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Speaker 1: My name is Hedley Thomas. Sick to Death is based

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Speaker 1: on my book of the same name, and it's the

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Speaker 1: true story of doctor Jan Patel's lies and manipulation and

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Speaker 1: the herculean effort it took to finally stop him. We've

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Speaker 1: used voice actors throughout this series, and on occasion the

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Speaker 1: real people from the story have read their words for us.

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Speaker 1: It is brought to you by me and the Australian

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Speaker 1: chapter fifty Shock, thirteen April two thousand and five. The

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Speaker 1: scandalous revelations were irrefutable. As hard evidence poured in from Bunderberg,

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Speaker 1: Oregon and New York. The authorities in Queensland had nowhere

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Speaker 1: to hide. They had no how could even the most

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Speaker 1: brazen spin doctors have attempted to justify employing Jynt Patel

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Speaker 1: for two years and maintaining his status as Director of

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Speaker 1: Surgery amid serious complaints, when all the time a simple

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Speaker 1: Google or Internet search could have proved him to be

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Speaker 1: a dangerous fraud. They didn't try. Stephen Seely's decision to

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Speaker 1: emphasize on the front page the simplicity of the Google

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Speaker 1: search had a devastating result. Ordinary Queenslanders directed outrage at

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Speaker 1: those in charge of the health system. Everyone who had

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Speaker 1: been on a waiting list for treatment, or who blamed

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Speaker 1: a hospital for a procedure which had not been a

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Speaker 1: complete success, was given good reason to vent spleen. The politicians, bureaucrats,

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Speaker 1: Patel and the medical board were lined up for an

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Speaker 1: unforgiving pasting. In Charlotte Street, where the Queensland Health Edifice stood,

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Speaker 1: Jorden Nuttle saw his ministerial career disappearing down a drain.

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Speaker 1: Doctor Steve Buckland, trying desperately to run ahead of the crisis,

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Speaker 1: had few answers pending feedback from the newly appointed investigative team.

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Speaker 1: Calls for sackings flooded radio talkback and the letters pages

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Speaker 1: of newspapers. Troy Daniel, a reader.

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Speaker 2: Wrote to me, you can add my wife and I

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Speaker 2: to the list of disgusted citizens of Queensland. I feel

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Speaker 2: sick in the guts for some of the poor people

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Speaker 2: around the Bunderberg district.

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Speaker 3: At least the deceased have no more pain to endure.

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Speaker 1: It was the start of an unprecedented crisis in confidence,

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Speaker 1: not just in the health system, but in the political

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Speaker 1: structure as well as one of the Labor government's top

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Speaker 1: advisors told me, sometimes there are acts of incompetence that

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Speaker 1: make even the hard men of politics shake their heads

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Speaker 1: in disbelief. A match had struck and the fuse was

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Speaker 1: well alight. It hissed angrily and headed steadily to the

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Speaker 1: powder keg. The Beatty government. Peter Beatte's staff, in regular

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Speaker 1: contact with their leader during his overseas trade mission, briefed

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Speaker 1: him on the developing fury. Beatty was appalled, Even several

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Speaker 1: thousand kilometers away in Japan. He realized the seriousness of

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Speaker 1: this stuff up he valued above just about everyone else.

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Speaker 1: The wise counsel of his wife, Heather, a highly qualified

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Speaker 1: nurse with impeccable academic credentials and a sensitive political barometer.

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Speaker 1: Heather told him it was bad, very very bad. The

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Speaker 1: acting Premier, Terry Macknroth, gruffly rejected the predictable calls by

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Speaker 1: the opposition for an inquiry. Macenroth, who as Treasurer had

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Speaker 1: kept spending on Queensland health to the bare minimum, reckoned

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Speaker 1: Bettie needed a public inquiry like he needed a hole

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Speaker 1: in the head. The money would be better spent on

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Speaker 1: doctors and nurses, Macenroth grumbled. Nick Papps called me on

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Speaker 1: the mobile phone as doctor Jerry Fitzgerald tried to explain

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Speaker 1: to ABC Radio six twelve's Brisbane morning radio host Steve

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Speaker 1: Austin why the system had failed so badly. We've got him,

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Speaker 1: perhaps told me a season newshound from Melbourne he had

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Speaker 1: been too Patel's home, confirmed his identity and asked for comment.

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Speaker 1: As the photographer fired a dozen frames. They were transmitted

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Speaker 1: to Brisbane in minutes. It was a paparazzi style coupe.

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Speaker 1: David Fagan could barely contain his enthusiasm when he was

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Speaker 1: told Fitzgerald, who had flown to Bunderberg to meet the

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Speaker 1: patients and hospital staff, was having a tough time, first

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Speaker 1: with the rigorous Steve Austin on live radio and later

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Speaker 1: in a media conference. Fitzgerald sounded well and truly beaten.

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Speaker 4: I apologize unreservedly. The system has let these people down

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Speaker 4: and we have to do better. Obviously, what worries us

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Speaker 4: mostly is there will be a lack of confidence in

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Speaker 4: the community towards Bunderberg Hospital and the people I've met here,

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Speaker 4: with the obvious exception of doctor Patel, are wonderful and dedicated,

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Speaker 4: caring people.

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Speaker 1: In Brisbane. Gordon Nuttle demanded explanations from the Medical Board.

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Speaker 1: Nuttle told me, this is an awful situation.

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Speaker 5: I'm very angry.

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Speaker 6: I'm as frustrated as everyone else that this was not

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Speaker 6: addressed back in two thousand and three when it was

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Speaker 6: first raised. I rely on the Medical Board of Queensland

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Speaker 6: to say to me, these are good, overseas trained doctors

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Speaker 6: who are well qualified to practice.

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Speaker 1: David Fagan raised the ante. At this early stage, it

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Speaker 1: seemed possible that the story so shocking might have a

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Speaker 1: fairy tale ending with reforms, proper funding, a change in

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Speaker 1: the culture of cover up and shoot the messenger of

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Speaker 1: which I had become all too aware. Fagan directed a

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Speaker 1: team of reporters and photographers to go to Bunderberg to

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Speaker 1: interview traumatized patients anyone who knew Patel was fair game.

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Speaker 1: Reporters from a dozen other news outlets flocked to the sugartown,

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Speaker 1: including the TV program A Current Affair. Karen Cooper, the

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Speaker 1: Queensland chief of Today Tonight, sent a crew to the

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Speaker 1: Courier Mail to film me doing a Google search. Just

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Speaker 1: to rub it in. Fagan wanted to know where patel

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Speaker 1: Ate drank, slept and partied. He wanted details on how

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Speaker 1: Patel's patience had suffered or benefited from his care. He

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Speaker 1: wanted to know where loved ones of those who had

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Speaker 1: died looked now for comfort and answers. News editor Graham

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Speaker 1: Lloyd urged me to continue working my contacts from Brisbane.

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Speaker 1: The newest angle related to claims that the bodies of

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Speaker 1: several patients who had died postoperatively were fast tracked for

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Speaker 1: burial to avoid autopsies. Gay Hawksworth for the Queensland Nurses

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Speaker 1: Union raised the prospect of exhumations to ensure that death

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Speaker 1: certificates accurately reflected the real cause of death. She wanted

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Speaker 1: the hospital's managers, Peter Leck and doctor Darren Keating to

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Speaker 1: stand aside pending investigations into their conduct.

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Speaker 7: It is totally inappropriate for managers or other senior officials

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Speaker 7: to downplay allegations such as those raised by the nurses

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Speaker 7: at the Bunderberg Base. It is also totally inappropriate to

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Speaker 7: personally attack and intimidate them, and we believe this may

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Speaker 7: have occurred on a number of occasions.

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Speaker 1: It was not exactly business as you usual at the

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Speaker 1: intensive care unit, as the enormity of Patel's deception rippled

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Speaker 1: through the wards. Almost all the nurses cheered. Tony Hoffman,

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Speaker 1: chapter fifty one, Split Personality. Fourteen April two thousand and five,

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Speaker 1: ABC Radio's AM Current Affairs program introduced the story like.

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Speaker 2: This, The Case of the Elusive Doctor J. Patel has

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Speaker 2: medical boards across Australia reviewing the way they hire overseas

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Speaker 2: trained doctors.

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Speaker 1: And then the reporter Allison called Well revealed her scoop

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Speaker 1: an exclusive interview with a man purporting to be doctor

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Speaker 1: Patel's brother.

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Speaker 2: Speaking from his home in Oregon, on the West coast

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Speaker 2: of the United States. Ashish Petel says his brother, doctor J. Patel,

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Speaker 2: has no intention of returning to Australia.

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Speaker 1: And then she threw to the interview with Patel's brother.

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Speaker 8: The sheeesh, and he doesn't give a damn about Australia probably.

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Speaker 8: I mean, this guy is, you know, he has a

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Speaker 8: lot of money and he just wants to travel around

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Speaker 8: the world and he doesn't need to work. So I

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Speaker 8: don't know why he was there. I just picked him

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Speaker 8: up from the airport one day and that's all I know.

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Speaker 8: He didn't tell me anything, you know, I mean, essentially

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Speaker 8: he was there for one year and then he extended

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Speaker 8: his contract, and his contract expired and he came back here.

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Speaker 8: He's going to go back to New York and work.

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Speaker 8: That's what I was told. In the United States, he

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Speaker 8: was at a wonderful position. He was a program director

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Speaker 8: of the training programs, and he had a full professorship

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Speaker 8: at the university, and he ran the whole residency teaching

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Speaker 8: program here. He wrote several articles and his curriculum vite

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Speaker 8: iy is thirty pages long. He was at the top

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Speaker 8: level in the position, to the point that he could

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Speaker 8: retire already.

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Speaker 1: At nine In Brisbane, one of Queensland's leading TV reporters,

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Speaker 1: Jane Hodgkinson, began a second and more comprehensive interview. Although

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Speaker 1: he sounded agitated during the Transpacific call, he kept talking

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Speaker 1: as Hodgkinson tape recorder running peppered him with questions. Only

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Speaker 1: a tiny portion went to air on the six PM news.

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Speaker 8: Where is Bunderberg? What's the towne? You say, Queensland? I

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Speaker 8: have no idea what's going on over there? Would you

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Speaker 8: please not call me at this number? Please? You know,

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Speaker 8: if you have a problem with my brother, you get

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Speaker 8: a hold of him. But you know there's no point

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Speaker 8: of view talking to me.

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Speaker 1: When Jane Hodgkinson mentioned the widening investigations, Bettel sounded interested.

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Speaker 8: So what are the investigations. I don't know anything about this,

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Speaker 8: but just for the curiosity, what does the investigation show?

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Speaker 8: So who is investigating?

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Speaker 1: She explained that separate investigations were being inducted by the Coroner,

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Speaker 1: Police and Queensland Health. Hundreds of patients, she told Bettel,

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Speaker 1: were being contacted.

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Speaker 8: I think we are breaking off.

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Speaker 9: No, I think you can hear me clearly.

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Speaker 8: I was away when he came back, and then he

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Speaker 8: went to New York. We didn't talk much about Australia

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Speaker 8: because he was talking about going to India and seeing

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Speaker 8: my mom. His mom, oar mom, And I don't know

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Speaker 8: what's happened there.

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Speaker 9: Well, he's running away from a lot of trouble. There

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Speaker 9: are many injured and dead people here that he operated on.

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Speaker 1: Patel became cranky and started to admonish his interviewer.

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Speaker 8: Hey, listen, listen, listen, Calm down here, dear. I have

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Speaker 8: nothing to do with you or my brother's practice in Australia.

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Speaker 8: You don't have to be rough at me. I'm just

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Speaker 8: trying to have a conversation with you. You know, I

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Speaker 8: don't live in Australia. I've never been to Australia in

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Speaker 8: my life, and you are calling me out of nowhere

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Speaker 8: and telling me all these things, and you are getting

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Speaker 8: kind of upset at me for no reason.

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Speaker 1: He offered to take Hodgkinson's telephone number in Brisbane and

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Speaker 1: pass it to his purported brother. He continued, I.

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Speaker 8: Live here with my family. That's why I don't want

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Speaker 8: to get cons over here, because I don't need my

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Speaker 8: family members to get upset if he has done something wrong.

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Speaker 8: I knew he had a brilliant career over there. I

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Speaker 8: know how well he did over here. I couldn't even

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Speaker 8: figure out at the time why he wants to travel overseas,

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Speaker 8: because he says he was going to go and do

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Speaker 8: some voluntary work in the Third World and everything, and

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Speaker 8: apparently he has done well financially, so he's traveling around.

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Speaker 1: Jane Hodgkinson explained that apart from the poor surgical outcomes

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Speaker 1: for patients, Pateel was also in trouble for failing to

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Speaker 1: disclose to the Medical Board the actions that had been

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Speaker 1: taken against him in the United States.

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Speaker 8: Well, how did he get a license in Australia don't

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Speaker 8: they check on people?

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Speaker 1: It was the most insightful question asked all day. Tony Hoffman,

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Speaker 1: hearing the interview on the radio in Bunderberg, screamed. After

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Speaker 1: the report had aired, she contacted me from her home.

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Speaker 10: He's lost the plot.

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Speaker 3: It's him.

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Speaker 1: Hoffman knew the voice and the nuances of the Indian

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Speaker 1: American accent too well to be mistaken. She knew that

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Speaker 1: she was hearing doctor j Aunt Patel bizarrely pretending to

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Speaker 1: be his own brother.

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Speaker 10: Believe me, we have listened to that voice for two years.

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Speaker 10: You guys got sucked in about the brother thing. God,

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Speaker 10: it's amazing, isn't it. Never in my wildest imagination, I

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Speaker 10: think I'm dreaming.

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Speaker 1: Patel opened up more to our Los Angeles correspondent Nick Papps,

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Speaker 1: who reached him by telephone hours after appearing on his

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Speaker 1: front lawn. Continuing the charade of pretending to be a brother, Jayant,

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Speaker 1: Patel described himself as a perfectionist. For days afterwards, Nick

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Speaker 1: Paps believed that he had spoken to a brother.

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Speaker 11: Patel told perhaps he texted bad outcomes. Really seriously, if

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Speaker 11: I told him this was happening, he would be really pissed.

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Speaker 11: He had a brilliant career in the United States. He

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Speaker 11: told me the story about the train derailment. All the

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Speaker 11: media were there, but he stayed away from the media

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Speaker 11: because he didn't like to take the credit from the staff.

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Speaker 11: He did all the work and they took all the credit.

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Speaker 11: That's what he was stelling me. He doesn't break much.

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Speaker 1: Having misrepresented himself to the Medical Board and Queensland Health,

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Speaker 1: he must have decided it would be easy to hoodwink

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Speaker 1: the media. Pettel was one of several hospital doctors who

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Speaker 1: treated passengers for cuts and bruises after the derailment of

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Speaker 1: a Queensland Rail tilt train near Bunderberg in November two

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Speaker 1: thousand and four. Now he was pretending to be his

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Speaker 1: brother to pat himself on the back. Rob Messinger was

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Speaker 1: being run off his feet as Bunderberg crawled with reporters,

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Speaker 1: all of them seeking interviews with patients. Messenger the conduit

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Speaker 1: raised the political stakes and targeted the health Gordon Nuttle.

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Speaker 12: I doubt mister Nuttle has the guts to look into

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Speaker 12: the eyes of the victims and listen to their stories.

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Speaker 1: An emotional man, he found himself shedding tears while hearing

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Speaker 1: about the pain and trauma The revelations about Battel's history

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Speaker 1: in the United States stunned Messenger, whose staff had also

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Speaker 1: checked but had come up with nothing.

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Speaker 12: One of the first things Gordon Nuttle did when I

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Speaker 12: exposed doctor Pettel was to travel to Bundenberg and abuse

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Speaker 12: staff for speaking out. Make no mistake. Had those courageous

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Speaker 12: staff not gone public with their concerns, doctor Petel would

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Speaker 12: still be operating at Bunderberg Base Hospital.

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Speaker 1: Peter Leck was a spent force. The revelations hit him hard.

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Speaker 1: Unlike Darren Keating and Jerry Fitzgerald, lek knew nothing until

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Speaker 1: it came out in the Courier Mail. He was in

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Speaker 1: no fit state for interviews. He wanted to step aside

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Speaker 1: and the district manager's hot seat to someone else. Nobody

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Speaker 1: could tell where this would end through Phil Nickerson, who

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Speaker 1: was tasked with managing the media for Queensland Health while

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Speaker 1: his colleague Alicia Shildts remained on honeymoon. Peter Leck issued

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Speaker 1: a statement. He was unapologetic. He said he had.

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Speaker 13: Been deeply saddened and hurt by political and personal attacks

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Speaker 13: on my ability and character, which I believe had been unfair,

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Speaker 13: unreasonable and unjust. I firmly believe I've acted appropriately based

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Speaker 13: on information provided to me as manager, and responded swiftly

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Speaker 13: to allegations raised.

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Speaker 1: The stress and feelings of guilt and hopelessness weighed heavily

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Speaker 1: on him. He needed to see a psychiatrist, doctor Jeremy Butler,

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Speaker 1: but their meeting was a month away. Butler's colleague in

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Speaker 1: the Wickham Terrorist Practice, psychiatrist doctor Warwick Middleton, offered me

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Speaker 1: an opinion on the mental state of J. N. Patel.

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Speaker 14: Even now, it does not seem that he can bring

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Speaker 14: himself to acknowledge these terrible outcomes. I don't get any

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Speaker 14: sense that there is any remorse, responsibility or reflection. At

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Speaker 14: the same time, he has an amazing sense of entitlement

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Speaker 14: to be sent a stage. Everything that has happened will

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Speaker 14: be because of the mistakes and attitudes of others.

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Speaker 1: Another psychiatrist whose opinion I sought, doctor Ian Curtis, said

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Speaker 1: he suspected that for much of Patel's professional life, he

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Speaker 1: had elevated his narcissistic needs and fantasies about a medical

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Speaker 1: career above the welfare of other human beings. Ian Curtis

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Speaker 1: told me.

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Speaker 15: This man has had plenty of warnings to stop doing surgery,

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Speaker 15: but he's continued to do it. It's almost as if

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Speaker 15: he's a different species. He preounced rights over anyone else,

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Speaker 15: and he does not have the capacity to develop empathy

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Speaker 15: for the people that he made an oath to care for.

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Speaker 1: Over a foreign es street house in Brisbane, the Medical

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Speaker 1: Boards management team had issued a plea to the external

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Speaker 1: public relations and media advisors for help. Jim O. Dempsey,

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Speaker 1: the board's executive officer, and Mary Conn its chairperson, questioned

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Speaker 1: their own future. There Con signed off on a raft

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Speaker 1: of stringent new rules and systems which should have been

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Speaker 1: introduced years earlier, or at least by late two thousand

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Speaker 1: and three when clinicians expressed grave concerns to me which

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Speaker 1: were published in the Courier Mail back then. Here's some

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Speaker 1: of what Mary Con said.

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Speaker 16: From today, Queensland will have the most stringent registration process

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Speaker 16: for overseas trained doctors compared to anywhere in Australia. The

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Speaker 16: new system will ensure that doctors can no longer provide

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Speaker 16: false and misleading applications to the Board without fear of

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Speaker 16: being detected and penalized.

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Speaker 1: As an audit of the credentials and background of almost

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Speaker 1: seventeen hundred overseas trained doctors resorted to Google searchers, with

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Speaker 1: hits being returned for innocuous things like the membership of

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Speaker 1: equestrian clubs. Jim O. Dempsey gave Gordon Nuttle a report

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Speaker 1: written by Michael Demi Gerau, one of the board's senior officers.

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Speaker 1: The report conceded that while Patel had been deceptive in

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Speaker 1: his documentation, a thorough check by the Medical Board should

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Speaker 1: have identified his past. Michael Demi Gerau wrote this.

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Speaker 17: It is my view that a combination of circumstances coincided

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Speaker 17: in this case with unfortunate consequences.

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Speaker 1: In the early evening, scenes of utter despair were played

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Speaker 1: out at Bunderbergh's Brothers League's Club when the meeting of

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Speaker 1: patients was first planned by Ian Brown of the law

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Speaker 1: firm Carter Kapna Lawyers. Nobody outside Queensland Health's top echelons

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Speaker 1: knew of Patel's wrongdoing in the United States. When the

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Speaker 1: news broke it drew more than one hundred and forty

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Speaker 1: patients and relatives of those who died to the club

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Speaker 1: on the main road into town, as Rob Messenger walked

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Speaker 1: around with a microphone to hand to anyone who wanted

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Speaker 1: to speak. The TV cameras filmed outpourings of grief and anger.

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Speaker 1: Cheryl Johnson spoke about her husband Barry, who had pancreated

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Speaker 1: cancer before his death in October two thousand and three.

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Speaker 1: His widow correctly feared that he had died as a

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Speaker 1: result of Patel's negligence.

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Speaker 18: We thought we should get a second opinion, and Dr

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Speaker 18: Patel said he would perform a whipples procedure and that

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Speaker 18: he had done hundreds of them before. He said before

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Speaker 18: the operation that if he came out within an hour

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Speaker 18: that it wasn't a good sign. On the first of October,

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Speaker 18: Dr Pateel came out and told us there was nothing

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Speaker 18: he could do, and an hour and a half later

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Speaker 18: Barry died.

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Speaker 1: The raw emotion was affecting everyone. The Courier Mail's reporter

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Speaker 1: Jason Gregory said.

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Speaker 9: By that stage, almost everyone in the audience was crying.

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Speaker 1: Doctor David Mulloy, the Australian Medical Association's Queensland president, tried

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Speaker 1: to put on a brave face while comforting people who

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Speaker 1: feared they had been butchered or left to die. He

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Speaker 1: issued a heartfelt apology on behalf of the entire medical

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Speaker 1: community he had come to share the pain and make

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Speaker 1: amends for attacking Messenger just days earlier. It was a

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Speaker 1: brave gesture by David mLOY to turn up. He won

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Speaker 1: plaudits and respect. There was no forgiveness in the crowd

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Speaker 1: for Nita Cunningham, Labour's parliamentarian for Bunderberg. A furious Beryl

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Speaker 1: Crosby asked.

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Speaker 2: Her, Nita Cunningham, was it you a week ago who

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Speaker 2: said we lost a good doctor?

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Speaker 1: Before being asked to leave, the politician was jeered and booed.

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Speaker 1: She never fully recovered. The National Party's senior politician, Jeff Cini,

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Speaker 1: who was seated in the second row, described it as.

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Speaker 19: The most distressing and disturbing evening I have spent for

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Speaker 19: a long time. Patients of doctor Potel who had been

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Speaker 19: irreparably damaged from what should have been minor operations, and

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Speaker 19: families who have lost loved ones were there to desperately

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Speaker 19: seek answers and explanations.

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Speaker 1: Gordon Nuttle, who was not invited channel, served the TV

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Speaker 1: news in his office at Charlotte Street. He found it

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Speaker 1: almost unbearable. Although this burgeoning scandal was not directly his fault,

352
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Speaker 1: it had happened on his watch, and as the media

353
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Speaker 1: kept reminding him the bucks stopped with the minister, the

354
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Speaker 1: calls for his sacking would be shrill. The political pendulum

355
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Speaker 1: was not swinging, but it had certainly shifted a few degrees.

356
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Speaker 1: The National Party leader Laurence Springborg slammed the Beady government

357
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Speaker 1: at every conceivable opportunity. In the Bunderberg News Mail the

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Speaker 1: next day, Rob Messenger was hailed a hero on the

359
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Speaker 1: letters page. One patient Doris Caville, stood out from the

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Speaker 1: baying crowd. Doctor Patel had operated on her in two

361
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Speaker 1: thousand and four to remove a large growth.

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Speaker 20: Doris said it was a very difficult and rare operation,

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Speaker 20: involving several organs, and normally would not be done in Bunderberg.

364
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Speaker 20: He was a marvelous and very caring doctor. He was

365
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Speaker 20: due to go on holidays to visit his mother in India,

366
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Speaker 20: but did not leave until he was sure that I

367
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Speaker 20: was going to be okay. If it was not for him,

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Speaker 20: I would not be alive today.

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Speaker 1: Chapter fifty two, Bloody mess fifteen to seventeen April two

370
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Speaker 1: thousand and five. Even after j Aunt, Patel had been

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Speaker 1: revealed as a charlatan. The nurse who had done more

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Speaker 1: than anyone to blow the whistle. Was fearful of retribution.

373
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Speaker 1: Tony Hoffman doubted Patel would attempt to harm her. His

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Speaker 1: ego was so vast he probably regarded her a mere nurse.

375
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Speaker 1: As a nobody, Hoffman felt sure that he would want

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Speaker 1: to return to Australia to tell his critics that they

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Speaker 1: were hopelessly wrong. She feared retribution from another source, the bureaucrats,

378
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Speaker 1: who had been severely embarrassed by the revelations. We spoke

379
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Speaker 1: at length on the telephone several times a day as

380
00:24:38,600 --> 00:24:43,639
Speaker 1: an extraordinary news story widened into a major crisis. In

381
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Speaker 1: all my reports, Hoffman remained an anonymous source. Astute readers

382
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Speaker 1: and Queensland Health insiders, no doubt speculated about her involvement,

383
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Speaker 1: but there was nothing they could use as concrete evidence

384
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Speaker 1: that she had breached the department's conyan code of conduct.

385
00:25:03,280 --> 00:25:06,479
Speaker 1: For the upcoming weekend, I wanted to write a lengthy

386
00:25:06,560 --> 00:25:10,160
Speaker 1: feature about Hoffman's struggle to be heard by her colleagues.

387
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Speaker 1: I wanted to personalize the woman. Who was she, how

388
00:25:15,240 --> 00:25:19,240
Speaker 1: had she coped? What did she look like? Everyone already

389
00:25:19,320 --> 00:25:23,639
Speaker 1: knew Patel's history, they had seen his image, but the

390
00:25:23,760 --> 00:25:28,440
Speaker 1: heroine remained a mystery. When I explained this plan to Hoffman,

391
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Speaker 1: I suggested a way forward. I would interview her mother,

392
00:25:32,280 --> 00:25:36,080
Speaker 1: Marie and ask her for a photograph of her eldest daughter.

393
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Speaker 1: As a public servant, Hoffman could be disciplined for speaking

394
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Speaker 1: to journalists, but the Beaty government had no such leverage

395
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Speaker 1: over her mother. Tony said to.

396
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Speaker 10: Me, that's a cunning plan. I just don't know if

397
00:25:51,160 --> 00:25:53,159
Speaker 10: I can trust my mum to talk about me.

398
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Speaker 1: Marie and her husband Warwick, both retired, were among a

399
00:25:58,280 --> 00:26:02,000
Speaker 1: few people outside Bunderbelt Hospital who knew what had been

400
00:26:02,000 --> 00:26:07,280
Speaker 1: causing Tony's sleepless nights. They believed emphatically in her cause.

401
00:26:08,480 --> 00:26:11,600
Speaker 1: Since the story broke, Mary had left the home in

402
00:26:11,680 --> 00:26:15,600
Speaker 1: Malula on the Sunshine Coast each morning to buy every newspaper.

403
00:26:16,600 --> 00:26:20,639
Speaker 1: Her friends and relatives were inundated with email as Mary

404
00:26:20,800 --> 00:26:24,959
Speaker 1: copied and pasted the text from news updates on the Internet.

405
00:26:25,680 --> 00:26:28,720
Speaker 1: When it came to do the interview, Mary spoke with

406
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Speaker 1: the confidence of a seasoned professional.

407
00:26:32,240 --> 00:26:34,920
Speaker 21: Tony is usually so funny and bright, but for two

408
00:26:35,000 --> 00:26:37,920
Speaker 21: years she lost to vitality. I thought she was physically

409
00:26:37,960 --> 00:26:41,760
Speaker 21: sick or depressed. Light in her had dimmed. She was

410
00:26:41,840 --> 00:26:44,840
Speaker 21: under dreadful stress. She wanted to see something done about

411
00:26:44,840 --> 00:26:47,760
Speaker 21: this doctor, and now we can see why. If she

412
00:26:47,760 --> 00:26:50,320
Speaker 21: had been taken seriously two years ago, none of this

413
00:26:50,359 --> 00:26:53,720
Speaker 21: would have happened. If it had been anyone other than Tony,

414
00:26:53,880 --> 00:26:57,000
Speaker 21: this doctor would still be operating on the patients. She

415
00:26:57,119 --> 00:26:59,359
Speaker 21: is not one to stand back when she sees things

416
00:26:59,359 --> 00:27:02,080
Speaker 21: that are not wrong. She is stubborn. She will not

417
00:27:02,200 --> 00:27:06,159
Speaker 21: tolerate in competence or stupidity. I can only imagine how

418
00:27:06,240 --> 00:27:08,199
Speaker 21: awful it was for her as she saw what was

419
00:27:08,240 --> 00:27:12,359
Speaker 21: happening to the patients. She felt helpless. Thank goodness she

420
00:27:12,400 --> 00:27:13,080
Speaker 21: didn't give up.

421
00:27:14,359 --> 00:27:16,440
Speaker 1: Afterwards, Mary fretted.

422
00:27:16,800 --> 00:27:19,320
Speaker 21: I hope I have not said too much. I take

423
00:27:19,400 --> 00:27:20,200
Speaker 21: after my daughter.

424
00:27:21,560 --> 00:27:25,000
Speaker 1: By lunchtime on Friday, as I wrote the Hoffmann story

425
00:27:25,480 --> 00:27:31,240
Speaker 1: headlined how one woman exposed Queensland's deadliest medical fraud, the

426
00:27:31,280 --> 00:27:36,440
Speaker 1: opposition was demanding a public commission of inquiry. The opposition's

427
00:27:36,680 --> 00:27:39,560
Speaker 1: senior politician, Stuart Copeland said.

428
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Speaker 22: The Beatty government has proved time and time again to

429
00:27:43,040 --> 00:27:47,159
Speaker 22: be the most dishonest, sneaky and closed government in the

430
00:27:47,200 --> 00:27:51,040
Speaker 22: state's history. We don't need mister Beatty to get off

431
00:27:51,080 --> 00:27:53,399
Speaker 22: his plane from Japan and promise again to get to

432
00:27:53,440 --> 00:27:56,160
Speaker 22: the bottom of the problem, while doing everything he can

433
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Speaker 22: to shift the blame for this disaster onto everyone but

434
00:28:00,080 --> 00:28:04,960
Speaker 22: his government. A Royal commission is needed to compulsorily demand

435
00:28:05,160 --> 00:28:10,399
Speaker 22: all documents, summon witnesses and demand ances. This whole issue

436
00:28:10,440 --> 00:28:13,000
Speaker 22: is simply far too important to be covered up and

437
00:28:13,080 --> 00:28:16,160
Speaker 22: glossed over by mister Nuttall and his advisers.

438
00:28:17,280 --> 00:28:20,879
Speaker 1: David Fagan and the Courier Mail were also demanding a

439
00:28:20,880 --> 00:28:24,840
Speaker 1: public inquiry. The newspaper's editorial funded.

440
00:28:25,880 --> 00:28:29,199
Speaker 5: The usual options of obfuscation and blunt denial do not

441
00:28:29,400 --> 00:28:33,399
Speaker 5: wash with Queenslanders anymore, if ever they did. Quite apart

442
00:28:33,400 --> 00:28:36,399
Speaker 5: from the ordeals suffered at the hands of one rogue doctor,

443
00:28:36,840 --> 00:28:40,680
Speaker 5: this scandal has helped expose certain practices by health administrators

444
00:28:40,880 --> 00:28:45,200
Speaker 5: which would appall even the most jaded observer of government misadventure.

445
00:28:45,920 --> 00:28:49,680
Speaker 5: Mister Beattie rejects the need for an independent judicial inquiry,

446
00:28:50,120 --> 00:28:54,080
Speaker 5: citing the cost involved. He has instead indicated that the

447
00:28:54,200 --> 00:28:58,040
Speaker 5: Crime and Misconduct Commission may want to examine the issue,

448
00:28:58,280 --> 00:29:00,240
Speaker 5: But how is it that the government consider it? Is

449
00:29:00,240 --> 00:29:03,920
Speaker 5: it proper to hold an independent inquiry into the administration

450
00:29:04,000 --> 00:29:07,400
Speaker 5: of horse racing yet resist a clear need for a

451
00:29:07,480 --> 00:29:11,440
Speaker 5: thorough and independent investigation of the health system.

452
00:29:11,880 --> 00:29:15,440
Speaker 1: The stories coming in from our reporting team in Bunderberg

453
00:29:15,560 --> 00:29:19,480
Speaker 1: were powerful. The anger, shock and sadness of the community

454
00:29:19,680 --> 00:29:23,480
Speaker 1: and of ptel's patients were conveyed in thousands of words

455
00:29:23,720 --> 00:29:29,760
Speaker 1: and dozens of images. Jason Gregory and Renevelaris, two dogged reporters,

456
00:29:29,880 --> 00:29:33,719
Speaker 1: and their more experienced Colliague Glennys Green, had combed the

457
00:29:33,760 --> 00:29:40,200
Speaker 1: town and surrounding districts. At six pm, David Fagan began

458
00:29:40,360 --> 00:29:43,920
Speaker 1: sketching a rough front page. He wanted it to make

459
00:29:43,960 --> 00:29:47,920
Speaker 1: an impact like no other Saturday edition. He wanted it

460
00:29:47,960 --> 00:29:51,840
Speaker 1: to hit our readers right between the eyes. He wanted

461
00:29:51,880 --> 00:29:56,000
Speaker 1: to make the State of Queensland, its institutions and Peter

462
00:29:56,120 --> 00:30:01,360
Speaker 1: Beatty appreciate the human cost of this disaster. Fagan doubted

463
00:30:01,360 --> 00:30:05,120
Speaker 1: a conventional front page with just a photograph and headline

464
00:30:05,160 --> 00:30:09,200
Speaker 1: would suffice. He went for broke. There would be ten

465
00:30:09,320 --> 00:30:12,560
Speaker 1: patients on the front page, three of whom were deceased,

466
00:30:12,920 --> 00:30:17,560
Speaker 1: ten photographs, ten accounts of their pain and suffering. The

467
00:30:17,680 --> 00:30:22,080
Speaker 1: main picture would be Patetel. He agonized over the headline.

468
00:30:22,520 --> 00:30:25,040
Speaker 1: If it struck the wrong chord, we would undo some

469
00:30:25,200 --> 00:30:27,720
Speaker 1: of the hard work and set ourselves up for blame.

470
00:30:28,920 --> 00:30:32,520
Speaker 1: Shortly before deadline, the front page was finished in white

471
00:30:32,560 --> 00:30:36,640
Speaker 1: tight against a black background. It declared trail of despair,

472
00:30:37,200 --> 00:30:42,600
Speaker 1: the lives ruined because to Queensland Health let this doctor practice.

473
00:30:42,640 --> 00:30:45,760
Speaker 1: The premiere Peter Beatty flew back into a storm of

474
00:30:45,880 --> 00:30:49,760
Speaker 1: protest and recrimination. The coverage in the Courier Maal that

475
00:30:49,920 --> 00:30:53,240
Speaker 1: day confirmed everything that his wife, Heather had warned off.

476
00:30:54,240 --> 00:30:58,239
Speaker 1: He went into crisis meetings with his senior staff, but

477
00:30:58,320 --> 00:31:01,840
Speaker 1: Beattie still wanted a more limit limitted Crime and Misconduct

478
00:31:01,880 --> 00:31:06,480
Speaker 1: Commission inquiry for any government. Health was too dangerous to

479
00:31:06,520 --> 00:31:09,840
Speaker 1: be left to a retired judge or an ambitious senior

480
00:31:09,880 --> 00:31:14,920
Speaker 1: lawyer with wide powers and public hearings. On Saturday evening,

481
00:31:15,080 --> 00:31:18,719
Speaker 1: Fagan called me at home. He wanted to keep running hard.

482
00:31:19,760 --> 00:31:23,600
Speaker 6: He said, this is the only story people are talking about.

483
00:31:23,920 --> 00:31:25,360
Speaker 6: We cannot let it slip now.

484
00:31:26,560 --> 00:31:29,440
Speaker 1: I told him that Hoffman had received a message from Beattie.

485
00:31:30,040 --> 00:31:33,240
Speaker 1: The Saturday feature article on her had triggered a string

486
00:31:33,280 --> 00:31:37,960
Speaker 1: of calls from TV stations and other media outlets. Hoffman

487
00:31:38,040 --> 00:31:42,000
Speaker 1: told them all that she was gagged, as she explained

488
00:31:42,000 --> 00:31:44,880
Speaker 1: to Channel seven's Peter Doherty, I.

489
00:31:44,840 --> 00:31:48,400
Speaker 10: Can't say anything unless I receive an official clearance.

490
00:31:50,000 --> 00:31:55,640
Speaker 1: He subsequently pressured Queensland Health and the Premier's Office. Beattie relented.

491
00:31:56,200 --> 00:31:59,160
Speaker 1: He sent a message through one of his media managers

492
00:32:00,320 --> 00:32:04,440
Speaker 1: to Hoffman. She had his blessing to say as much

493
00:32:04,680 --> 00:32:09,400
Speaker 1: or as little as she liked. Michael McKenna, my friend

494
00:32:09,440 --> 00:32:13,160
Speaker 1: and colleague, had a saying, feed the beast, or the

495
00:32:13,160 --> 00:32:16,800
Speaker 1: beast will feed on you. The beast was the media

496
00:32:17,440 --> 00:32:21,480
Speaker 1: in a feeding frenzy. A voracious beast might devour anything.

497
00:32:21,920 --> 00:32:26,560
Speaker 1: If not fed, it became hostile. I wondered if Betty

498
00:32:26,720 --> 00:32:30,360
Speaker 1: was feeding Hoffman to the media to divert it from himself.

499
00:32:31,480 --> 00:32:35,120
Speaker 1: Having witnessed too many examples of secrecy and cover up,

500
00:32:35,520 --> 00:32:39,880
Speaker 1: I questioned whether Beatty had suddenly embraced openness and transparency.

501
00:32:41,120 --> 00:32:44,480
Speaker 1: Under normal circumstances, I would have remained silent about the

502
00:32:44,480 --> 00:32:48,680
Speaker 1: top level permission and Channel seven's potential scoop, but knowing

503
00:32:48,720 --> 00:32:52,719
Speaker 1: how David Fagan wanted the issue to maintain momentum, I

504
00:32:52,760 --> 00:32:56,840
Speaker 1: tipped off Jane Hodgkinson at Channel nine. She told the

505
00:32:56,880 --> 00:33:00,480
Speaker 1: network bosses at their Mount Couther headquarters to repair the

506
00:33:00,480 --> 00:33:05,040
Speaker 1: helicopter as words spread that Hoffman was no longer gagged.

507
00:33:05,280 --> 00:33:10,160
Speaker 1: The networks despatched Cruz and choppers back to Bunderberg. Her

508
00:33:10,200 --> 00:33:13,240
Speaker 1: little home looked like a film set as TV cruse

509
00:33:13,480 --> 00:33:18,480
Speaker 1: cueued for the interviews. Her lawyers, barrister John Allen and

510
00:33:18,560 --> 00:33:23,920
Speaker 1: solicitor Gavin Rabetsky, urged Queensland Nurses Union officer Vicky Smythe

511
00:33:24,000 --> 00:33:27,240
Speaker 1: to ensure things did not get out of hand. The

512
00:33:27,320 --> 00:33:31,080
Speaker 1: telephone in Hoffman's house rang just before the first of

513
00:33:31,120 --> 00:33:35,280
Speaker 1: the interviews. It was Jeanine Keating, the wife of doctor

514
00:33:35,360 --> 00:33:40,000
Speaker 1: Darren Keating. She told Tony, I am outside my house.

515
00:33:40,480 --> 00:33:43,520
Speaker 23: Darren doesn't know I'm making this call. My husband is

516
00:33:43,560 --> 00:33:44,360
Speaker 23: a ruined man.

517
00:33:45,520 --> 00:33:47,000
Speaker 1: Hoffman was taken aback.

518
00:33:48,120 --> 00:33:52,000
Speaker 10: Janine. I have nothing against Darren. It's not about Darren.

519
00:33:52,120 --> 00:33:54,120
Speaker 10: I'm actually fond of him.

520
00:33:54,680 --> 00:33:58,120
Speaker 1: Keating's wife asked Kaufman to write a letter of support,

521
00:33:58,520 --> 00:34:01,160
Speaker 1: a note that might help him get through the ordeal.

522
00:34:02,000 --> 00:34:05,440
Speaker 1: Hoffman doubted that under the circumstances she would be able

523
00:34:05,480 --> 00:34:05,840
Speaker 1: to help.

524
00:34:07,000 --> 00:34:10,000
Speaker 23: You have ruined my life, you have ruined my daughter's life.

525
00:34:10,440 --> 00:34:13,040
Speaker 23: You have paid your fifteen minutes the same. Now get

526
00:34:13,080 --> 00:34:13,840
Speaker 23: back in your box.

527
00:34:14,520 --> 00:34:17,880
Speaker 10: It wasn't about me. Janine, what about the patients and

528
00:34:17,960 --> 00:34:21,520
Speaker 10: their families? Darren should have listened to what people were

529
00:34:21,560 --> 00:34:24,279
Speaker 10: telling him. This is out of my hands now.

530
00:34:26,160 --> 00:34:30,080
Speaker 1: The Courier mails reporter Jason Gregory agreed to talk to

531
00:34:30,080 --> 00:34:33,439
Speaker 1: Tony Hoffman after the TV reporters, all of whom had

532
00:34:33,520 --> 00:34:37,839
Speaker 1: earlier deadlines. In all the interviews, however, there was no

533
00:34:38,000 --> 00:34:41,360
Speaker 1: mention of the probable number of deaths which could be

534
00:34:41,400 --> 00:34:47,440
Speaker 1: attributed to Patel's negligence. I called Hoffman just before deadline?

535
00:34:47,680 --> 00:34:52,480
Speaker 1: How many? I said, can you estimate the number? She

536
00:34:52,640 --> 00:34:54,000
Speaker 1: was reluctant at first.

537
00:34:54,760 --> 00:34:58,360
Speaker 24: It's more than you think, she said cryptically.

538
00:35:00,000 --> 00:35:04,040
Speaker 1: Woman knew about cases involving the intensive care unit. She

539
00:35:04,200 --> 00:35:07,040
Speaker 1: believed that Patel was responsible for a number of other

540
00:35:07,080 --> 00:35:11,600
Speaker 1: fatalities involving patients who had not gone to the ICU.

541
00:35:12,880 --> 00:35:15,759
Speaker 1: In the end, she was prepared to say on the

542
00:35:15,880 --> 00:35:20,799
Speaker 1: record that she suspected he contributed to twenty deaths, but

543
00:35:20,960 --> 00:35:24,600
Speaker 1: privately she told me that the figure was probably higher.

544
00:35:34,880 --> 00:35:40,520
Speaker 1: Chapter fifty three Legal Games, eighteen April two thousand and five.

545
00:35:42,440 --> 00:35:46,319
Speaker 1: Tony Morris, Queen's counsel, got in touch at lunchtime.

546
00:35:47,120 --> 00:35:52,520
Speaker 3: I thought this might interest you, he said. A tall strongly.

547
00:35:52,080 --> 00:35:54,840
Speaker 1: Built lawyer, reputed to have a brain the size of

548
00:35:54,880 --> 00:35:58,239
Speaker 1: a planet, and an ambition to be Chief Justice and

549
00:35:58,320 --> 00:36:03,320
Speaker 1: Prime Minister, although not necessarily in that order. Anthony John

550
00:36:03,480 --> 00:36:08,480
Speaker 1: Hunter Morris was an invaluable professional contact. In the past.

551
00:36:08,560 --> 00:36:11,320
Speaker 1: He had provided me with a free written legal opinion

552
00:36:11,360 --> 00:36:15,400
Speaker 1: on the implications of the Brisbane City Council foolishly covering

553
00:36:15,480 --> 00:36:18,560
Speaker 1: up research warning that the next big flood would be

554
00:36:18,600 --> 00:36:22,640
Speaker 1: more damaging than the official projections had led ratepayers to believe.

555
00:36:23,920 --> 00:36:26,800
Speaker 1: Morris had given up his time, which he could charge

556
00:36:26,840 --> 00:36:29,880
Speaker 1: out at more than five thousand dollars a day, to

557
00:36:30,000 --> 00:36:34,200
Speaker 1: explain complicated judgments or points of law in stories that

558
00:36:34,280 --> 00:36:38,000
Speaker 1: I chased. He had been the lawyer for the late

559
00:36:38,080 --> 00:36:42,720
Speaker 1: Christopher's case, Australia's fugitive corporate giant who remained in Spain

560
00:36:42,800 --> 00:36:45,480
Speaker 1: out of reach of the authorities after the collapse of

561
00:36:45,560 --> 00:36:50,360
Speaker 1: his business empire. Morris had worked with Federal Cabinet Minister

562
00:36:50,480 --> 00:36:53,400
Speaker 1: Tony Abbott and the Liberal Party in their quest to

563
00:36:53,440 --> 00:36:57,480
Speaker 1: demolish Pauline Hanson over the suspicious registration of the One

564
00:36:57,600 --> 00:37:01,840
Speaker 1: Nation political Party. On the day that they contacted me,

565
00:37:02,160 --> 00:37:05,480
Speaker 1: he briefly outlined a case involving a fellow who had

566
00:37:05,560 --> 00:37:08,680
Speaker 1: purported to run a Swiss bank from his home at

567
00:37:08,760 --> 00:37:12,719
Speaker 1: Reedy Creek on the Gold Coast. The case raised by

568
00:37:12,920 --> 00:37:17,040
Speaker 1: Morris involved an elaborate but ridiculous scam with millions of

569
00:37:17,080 --> 00:37:20,279
Speaker 1: missing dollars and a con man referred to as his

570
00:37:20,480 --> 00:37:24,799
Speaker 1: Royal Highness. Funds had been frozen amid scrutiny of the

571
00:37:24,840 --> 00:37:29,920
Speaker 1: scam in the Federal Court. A mercurial and enigmatic character,

572
00:37:30,239 --> 00:37:33,839
Speaker 1: Tony Morris was the youngest silk in Australian history when

573
00:37:33,880 --> 00:37:38,080
Speaker 1: appointed Queen's Counsel at the age of thirty two. Behind

574
00:37:38,160 --> 00:37:40,760
Speaker 1: his back, he was known by some of his peers

575
00:37:40,920 --> 00:37:45,160
Speaker 1: as Lord Eldon, after Sir John Scott, a British lawyer

576
00:37:45,200 --> 00:37:48,800
Speaker 1: who had enjoyed a remarkable career in the law, achieving

577
00:37:48,880 --> 00:37:51,319
Speaker 1: Silk at the age of thirty one and going on

578
00:37:51,400 --> 00:37:55,319
Speaker 1: to enter Parliament and high political office aged forty two

579
00:37:55,520 --> 00:38:00,200
Speaker 1: as a Tory Attorney General. In one of many articles

580
00:38:00,239 --> 00:38:04,120
Speaker 1: on his vast website and must have legal resource for

581
00:38:04,200 --> 00:38:08,879
Speaker 1: Queensland lawyers, Tony Morris once described his mind as.

582
00:38:09,120 --> 00:38:12,640
Speaker 3: A down market antique shop, crammed from the floorboards to

583
00:38:12,680 --> 00:38:15,520
Speaker 3: the ceiling with useless bits of old junk.

584
00:38:16,520 --> 00:38:18,920
Speaker 1: Some of it valuable, but all of it hard to

585
00:38:18,920 --> 00:38:22,640
Speaker 1: be rid of. Elsewhere on the website he expressed his

586
00:38:22,719 --> 00:38:26,440
Speaker 1: admiration for Sir Samuel Griffith, another lawyer who became a

587
00:38:26,520 --> 00:38:30,320
Speaker 1: Queensland Premier in eighteen eighty three and then promoted himself

588
00:38:30,360 --> 00:38:33,960
Speaker 1: to Chief Justice. It was the sort of career path

589
00:38:34,160 --> 00:38:38,440
Speaker 1: Morris might have envisaged for himself. Presently.

590
00:38:39,040 --> 00:38:42,440
Speaker 3: He wrote, of all human vanities, there is none greater

591
00:38:42,520 --> 00:38:46,839
Speaker 3: than to contemplate one's place in history. Posterity reserves its

592
00:38:46,960 --> 00:38:51,200
Speaker 3: bitterest mockery for those who presume to foresee how they

593
00:38:51,239 --> 00:38:52,879
Speaker 3: will be judged in retrospect.

594
00:38:54,080 --> 00:38:57,440
Speaker 1: Our connection became stronger after he acted in court for

595
00:38:57,480 --> 00:39:01,759
Speaker 1: clients whom I had exposed as Charlattan. His father in law,

596
00:39:01,840 --> 00:39:05,680
Speaker 1: Cedric Hampsen QC, had chastised me in early two thousand

597
00:39:05,760 --> 00:39:09,080
Speaker 1: and three for refusing to reveal a source during cross

598
00:39:09,120 --> 00:39:13,520
Speaker 1: examination in the Southport Magistrate's Court. It almost resulted in

599
00:39:13,600 --> 00:39:18,520
Speaker 1: a contempt finding and my imprisonment. Maurris was friendly with

600
00:39:18,600 --> 00:39:21,799
Speaker 1: a handful of journalists I had called him in two

601
00:39:21,880 --> 00:39:25,759
Speaker 1: thousand and four when Teresa Mullen, a media adviser in

602
00:39:25,840 --> 00:39:29,880
Speaker 1: the Beatty government needed urgent legal advice after being sacked

603
00:39:29,920 --> 00:39:33,000
Speaker 1: and threatened with prosecution for taking a bottle of red

604
00:39:33,040 --> 00:39:37,000
Speaker 1: wine on the government jet to the Lockhart River Aboriginal community,

605
00:39:37,080 --> 00:39:42,120
Speaker 1: where alcohol was strictly banned. Within ninety minutes of agreeing

606
00:39:42,160 --> 00:39:45,759
Speaker 1: to help her, Marris was meeting Premier Peter Beatty in

607
00:39:45,800 --> 00:39:50,360
Speaker 1: the Executive Building, and within minutes of their meeting, Marris

608
00:39:50,440 --> 00:39:54,400
Speaker 1: had extracted a public and private apology from the Premier.

609
00:39:55,680 --> 00:40:00,360
Speaker 1: Teresa Mullen was reinstated. She never received a bill from

610
00:40:00,400 --> 00:40:05,960
Speaker 1: Tony Morris. On any other day. The news tip from

611
00:40:06,040 --> 00:40:09,440
Speaker 1: Morris about the Swiss Bank scam would have been welcome.

612
00:40:10,360 --> 00:40:13,480
Speaker 1: It looks like a cracking tail, I told him. But

613
00:40:13,520 --> 00:40:16,200
Speaker 1: I've got my hands full at the moment with doctor Death.

614
00:40:16,640 --> 00:40:19,680
Speaker 1: The latest revelation is that he botched the surgery so

615
00:40:19,840 --> 00:40:23,879
Speaker 1: badly the young man was left impotent and urinating through

616
00:40:23,920 --> 00:40:28,880
Speaker 1: his bottom. Still anxious to avoid a high profile judicial

617
00:40:28,920 --> 00:40:33,040
Speaker 1: inquiry which might quickly spin out of control, Peter Beatty

618
00:40:33,120 --> 00:40:36,640
Speaker 1: had begun sending signals to Robert Needham, the Crime and

619
00:40:36,719 --> 00:40:41,600
Speaker 1: Misconduct Commission's chairman, to run a self contained mini probe.

620
00:40:41,760 --> 00:40:44,759
Speaker 9: People say there should be a royal Commission. Well, that's

621
00:40:44,800 --> 00:40:48,800
Speaker 9: what exists. The Crime and Misconduct Commission is a standing

622
00:40:48,960 --> 00:40:52,960
Speaker 9: Royal commission. That's their job and I fully support them

623
00:40:53,400 --> 00:40:55,719
Speaker 9: conducting a full, open inquiry.

624
00:40:56,840 --> 00:41:01,520
Speaker 1: There was only one problem. Needham had other ideas. When

625
00:41:01,560 --> 00:41:05,840
Speaker 1: I telephoned him to ask about Beattie's proposal on Monday afternoon,

626
00:41:06,400 --> 00:41:10,120
Speaker 1: Needham ruled it out, saying the anti corruption body lacked

627
00:41:10,160 --> 00:41:14,240
Speaker 1: the scope, powers and expertise for such a task.

628
00:41:15,440 --> 00:41:18,400
Speaker 25: At this stage, I'm not proposing to mount any inquiry.

629
00:41:18,760 --> 00:41:20,440
Speaker 25: I do not see any need for the Crime and

630
00:41:20,480 --> 00:41:23,720
Speaker 25: Misconduct Commission to become involved and cut across all areas

631
00:41:23,719 --> 00:41:26,280
Speaker 25: that are best dealt with by the Coroner of Homicide Squad.

632
00:41:27,400 --> 00:41:31,040
Speaker 1: Needham believed that the issues of possible criminal negligence were

633
00:41:31,040 --> 00:41:34,920
Speaker 1: best left to Police Commissioner Bob Atkinson's officers, while the

634
00:41:35,000 --> 00:41:39,279
Speaker 1: wide statutory powers of State Coroner Michael Barnes permitted him

635
00:41:39,320 --> 00:41:45,120
Speaker 1: to exhume bodies and conduct forensic examinations. When I relayed

636
00:41:45,160 --> 00:41:50,200
Speaker 1: this information to Beattie's media advisor, Steve Bishop, he sounded surprised.

637
00:41:50,760 --> 00:41:54,200
Speaker 1: It was unusual for the Premier's proposals to be publicly

638
00:41:54,239 --> 00:41:59,640
Speaker 1: rejected by one of his own appointees. Bishop told me he.

639
00:41:59,640 --> 00:42:02,760
Speaker 9: Will week clarification himself from the CMC.

640
00:42:04,800 --> 00:42:08,320
Speaker 1: I began writing a comment piece for the next day's courier.

641
00:42:08,360 --> 00:42:13,880
Speaker 1: Mail I wrote, Peter Beatty is shirking a core responsibility

642
00:42:14,000 --> 00:42:17,440
Speaker 1: over issues of life and death affecting hundreds of thousands

643
00:42:17,440 --> 00:42:21,400
Speaker 1: of Queenslanders by ducking and weaving around calls for a

644
00:42:21,520 --> 00:42:25,880
Speaker 1: Royal commission style inquiry into the scandal over Queensland Health's

645
00:42:25,920 --> 00:42:30,319
Speaker 1: appointment of a grossly negligent surgeon to Bunderberg Hospital is

646
00:42:30,480 --> 00:42:36,160
Speaker 1: playing politics with lives. A broad inquiry into this systemic

647
00:42:36,280 --> 00:42:41,280
Speaker 1: failure across Queensland's health and regulatory systems would be painful,

648
00:42:42,040 --> 00:42:45,040
Speaker 1: but it would end with remedies for ills which plague

649
00:42:45,120 --> 00:42:50,280
Speaker 1: Queensland Health's bureaucracy. My piece went on, there are compelling

650
00:42:50,360 --> 00:42:54,920
Speaker 1: reasons for one inquiry, led by an eminent, retired judge

651
00:42:55,320 --> 00:42:59,000
Speaker 1: with extensive powers, to pull together all the terrible threads

652
00:42:59,000 --> 00:43:03,440
Speaker 1: of this scandal and investigate in its entirety. If a

653
00:43:03,560 --> 00:43:07,960
Speaker 1: horse racing industry in which nobody has controversially died or

654
00:43:08,040 --> 00:43:12,680
Speaker 1: been injured justifies a royal commission, then so too do

655
00:43:12,840 --> 00:43:18,600
Speaker 1: Queenslanders whose lives depend on our public hospitals. My piece concluded,

656
00:43:19,120 --> 00:43:22,239
Speaker 1: mister Beatty needs to show that whatever the politic will

657
00:43:22,320 --> 00:43:25,319
Speaker 1: fall out, he has the ticker to take his most

658
00:43:25,360 --> 00:43:40,480
Speaker 1: serious crisis seriously. Chapter fifty four, The blow Torch, nineteen

659
00:43:40,600 --> 00:43:47,480
Speaker 1: April two thousand and five. Peter Beatty, master tactician, self

660
00:43:47,520 --> 00:43:52,240
Speaker 1: confessed media's tart and consummate all round politician, had nowhere

661
00:43:52,320 --> 00:43:56,120
Speaker 1: to go. He had been boxed in by the Crime

662
00:43:56,200 --> 00:43:59,919
Speaker 1: and Misconduct Commission's refusal to take up his suggestion about

663
00:44:00,160 --> 00:44:03,800
Speaker 1: a limited inquiry, and now the calls for a full

664
00:44:03,880 --> 00:44:09,040
Speaker 1: commission of inquiry were becoming louder. The Jr't Patel scandal

665
00:44:09,120 --> 00:44:12,560
Speaker 1: had made everything else Betty was doing to boost Queensland

666
00:44:12,640 --> 00:44:19,160
Speaker 1: seemed trivial by comparison. The timing for his latest expensive

667
00:44:19,200 --> 00:44:25,200
Speaker 1: promotional campaign, called Smart Queensland Creating the Future, could not

668
00:44:25,320 --> 00:44:29,680
Speaker 1: have been worse because when the copywriters polished their material

669
00:44:29,800 --> 00:44:34,000
Speaker 1: for the Smart State's full page advertisements, Patel was not

670
00:44:34,120 --> 00:44:39,800
Speaker 1: a household name. Peter Beatty says in the advertisements.

671
00:44:40,880 --> 00:44:46,640
Speaker 9: Our researchers, scientists and health professionals are internationally recognized. Now

672
00:44:46,680 --> 00:44:50,840
Speaker 9: we must keep up the momentum. Smart Queensland is a

673
00:44:50,880 --> 00:44:52,640
Speaker 9: blueprint for doing just that.

674
00:44:54,880 --> 00:44:59,120
Speaker 1: It was dream material for the opposition. A smart state

675
00:44:59,200 --> 00:45:02,839
Speaker 1: which did not how to use Google, a smart state

676
00:45:02,960 --> 00:45:08,080
Speaker 1: which ignored repeated warnings about a negligent surgeon. Beattie hated

677
00:45:08,160 --> 00:45:13,000
Speaker 1: being mocked, particularly by the Opposition Leader Lawrence Springborg, who.

678
00:45:12,880 --> 00:45:16,200
Speaker 17: Said I can say to the Parliament today that our

679
00:45:16,200 --> 00:45:20,520
Speaker 17: health professionals are certainly attracting international attention, and for all

680
00:45:20,760 --> 00:45:25,400
Speaker 17: the wrong reasons. This is only the tip of the iceberg.

681
00:45:26,239 --> 00:45:29,200
Speaker 17: What we have seen at Bunderberg Base Hospital is potentially

682
00:45:29,239 --> 00:45:33,120
Speaker 17: happening elsewhere around Queensland. What we have is a government

683
00:45:33,120 --> 00:45:37,040
Speaker 17: which is covering it up. If you complain, you'll be castigated,

684
00:45:37,480 --> 00:45:40,520
Speaker 17: you will be bullied, you will be demoted, you will

685
00:45:40,560 --> 00:45:44,040
Speaker 17: be driven to the point of suicide. That is what

686
00:45:44,080 --> 00:45:47,200
Speaker 17: has happened to some of these people. You will be

687
00:45:47,239 --> 00:45:50,360
Speaker 17: made the problem. The Premier and the Minister are hoping

688
00:45:50,400 --> 00:45:51,840
Speaker 17: that they will be able to keep the lid on

689
00:45:51,880 --> 00:45:53,920
Speaker 17: this and that they might be able to contain it

690
00:45:53,960 --> 00:45:58,160
Speaker 17: to the Bunderberg Base Hospital. The Premier is presiding over

691
00:45:58,239 --> 00:46:00,920
Speaker 17: stuff up after stuff up after stuffer.

692
00:46:03,120 --> 00:46:08,719
Speaker 1: Opposition leader Springborg, turning to Gordon Nuttle, went for the jugular.

693
00:46:09,239 --> 00:46:13,520
Speaker 17: People have died because of this maladministration. He has blood

694
00:46:13,520 --> 00:46:17,040
Speaker 17: on his hands. He should hang his head in shame.

695
00:46:18,120 --> 00:46:21,759
Speaker 1: Beattie had spoken earlier to Robert Needham, who confirmed his

696
00:46:21,880 --> 00:46:27,240
Speaker 1: reluctance to involve the Crime and Misconduct Commission. Privately, Betty

697
00:46:27,440 --> 00:46:31,800
Speaker 1: was not impressed, but publicly he said he accepted Needham's reasons.

698
00:46:33,200 --> 00:46:36,360
Speaker 1: At nine to forty Am, Peter Beatty took the biggest

699
00:46:36,480 --> 00:46:40,400
Speaker 1: risk of his political career. In his bravest and most

700
00:46:40,440 --> 00:46:44,080
Speaker 1: selfless act of leadership, he started a process which could

701
00:46:44,120 --> 00:46:48,880
Speaker 1: only result in excruciating political pain. He told Parliament that

702
00:46:48,960 --> 00:46:52,080
Speaker 1: he would set up a wide ranging inquiry into the

703
00:46:52,120 --> 00:46:57,080
Speaker 1: appointment and work of doctor J. N. Patel at Bunderberg Hospital, with.

704
00:46:58,120 --> 00:47:01,480
Speaker 9: Terms of reference to ensure that the inquiry is effective

705
00:47:02,440 --> 00:47:06,000
Speaker 9: on behalf of the Government of Queensland. I apologize to

706
00:47:06,080 --> 00:47:09,360
Speaker 9: the patients who have suffered as a result of doctor

707
00:47:09,360 --> 00:47:14,359
Speaker 9: Patel's appointment and to their families. I will ensure that

708
00:47:14,400 --> 00:47:19,400
Speaker 9: the inquiry has the power to investigate all aspects of

709
00:47:19,480 --> 00:47:23,280
Speaker 9: the appointment of doctor jay and Patel at Bunderberg Hospital

710
00:47:23,880 --> 00:47:27,960
Speaker 9: and the treatment of patients he dealt with. The issue

711
00:47:28,000 --> 00:47:32,279
Speaker 9: of extradition has been raised. I advise the House that

712
00:47:32,320 --> 00:47:36,759
Speaker 9: we have a longstanding extradition treaty with the US, we

713
00:47:36,920 --> 00:47:41,560
Speaker 9: have extradition arrangements with India. We will do everything within

714
00:47:41,640 --> 00:47:44,520
Speaker 9: our power to ensure that justice is done here.

715
00:47:45,760 --> 00:47:49,640
Speaker 1: After condemning the inquiry as a damage control exercise, the

716
00:47:49,680 --> 00:47:54,160
Speaker 1: opposition focused its rage on Gordon Nattel, who looked increasingly

717
00:47:54,280 --> 00:47:55,719
Speaker 1: forlorn and friendless.

718
00:47:56,560 --> 00:47:59,880
Speaker 6: He said, I do not get any joy out of

719
00:47:59,880 --> 00:48:02,520
Speaker 6: it at all. But the job that I have to

720
00:48:02,600 --> 00:48:05,840
Speaker 6: do is to try to fix it. The job that

721
00:48:05,880 --> 00:48:08,000
Speaker 6: I have to do is to try to look after

722
00:48:08,040 --> 00:48:10,799
Speaker 6: the people of Bunderberg and to try to reassure the

723
00:48:10,840 --> 00:48:13,359
Speaker 6: rest of the people of Queensland who are treated by

724
00:48:13,480 --> 00:48:17,759
Speaker 6: overseas trained doctors that those doctors are suitably qualified. And

725
00:48:17,840 --> 00:48:18,640
Speaker 6: we will do that.

726
00:48:19,840 --> 00:48:23,800
Speaker 1: The Queensland Nurses Union had not initially supported the calls

727
00:48:23,840 --> 00:48:27,680
Speaker 1: for a commission of inquiry, preferring instead a much weaker

728
00:48:27,800 --> 00:48:33,200
Speaker 1: form of review. After Beatie's announcement of a powerful inquiry,

729
00:48:33,520 --> 00:48:37,920
Speaker 1: the union's leader, Gay Hawksworth urged wide powers to also

730
00:48:38,000 --> 00:48:38,839
Speaker 1: investigate what.

731
00:48:38,880 --> 00:48:44,279
Speaker 7: She called Queensland Health's secretive and dismissive corporate culture. The

732
00:48:44,320 --> 00:48:47,759
Speaker 7: so called managerial practice of shooting the messenger is a

733
00:48:47,800 --> 00:48:52,359
Speaker 7: common experience amongst Queensland health employees, especially nurses, and has

734
00:48:52,400 --> 00:48:53,240
Speaker 7: been for years.

735
00:48:54,800 --> 00:48:59,040
Speaker 1: Doctor David Malloy, the head of the Australian Medical Association

736
00:48:59,360 --> 00:49:01,960
Speaker 1: in Queensland, and was effusive.

737
00:49:02,520 --> 00:49:04,839
Speaker 24: This is a once in a lifetime opportunity for them

738
00:49:04,880 --> 00:49:08,440
Speaker 24: to change the system. For thirty years they've been immune

739
00:49:08,480 --> 00:49:11,280
Speaker 24: to reviews. That's part of the reason the management system

740
00:49:11,360 --> 00:49:12,359
Speaker 24: is so bad now.

741
00:49:13,520 --> 00:49:17,120
Speaker 1: Having promised to endow the multi million dollar inquiry with

742
00:49:17,239 --> 00:49:23,440
Speaker 1: extraordinary powers, Peter Beatty faced another momentous decision. He needed

743
00:49:23,520 --> 00:49:27,160
Speaker 1: a retired judge or lawyer to lead it, someone who

744
00:49:27,200 --> 00:49:31,359
Speaker 1: would work tirelessly, who would command respect, someone with whom

745
00:49:31,400 --> 00:49:35,600
Speaker 1: Beatty himself could build a rapport, but someone who would

746
00:49:35,600 --> 00:49:40,359
Speaker 1: not be seen as a political stooge. Although the inquiry's

747
00:49:40,480 --> 00:49:44,680
Speaker 1: leaders would not be known for several days, Beattie wanted

748
00:49:44,800 --> 00:49:49,160
Speaker 1: Tony Morris at the helm. The Premier had been impressed

749
00:49:49,200 --> 00:49:52,120
Speaker 1: by the tact and efficiency of Morris when they met

750
00:49:52,120 --> 00:49:56,000
Speaker 1: to hammer out a solution to the political embarrassment involving

751
00:49:56,080 --> 00:50:00,440
Speaker 1: Teresa Mullen and her then minister Liddy Clark over taking

752
00:50:00,520 --> 00:50:03,400
Speaker 1: that bottle of wine to Lockhart River in two thousand

753
00:50:03,440 --> 00:50:09,200
Speaker 1: and four. Morris was a strong supporter of the Liberal Party.

754
00:50:09,680 --> 00:50:12,680
Speaker 1: He had even given free legal advice to its Federal

755
00:50:12,719 --> 00:50:18,520
Speaker 1: Minister Tony Abbott. Under these circumstances, it would be impossible

756
00:50:18,600 --> 00:50:24,080
Speaker 1: for anyone to brand Morris a Labour stooge. Elsewhere, Attorney

757
00:50:24,120 --> 00:50:27,719
Speaker 1: General Rod Welford and one of his former top staffers,

758
00:50:28,040 --> 00:50:31,680
Speaker 1: Barrister Justin Harper, scrambled to put together a short list

759
00:50:31,719 --> 00:50:36,240
Speaker 1: of contenders, including the newly retired Court of Appeal Justice

760
00:50:36,320 --> 00:50:41,240
Speaker 1: Jeff Davies QC and his friend, retired Supreme Court Justice

761
00:50:41,280 --> 00:50:47,080
Speaker 1: Bill Pinkers, QC. During the compilation of that list, Morris

762
00:50:47,239 --> 00:50:51,480
Speaker 1: was not raised as a remote possibility should bet he

763
00:50:51,640 --> 00:50:54,759
Speaker 1: want a practicing lawyer. The top two on the list

764
00:50:54,800 --> 00:51:00,800
Speaker 1: were Peter Applegarth SC and David Madie SC. But Beattie

765
00:51:00,840 --> 00:51:04,719
Speaker 1: had made up his mind. With a truly serious crisis

766
00:51:04,840 --> 00:51:08,120
Speaker 1: threatening to engulf the Labor Party, he made one of

767
00:51:08,160 --> 00:51:13,080
Speaker 1: his typically audacious moves. Marris picked up a message to

768
00:51:13,120 --> 00:51:17,160
Speaker 1: call the Premier's office. After Beattie's speech in Parliament. He

769
00:51:17,239 --> 00:51:21,520
Speaker 1: spoke with Rob Widden, the Premier's fixer, and Widden asked

770
00:51:21,800 --> 00:51:24,960
Speaker 1: would Marris be available to meet Bette at Parliament House

771
00:51:25,080 --> 00:51:29,520
Speaker 1: during the dinner adjournment. When Morris asked what it was about,

772
00:51:29,840 --> 00:51:34,400
Speaker 1: he was gently rebuffed. It would be better, Widden explained

773
00:51:34,760 --> 00:51:38,680
Speaker 1: not to talk about it over the phone. Morris had

774
00:51:38,760 --> 00:51:41,399
Speaker 1: no idea he was about to be wooed to head

775
00:51:41,440 --> 00:51:46,480
Speaker 1: the inquiry. On the way down George Street, he pondered

776
00:51:46,480 --> 00:51:52,640
Speaker 1: the possibilities. There was a vacancy for a Solicitor General, perhaps,

777
00:51:52,719 --> 00:51:57,000
Speaker 1: Morris wondered Beattie might be about to offer that key position.

778
00:51:57,560 --> 00:52:02,279
Speaker 1: Judicial appointment was another possibility, but Morris believed it would

779
00:52:02,280 --> 00:52:05,000
Speaker 1: be unusual for such an offer to come from Beatty

780
00:52:05,200 --> 00:52:09,360
Speaker 1: rather than the Attorney General. It occurred to the ambitious

781
00:52:09,440 --> 00:52:11,400
Speaker 1: lawyer that he might be offered a role on a

782
00:52:11,520 --> 00:52:15,600
Speaker 1: state authority, or as a state representative on a federal

783
00:52:15,640 --> 00:52:19,640
Speaker 1: body like the National Crime Commission or the Australian Securities

784
00:52:19,719 --> 00:52:24,560
Speaker 1: and Investments Commission. On arriving at Parliament House, he was

785
00:52:24,719 --> 00:52:29,120
Speaker 1: ushered into a room with Beatty, the Deputy Premier, Terry Macknroth,

786
00:52:29,640 --> 00:52:34,400
Speaker 1: Rob Widden and Steve Bishop. There was no courtship. Beatty

787
00:52:34,480 --> 00:52:37,560
Speaker 1: came right to the point. He said that he was

788
00:52:37,640 --> 00:52:40,880
Speaker 1: well aware of the connections between Tony Morris and the

789
00:52:40,880 --> 00:52:45,640
Speaker 1: Liberal Party, but Beattie said he was deadly serious about

790
00:52:45,680 --> 00:52:49,759
Speaker 1: wanting a tough inquiry, and he wanted the public to

791
00:52:49,840 --> 00:52:53,480
Speaker 1: see him as deadly serious. He told Morris that he

792
00:52:53,560 --> 00:52:56,680
Speaker 1: had been chosen as someone who was and would be

793
00:52:56,760 --> 00:53:01,920
Speaker 1: seen to be fiercely independent. When Terry Macknroff made a

794
00:53:01,920 --> 00:53:06,040
Speaker 1: point of saying that he supported the nomination, Morris found

795
00:53:06,120 --> 00:53:09,920
Speaker 1: the assurance curious. He was unaware that others in the

796
00:53:09,920 --> 00:53:14,280
Speaker 1: Beatty government were nervous about the job offer. Beattie mentioned

797
00:53:14,320 --> 00:53:18,160
Speaker 1: that Sir Low Edwards, a non practicing doctor and former

798
00:53:18,200 --> 00:53:21,920
Speaker 1: Liberal Party Deputy premier, had already agreed to be a

799
00:53:21,960 --> 00:53:27,040
Speaker 1: deputy commissioner of the inquiry. Sir Lou had one proviso.

800
00:53:27,680 --> 00:53:30,359
Speaker 1: He only wanted to be on the team if its

801
00:53:30,440 --> 00:53:34,320
Speaker 1: leader was happy for him to be there. Tony Morris

802
00:53:34,440 --> 00:53:37,759
Speaker 1: immediately indicated that he would be happy to work with

803
00:53:37,920 --> 00:53:41,920
Speaker 1: Sir Lou. At that time, the third member of the

804
00:53:41,960 --> 00:53:45,680
Speaker 1: inquiry had not been determined, With a lawyer leading it

805
00:53:45,960 --> 00:53:49,760
Speaker 1: and a former politician and doctor as a deputy, Morris

806
00:53:49,880 --> 00:53:54,200
Speaker 1: and Bettie agreed the other deputy should represent the nursing profession.

807
00:53:55,360 --> 00:53:59,680
Speaker 1: Margaret Vyder, the director of Mission at Holy Spirit North Side,

808
00:53:59,760 --> 00:54:03,080
Speaker 1: and a former nurse surveyor on the Australian Council on

809
00:54:03,200 --> 00:54:08,440
Speaker 1: Healthcare Standards, would later accept the position. Marris was keenly

810
00:54:08,560 --> 00:54:11,520
Speaker 1: interested in the job. He told Bettie he would be

811
00:54:11,600 --> 00:54:14,959
Speaker 1: happy to serve. He saw it as a unique opportunity

812
00:54:15,040 --> 00:54:18,160
Speaker 1: to do some good for the community, something which he

813
00:54:18,239 --> 00:54:23,000
Speaker 1: often lamented was never easy in his profession. He found

814
00:54:23,000 --> 00:54:28,319
Speaker 1: the issues particularly interesting. Like all senior barristers, Marris had

815
00:54:28,320 --> 00:54:33,000
Speaker 1: also begun to consider the possibility of eventual judicial appointment.

816
00:54:33,719 --> 00:54:37,560
Speaker 1: It struck him as a good test drive, an opportunity

817
00:54:37,680 --> 00:54:41,160
Speaker 1: to experience a semi judicial role, to see if he

818
00:54:41,239 --> 00:54:46,160
Speaker 1: suited the job and if the job suited him. Before accepting, however,

819
00:54:46,400 --> 00:54:48,440
Speaker 1: he said he would have to talk it over with

820
00:54:48,480 --> 00:54:54,719
Speaker 1: his wife, Alice. It was a dream appointment. There would

821
00:54:54,719 --> 00:54:59,040
Speaker 1: be broad terms of reference, white powers for forensic examination

822
00:54:59,200 --> 00:55:04,520
Speaker 1: of the evidence, national and international media interest, independence from

823
00:55:04,560 --> 00:55:07,520
Speaker 1: the beat government, and a chance for Morris to leave

824
00:55:07,560 --> 00:55:11,360
Speaker 1: his mark on Queensland history. At the end of what

825
00:55:11,480 --> 00:55:15,520
Speaker 1: Beatty hoped would be assured but highly effective inquisition into

826
00:55:15,600 --> 00:55:19,400
Speaker 1: a sick health system, Marris had the potential to be

827
00:55:19,520 --> 00:55:24,799
Speaker 1: the hero. With the remedy recommendations of extra funding for hospitals,

828
00:55:25,160 --> 00:55:30,760
Speaker 1: changes to the law, sackings, compensation for patients, and prosecutions

829
00:55:30,760 --> 00:55:34,040
Speaker 1: of the guilty or incompetent were all there for Morris

830
00:55:34,080 --> 00:55:39,360
Speaker 1: to make his mentor was Tony Fitzgerald, QC, whose successful

831
00:55:39,440 --> 00:55:43,439
Speaker 1: inquiry into rampant police corruption in Queensland in the late

832
00:55:43,560 --> 00:55:48,759
Speaker 1: nineteen eighties had revolutionized the police and criminal justice. The

833
00:55:48,800 --> 00:55:53,000
Speaker 1: inquiry had made Fitzgerald a highly respected figure, admired for

834
00:55:53,080 --> 00:55:56,440
Speaker 1: his courage and tenacity in exposing the truth about the

835
00:55:56,480 --> 00:56:00,359
Speaker 1: corruption of the Police Commissioner, Sir Terence Lewis and his

836
00:56:00,480 --> 00:56:04,959
Speaker 1: coterie of ben cops. In his first full time job

837
00:56:05,080 --> 00:56:08,239
Speaker 1: in the law, Tony Morris had been an associate to

838
00:56:08,280 --> 00:56:12,799
Speaker 1: Fitzgerald when he was a Federal Court judge. When Fitzgerald

839
00:56:12,920 --> 00:56:15,600
Speaker 1: left the bench to return to the bar, Morris was

840
00:56:15,640 --> 00:56:18,719
Speaker 1: in chambers with him for the period of the corruption inquiry.

841
00:56:19,719 --> 00:56:23,000
Speaker 1: He had appeared before Fitzgerald at the inquiry on behalf

842
00:56:23,040 --> 00:56:28,280
Speaker 1: of one of the parties. After accepting Bette's offer, Morris

843
00:56:28,360 --> 00:56:28,799
Speaker 1: told me.

844
00:56:29,640 --> 00:56:33,040
Speaker 3: There is no inquiry anywhere in the country that does

845
00:56:33,080 --> 00:56:36,880
Speaker 3: not take Fitzgerald as the precedent to work from, just

846
00:56:37,000 --> 00:56:40,960
Speaker 3: like the Fitzgerald Inquiry. Two decades ago. The credibility of

847
00:56:41,000 --> 00:56:44,840
Speaker 3: this commission of inquiry hangs from the gossamer thread of

848
00:56:44,920 --> 00:56:45,880
Speaker 3: public opinion.

849
00:56:47,160 --> 00:56:52,120
Speaker 1: There were, however, grave reservations about Morris. As a longtime

850
00:56:52,200 --> 00:56:56,280
Speaker 1: friend of the Liberal Party, he greatly concerned Bette's colleagues.

851
00:56:56,920 --> 00:57:00,359
Speaker 1: Morris was regarded by some of his legal colleagues too

852
00:57:00,480 --> 00:57:05,320
Speaker 1: unpredictable to intrust with something as serious as a judicial inquiry.

853
00:57:06,239 --> 00:57:09,920
Speaker 1: One of the Queensland Bar Association's office bearers said to me,

854
00:57:10,480 --> 00:57:14,799
Speaker 1: you watch this will come back to bite Bettie. A

855
00:57:14,800 --> 00:57:18,640
Speaker 1: Supreme Court judge, postulated that there were few lawyers with

856
00:57:18,720 --> 00:57:22,840
Speaker 1: more ability than Morris, but he added there were few

857
00:57:22,880 --> 00:57:26,480
Speaker 1: who also had as much potential to blow the inquiry

858
00:57:26,520 --> 00:57:31,600
Speaker 1: to smithereenes. The judge told me he is an unguided missile.

859
00:57:33,120 --> 00:57:35,960
Speaker 1: In an interview in his office in the Executive Building

860
00:57:36,040 --> 00:57:38,960
Speaker 1: a couple of days before the start of public hearings

861
00:57:39,000 --> 00:57:42,320
Speaker 1: in late May, Bettie told me some in the Labor

862
00:57:42,360 --> 00:57:45,760
Speaker 1: Party believed he was mad to pick Tony Morris.

863
00:57:46,880 --> 00:57:49,919
Speaker 9: We are not dealing here with someone who is going

864
00:57:49,960 --> 00:57:53,160
Speaker 9: to be snowed. We are dealing with someone who will

865
00:57:53,200 --> 00:57:58,320
Speaker 9: be absolutely ruthless in getting to the truth. This is

866
00:57:58,440 --> 00:58:03,880
Speaker 9: potentially as damaging for a government as Fitzgerald. It's not

867
00:58:03,920 --> 00:58:08,880
Speaker 9: about corruption. We're an honest government. It's about health. Health

868
00:58:09,000 --> 00:58:12,760
Speaker 9: is the most significant vote changer of any issue. So

869
00:58:13,080 --> 00:58:16,920
Speaker 9: in terms of politics, of course, it's an enormous threat

870
00:58:16,960 --> 00:58:21,120
Speaker 9: to us, which is why there is nervousness around my

871
00:58:21,200 --> 00:58:26,080
Speaker 9: appointment of Tony Morris. I knew exactly what I was

872
00:58:26,120 --> 00:58:30,040
Speaker 9: doing when I appointed him. I warned all our colleagues

873
00:58:30,560 --> 00:58:34,720
Speaker 9: that there will be a lot of pain out of this. Politically,

874
00:58:35,240 --> 00:58:36,680
Speaker 9: we will get bashed.

875
00:58:38,120 --> 00:58:42,360
Speaker 1: I asked Bettie about Queensland Health reputation for secrecy and

876
00:58:42,480 --> 00:58:43,040
Speaker 1: cover up.

877
00:58:43,600 --> 00:58:47,560
Speaker 9: He replied, Tony Morris has the power to get anything

878
00:58:47,600 --> 00:58:50,640
Speaker 9: he wants. There is no point going through the pain

879
00:58:50,800 --> 00:58:53,960
Speaker 9: and the revelation unless at the end of this we

880
00:58:54,120 --> 00:58:57,760
Speaker 9: end up with a better system. That's the whole purpose

881
00:58:57,920 --> 00:59:01,800
Speaker 9: of having an inquiry. Thing that annoys me more than

882
00:59:01,840 --> 00:59:05,880
Speaker 9: anything about this, let me be very blunt, is that

883
00:59:05,920 --> 00:59:09,080
Speaker 9: you could actually get on a bloody website and find

884
00:59:09,120 --> 00:59:13,040
Speaker 9: out what happened and the Medical Board couldn't. And that

885
00:59:13,240 --> 00:59:15,919
Speaker 9: was the crucial point when I decided there was going

886
00:59:15,960 --> 00:59:19,920
Speaker 9: to be an inquiry. This is about life and death.

887
00:59:21,120 --> 00:59:27,640
Speaker 9: A government can't play with people's lives. I'm appalled that

888
00:59:27,720 --> 00:59:31,600
Speaker 9: this has occurred, but I'm more concerned about the patients.

889
00:59:32,360 --> 00:59:36,240
Speaker 9: They are, in many senses, in a powerless position, and

890
00:59:36,360 --> 00:59:41,960
Speaker 9: we have a moral obligation. We represent those people, the Queenslanders,

891
00:59:42,680 --> 00:59:45,800
Speaker 9: and we have an obligation to fix this up. When

892
00:59:45,840 --> 00:59:48,280
Speaker 9: you're dealing with health, you've got to remember where the

893
00:59:48,400 --> 00:59:52,680
Speaker 9: Labor Party comes from. There are two things we're obsessive about.

894
00:59:53,480 --> 00:59:57,120
Speaker 9: One is equal opportunities for education and the other is

895
00:59:57,240 --> 01:00:02,200
Speaker 9: health services. But this wasn't a cynical exercise. It's a

896
01:00:02,240 --> 01:00:05,840
Speaker 9: philosophical exercise in the sense that we had to get

897
01:00:06,040 --> 01:00:10,360
Speaker 9: someone who would take the cleaners to the system.

898
01:00:10,520 --> 01:00:14,520
Speaker 1: Before the public hearings began, the Labor Party was invincible.

899
01:00:15,040 --> 01:00:19,560
Speaker 1: Its lead over the opposition looked unassailable. Beatty had never

900
01:00:19,600 --> 01:00:25,120
Speaker 1: been more popular. Still, even in those early days, Beatty

901
01:00:25,200 --> 01:00:29,040
Speaker 1: feared to tell and the health crisis would flatten his government.

902
01:00:29,680 --> 01:00:31,760
Speaker 1: He told me, what we have.

903
01:00:31,800 --> 01:00:34,800
Speaker 9: To do is keep our nerve in a sense of saying,

904
01:00:35,680 --> 01:00:40,440
Speaker 9: what is our moral duty here? What is our obligation?

905
01:00:41,800 --> 01:00:44,960
Speaker 9: The problem has been around for a long time, but

906
01:00:45,080 --> 01:00:48,520
Speaker 9: all this happened on our watch. If in the end

907
01:00:48,560 --> 01:00:52,120
Speaker 9: the people of Queensland are still unhappy with us, then

908
01:00:52,280 --> 01:00:53,600
Speaker 9: they'll vote us out.

909
01:00:54,360 --> 01:00:58,680
Speaker 1: Although the public inquiry would grab everyone's attention, Beatty had

910
01:00:58,760 --> 01:01:02,160
Speaker 1: also ordered a separate review of the health system by

911
01:01:02,240 --> 01:01:08,080
Speaker 1: his favorite public sector consultant, Peter Forster. Separately, Maurris and

912
01:01:08,240 --> 01:01:11,080
Speaker 1: Forster would lead what Beattie described as.

913
01:01:11,400 --> 01:01:16,000
Speaker 9: The most significant and far reaching examination of Queensland health

914
01:01:16,280 --> 01:01:17,280
Speaker 9: in living memory.

915
01:01:18,640 --> 01:01:23,000
Speaker 1: I left the Premier's office pondering the pledges. He sounded sincere,

916
01:01:23,320 --> 01:01:26,800
Speaker 1: although he had an inate ability to sound like whatever

917
01:01:26,840 --> 01:01:32,200
Speaker 1: he wanted depending on the circumstances. His powerful charisma and charm,

918
01:01:32,600 --> 01:01:36,000
Speaker 1: the remarkable need to be loved, the natural cunning, and

919
01:01:36,040 --> 01:01:39,680
Speaker 1: the political savvy had made him Australia's most popular leader.

920
01:01:40,600 --> 01:01:44,400
Speaker 1: But he could I knew turn on invective and anger

921
01:01:44,480 --> 01:01:48,120
Speaker 1: when it suited. It had suited Bettie as I sat

922
01:01:48,160 --> 01:01:50,920
Speaker 1: in the same chair in his office five years earlier

923
01:01:51,160 --> 01:01:54,960
Speaker 1: to interview him about corrupt voting and Labour Party electoral battles.

924
01:01:55,960 --> 01:01:59,120
Speaker 1: I had written several articles about the claims of corrupt

925
01:01:59,120 --> 01:02:03,600
Speaker 1: conduct of Labour campaign workers, including those who had helped

926
01:02:03,600 --> 01:02:06,960
Speaker 1: the then Federal Attorney General Michael Labarge to keep his

927
01:02:07,080 --> 01:02:11,160
Speaker 1: job by winning his seat on Brisbane's northern outskirts. It

928
01:02:11,280 --> 01:02:15,200
Speaker 1: was never suggested that Michael Lavarche himself had known about

929
01:02:15,240 --> 01:02:18,600
Speaker 1: the alleged corruption, and that was a fact I prominently

930
01:02:18,640 --> 01:02:23,600
Speaker 1: reported at the time. The articles greatly distressed Labarge, his

931
01:02:23,680 --> 01:02:26,680
Speaker 1: wife Linda, and Beattie, their longtime friend.

932
01:02:28,000 --> 01:02:31,600
Speaker 9: You wrote a number of untested pieces that damaged a

933
01:02:31,680 --> 01:02:37,160
Speaker 9: lot of people without them having an opportunity to reply back.

934
01:02:37,200 --> 01:02:41,480
Speaker 1: Then, a clearly angry Beattie told me, in a tirade

935
01:02:41,600 --> 01:02:46,320
Speaker 1: witnessed by the couriermals then state political editor Matthew Franklin.

936
01:02:46,920 --> 01:02:49,960
Speaker 9: I don't have any faith in what you will write,

937
01:02:50,360 --> 01:02:53,160
Speaker 9: and to be frank with you, it's a case of

938
01:02:53,200 --> 01:02:56,720
Speaker 9: my concern about whether I will get a fair go

939
01:02:56,960 --> 01:02:57,560
Speaker 9: about what.

940
01:02:57,680 --> 01:03:03,600
Speaker 1: You were writing. Moments later, Beattie apologized the storm had passed.

941
01:03:03,880 --> 01:03:05,600
Speaker 1: He was conciliatory again.

942
01:03:06,720 --> 01:03:11,120
Speaker 9: My sensitivity is about this. My integrity means something to me.

943
01:03:11,360 --> 01:03:15,120
Speaker 9: It's about my honesty and I will not compromise on

944
01:03:15,280 --> 01:03:16,919
Speaker 9: these fucking things ever.

945
01:03:18,360 --> 01:03:21,720
Speaker 1: Back in the office, matt Franklin reckoned it was pure

946
01:03:21,800 --> 01:03:35,240
Speaker 1: Peter Beatty, pure performance. Seek to Death is written and

947
01:03:35,360 --> 01:03:40,360
Speaker 1: presented by me Hedley Thomas. The Australians National Chief correspondent.

948
01:03:40,960 --> 01:03:46,320
Speaker 1: Claire Harvey is The Australian's editorial director. Audio editing, production

949
01:03:46,760 --> 01:03:50,560
Speaker 1: and music have been done by Jasper Leik with assistance

950
01:03:50,640 --> 01:03:56,160
Speaker 1: from Leah Sammaglu and Neil Sutherland. Our producer is Christin Amias.

951
01:03:56,400 --> 01:04:03,040
Speaker 1: Production management by Stephanie Coombs, work by Sean Callenon. Thanks

952
01:04:03,080 --> 01:04:08,960
Speaker 1: to Ryan Osland, Matthew Connan, Karina Berger, Ellie Dudley, David Murray,

953
01:04:09,320 --> 01:04:14,720
Speaker 1: Dominique McDermott, Zach Sculander and all our family, friends and

954
01:04:14,920 --> 01:04:18,960
Speaker 1: colleagues who helped in this series and contributed voice acting

955
01:04:19,480 --> 01:04:25,400
Speaker 1: and special thanks to Tony Hoffman and Rob Messenger. Subscribers

956
01:04:25,440 --> 01:04:29,280
Speaker 1: to The Australian here new episodes of Sick to Death

957
01:04:29,600 --> 01:04:35,280
Speaker 1: first at Sick to deathpodcast dot com and on Apple Podcasts.

958
01:04:35,960 --> 01:04:41,160
Speaker 1: You can get exclusive access to photographs, videos, timelines and

959
01:04:41,360 --> 01:05:05,280
Speaker 1: more at the website