AWU employee banked 'wad of notes' in Julia Gillard's account, hearing told

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jun/11/hearing-told-awu-employee-banked-wad-of-notes-in-julia-gillards-account

Version 0 of 1.

The alleged crooked union official and former boyfriend of Julia Gillard, Bruce Wilson, gave an employee a “wad of notes” to bank in the former prime minister's account, a royal commission has heard.

Wayne Hem alleges that in late 1995 Wilson gave him $5,000 in the Victorian branch office of the Australian Workers Union.

Hem, a librarian, records officer and sometimes babysitter for Wilson, told the royal commission into union corruption on Wednesday that, after a night out, a “scruffy”-looking Wilson called him into his office.

“He took a wad of notes out of his pocket and he wrote on a piece of paper a bank account number,” Hem said in his witness statement.

“He handed me the cash and the piece of paper and asked me to deposit the cash.

“I looked at the paper, asked him to tell [me] whose account it was, and handed him the piece of paper back so that he could write the details on the paper for me.

“He then wrote Julia Gillard on the piece of paper and handed it back to me.”

Hem said he then counted the money, went to the Commonwealth Bank in Carlton, deposited the money and returned to the office.

In mid-1995, the commission heard, Hem also saw Wilson “hand a painter an envelope” he assumed contained cash at an Abbotsford house in inner Melbourne. The house was being renovated.

“About four weeks later I was talking to Bruce [Wilson] and he mentioned where Julia [Gillard] lived,” Hem said.

It was after this discussion that Hem realised the Abbotsford home where Wilson allegedly dropped in to to pay tradesmen “was, in fact, Julia's”.

Hem began work at the AWU as a librarian and researcher in 1994. Late that year Wilson invited him to join the “breakaway” national construction branch.

The 59-year-old described his relationship with Wilson as friendly and said he often minded the disgraced former union official's 10-year-old son and would stay at his Fitzroy home.

Ralph Blewitt, a self-confessed union bagman, also slept at the Kerr Street property when he was in Melbourne.