Former Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard is the fourth Australian PM to give evidence at a Royal Commission but the first PM to face criminal allegations at a Royal Commission. When a leader or former leader of a country is held to account or made to answer allegations of crimes or corruption it is a sign of democracy at work at the highest level. It does not matter whether you like or dislike Julia Gillard you should take notice of her appearance next week as I believe it is a real game changer.
No longer is anyone above the law, at least not as far as the court of public opinion is concerned. Remember it is the online community that drove and kept on driving the AWU fraud and many other crime and corruption issues of recent times.
Julia Gillard’s appearance at the Royal Commission is really just the cream on the cake when you look at the fight against corruption in this country. The tide against corruption has been building in Australia for a couple of years now and there is no going back. The list of people who are on the wrong side of that tide has been growing by the day. There are 2 Royal Commissions in progress and one just finished and then there is the ICAC hearings in NSW which has been exposing widespread corruption on both sides of politics. There are also plenty of other issues about to raise their heads and other inquiries not far away, some of which I have written about and some I will write about in the near future.
But let’s focus on Julia Gillard and her expected appearance at the Trade Union Royal Commission next week. Julia Gillard is meant to give evidence next Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday in Melbourne although the Royal Commission has not confirmed the details yet. Although the RC has confirmed that Gillard was advised of a date to give evidence in early September.
Below are two videos of Julia Gillard from 2012 which are worth reviewing before she gives evidence. The first video shows Julia Gillard misleading parliament regarding the AWU fraud and trying to blame Ralph Blewitt. The problem for Ms Gillard is that Bruce Wilson told a different story when he did an interview on the ABC and contradicted what she told parliament. The second shows Ms Gillard avoiding answering a question in relation to when she wrote her acceptance speech when she took over the job of PM from Kevin Rudd. It will be interesting to see if she tries the same technique when she is in the witness stand.
Below is the video showing Julia Gillard misleading parliament and lying about the AWU fraud
(Click anywhere on the above video to watch)
Below is the video of Julia Gillard refusing to answer a question about preparing her acceptance speech for becoming PM 2 weeks before she stabbed Kevin Rudd in the back. Will she duck and weave and refuse to answer questions at the Royal Commission the same way?
(Click anywhere on the above video to watch)
One of the things that the lawyers for the Royal Commission would have done is to have gone through all the public statements of Gillard and worked out were the lies are. If they have done their job properly then the barrister who will question Ms Gillard, Jeremy Stoljar, should have a career making day. Then again Julia Gillard is very cagey and fast on her feet and more than capable of destroying Stoljar if he is not prepared, as the Canberra press found out a couple of times.
Other witnesses to give evidence next week that I have previously written about include Julia Gillard’s old boss and current Federal Court judge Justice Bernard Murphy (Click here to read) and John Cain Jnr (Click here to read). Or for all the KCA posts on the AWU fraud click here.
Corruption is being exposed everyday now and it is the new norm so people should get used to it and feel good about it.
Update: Julia Gillard to give evidence Wednesday the 10th of September. She is the only witness scheduled for the day. For the full witness list (Click here) Hearings now in Sydney this week for the AWU.
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