The Royal Commission published the submissions by its head lawyer Jeremy Stoljar on Friday and it is very clear that the AWU under the leadership of Bill Shorten was up to its neck in fraud and theft. (See links below). While Bill Shorten might have dodged recommendations for criminal charges at this stage his 2IC during his time at the AWU, Cesar Melham, is a lot more likely to face criminal charges.
Yet some in the mainstream media have jumped on it and implied Bill Shorten has in effect been cleared. They mustn’t have been watching when Bill Shorten was perjuring himself in the witness stand when he gave evidence. Nor could they have been watching when Shorten has given interviews on the subject of his corrupt conduct at the AWU when his body language is clearly that of a guilty man.
There is the court of law and then there is the court of public opinion which for a politician is just as important because thier whole career is determined on how well they do in the court of public opinion. And Bill Shorten has failed badly in the court of public opinion and a substantial reason for that is the good work of the Trade Union Royal Commission.
If doesn’t matter how much spin any Labor loving journalist puts on the Royal Commission and Bill Shorten they cannot save him. All they are doing is damaging their own reputation and the reputation of the media company that employs them because the public aren’t stupid and can make up their own minds based on the facts.
At the Royal Commission we’ve heard everything from Bill Shorten putting the heat on an employer to pay for his campaign staff to Shorten organising bribes worth $100,000’s. And who can forget Shorten’s role in ripping off some of the lowest paid workers in the country at Cleanevent. Nothing anyone says now will change what the public already know about Shorten’s past and what the public thinks of his dodgy conduct.
Below are the submissions by counsel assisting the Royal Commission Jeremy Stoljar and the brief statement they published on Friday.
The Royal Commission statement and submissions – Friday 6/11/15
In very brief overview, counsel assisting have submitted that the Commissioner should find that a number of officials of the AWU and the AWU itself may have engaged in criminal conduct in relation to the falsification of invoices and the taking of commissions.
It is further submitted that a number of persons employed by major employers and employers themselves may have engaged in similar criminal conduct, by receiving and paying bogus invoices and paying commissions (see e.g. Chapter 3 – Thiess John Holland, paragraph 213; Chapter 5 – ACI, paragraph 118; Chapter 6 – Chiquita Mushrooms paragraph 85; Chapter 8 – Winslow Constructors, paragraph 44).
Counsel assisting have submitted further that a number of officials of the AWU may have engaged in conduct in conflict of interest by causing the union to enter into lucrative side deals that were not disclosed to the members.
There is no submission that Mr Bill Shorten may have engaged in any criminal or unlawful conduct.
Chapter 1 is an introductory chapter which summarises many of the main points. There are 10 Chapters in total.
Since these are submissions, they do not contain any recommendations. Any recommendations will be made by the Commissioner in his Report. That will only occur after the Commissioner has received submissions from all parties and considered all competing points of view. (Click on the below links for each chapter)
Chapter One – Introduction (Click here to read)
Chapter Two – Cleanevent (Click here to read)
Chapter Three – Thiess John Holland (Click here to read)
Chapter Four – Paid Education (Click here to read)
Chapter Five – ACI-O-I (Click here to read)
Chapter Six – Chiquita Mushrooms (Click here to read)
Chapter Seven – Unibuilt (Click here to read)
Chapter Eight – Winslow Constructions (Click here to read)
Chapter Nine – Misc Membership Issues (Click here to read)
Chapter Ten – Downer EDI (Click here to read)
Bill Shorten and Cesar Melham
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If people are going to wait for all the criminals to be brought to justice and go to jail then they will be waiting forever and whingeing about it won’t change it. But on this website and many others people are being brought to justice now in the court of public opinion and that is a major reason why Bill Shorten’s career is over as he has been outed too many times for the public to buy his lies anymore.
Whether or not there is enough evidence to charge Bill Shorten for the corruption at the AWU is one thing but he has to take responsibility for it and is not fit to be Prime Minister.
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Categories: Bill Shorten, Royal Commission
Whilst Shorten is in the Labor Party and hanging on to the Top Seat, Labor hasn’t a snow balls chance in hell of being excepted as any thing but a bunch of sleazy con’s who will fleece the working public of every thing they can get away with. Shorten is a manipulator, con man, and a user, and the people around him aren’t much better.
The sad thing is…people will still vote Labor or Libs,…in my mind both the major parties are corrupt and need to be done away with. The trouble is, of course, is that they’re both so ingrained in the Australian way of life, this sort of utter rubbish will continue for decades after we’re dead and gone.
Nothing happens to these politicians…look at the MacDonald and Obied business..they had a commission costing millions, they were found guilty..and a couple of years later still nothing.
The corruption of unions and governments saddens and disgusts me.
I totally agree with you Susan. This saga with Shorten only confirms the evil that runs this country, and yes it is the same for both major parties. I have watched and read articles as the years go by. Same same same, if you are a politician, you are basically bullet proof for life, and will still steal from the public purse till you die.
I think you can have and do have corruption on both sides but Labor has more ”organized” corruption whereas libs tend to be more individualistic. Sort of goes with cultures of the parties, labor being a socialist view and libs more the individual. I think also labor is more tolerant of corruption. They foster that view of all the workers being victims of the nasty employers and rich people so therefore it is ok to get a bit of revenge even if it is dishonest .so if Robin Hood has a win over the sheriff that’s a good thing because ”we” are the good guys and ”they ” are the bad guys
I agree with Ken.T. It’s funny how some of my mates have jumped straight on the MSM statements that Shorten has been “cleared”. First of all I can’t believe how this scumbag has not had the book thrown at him with the evidence presented and now Cesar is really going to take the wrap for many of Shorten’s frauds and cons.
Let’s hope the Court of Public Opinion and social media truly buries Shorten and he really gets his just desserts down the track. It worries me though that Mr and Mrs Voter have such short memories or “couldn’t care less attitudes” in this Country that he might just hang in there for a good while.
I am still thinking about that lady living up the NSW coast and Billy-Boy’s supposed sexual attack whilst at a Young Labor Camp in Portarlington, Victoria many years ago…..what’s happened to the Police investigation there?
Teflon Bill must have ALL the mainstream media in his pocket, no matter what the “Judicial” system throw at him, nothing sticks according to the press and Tv reports. Which makes the main stream press and TV less and less credible as the charges against Teflon Bill keep on piling up, only to be dismissed. I for one no longer watch the TV news on any channel, and certainly would not believe anything on the ABC or 7, and I have not bought or read a newspaper in many years. As this article rightly points out, the Court of public opinion will surely have it’s day.
Most Journalists are members of a union, enough said
Spot on Ken T, and it beats me why a smart businessman like Harold Mitchell would be conned by Shorten to allow him the use of Mitchell’s private jet, which he apparently fueled up as well. Just shows Shorten’s level of chutzpah – he had a cheek to even ask!
And let’s hope he hangs onto the leadership to ensure at least one more term of Liberal government – not that the Turnbull government reflects the views of of its constituency, but at least it’s not as bad as a Labor government.
The whole political system in Australia relies on the well-proven fact that the average Australian voter has a memory span of a goldfish.
This finding reinforces another fact, that in our legal system – (note I use the term ‘legal’, not ‘justice’) – one set of rules applies for the common man and another, completely different set of rules apply to a political elite that abandons all political differences to protect one of their own and the overly generous post-retirement benefits they all enjoy for life.
If Julia Gillard and Bill Shorten (and quite a few other politicians before them) had to face the rules that apply to the common man, they’d both be facing courts.
You say “the average Australian voter has a memory span of a goldfish”. If that is the case then why is Shorten so low in the polls?
I agree with Cliff. The average Australian voter has a memory span of a goldfish. Shorten’s low opinion polls only began when Turnbull became PM, and for some reason beyond comprehension, much of the public like Turnbull – for now. Remember when Turnbull’s opinion polls were very low? Not too many goldfish remember that.
At a local level we can all send links to Shane’s material to our friends and colleagues, and encourage them to send them further on. This is the only way to fight Goldfish syndrome. Mainstream media is worse than useless, it is complicit.
I find it extraordinary that the Statutory Declaration (Stat Dec) signed by Bob Kernohan in Castlemaine on 11 August 2010 attesting to misdemeanours at the AWU between 1992 and 1995 to which Shorten, apparently, was privy, and it has not been actioned. As I understand it there are only two courses of action available to satisfy a Stat Dec: 1. it should be tested in court and taken in evidence, 2. If the evidence is validated then it should be taken as valid and used against the the defendant or if it fails because it is untrue the originator should then be charged with perjury. As far as I am aware neither action has been taken in respect of the Stat Dec. Do we have a statute of limitations problem here?
There is no statute of limitations in criminal matters. The government/crown has the right to dig into history in memoriam, however in civil matters the common man does not have the same right.
The only thing good to come out of this sort of criminal corruption is: referencing the outcomes. Say… a matter before Fair Work Australia or the Federal Ombudsmen. Whom by the way are just as corrupt as Shorten himself. Using any finding like this one MUST be accepted by ALL courts and Tribunals. So Aussies knock yourselves out – Mirror image their behavior.
You can fool some of the people some of the time…….
I suspect if an honest politician came to power, we would all die of shock and who would vote for him?
What we need published is a list of all the AWU staffs (over time), and the staff of these other businesses, and the staff of the political groups, and we map the matrix of names and financial ‘progress’ made by the people.
There is clearly a family and mates thing happening, with some people ‘taking the fall’ to protect others from exposure.
it has been done before in other royal commissions, such as in policing and the CIC/HIH incidents and ‘fall-guy’ tactics; some names from those link to these Trade union R.C. events.
The Ostrich syndrome,he didn’t know what he was supposed to know.He’s no longer an Ostrich he’s now a Koala,a protected species.Rebekah Brooks will be proud of him.
When he leaves politics he will probably write a column for News Corp, Latham can give him some tips.
The royal commission are toothless tigers as it is an unwritten rule that any leader of any political party will always be kept safe from any type of criminal charges or anything like that at all as the opposing political parties don’t want anything to happen to their leader in the future so they will never put the other ones through the same thing.
Anna Bligh and Campbell Newman did the same thing when Newman came to office as Anna Bligh stole and hid more then 80 million dollars and as soon as Newman got elected he offered Anna Bligh a complete blanket of non prosecution for any crime she committed while she was in office. I’m not sure if you remember but Julia Gillard said several times during interviews for the MSM quote: why are we talking about the scandal I was involved in with Mr Wilson as it will never go anywhere or have anything come of it. She was saying this because she knew it was a crime but she also knew that because she was prime minister that the other opposing parties could not prosecute her because then the labor party would be in a position have any liberal party do the same to them in the future. It was also the same for Richard Nixon and it’s the same unwritten rule for any political leader of any party across the world that the minute you become a head of state or leader of any political party is the minute you get a free ticket to commit crime and get away with it. So all of the royal commissions against political leaders of these parties will never come to anything just like Julia Gillard had said and this in itself brings the royal commissions credibility in question as Dyson Heydon should be seeing how angry the Australian public are and also that we want change and the Australian public also want to see leaders of any political party prosecuted from now on for crimes that they are committing.
It is correct, Shorten has not been cleared at all.
Really I wish these union-Members would open their eyes and refuse to belong to a union as they are paying at least $700. per year to the Union only for the Union-organisers to live the good life and try and get into parliament. Their money is certainly not used for the membership.
As with the other case of Shorten with a 16-year old girl, the Police felt, they had insufficient evidence to obtain a conviction, Mr Shorten translated that statement, in that he had not ‘done anything. The MSM backed him on that one.
It would be lovely if there were more journalists speaking the truth, It should be a crime for journo’s to feed us this untrue garbage.
This RC was a political witch hunt from the day Abbott requested it. $80m for nothing more than what a police investigation would have discovered. Abbott, Heydon and Stoljar’s credibility has suffered much more than Gillard, Shorten of the ALP’s.
I detect an official ALP talking point here (witch-hunt).
Pretty much straight out of Bills mouth I guess or; AS INSTRUCTED BY BILL.
Billy is still not out of the woods. I just hope the law moves on him now that the RC wouldn’t. Then again there are still many unions including public servants who are afraid of him.
I guess we just have to wait and see if there is someone who is not intimidated by the unions that will step up to the plate. This person would need to be single and prepared to change his or her accommodation frequently.
So the outcomes of the RC are biased and should be ignored right? So Shorten being “cleared” should be ignored as a biased outcome of a witch hunt and we should accept as fact instead that he is indeed guilty as charged then, shouldn’t we?
There are none so blind as those who will not see. An old saying I think many here would place at your door, Emo.
Judging by the response on this post regarding Teflon Bill’s apparent “get out of jail free” card, criminal activity is rife in our governance system and if we want to continue pretending to live in a true democracy. As a democrat every Australian should show his or her disgust in the filth that is being engaged in by our elected members. If these criminal activities continue and pass through the various corruption checks we are in danger of returning to a penal colony run by mafia style factions such as we have seen in the CFMEU and the AWU. Come on you true blue Aussies show this corrupt bunch of grubs that you can do without toothless tigers and police forces that throw political fraud cases in the too hard basket. Use the ballot box to put in power the least crooked bunch and if they prove to be corrupt throw them out and pick again, that is what democracy stands for. Complacency is your worst enemy. You know that all these people in front of the RC are corrupt and are getting away with “murder” Show the world you have the guts to complain even if the law is an ass.Allan Usherwood from Myalup WA.