''The money we pay (Fitzgibbon) is worthwhile".

[Gubler, A.]

Secret payments to Labor MP listed in Liu files

RICHARD BAKER, PHILIP DORLING AND NICK MCKENZIE
February 3, 2010, Sydney Morning Herald

A lot on his plate ... Joel Fitzgibbon, left, and Helen Liu, second from right, at The One Hundred Generals Calligraphy and Art Exhibition.

EXCLUSIVE

PRIVATE records of a Chinese-Australian businesswoman close to the former defence minister Joel Fitzgibbon say he received substantial payments as part of a campaign to cultivate him as an agent of political and business influence.

Confidential papers of the businesswoman Helen Liu contradict claims last year by Mr Fitzgibbon - and his father, the former Labor MP Eric Fitzgibbon - that they had no financial or business relationship with Ms Liu.

Mr Fitzgibbon resigned from cabinet last June after it was revealed that his brother, the NIB health fund chief, Mark Fitzgibbon, had used his office to lobby for defence health contracts.

The minister's political standing had already been weakened by his failure to disclose that he had accepted two first-class flights to China from Ms Liu, a wealthy entrepreneur with high-level political and military contacts in Beijing.

The documents show Ms Liu recorded her payment of 850,000 yuan - about $150,000 - to Joel Fitzgibbon under the heading ''money paid including expenses and gifts''.

The same document shows Ms Liu recorded the establishment of a joint commercial venture with the Fitzgibbon family, including a reference to ''Eric [Fitzgibbon] as agent. Regular visits to China. $3 million for start up''.

In a letter to a senior Bank of China executive, Ms Liu said that Joel Fitzgibbon would become a cabinet minister when Labor won power, adding: ''The money we pay him is worthwhile".

It can also be revealed that the office of the Deputy Prime Minister, Julia Gillard, was told last April by lawyers for a former business associate of Ms Liu that Mr Fitzgibbon might have had more extensive dealings with the businesswoman than acknowledged.

Complete story in today's edition of the Sydney Morning Herald.

[tiddles]

It appears from a story in todays "Age" that Fitzgibbon is going to take legal action regarding the claims mentioned today. Initially when his problems started some time ago I felt he may be unfairly bearing the brunt of sniping against a new minister in a new [change of] government that takes place from time to time but am now starting to wonder just how honest he has really been. If it goes to Court we may eventually find out.
Tiddles

[Gubler, A.]

It appears from a story in todays "Age" that Fitzgibbon is going to take legal action regarding the claims mentioned today. Initially when his problems started some time ago I felt he may be unfairly bearing the brunt of sniping against a new minister in a new [change of] government that takes place from time to time but am now starting to wonder just how honest he has really been. If it goes to Court we may eventually find out.
Tiddles

Any more details than just legal action? Is he talking about sueing Fairfax papers and/or Ms Liu for defamation?

[buglerbilly]

Nah it just says it's in the hands of his lawyers without being precise about who is going to get sued or not.

[tiddles]

Here is the story from todays Age & a link which also has a video .
Tiddles
Former defence minister Joel Fitzgibbon has told Parliament he plans to take legal action over claims he received money from a Chinese-Australian businesswoman.

Mr Fitzgibbon, who resigned as minister in June last year, had failed earlier to disclose that businesswoman, Helen Liu, paid for two first-class flights he took to China.

At the time, Mr Fitzgibbon said he had no financial or business relationship with Ms Liu, but a report in The Age today suggests otherwise.

Ms Liu organised a payment of $150,000 to Mr Fitzgibbon as part of a campaign to build political and business connections, the newspapers said.

In a letter sent to a senior China bank executive, she said the payment was worthwhile because Mr Fitzgibbon would soon become a cabinet minister.

Mr Fitzgibbon told Parliament the report was "outrageous".

"I reject those allegations completely, they are completely untrue and they are false," he said.

Mr Fitzgibbon says he believes the claims are defamatory, and the matter is now in the hands of his lawyers for "immediate action".

http://www.theage.com.au/national/fitzgibbon-to-take-legal-action-over-claims-20100203-nc1m.html?autostart=1

[tiddles]

Here is a bit more on this ongoing saga.From The Age.
Tiddles
Fitzgibbon's benefactor accused of $6m fraud RICHARD BAKER AND PHILIP DORLING
February 11, 2010
THE Chinese-born benefactor of former defence minister Joel Fitzgibbon is being pursued by a Beijing state-owned enterprise that accuses her of a multimillion-dollar fraud involving the illegal transfer of funds to Australia.

Correspondence from the Chinese enterprise names Helen Liu and her Diamond Hill International company as those responsible for the alleged misappropriation of up to 30 million yuan - about $A6 million - that was originally loaned for an apartment complex development in the Chinese port city of Qingdao.

The Fitzgibbon family has had a long-term involvement in Ms Liu's Qingdao Bihai Garden apartment complex and Mr Fitzgibbon and his father, Eric, are believed to have visited the development site on a 1993 trip to China.

Former Labor MP Eric Fitzgibbon last week contradicted his previous denials of commercial ties to Ms Liu by admitting his role in helping sell her Qingdao apartments. There is no suggestion any member of the Fitzgibbon family is involved in the alleged fraud.

A 1997 letter from the Beijing investment house to Ms Liu states: ''Our investigation shows that your company did not use our funds on this real estate project in Qingdao. Instead, the funds were used for other purposes and have mostly been transferred to Australia. Under relevant law of the People's Republic of China, this constitutes fraud.''

A separate December 2005 document shows the Beijing company was still pursuing Ms Liu for the money, more than $6 million at exchange rates at the time, and had engaged the help of another Chinese firm to help track the missing millions allegedly ''obtained by fraud''.

The Beijing company is understood to still be pursuing recovery of the money and the matter has been the subject of police investigation.

Ms Liu has donated tens of thousands of dollars to Joel Fitzgibbon and the NSW ALP through Diamond Hill International and other companies.

She is well known to senior figures in the NSW ALP, including Mr Fitzgibbon and former premier Bob Carr, who have praised her as an outstanding businesswoman.

The Age last week reported Mr Fitzgibbon was named on a list included among 135 pages of Ms Liu's private financial papers with the figure of 850,000 yuan or $150,000 next to his name.

Mr Fitzgibbon has emphatically denied receiving any money from Ms Liu other than two donations totalling $40,000 declared by the NSW ALP and has threatened legal action.

Included among the 21 other individuals named on the list under the heading ''money paid including expenses and gifts'' are senior Chinese officials.

It is understood some of Ms Liu's financial dealings with those on the list were, in part, carried out by her sister and business partner, Queena Liu, a Chinese-Australian citizen well known to Mr Fitzgibbon and other Labor figures.

Ms Liu's financial papers record her contribution of $3 million to establish joint venture company with ''Joel's family'', with Eric Fitzgibbon appointed as an agent who would visit Qingdao regularly.

They also refer to a private meeting with Mr Fitzgibbon and the provision of $20,000 for ''family expenses support''.

A letter by Ms Liu to the Bank of China's former Australian general manager, Wang Hang Bang, refers to financial dealings with Mr Fitzgibbon.

''The money we pay him is worthwhile,'' she wrote.

''The cash is withdrawn on my credit card. There won't be any problem.''

Mr Fitzgibbon told Parliament last week that the reports claiming large undisclosed payments by Ms Liu were ''outrageous''.

He last year repeatedly refused to answer questions from The Age about his family's involvement in Ms Liu's Qingdao Bihai Garden apartment complex.

In 2001, Eric Fitzgibbon was featured in a Qingdao newspaper report about the Bihai Garden complex alongside Ms Liu and the city's then mayor, Du Shicheng.

He last year said his 2001 trip to Qingdao was for ''cultural purposes''.

He has since admitted selling apartments in the Qingdao complex. Mr Du has since been jailed for life for various corruption offences.

Ms Liu's Qingdao complex has recently featured in Chinese news and web reports, with Bihai Garden residents unhappy with her family's decision to use part of the land to build a new Sofitel hotel without their approval.

Bihai Garden residents who have publicly challenged Ms Liu and her brother, property developer Xu Dong Liu, over the Sofitel development claimed to have been assaulted and intimidated by unknown assailants.

They also claimed to have had their windows broken, heating pipes cut and messages scrawled in the blood of dead chickens left on their doors.

It has been reported in China that a large amount of Australian finance is associated with the Sofitel Qingdao hotel project being developed by Ms Liu's family.

Sofitel's owner, French hotel giant Accor, has confirmed Ms Liu's company as the developer but says the identity of other investors is unknown.

With NICK McKENZIE