Two faced Leaving court: Michael Williamson on Tuesday. Janice Hardacre has never forgotten the odd conversation she had with her then colleague, Michael Williamson, 20 years ago. Janice McNamee, as she was then known, was a young industrial officer with the Health Services Union, while Williamson, who'd joined the union from the NSW health department, was assistant state secretary itching to nab the all-powerful secretary's position. ""I could not think of anything worse in this world than being incarcerated,"" the then 40-year-old Williamson told her. ""This was way before I knew what he was up to ... but I just remember thinking at the time that was the most unusual sentence I had ever heard,"" Hardacre said this week. On Tuesday , the 60-year-old, who ran the HSU as his personal fiefdom from 1995 to 2011, pleaded guilty to several counts of defrauding his old union of close to $1million as well as enlisting family and friends to try to cover up his criminality. Five of the charges each carry a seven-year jail term, while the two counts of defrauding the union each attract a maximum 10 years" jail. Police admit this is only the tip of the iceberg of Williamson's transgressions. ""We could have spent years investigating all the other matters, but you have to draw a line in the sand,"" one detective said. The Herald can now reveal that Williamson has been defrauding the union for 20 years. The police were provided information that ranged from the alleged theft of thousands of dollars in cash from the union's safe, to ordering the most expensive champagne and wine supposedly for union functions, but which found their way into Williamson's wine cellar in his Maroubra home. There were also three separate occasions where Williamson was reimbursed by the union after claiming he had been mugged at an ATM after withdrawing large amounts of cash. Williamson has signed an undertaking with his former union to repay the $5 million he and his family corruptly benefited from. And his wife Julieanne has agreed to forgo more than $1 million in superannuation her husband claimed from the union. But it is a hollow victory for the HSU. The same day he pleaded guilty, Williamson declared himself bankrupt. The money, it seems, has long gone on maintaining the Williamsons" opulent lifestyle - the fancy cars, private school fees and luxury travel when the Williamsons and their five children jetted off for overseas holidays. This week, heavy hitters in the the tightly interlocking worlds of the NSW union movement, the state Labor Party and the federal caucus - who thought nothing could shock them after the corruption revelations in the Independent Commission against Corruption about former Labor ministers Eddie Obeid and Ian Macdonald - were reeling at revelations about the sheer scale of Williamson's plundering. Yes, they said, the HSU had always been seen as somewhat ""extravagant"," its officials much more highly paid than those of other unions, its premises flashier, its willingness to pay over the odds at party and union fund-raisers noted. But most say they put this down to Williamson's success in building up the prosperity of the HSU through expanding his membership - a relatively easy feat when health budgets were growing under state Labor governments. What they didn't know, they claim, was the extent of Williamson's venality. ""How would we know which schools his children went to or the holidays they went on,"" one senior party player said this week. ""There is no doubt that he was someone who enjoyed going out and having lunch but that doesn't make you Robinson Crusoe in the labour movement,"" another said. The protestations of ignorance infuriate those who, for years, did their best to raise the alarm about Williamson. ""For anyone to say, "We didn't know about this," they are lying,"" Janice said. ""They all knew. Mark told them all, including a lot of politicians."" Another assistant state secretary who rang alarm bells was made an offer she couldn't refuse - a payout of almost $100,000 by Williamson to leave, Mark Hardacre alleges. In the late 1990s two other union officials, Alan Ivers and Bill O'Connor, grew so concerned about Williamson's handling of members" funds that they demanded to see the union books. ""We had to go to the Industrial Relations Commission. He was ducking and weaving and had hired Greg Keating at McClellands to block us,"" Mark Hardacre said. The pair succeeded in their challenge for access to the documents. What they found astonished them. On Williamson's credit card were purchases for Chanel perfume, Clinique make-up, children's bikes, shoes, designer bags, mattresses and more. Just as surprising was that Williamson's mistress, Cheryl McMillan, also had a credit card on which she had racked up personal expenses. ""It vindicated everything that we had been saying,"" Janice Hardacre said. Armed with this evidence of flagrant rorting, in 1999 the Hardacres joined Ivers, O'Connor and union activist Paul Ford to run a ticket challenging Williamson for control of the union. When they revealed details of the credit card rorts, Williamson hit them with a lawsuit, using Keating's services to sue them for $750,000 for suggesting he was corrupt. Ford, now teaching maths, remains enraged about the case. ""He was ruthless, he used his power and influence to wipe out anyone who opposed him,"" he said. While Williamson was able to use the union's funds to prosecute his claim, team Hardacre had to fight the defamation action using their own money. Faced with losing their houses, and after four years of what they describe as ""hell"," they settled, each paying up to $50,000 in costs. Under the terms of settlement they were never to say anything about Williamson and his credit card rorts ever again. But this incident may have led Williamson to become more creative with his credit cards. About the same time, he asked the union's printers, John and Carron Gilleland, to supply himself, McMillan and later protege Craig Thomson, with American Express cards, mentioning that it would help avoid scrutiny of union election expenses. ""He was always finding clever devices for getting money out of the union,"" Williamson's former campaign manager, Peter O'Toole, said. ""The means just became a bit more sophisticated."" O'Toole was another of those close to Williamson who became horrified by what he saw. In 1999 he decided to run against his former boss in HSU elections, alleging a pattern of rorts. ""Robertson said it was pointless me running,"" O'Toole told Fairfax. ""He told me, "Michael doesn't want you to do it, the team doesn't want you to do it, just withdraw your nomination.""" In a brief response, Robertson told Fairfax Media that ""I recall having a coffee with Mr O'Toole some 14 years ago ... I encouraged [him] to report his allegations.""O'Toole maintains that Robertson ""didn't do that at all, not at all"." Costa provided no formal response but has told others he has no recollection of the incident.O'Toole wrote to Robertson again in 2009, warning him against Williamson who was then on the brink of becoming national president of the Labor Party. Robertson's response was tepid, suggesting O'Toole ""take the matter up with the party's national office"."O'Toole saw first-hand how Williamson kept ""his"" team at the union compliant - treating them to long lunches, booze, hotels and travel while issuing threats against the dissidents. ""As long as he kept them drinking, kept them going to hotels, made sure they got a good pay rise, a new car, had nice offices and worked their own hours, they would do what Williamson wanted,"" O'Toole said. ""Michael always thought that he was running a big company like BHP or something, and he always saw that he had certain entitlements as being a CEO of a large organisation ... in some sort of strange recesses of his mind, he could justify [the rorts]."" As he grew the HSU, it became one of the biggest unions in the state, an important source of reliable numbers for the party's ruling right-wing bloc and, just as importantly, a big contributor to party coffers. Inside ALP forums Williamson sold himself as a steady hand, the opposite of a rabble rouser, someone whom the party bosses could count on as cool head and a dealmaker. ""Labor head office loved him,"" one prominent union colleague said. ""He would always do what the party wanted, he would cut deals with the state Labor government on pay outcomes for his members, he was affable and didn't throw his weight around. For party officers, Michael was the type of unionist you wanted to get when you didn't want a unionist."" Generally he didn't hang out much with other union secretaries. ""He wasn't the type of guy that would hang out at party conferences and go to the pub afterwards, you wouldn't see him at Trades Hall,"" one said. He did, however, have a close working relationship with Transport Workers Union boss Tony Sheldon, though Sheldon says this cooled several years ago - not least when Williamson double-crossed him over the party presidency. And when the federal ALP came looking for campaign headquarters in Sydney for the 2010 election, it was Williamson who obliged, letting the party rent vacant office space which the HSU had in Pitt Street. Little wonder that when Fairfax Media initially aired allegations about Williamson's flagrant pilfering in 2011, party stalwarts at first rallied round to defend him. Shorten's office has rejected the allegation and says he has ""no tolerance of corruption"." Senator Conroy says Jackson ""promotes conspiracy theories which have no substance"." The Abbott government is preparing to make union governance a major weapon to attack Labor with, and it is only a matter of time before its attention turns to the widespread practice of union officials bankrolling each other's election campaigns. According to O'Toole, he would ensure that the HSU contributed plentifully to the campaign funds of friendly officials in other unions, either through fund-raisers or other means. While this is not illegal if the money is from privately raised campaign funds, O'Toole is adamant that Williamson illicitly used members" funds for the purpose. O'Toole said if Labor movers and shakers were really blind to Williamson's pillaging the union coffers, it was because they didn't want to know. ""As long as the rivers of gold kept on flowing they really didn't give a shit,"" he said.