Vast left wing conspiracy? 21/8/2012
Pathetic ALP apologist and ABC broadcaster Jon Faine says Julia Gillard has no case to answer in the matter of her – as a Slater and Gordon senior partner – setting up a secret account that allowed a corrupt union official to rort his membership to the tune of $400,000.
Various hacks at Fairfax parrot the same “move along, nothing to see here”, or “it’s ancient history” lines to a story they would gnaw to the bone if it involved Tony Abbott.
So, how do they square with figures from the left demanding that Gillard explain herself?
INDEPENDENT MP Andrew Wilkie has urged Julia Gillard to make a parliamentary statement about her time at law firm Slater & Gordon, saying the Prime Minister should address “serious allegations” levelled against her to put the issue to bed.
The call came as Health Services Union national secretary Kathy Jackson pushed for the Australian Workers Union to be investigated over 17-year-old allegations that funds were received by union figures via a legal entity Ms Gillard helped establish.Former Labor senator Graham Richardson said last night Ms Gillard had “questions to answer” surrounding allegations that the Prime Minister didn’t create a legal file for Mr Wilson when he was a client.
“If it’s indeed true that she didn’t create a file, that’s a serious matter and you’ve got to say why,” he told ABC’s Q&A.
Andrew Bolt adds a few more lefty names demanding honest explanations in this matter:
In fact, the scandal was recently raised in Parliament by former Labor Attorney-General Robert McClelland. It is being researched by a former Socialist Left unionist turned lawyer Harry Nowicki. It has been given fresh momentum for a former Slater & Gordon partner Nick Styant-Browne, It has been kept alive by allegations by former AWU officials Ralph Blewett and Bob Kernohan. The most devastating indictment was an affidavit by then AWU national secretary Ian Cambridge, now a Gillard-appointed judge of Fair Work Australia. The man who gave me the most damaging insight into the affair was another senior AWU official. The story has recently been pursued by Fairfax’s Financial Review.
Roger Franklin, online editor at Quadrant, examines just one role the PM played in her actions for the AWU squeeze-a-thon:
And there is also the question of what Gillard understood to be the association’s real purpose. Blewitt listed workplace safety, and Gillard many other objectives. According to former Slater & Gordon partner Nick Styant-Browne, quoted in The Australian, she admitted when questioned by her S&G peers to having regarded it from the start as “a slush fund”. How WA authorities might have treated the application had that purpose been honestly stated can never be known.
I have had the privledge of meeting Jon Faine in the aftermath of Victoria’s worst natural disaster(Black Saturday) and he is a decent compassionate person. I don’t think he’d give two hoots about what you think about him nor do I think you would have the spine to call him pathetic to his face, weasels like you Bernie are only brave on your blog.
Bernie – you and I are old enough to remember when Union rorting was notorious. The BLF and the WWF come to mind. So we are not surprised by the AWU of that era. But ‘acceptance’ does not mean that it was correct behaviour, nor that it is forgiven.
And is it so long ago that some in the community may grant a dispensation? Trustees can be held to account for 15 years; perhaps people who make our laws should have only minor blemishes on their adult record.
And, it is fairly clear that there is a set of double standards at work amongst the commentators.
But, a fishy tale is none the better for being old. Perhaps she did nought wrong, in which case, tell us.
As many have found out, the cover-up may do more harm than the act itself
Bernie, I bet you’re shaking in your boots over the big game on Saturday. And after the Mighty High Flying Eagles have cleaned up your mob, it’s on to the GF dress rehearsal against the Carringbush at the G. Woohooooo!
Twill be tough, Os, but Swannie’s back – should never have been out – and Cloke’s got to put in a winner eventually. Nik Nat’s a worry, though. Well on the way to greatness. I’ve ensured consolation by going for the Beagles in the office footy tipping.
There is such a thing as selective compassion Jim, just like their selective reporting. The left/green compassionatte have it down to a fine art form. Normal folk call it hypocrisy, but it can often border on irrational schizophrenia.
This has all the makings of a Watergate, whereby it wasn’t so much the initial crime but the relentless unfolding of the magnitude of the cover-up and the people in high places it dragged kicking and screaming into the sunlight, that did the ultimate damage. Their foul stench is everywhere now.
And you might also ask yourself Jim, where is their fine upstanding chief whistleblower and iconic Wikileaks in all of this? Umm..err..
And while we’re about it, whatever happened to Julian having to get a pre-sexual agreement in writing, witnessed by a handy JP, lest it’s a cut and dried case of Swedish rape? Scintillatingly sublime watching the femo-nazis and usual suspects defending those Wickedleaks of mummy’s little boy Julian, against the obvious wild accusations of a pair of lying sluts or CIA plants.
Stop with the priceless moments lefties, because the sides just can’t take much more of this.