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.
And I said, but I'm going to get searched. You'll be right, stick, get down the front of your pants, and fuck if I say no, I'm going to get the crap belted out of me somewhere down the road. My name is Gordon Nuddle, and this is my story.
The Man behind the Rose. Episode three. Hello, my name is Patrick Condrey. This episode finds us still in maximum security, where Gordon Nuttle was to eventually spend more than five years of his life, a brutal punishment that many now say was over the top and unnecessarily harsh. Gordon Nuttle has not been paid for taking part in this podcast. Last Time, Nuttle revealed that first occasion in maximum security
when it feared he was going to be bashed. Now a notorious multiple murderer who was the boss of the entire jail. Wanted a quiet word with the former cabinet minister.
And he was mean, that mean, all tough, just me, but me. And he's sitting down again. I'm going to the oble and he's sitting in a chair and he's sitting back there. Someone said, George wants to see you.
Could you say no?
No, you don't say no, Well if you can, but it's got consequences to that. And George was the tough guy in the all of the job. Every wing had its tough guy, but he was the toughest of the tough. I got called over and he said sit down. He said, I've been watching you. So he said, you're all right. He didn't give anybody up. There was no one to give up, but anyone that nothing. You didn't give anybody up. He said, there might be a favorite to our want from me down the rain. Let's bear that in mind,
all right. So a few days later here comes to favor in those sage. You can still smoke in the general. In that unit where I was isolated, there's ten isolation cells. There's two that are kept for prisoners like mate, and the other eight for the boys. That have been really naughty in jab and so they strum in isolation. And in those isolation shells there's nothing. It's just the walls and the toilet, and they're fed by other inmates. The other they pulled Trilley along, lift the lid to the
door and put the food through like that. A few days later, I'm at the able. Spake walked up to me with a pouch of tobacco. Because when you go back to yourself after being an be able, you get searched again. He said, there's a blake in your unit that's feeding the boys in isolation. He said, you ought to give this to him. He's got instructions to do something else with it. I said, all right. He said, you're going to take it back, and I said, but
I'm going to get searched. You'll be right. Stick it down the front. Stick it down the front of your pants. They won't search you there. Fuck If I say no, I'm going to get the crap belt it out of me somewhere down the road. And if the guard catches me with this ship, any trusts that they had in me gone. So I'm between the devil and the deep blue sea here. So I stick it down the front, come up to the guard and I'm, you know, trying
to stay calm, shipping bricks. So they searched me and I got through, but sometimes the script searcher they didn't and that's why they stript searcher. So I got through and I went straight over to this other bike and I said here. He said, yep, I've been expecting it. And I didn't know who he gave it to, where it went, didn't know, didn't care, did my job so out of relief. So you live in that environment. That's the environment you live in. And what I learned with
the guards in their defense, they don't know you. They don't know whether you're going to play out, where you're going to behave or what you're going to be like. But once you've earnt their trust, you're okay.
Nottle's time in maximum security still haunts him to this day and has followed him to the quiet, sleepy community of Woodgate Beach. He might be a free man now, but the level of violence he witnessed isn't easily raised in terms of your time in maximum security? Do you still have nightmares about it? Do you still have flat?
Yeah?
Yeah, they're a lot less frequent, but yeah, I still have.
Is any one thing that no not urgitated, not.
In particular, you know, one day it might be it might be about someone getting bashed up or whatever.
And did you see people being bashed.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I saw, I saw. I looked out at the football level and two blocks were up against the fence and belting my crap out of each other. They were hammer and tong and of course the guards come run along and they would have been put in isolation and probably transferred to different trails. After that, I had another fella. I was in my unit. I just walked up, he was next to me, bang just decked him. Didn't like him, didn't like him, just and belt it
into it. You know, blood everywhere, and it's just so. Then the one time that I nearly got into trouble, I was at the gym and I'd found these old lawn bars and I had chunks out of it and I cleaned them up, and this fella come to get when I said, hang on, mate, hang on, and my mate behind me, I didn't realize this black had picked it up and he was going to bang me with it.
He just come charging and I was getting these balls out for people and he come charging and just idiot and I said, I hang on, I just hang on, and he picked a bup. I didn't see it. He picked him up. He was going to bang me on the back of the head with it, and one of the boys stopped him. That was close and one of my fellows that I got on with, he said, you need to be more mindful around you because you just slipped. You don't think, and he said you need to be
more mindful around you and you're surround school. He said, you went really class. He said that could have killed her.
I know it's might be difficult to talk about, but did you ever think of self harming yourself?
No? No, I'm a great believer in I need to be careful because it's a sensitive subject for lots of people, you know, people like self harm or suicide. There's a whole range of issues around that. I felt I had too much to live for with my family, and that's what kept me going. You know. My youngest daughter, Kim once said to me, every storm has its ending, Dad, and at the end of that storm is a rainbow. And that's truism. At some stage, it ends and that's when when I went to the farm, it felt like
it was the beginning of that end. You know, the storm was dying. So you know the thing. The thing about being a maximum security it's very hard to escape the misery and find a happy place and find it quiet. It's nearly impossible to find somewhere where it's quiet because in your cell there is a speaker built into the wall, and that thing never shuts up all day. The guards are on it all day. Solence I come here, sonce,
I go there. You know you do this, do that, and that never stops all bloody day, drives insaying I used to get toilet paper and soak it, stick it on to try and cut the noise out. You're not allowed to do that. Now that I'm f they can't come again in it. But there was nowhere to go, nowhere for peace, nowhere to go for quiet. Even at night you'd hear guys screaming and all that sort of stuff. So it's very hard to escape that bubble of misery and be out of that.
Did you ever fear for his life while he was in maximum security?
I wasn't really scared that somebody would kill him.
In there.
I was scared that because you know what you think about, because you don't know what it's like in there, your mind goes to places that.
You did you see in the movie that's right.
And I remember there was one day there was a terrible fight in there, and Dad was very shaken up about it.
Lisa Nuttel took the lead in coordinating family visits for her brother and sister and the growing brood of grandchildren as well was her father's friends.
I was more worried that he would do something to himself in there. That was my concern.
He would be soul destroyed.
Oh devastating. And I'll never forget one day we visited him and he was empty. He was I don't know how long this was in maybe an a bit over a year, and he was just in his eyes, he was just empty and he was really sad that day and I just had a feeling and I remember I can close my eyes and see this. I hugged him and I said, don't do anything, Please, don't do anything stupid. And he said to me that he was thinking about it at that point and that that visit changed his mind. Yeah,
so I worried. I knew that if he wanted to, he could have done something and that would have that just would have been devastating. So I was more scared of that than somebody else hurting him.
Nuhle's health when he was in the bad place, as he refers to his time in maximum security, did deteriorate. At one stage, things were so bad the prison nurse thought he might die. And even though he was at death's door, he still wasn't getting any favors from some of the guards.
I collapsed and mysel couldn't stop vomiting. I was in a really, really, really bad way. It took me up to the infirmary. The nurses tried everything. She said, you need to go to hospital with called the ambulance. His guard came in, so they handcuffed my hands and I've got a sick bag like that, and I'm struggling that I was a crook and that out of it. He wanted to shackle me. He's standing there was shackled like shackle me hands and feet with a chain in between.
He wanted to shackle me. I am in la la land. But it's about the treatment of you as if you were dangerous. And I know that when the ambulance arrived. There was a discussion I heard it between the nurse, the ambo and this guard and they had to fight tooth and nail to get this guard to agree not to shackle me. But they handcuffed me. They put me on the bed and they handcuffed me there on the rail of the bed. In the bottom of the PA hospital. There's a whole section for prisoners. So this is the
funny part of this. There's got to be a funny side somewhere. I'm in them, I'm in the ambulance and the guy said, look, I'm going to give you a bit of stuff here, just to ease the pain and all. And I said, oh, thank you for that. He said, what did you do before you got here? He said, I was a health minister. He kind of looked at me. How in this belief.
Not all was shaking. As he sat in the prisoner's dock, he held his head in his hands and was visibly fighting back tears.
In the immediate aftermath of his convictions for receiving secret commissions, corruption and perjury, his former labor mates were not sympathetic.
These crimes are serious, and frankly, they are reprehensible. I'm very pleased to see that the courts have taken them seriously.
And I'm bla I took over as Premier from Peter Beedy in September two thousand and seven and were still premiere in two thousand and nine when Nuttle was convicted and jailed the first time.
These are sort of crimes that go to the heart of public trust in our system of government.
In October twenty ten, after Nuttle's second corruption conviction, former colleagues likened Nuttle's convictions with the long serving Nationals Premiere, Sir Joe B.
LK.
Peterson, who in nineteen ninety one faced criminal trial for perjury following evidence he'd given to the Fitzgerald inquiry. An earlier proposed charge of corruption was incorporated into the perjury charge.
Yeah, yeah, I noticed that. But the irony, the irony of that is that when the Sun Corpse Stadium was rebuilt, Peter Betty pushed jar around in a wheelchair, checking him off, welcome you here, I hope you enjoy it, and gave him a state funeral. You've got to put it all the perspective at it.
If you had your time again, would you do it exactly the same or would you what would you do differently?
Look, it was a significant error of judgment on my part. I don't shy away from that, but it was an honest ere I get it. If you're trying to be a crook. If I'm going to be crooked, why would I bug our eyes around with three hundred green You know, none of it made sense, but certainly in hindsight I can see that people would think businessman politician money exchanged their crooks.
Good and that'll spend more than five years in maximum security and another twelve months at a prison farm before serving eight years out on parole, for a total of a fourteen year sentence. A glance through the sentences of other politicians who were charged and convicted are illuminating. In nineteen eighty nine, former National Party MP Don Lane was sentenced to twelve months prison on twenty seven counts of misappropriate adding public money.
After six months holding his tongue, Don Lane was ready to tell the world the sorry story of his time as a guest at Her Majesty's correctional Center. But I must say that the shock of being imprisoned behind twenty foot of razawi and steel gates is not a pleasant one.
From Parliament House to the courthouse.
Mister Driscoll, why did you do it? Was it great?
He asked their rivals supermarket giants, West Farmers and Woolworths the secret commissions that were never paid.
More recently, former LPMP Scott Driscoll was sentenced to jail time after being found guilty of fraud. Sentenced to six years imprisonment for fraud and corruption. It'll be at least eighteen months before Driscoll serves his time and is eligible for parole. So Queensland has a rich history of politicians going to jail for doing the wrong thing, but only Gordon Nattle had to spend more than five years in maximum security.
Can you believe.
That you had to spend five years in that environment for what you did.
And it was wrong? And whoever, whoever made those decisions and did that, that's a million dollar question. The question to me is why why don't you progress me like any other normal prisoner. And it took my eldest daughter in a letter campaign to top management as to why eventually they should send me to the farm. I mean my kid, my grandkids, they're little. They would come and visit me in this horrible environment. Even in the visiting area it's all caged and all the rest of it.
They would come and visit me, these little ones, and there are pedophiles in there there, and I felt like, you know, I said to my don't bring the kids. Don't just don't bring them. But the kids wanted to see me. But you can't nurse them, you can't hold them, you can't cuddle them, and all that sort of stuff.
So actually they were advised not to bring the.
Kids, yes, but we persevered with that. But we sat, We tried to sit in a corner. There'd be a big group of people visiting it at the same time.
And did those family visits they help.
You through it?
Yeah, they do. You look forward to it, but it's after the event, when you've got to go and you go back to your cell. That's that's when it really hits you. After those visits. It it's so hard to deal with. And I couldn't tell you the number of times I cried and broke down in my cell on my own because after it, before and after the visits, you get strip searched. You know, it's humiliating, It is really humiliating.
You know you're not a bad bugger.
No, But what I what I never understood was why they kept me there?
Why?
What? What? What purpose was that?
What? To me?
More? Or what or why? My view was that it was about they didn't want the perception that I was getting any favors, and they didn't want any media around that.
So because of who you were, and we should say that that that coughs as a result of the can cancer that you so, So your view is that because of who you were, yes, you spent more time in maximum security, but.
It wasn't But it wasn't about my welfare either. It was about their welfare.
When you say there, well, well the.
Department or the politicians that he's not getting any special treatment. But I didn't ask. All I wanted was to be progressed through the system like everyone else. And I remember the day I finally got to go to the farm. I got called up and I said, there's a so and so from in town's here to see you. Well, they called me in, sat me down, she said, And this is five and a bit years and I'm still
there maximum security, more than five years maximum security. So I've only got eleven and a half months ago to I'm eligible for parole, and she said, ah, we're going to send you to the farm. I said, okay, I said, what brought this on? She said, out there visiting is a lot different, and you'll have an opportunity to one closer to your grandkids and all the rest of it before your release. And I thought, what a croc of
shit that is. You know, what a weak, bloody excuse that is, you know, And I felt like screaming at her. But you're thankful for small mercies.
But it seems Gordon had a guardian angel in the form of his daughter Lisa, who remembers the day well. Lisa felt she had a full time job coordinating family and friends to visit, wrote letters and made calls to Governor General, Corrective services ministers, Directors General, trying to get her father moved out of the maximum security jail cell.
And I remember I was ironing and I had this final phone call with the DJ because he'd been rejected again going to the farm, because he'd have review and he'd always passed with flying colors, like he was a model prisoner. He wasn't doing anything, you know, he kept his head down, he did everything right and they just kept saying, it's you know, it's they called it the Curer mail test, so we can't be seen to be
doing you favors. But at this point he was in Wolston with the murderer of Daniel Morcombe, with Max Seeker, with you know, people that had committed very violent crimes against women, children, you know, And it had gotten to a point where the guards had said to me, and this was probably my final straw, but they said, you need to stop bringing the kids here. Now there are predators in here and they will find you. You need to be very, very careful. And that was when I
kind of ramped up. Okay, we've got to get him out of here for his sake, for everyone's. But he'd had enough to like he was skin and bone. He was trying to make the best of the situation as it was, but he just we just couldn't understand, Like year but went by year after year, and it's like, why aren't they shifting you?
You know?
But I remember I was ironing. I was standing there, I was ironing, and I was on the phone to the DG. And I told her what the guards had said to me, and I said, I can't do this to my kids anymore. We can't do this anymore, I said, we can't keep taking our kids there, so you need to shift him. And when she finally went in to do another review, she said to Dad that it was that that made her make the decision to shift him.
So that was a really exciting day. If I hadn't brought up my kids and the guards hadn't have said that to me that day, I don't know if they ever would have moved Dad. I don't I don't know if they would have, but he really needed was so worn out at that point.
Meanwhile, back at the prison, it was moving day.
So normally when they send it to the farm, it takes a couple of weeks, she told. A couple of weeks later, she said, you'll be advised, but it won't be long, Okay, So she went. I got sent back, and then about an hour later I got called up again and there's other officer comes to see me and said, you're going within the next twenty four hours. You may be going tonight, you may be going at daylight tomorrow, or you may be going at nine o'clock tonight. I
don't know. She said, you've got to go back to yourself. You can't tell anyone not to tell a soul because a paranoid about the media. They are paranoid. So I went back. I said, can I tell my family? She said yes, but they can't tell the media. She said, Gordon, I can't stress that enough. If anyone finds out, they'll cancel this. They will cancel it on you. I went back and rang Leasa, my eldest daughter, Lisa, and I said, because I'm allowed six minute funk calls, And I said,
can you tell the other kids? Let everyone know, but they're not to say anything till I'm out there. Not till I'm out there, Lisa. So I had to go back and kind of pack my bag, which is not a lot. I got to tell you, you don't have a lot of possessions, not till the Blakes I'm in the unit with not say nothing. So didn't nothing happen that night, early the next morning, nothing. Then all of a sudden, bang bang bang bang, I'm out the door.
I'm in a Ford motor car. I got to sit in the front seat, no handcuffs, and I got to put a seatbelt on because you drive everywhere in a van and a prison bee and I'm in a car and I put a seatbelt on. Surreal, seriously surreal, and we drive out that they have one more whack at me before we go. We're going to go to another prison to pick up another bloke, and when we got there, something happened and we all got thrown into it cell
for another couple of hours. Anyway, finally we get in the car and we're going and we go through these suburbs and went through this place where there was shops and mum pushing a pram with a bubby in it and street lights. I know that all sounds weird, but I have when you haven't seen any of that, you've seen nothing, and you're kind of looking at it and the farms right down near the New South Wales border.
So the further we went became more country and you're just looking at the hills and the trees and other cars going past, and it's just amazing. You know, you just think, oh, this is the beginning of the end. This is the beginning of the end.
And did you believe that at the time.
Yeah, I did. I believe that the worst of jail was behind me, and I wasn't going to do it, because when you get out there, if you misbehave, it's called tip. They tip your back and you don't get a second chance. And I knew i'd be fine, but it was just just that trip out, that first trip out. Remember the very first day at the farm. We got there and the first people you've got to seize the nurse,
which is fair enough. And when I saw her, she had been where I was kept in the maximum security that she'd been transferred out to the phone, and she looked at me and she said, what have I done to you? I was down to seven the act kills. I've been really sick. I've been taken to hospital several times. Anyway, the boss of the farm there was me and another blake there and he called us in. He said, see all those fences down there, that's a perimeter. He said,
you can leave anytime you want. He said, but I guarantee you two things. One you'll get caught and two you won't be coming back here. That's pretty good advice. But I remember that the first I got there about lunchtime, and the first afternoon they'd let you settle in allocat your room, and I stayed in the same room for the whole eleven months. Usually blakes get moved around a bit. And I sat out the back and I'm looking up at the mountains and guard came past and he said
how are you? And I said all right. He said I can I have a word to you and I said yeah.
Yeah.
He said, well, I'm going to be the guy looking after you for the next twelve months. He said. Here at the farm, we send people out to work camps out west. He said, you won't be going to any of those. Why not media? They're worried about the media. Still worried about the media. They are still worried about the media. And he said because of the media. He said, all right. He said, but you will be going out for me to do jobs around the district here. I said, yeah, anyway,
give me a bit of a rundown. So I got up and I went for a walk. And they've got half a dozen horses, and they've got cattle and all the rest of it. This horse came over, so some of the boys must must. I didn't know this, but I would have fed them an apple or because you actually get proper fruit and real food at the farm. Very different to maximum security. And he came over and I patted this horse and it is the first time I'd pattered or touched an animal in over five years.
And I know that sounds weird, but it's it's it felt just beautiful just to be able to pat this horse, you know. And then I went for a walk and I picked up a leaf from under a tree and I held it in my hand and I hadn't done that in five years, you know, the simple thing, little tiny little things like that, and it was just I just it was just breathing. I felt as I could breathe again, that life wouldn't be as bad. It was still crappy moments, even on the farm it's still, but
it's a working farm. Everyone's got to work. So I did a cert three and agricultural studies or something. I've got to certificate in Therequeensland University.
Completely different life to the previous five and a big year totally. Did you have any jobs when you're in maximum security?
Yeah? Yeah. I worked in the gym for a while, and then I worked in what they call bulk stools, which is an area where everything comes into the prison, everything, food, clothes, every single thing that comes through there. And I've only got the most trusted president. So I worked there for two or three years, which was really good because you've got to actually talk to some prison officers that a couple of them had a bit of house. You kind
of got a nicer lunch. I know that sounds funny, but you've got a bit of a nicer lunch, so that sort of thing. So yeah, I kind of got caught up in there for a few years. I was there for a few years, which was good, and then when I got sick, I didn't do anything for the last three or four months, so I was on sick leave the head nurse. I was a real mess. And I don't know whether I don't have any scientific proof to any of this, but I honestly believe that my cancer.
The neurologists said to me that the tumor has been in my body for over a decade if you count back. For me, it's the stress of all that time and the body's reacted in this way. And kidney cancer is one of the hardest cancers to detect, and it's always a secondary cause that that's how they find it. And that was that little lump on my neck. So that's how they found. In my view, that's what started it. Maybe I'm wrong, but I don't that's the view I hold.
But anyway, back out, I'll get to the farm. And I worked. I did this course for three or four months, six months, can't remember. Then I worked with the cattle for a little while. And then I went out. I painted a church. Me and a few bucks. We painted a little country church. We go out there and paint this church. It was just lovely out in the countryside,
just peaceful, just painting. And then even on the very last day, in the afternoon, they sent me out to do some water testing in the local creeks and rivers with a officer. But keep me busy, keep me busy before you before we left.
Is it it's eight years since then you've been on parole.
Does it ever seem like a dream?
No, When you have your dreams and you wake up, it never seems like a dream.
Mate.
It was horrible, very hard. You can't forget it. As much as you try and want to try and put in the recesses of your mind, it's there. You cannot forget it. It changes you. It changes you as a person in a big way. I'm far far more appreciative, even before I diagnosed with the cancer, far far more appreciative of every day of being able to see the ocean and go for a swim, and having family and friends around and living life. You know, we appreciate all that so much more, very much more.
Next time.
The best of my life was so exciting. I'll never forget because we had it all.
Planned, Operation Governor, the top secret plan to sneak a high profile prison inmate pass the waiting media and into the arms of his family.
After good and Nuttle was granted parole.
But the news came as a surprise to everyone, even the boss at the prison far.
And he said, we've just heard on the radio that your parole has been approved. He said, we haven't been advised, he said. I've got no other information I can give to you at this time, he said, but all the details are being released on air as we speak.
The Man Behind the Rose podcast writer, producer and host Patrick Condren. Sound design and editing Mark Right Graphics by Jason Blandford. The Man Behind the Rose is a seven News production