Poirot says:

"Questions over Gillard's so-called lack of integrity pale in comparison to the shenanigans outlined in the judgment."

Not true.

First I agree with the judgement of Rares J. It is plain from a forensic analysis of the evidence and reasonable deductions from same that Ashby and his partner, Doane, were opportunists. One can only hope they learn wisdom from queuing at Centrelink.

There will also be consequences for lawyer Harmer.

Regrettably Brough's political resurgence will be tainted, which is a pity since he did good work with indigenous folk.

None of this vitiates the reasonable conclusion that Slipper is an uncouth, sexist spendthrift.

It also has no bearing on where the PM stands with the cogent complaints gainst her which have been partially described here:

http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=14428

No serious attempt to defend these complaints were made with only serial supporter of the PM, Alan Austin making a spurious attempt by resorting to the fractal approach; that is, inventing or assuming a defect, in this case a distinction between the association and a bank account, and expanding on it. This is merely sophistry 101.

If that is the best defence which can be brought in favour of the PM, and since Austin created it, one has to assume so, then one can only hope when and if the PM is before a court that she is before a black letter, no nonsense jurist like Rares J

While I am no fan of Gillard and her labor party, I must admit, something that happened 20 odd years ago is hardly goimg to effect her performance today.

Let's face it, we send criminals to prison and, once they have served their term, they are released and at least expected to be accepted into society, so what's the difference.

I feel there are far more serious issues that need addressing than this, such as the illegals debarcle, which, if not stopped, or at leased, well managed, has the potential to break us as a nation, or at the very least rob us of many of the services we worked hard for and paid taxes to fund.

Dear Philip Howell,

An interesting comparison from your legal perspective but I would have to assume that you have not read the copious documentation available; otherwise your response would not have been so trivial or ill informed.

Were you ever the subject of a secret investigation by your senior partners whilst on leave?

Were you ever the subject of a tape recorded exit interview that had a record of transcript retained by those partners?

Were you placed in a position where you had to tender you resignation and have it accepted without further discussion?

We don’t know for sure what was allegedly done by Gillard but fortunately we have comments on the public record from a very senior partner at Slater and Gordon, Nick Styant-Brown, who along with Peter Gordon, conducted that exit interview.

He says, “the story had some traction”, “that it could rebound to us in a very unhappy way”, he “refused to endorse a draft that he believed exonerated Gillard”, he “could no longer hide what he knew of the AWU scandal and Gillard's actions”, accused S&G “of protecting and hiding adverse material at all costs”, said “I'm just not prepared to be party to a public record about what happened that is false”, said ” I would not be seen by my silence to go along with, a whitewash of what happened”.

Clearly your interpretation or lack of facts is significantly at odds with the opinions of S&G’s senior partners at that time.

I think I’ll stick with the legal opinion of one of Australia’s most prominent lawyers if that’s OK with you.

As to your comments about senior partners being “the people most prone to breaching the firm’s rules”. It seems you are right as S&G also failed to notify their client, the real AWU or the authorities of the alleged illegal activities of which they had just become aware. They kept quiet for some eight months from Sept. 1995 until May 1996.

You have much reading to do. Were you with S&G by any chance?

Always when there is criminality pointing at the establishment which Gillard and her party represent,there will be a reluctance to do an investigation since other skeletons may be found for both sides of parliament to address.

What Police offical will stake their career and reputation on a real investigation just to see it all quashed by some judge or public official?

Julia Gillard has not addressed the facts and still refuses the answer detailed questions on her involvement in this seedy affair.What conclusions can thinking people reach?

Labor know that the public has a short memory and most of the electorate are incapable of critical independant analysis of anything with more than two variables,so all they have to do is wait and wear us down with more BS.

Poirot,

You so easily forget that Slipper cheerfully sold his vote to Labor, and has been happily squandering tax payer's money on himself in record amounts with the full knowledge of Juliar and the Labor caucus.

As I said previously, none of this was illegal. The judge could have stopped this at any time, but there was sufficient evidence of harassment for the case to continue.

Also the cabcharge fraud investigation is still on going.

SM is in charge of the kangaroo court, the cab charge fraud. If it was a fraud why the investigation. The case has been solved.