Thursday 2nd of May 2024
Home » Blogs » John Richardson's blog

underarm bowling ....

underarm bowling .....

Deputy Opposition Leader Julie Bishop has dramatically upped the ante over the AWU affair by claiming Prime Minister Julia Gillard was involved in a breach of the law.

The opposition’s accusation followed Ms Gillard’s seizing of the initiative before question time with her second feisty marathon news conference on the affair in three months.

Looking angry – and at times toughly confronting reporters, telling one not to ‘‘hector’’ her –  Ms Gillard challenged critics to produce evidence.  ‘‘I did nothing wrong,’’ she said.

The PM launched an extraordinary, blistering attack on Ralph Blewitt, a former AWU official, who with Ms Gillard’s then boyfriend Bruce Wilson set up the union slush fund from which they siphoned money.

Replying to Mr Blewitt’s claim she had not been present when she ‘‘witnessed’’ a power of attorney form, she denounced him as someone who had admitted to fraud, who used prostitutes in Asia, and had published lewd comments with accompanying photographs of young women on Facebook.

‘‘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.’’

Although she did not recall this specific witnessing, she said she witnessed many thousands of documents and ‘‘I did that witnessing properly’’.

After the opposition devoted all its questions in the House of Representatives to the affair, Ms Bishop said Ms Gillard had breached ‘‘relevant laws’’, including the Associations Incorporation Act ‘‘by advising on the creation of false documents incorporating the association’’. The documentation was false because it did not set out the association’s true purpose – a slush fund for re-electing union officials.

In her news conference, Ms Gillard lashed out at the opposition ‘‘for sleaze and smear’’. Answering specific allegations, Ms Gillard said she:

• Did not remember receiving $5000 in her bank account allegedly put there at the request of Mr Wilson. She had checked with her bank, but records did not go back that far.

• Had not reported the slush fund fraud to the authorities in 1995 when she first heard rumours of it because she had no evidence.  ‘‘I didn’t have anything before me which would suggest that the association’s accounts had been misused’’.

• Had not needed to inform others in the AWU about the fund. ‘‘The two people I was dealing with [Wilson and Blewitt] were office-bearers of the AWU.’’

• Only advised on the setting-up of the fund – she did not establish it. ‘‘My role was as a legal adviser providing advice about the incorporation of that association ... I have been defamed  on a number of occasions with forms of words saying that I set up a fund or a bank account,’’ she said. ‘‘I did not set up a fund. I did not set up a bank account.’’ She rejected the proposition a union resolution was needed for such a fund.

After Ms Bishop put all the opposition questions,  with Tony Abbott staying silent,  Ms Gillard said: ‘‘For the benefit of those following proceedings by radio I confirm that the Leader of the Opposition was present at question time today.’’

On the ABC Monday night, Mr Blewitt hit back against the PM. ‘‘Julia Gillard has been labelling this a smear campaign. I think that’s a bit hypocritical of her to now come out and try and smear me.’’  She was trying to distract from the ‘‘main event’’. He claimed he had ‘‘no financial gain whatsoever’’ from the slush fund.

Bishop Claims PM Breached Law On Fund

 

julie had no morals...

 

LABOR says the opposition's Julie Bishop "has some questions to answer" about her own past as a lawyer, as the Coalition continues to attack Julia Gillard over the AWU scandal.

Frontbencher Brendan O'Connor today attempted to turn the tables on Ms Bishop, who has spearheaded the Coalition's campaign over the Prime Minister's connections to the Australian Workers Union during her time as an industrial relations lawyer in the 1990s.

He said the deputy Liberal leader should come clean about her own past as a lawyer, particularly when she acted for building products company CSR Ltd as it fought claims by former workers exposed to deadly asbestos fibres from its mine at Wittenoom, in Western Australia.

“Clearly there have been some matters arising out of her role as a lawyer at CSR where she used, allegedly, procedural tactics to deny victims of asbestosis their day in court,” Mr O'Connor told the ABC TV's Insiders program.

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/investigations/labor-seeks-to-turn-the-focus-on-to-julie-bishops-years-as-a-lawyer/story-fng5kxvh-1226518950348

---------------------------

Although Julie denies any wrong doing and "just doing her job", it shows how cold hearted she is. Using "procedural tactics" is not illegal in law, but it is totally morally wrong in some cases such as asbestos victims trying to get justice...

Meanwhile one should also examine Julie Bishop's "role" in covering up the AWB (Australian Wheat Board) conspiracy to hide the knowledge of the Howard government in bribing Saddam to buy Aussie wheat. 

 

julie: "I am not saying it just alleging it..."

Labor says Deputy Liberal Leader Julie Bishop's position is untenable after she suggested Prime Minister Julia Gillard directly benefited from a union slush fund.

While working as a lawyer at Slater & Gordon, Ms Gillard provided legal advice for the establishment of the Australian Workers Union (AWU) Workplace Reform Association, saying that she believed it would be used for legitimate purposes.

Instead, the association was used as a slush fund by her then boyfriend, former AWU official Bruce Wilson.

Ms Bishop, who has been running the Coalition's pursuit of the issue, dramatically escalated her attack on the Prime Minister this morning by suggesting, for the first time, that Ms Gillard benefited from siphoned-off funds.

"The reason she didn't open a file within Slater & Gordon - a file that would have shown a new legal entity was set up - was because she and Wilson and Blewitt wanted to hide from the AWU the fact that an unauthorised entity was being set up to siphon funds through it for their benefit and not for the benefit of the AWU," she told reporters.

Ms Bishop's office later told the ABC that Ms Bishop was not suggesting Ms Gillard benefited from the funds, but that Mr Wilson and Mr Blewitt did.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-11-27/labor-calls-for-bishops-head/4394850?WT.svl=news0

 

As a lawyer "of 20 years" Julie should know better.

One cannot use witnesses that have no credibility and which she knows are known liars... But here she goes on, buttering the bread with the crap she gets from these drongoes' shoes... obviously making a drongo of herself in the process... She should be ashamed of herself and be weary that some real hard allegations about her own past could surface anytime, with a lot more credibility and of course far more solid "evidence" not so much of deceit but of an extraordinary cold heart...

blowback ....

from politicoz

After yesterday's efforts backfired badly, the Opposition will be weighing up the risks of continuing to attack Julia Gillard over the AWU affair in parliament today.

Julie Bishop, given the task of prosecuting the case (to insulate Abbott in case it backfired), overreached badly, accusing the Prime Minister of criminal complicity in fraud: ''The reason she didn't open a file within Slater & Gordon … was because she and Wilson and Blewitt wanted to hide from the AWU the fact that an unauthorised entity was being set up to siphon funds through it for their benefit,'' Ms Bishop said.

She rightly backed away from the accusation when called on it, but the damage was already done. 

But by day’s end the deputy Liberal leader was trying to make her own get-away from her defamatory and unproven allegations.

No, she was not alleging that the Prime Minister had benefited personally from the fraud perpetrated by her then boyfriend. No, she was not even suggesting the Prime Minister had been a ‘knowing party’ to it.”

Also: Ex-boyfriend defends Gillard’s role in slush fund (ABC News)