Getting Gillard: The Royal Commission We Never Had To Have
Since coming to office, the Abbott government has broken plenty of promises.
“No cuts to education, no cuts to health, no change to pensions, no
change to the GST and no cuts to the ABC or SBS,” Prime Minister Tony
Abbott promised on the eve of the 2013 election. Every one of those promises bar the GST change has since been broken.
But while the government broke promises on health, education and
pensions, when it comes to punishing its perceived enemies, it has been
as good as its word.
During last year’s election campaign, the Coalition pledged to set up
a judicial inquiry into the so-called “AWU affair”, the sadly
non-scandalous controversy involving Julia Gillard and two former
clients of hers in the Australian Workers Union in the early 1990s.
Unlike so many others, this promise has been kept.
Officially, the Royal Commission into Trade Union Governance and Corruption is tasked with investigating “the governance arrangements of separate entities established by employee associations or their officers”.
Unofficially, it’s a giant fishing expedition, with the transparent
aim of smearing the reputation of Australia’s first female prime
minister.
The Royal Commission has taken submissions and held hearings, but it hasn’t told us anything particularly new.
Certainly, the nefarious activities of the Health Services Union have
been further exposed. Some nasty but isolated behaviour in the
construction industry has been uncovered. And some minor irregularities
have emerged in the Transport Workers Union’s election funds.
But, on the whole, the Royal Commission hasn’t uncovered much in the
way of scandal or systemic corruption. The Commission’s performance has
been so disappointing that even conservative allies, like the state
Coalition governments and the Murdoch tabloid newspapers, are starting
to lament the Commission’s poor strike rate.
Today, for instance, the Herald Sun’s James Campbell complained
that the Royal Commission’s looming deadline of December 31 means that
“while it might get to the bottom of the story of ‘Bill the Greek’ from
back when Paul Keating was prime minster, it will miss contemporary and
pressing matters of union corruption.” Quelle horreur!
Whatever the broader remit of the Commission’s activities, its
investigations this week have zeroed in on the 20-year old activities of
former Australian Workers Union officials Ralph Blewitt and Bruce
Wilson.
The controversy, such as it is, revolves around whether Blewitt and
Wilson used money from a dodgy union slush fund to buy themselves a
house in Fitzroy, make renovations on a house owned by Julia Gillard
(who was at that stage Bruce Wilson’s partner), and whether Gillard knew
about this supposedly dastardly crime.
As we’ve long argued at New Matilda, there is little substance to the allegations (you can read my 2012 summary of the evidence for and against Gillard here).
The constant pursuit of the non-scandal by sections of the right-wing
blogosphere has everything to do with the right’s bitter hatred of
Gillard as a progressive opponent, rather than any hard evidence that
Gillard ever did anything illegal.
But enemies must be punished. And so it was that Julia Gillard got her day at the Royal Commission yesterday.
Across four hours of less-than-incisive questioning from Counsel Assisting Jeremy Stoljar, Gillard showed her usual crisp command of detail and a calm, deliberate demeanour.
Stoljar did a reasonable job of going over a very well-ploughed field
of enquiry. But he presented no new evidence to the Commission, and
therefore could ask no genuinely new questions of the former prime
minister.
Hence, the only real issue was whether Gillard would incriminate
herself, either by changing her story in any detail, or stumbling over
any of the particulars.
She didn’t.
And that, more or less, was that. Gillard stuck to her guns. She
reiterated that she knew nothing of the internal finances of the AWU
slush fund she helped Wilson and Blewitt set up. She repeated her claim
that she didn’t recall $5,000 being deposited into her bank account.
On the only concrete claim that Gillard acted illegally – that she
falsely witnessed a document signed by Ralph Blewitt – Gillard again
denied it.
The tabloids have today tried to make something of Gillard’s claim
that she would have done things differently if she had another chance,
in particular her remark that “none of us get to go in a time machine
and go backwards.”
But that’s hardly an earth-shattering revelation. Gillard has long
expressed remorse at the sloppy way she handled the case, not to mention
regret about her relationship with Bruce Wilson.
It’s ironic that Gillard had some of her best days as prime minister
under the pressure of media and parliamentary interrogation. Her
performance in two marathon media conferences on the AWU affair – which,
incidentally, covered the ground of yesterday’s questioning rather
better than Stoljar SC – showed many of her best qualities as a lawyer
and politician: a Gillard that was quick on her feet, in command of her
brief, incisive and often very funny.
Those qualities were in evidence again yesterday. For instance, when
Stoljar asked her “Were you annoyed that Mr Wilson had smashed up your
bathroom?”, Gillard replied with her trademark dry wit. “It wasn’t my
preference, no.”
Just as she did on those two earlier occasions, Gillard emerged from
yesterday’s questioning with her reputation unscathed, perhaps even
enhanced. Even Andrew Bolt was forced to grudgingly admit that “I doubt anything serious can be proven against her on the evidence so far.”
The peculiar pursuit of Gillard regarding the AWU affair is one of
the great crusades of Australian conservative politics. It has occupied
the obsessive attentions of journalists such as Michael Smith and Mark
Baker, and has been the subject of hours of media conferences, thousands
of web pages and gallons of newspaper ink.
It has been a false crusade. For all the rabid energies of the
blogosphere and the talkback right, no substantive evidence
incriminating Julia Gillard has ever emerged.
Not only is there no smoking gun, there’s no smoke, no gun, and no
bullet. No charges have ever been laid over this matter. Almost
certainly, none ever will.
If the Trade Union Royal Commission was set up by the Abbott
government to highlight corruption and impropriety in the union
movement, it has so far failed. Yesterday, as it degenerated into a
farcical show trial, it began to discredit the institution of the royal
commission itself.
There are many important issues for Australia’s judiciary and media
to be looking into. Only last month, an Aboriginal woman died in custody
while being held for unpaid fines.
It’s frankly astonishing that anyone at all cares about the youthful
mistakes of a lawyer in the 1990s, even if she is a former prime
minister – let alone that a government inquiry led by a former High
Court judge is devoting time and money to it.
At best, this is giant waste of taxpayer’s money. At worst, as Laura Tingle observes today, “it has set a precedent for witch hunts against politicians that will long reverberate in politics”.
Australian voters deserve better than this.
“No cuts to education, no cuts to health, no change to pensions, no
change to the GST and no cuts to the ABC or SBS,” Prime Minister Tony
Abbott promised on the eve of the 2013 election. Every one of those promises bar the GST change has since been broken.
But while the government broke promises on health, education and
pensions, when it comes to punishing its perceived enemies, it has been
as good as its word.
During last year’s election campaign, the Coalition pledged to set up
a judicial inquiry into the so-called “AWU affair”, the sadly
non-scandalous controversy involving Julia Gillard and two former
clients of hers in the Australian Workers Union in the early 1990s.
Unlike so many others, this promise has been kept.
Officially, the Royal Commission into Trade Union Governance and Corruption is tasked with investigating “the governance arrangements of separate entities established by employee associations or their officers”.
Unofficially, it’s a giant fishing expedition, with the transparent
aim of smearing the reputation of Australia’s first female prime
minister.
The Royal Commission has taken submissions and held hearings, but it hasn’t told us anything particularly new.
Certainly, the nefarious activities of the Health Services Union have
been further exposed. Some nasty but isolated behaviour in the
construction industry has been uncovered. And some minor irregularities
have emerged in the Transport Workers Union’s election funds.
But, on the whole, the Royal Commission hasn’t uncovered much in the
way of scandal or systemic corruption. The Commission’s performance has
been so disappointing that even conservative allies, like the state
Coalition governments and the Murdoch tabloid newspapers, are starting
to lament the Commission’s poor strike rate.
Today, for instance, the Herald Sun’s James Campbell complained
that the Royal Commission’s looming deadline of December 31 means that
“while it might get to the bottom of the story of ‘Bill the Greek’ from
back when Paul Keating was prime minster, it will miss contemporary and
pressing matters of union corruption.” Quelle horreur!
Whatever the broader remit of the Commission’s activities, its
investigations this week have zeroed in on the 20-year old activities of
former Australian Workers Union officials Ralph Blewitt and Bruce
Wilson.
The controversy, such as it is, revolves around whether Blewitt and
Wilson used money from a dodgy union slush fund to buy themselves a
house in Fitzroy, make renovations on a house owned by Julia Gillard
(who was at that stage Bruce Wilson’s partner), and whether Gillard knew
about this supposedly dastardly crime.
As we’ve long argued at New Matilda, there is little substance to the allegations (you can read my 2012 summary of the evidence for and against Gillard here).
The constant pursuit of the non-scandal by sections of the right-wing
blogosphere has everything to do with the right’s bitter hatred of
Gillard as a progressive opponent, rather than any hard evidence that
Gillard ever did anything illegal.
But enemies must be punished. And so it was that Julia Gillard got her day at the Royal Commission yesterday.
Across four hours of less-than-incisive questioning from Counsel Assisting Jeremy Stoljar, Gillard showed her usual crisp command of detail and a calm, deliberate demeanour.
Stoljar did a reasonable job of going over a very well-ploughed field
of enquiry. But he presented no new evidence to the Commission, and
therefore could ask no genuinely new questions of the former prime
minister.
Hence, the only real issue was whether Gillard would incriminate
herself, either by changing her story in any detail, or stumbling over
any of the particulars.
She didn’t.
And that, more or less, was that. Gillard stuck to her guns. She
reiterated that she knew nothing of the internal finances of the AWU
slush fund she helped Wilson and Blewitt set up. She repeated her claim
that she didn’t recall $5,000 being deposited into her bank account.
On the only concrete claim that Gillard acted illegally – that she
falsely witnessed a document signed by Ralph Blewitt – Gillard again
denied it.
The tabloids have today tried to make something of Gillard’s claim
that she would have done things differently if she had another chance,
in particular her remark that “none of us get to go in a time machine
and go backwards.”
But that’s hardly an earth-shattering revelation. Gillard has long
expressed remorse at the sloppy way she handled the case, not to mention
regret about her relationship with Bruce Wilson.
It’s ironic that Gillard had some of her best days as prime minister
under the pressure of media and parliamentary interrogation. Her
performance in two marathon media conferences on the AWU affair – which,
incidentally, covered the ground of yesterday’s questioning rather
better than Stoljar SC – showed many of her best qualities as a lawyer
and politician: a Gillard that was quick on her feet, in command of her
brief, incisive and often very funny.
Those qualities were in evidence again yesterday. For instance, when
Stoljar asked her “Were you annoyed that Mr Wilson had smashed up your
bathroom?”, Gillard replied with her trademark dry wit. “It wasn’t my
preference, no.”
Just as she did on those two earlier occasions, Gillard emerged from
yesterday’s questioning with her reputation unscathed, perhaps even
enhanced. Even Andrew Bolt was forced to grudgingly admit that “I doubt anything serious can be proven against her on the evidence so far.”
The peculiar pursuit of Gillard regarding the AWU affair is one of
the great crusades of Australian conservative politics. It has occupied
the obsessive attentions of journalists such as Michael Smith and Mark
Baker, and has been the subject of hours of media conferences, thousands
of web pages and gallons of newspaper ink.
It has been a false crusade. For all the rabid energies of the
blogosphere and the talkback right, no substantive evidence
incriminating Julia Gillard has ever emerged.
Not only is there no smoking gun, there’s no smoke, no gun, and no
bullet. No charges have ever been laid over this matter. Almost
certainly, none ever will.
If the Trade Union Royal Commission was set up by the Abbott
government to highlight corruption and impropriety in the union
movement, it has so far failed. Yesterday, as it degenerated into a
farcical show trial, it began to discredit the institution of the royal
commission itself.
There are many important issues for Australia’s judiciary and media
to be looking into. Only last month, an Aboriginal woman died in custody
while being held for unpaid fines.
It’s frankly astonishing that anyone at all cares about the youthful
mistakes of a lawyer in the 1990s, even if she is a former prime
minister – let alone that a government inquiry led by a former High
Court judge is devoting time and money to it.
At best, this is giant waste of taxpayer’s money. At worst, as Laura Tingle observes today, “it has set a precedent for witch hunts against politicians that will long reverberate in politics”.
Australian voters deserve better than this.
No comments:
Post a Comment