what interested policein gillard 2gb interview

http://blogs.news.com.au/dailytelegraph/andrewbolt/

Hedley Thomas on the police investigation into the AWU scandal - and Julia Gillard’s role:

IN the days after a heated 2GB radio interview in March, during which Julia Gillard was questioned closely about the AWU slush fund scandal, a detective in Victoria’s Fraud Squad, Ross Mitchell, made a strategic decision.

One answer the Prime Minister gave during a dogged tussle in her interview with Ben Fordham stood out. Mitchell knew it when he heard it. The other detectives knew it too.

Although seemingly innocuous to those not involved in the probe, Gillard’s answer was new and pivotal. It meant police in Melbourne would need a sworn statement from Fordham in Sydney, even though as a journalist he would be expected to subsequently disclose some key facts.

The actions that Mitchell and other police took in seeking further information from Fordham led to him stating in unequivocal terms on his radio show this week something that had been previously cryptically and very carefully inferred - the Prime Minister is under formal Victoria Police investigation as a result of the 18-year-old Australian Workers Union fraud…

With questioning so far of witnesses in Queensland, Victoria, NSW and Western Australia, up to a dozen detectives are particularly interested in the creation and operation of a union election slush fund, misleadingly called the AWU Workplace Reform Association.

The entity was set up and formally registered in Perth with the help of Gillard’s legal advice (as a solicitor at Slater & Gordon) to her then boyfriend and client, AWU official Bruce Wilson, and his union sidekick, Ralph Blewitt. The two men allegedly used it as a slush fund to siphon hundreds of thousands of dollars from Thiess during the construction company’s development of a major project that required both labour and industrial peace from AWU members.

Some of the money, which was kept secret from everyone else in the union, would go into a $230,000 terrace house at 85 Kerr Street, Fitzroy, bought by Wilson (in Blewitt’s name) at an auction he attended with Gillard, whose firm would manage the conveyancing… In his only recent public statements Wilson has backed Gillard, saying she knew nothing about any wrongdoing…

One of the planks of Blewitt’s story, which 2GB’s Fordham latched on to in his interview with the Prime Minister in March, concerns a “power of attorney” document bearing Gillard’s signature as the official witness. According to Blewitt, it was a false document…

The document permitted Wilson to buy the Fitzroy terrace house (in Blewitt’s name) at auction. Blewitt, who was living in Perth at the time, claims it is bogus - that Gillard could not have “witnessed” it as they were thousands of kilometres apart at the time.

In previous rejections of Blewitt’s claims about this document, the Prime Minister insisted she always witnessed such documents properly as a solicitor. But Fordham tells Inquirer that all of Gillard’s previous answers seemed to avoid declaring outright that she and Blewitt were in the same room when the power of attorney was witnessed…

Gillard finally confirmed to Fordham that she and Blewitt were in the room when the document was signed. It is an assertion that could only be wrong if Victoria Police have evidence placing them on opposite sides of Australia.

(To repeat: Gillard says she knew nothing of her boyfriend’s scams and did not profit from them. She says she did nothing wrong.)

Here is the part of Fordham’s interview with Gillard which has interested detectives:

BEN FORDHAM:


You… can see that money from the slush fund may have been used to buy a house in Melbourne. Now you attended the auction with your then boyfriend Bruce Wilson, but the property was purchased in the name of Ralph Blewitt even though he’d never seen the house. Now in order for this to be done legally, a power of attorney would need to be signed allowing ... Bruce to buy the property on Ralph’s behalf.... So, when this property was purchased on Ralph’s behalf, the law states that you would have to be present when Ralph Blewitt signed the documents. Ralph Blewitt claims that you were not present. He claims that Bruce Wilson flew to Perth to get him to sign the documents and that you signed it at a different time in a different place. Now you did not fly to Perth to witness those documents, did you?
JULIA GILLARD:
And I’ve consistently dealt with this too. I properly witness documents as a lawyer. So you can believe Mr Blewitt or you can believe me Ben. I’m not overly fussed what you conclude, but I witnessed documents properly as a lawyer.

BEN FORDHAM:
Ok, if you’ve always obeyed the law in carrying out your duties, you’d be able to make a statement to police confirming that you’ve never witnessed one of these documents without the relevant person being present.
JULIA GILLARD:
Ben, excuse me, that is incredibly offensive and I’m not going to let it go past. I have done nothing wrong in this matter. I have said that for 20 years. I will continue to say that, because it is the truth. Anybody who wants to know anything about this matter from my perspective has already got the benefits of it being canvassed publicly and in Parliament over the best part of 20 years. I’ve given full details and I never did anything wrong and please don’t use forms of words that imply the contrary.

BEN FORDHAM:
Prime Minister, you and Ralph Blewitt were there together and signed the documents together – that’s what you’re saying just to confirm?

JULIA GILLARD:
I’ve witnessed documents properly as a lawyer.

BEN FORDHAM:
Yeah, you and Ralph Blewitt were in the room together, you signed them together yes?
JULIA GILLARD:
Look Ben, these documents were of – as a lawyer I witness thousands of documents, so as a lawyer for eight years I witnessed thousands of them. I don’t remember each document, but I witnessed documents properly.

BEN FORDHAM:
And if you always witnessed them properly, then you and Ralph Blewitt were in the room together and signed at the same time.

JULIA GILLARD:

Well absolutely. I witness documents properly.

BEN FORDHAM:
And this one?
JULIA GILLARD:
What’s your point? I witness documents properly.

BEN FORDHAM:
Ok, it just sounds like one of those things Prime Minister where I’m asking about a specific moment whether or not…

JULIA GILLARD:
And over eight years, I can’t sit here on the phone with you and go through every document over eight years as a lawyer.

BEN FORDHAM:
Sure, but it would stand out though.

JULIA GILLARD:

…that this document was of no particular significance at the time that my practice as a lawyer was to witness documents properly.

BEN FORDHAM:
Yeah, it was of significance, because it was the only time that you were witnessing a document that involved the purchase of a property that your then boyfriend was involved in. That’s why it would stand out.
JULIA GILLARD:
But it’s like asking you, can you give me the opening words of an interview you did three years ago. The matter had no particular significance at the time. It has the significance now because of how politically used it’s been. It wasn’t significant then.


As I said at the time:


Note the bit on bold. The audio of it picks up a hesitation that makes the answer more ambiguous that the transcript suggests. Is Gillard really for the first time insisting she was in the room with Blewitt to witness his document, as required by law? Or is she saying, absolutely she witness documents properly - a more general assertion?

Hedley Thomas on the police investigation into the AWU scandal - and Julia Gillard’s role:

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/features/who-knows-pm-julia-gillard-is-under-investigation/story-e6frg6z6-1226630319702

The full transcript, a copy of the power of attorney and a link to the audio of the interview here.

http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andrewbolt/index.php/heraldsun/comments/fordham_grills_gillard_on_awu_scandal/