one person (an ideological foe) allegedly witnessed – yet noone else recollected it happening, there was no documentary evidence of the time stating that it happened – yet the media ran with it as if it were established fact.
Then there is the AWU-WRA issue and a heap of documentary evidence that something really bad happened, Gillard’s name is associated with a couple of very dodgy documents (the Association and the SPoA), and now you have police wanting to speak to a key witness (Blewitt) who says that he will sing as long as he is granted indemnity.
The media’s reaction? Only a couple of papers are willing to run articles, the ABC is mute, SBS is mute, the commercial news is mute. In other words – Abbott is made out to be the devil incarnate for something he may or may not have done as a teen, yet Gillard and the AWU-WRA barely rates a mention, and the general public are left almost completely in the dark.
The other thing that angers me is that it is evident that we have a class of people that consider themselves above the Law here in Australia. Ask yourself Legal Eagle, is that a good thing for our country? Is that a good thing for our democracy? If the big fish are untouchable, how does it make the small fish feel – especially those who might have made an error on their tax form and then have been hounded from pillar to post by the ATO, or made a mistake in their driving and been fined hundreds of dollars (not myself btw, I am speaking in a general way). How does the average law-abiding person feel doing the right thing, abiding by the law, when they know there are criminals or criminally inclined people who are getting away scot free. It burns me up that justice and the law allows this. I used to have faith in the courts, in the law, have even sat on a jury bench in the past – but after this, never again. I will wonder – who is answerable to who, who has been bought off, or promoted off, or threatened.
Lurker said @ 116
Thanks. As you would know, another piece to the jigsaw puzzle has come out of the box. It fits perfectly well into the emerging picture:
16. AWU scandal – $5000 put in Gillard’s account, claims whistleblower
(points 1-15 here)
Actually, I am not sure how long I have been following this matter. I can just note that I have been archived material that is dated back to June.
The hypocrisy and unashamed media bias (propaganda and censorship) gets very badly up my nose. It’s what impels me to become involved.
And that is the only message the majority of the public are receiving.
But the success of the media working their manipulations requires a contentedly ignorant and compliant public. Unfortunately, it appears that that is what we have.
Labor is concerned with the future of Labor, not the future of Australia. Gillard is worse; she is concerned with the future of Gillard.
Not to disagree with your post at all Lurker, but I will have to credit Legal Eagle points for exercising democracy in her running of this blog. Not all places give the opposing views a fair hearing – the ABC for example. I would like to thank her for that.
Sean@111:
As Lorenzo has already pointed out, the government ‘credit card’ is no where near maxed out. All three major credit ratings agencies currently give the government the best possible rating. There is no debt problem. What I really like though, is how you creatively demonstrate your ignorance of economics by describing the global financial crisis as a ‘boom period’.
Sean@115:
What is there warranted suspicion of? What laws do you think the evidence indicates Gillard might have broken? The only allegation that I can see is the witnessing of a POA that she didn’t actually witness being signed. While this is a serious allegation, it isn’t on particularly solid ground. The allegation has been made by someone who claims to need immunity from prosecution, has only been raised 2 decades after the event and years of media coverage, and (as yet) lacks any corroborating evidence.
Along with Gillard’s other conduct and her relationship with Bruce Wilson, it does not help Gillard’s image. However the allegation by itself it seems a long way short of actually showing that she’s of such poor character that she should resign from office (or be voted out). This is particularly so given this issue has been published and rehashed well before the most recent federal election and so as leader of the Labor party, Gillard demonstrably has sufficient democratic support (however politically flimsy) from the people to be Prime Minister in spite of the questions this issue raises.
As for claims about media bias, I’ll make the point that it’s The Australian that has owned up to publishing untrue facts on this issue. Given The Australian’s track record on this issue I’m not surprised some media organisations are wary about republishing the latest unverifiable facts asserted (however indirectly) by The Australian.
Sean and Lurker, I don’t want anybody to consider themselves above the law. But I also want to be scrupulously fair in the way I assess matters such as this because the ramifications of accusing someone to be fraudulent are so very serious.
I think we are at cross-purposes because I look at the world in a legal way (naturally). If you’re a lawyer and you allege fraud in litigation there’s a very high burden of proof required. You’ve got to have very firm bases for alleging it. That is similarly the standard I adopt in assessing matters such as these. Fraud or unethical conduct is not an allegation I would ever make lightly in any context against any person. I think that is where you and I differ – I have a higher standard of proof for the evidence required to substantiate an allegation of unethical conduct.
Moreover, I’m certainly not going to make any allegations on the blog where I am not comfortable with doing so. My old boss at my law firm used to say, “Don’t write anything in an e-mail that you would be ashamed to show a judge!” (bless his cotton socks). That’s my standard with blogging too.
Much though you may find it frustrating, my caution and prudence is also why I would never have gotten into a mess like Gillard’s in the first place. So, hey, as far as I’m concerned, it’s a positive. Hurrah for caution and prudence in lawyers, say I!
And here’s an illustration of why it’s appropriate to be cautious: union official withdraws allegation about Gillard’s renovations being paid for by Wilson et al (paywall).
Ok, leaving Gillard’s predicament aside – why is it that Wilson has never been charged? You state that you don’t want anyone to be above the law, yet here is an individual, who, going by all available evidence, was allegedly involved in corrupt activities; yet as far as I am aware, no charges were ever laid and he spent no time in court explaining his actions to a judge and jury. The knowledge about this man’s alleged actions have been known by many for almost twenty years – yet he still has his freedom. Would you not say that he seems to be above the law? And why should he be above the law, when for example, that ‘fake prince’ guy who swindled Queensland Health for millions of dollars has had the law rightly and properly descend upon his head.
You see, both cases deal with the improper use of taxpayer money (the AWU-WRA money originally came from a WA Government training fund, via building companies, which ended up in the AWU-WRA) yet only one of these two cases came to Court. Can you explain to me why this is so?
It gets very interesting if you go behind the paywall and read all the articles associated with the AWU scandal.
Here is another question for you Legal Eagle – what is considered heavier proof in a courtroom – a diary written and transcribed at the time of events and a recorded and transcribed dialogue of an interview at the time of events – or current statements dismissing what was said or written seventeen years ago?
Lurker, I believe that Wilson should have been charged, along with Blewitt, and I have said so above. If I were a member of that union, I would be especially furious. They purported to take money for workers, and allegedly used it for their own purposes, which is appalling. It is a perversion of the Labor movement, and I have no time for it whatsoever.
Written evidence from which someone later resiles is problematic (particularly when it’s another person who has taken the notes). Ideally, if I were to make a call on which is the more accurate, I would want to cross-examine both parties involved in the production of it.
Anyway. I will not be around the blog for a few days for work reasons (conferences etc). Let’s just agree to disagree for now, because frankly, this conversation is getting repetitive and it’s getting us nowhere. I have many other things to do rather (full time job, small kids etc). I am not going to respond to any further comments unless something radically different from the above emerges.
Desi said @ 118:
So you must like it when Julia also refers to the boom, in argument with Abbott. Neither is saying that there is no boom; it’s just that Abbott is saying that it is coming to an end and she says it isn’t.
Now, despite Julia herself equating the mining health and the economy’s health, you might still wish to diminish its importance as a measure – IOW, ‘Just a mining boom, nothing more.’:
Gillard and Rudd took us from surplus to massive debt, at blistering speed, during a resources boom. That takes a special talent that only Labor can provide. On second thought, I suspect that the Greens could outdo them.
BTW, I really do believe you when you say you like ignorance. Sergeant Shultz has a lot to answer for.
Regarding the AWU Scandal and Gillard:
Sergeant Shultz again? I provided several items in an earlier post, here.
The following raises my suspicions:
- There is Gillard’s characteristic refusal to answer questions on this matter. Here is one example of many. It occurs at 35 seconds into this video. If she has nothing to hide, why is she continually evasive?
- Why did Gillard originally say that she couldn’t rule out that union money was used on her house renovations? I can say categorically from the outset, that no union funds ever paid for my house renovations.
- There is the $5,000 dollars, mentioned in the previous video, that Hem said he was asked to put into Gillard’s account by Wilson. If that occurred an explanation is needed. Gillard hasn’t even denied it; she just evades the question. Under the circumstances, a gift would not be a comfortable explanation. Perhaps Gillard sold Wilson a car or something. That would be nice.
- There is something I have submitted three times previously without a reply. If you think that there is nothing suspicious, Desi, you should be able to happily reconcile it. I submit that Wilson could not just hope that invisibility might be the case. He would’ve needed to be confident that Gillard wouldn’t divulge the existence of this fund to the AWU (her client and their supposed fund) or even to her S&G partners, lest they unwittingly spilled the beans to the AWU. For this reason, the invisibility of the fund seems unlikely to have been accidental or incidental. Please answer that point.
- There is Gillard reassuring the Commissioner for Corporate Affairs, in WA, of the validity of the fund after he questioned it. This makes one suspect that Gillard played a more pivotal role than she would have us believe. She said, “I provided advice in relation to its establishment [of the fund/association] and that was it.”
- Why didn’t Gillard report the theft to the police or her client, the AWU, once she was undeniably aware?
- Why did her excuse for the above, change? She said the fraud was already under investigation by the authorities. It wasn’t. She later said she could not report what she did not know. At the time of the S&G internal investigation, she definitely did know. That is why she was compelled to part company with her boyfriend and her employer, never to work in law again.
- There is Cambridge’s note in his diary, written in 1995, regarding the payment for renovations to Gillard’s house. Cambridge was very highly regarded for his integrity and was a staunch union and Labor supporter. The ‘whistle blower’ has denied giving that information to Cambridge. I don’t believe that the latter just made it up. I am reminded of all the disappearing files (see below), there one day, gone the next.
- There is the fact that her signature of witness is on a POA when Blewitt says he wasn’t even in Melbourne that day, but in WA.
- Slater and Gordon deny Gillard’s denials that she was in charge of the conveyancing. “But Slater & Gordon managing director Andrew Grech has confirmed Ms Gillard ‘’acted directly’’ in the conveyancing work on the property purchase.” If Gillard wasn’t in charge, who was?
- Wilson didn’t mind taking Gillard to the auction, where he purchased for Blewitt (Wilson’s sidekick) a house with the money from the bogus fund that Gillard helped set up.
- Then there are the documents that have mysteriously gone missing. Three lots of documents from different locations. People who aren’t Labor apologists (luvvies), once informed, would tend to find that suspicious. The three sets that I know about are:
i) The Gordon and Slater documents relating to the purchase of the contentious house with stolen AWU money.
ii) The corporate affairs file. It has gone missing from the state archives. This was from an official file-keeping institution. The folder is there but the documents are missing. It includes the letter of reassurance, from Gillard, to the Commissioner for Corporate Affairs, in WA. That was after he expressed concern about the nature of fund. Gillard assured him that it was bona fide, even though she knew full well the fund was not being set up for its nominated purpose.
iii) Documents (copies) were sent to the Federal Court in Queensland. Those files are now also missing. The boxes that contained them were still there but are empty. Court files are held very securely. One needs permission to access them.
I play with probability and the odds against this succession happening by innocent chance, are prohibitive. If this doesn’t sound like a coverup, what would? This alone should be enough to prompt a proper inquiry. If this just gets swept under the carpet, it means that there is a growing rot in Australia’s structure, that is eroding its very foundations.
UPDATE: A fourth set of documents has gone missing:
Note that this includes stuff gathered by investigator Ian Cambridge whom I spoke of above. This is becoming very sinister. But of course, Labor types would see nothing suspicious (let alone, ominous) happening here. Damn you and all of your kind, because it is you and the love media that have made it possible for this sort of thing to happen in Australia.
- Did she profit from the fraud?
- Was $5,000 put into her account by Wilson? If so, for what?
- Why didn’t she report the fraud when she found out? Wasn’t she obliged by law to do so?
- Did she really witness the POA signing or did she backdate it? Wouldn’t the latter be against the law? Blewitt says he wasn’t even in Victoria on the specified signing date.
- Why did she set up a fund supposedly for workplace safety training, knowing that is not what is was for? Is that legal?
- Why did she go on to assure the Commissioner for Corporate Affairs, in WA, of the bona fide nature of the fund, after he expressed reservations? Was that legal?
The ground is solid if Blewitt was standing on WA ground at the time his presence and signature was being ‘witnessed’.
Yes, I heard where they called it ‘trust fund’. An ostensibly outraged and defamed Gillard told them it was a ‘slush fund’. Amazing.
Yeah. Now Julie Bishop hired by CSR, that’s the real story with the AWU scandal.
And:
Such is the integrity of Labor and their ABC.
Sean, the documents going missing brings a whole new aspect to the case. It raises the specter of present wrongdoing and the possibility of someone attempting to prevent people knowing what occurred.
As for the comparison in the media of Bishop acting for asbestos companies with the present issues – I argue that prima facie there is no comparison. I have already written (in the context of a Green candidate for State elections) that to accuse a lawyer of immorality because of the persons they act for misunderstands the nature of legal representation. I’m not partisan – I will defend a Green lawyer as much as a Liberal lawyer in this regard. We are under a duty to represent clients who approach us and cannot refuse them because we do not ‘like’ the client. I will write more anon when I have finished marking.
Here’s the post I did about Greens Candidate Brian Walters getting in trouble for representing a coal company. The same thing applies to Bishop. You are not defined by those whom you represent as a lawyer. We’re obliged to act for everyone who has a case to argue, and if we only act for people who are ‘popular’ that is problematic. My only concern is that lawyers should act ethically and fairly. My understanding is that Bishop sought advice from extremely reputable counsel when conducting the litigation in question (including the present Chief Justice of the High Court, French CJ).
As a lawyer acting for an unpopular client, you can influence the client in ways which make it behave fairly. In the past I have been a solicitor for a variety of big banks. I always tried to act in the best interests of my client, but also to be ethical and fair towards defendants (that’s the only way I could live with myself and sleep at night, but pragmatically, it’s also in the best interests of the client – it’s easier to settle cases and come to a mutually acceptable solution if you treat people decently).
Sean@123,
There was a resources boom and a global financial crisis. The former (along with other significant factors) allows for significant differentiation from the troubled economies of Europe. This is the context of Gillard’s criticism of Abbot:
The later impacted the economy more widely and more significantly, justifying government stimulus to stabilise the economy and also consequently reducing the government’s revenue:
There’s a vast difference between a government with a budget deficit or debt on the books, and an economy in crisis. Government debt and deficit is something to expect over the normal course of the business cycle. An economic crisis is something our government has managed avoided despite the circumstances and thus distinguished itself from other governments around the world.
Desipis, I agree with you that we have sailed through the GFC relatively unscathed – the thing I’m uncertain about is the extent to which the government was responsible for avoiding it with measures like the stimulus, and how much of it was just the luck of the resources boom which insulated us? Perhaps, as Lorenzo hypothesises, our RBA also contributed to our relative “unscathedness”.
FWIW, I did actually spend my stimulus money on The Kevin Rudd Memorial Built-in-Wardrobes (I felt honour-bound to use it for the purpose of employing Australian labour and craftsmen). But (anecdotally) I know many other people who spent it on overseas travel…! Kind of defeats the purpose – though I suppose travel agents got a slice.
LE, rereading my last comment I can see how you might infer I considered the current government as some sort paragon of economic management. I don’t think that. I think a lot of things contributed to our current economic position and that government (both past and present) has played only a part. The main point I was trying to make was that our current economic or fiscal position, when viewed in context, is no indication that the current government is somehow economically incompetent.
LE @ 125 I was appalled when I read of the attack on Bishop because of who she chose to represent, as much as I would be appalled if someone attacked Gillard because she chose to represent unions in workplace law.
Is this lowering of journalistic standard a response to those journalists who chose to investigate Gillards activity in relation to the AWU slush fund rort?
If so, it misses teh point that Gillards principle client was the AWU and the AWU was harmed by the rort.
Totally agreed, Henry2. I think it’s that people (including journalists) don’t understand that lawyers are not defined by those whom they represent. I’ve seen this kind of criticism meted out on all sorts (including the Greens candidate I mention above). Someone on Facebook said, “You know them by who they represented in practice.”
People don’t get that, just because you acted in the past for a corporation, that doesn’t make you a bad person, and it doesn’t mean that you act in an unethical way and screw people over. Conversely, just because you acted in the past for a union, it doesn’t make you a good person nor does it mean that everything you do is good. For someone who is disposed to have the opposite biases (corporation = good, union = bad), the same is true in reverse.
I think that one of the dangers is when you believe that you’re acting on the side of the angels. That means you are not as critical as you might otherwise be, and you might even be tempted to cut corners for the greater “good”.
So here’s a version of the story freely available on the web.
There must be some holes in it?
Julia Gillard was a union lawyer and partner working at Slater & Gordon in Victoria in the early to mid 1990s. She handled the affairs of the Australian Workers Union (AWU), the most powerful union in the country; the same union that recently arranged for the knifing of popularly elected sitting PM, Kevin Rudd, to replace him with the union-aligned Gillard.
While working for the AWU at Slater & Gordon, Gillard fell for then AWU official, Bruce Wilson. Wilson had Gillard set up an incorporated association in WA. She has confirmed this (but says she did not know what it was used for). Her handwriting is on the documents.
This was a dummy association, a fraud. It was set up without any authorisation from the AWU. Then lawyer Gillard did not consult the AWU about it. She applied for it to be named the AWU Workplace Reform Association knowing it was not within the rules of the AWU and that a union cannot be an association. That dummy incorporated association was then used to set up a bank account for the purpose of siphoning hundreds of thousands of dollars from a West Australian Government training scheme, the Building Construction Industry Training Fund (BCTIF) into which developers and contractors paid a levy meant to fund training in the construction industry.
Wilson funnelled funds meant to train construction workers into the bank account of the Gillard-established dummy association for his own benefit. He arranged for developers such as Thiess to pay into this account which became Wilson’s personal cash cow for expenditures such as a home purchase at 85 Kerr Street, Fitzroy, (in the name of Wilson’s partner in the bank account, fellow unionist, Ralph Blewitt, with Wilson’s signature on the cheque), renovations and thousands of dollars spent at a women’s fashion house.
Gillard arranged for a large loan on the Kerr Street house from her law firm, Slater and Gordon and for the conveyancing.
The bank account operated between April 1992 and April 1995 at which time the fraud began to unravel when tradesmen and contractors pursued the AWU for unpaid renovation works at the Kerr Street house (where Wilson and Gillard were reported to be living, according to union witnesses at the time), and on Gillard’s Abbottsford home. The AWU had no idea what these unpaid invoices were for. They had not contracted the works.
AWU officials Bill Ludwig and Ian Cambridge went straight to the lawyers and had a 38 page itemised forensic affidavit drawn up by then partner at Sydney firm Turner Freeman, Robert McClelland, who later got dumped by Gillard as Attorney General when he backed Rudd, not her, at the last leadership ballot. The police needed more evidence on the house. Slater and Gordon closed ranks, refused to release the files based on ‘client privilege’, with the client being Ralph Blewitt, Wilson’s partner. Those files remain hidden – possibly until now.
The accounts operated by Wilson and Blewitt, established by Gillard’s dummy association, have been described by Ludwig and Cambridge as ‘unauthorised’, ‘invalid’, ‘irregular’ and used for ‘possibly illegal purposes’.
Ian Cambridge (now a Fair Work Australia Commissioner), swore in the McClelland-prepared affidavit, “I am unable to understand how Slater & Gordon, who were then acting for the Victoria Branch of the Union, could have permitted the use of funds which were obviously taken from the union, in the purchase of private property of this nature, without seeking and obtaining proper authority from the union”.
Gillard was sacked from Slater and Gordon. The firm tried to distance itself from the affair. She never practised law again and was unemployed for six months, later getting a Joan Kirner arranged job in the Victorian Opposition Leader, John Brumby’s office to try to resurrect her fortunes. The Kerr Street house was soon sold and the money from the sale never recovered by the AWU (believed to have benefited Wilson). Wilson and Blewitt were removed from the AWU. Blewitt ended up in self imposed exile in Asia. Wilson is believed to have changed his identity and hiding out as a cook in a club in Newcastle in NSW.
Julia Gillard is finished. There a too many holes in her story to plug. I would like for her to be leading the Government at the next election, but I don’t think that will happen.
Her denying, to Slater and Gordon, that she knew of the house mortgage, is denied by bank correspondence and by other correspondence involving her.
When an offer was made on the mortgage, it was made to Wilson, Julia Gillard’s boyfriend, even though the house was in Blewitt’s name.
There are also handwritten notes to Julia Gillard about the house and mortgage. One of the notes was even subsequently copied by typing it out.
The details of the above can be found here on Michael Smith’s page. He was sacked from Fairfax’s 2UE for trying to present news on the scandal.
This new information adds to the other problematic items I posted here.
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[...] No, there’s nothing in the information we have which suggests that Julia Gillard has been in any way been unethical or fraudulent or anything of the like, and there’s nothing to suggest that she should stand down as Prime Minister (contrary to the calls from some of my friends on the Right). But to me, this whole thing underscores a certain lack of judgement on Gillard’s part which is deeply disappointing. via skepticlawyer.com.au [...]
[...] No, there’s nothing in the information we have which suggests that Julia Gillard has been in any way been unethical or fraudulent or anything of the like, and there’s nothing to suggest that she should stand down as Prime Minister (contrary to the calls from some of my friends on the Right). But to me, this whole thing underscores a certain lack of judgement on Gillard’s part which is deeply disappointing. via skepticlawyer.com.au [...]
[...] as emerged in the infamous Julia Gillard post, and as my colleague Linda Haller explains here, there is no law in Victoria stating that it is [...]