Lawyer paid for union bagman Ralph Blewitt’s expenses

RALPH Blewitt had many of his bills paid by a Melbourne lawyer after he first decided to become a corruption whistleblower.

Former AWU official Ralph Blewitt (left) talks to Harry Nowicki in Fitzroy, Melbourne. Picture: Stuart McEvoy

THE confessed union bagman who claims Julia Gillard’s former boyfriend ordered him to make a secret $7000 payment for reno­vations to the former Labor prime minister’s house when she was at the property had many of his bills paid by a Melbourne lawyer after he first decided to become a corruption whistleblower.

Former Australian Workers Union official Ralph Blewitt confirmed yesterday that Harry Nowicki, a Melbourne lawyer who is writing a history of the AWU, paid for travel from his home in Malaysia and accommodation in Australia at least four times.

Mr Blewitt admitted his financial circumstances were not good and he had been unemployed, living on a Veterans’ Affairs pension since leaving the AWU 15 years ago.

It was also possible, Mr Blewitt said, that Mr Nowicki had continued to pay for his legal fees from the time he first turned whistleblower in 2012 until a royal commission into union corruption that started this week — although he claimed he did not know who was paying his fees.

Kristine Hanscombe QC, the barrister representing Ms Gillard’s ex-boyfriend, former AWU leader Bruce Wilson, yesterday raised Mr Nowicki’s role in how highly damaging allegations were made public as part of an attempt to discredit Mr Blewitt’s evidence and his motivations as a whistleblower on the second day of the royal commission.

The commission heard explosive allegations on its first day of hearings this week from Mr Blew­itt that he paid $7000 to tradesmen working at Ms Gillard’s house in September or October 1994 from a secret union slush fund set up by Mr Wilson and Mr Blewitt, with help from Ms Gillard. The fund allegedly received money corruptly from the Thiess construction company.

Ms Gillard has agreed she helped set up the Workplace Reform Association for Mr Wilson as a lawyer with Slater & Gordon and has referred to it as a “slush fund”. But she strenuously denies having known anything about the operation of the fund at the time, and said she thought if was for union election purposes.

In 1995, when financial irregularities were first raised, Ms Gillard did not categorically rule out that money from the fund was used to pay for renovations to her Abbotsford house, but as prime minister, in 2012, she insisted she paid for the renovations herself.

Mr Nowicki’s name was introduced during cross-examination yesterday as Dr Hanscombe tried to pinpoint when Mr Blewitt first met the Melbourne lawyer, who has taken an active interest in the AWU slush fund allegations that are expected to be part of his planne­d book on the AWU. She also asked him if he had received money from Sydney radio broadcaster and blogger Michael Smith, which he denied.

Mr Nowicki, who sat in the commission’s public gallery yesterday and has spoken to Mr Blew­itt during breaks, told The Australian he was writing a history of the AWU from 1985 to 1997, and had paid modest out-of-pocket expenses for Mr Blewitt.

“The travel and accommod­ation were to assist with going through voluminous documents which he hadn’t ever seen, to refresh his memory, to do it properly,” Mr Nowicki said.

The lawyer denied paying Mr Blewitt’s legal bills, which he said were also modest. He said the whistleblower had many supporters around the country, and his legal fees for the royal commission were being met by the federal Attorney-General’s Department as legal assistance.

Mr Nowicki became known in the 80s as the lawyer who represented the late Norm Gallagher, the notorious leader of the Builders Labourers Federation jailed for corruptly receiving free renovation work on his holiday house.

Dr Hanscombe confirmed from Mr Blewitt during cross-examination yesterday that a police statement he gave to Victorian fraud squad detectives in November 2012 that incrimin­ated Mr Wilson and himself in operations of the secret slush fund scandal — including claims related to Ms Gillard’s Melbourne home in the 90s — were written almost entirely by Mr Nowicki.

Mr Blewitt said he was not familiar with the statement, and did not recall reading it, because he left the drafting to Mr Nowicki and believed the figures were based on documents.

Discrepancies arose between what Mr Blewitt said in the statement about having $31,600 in his hand on the day he allegedly paid for Ms Gillard’s renovations, and what he told the royal commission on Monday: that he had $10,000 or $20,000 in his hand, from which he allegedly counted out $7000 for a tradesman wearing bib-and-brace overalls and gave the rest to Mr Wilson. While Mr Blewitt claims Ms Gillard was in a front room of her house and told him to “go through” to Mr Wilson and the tradesmen in the kitchen veranda area, the former union bagman has said Ms Gillard did not see the $7000 change hands.

A former national president and West Australian secretary of the Transport Workers Union was drawn into slush fund alle­gations yesterday when Mr Blewitt claimed he made a $5000 cash payment in a “brown paper bag” to Jim McGiveron “sometime in 1994” from the AWU slush fund when Mr McGiveron was first seeking to become the state branch secretary.

Quizzed by his own barrister, Bob Galbally, Mr Blewitt said he had omitted to mention previously that Mr Wilson asked him to pay Mr McGiveron the money.

He said Mr Wilson and Mr McGiveron had been very close .

Mr McGiveron, who retired in late 2012, told The Australian he was friendly with Mr Wilson when they were junior officials with BHP in the 80s but strenuously denied receiving any money from Mr Blewitt or Mr Wilson.

“Any suggestion I received anything from Bruce Wilson is nonsense — he (Mr Blewitt) is a liar,” he said.

Mr McGiveron also challenged the claim based on the fact that he was first appointed by the TWU’s branch committee to succeed secretary John O’Connor, and did not face elections until later.

Mr Blewitt claimed yesterday that he was intimidated by Mr Wilson and kept withdrawing money from the slush fund on his orders, even after leaving the union in 1995, because Mr Wilson had threatened to interfere with his Veterans’ Affairs pension if he did not comply with orders.