"Part V
IS OUR PRIME MINISTER A CROOK?:
Julia wandered aimlessly around her Abbottsford home. She had been unemployed for almost six months since she was sacked from Slater & Gordon. Her money had run out and her boyfriend, Bruce Wilson, had run off. Those lost six months were to mysteriously disappear from her CV.
If only things could have been different. She now knew she could never practise law again and anyway her Practising Certificate was soon to expire.
Julia had put her neck on the line for that bastard Wilson. He had promised her the world and she got peanuts from their clever scam. He was safe back in Perth with his wife, Francine, and the boys. She was left alone and with nothing.
The truth was Julia had knowingly help set up the infrastructure for Wilson’s money laundering. With the help of another Slater & Gordon Partner, Bernard Murphy, she had drawn up the documents that allowed Wilson to open a fraudulent account through which the extorted funds were to be laundered.
She had set up a Power of Attorney for Wilson to act on behalf of his friend Ralph Blewitt in laundering the funds. Wilson and she were living in the Kerr Street home bought with the stolen funds including a mortgage arranged in the name of Slater & Gordon’s Senior Partner, Jonathon Rothfield.
“Fall guy” Blewitt was blissfully unaware of the mortgage.
When the Kerr Street home was sold the money vanished. Blewitt, the oblivious owner, did not see a cent.
Meanwhile, back in Perth, Wilson was living the life of Riley. He had bought a restaurant called “Rumbrellas” and had spent $330,000 on renovations. Unfortunately, although Wilson was a dab hand at stealing, his business acumen was appalling. “Rumbrellas” was soon in liquidation. Wilson was broke.
He asked his offsider Ralph Blewitt for a $20,000 loan. Blewitt refused. Wilson suggested to Blewitt that one phone call to Big Bill Ludwig and Blewitt would never work again. That wasn’t true of course but Blewitt loaned him the money anyway. The loan was never repaid.
Back at Abbottsford, Julia called a friend, Carol Pyke, who had ALP connections in Victoria and asked her if she would move in to help defray the costs. She did and Julia eventually sold her half of the Abbottsford property.
Despite her known involvement in the extortion/money laundering affair, Julia was still determined to enter Parliament. But each time she sought pre-selection she was thwarted by her own Party. Centre Unity faction members of the ALP insisted Julia Gillard, of the Socialist Left faction, was an unsuitable candidate because of the known scandal.
[Many years later, power broker, Mark Abib, was to negotiate Gillard swapping factions to allow her to become Prime Minister... and without reference to Caucus.]
The focus is now back on Slater & Gordon. Although a listed company they still refuse to come clean on what went on. Why was their client, the AWU, not alerted to the false accounts? Why was the AWU not told of the funds, the laundering, the house, the conveyancing, the mortgage, the profit from the sale of the house?
They refuse to release the conveyancing details of the Kerr Street property claiming privilege. Yet there is no privilege associated with conveyancing.
It was rightfully AWU members’ money. It was Slater & Gordon’s Partners Gillard and Murphy and senior Partner Rothfield who set the whole thing up!
Convicted Partners of Keddies Law firm, owned by Slater & Gordon, have outwitted creditors of millions, according to a report in tomorrow’s Sydney Morning Herald.
Disclosure of Freedom of Information documents is being thwarted by the Victorian Police. “Too busy”, they say.
They have sat on the application for two months and say it may be another two months. Regulations demand a period of no longer than 30 days.
In the meantime “Pickering Post” is being constantly attacked by hackers using DDoS.
They may silence us for a while but the truth will out.
Much more to come."
