Desperate people will always do and say desperate things to distract others from the truth.

Michael Smith has been doing this quite a bit lately, telling his “stories on the internet” and it continues to this day.

Some may remember his silly ATM joke regarding Craig Thomson while he sits there defending his bestie Kathy Jackson whose spending made Thomson look like a pauper without a dime.

Now Smith, presumably at Jacksons direction, has turned his attention to the Gillelands.

Those who have been following the Jacksonville series will recall that John and Carron Gilleland owned Communigraphix which was the main printing subcontractor for the HSU.

Most of this has been dealt with in the past, however it is worth a refresher given Smith and Jackson’s clear levels of desperation as the net closes around them at last for Jacksons past.

Firstly The Gillelands are primarily linked to the Williamson case. Smith and Co may not have noticed, but Michael Williamson is already in jail.

The reason they have come into the picture now is because of some articles recently published in the mainstream that tell a story that Jackson has previously distorted heavily and told through the media in the past without it being questioned or put under scrutiny.

The story is that of when the Gillelands approached both Jeff and Kathy Jackson regarding the notorious credit cards that have often been portrayed as “secret commisisons”.

Smith via his blog site states;

 “Caron Gilleland’s untested statement that she dobbed herself in to Kathy Jackson in 1999 has twice in the past few weeks been the basis for significant stories in both the News Limited and Fairfax press.   Somehow the stories suggest that Jackson was at fault.”

Untested?

The Jackson version of this story was in the article by Kate McClymont in September of 2011, so let’s test the story shall we?

The version by McClymont was completely untested and seemingly relied on Jacksons account and nothing else, certainly not logic.

If Jackson discovered the credit cards via a private investigator as she has repeatedlyclaimed then she would have also known of the card held by Williamson’s alleged mistress Cheryl McMillan, as they were all linked. However this did not come out until the Gillelands provided that information to officers from Strike Force Carnarvon.

Surely this is something that would have been heavily pursued by Jackson and McClymont.

As you can see Jackson’s version of the story fails even the slightest scrutiny. Is it any wonder that Kate McClymont is not covering the story any more?

The Gillelands approached the Jacksons as members of the National Executive of the union, and the fact the Jacksons did nothing with the information means that they consciously made the decision to fail in their duties to act.

The twisted logic based on incorrect information used by Smith to justify his position is this;

 “If Gilleland continued to do business for Williamson’s HSU at such massively inflated prices for the years from 1999 until the police acted on Jackson’s report and Williamson was charged, what is the likelihood she had dobbed herself in to Jackson in 1999?”

We will come to the “massively inflated” shortly.

Smith’s version forgets a couple of things.

Firstly, due to the complete negligence and failure to act by Kathy and Jeff Jackson the Gillelands took matters into their own hands and cancelled the credit cards themselves.

Upon doing this they instantly lost the vast majority of the HSU business to another printing subcontractor.

In fact the only reason they regained the business is because another printer could not be found to provide the services that Communigraphix did for the price.

So much for massively inflated.

The massively inflated prices that we hear so much about are massive furphy and another distraction.

It is not clear whether this claim came from Jackson or McClymont but it is drastically flawed.

The figures used in the McClymont article state that Communigraphix produced 10 “union newsletters” in 2009 for about $680,000.

McClymont is completely wrong.

According the Temby Report which can be viewed on my HSU Resource Page, Communigraphix produced 11 editions of The Health Standard in 2009 and the $680,000 represented the total of Communigraphix business with the union not just the Heath Standard publication which McClymont lost count of at 10.

As for the “inflated prices” let’s have a look at it in a bit more depth rather than just making grandiose statements.

The Health Standard is being compared with what some other unions use to keep their memberships informed, in some cases that may be nothing more than a few a4 sheets stapled and produced on an office photocopier.

The Health Standard is a full gloss magazine that was usually between 36 and 48 pages and was direct mailed to up to 44,000 members.

Even if we use McClymonts incorrect figures I think that finding a printer to produce a 48 page full gloss colour magazine and mail it to 44,000 people for $68,000 would be a tall ask.

Twice Communigraphix lost this business, once when Michael Williamson was elected and once when they stopped providing the credit card service. Both times they regained the business as other suppliers were unable to provide the same service for the same price.

 

 

Smith starts his article out with this;

 “In Count 4 Williamson was charged and pleaded guilty to recruiting Caron Gilleland to assist him in carrying out a criminal activity.   He was similarly charged in relation to John Gilleland.”

This much is true.

However this was relating to the destruction of evidence that Williamson asked the Gillelands to perform. Unfortunately for Williamson though the Gillelands never did.

Had the Gillelands actually destroyed evidence they would have been charged, instead they co-operated with and assssited police, even going to the extent of wearing a wire to record conversations.

Smith goes on to ask;

 “What deal with police led to their agreement to wear listening devices?   How did the Gillelands avoid prosecution for either secret commission or bribery offences?”

 Firstly I have to ask what is it with right-wingers and deals?

This is the whole “What’s in it for me?” attitude that most find sickening.

Many people assist police when crimes have been committed without the need to do some sort of deal, I would suggest that the posing that question tells us more about the morals of Michael Smith than it does the Gillelands.

There was no deal done with the police to wear listening devices according to police witness statements.

As for the second question usually police try not to make a habit of charging people with crimes that they haven’t committed or for crimes that don’t even exist.

At the time this is alleged to have occurred there was no crime relating to secret commissions. Even so, as it has become clear now these were not secret commissions as suggested and was instead an invoiced service.

I might add, judging from these invoices I would have to say that the credit card expenditure of Michael Williamson absolutely pales in comparison to that of Kathy Jackson.

As for suggestions of bribery these are completely unfounded and frankly I would have hoped Smith would have a just a little more self-respect than to say something like this. Alas.

One might question the motives of Smith attacking those who clearly assisted police in their investigations in every way that was asked of them. Instead Smith chooses to throw his support behind someone who refused to assist a Royal Commission and stepped off the witness stand pleading for a lawyer when it came to questions of her own behaviour.

Still despite all of this misreporting and misinformation there is some good news.

With each desperate attempt at distraction from Michael Smith he only succeeds in making his bestie Kathy Jackson appear even guiltier than she already does.

The amount of evidence and information that is now public implicating Jackson is something that authorities will not be distracted from.

Kathy Jackson is someone who financially gained at the expense of cancer workers and in my eyes it doesn’t get much lower than that.

Fine friends you have Mr Smith.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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