Over the last few weeks the NSW State election has held the attention of most of us in NSW, however things have still been happening in the bizarre world of Kathy Jackson and also with the continued legal woes of Craig Thomson.
Many readers have been left disgusted and revolted by the alleged attempts by Kathy Jackson and Michael Lawler to conspire to control the $30 Million estate of David Rofe QC who suffers from dementia.
I don’t think too many were surprised to see the woman Tony Abbott describes as admirable and courageous providing “companionship services” in order to be written into Rofe’s will well after his dementia diagnosis. However it is the involvement of Michael Lawler, the man Tony Abbott appointed to the Vice President position of Fair Work Australia (now FWC) the organization that spent years on an investigation that seemingly ignored allegations against all but Craig Thomson, that has surprised many.
Lawler currently earns more than $400K per annum off the taxpayer in his public service role.
With a Coalition government that is happy to punish pensioners just to save a few quid, I can tell them where to save themselves more than 400,000 quid by sacking just one public servant.
There have been some interesting names going on record as witnessing conversations and behavior by Jackson and Lawler related to their involvement with the mentally impaired Rofe. Two of those names are the AWU whistleblower Bob Kernohan, and Michael Smith the disgraced shock-jock turned right-wing blogger.
Some of the words used to describe the goings on under the Jackson roof have been “disturbing”, “vile”, and “disgusting”. In fact the details provided in The Australian articles by Brad Norington have left little doubt that Tony Abbott’s and various members of the Coalitions public descriptions of Jackson and Lawler were about as close to honest as the singing career of Milli Vanilli.
Bob Kernohan is widely regarded as a man of great integrity, a true union man who spoke out against what he saw as improper behaviour.
Michael Smith however, while claiming he was disturbed by the stomach churning and vile behaviour of Jackson and Lawler was still happy to not only live with them, but also talk about Jackson on his blogsite as if she was some sort of Mother Mary figure, despite her alleged behaviour seemingly bearing more resemblance to a Mary Magdalene style character.
Smith is actually someone I had tried to persuade to look at the evidence against Jackson a couple of years ago when he became quite vocal on the matter, I wonder now if he regrets not taking the time to look over the evidence I provided him.
Smith has seemingly been used and when his usefulness ran out has been cast aside and left with his integrity and reputation in tatters.
Michael Smith – Used and abused
Image – News Ltd
For Craig Thomson, the man who Jackson, Lawler, Smith and their cohorts set out to destroy, last week was not a high point.
Thomson once again found himself back in a Melbourne court, this time defending himself against charges from Fair Work Australia.
Thomson had provided an affidavit to the court in an attempt to have the matter dismissed for either of two reasons.
One of those reasons is that Thomson believes he has been punished enough already. It is certainly hard to recall someone else who has been pursued so relentlessly and has been subject to such humiliation only to be finally found guilty of a few cases of unspectacular spending that could have been settled in Small Claims Court. Instead his case was argued in the open court of public opinion chaired by the shock-jocks, News Ltd and Fairfax, eventually winding up in Criminal Court where he was finally found not guilty on the vast majority of charges, including all of charges related to brothels and prostitution that had been plastered all over the tabloids and splashed all over our television screens for years.
Thomson also made the point that he is now forced to represent himself as he finds himself $620K in debt due to legal expenses. This renders him unable to pay any fine that the court may hand down should he in fact be found guilty.
Craig Thomson – Buckling under the pressure
Image – News Ltd
The second and more controversial reason is due to mental illness brought on by stress. This is something for which Thomson has provided doctors evidence to the court.
There are those that claim that this is hypocrisy on Thomson’s part after the reaction to Kathy Jackson’s delays to her Federal Court case for mental health reasons.
There are differences however.
For starters there have been questions surrounding Thomson’s mental health ever since he gave his clearly emotional parliamentary address way back in May 2012.
For Kathy Jackson however the questions of her mental health only came up after she started digging her own grave on the witness stand at the Trade Union Royal Commission.
Kathy Jackson struggles under the weight of union-related spending
Image – News Ltd
Jackson of course checked herself into to a luxury mental health facility only hours before she was due to face Federal Court regarding over $1.4 Million of alleged improper spending of HSU members funds. This was a court matter that had already been delayed by Jackson numerous times for a variety of reasons some of which verged on comical.
The main difference however is in the timing.
Thomson is nearing the end of his legal battles, and has already passed through the worst of the storm having come through a very public criminal trial and emerging with less spending to answer for than Tony Abbott’s combined book promo’s and fun runs and bike rides.
Jackson on the other hand is yet to face a single day in court over the allegations of the $1.4 Million plus she spent on travel, grog, fancy meals, and at retailers like David Jones and JB Hi Fi.
While Thomson has been keen to move on from this chapter of his life and has faced his accusers without attempts to delay proceedings. Jackson has delayed her Federal Court matter for well over a year now and when things turned at the Royal Commission to be about her actions she had a hissy fit and stormed off the stand refusing to answer questions and claiming to have been “ambushed”. When she finally reappeared weeks later the again delayed matters by using the “charity shag” argument and her lawyer managed to have the majority of contentious questions ruled out until the public hearings were completed.
It is also important to note, Thomson is not seeking to delay the matter, he is using a legal argument to try to have the matter dismissed. The vast majority of these matters Thomson has already been found not guilty of in criminal court.
In my next piece I will be looking at some of the bizarre elements of the current Thomson court matter, and the hypocrisy of the Jackson defence.
There is never a dull day in Jacksonville.
Save Wixxy from his own budget crisis by donating here
Like Wixxyleaks on Facebook here
Have you had contact with Thomson? I hope he is OK. He has been hammered like you say and I believe people who know about this are concerned not only for him but also his family.
Maybe we could set something up to help the guy, to give him hope, his family hope. let him know people still support and believe in him.
Surely it is time for everyone with a sense of moral justice, to rise up and bombard the Government about Kathy Jackson & husband. Abbott and Co., happily rorted we the tax payers, until discovered, and then were allowed to ‘pay back’ their rorts. Not so Craig Thomson and Peter Slipper. They were after Julia Gillard and nothing would stop them. So are we, as supposedly compassionate people, going to allow this government abuse to continue?
Yes, Nifty, if ever anyone deserved a public fund-raising effort, it’s Craig Thomson (and Peter Slipper). It doesn’t look as though they will get any justice any other way.
Very interesting point that Thomson was found to have helped himself to less than Abbott rorted. That really puts it in perspective.
On the Rofe matter, the career and reputation of a certain former Liberal MP don’t seem to have been negatively affected by exactly the same behaviour.
I was thinking the same thing Nifty. If people can crowdsource a cat restaurant in Sydney, surely we can get something going? It’s a great shame that the conservatives used this man unmercifully, to try to bring down the elected government, and left him financially, socially and mentally bankrupt, while Jackson’s legal bills are being “taken care of”.
I feel the same way about Slipper, who was drawn and quartered for a few hundred dollars, which Tones flies off to weddings, parties and anything at taxpayers’ expense.
The Labor Party should also be part of the funding solution.
The difference between Kathy Jackson and Mary Magdalene is that Mary Magdalene realised she was a sinner, owned up to those sins and repented, asked Jesus to forgive her, and Jesus did forgive her. Kathy Jackson seems far from admitting anything.
Every new detail about Jackson and Lawler makes Thomson’s speech to Parliament in 2012 look more and more like the absolute truth. It’s a pity that “The Sydney Morning Herald” and “The Telegraph” haven’t let on that they’ve twigged to that! Many thousands of taxpayers’ dollars have been wasted in pursuing Thomson. The Royal Commission Interim Report on its investigation into trade unions makes no mention at all of Jackson or Lawler, despite all that came out in the court! . The law is not serving the public interest much better than the mainstream media.
As for Smith, anyone who invited Brandis and Barnaby Joyce to their wedding, and trusted and fell overboard for Jackson, would have to be very challenged, intellectually and ethically.
Smith is a genuine low-lifer. That he has been used and tossed aside gets no sympathy from me. The obvious pleasure he took in his destructive course is beyond the pale. A true pervert.
Hey Pete, Great piece. Mary Magdalene vilified by Catholic church to promote idea of Jesus’ deity when actually many sources probably more reliable than the slapped together Bible indicate that Mary Magdalene was Jesus girlfriend.
Otherwise love your work. 🙂
I think, Wixxy, you are going a little too easy on Michael P Smith. Smith knew exactly what he was doing, and is still up to his old tricks. For too long now, Smith has been able to fly under the radar in terms of Jacksonville. His current efforts to portray himself as the hard done by innocent “victim” of Kathy Jackson are total rubbish. Only the most gullible of his dwindling and misguided band of supporters would swallow such nonsense.
For nigh on three years, Smith has been on a crusade to “get” Julia Gillard come what may. His initial efforts were regarded by many as reasonable from the perspective of investigative journalism. But Smith totally lost the plot when he hooked up with Kathy Jackson in both a professional and romantic sense. Smith once posted on his website that his mother had given him some valuable advice – people are judged by the friends they keep. Well, Michael P Smith certainly chose some sleazy and parasitic friends to mix with when he elected to throw in his lot with Kathy Jackson and her disgraceful “fiancé”, Michael Lawler, Vice-President of the Fair Work Commission. Smith’s frequent and lofty pronouncements on Julia Gillard and Craig Thomson started looking decidedly hollow from the day he became Kathy Jackson’s de facto public relations advocate and champion.
Smith had been warned by many people to steer clear of Kathy Jackson, but he did not take kindly to these suggestions. He turned on several previously loyal supporters with thuggish and appalling malice. On at least two occasions he posted on his blogsite that he valued Kathy Jackson as a “close friend” and that he would not brook any criticism of his newly discovered heroine. Indeed, Smith went so far as to proclaim in writing that he was staking his professionalism and his reputation on Kathy Jackson. But what Smith did not post on his website was how vindictive he could be.
Michael Smith was, and is still, relentless in his pursuit of Julia Gillard. Even to this day, Smith misses no opportunity to chase Julia Gillard down. He was at it again over the Easter period and in recent days. This time Smith wrote about a Victorian ex-politician who was not called as a witness at the present Royal Commission into trade union governance and corruption. Today, along with his further calls for financial support from his largely pensioner supporters, he writes about the incompetence and short-comings of the TURC Royal Commissioner, Justice John Dyson Heydon AC QC in relation to Julia Gillard. The same Royal Commissioner that Smith and his bizarre collection of supporters so regularly, so disgracefully and so offensively now criticise with such monotony.
Looked at objectively, Smith is now shown to be a total hypocrite. The allegations made against Kathy Jackson are FAR worse than the allegations ever made against Julia Gillard. And yet Smith willingly, and knowingly, became Jackson’s stooge. He cohabited with her for more than six months. He went on holiday with her to Bali while her “fiancé” stayed at home. He tried to persuade her to leave her fiancé, Lawler, and be with him instead. But whether one believes them or not, the worst allegations made against Julia Gillard and Craig Thomson do not even begin to approach the magnitude and seriousness of the allegations made against Kathy Jackson. Smith, that self-proclaimed enemy of fraud, corruption and cover-up, undermined everything he claimed to stand for when he yoked himself to Kathy Jackson and rejected the advice of several true and loyal friends.
Perhaps the starkest example of Smith’s breath-taking hypocrisy was furnished by Brad Norington of The Australian who wrote on 22 May 2015:
“During his stay at Wombarra, Smith accomp¬anied Jackson and Lawler a number of times on car trips to Rofe’s Woollahra home. He says he became disturbed when Rofe’s will and financial beneficiaries were openly discussed. “It’s not something I’d do,” Smith tells The Weekend Australian. “When I was in his home, I would often say, ‘Would you excuse me, I don’t want to be impolite, but I don’t want to be in any way involved in hearing this discussion. I want to go outside, I’m going to go outside to have a stubby.’ ”
That big, brave, crime-fighter and opponent of cover-up, Michael P Smith, preferred to drink beer rather than stay and protect the interests of an 83-year old man suffering dementia. Smith told The Australian that what he overheard was “vile”. So vile, one presumes, that Smith found he was unable to take courageous action in the cause of justice and right. So vile that the only action available to him was to step outside and have a stubby of beer. Smith’s conduct in the Rofe matter has all the hallmarks of a typical coward. A bully who intimidates loyal and helpless supporters when it suits his purpose, but who cannot be counted on to stand up and speak against real injustice when it occurs under his very nose. Like the three royal monkeys rolled into one, Smith chooses to see, hear and speak no evil. Unless, of course, the evil involves Julia Gillard or Craig Thomson. If Gillard and Thomson are involved, it seems there is no stopping the indefatigable Michael Smith.
The saddest thing about Michael Smith’s downfall is that the train wreck was self-imposed. Smith’s once prize-winning website has become but a mere shadow of what it once was. Gone are the vigorous debates and insightful analyses provided by people from across the social and professional spectrum. Gone are the thought-provoking expositions of legal process and investigative method. Instead, we now have a feast of purloined extracts from news sources previously eschewed by Smith. We have over-the-top efforts by Smith to shamelessly cash in on the nostalgia of Australia’s military traditions. We have an over-abundance of kooky contributions expounding New Age thinking such as the angelic merits of Theosophy. And we have a surfeit of arrogant opinion by persons whose strength seems to lie in providing banal, ignorant and superficial commentary on all manner of weighty issues.
Finally, it just would not surprise me if Michael Smith is presently operating his website from an undisclosed overseas location. He was absent from his website for a week following publication of the interview by Sharri Markson and Brad Norington of The Australian. At the time, Smith described his absence as an opportunity to “clear my head a bit and to plan for the future”. It would not be the first occasion that someone associated with the Gillard “scandal” has fled overseas in order to escape the glare of publicity or the fallout from embarrassing revelations. With Jacksonville rapidly coming apart at the seams, anything is possible.
It was Julia Gillard who famously asked in Parliament “Who is Michael Smith?” I think we now know who Michael Smith is.
The most interesting thing I picked up from Brad Norrington’s last piece in the Australian was that the current Financial Manager has commenced investigations and hopefully legal manoeuvres into winding back the outrageously generous rental agreement that Rofe QC’s former friend Nick Llewellyn was able to find himself party to, namely $1 per month rent at the QE1 tower on the Gold Coast. No doubt the Financial Manager is mindful of his legal responsibilities, and the serious question of how a man with dementia could consent to this agreement, the purchase of two properties, one that manifestly benefits Llewellyn, the other that is next door to Jackson and Lawler, and indeed the legality of any wills made in Rofe’s name at the time that Lawler held his Power of Attorney.
Michael Lawler has some serious issues to confront.
Firstly, he has said via his solicitor that the decision to purchase the house next door to him was made so that Rofe could be moved there if things got worse for him. Yet, according to the NSW legislation a Power of Attorney can not make decisions of this nature, namely where the protected person lives.
Secondly, it appears Lawler may have been involved in making at least one will that benefits both himself and especially his partner Kathy Jackson. Attorney’s cannot receive benefits in this way.
Thirdly, we have evidence from Llewellyn himself that Rofe was resisting attempts to buy a property for Llewellyn, and a request in writing that Lawler, Rofe’s attorney, exert pressure on Rofe to buy the Gold Coast property.
Llewellyn has also written to the Royal Commission complaining about Lawler’s purchase of the Wombarra property, and saying that Rofe was angry when he discovered this.
Indeed, Bob Kernohan has deposed a statutory declaration declaring that Lawler and Jackson were pressuring Rofe to see the property next door, but Rofe repeatedly said he did not want to see it, and was not interested.
And all of this was allegedly done when Lawler was on long leave from the Fair Work Commission, and arguably counter to the FWC code of conduct.
But very ominously, within the last few weeks a senior solicitor was struck off from the NSW roll for misuse of money’s belonging to a protected person for whom he held a power of attorney.
When we add to this the misuse of funds from David Rofe’s account just this year by Kathy Jackson for the purchase of a laptop computer (how could Ms Jackson have come to know these account details, if not from the previous Attorney Michael Lawler her common law husband?) and a likely forensic analysis of the accounts of David Rofe, and it seems Mr Lawler has a few too many fires to put out.
And I’m not even taking about the non suspicious house-fire at his place.
JB, your comments about Michael Smith led me to peruse his site just now. He has a begging post up, threatening to stop work if he doesn’t get more money:
“I don’t want to be talking about the Gillard/Wilson/Blewitt AWU related frauds this time next year, I want this work completed and the frauds fully exposed and put before a jury. We’re getting very close to the finish line – but the publication will stop if the bills aren’t paid.”
Things have gotten more expensive for him lately he said earlier in the post:
“My own costs of just living have increased considerably recently (if you know of a benevolent landlord or sympathetic Telstra mobile broadband manager your calls will be gratefully received!).”
Bad luck to him I guess, as it seems likely he will be fresh out of benevolent landlords, now that he has admitted to the Australian that at his last squat he belted the landlord, slept with his wife, and no doubt took advantage of other freebies on offer.
By the way, who did pay for Kathy and Michael (Smith’s) trip to Bali? Will Rofe QC’s latest financial manager be able to answer this question when his investigations are complete?
As usual, Duchy, the questions you pose are as insightful as ever. And I agree with you that Michael Lawler, Vice President of the Fair Work Commission, has some very serious questions to confront and answer. Including one that (so far) does not appear to have been particularly prominent.
When questioned by journalists, Michael Lawler (through his legal representative) has consistently maintained the actions he took pursuant to the Enduring Power of Attorney he held at the time were always taken with the best interests of David Rofe QC in mind. Well, I must be missing something somewhere. I cannot for the life of me see how purchasing the $1 million plus Gold Coast property can be interpreted as furthering the interests (financial or otherwise) of 83-year old dementia sufferer, David Rofe. How, and in what way, can subsequently renting the property out to Lord Nicholas Llewellyn of Glencoe for $1 per month for 20 years possibly be of benefit to David Rofe? Mr Rofe will be 103 years of age when the rental agreement comes to its natural end.
His Lordship is reported as believing the property will eventually pass to him under one of David Rofe’s multiple wills. If this is true (and it may not be true), then how could such an arrangement possibly further David Rofe’s best interests? I thought His Lordship had agreed not to have further contact with David Rofe, and that the two of them were now estranged from each other.
Yes, Michael Lawler certainly needs to explain and justify the decisions he made on David Rofe’s behalf. Lawler has the equivalent position, status and prestige of a judge. It is therefore only appropriate that he be asked to justify continued enjoyment of his privileged position in society.
Duchy – yes, it is interesting to ponder who might have paid for the cosy Bali holiday Smith and Kathy Jackson went on together last year. Smith had not had a regular income for some time, and seemed to be dependant on financial donations from his blog site supporters. It would be extraordinary to think Smith’s largely pensioner support base would have somehow subsidised his secretive holiday jaunt – recall Smith remained totally silent about this holiday. Indeed, the holiday only came to light publicly earlier this year.
And while on financial matters, I wonder who paid for Kathy Jackson’s extended stay at the upmarket psychiatric facility following her appearance last year at the Royal Commission? Jackson cried poor at the TURC hearing and claimed she could not afford legal representation. Presumably, Jackson would therefore not have been able to afford the substantial fees charged by the psychiatric hospital either. Might it be stretching credulity to speculate that perhaps the hospital fees were funded from the same source used to purchase a laptop (and an iTunes subscription) for 83-year old dementia sufferer David Rofe when he eventually moved into his new Wombarra property next door to Kathy Jackson? Funny how Jackson is too poor to pay for her own legal costs but, apparently, can manage to pay for extended accommodation at a top of the range psychiatric facility.
Regardless, I sincerely hope all the human parasites currently attached to the $30 million estate of David Rofe QC can be successfully, and speedily, removed from their unsuspecting host.