“My recollection is Julia Gillard was in one of the rooms adjacent to the front door,” he said. The house in Abbotsford that Julia Gillard renovated Credit:John Woudstra Mr Blewitt said he met Mr Wilson in the kitchen area and there were three other people there dressed in workers' overalls. “They asked me if I had the money. He asked me to pay him $7000, which I did. “She [Ms Gillard] wasn’t present at the time that I handed the money over … ”

In 2012, Ms Gillard told a press conference she was confident that she had paid for the renovations on her home. She said then: "If anybody has a piece of evidence that says I knowingly received money to which I was not entitled for my renovations, please feel free to get it out. If anybody’s got it, it's only been 20 years." Mr Blewitt said he had met Ms Gillard on other occasions, including at a dinner at the Windsor Hotel in Melbourne, and remembered feeling uncomfortable. “I’m more the corner milk bar type,” Mr Blewitt said. Mr Blewitt earlier revealed the Australian Workers Union’s Western Australian branch invoiced engineering company Thiess on a monthly basis for services it had no intention of providing and channelled the money into a secret “slush fund” for electioneering.

He said Mr Wilson's brother-in-law Joe Trio was an executive at Thiess at the time. Mr Blewitt told the hearing on Monday the “slush fund” was set up in 1992 with the help of legal advice provided by Ms Gillard when she was a partner at the Slater and Gordon law firm in Melbourne. Thiess, which had won a contract to complete the Dawesville Channel Project - a man-made waterway south of Perth - was invoiced monthly for workplace reform and safety services at the project worksite. Mr Blewitt, the first witness to appear before the commission, said he and another union official, Bruce Wilson established the Workplace Reform Association, which invoiced Thiess for the services that it had no intention of providing. He admitted to claiming payments from Thiess, which he filtered to the Workplace Reform Association, a related entity of the AWU.

Mr Blewitt alleged Mr Wilson used money from the fund, established for union electioneering purposes, to buy a house in Melbourne. Mr Blewitt told the hearing that the Melbourne house was bought on Saturday, February 13, 1993, at an auction attended by Ms Gillard and Mr Wilson. Mr Blewitt said the Melbourne property was purchased in his own name and that Victorian Police had recently pointed out to him that he had made two mortgage payments, which he cannot recall. He said the association’s purpose was kept secret from other union members apart from himself and three others, including Mr Wilson. The association was officially incorporated in 1992 when Mr Wilson was secretary of the AWU’s Western Australian branch and he (Mr Blewitt served as Mr Wilson's deputy.

Mr Blewitt told the commission he deposited cheques from Thiess, including one for about $25,000 into a Commonwealth Bank account he opened. He alleged he had always acted on directions from Mr Wilson who wanted to keep himself at “arms-length” from the association. At the time, he said he and Mr Wilson were “inseparable” and spent time together outside work. Loading Mr Blewitt has previously accused Ms Gillard and Mr Wilson of benefiting from funds from the association, an allegation both strongly deny.

The hearing continues