02 - From Early Days to Maximum Security

Once a high flying minister, now a broken man.

It was a significant error of judgment on my part, but it was an honester.

In two thousand and nine, he was found guilty of corruptly receiving secret commissions and jailed for seven years. 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.

I remember breaking down and crying in disbelief at where I was and what was happening. My name is Gordon Nuttle and this is my story, The.

Man behind the Rose.

Episode two.

Hello, my name's Patrick Condron. Today we go back to the beginning of Gordon Nuttle's political career and he takes us inside his maximum security prison cell. Gordon Nuttle has not been paid for taking part in this podcast.

Danny a Queensland the Honorable Premier of Queensland.

Nuttle had been an MP in State Parliament for nine years and on the twenty second of February two thousand and one, he began his ministerial career in the government led by Peter Beatty.

Your excellency, if Peter Douglas Beatty, do sincerely promise and swear that I will be faithful at their true allegiance to a Majesty when Elizabeth as lawful Sovereign of Australia and her other roles and territories, and her heirs and successes according to war, that I will well and truly serve the people of Queensland in the Office of Premier and Minister's Trade.

In the Governor's mansion for the swearing in ceremony. A smiling Peter Beating nodded to Nuttle as he approached the table where he and the Governor sat, blissfully unaware of the seismic scandal that his then junior minister would eventually unleash on the government. But all that was many years down the track. For now, it was all pomp and ceremony and afternoon tea with friends and family on hand

Until her hairs and successes according to law, and that I will well and truly serve the people of Queensland in the office of Minister for Industrial Relations of helping God.

In the following four years, Nuttell would make the trip to Government House on two other occasions to be sworn in as the Minister for Health and then later Primary Industries and Fisheries. I, Gordon Richard Nuttle, do swear that I will, to the best of.

My judgment and ability, faithfully advise and assist the Governor or other officer exercising a function or power of the Governor as Deputy Governor or Administrator in all matters brought under my consideration as a member of the Executive Council of Queensland.

And that I will not disclose.

The confidential deliberations of the counting.

So help me, God, you can.

Please be seated Sign yours to whitment signify.

Good.

Nuttle's career as a Member of the Queensland Parliament officially started in nineteen ninety two, when he first won the safe labor seat of Sandgate on Brisbane's northern outskirts following the retirement of previous Opposition leader Nev Warburton. However, Nuttle's political journey from MP to maximum security for receiving secret commissions. Official corruption and perjury began long before he was elected, and interestingly, the trigger for his entry into politics also

Yeah?

Sure, Right, here we go. This is from nineteen eighty eight, from a current affair story that was on the local Channel seven.

All right, I am very bitter about the whole matter.

I just can't.

Believe that being a citizen of this state that one would be treated so badly.

Gordon Nuttle was a little man caught in a big boys game. Labor Party member, former union official, Nuttle was senior accountant at the Adelaide Street branch of the Westpac Bank. In August nineteen eighty six, then Opposition leader Nev Warburton dropped the bombshell that's still reverberating through the Australian Broadcasting Tribunal that Alan Bond had paid Sir Jo Bioka Peterson

Well, some of the bank's senior officials fronted up at my place on a Friday evening about nine o'clock. That must have been very rare, Well it was, I must have been.

I was quite shocked.

There was a couple of them, plus the bank flew up an internal investigator from Sydney, and the three of them were there and wanted to question me straight away.

And what could you tell them?

Well, I said to them right from the word gay that I wanted to cooperate with this internal inquiry, that they had and that I would assist in any way possible. And I told them right from the word gay that I had made inquiries internally within the bank about the money.

So you did make an inquiries about Sajobia Ka Peterson's payout.

From Alan Bond?

Yeah, for sure?

Why did you do that? And I told them that I've done that well. It had been in the media for quite some time, the whole event about the defamation money, and I was in a position where I was rather curious as if you did actually get that money, and out of my own curiosity, I made those inquiries.

There was no proof yet Nuttele was suspended then sacked.

I didn't know where to turn to what to do. I mean, it must have been financially devastating, it was. I had a concessional housing lane with the bank. I had no job. I had to refinance my housing lane. Not only was I questioned by the bank, but I was also questioned by the police, and that frightened me a great deal.

Did you ever believe that you would wind up in prison?

Yes? I did. I was very very frightened.

I thought, here I am, I'm going to be in jail. I'm going to lose my family, in my house, I lose everything, and it was quite devastating.

Justice Keeley said Nuttle was a truthful witness who did not seek to mislead the court.

My interest in politics has certainly been rekindled, and I'm very seriously giving some consideration to seeking pre selection for the state seat of Pine Rivers for the Labor Party in the forthcoming state election.

You've certainly been given a very good lesson in the dirty side of politics, haven't you.

Well, Politics they say is a dirty game, and I think they're pretty right.

I sounded pretty good to know, enthusiastic fight up.

They flogged that out of it. What do you think listening back to that?

Oh God, it was a bit of a tough time.

But I mean, can you see the parallels between that and where you eventually ended up?

Yeah, to some degree, to some degree.

So did you tell Nev Warburton because Joe banked at Westpac you were a bank Johnny at West Pact. I think he banked at the branch that you were working in in Adelaide Street. Did you tell Nev Warburton about the secret four hundred thousand dollars payment.

I've been asked this question one hundred times, and the answer to it is pretty simple.

No, I knew about it. I think a lot of people within the bank knew about it. But I'm pretty sure he got it from some merchant bank people down in New South Wales in Sydney, because Bondi had his office down there as well, in the same building and there was a merchant bank tied up and the money came from there to Joe apparently. But I'm pretty sure that's I think in Yeah, I'm pretty sure that's where where Nev got the info from from down there.

But yeah, just because I was a bank Johnny and knew a bit about it, but never and I after that because I got caught up in it.

And because you were investigated by the coppers.

Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, they interviewed me and did all the rest of it, you know, and of course nothing came of it because there was nothing there.

But I got to know Nev and that.

Then eventually you inherited his seat of sand game.

So was that sort of that involvement with Joe and the controversy around that.

Did that reignite or ignite your interest in politics? That he got into politics.

Very much so, very much so. And I was a branch member. Nineteen eighty three, I was a candidate. I was a candidate on the Sunshine Coast and it was Founder Simpson's dad, Gordon Simpson, that I ran against. So it's a very safe conservative seat and I cut my teeth on that. Then I tried for pre selection down the road at Pine Rivers and I was unsuccess So I never ever thought that I would get an endorsement for a safe agacyat you know, just a rank and

Your raffle tickets, all the rest of it that we all do, have the barbecues.

So I got to know Nev, and Nev became a mentor for me. I think his initial plan was he was thinking about retiring in nineteen ninety two. Then he changed his mind and he said he wasn't going to go to ninety ninety five, and then he changed his mind again and did end up going in nineteen ninety two and I got the endorsement, and yeah, it was a successful candidate.

Then what were the early days in State Parliament?

Oh, wonderful, exciting, really exciting, And when I was in.

Goss was premier.

Goss was premier, Keith Olacy was his treasurer, Tommy Burns was his deputy. Yeah, solid Blake's rural, old fashioned died in the world Labormen, rural labormen, unlike today.

I was about to say, what's the difference between then and now?

Well, I'll tell you the difference between the now. All those Blakes worked in their life out there in the paddic you know, they had jobs, they actually worked, and before they came into parliament, so they understood what it was like for people out there, whether they were employees or small business people or whatever. They understood it and they believed in the ethos of the Labor Party. But

As an MP.

The Nuttle family Sandgate home was on Sixth Avenue, a couple of houses back from the Esplanade. It was from here he emerged to front the media on the eighteenth of January two thousand and seven. When he was first charged. The sleeves of his white shirt rolled up, his tie loosened, and he's DEMI resigned, almost a sly smile played across his face.

How are you all?

How are you going?

Okay?

Had better starts for the new year.

Yeah, a bit like that, all right, Okay. Can I just say that I'm probably shocked and stunned by the events of today, and that Ken Talbot and I are good and decent.

And honest people that are not.

Deserved of this type of treatment in these circumstances.

We have done.

Nothing improper, nothing up toward, and nothing illegal and nothing wrong, and we will now have to rely, I suppose, on our legal teams to look after our interests. I am, just as I said, shocked and stunned by the events. I mean, I know the evidence that we gave, I know that there was nothing untoward, and for the conclusion to be drawn that we have somehow done something improper is just defies all logic.

In two thousand and seven, the beautiful old Queenslander was painted a historic mustard color. We've come back today to see the grand old house. Martle isn't enamored with the new color scheme. You're back at the old at the old ranch. How does it feel to be back here at m sandgame.

It's the first time I've been back to the house since they took me away, and it just it's sad to see to look at it and see that that was my life, because they didn't just take me away. They took my lifestyle away. And this is a beautiful part of the world. And we loved it here and we made it our own home and we made it

Throughout all your trials and tribulations, and even now with the health issue you're confronting, You've always said you're a glass half full sort of.

A yeah, yeah, yeah, Look, look I'm happy for the people that have that home. You know, I can't change what's happened, So it's all about your attitude to now in the future, you know. You know, I've had this terrible battle when I was away in jail, and I reckon if I could overcome that, I can become the the cancer.

Well I'm hoping to anyway, so I'm relying on the oncologists to get me right. But it's it's there's a degree of sadness in my heart that's been taken away.

Of course, there's the press conference that you did out the front of this house shortly after they had I think they charged you. I remember, and you were very very upbeat.

I am I am loyal to the Labor Party. There are certain people within the There are certain people within the Labor Party that I believe have jumped to wrong and inaccurate conclusions that that that they should wait and see, you know, all the evidence before that people jump to those conclusions when you know that you've done nothing wrong, and when you know that you've followed the law and you believe in the law. At the end of the day,

It's got to be a terrifying prospect.

Well, not if you've not done anything wrong.

And that's and that's what you that's what you have to hope that the legal system will show up at the end of the day that we have done nothing, nothing that that would warrant.

Well you.

Look, I thought, Look, when we sit down and explain to a jury and a judge exactly what happened, we're going to be fine. I didn't I didn't have a fear because I knew that we had.

We hadn't put it in the register. But we're not bloody crooks. You know, we're up criminals, and if you sit down and you lay the facts out, you're going to be fine. And that and that was the approach we took, and it was the attitude I had, and I just thought, look, I'll be fine. But on the house there there's a verandah and it overlooks the ocean. And I was there one day and I was eating eating a bit of fruit.

And there was a photographer down at the beach with his car backed up taking pictures of me unbeknownst to me. Yeah, it was there wasn't a lot of privacy in those days.

You know, the media camped out here for a while and I kind of understand that, but but that my neighbors and my friends that would walk past used to give the media a bit of a rev Leave the blake alone. You leave him alone.

He's gone through a enough strife.

You know. Some of my family came to the auction and there were a lot of tears that day because that house that was our forever home. And you know, as I I said, you know, we were going to retire up the beach, but one of the kids were going to move in there and raise their children. There and it was a forever home for the family, and they just took it away, took it.

Away, And do you do you contemplate that often?

Not to the degree I have now to be honest, because I think you've got to move forward, and as hurtful it is, I think if you keep coming back and revisiting all the time, very.

Hard to keep moving forward. So no, we've let it go.

What is more difficult to let go is the more than five years Gordon Nattel spent in a maximum security cell.

And that's what I want people to understand. It's not as if because your crime is not a violent one, you know, it's a white collar issue chucked in with the worst of the worst. I was in with some terrible, terrible people, like really bad people, and you're treated exactly the same as them because you're in a maximum security prison. And I understand that, but I've never understood why I was kept there and to this day and I've got

So fourteen years ago, almost to the day, you're found guilty, back to the watchhouse, back to court the next day for sentencing, and then out to maximum security.

Talk us through that.

It put me in paddy wagon and said we're going to take you straight out. Normally, most prisoners spend a few days in the watchhouse until they're placed. That they'd already made the arrangements. My barrass has said to me, he said, when the jury found you guilty, he said, prison officers came out of the walls of the court. He said it was incredible. He said, the number of prison officers that came out, and immediately I wasn't allowed. I turned a look at my family and I wasn't

Anyway, So after sentencing, they put me in a van and a helicopter followed us out, not that I saw it.

I took me in and they process you. They and.

They got my day to birth wrong. I kept saying to them, you got my day to birth wrong, but they didn't want to listen.

I'm in a mess, so they got they got a psychologist to come and see me. I'm sure. They put me on some valley or something, and then I was taken out of isolation, placed in isolation, and there was a one of the guard showed me that they did a sketch drawing in the correer mile or what what I was looking what I'm looking at brick wall of concrete walls. So they put me in isolation for a few days. I think after a day or two, the family was allowed a quick visit.

What were the first sensations you had when you went into the security for.

The first time. You kind of it's like a deer in the headlights. To be honest, you're handcuffed and you just can't believe that you were in this. It was a you can't believe you're in this situation, you know, like this is a nightmare. It's not really happening to me, but it is. It is happening to you, and you're in dirty, old prison greens. I tracks it probably had me washed for a week until they get you some clothes.

Sort of stuff like you see on TV. And you think, what what do you mean?

And he said, up you go, you know, And he made me do it and demonstrated to me if he had got to be so far apart all the rest of it. And that's what I say. You treated as though you were a danger a dangerous prisoner, like someone that would harm somebody. You know, I can't fight my way out of a wet paper bag, and here they are giving you these instructions. And he sat me down and he said but he said, to your smoke and I said no. And he said, well that's good. And

And I soon quickly realized that the way to survive is you know nothing, you see nothing, and your mind your own business. And I'll give you an example of that. There was a fella it was used to be he was a Quantus pilot. Former Quantus pilot, got himself into trouble over drugs.

He walked past these two blakes playing chess, and he said I wouldn't have made that move, and the blake jumped up and breaking jaw. So it's a violent place as well. It's a really violent place, and people forget that.

Would have been nothing you'd ever experienced previously.

It's a different world totally, and you've got to very quickly try to adjust to survive because they pray on you, you know, they will.

You're a new prisoner and you're dumb. They'll pray on you for money, or they'll pray on you for anything. So you kind of got to get your wits around you really quickly, you know. I found that really hard the first few days by because I was still in shock about and I was still in isolation, and I just I just couldn't comprehend where I was. I couldn't. I couldn't understand it. I couldn't.

I thought, oh, yeah, someone will come and get me toron, I'll be all right. But it wasn't. It wasn't that, and I was there and I was stuck. So I went into this what they call a unit, and there was six wings.

In the jail.

So this is after isolation.

Yeah, a few days after what they do is they bring you down to the unit where there's fifty prisoners and they'll leave you there.

For three or four hours to a climatize, yeah, and then take you back. And the next day it'd be six hours, and the next day it'll be the whole day, and then the seventh day, bang you're in. And then you've got to try and work out who's who in the zoo? And I mean that literally. And how do you keep yourself out of trouble?

How did you keep yourself out of.

Trouble by following those three bits of advice? Know nothing, see nothing in my my own business.

What was the worst of it?

The worst of it was watching both self harm or sing like cell p harm. One fella took his own life. That's horrible stuff.

The guys would make these things, I think they're called shives, and you had plastic toothbrushes, but they would sharpen them on the concrete, turn them into knives. And you would worry that someone were just going to come and jab your because you wouldn't give him any money.

Or you know, And did that ever happen to you?

No? No?

How did you survive? Then?

In the in the early part, you're allowed out of yourself for a few hours. Then back in I would just stay. I would just stay myself, just too frightened to go out. Yeah initially, yeah, yeah. And a couple of the boys come and had a chat to me and say, look, you'll be all right. And there was one fella there. He was one of the tough guys in the unit, and they came to see me and he said, oh, I brought you a few razor blades. You have a show. And I thought, I got to

Now, you know, you could have done that later on, but it would have meant I ate him, and I didn't want to be beholding.

So anyway, I got to nail him and we got on all right, and we exercised a little bit. But the first four or five months I was.

You.

When you're in the wing, they have this area outside which is concrete and caged over the top total caged and it's four steps squade, ten steps long. And that was all I felt aknew for the first four months. Concrete cage wire. You sell soul destroying O horrible, horrible, just horror.

And you don't realize it. And you hear Blake's at night screaming out in their cells. The guards come around every two hours with a torch, shine.

It on you, and you hear them coming two in the morning, three in the morning, whenever they choose to do it. And then at seven o'clock the next morning, the door was automatically open and you have to stand there and they do a head count. They do a three or four head count today.

And you go downstairs and everything's metal and concrete. The tables are metal, the seats are metal. Breakfast is a bit of cereal at Chabrecky. Everyone's allocated a small cart and the milk.

But people pill for that, but.

Steal from your Yeah, oh yeah, of course they do.

It's jire, you know, it's not. It's not play school. Mean, yeah, they'll pill for it, and so you could end up with no milk for the day. So your six hundred milli of milk or whatever it is you've got to rash it well, you got to put on your bricky cereal, and of course all your crockery and cuperies everything is plastic, so your cups, you know, and the guys that couldn't afford coffee would try and pinch coffee and they'd supply

Did you did you ever fear for your life in there?

There were I feared getting bashed up twice pretty badly, and once for my life. Finally, after about four months, they let you go to what they call the oval for an hour once or twice a week, and I adventured out. I thought I'm going to go, and I adventured out, and you get searched as you go out by the guards and there's a football over there, and it's all, of course why we're all around it, Morris. But the purpose of the football level is so the

So I go out, I go to the gym and there's.

No equipment ready. It's just a big shed and they call it the gym. So I go. I walk along the grass and I filled the grass first time I had felt grass in four months, and and looked up and blue sky and no cage. An incredible feeling, like a really incredible feeling. So I go in and there's this guy and he would be six two sixth th I suppose, built like a proverbial brick toilet, and tattoos from top to bottom. And someone said, I forget his name.

We first smack in the head. Come up here, welcome to jaild bang. And I walked over and he said here you going, and I said, oh okay. He said to me he's a bit of advice for you. He said, you've got an appeal on, haven't you.

And I said yeah. He said, when you're.

Not going to win it, So you will put your head down, do your time and you'll be all right.

But don't think you're going to win your appeal now, piss off.

It was a bit of good advice by cry You know. It's not like talking to your bank manager. You know, that was the first one.

As you'd expect.

In a maximum security prison, violence pervades every aspect of your waking hours. Do you still have nightmares about your time in maximum security?

Oh? Yeah, I do. I do. They faded not as many, and they fade very hard to expunge that from your mind totally. The unit I was in, I've only been in there about six months, not even that, not even that. And it was a Saturday morning and they called us out. They unlocked the doors and you come and stand at your door and they do a head count.

This morning, this Saturday morning. And I was excited because I was getting.

A visit, so I was really looking forward to that. So this Saturday morning, we'd come out at seven o'clock, unlocked the doors, standing at your door. They called your name, roll call kind of thing. They do that several times throughout the day. Call it. They call it a muster muster up, muster up. This flake didn't come out of his cell, and I just had this gut feeling this cut filming.

This fellow had lost his job. Everyone works in the prison, you've all got a job. He had just been sacked as the laundry. Gosh, he didn't come out.

Yeah, they called his name again. The inmate next door was told have a look inside, and he come back and he said he's lying on his bed with a plastic bag over his head. So he'd taken his own life. So they immediately locked us all the way straight away, just backing yourself. Bang locked the door. So the mentality of these blakes, there's a fellow there and they're dead, so they've got to get the coroner in doctors. Blake starts screaming out for breakfast, breakfast. You know, I'm crying

So there's a little latch in your door week and get food. So we had to give We've got everyone breakfast time to cereal. So we've got everyone breakfast. Guy's wing and they want to taste. I didn't get my cup of tea.

It's just it's horrible. You know, there's a guy the dead. So we were locked away. Then we had to do the same thing at lunchtime, and this other fellow. So every cell forty eight cells plus mine and the other one. So about three o'clock they'd taken the body away. They brought some counselors down, some young kids, brought two or three there. They let every prisoner out one by one. They have a chatter, the counselor. So that was a

They call it residential, not residential in the traditional sense.

I wasn't. I wasn't living at Ascot, let me tell you.

So they've got these wings where they put six flakes in a unit, only six six downstairs, six upstairs.

And it's a little bit bad. It was a little bit more open, and there's no cage above you, and you and you to go there if you behave yourself. But if you misbehaved, they called you. They tip you. What they tip? You said, what the hell? Tip me? That means I put you, tip your back into where you were, tip your back to where you were. So I was after about nine months I ended up over there. When I was in that horrible place, I worked the kitchen in our unit was to make sure everyone got

Next time, Goodon Nuttle gets up close and personal with a convicted murderer in maximum security.

He was mean, that mean, all tough, just me but me, And he's sitting in a chair and he's sitting back there.

Someone said, George wants to see you on.

And what was the job he was asked to do.

If I say no, I'm going to get the crap belted out of me somewhere down the road. And if the guard catches me with this ship, any trusts that they had in me is gone.

And later Operation Gumnut, the Corrections Department's secret plan to sneak their high profile inmate past the waiting media and into the hands of his family.

And we're sitting there with our hoodies on and beanies, and we thought, gosh, we must look a site like sitting outside the boat as at post office in the middle of the night.

The Man Behind the Rose podcast writer, producer and host Patrick Condron. Sound design and editing Mark Wright. Graphics by Jason Blandford. The Man behind the Rose is a seven news production,