Do you believe Julia Gillard when she says she knew nothing about the fraudulent use of a bank account by her de facto?

Julia Gillard is allegedly distressed by 'false allegations' over a former de facto who defrauded the AMU. As a solicitor acting on instructions at Slater & Gordon, she set up an association later used by Bruce Morton Wilson to defraud the Australian Workers Union of $388,562. Well, I hope he bought her a giant diamond ring at least. What Julia, you're trying to tell me you were sleeping with a bloke who suddenly had money to burn and you never noticed? Did he take you to expensive restaurants? Did he buy you a new car? $388,562 passed through a bank account that you set up Julia Gillard. I am very suspicious. I have yet to meet an honest ex-union solicitor.
ttp://sydney.indymedia.org.au/node/46517

While I have no time for the two major parties, Labor and Liberal, I reckon this will stuff Julia's career as prospective deputy P.M.

According to today's tele, Bruce Wilson used these dishonestly obtained funds to purchase a house, using the firm that Julia Gillard was working for, Slater & Gordon. So Julia Gillard MUST have known that those were meant to be trade union funds and that Wilson was using them to purchase a property for himself. Don't tell me she never knew the financial situation of the bloke she was sleeping with. I bet she knew everything about him.

So I have inside info on how it works. The trade union is like a gang. In fact certain unions are very similar to what you might call 'bikie gangs' or motorcycle clubs, depending on your perspective. Once 'in', you have to 'stay staunch'. This means you don't dob on your mates. This means the women may know certain things but must never tell the cops. The gist of it is if you say anything, you will probably be killed, or at least something nasty will happen to you. But generally you don't need to be threatened as the thrill of being with a 'bad man' is so great that it overcomes any moral objections. It is more common than you think for professional women to be with bikers or standover men or Mafia types or hit men. None of them are going to tell what they know even years after the event. So of course Julia Gillard knew he was a standover man and she would have known he was going to rip people off and use the money for his own advancement in life. She set up the organization and the bank account knowing this but also knowing that she would deny everything if he was found out. After all, as a professional woman, you are going to be believed if you say "I never knew he was like that. I trusted him." You are going to paint yourself as young or vulnerable or a bit stupid or going through a bad stage in your life because no way are you going to want to end up in jail over this and no way are you going to be a 'dobber'. So you know nothing even if in fact you know everything. You stay staunch if the man gets caught, you don't give evidence against him in court (I don't know if she did? If she did she must have protection from very powerful people and enemies of this man). Yeah I have sat at the table while husband #1 and his mates planned a bank robbery and I am a professional woman. I have to admit I found this all exciting. He got caught and I did exactly what Julia Gillard did, I acted like I was conned and I knew nothing. So I know where she is coming from and to be honest, I would not want me as deputy prime minister and I would not want her as deputy prime minister. Both of us are vulnerable to doing favours for bad men.

Hard to say which will be the greater evil.
When will people wake up and give the other parties a go.
This election is going to be a cliffhanger. And either way we are not going to get much of an improvement.

It's just a matter of finding them.
None of them are much good if you ask me.

There are some fatal problems from a sceptical point of view about this attack on Gillard, and I apply some media and legal experience on this as a part time practising lawyer here in Sydney (mostly on pro bono stuff):

1. If she did anything wrong chances are she would have been totally smashed professionally in the Victorian parliament working for the ALP there over 15 years back. Didn't happen. Only splashed out 2 weeks out from a federal election. The timing looks crap as far as credibility goes.

2. She might know lots about who really did what in the AWU including Wilson but there's one sticky problem - solicitor client confidentiality. You can't just go blabbing about your client's wrong doing. Our whole legal system is based on lawyers acting for clients. AND NOT BREACHING CONFIDENTIALITY. You could be struck off for that. And by definition clients sometimes need lawyers because they (the client) break the law.

An aspect of this is the house purchase. Unions buy property as a way of doing business. Of course they do. Just like they run super funds and invest members money. Yes solicitors need to be on their toes as to being compromised and positioned by sleazy operators, but here's the thing. The more idealistic one is the more you want to believe your client is a good person too. You want to even when you are actually disappointed by them ie mugged by reality. The crucial thing is to act once you do find out, or be an accessory after the fact. Go to point 3 for the question of being an accessory

3. Which raises a whole new aspect - if she was in on any fraud chances are she would eventually have been struck off by the Victorian Law Society and lost her practising certificate, and likely all it would take would be a critic to lodge a complaint eg the defrauded AWU or business operator or conservative politician and God knows they have plenty of lawyers in there (at least that's the process in NSW, then the LawSoc investigate).

4. Michelle 'cobber' Grattan who is Melbourne based and renowned as a fair commentator reckons the story won't go on, saying to Fran Kelly on Radio National this morning, in Cobber's terms "it didn't get lift off yesterday" or similar. And she is right about that. I watched all 4 tv nightly news yesterday and only saw one oblique reference on SBS with Hockey slyly raising it to back off it, though 9 and 7 clashed a bit so hard to watch both clicking between both. Indeed I think we could in rare form congratulate the Big Media for some real integrity except of course for cipher Glenn Milne who ran the trash as news.

5. It's quite well known in the precedents of Big Politics for lawyers to have had a few spills earlier in their career. Chief Justice Sir Garfield Barwick was a declared bankrupt at one point in his career, and then went on to be Attorney General for the Coalition side of politics and then Chief Judge of the High Court. He also used to publicly argue that paying taxes was a legal but not a moral obligation, while enjoying public health services, traffic lights and all the rest.

Who gives a rats? I'm more concerned about a decade of Howard lies....

It's amazing what people claim they know absolute, when in fact they are not privy to the entirety of the facts.

It's this stubborn-mindedism that drives people away from left/progressive politics, they just think you are a loony.

You may be right in your analysis, but wait until all the facts emerge until you proclaim you know it all, for now, raise it as possibility.