JULIA Gillard's ex-lover Bruce Wilson has declared the Prime Minister knew nothing about a 1990s union fraud scandal.

Speaking out for the first time the former Australian Workers Union boss said Ms Gillard "knew absolutely, categorically nothing" about the affair.

Mr Wilson - who now works as a cook on the Central Coast - said: "They can go on a witch-hunt for as long as they like and they will find nothing that will do her (Gillard) any harm.

"It's just a waste of time, they will find nothing."

http://www.news.com.au/national/bruce-wilson-speaks-on-awu-scandal-julia-gillard-didnt-know/story-fndo4bst-1226523406442

 

THIS will be a bruising parliamentary week, the last of an extraordinary and draining year that has strained voters' tolerance of politicians to the max.
As they contemplate the next few days, full of Christmas-party cheer and political poison, Julia Gillard will be feeling a little better than Tony Abbott, even though she knows she'll face a battering on the AWU slush fund affair.
In Abbott's one-time dreams, the Labor government would have collapsed by now, an election been held, and he'd be PM. Instead, the government is still standing. Not only that, but since mid-year, Labor's primary vote has improved and the two party gap narrowed.
Abbott's personal ratings have fallen. In the Nielsen poll, Gillard's approval has risen from 35 per cent in May to 47 per cent in November; Abbott's has fallen from 44 per cent to 36 per cent. Gillard has managed to blacken her opponent's character.

Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/politics/seasons-bleatings-at-years-end-20121124-29zz1.html#ixzz2DD5WAc00
Hello?...Hello!... The only thing the Prime Minister did "to backen her opponent's character" was to respond purposefully to an attack by Tony Detritus who accused her of being sexist and misogynist for not sacking Peter Slipper... That misogynist tomato stuck to Tony's face...  Beforehand, since day one, with the help of the merde-och media and other stooges like Alan Jones and Andrew Bolt, thrown buckets of dirt on Julia... All flew back on them of course but they still push and push regardless of truth and can I say decency....

http://www.news.com.au/national/julia-gillard-awu-scandal-parliament-attack/story-fndo4eg9-1226524034807

 

Meanwhile in Canberra:

 

WILL THIS BE THE WEEK the lid blows off the ominously rumbling Canberra volcano?

For several weeks toxic gas emissions in the media and harmonic tremors in Parliament have become more and more frequent.

Prime Minister Julia Gillard has averted an explosion so far over her involvement in a union slush fund in the early 1990s when working as a lawyer at Slater & Gordon. And over her defence of that conduct more recently.

In fact, she appears to have benefitted from what she called in late-August “a very sexist smear campaign.”

...

This week, Opposition Deputy Leader Julie Bishop is tipped to raise “unanswered questions” in the Federal Parliament. Her concerns include the role Gillard played in setting up the fund for the Australian Workers Union (AWU). What was that role? What did Gillard believe to be the purpose of the fund at the time? What did she tell the WA Corporate Affairs Commissioner were its purposes? Are those answers consistent? And what was her awareness of union illegality?

The second possible development this week is testimony offered to police by former AWU employee Ralph Blewitt. Blewitt has mysteriously materialised from overseas. [Who is paying him? I have my suspicions, which I will air at the end of this piece.] What will he say? Is he believable?

 

 

http://www.independentaustralia.net/2012/politics/the-canberra-volcano-questions-the-pm-must-answer/

Meanwhile blewitt blew it...

 

Let me remind you who Mr Blewitt is," she said.

"Mr Blewitt is a man who has publicly said he was involved in fraud. Mr Blewitt is a man who has sought immunity from prosecution. Mr Blewitt is a man who has fled Indonesia to avoid a police interview in relation to land fraud, although he denies wrongdoing in the case.

 

"Mr Blewitt says he owes money on another Asian land deal. Mr Blewitt admits to using the services of prostitutes in Asia. Mr Blewitt has published lewd and degrading comments and accompanying photographs on his Facebook page.

"Mr Blewitt, according to people who know him, has been described as a complete imbecile, an idiot, a stooge, a sexist pig, a liar and his sister has said he's a crook, and rotten to the core.

"His word against mine: make your mind up."

http://www.news.com.au/national/julia-gillard-awu-scandal-parliament-attack/story-fndo4eg9-1226524034807

 

Meanwhile in the tripping around:

Finally, to the questions as to who is funding the internet nutjobs, and who is paying for Ralph Blewitt’s trip to Australia?

Are they being paid by an ALP slush fund, to keep this “scandal” ticking along so the PM’s popularity can continue to rise?

With seismographs switched on, we may find out this week.

http://www.independentaustralia.net/2012/politics/the-canberra-volcano-questions-the-pm-must-answer/

AS NEWS broke on Saturday evening that former union official Bruce Wilson was backing the Prime Minister's defence of her professional conduct 17 years ago, industrial lawyer Josh Bornstein took to Twitter.
The Maurice Blackburn principal does a lot of work with unions and proffered the following context: ''Some home truths re union officials re-election funds: 1. Such funds are a dime a dozen and have been around for donkey's years. 2. Usually a group of like-minded union officials regularly contribute a portion of their wages to the fund. 3. Such funds are not funds of the union but belong to the group of officials. Authorisation by the union is not required. 4. Lawyers often assist in setting up the fund structure but do not usually have any further role in the operation or management.''
You'd hope for the health and heart of the labour movement that not all funds are quite as ''colourful'' as the Australian Workers Union's, but Bornstein's context might be useful for people outside the industrial relations club - a world replete with largely impenetrable custom and practice.

Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/politics/team-abbott-should-chart-a-new-course-20121125-2a1fd.html#ixzz2DJ4h0bJG

Deputy Opposition Leader Julie Bishop says she held a brief meeting with self-confessed union bagman Ralph Blewitt last week as part of her search for documents relating to Julia Gillard's work history.

Her confirmation of the meeting came as law firm Slater & Gordon cited client confidentiality to back up its decision not to release files relating to the Australian Workers' Union Workplace Reform Association, which Ms Gillard helped to set up.

Ms Gillard says she was under the impression the association would be for legitimate purposes, but it was instead used by her then-boyfriend, AWU official Bruce Wilson, as a union slush fund.

Mr Wilson's former colleague Mr Blewitt, who was also involved in the fund, flew back into Australia last week and publicly suggested Ms Gillard had questions to answer over her involvement in the matter.

Ms Bishop, who has been running the Coalition's pursuit of Ms Gillard, this morning confirmed she met Mr Blewitt for about 10 minutes in Melbourne last Friday.

She said she was seeking documents relating to Ms Gillard's involvement in setting up the association.

"The documents would be documents of Slater & Gordon. He didn't produce any documents, so I didn't use documents from Mr Blewitt," Ms Bishop said.

Asked if he seemed like a trustworthy character, Ms Bishop replied: "No, he's a self-confessed fraudster".

Labor has been quick to jump on details of the meeting, likening it to the Godwin Grech affair that undermined Malcolm Turnbull's leadership of the Liberal party.

"She's meeting, as the deputy leader of the Opposition, with this bloke at a private, secret meeting to discuss strategy... to try and bring down a Prime Minister," Labor frontbencher Anthony Albanese told Sky News.

"This says a lot about Julie Bishop's values, it says a lot about the Liberal party."

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-11-27/bishop-confirms-meeting-with-blewitt/4393720?WT.svl=news1

 

Malcolm Turnbull has called for less spin in politics, savaged the negativity of public debate and criticised lazy media during a public address at the Woodford Folk Festival.
A large crowd – including former prime minister Bob Hawke - packed the Concert Stage area of the festival to hear the shadow communications minister and one-time leader of the federal Liberal party.
“It's not a 24-hour news cycle, it's a 60-second news cycle now, it's instantaneous,” said Mr Turnbull.
“It has never been easier to get away with telling lies. It has never been easier to get away with the glib one liner.”

The prolific tweeter acknowledged he took a share of the blame in being drawn into negativity and the “game of politics”, but said politicians and the media were wrong if they thought they were “helping battlers” by using one-line sound bites.
“They are not respecting them, they are treating them with contempt,” he said, to a round of applause.
“It is our job above all in politics to tackle the big issues and to explain them, and have the honesty to say to people 'there are no easy solutions here'.”He called on any web entrepreneurs in the audience to establish a “rigourous” fact-checking website, saying all public figures should be held to account.“It is a disgrace how much misinformation has been got away with.”
Mr Turnbull said federal Treasurer Wayne Swan continued to accuse the Coalition of voting against measures to protect Australia from the global financial crisis in late 2008, when in fact it voted for them. Mr Turnbull was Liberal leader at the time.
“That never gets reported, because the media has got to the point where they are so cynical about politics that they do not expect politicians to tell the truth,” he said.
“So if politicians are not being held to account, why would they bother? What is the incentive for them to tell the truth?

Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/political-news/lying-is-easy-turnbull-calls-for-less-spin-20121228-2bybw.html#ixzz2GHsJZmxW
--------------------------
Correction folks.... I might have spread that rumour (accuse the Coalition of voting against measures to protect Australia from the global financial crisis in late 2008) mainly because the way the Libs went about what Labor did was to poopoo in the media everything worthwhile Labor did... Most of what Labor did worked well to protect Australia from the GFC... including the housing insulation which was a success despite what the media and the opposition said: more than one million houses insulated, around 400 problems only... Sure some money got wasted a bit, but the speed at which the implementation was done, it's amazing there were not far more problems.
And with the coalition (with Turnbull himself) and the press supporting the biggest liar by a hundred miles — Tony Abbott — what hope have we got?...
See toon at top...