Julia Gillard turned large amounts of cash from controversial ex-union official Bruce Wilson into cheques to pay for renovations on her Melbourne home, a royal commission has heard.

"During the work I would deal with Ms Gillard in relation to any payment for the completed work," Mr James said. But the cash for the 1994 work came from her then boyfriend and AWU heavyweight Mr Wilson, the commission heard. "I would give her the invoice. I am pretty certain she said she would get money from Bruce and pay me in the next few days. I'm certain she said Bruce was paying for it," the 84-year-old said in his witness statement.

Mr Kernohan said he was told by Mr Shorten "If you pursue this, a lot of good people will get hurt and you will be on your own,". Mr Kernohan said he had been "lined up" for the safe Victorian Labor seat of Melton.

"Any chance I had of entering parliament ... I knew that had evaporated the minute I walked away from Bill Shorten," Mr Kernohan told the commission.

Mr Kernohan said not long after he made his mind up to go to the police about union corruption, he was bashed by three men and had three bullets sent to him in the mail.

Is it my imagination, or do the past and present Labor leaders look like they should be more at home in a crime syndicate than governing a country?

Dear SM,

<<Is it my imagination, or do the past and present Labor leaders look like they should be more at home in a crime syndicate than governing a country?>>

Try to get over it, keep in the shade and have a life: crime syndicates and governments are and have always been one and the same.

I can't see why you call them "leaders" - politicians are just a pack of hungry hyenas, predators up the food-chain from us.

Under cross-examination, Mr Hem told the commission Mr Wilson told him the money was to be deposited into Ms Gillard's account.

"No-one else was to see the bank account number or anything; I was to give him the details back when I came back," he said.

Love yer work, Shadow Minister.

I hope you are man enough to admit that the Labor Party is not the only repository of thieves and rorters. Although occasionally, you do give me cause to doubt...

I like Crikey's summary of this particular set of stories:

"The biggest beneficiary of these proceedings, of course, is the Coalition government, which has paid a lot of money to have its opponents’ bad habits exposed to the public gaze. Whether it is in the public interest to have so much public money spent on this, as opposed to a topic like the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, is another matter."

Or indeed, whether it would be more appropriately put towards a Commonwealth version of ICAC.

After all, what could they possibly be afraid of?

Shadow, is well aware of Liberal Party CORRUPTION in NSW, I had a very long debate with the lad about the conga line of Liberals dancing their way into the NSW ICAC. He become so frustrated with his lack of argument he resorted to claiming The Greens were corrupt, but could offer no evidence, except his own delusions. Tried as hard as he might to "prove" Barry's boys and girls were not CORRUPT. failed miserably on that score too. Its not over yet, the ICAC will resume shortly with a few more Liberal time bombs ready to explode.

All your thread does Shadow is reinforce the fact that the Liberal and Labor Parties are CORRUPT. Do your best, I'll read it with interest.

The SMH this morning appears to take the opposite view to Shadow Minister.
As a self funded, retired, widower I am not above shouting a new close friend something valuable. Accepting that valuable item does not make the friend a criminal.
If the friend sought the valuable item might put a different perspective on the exchange but it is still not criminal unless the recipient knew that I had stolen the wherewith all. Proving that is unlikely in most circumstances.