Help Crowd Fund The Jacksonville Book Here
They say a picture paints a thousand words.
Monday night’s footage on 4 Corners provided a living image of millions.
For more than three years I have been trying to portray to readers through words the seemingly alternate reality that Kathy Jackson and her supporters lived in. This is a place I have described as Jacksonville, and Monday night viewers of 4 Corners were given a glimpse inside the strange and delusional world these people live.
I must convey my gratitude to Caro Meldrum Hanna for appearing to have come to the conclusion that she didn’t need to hand Jackson or Lawler a shovel in order for them to dig their own hole, just letting them talk will work.
Lawler was content to lie to the camera, claiming to have been dragged into the world of politics due to his relationship with Kathy.
Lawler met Kathy through his position at Fair Work which was a political appointment, as was his brothers position at the Crime Commission. Michael’s father’s career was in politics, a political staffer during the Robert Menzies government, a politically appointed ambassador, and a political lobbyist for a Catholic lobby organisation. Michael Lawler was in fact born into the world of politics, not dragged into it by Kathy.
However, possibly the most talked about things from the episode was the recorded phone calls, and their highly questionable legality.
Lawler’s fondness for manipulating phones and recording calls prompted this tweet from the always on the ball Latika Burke
‘I can give you a recording of that.’ Suddenly Thommo’s ‘my phone was cloned’ excuse makes a bit more sense. #4Corners
— Latika M Bourke (@latikambourke) October 19, 2015
However given Lawler’s comments that he’d been recording calls for a while now, I think there are some people out there who may have seen that as a threat. The kind of threat that says “if you stop protecting Kathy and I, then I may just have our calls on my computer and make them public”.
It’s a reasonable to assume that Jackson and Lawler are already regretting their stupid decision to let the world get an uncensored look at Jacksonville, but how bad did it really work out for them?
How not to address an itchy ear – Lawler demonstrates how monkeys use telephones
Image – ABC
You know things are dire for the pair when we see the return of Kate McClymont to the saga.
McClymont is someone who has been described by many as Jackson and Lawler’s publicist. It’s no wonder, she led the charge against Craig Thomson, who ended up being found not guilty on all of the hookers and brothels her articles continually tied him to, and she won a Walkley for an article that was disproved and given that it appeared to be entirely based on Jackson’s word, in the light of the 4 Corners episode it seems utterly ridiculous. Her high point though was publishing the lamenting sob story of what it was like to be Marco Bolano’s long-suffering partner, as told via his partner Kylee Brehaut. Bolano is of course the wannabe union thug who attempted to physically intimidate witnesses at the Royal Commission while receiving workers compensation payment for being incapacitated. He is currently under police investigation for insurance fraud.
McClymont hasn’t really covered the HSU subject for a long time, at least since evidence starting turning the story in the opposite direction to the way she was portraying it.
Jumping back in? – Kate McClymont
Image – Fairfax
One wonders what it was that compelled Kate to jump back in again, but that is exactly what she has done. Did she perhaps feel some kind of obligation to the pair, and if so why?
As for the “Exclusive” article it was full of information that can only have come from one source, Michael Lawler himself.
The article went into details that it claims The Australian journalists were not allowed to cover but did, in doing so it actually did the same thing it claims the Australian did.
Does this sound somewhat familiar to you too?
As Kate condemns The Australian to a stoning for saying Jehovah, she says the same.
One thing is for sure, someone in the mix appears to be stoned.
I am quite sure The Australian did not claim any of the information came from a guardianship hearing, so if that is indeed the case it would appear that McClymont has actually now made it public knowledge by publishing Lawler’s accusation.
I’m no legal beagle, but I’m guessing that may possibly make McClymont liable for attracting the 12 month jail term or $110,000 fine she speaks of.
In regards to Lawler’s threat of legal action against me which according to McClymont’s piece is getting passed back and forth between the police and the Australian Communications and Media Authority, probably until one draws the short straw, I am not wearing a face of concern. I’m happy to file it away with his last legal threat which took three flushes to get rid of. Nevertheless it may rate a mention in my book.
For those who want to take a stroll down Lawler’s lane, check out the dedicated Jacksonville page at Independent Australia. I can also highly recommend venturing to my HSU resource page and checking out Lawler’s sons HSU payslips, perhaps taking a peek at details of an alleged attempted hack on the HSU network by a computer bearing the name Michael Lawler, or the official complaint of Carol Glen regarding Lawler’s alleged intimidation attempts.
Whatever you do though, don’t forget to keep dropping by, because this saga ain’t over yet.
Not by a long shot.
Hey Wixxy
Kate McClymont IMO is like a bad painter and now that the general public is let inside they can see all her spills and mistakes.
She`s busy doing touch ups which stick out like the dogs breakfast she feasted on
Keep at it Wixxy.
I hope that book’s well on the way, Peter. A lot of people won’t be happy until all of these lying complicit bastards are exposed for what they are.
Mr Lawler, would it not been easier to put phone on speaker?
It’s a shame the way Craig Thompson was treated. I’m sorry he can’t carry on a defamation case against these grubs.
OMG McClymont bears a frightening resemblance to Ms Savva arghhhhhhh ++
wixxy, I hope you start that book back when he worked for HAREA and what he found when he first took over at HSU. There must be people who knew him at the time.
I noticed Kate the awful had tried to deal herself back in on the side of the two moron criminals. Talk about relevance deprivation for the stenographer who pretends to be a journalist.
For someone who holds such a senior and well paid quasi-judicial position, Michael Lawler comes across as a total buffoon. He is so far out of touch with reality, rudimentary logic and basic intelligence, he is so supremely confident in his own self-righteousness, that one has to wonder what on earth Lawler had been smoking (or snorting) prior to the Four Corners interview.
Lawler thinks that most Australians would approve of someone taking leave in order to help their spouses in a tight legal battle. Of course they would – I know I would. But the difference with Lawler is that he lied to his boss about the leave he took. He told Iain Ross that he was taking paid SICK leave, and provided documentary evidence in support of this dubious proposition. Lawler did not tell Ross he was taking leave in order to help Kathy Jackson’s legal defence. Only the most intellectually challenged (or most mentally impaired) would fail to see the obvious and blatant contradiction in Lawler’s protestations of innocence and conspiracy.
I daresay that Australians would have been far more willing to give Lawler the benefit of the doubt had he been more forthright with Iain Ross, and had he taken UNPAID leave from his quasi-judicial post rather than fully paid sick leave. Perhaps Michael Lawler lost his marbles after that other “key player” (according to the recent 13 photographs in The Australian newspaper) in the Jacksonville saga, Michael Phillip Smith, smashed a bottle over Lawler’s head in January this year?
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/photos-e6frg8zf-1227575732886
JB, thanks for the link to the Australian’s photo gallery. Interesting that Craig Thomson’s entry tells us that he was ‘charged with 140 offences relating to theft and fraud’, but does not tell us that he was in the end found guilty of 13 charges of theft and fined $25,000 (if his Wikipedia entry is correct).