Copy of cheque from the Federal Court of Australia

Michael Smith : I was in Melbourne yesterday and I was present as an associate of mine returned from 

copying a large number of Federal Court files, including one newly found one.

Those files included sworn Affidavits, certified true copies of Exhibits to Affidavits, material returned to the 

Court in answer to Court issued Subpoenas and other file notes.

I carefully scrutinised a file of material supplied to the court by the Commonwealth Bank in answer to Ian 

Cambridge's enquiries.

I saw that one Exhibit was a photocopy of a cheque.   The Exhibit included the obverse and reverse of the 

cheque, that is the front and what was apparently the back of the cheque.

There was machine printed encoding on the back of the cheque, and handwriting.

I am told that the handwriting was present on the back of the cheque when it was produced by the 

Commonwealth Bank for the court and that it was written on the cheque at the time that it was filed into the 

bank's systems.

The drawer of the cheque is the Australian Workers' Union Members' Welfare Association No 1 Account.   

That is a suspect AWU account established in Melbourne and operated by Bruce Morton Wilson and Jim 

Collins.

Bruce Wilson was dismissed from the union after he admitted "mixing private and union monies" in this 

account.  It was also described as a "slush fund".   The account is separate and distinct from the accounts 

styled AWU Workplace Reform Association.

The front of the cheque shows that it purports to be a good and valid order for the payment of cash in the 

amount of $15,000.   It was dated 27 April, 1995.   It is a negotiable order for the payment of money in that it 

is not endorsed in any way as a non-negotiable cheque.  That is to say that if the cheque was met on 

presentation the bank was authorised to hand over $15,000 in cash to the bearer of the cheque.

In handwriting on what I believe to be a copy of the back of the cheque I saw two notations.   They were 

"$5,000 cash and $10,000 K Spyridis B/Chq".

I can't imagine that Bruce Wilson was paying Mr Spyridis the builder for authorised union work - out of a 

slush fund.  

It will be interesting to see what Mr Spyridis says to the police if they were to talk to him.

Copy of cheque from the Federal Court of Australia - Michael Smith News: