Ian Widdup has the bluntness of the terminally ill. He is counting the cost of his days as a money-launderer: ''I've been punished for my sins in quite a profound way. I'm poor. My wife left me. And my health has left me.''

He has leukaemia, and doctors told him he should expect to die in the first half of this year. Which means he should be dead, not sipping a Dubonnet in the lounge of the Westin Hotel in Martin Place. ''I fertilised corruption for a decade and a half,'' he told me, ''and I sincerely regret that.''

Precarious health did not stop Widdup, a former general counsel for the construction company Multiplex, becoming a star witness in a $10 million legal war of attrition over the past year.

The marathon case of Ballard v Multiplex and CFMEU, involving 80 days of testimony heard over nine months and a legal bill of about $10 million, recently concluded, and we await the judgment of acting Justice Rex Smart of the NSW Supreme Court. If he decides Widdup has been a credible witness, his testimony will open a window into an underbelly of Australian politics: big companies funnelling black money to unions in exchange for industrial peace, and unions funnelling black money to the Labor Party in exchange for political favours.

Death & Taxes, Lies & Truth