Union scandal: I'll come clean, says 'bagman' Ralph Blewitt

THE alleged bagman for a union financial scandal linked to the then boyfriend of Julia Gillard wants to give evidence for the first time to police.

Former AWU official Ralph Blewitt

THE former union official and alleged bagman for a financial scandal linked to the then boyfriend of Julia Gillard wants to give evidence for the first time to police and prosecutors about his role and the conduct of others.

The Australian can reveal that Ralph Blewitt, a one-time branch head for the Australian Workers Union, is seeking immunity from criminal prosecution in return for breaking a 17-year silence and providing a statement to police.

In interviews with The Australian, Mr Blewitt has spoken of his past actions and those of his then best friend and AWU boss Bruce Wilson.

He has also discussed the Prime Minister's relationship with Mr Wilson and her simultaneous legal work for the union in her 1990s role as an industrial lawyer and partner at Slater & Gordon solicitors.

"I could face criminal charges," he said. "My lawyers have told me that if I seek to tell the whole story, they will seek immunity from prosecution for me.

"If I get that, I am more than prepared to tell the whole story to the best of my ability. I will make myself available (to police) on that one condition - that I have immunity from prosecution. Then the whole story can be put to bed once and for all."

Mr Blewitt is the former legal owner of a house in Melbourne's inner-city suburb of Fitzroy that was used by Mr Wilson and allegedly bought with misappropriated AWU funds in a transaction handled and part-financed by Slater & Gordon.

The terrace house in Kerr Street later became part of a major police and union investigation as Mr Blewitt and Mr Wilson were accused of illegally siphoning hundreds of thousands of dollars from the AWU, including funds companies such as Thiess handed over in the belief it was to pay for members' courses and training.

Most of the funds that allegedly went missing had been paid into an entity, the AWU Workplace Reform Association. Ms Gillard did legal work associated with establishment of the association as part of her role working for the union. At the time, Mr Wilson and Ms Gillard were in a close relationship. The Prime Minister has repeatedly and strenuously denied that she had any knowledge of what the association was going to be used for, and has also denied receiving any benefit.

Ms Gillard yesterday declined to respond to specific questions put to her office by The Australian and referred the newspaper to her previous strong denials of wrongdoing. Mr Wilson, who was ousted from the union, has in the past strenuously denied any wrongdoing and he was not charged after probes by the AWU and police into the matter.

Now a part-time cook at a club in NSW, he has declined to speak about his role and Ms Gillard.

Mr Blewitt has now engaged a criminal lawyer in Melbourne to help him negotiate a deal or plea-bargain with authorities. In the 1990s, police in Victoria and Western Australia spent significant time and resources investigating the allegations.

Mr Blewitt has been examining hundreds of documents relating to the claims, which the AWU's former head, Ian Cambridge, now a Fair Work Australia commissioner, once pursued relentlessly through the courts and which he said required a royal commission. Other documents from police internal files, released last month under Freedom of Information laws and obtained by The Australian, show detectives pursued an investigation for almost three years. Police shelved the case on legal advice only after Mr Blewitt and Mr Wilson refused to co-operate or engage.

Mr Blewitt, now 66, told The Australian he "would like the whole thing to go away, quite frankly, but I don't think it will".

"I think that . . . the story needs to be told. I need to clear the air," he said. "I do not want to be hounded about it forever . . . In the course of that, if certain people are embarrassed or worse, it's too bad. I want to apologise to the AWU and its members - but at no time was it my intention to steal funds from the AWU. I never personally benefited from any of those funds in any way whatsoever.

"I have not spoken publicly about these issues before. I am not a member of any political party now and I have no intention of rejoining one.

"I left Australia (to live in Asia) in 1997 and I have not voted since. I have got no illusions about this. It's not my objective to destroy the ALP. In fact, it hurts to be saying this about the ALP."

The allegations have dogged Ms Gillard's political career amid repeated attacks in state and federal parliament on her legal advice and actions, her connection to the players in the alleged fraud, and her close relationship with the AWU's then up-and-coming Mr Wilson at the time Ms Gillard was seeking a political career for herself.

A fortnight before Labor's 2007 election win, in a story headlined "A conman broke my heart", she said of her relationship with Mr Wilson when she was at Slater & Gordon and in her early to mid-30s: "I was young and naive. I was in a relationship, which I ended, and obviously it was all very distressing.

"I am by no means the first person to find out that someone close turns out to be different to what you had believed them to be.

"I was obviously hurt when I was later falsely accused publicly of wrongdoing."

Ms Gillard's personal relationship with Mr Wilson and the legal relationship with the union ended amid turmoil as Mr Wilson came under police and AWU investigation.

Mr Wilson was subsequently ousted from the union. He was not charged after the police investigations.

Ms Gillard's former federal attorney-general and cabinet colleague Robert McClelland, whom she sacked over his support for Kevin Rudd, raised the matter in June in federal parliament and in a subsequent interview with The Australian.

Documents obtained by The Australian show that as an AWU lawyer before entering politics, Mr McClelland fought to bring the alleged fraud to light in the 1990s.

In his pointed comments in parliament in June, he expanded on how his experience as an opposing lawyer to Ms Gillard in the matter had "coloured much of my thinking" about union cases.

Ms Gillard did not respond to Mr McClelland's comments.