Bruce Wilson is a consummate liar and Royal Commissions are difficult for witnesses to lie to. The guilty create a false scenario of events in their own minds, they live it, breathe it and sleep with it until eventually, they actually believe it... because they need to believe it. Then they relate that scenario to their counsel as the unassailable truth and their counsel is invariably left floundering and frustrated. After years of work, media’s Left has been forced to acknowledge there was a problem with our highest Office. And now they’re pretending to know all about it! They don’t, they don’t understand what’s happening because they dismissed it, denying a problem ever existed. The correct procedure for the guilty, like Wilson, is to accept the evidence against them, relate the truth to their counsel and then construct reasons why that evidence is explicable or at least seek to provide facts that might mitigate the crime. Take Rolf Harris, he accepts he has acted inappropriately and, for the most part, doesn’t deny the events he is accused of actually took place. He seeks merely to downplay the accusers’ interpretation of his intentions. Supported by family, he walks daily to court exceptionally slowly, taking advantage of his age to imply frailty. This action could mitigate any sentence a judge is likely to hand down. What Harris is actually saying is that, “I will likely be found guilty but now I am no threat to anyone, I am too old and jail would not be an appropriate punishment." It will probably work, despite the fact he is still able to feel up the occasional female fan and bounce around a stage to the applause of thousands. Bruce Wilson is a different fish, he tried to testify that lawyer, Harry Nowicki offered him $200,000 to implicate Julia Gillard. This nonsense was rightly ruled inadmissible and an “irrelevant side-show” by Commissioner Heydon. But Wilson had convinced himself it had actually happened, and instead of helping him, it tainted his entire testimony. Wilson’s best defence was not to deny the obvious, but to explain to the Commission that this is the way most unions work, that’s why so much money is spent on slush funds to get elected as a union official. It’s been an unregulated honey pot for decades and Labor law firms have assisted the rorts and protected the participants. Wilson was gone before the Commission began and should have admitted guilt saying, “What I did was wrong in law, but within the union movement it is commonplace and accepted. After all the only rules that apply to unions are the rules union officials decide are the rules. “The system is there to be taken advantage of, it always has been, and I’m just part of an unregulated system that I hope in future, your Honour, is able to be reformed.” Wilson has the arrogance to believe he can fool others. He has a presence, an air of authority and the guile to have easily gained the confidence of Blewitt and Gillard. Blewitt couldn’t live with the shame, Gillard can. This Royal Commission is far from over and when it is, the Victorian Major Fraud Squad, who has been working in tandem with the Commission, already knows who will be charged. Bruce Wilson will serve time, Julia Gillard may not. Despite the overwhelming evidence that Gillard knowingly assisted and benefited from Wilson’s crimes, I have always believed she will walk free, and the reason is this: Gillard is smart, she avoided paying the renovators with the cash she was given directly and she always kept receipts. New money is indistinguishable from existing money. Look at it this way: I intend to bet $5,000 on a horse and you give me $5,000 to bet on the same horse. Because $10,000 is a bulky amount I put half in my top pocket and the other half under my hat. On the way to the TAB I get held up and robbed of the $5,000 in my top pocket. But I still have the $5,000 under my hat to bet on that horse. Now, if the horse loses, I don’t have a problem, but if it wins at 10/1, I now have $55,000 and I can’t be sure who it belongs to. Of course the fair thing is for you and I to share $27,500 each. But no-one can be sure whose $5,000 was stolen because I took your new money and mixed it with my existing money. Julia Gillard obviously had other monies in her account when Wilson instructed Wayne Hem to put $5,000 cash into the same account. When Gillard then withdraws $5,000 cash to pay her renovators, or writes a cheque, is it the money that Wayne Hem deposited for her, or was it money she already held in the account? Of course it’s whichever Gillard chooses, bank records won’t help, it’s indistinguishable. Gillard knows she can claim it’s hers, and that’s her out. Unless a cheque was written from a fraudulent AWU account in favour of Gillard’s renovators, and that cheque correlated to a written invoice, and Gillard then handed that cheque to the renovators, it’s impossible to determine the source of the money and therefore if Gillard has or has not committed an offence. Even then an offence would require proof that Gillard knew the AWU account was a fraudulent one. She claims she didn’t know. Now, there are many other things that Gillard did that are highly illegal. But if a solicitor is acting on behalf of a “client” there are many more outs. Particularly if that “client” is Bruce Wilson who claims Gillard knew nothing about the fraud. When both were caught, Gillard was sacked and Wilson left the AWU. Both spent 10 days holidaying at a regular haunt of Wilson’s, the Healesville Hotel, to plan for future contingencies. Either Wilson sees no sense in them both going to jail or he still has the hots for her.
