Once a high flying minister, now a broken man.
It was a significant error of judgment on my part. I don't shy away from that.
Handcuffed and humiliated, locked up in a paddy wagon. In two thousand and nine, he was found guilty of corruptly receiving secret commissions and jailed for seven years.
But it was an honester.
Sobby As the fifty six year old was jailed on thirty six charges of corruptly receiving secret commissions. In twenty ten, he was found guilty on five charges of official corruption and five charges of perjury and jailed for an additional seven years, the longest jail term for corruption handed to an Australian politician. Her father's been destroyed physically, emotionally and financially. Under the terms of his fourteen year sentence, he was
forbidden from speaking publicly. Now all that is about to change.
If I'm going to be crooked, why would I bug our eyes around with three under gree My name is Gordon Nuttle and this is my story.
Hello. My name's Patrick Condrey. For almost twenty years I was the political editor at seven News in Brisbane. During my time there, I had a front row seat to
Queensland's political maneuverings. And believe you me, there were plenty of them, but none captured the imagination more than the saga of Gordon Nuttle, the one time health minister who, in his words, went from the penthouse to the shiit House, from cabinet table to a maximum security cage for more than five years after being found guilty of taking secret commissions. Gordon Nuttle has not been paid for taking part in this podcast. How do you feel?
Yeah, mixed emotions, Actually, what do you mean? Relieved and angry that the Lynch mob was allowed to get out of control and do what they did. But it's over and thirteen days later, that's good to be.
It's a glorious Friday morning at Woodgate Beach on Queensland's Burham Coast, about a four hour drive north of Brisbane, depending on the roadworks, of course, and I'm early at the home of former Queensland government minister Gordon Nuttle, who was finally a free man after his fourteen year sentence ended at twelve o'clock last night.
Well, my partner Jane and I we got up just before midnight and I had a rum or two and a party pie. You pushed the boil, yeah, but it was cause for celebration, you know, it was important. It's been a long, long journey, in a very painful one, but it's over. So I'm looking forward to new horizons and see where we go.
But we're ahead of ourselves. This long, sorry saga started almost twenty years ago when Gordon Nuttle was then Premier Peter Beattes health Minister. Nuttle asked forum was given a three hundred thousand dollars loan by mining magnate Ken Talbot. He also asked for him was given sixty thousand dollars by another miner, Harold Shanned. Since then, he's been through two trials, appeals, more than five years in maximum security
with the worst of the worst. In his words, al Capone got a shorter sentence, then another twelve months at a prison farm, and when he was eventually released from there, has spent eight years on parole, forbidden from speaking publicly, under the very real threat of being sent back to jail. But today, well today he's finally a freeman.
I'm so glad it's over, but I'm also still got a lot of anger there. I'm angry at the fact that the lynch Mob was allowed to get out of control, that there was an enormous abuse of power. And as my story unfals, you will hear why I've said that and how that evolved. But it was about other people wanting to build their careers and their reputations at my expense. And I've said this to many people before. To destroy one's man's life to enhance her own career, there's no
honor in that. There's no honor in that at all. And it was just a matter of people sitting down calmly and looking at the situation. I mean, I've gone to jail because I didn't fill out a bloody pecuniary interest register. Like really, nowhere else in the world will that happen, but only in Queensland.
Every Member of the Queensland Parliament has to maintain what's called a pecuniary interest register. It's a disclosure of MP's interests and includes things like shareholdings, family or business trusts. And importantly, for Nuttal gifts valued at more than one thousand and eighty eight dollars and twenty eight cents, I made.
A decision not to do it, and it was an error of judgment, but it doesn't mean you're a bloody crook, and that's what upsets me.
The three hundred thousand dollars nuttele received in eight thousand dollar monthly installments from ken Talbots certainly qualified, but he didn't register them.
I know of no other politician who hasn't been given the opportunity to rectify the pecunity industry, just true if they've left something out. But I was never afforded that opportunity, and in the end I went to jail for it. Or I think people saw it as an opportunity to enhance their own reputation and their careers, and particularly when you've got organizations like crime commissions, they every now and then have to get someone to justify their existence, and
they went for me, hell for leather. There was just no reprieve whatsoever charging me with this offense, freezing me of all my assets, so I couldn't defend myself in any way. As I said earlier, every politician I know has been afforded that opportunity to rectify the register, even after the event, after the event, so there's a history of that happening. Even in the recent labor government. There are members there that got themselves into strife, but they
are allowed to rectify the register. Well, why wasn't that opportunity afforded to me? And I don't understand it.
Was it worth it the loan from Telbot.
Well, in hindsight, no, of course not. You know, I borrowed the money from Ken to buy the kids all a home and we did that, and they were modest homes in those days. The homes ranged from between one hundred and fifty one hundred and eighty thousand dollars. So I borrowed all that money, and the lane from Ken helped make the interest repayments, make the housing lanry payments, so that the kid's got to start.
Nuddle's parole eight years ago came with thirty three separate clauses. One of those was being forbidden from talking to the media, and he was regularly questioned by his parole officer about that this is the first time in what fourteen years that you're allowed to speak publicly.
Yeah, well, those in power did a good job of making sure they shut me up. Now it's my time, and it's my time to tell the story. And part of the reason I wanted to do this is it's all been very lopsided. All what they wanted, lock me away. Can't talk right from the time the CMC first spoke to me, you know you're not allowed to talk to anyone about these things except your lawyer.
The last time anyone heard anything publicly from Nuttel as a free man was in two thousand and nine.
Let's just enjoy the football.
Tonight, he was walking hand in hand with his then wife into the District Court in Brisbane to learn his legal fate, guilty or not guilty.
I thought I was right. My barrister thought it'd be all right right from the word go that they he didn't think that they There wasn't one witness that said I'd done anything, that I'd done anything wrong. My view was that, look, I've put my faith in the system. The system will work and after two and a half week trial, the jury will come out and say, look there's not enough evidence there. We can't say that he's done anything wrong and gon, but they didn't quite do that.
The football he was talking about as he headed into court was State of Origin, game three of a series the Morons had already won. Nuttle was confident he'd also be a winner in court. And be back home in Sandgate in plenty of time to watch the footy unfold with a beer. It wasn't to be. On Wednesday July fifteenth, Nuttle was found guilty of receiving secret commissions in a trial where, in a legal quirk found nowhere else in Australia,
there was a reverse onus of proof. Nuttle had to prove himself innocent rather than the prosecution having to prove him guilty.
One of the.
Last things you said publicly was walking into court. You told the gaggle of media, let's enjoy the football tonight. Let's just enjoy the footy tonight.
Yes, I remember that.
And then you were found guilty. And as such, this is the first time you've been able to speak publicly in fourteen years.
That's right, that's right, it's been. It's been frustrating, to say the least.
And before you go down that road, did you watch the footy that night?
I was taken to the watchhouse and I was placed in a cell of mine and there was this twelve inch scratchy looking bloody TV up on the corner of the wall. But I nothing. I couldn't tell you who won the game. It was on the TV and my head was elsewhere obviously, you know what was it like? It was horrible, It was horrible cold, It was miserable.
I was away from everybody. I was in disbelief. They threw me some dirty, old, bloody green track suit to throw on, and took on my clothes and gave me a blanket, and I got a bit cold, and one of the officers was kind enough to give me another blanket. But having said that, the next morning when they came to check on me, another copper got stuck into me for having a set you're nothing special, give me that bloody blanket and rip the blanket off me. And that
was the start of it, this misery. So anyway, what they do don't do is they don't let you put shoes and socks on because you might run away. I don't know how you get out of the bloody place. But they put you in this kind of holding cell to the van comes and the cold wind was blowing through it, and my feet were just like ice, and I said I had had a bit of a cry, and and it just just shake your head. You don't know, you know, you just don't know what the next step is.
You know, you'd really gone from the penthouse to the ship house.
Well, that's putting it mildly, to be honest with you. It's a world that you can't believe that. You don't think those sort of things are ever going to happen to you. I just hum Even to this day, I still can't believe it got to the stage that it got to to be put in jail and to be given a really, really harsh sentence. It's just staggering.
You spent five years in maximum security. That seems incredible excessive given the crime that you were found guilty of.
Well, when I was placed in prison, and it's really important for people to understand, you're just shrunning the pool with everybody else. I was in there with murderers and rapists, drug runners and the like, and it's a hard school. It's a hard school, and you're treated exactly the same as them. Just because mine was a white collar crime. Didn't mean to say that I got any special deal. Let me tell you I didn't. And it was hard.
Eventually out on parole, but thoroughly enjoying his life with his three kids and twelve grandchildren and his regular bowls. Unfortunately, the winds of fate weren't done with Gordon Nattle. Just six weeks out from finishing his fourteen year sentence, he was diagnosed with stage four kidney cancer, which had already spread into the lymph nodes in his neck. The tumor is pushing on his diaphragm, giving him a regular cough.
Yeah. I've always tried to keep myself fairly fit, unhealthy, and every six months I have a medical checkup and I go to the dentist. From my check up with the dentist every six months, never miss, you know. And the view about that was, I wanted to have a healthy agent. I'm a fairly active sort of outdoor guyer and I love the outdoors. So I'm having a shave one day and I just noticed this tiny little lump on the side of my neck. I thought, oh, that's a bit strange, and I didn't worry about it for
a week or two and it was still there. So I rang up, made appointment guns and my doctor, cut a long story short, he sent me off for some tests and I found this massive tumor in my kidney and it has spread. Yeah, so I've got a bit of a bit of a battle with the Big Sea.
How does it feel to have been six weeks away from Freedom Day to get this diagnosis? Do you feel cursed?
No, I look, I think for me, I've endeavored to take it in my stride. There are a lot of people in the world that are a lot worse off than me. The issues around me were very public, but a lot of people go through trials and tribulations and they're not public, you know, and I this is really, this is really personally I when I got the diagnosis, I thought about it and I thought, you know, when I was a health minister, I went to the Royal
Children's Hospital and the doctor was a nurse. I head nurse invited me to come down and see the little ones who had had cancer, the little kids, and I said to her, I can't. She said, why do you men? You can't? I said, I'll cry, I'll break down and cry. So when I got this diagnosis, I thought, then little kids are braver than me. You know, they're young. I've had a life, you know, I'm seventy. I've had other
than a few week ups along the way. I've had a good life, and I'm surrounded by a beautiful family. Some really close friends and lots of mates, and I'm very blessed with that. And with all that support around you, you kind of just say, well, just take it in your stride and move on. And so the guy now has to get the eighties. So hopefully the treatment's going to work for me.
And you had your second treatment yesterday. Yeah, how are you coping with it?
Pretty good? Actually, I must admit I haven't had side effects, which can happen to some people on college. Just said to me yesterday, some people get it someday't so I've been blessed not to have it. But all in all, I'm going okay.
I know I said, I asked you if you if you feel cursed? But do you think do you think it's unfair?
You just have to take my life threats at your pap. You know, there are times where I feel like you know why me? But you can't do that. You can't you can't wallow in that. You just got to You've got to get on with it. So at the moment, after the diagnosis and after absorbing it and accepting it, I just grab every day. Every day, every day I get up and put my feet on the ground and go and plumb my balls or go for a swimming or whatever. I'm grateful for, you know.
All up, he'll undergo for immunotherapy treatments at the Bunderberg Hospital. With two down and two to go, he's feeling pretty good at the moment. Let's go back to when you were found guilty. What were your first thoughts when you heard the guilty the first guilty verdict?
Disbelief. I couldn't believe. My trial lasted two and a half weeks and the final summing up by the judge she took a day and a half, maybe even longer, I can't quite remember, but she finished her summing up and sent the jury away. And it was a Wednesday afternoon and a two and a half week trial, and
a jury takes two hours to make a deliberation. It does not stand up to any scrutiny that they have sat down and properly looked at all the material that was presented at that trial and given it due consideration to only take two hours to make a decision. Half of them must add bloody tickets to the football that night, honestly, And that's another issue in itself, the issue around jury selection. There were several jurors that were inattentive right throughout the trial,
and I felt like screaming. I felt like screaming at the judge. I felt like screaming at them the jurors, to say this is important, you need to listen. But a lot of it went over their head.
I know we've touched on this before, but was it an error of judgment to take the money, to ask for the money?
Yeah? Now it was. As I said earlier, the intentions are good, but we're human. We all make mistakes, and we all get we all we all kind of get it wrong every now and then. But it doesn't mean to say you're a crook, you know. And the view was taken by the Crime Commission. I have a very strong view about this. Their view was he's a businessman, he's a politician. Money exchanged their crooks, and they went around developing their case based on that theory rather than
just sit down and analyze the facts. They had a theory, and we can get a big we can get a big scalp here gives us accolades as a crime fighting body. But the thing that annoys me more than anything is that they are given enormous powers enormous powers to the Crime Commission, far away and above the normal, but it doesn't give them the right to abuse those powers. And
that's the problem. I just say to the people down in Canberra with their new Crime Commission, beware of what you've created because at some stage those powers, how are they? How are they controlled? And they're not, and there is no recourse on them. They are. They are a power unto themselves.
Are you trying to rewrite history?
No. All I want to do is tell people how it really happened. And sometimes that's very hard when you're in court and you're in the witness box and you can only answer the questions that are put to you. But I was just a dad that wanted to get his kids into our home and modest times. They weren't anything flash, let me tell you. But it was a step into the housing market and the kids were grateful for that.
Are you trying to retry your case?
No, not at all. I don't. I have no faith whatsoever in our legal system, and coins that none at all after what I've been through, I'm not trying to retry it. All I want is people to be held accountable for their behavior, their behavior.
Why not just let it go. You've served your time fourteen years. Why not just let it go?
Because it's a wrong that needs to be righted, and it's a blight on our legal system and the behavior of the Crime Commission, and it's a blight on the DPP. Maybe nothing will come of it. Nothing, But I've had my say. I've had the opportunity to have my say. I've had the opportunity here to tell people my side of the story. If the government chooses not to do anything, or so be it, and they have to live with those consequences of choosing to do nothing.
Your family, you had a family meeting when you were first charged. Yes, tell me about that.
Yes, So the deal was offered to me. I've you played guilty five years to serve eighteen months. So I said to my barrister at the time, Look, I need to go home. I want to talk to the kids about this. I'm running out of money to defend myself from trials. What do I do. I didn't have enough money to go to the High Court in the end anyway, so I couldn't do that. So I go home and I sit down with the kids. Lisa, Kim and Andrew and my son in law Harley at the time, and
I said, this is the deal. It's been offered. I want your dad to play guilty. But Dad, we haven't done anything. No, all the lanes are in our name, the Liane, you've got your own lane. We've all got our lane. We haven't done anything bad. So we took the view that we would put our faith in the legal system, put our faith in the processes. So we rejected the deal.
Do you wish you'd taken it now?
No, No, not at all.
So the fourteen years of what you've been through it was worth it.
Well, well, it's worth it to the extent that I've always maintained that I didn't do anything wrong, and I've paid a really heavy price for for maintain The easy option would have been detect to deal, but I would have had to live with that, so were the kids, and I couldn't do that. I just couldn't do it.
So effectively, you're saying you're innocent of any wrongdoing.
The only wrongdoing idea was an error of judgment with Ken and I, but that's not criminal in.
Terms of the specifics around the lone. Did Ken ever ask you for any favors. Never did you offer any favors?
No, and none was given none.
Sitting in his tiny but small lounge room, not all seems diminished. An inexplicably long stint in maximum security will do that to a person, I suppose, But with his health deteriorating, he is determined to tell his story. Despite being a model inmate. Even according to Gordon, even the prison guards couldn't understand why he was in maximum security for more than five years. Every twelve months, a panel of officers evaluate a prisoner's suitability to move to a more relaxed environment.
And after two years in twenty and eleven, they indicated to me that I would be recommended to be transferred out of maximum security to the prison farm to be progressed through the system like any normal prisoner. I'm not a threat to society. I hadn't harmed anyone. I met all the criteria and it never happened. And they left me there, and every year they recommended that I'd be transferred to the farm, and somewhere someone higher up kept putting it in the two hard basket. So I wasn't
treated like any normal prisoner. I wasn't progressed through the system like any normal prisoner. And they just teld me that for five years a maximum security if.
You had your time again, would you take the date?
No? No, So it wasn't worth it, no, of course not. The intentions were good from both Ken and myself. All we wanted to do was get the kids started in life. That was as simple as that. And as I said, they were very modest homes and it was just about getting the kids to start in life. And Ken understood that, and that's all we wanted to do, nothing more, nothing less. So the intentions were good and as I said, nothing was asked for, nothing was offered, and nothing was given.
And we were friends, and we did it on a handshake. My lawyer did all the negotiations with his office to make sure I think was right, and away we went. But given the fallout and the ramifications, obviously name.
What was the hardest part of the last fourteen years.
I think for me the hardest part was dealing with the enormity of the sentence. When I first went in, I just could not see past the horizon. I just thought, I'm not going to make it. I honestly didn't think I would make it, but After a few months, I realized that the only way the only way to get through was to deal one day at a time, just one day, just get me through today. So I'd wake up in the morning and I just say to the
big fella upstairs, just get me through today. So it was one day at a time, and one of the prison guards, who was quite kind to me, said to me, the busier you can make yourself, the better. So I went about trying to do that that and not being able to be with my family, but just tears your part. It was very, very.
The perception is that you're a crook because you've been found guilty of taking secret commissions. Are you a crook?
Well two things, No, I'm not, and I don't agree with you when you say the perception is that, and I say that for this reason. When I was eventually released, everywhere I went, everyone knew who I was. I was all over the media, so people identify with me and you who I was. But everywhere I went, I would
have people that I don't even know. I wouldn't know from Barasi would come up to me if I have my daughter with me, or if I was on my own, or if I was with a friend or a family member come up and introduce themselves and say to me, you were given a really rough drop mate. You didn't deserve that. So I don't believe that perception is there. I think people genuinely believe that I was hung out to dry or thrown under a bus, and take whichever metaphor you want to take from that, and that people
were genuinely kind to me. There was one lady in particular. I remember we were at a shopping center with my daughter, and she come up and said, my name's Seal, and so I'm a member of the Liberal Party. But what your mob did to you was disgusting. But I got so much kindness shown towards me. So I don't believe that perception is there. I mean in the scheme of things, and I know three hundred thousand is a lot of money, but in the scheme of the big picture, it's not.
It's not a lot of money. Why would I ask my solicitor to do what he did. Why would I put all the lanes in the names of the individual children. There's nothing secret about that. There's nothing hidden about that. Why would I Why would I say to Ken put the money into my account and I'll distributed it into the kid's account. I mean from a point of view of trying to find the trail, you know, it's like it's like Hansel and Gretel. You know, you just dropped
the crumbs. So we weren't trying to hide anything. That was the whole thing. That's what the shock was that this thing called a secret commission. You know, it just wasn't a reality. Yeah, well, why would I bug your eyes around with three hundred thousand dollars three hundred thousand dollars if I'm going to be a crook? You go the whole way, you know. And my budget when I was a health minister there was quarter of the bloody
state budget at the time. Well, it just beggars belief, to be honest, when they investigated me, they knew that if I had to put this in the register, it could not have been deemed to have been secret. So why go to the extreme of then charging me and doing everything they can to get me put in jail instead of doing a report saying you fail to put it in the register of the register needs to be updated.
How does that make you feel? That's where I get the anger That's why I'm angry at the Crime Commission to go from that and then when other people are allowed to and then you're isolated and singled out and you're not. I don't understand that.
Did you ever have a conversation with Beattie about updating the register? No?
No, I never had that conversation with Peter and the opportunity he never presented that opportunity for me because I left parliament in two thousand and six and I was charged in January two thousand and seven.
And are you disappointed he never reached out.
Or yes I am, Yes, I am Peter. We were a team, you know, when you're in parliament, all of you that are elected for whatever political party you represent, you're a team.
Do you feel abandoned by them?
Yeah? Look yeah I do. I get. I just don't understand. I don't understand why they did that. I think it's to enhance themselves, you know, to say, well, look what you know, we don't put up with any of this, you know, and here's an example, you know, put him in jail, you know, And as I said, it enhances They see that as a way of enhancing their own reputation and Korea at at the expense of an individual and destroy their life.
If you could have a conversation with Peter Beatty today, what would you say to it?
My first question is, Peter, why, why? Why did why did you let it get out of control? Why did you not have that conversation with me and sit down with me? We were where were? Where were colleagues?
But even if Betty had asked Nuttle to amend his register before referring him to the c JC, it's not as simple as that. It wasn't Beattie's role to investigate and prosecute Nuttle. In a statement, Peter Beatty says the action he took was appropriate and he was correct to refer the matter to the c J. The circumstances around the Talbot allegations were of such a serious nature that
he'd have been convicted anyway. Subsequently, Nuttell was also found guilty of official corruption and perjury, as well as taking secret commissions.
Gordon Nuttle has served his time and paid his debt to society. He should concentrate on rebuilding his life. I understand he will want to rewrite history, but he will not have my help to do it. My referral of him to the then CJC led to an investigation which saw him charged and convicted of serious offenses. I have no regrets for referring Nuttle to the CJC, and would do exactly the same thing today in the same circumstances.
Nuttle betrayed his ministerial duty. Instead of accepting responsibility for his illegal actions, he seeks to downplay it. He betrayed the people of Queensland, his ministerial colleagues, the state government and me. Honesty and integrity matter, they also added to his former ministerial colleagues.
Even when I came out on prior it hasn't been easy. It's been and that's that in itselfs another story. It's been a really hard process. It's not as if you just come out and you walk around as I'd get on with your life. But I didn't just lose forteen years of my life. I lost my career, I lost my reputation, I lost I lost my home, I lost you know, I lost everything, everything and for what because I didn't put something in a register.
Really, next time we go inside Gordon Nattel's maximum security jail cell.
So I broke down. I remember breaking down and crying and just in disbelief at where I was and what was happening.
And we go back to where it all began, the very start of Gordon Addell's political career and how he got tied up in the beginning of the end. For Long Term Nationals premiere Sir Jo by L Kipedis, did you tell Nev Warburton about the secret four hundred thousand dollars payment.
I've been asked this question one hundred times.
Thanks for listening. I'm your host, writer and producer Patrick Condron, sound design and editing by Mark Wright, and graphics by Jason Blandford. The Man Behind the Rose is a seven News production.