Criminal charges have been recommended against at least 15 people in submissions by Jeremy Stoljar SC who is the barrister assisting the Royal Commission. Fairing the worst is Bill Shorten’s Crime Gang at the HSU Victorian Number 1 Branch where 7 people have been recommended for criminal charges. This along with other revelations by the Royal Commission is a major embarrassment for Mr Shorten and will loosen his grip on power within the Labor Party.
The submissions were published late on Friday (31/10/14) at approximately 5.30PM with the first media reports focused on former PM Julia Gillard which is fair enough I suppose given the circumstances.
But the big story is really how many people are facing possible jail time. While Stoljar might not make everyone happy there is a long list of people he has recommended that should face criminal charges for perjury, fraud and blackmail etc.
List of Union Officials & Cbus employees looking at jail time published by Royal Commission #turc
HSU Victorian Number 1 Branch: Secretary Diana Asmar – General Manager Kimberley Kitching – Union Organiser David Eden – Union Organiser Darryn Rowe – Union Organiser Lee Atkinson – Union Organiser Sasha Trajcevski-Uzunov – Union Organiser Nick Katsis – The alleged offences relate to giving false information when they applied for Right of Entry Permits (Click here to read more)
HSU: Kathy Jackson (Obtaining property or a financial advantage by deception – Which is fraud at the end of the day) (Click here to read) And for other allegations (Click here)
CFMEU: Victorian Secretary John Setka (Blackmail charges) Shaun Reardon Victorian Assistant State Secretary (Blackmail or at least accessory to Blackmail) (Click here to read more) NSW Secretary Brian Parker (Perjury) (Click here to read)
Cbus: Industry Superannuation Fund – Lisa Zanatta (Perjury) Maria Butera (Perjury) (Click here to read)
AWU: Bruce Wilson (Fraud) Ralph Blewitt (Fraud) (Click here to read more)
I have not read all the submission papers yet so there could be others that have been recommended for criminal charges. (Click here for all the submission papers) There are also a lot of people who should feel extremely lucky they are not on Stoljar’s list. But then again they might not be so lucky when Commissioner Heydon publishes his Interim Report on December 15 as there is nothing stopping him from adding others. I would expect the list of people charged with perjury might grow and maybe by a large number.
There is still a long way to go and Heydon’s Interim Report is what really matters but just a few words on some of the key issues raised by Stoljar’s submissions.
Julia Gillard – Bruce Wilson – AWU Fraud – Concealing a criminal offence
Julia Gillard would not be sleeping much easier after Stoljar’s submissions and she was always only one player in the overall game of stamping out Union corruption. But lets deal with her first.
Julia Gillard has not been exonerated and worst of all she faces at least another year or 2 of close scrutiny of her involvement in the AWU fraud given the recommended criminal charges of Bruce Wilson and Ralph Blewitt. Unless of course both Blewitt and Wilson do deals with the prosecutor which is likely in Blewitt’s case given his confession but I would suspect unlikely in Wilson’s case.
Stoljar wrote in his opening submissions at paragraph 32: “As for Ms Gillard, it is submitted that she did not commit any crime, and was not aware of any criminality on the part of these union officials. Some aspects of her professional conduct as a solicitor appear questionable, and had she adopted a more rigorous approach to the task, it might have been more difficult for Mr Wilson and Mr Blewitt to have behaved as they did. The evidence supports a finding that Ms Gillard was the beneficiary or recipient of certain funds from Mr Wilson.” (Click here to read more)
And wrote this in his submissions on the AWU fraud:
“Lastly, for the reasons set out above the Commission should find that Ms Gillard was the beneficiary or recipient of certain funds from Mr Wilson, consistent with the evidence of Mr James and Mr Hem. It is not possible to identify after all this time the precise source of the funds, since Mr Wilson seems to have drawn cash from the accounts operated in Victoria as well as from the Association’s account.
The skimpy nature of the available evidence does not make it possible to infer on the balance of probabilities that Ms Gillard was aware that she had received the $5,000 which Mr Hem put into her bank account on Mr Wilson’s instructions. But she was aware of facts, had she turned her mind to them, which would have indicated that the source of the wads of bank notes cannot have been the low union salary of Mr Wilson of about $50,000 – a man who was supporting his family in Perth, his own household in Melbourne, and his relationship with Ms Gillard in Melbourne, and who was not shown to have had any income from property exceeding the cost of mortgage repayments – but must have been some fund he did not own but did control.
That is, she must have been aware of facts, which had she turned her mind to them, would have revealed that Mr Wilson was making payments to her in breach of some fiduciary duty.” (Click here to read more)
Given all the evidence Julia Gillard is at the very least still a huge candidate for the crime of concealing the AWU fraud at this point in time and Commissioner Heydon might not be as kind as Mr Stoljar. Whatever happens Ms Gillard has been found guilty by many in the court of public opinion and that counts for plenty.
Bill Shorten – Health Services Union (HSU)
In 2012 Bill Shorten had the HSU put into administration because of corruption. At the 2012 elections he had his own cronies elected to power at the Victoria Number 1 Branch with the help of financing from union slush funds. Two of those key people Diana Asmar and Kimberley Kitching are now facing possible criminal charges along with 5 others from the branch. Ms Asmar and Mrs Kitching are also facing charges from the Fair Work Commission but are abusing the legal system to delay receiving any penalty. Diana Asmar is married to David Asmar who is also named in the submissions and Kimberley Kitching is married to known union fraudster and thief Andrew Landeryou who is a good friend of Bill Shorten’s.
So what responsibility does Bill Shorten take for the corruption returning at the #1 Branch given they are his people? The reality is that Mr Shorten has been caught out badly being up to his neck in the corruption and being nothing more than a union thug.
There are a lot of issues that I could have raised from Jeremy Stoljar’s submissions but the most powerful is the recommendations for criminal charges as it will likely have a positive impact for the RC in the future as far as getting to the truth is concerned. And the most important part I believe is the HSU Victoria Number 1 Branch because it gives us an insight into Bill Shorten and how he operates.
From here the parties that have been named by Jeremy Stoljar have an opportunity to respond by the 14th of November etc. (Click here for the full submission timetable) Finally, Commissioner Heydon hands down his Interim Report on the 15th December 2014.
I’ll try to write on other topics in the next few posts but the Royal Commission is starting to bite hard which is good to see.
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Categories: Royal Commission
Stoljar is a man frightened of his own shadow.
His summing up is exactly what i expected.
However, there are a lot more submissions to come, and I don’t think they will be as kind.
In the court of public opinion she stinks.
In situations like this lawyers stick together like glue. Sure, if a lawyer has damaged another lawyer, that lawyer is happy to go after the other one, thats called self interest. When self interest is not involved their ‘brotherhood’ preservation kicks in. it seems like Stoljar is not ready to break the ‘brotherhood’ bond, at least not yet, in regard to Gillard.
Receiving is still a crime, is it not?
With charges to be laid against Kitching, will Bolt actually live up to his No Fear, No Favours rhetoric and out her and Shorten on his show? As to the charges against Kathy Jackson, unless there has been some new evidence produced, haven’t VicPol already gone through all the allegations made by Shorten’s team and found no criminality?
I don’t think Andrew Bolt will out Ms Kitching on his show, Climate Realist. Bolt is so arrogant in his way of reporting things that he never wants to admit he’s wrong. Don’t count on it Climate Realist. Bolt will say nothing about it and will weasel his way out of this Kitching matter. However Bolt’s show has already lost credibility over this, and I think Channel 10 has realized Ms Kitching’s history. Bolt could have been warned now by Channel 10.
Bolt is a cheap entertainer, and a shill for the powers-that-be, and not a very good one at that.
We can scarcely digest the depth and breadth of criminality of all those fingered in this RC. The phrase :”I did nothing wrong” has long since become shorthand for”…that they can jail me for.”
How stupidly lax we have all been to tolerate the “industrial-thug” technique of managing infra-structures. We will never have a better time to spray these bogongs in our dark corners of disgraceful history
And we all trust Jack that the RC will put an end of the corruption, bullying, cheating and lying of these union hacks and labor politicians. An absolute disgrace all of them and they all belong in goal – this must be stopped!!!
Kathy Jackson was Abbott’s hero
Ralh Blewiit was Julie Bishop’s hero
Some of Stoljar’s submissions are farcical, how on earth does he believe Jackson deceived Peter Mac? Peter Mac would have been sued for millions in the high court for penalties if they didn’t do a deal with the HSU. Jackson also didn’t write up the deal, it was done by the branches legal team……should the lawyers be charged too? Of all the submissions he could have made against Jackson this is the only one where he believes criminal charges are possible, ridiculous – the bucketloads of union money spent on holidays raise far more eyebrows than the Peter Mac deal. (Peter Mac was not deceived, it was Peter Mac who was deceiving their employees by underpaying them!)
The submissions saying Gillard is clear are also farcical, the whole AWU affair was not fleshed out very well by Stoljar – why is he preempting the findings of the Victorian Fraud Squad? Does he know better than a team of detectives? Is this some kind of strategy to leave the door open for Heydon? Is he terrified of Gillard?
Gillard knew exactly what Bruce Wilson was up to, that’s why she clung on to him – Bruce Wilson was being groomed as the AWU’s next leader in parliament, Gillard her whole life had been trying to find a way to break into parliament and Bruce was her meal ticket to it. Without the affair with Bruce Wilson, Gillard never makes it to the top.
and when she did, look at the mess she made of the country – worst PM this country has ever had.
I can think of a no better cliche than ” oh what a tangled web we weave when we practice to deceive”.What we have here is a tangled web of deceitful crooks that have lied their way into our governance system and the already corrupt unions just to line their pockets with Australian hard working citizens money.This is practice that is outside the capabilities of third world countries and only possible within the walls of a modern democratic system such as ours. The HSU is a typical example of Union bullying, hard working dedicated nurses are coerced into joining the union so they can be robbed of their money because of their caring nature they are easy to manipulate, “Like taking candy from a baby” The scenario is clear, a crooked prime minister controlled by a crooked union hierarchy with all their greedy snouts in the trough who should be made to pay back every brass razoo of the funds they have pilfered from the members.We have crooks like Craig Thomson who have betrayed every member of the Dobel constituency and also lied to our parliament and supported by a corrupt political Labor party and condoned by an equally corrupt Prime Minister.The hard working nurses of our community would not condone the use of their funds to support Thomson’s sexual appetite by paying prostitutes, He will probably get of with a smack on the hand or an OBE. We have TV broadcasters that with no “fear or favour ” select some very strange bed fellows with no fear and definitely plenty of favour, their credibility is at risk to say the least. They have extended the Bolt report to an hour,it would take a week to talk his way out of this escapade with Kitchen. I am totally feed up with the news media and I will sell my TV and buy a solicitor as it says on my T shirt. Good work Shane keep the bastard honest. Allan Usherwood from Myalup WA.
All I can say is that I hope Dept of Public Prosecutions has the guts to follow thru on some of these allegations and lay charges. About time something was done to expose to Un ion “hanky panking” and support for each other.
I’ve always said Gillard would walk away. She’s in league now with those who really run things (check the Brookings roster). They won’t touch her.
There is one law for us, and no law for them.
The REAL Questions will any even be charged, it would appear that it is one thing to have a Royal Commission Recommenced that Criminal Charges be laid, it is quit another to actually have someone proceed with it..!!
Need I remind you of the AWB-Sadam Hussein Wheat for Oil Scandal, roughly the same number of people should have been charged, but none ever where if I recall correctly…!!!
Give me a Good Old Fashion Grand Jury any day of the week and charge them before they leave the room..!!
That would be great if we could find an honest Judge these days.
Mr Shorten is walking a tight rope at the moment. He will never make it to the PM’ship as he often bragged to various business leaders. His dealings with the trade unions, he thinks gives him hope, but not so.
It is over for this clown and the LNP just keep him around as a convenient punching bag. Regards.
Bill Clinton’s campaign manager coined the phrase “The economy, stupid”. In relation to the AWU-WRA fraud and the evidence deliberately twisted and obfuscated around it “I witnessed all documents properly”, someone involved with this Royal Commission should look Stoljar in the eye and in a no-nonsense tone, tell him straight: “It’s the Power of Attorney, stupid.” Further submissions to the RC should make the unavoidable facts around the dating and witnessing of this document very, very clear. Blewitt has again set out the timeline and virtually indisputable logic as to how it was created as an illegal document. Messrs Heydon and Stoljar must be required to fully address this matter. Not do do so casts serious doubts on Royal Commission credibility.
The tide is slowly turning against Gillard & may get worse to come for her. As for Bill Shorten, he is a joke. His own people in the HSU are criminals, they must be charged & hopefully go to jail.
I am certainly beginning to wonder about the abilities of the Commissioners on the RC as to their capabilities to make an honest decision on some of the evidence provided to them.
Check this out – mind-boggling stupidity:
https://www.facebook.com/healthworkersunion?hc_location=timeline