Shock union claims: detective breaks silence on fraud scandal

The retired detective who led the police investigation into the ­Australian Workers Union fraud scandal has broken his silence, calling for a fresh probe into an alleged ­conspiracy between former union ­officials and executives from ­construction giant Thiess that he claims extended to Julia Gillard’s old law firm.

In an extraordinary development in the long-running affair, former West Australian major fraud squad officer David ­McAlpine claims his investigation into the AWU slush fund 20 years ago was “subverted” due to “political interference”.

He said that in August 1998 the WA Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions had “abruptly” ordered him to remain in Perth as he was preparing to fly to Melbourne to execute search warrants on key players, including Ms Gillard’s then employer, law firm Slater & Gordon.

Mr McAlpine said he had retained key documents including letters, memos and telephone notes from his two-year investigation and he was willing to swear an affidavit and give evidence in any court about his knowledge of the $400,000-plus fraud. “The fact that I was lied to and this investigation was subverted and people appear to have given false evidence at a royal commission, it needs to be reinvestigated because the simple fact is the Australian people need to know the truth,” he said.

Mr McAlpine retired from WA Police in October 2016 after 42 years of service and is now living in Thailand.

In a written statement and audio recording sent to The Australian, Mr McAlpine claimed ­former Thiess senior executives might have misled the trade union royal commission in 2014 about alleged secret commissions paid to AWU officials Bruce Wilson and Ralph Blewitt.

Mr Wilson has admitted to extract­ing large sums of money from Thiess for a slush fund he set up in the early 1990s with legal assistance from Ms Gillard, who was his girlfriend at the time.

Money from the AWU Workplace Reform Association was used to partly fund the purchase of a house in the Melbourne suburb of Fitzroy in 1993. The association was supposed to promote training and safety on construction sites.

Royal commissioner Dyson Heydon recommended in 2015 that Mr Wilson and Mr Blewitt face prosecution for fraud-related offences connected to the fund.

Ms Gillard has repeatedly denied knowing the fund was to be used in a fraud.

The royal commission found that she had been “casual and haphazard” in her work at Slater & Gordon but had not committed offences, and was not aware of Mr Wilson’s conduct.

Mr Heydon rejected Ms Gillard’s denials that she was the beneficiary of cash sums from Mr Wilson for house renovations. The commission found that the builder, Athol James, who recalled the “wads of cash”, and a union staffer, Wayne Hem, who said he had deposited $5000 at Mr Wilson’s request into her account, were telling the truth.

The former prime minister could not be reached for comment yesterday.

Mr Blewitt is facing 31 fraud charges and is due back in a Perth court next week.

In his statement, Mr McAlpine recalled how he had obtained warrants in August 1998 to enter and search Slater & Gordon, Melbourne Water, Thiess and other firms in Melbourne.

“The search warrants directed me to enter premises and search for evidence about the use of a power of attorney in the purchase of a property at Kerr Street, Fitzroy, the use of funds from the AWU Workplace Reform Association in that purchase and Slater & Gordon’s role in that property transaction,” he said.

“As I was preparing to leave WA and execute the warrants, I was directed not to travel and not to gather that evidence. The direction came from the WA DPP … I was given no explanation as to why my investigation was ordered to be stopped.

“Thiess executives … told me at the time they did not want to make any complaints about the money paid to Wilson via the AWU Workplace Reform Association. They said: ‘We got what we paid for’.”

Mr McAlpine said this was further confirmed in writing in a letter signed by a manager of Thiess. “The course of my inquiry was wilfully subverted,” he said. “(Two Thiess executives) have now made the claim, under oath at a royal commission that they were deceived — that a fraud was committed on them.

He said this “leaves two open explanations”: that their evidence to the royal commission was incorrect or the information they gave him was wrong. He said he believed at the time that the Thiess executives had been caught up in a “conspiracy with Wilson and Blewitt”.

“I believe that conspiracy extended to other persons … and had I not been stopped from travelling and executing the search warrants, further evidence of that conspiracy would have been disclosed 20 years ago.”

One of the executives yesterday denied misleading the royal commission and said his story had been consistent for the past 20 years. The other could not be reached for comment.

Mr McAlpine called on WA Police to restart the aborted investigation to identify who benefited from the AWU fraud.

<a href="https://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/industrial-relations/shock-awu-claims-detective-breaks-silence-on-fraud-scandal/news-story/a9656ee99b753dc0bbfe08e461ec8480">SOURCE</a>