How Lobbyists Burke and Grill shafted McGinty to get justice for the ageing victims of the Finance Brokers. (Updated)

The Desert Rat has come to the conclusion that there would have been no settlement for the Finance Broker’s ageing victims without the lobbying of Burke and Grill.

Burke ran the campaign against Attorney General McGinty, and Burke can at least be described as an honest broker in this affair. Even the most jaundiced critic would concede that in pressing for mediation and settlement of this matter, what Burke and Grill achieved was in the public interest.

It was when the media mentioned that Burke and Grill had some involvement in the Finance Brokers settlement, that the Desert Rat's ears pricked and he decided to investigate. The Finance Brokers scandal was the issue that broke the back of the Court Government before the 2001 election. At a public meeting of finance broking victims organised by Denise Brailey at Redcliffe in May 2001, McGinty himself said he considered finance broking to have been the most important issue in the election of a Labor government.

McGinty had carriage of the Finance Brokers scandal for the ALP Opposition and was very effective. McGinty was helped by many people who wanted justice for the ageing victims. That help has never been adequately acknowledged by our immodest Emperor.

First McGinty had to rely on the crucial vote of Independent Mark Nevill to get an Inquiry into the issue by the Upper House. The Desert Rat understands that this was agreed at a meeting at the Left Bank in East Fremantle between Nevill, McGinty and lawyer for the victims Doug Solomon. Nevill extensively rewrote the clumsy Term of Reference that McGinty proposed to use. These were put forward by Ken Travers MLC one of McGinty’s Socialist Left apparatchiks. The original Terms of Reference would have taken the Committee nowhere.

Publicity from the Committee resulted in the Court Government getting a pasting in the media. McGinty effectively ran the argument in State Parliament.

Recently it was revealed (not disputed by McGinty) that McGinty read almost verbatim in Parliament draft speeches written for him by lawyer Doug Solomon. This was exposed after the Government had the temerity and hypocrisy to criticise Anthony Fels MLC for using one speech written for him by Noel Creighton-Browne when McGinty was “guilty” of repeated use of Doug Solomon’s speeches!

McGinty also made a number of written commitments before the 2001 election concerning a judicial inquiry into the affair, and compensation for the ageing victims (who lost money) from the State, if responsible, without expensive and lengthy court proceedings. He also made verbal promises to victims at various pre-election meetings around the State organised and attended by Denise Brailey.

The ALP won the election and those who lost money thought that McGinty would be true to his word.

Doug Solomon pressed the case for compensation on McGinty and suggested the issue be made a term of reference of the Temby Royal Commission when it was announced in April 2001, but McGinty wasn’t interested in the settlement proposed, or even making the State's responsibility and compensation terms of reference of the Royal Commission. Doug Solomon was at his wit end trying to help the ageing victims of the Finance Brokers receive the compensation which, in the light of the pre-election promises, they expected when Labor won office. In frustration Doug Solomon and Denise Brailey turned to Hugh McLernon a first cousin of McGinty who runs IMF - a litigation funding specialist because it had become obvious that, without litigation funding, the victims' claims would die with them because they could not possibility fund a major claim against a Government Board. Hence, the victims faced precisely the the outcome which McGinty had promised before the election would not befall them under a Labor Government.

IMF funded legal proceedings commenced in the WA Supreme Court for compensation and damages on behalf of the ageing victims in two separate claims. The first was against the Finance Brokers Supervisory Board (later the State Government after the Board was abolished and its liabilities passed to the State) and the second against the professionals, (mainly lawyers, but also accountants, finance advisors and auditors, etc) who had negligently advised the victims to make or been involved in their making the investments in the first instance.

McLernon pursued settlement of the matter with McGinty but this was unsuccessful. There were around 3000 claimants and the State Solicitor's Office was very slow in reviewing the large number of available documents. The "go-slow" meant it would take many years to photocopy the files if the process proceeded at the same rate and all the victims would be dead and before there was a court judgment or settlement. The proceeding that were pursued against the State were both extremely lengthy and expensive, an outcome diametrically opposed to that promised by McGinty before the 2001 election.

The Desert Rat understands that McLernon in his frustration, contacted Burke and Grill to see if they had any ideas. They thought they could help get a mediation to negotiate a settlement for the Finance Brokers ageing victims and agreed to do the work for a modest monthly fee which didn’t reflect the amount of work involved. The current law prevented them from negotiating a success fee if they wanted one. Burke and Grill at this time had more work than they could handle, but took the job on. They actually have a social conscience and cared about the ageing victims.

It was the political campaign run by Burke and Grill that broke McGinty’s intransigence and forced McGinty to pay out. This will be denied by McGinty but he will have to give an alternate view of events to convince the public.

Burke essentially ran the campaign. Burke is a master at organising a political campaign and that is the reason why he is feared by McGinty and those who need his support such as Carpenter – because Carpenter has little authority of his own.

Burke organised letter campaigns to Members of Parliament and Ministers. He organised aggrieved investors to approach the media and probably coached them as to how best present their case. The Desert Rat suspects Norm Marlborough and other non-Left captive Cabinet Ministers were putting pressure on McGinty (and Gallop or Carpenter?) in Cabinet to finalise the settlement with the Finance Brokers ageing victims. A massive Billboard campaign was organised at the West Perth subway and other highly public sites to highlight the number of investors that had died waiting for McGinty to settle their compensation claim. The number of deaths displayed on the billboard was amended from time to time to reflect the increasing deaths among the pensioner investors.

The political pressure mounted because of the obvious and undeniable duplicity apparent from the pre-election promises to the victims and the post-election failure to honour those promises and, finally, McGinty wanted out. He then started to punish those who helped the Finance Brokers aging victims. The Desert Rat understands a condition of any settlement was that McLernon’s IMF was not to get from the settlement proceeds more than half half the success fee the success fee previously agreed to between the IMF and the ageing victims, despite the victims being happy to pay the agreed fee because, without IMF's substantial funding support, they could not have sued the State. Burke and Grill were not to get any payment from the settlement sum.

Well the ball’s in McGinty court. Do you dispute these events? Will we get a response or a writ?

McGinty may have a different story to tell. He can do that uncensored in the comments section after this post.