Amazing Australian Scandals

From time to time the shit hits the fan in Australia and a big scandal takes over the media headlines, here is a selection of a few Australian scandals over the years;

Craig Thomson's credit card

Craig Thomson was a Labor Party politician in Canberra but changed to being an independent member after he became too much of a liability when claims and allegations arose of paying hookers with the credit card his employer had issued him.
In 2008 auditors for the Health Services Union picked up suspicious credit card transactions which started years of allegations and denials, leading to Craig's arrest in February 2013. He was charged with 154 counts of fraud and released again on bail with strict conditions that he did not contact a list of escort agencies.

Dr. Death

This name has been assigned to various people over the years, first euthanasia activist Dr. Kevorkian in the US, then euthanasia activist Philip Nietske in Australia, and in 2005 to Dr. Jayant Patel, an Indian trained doctor who worked as chief surgeon at Bundaberg Hospital for several years but fled Australia in April 2005 when the ground got too hot under his feet when he started being investigated for botched surgeries where people had died, initially 13 cases but later this number rose to 87! Well, he did not actually run away, he gave a goodbye dinner party in his favourite Indian restaurant and the Bundaberg Base Hospital district manager Peter Leck bought him a one-way business class airfare to the US that cost Queensland taxpayers $3547.-!
It had started raining complaints about Dr Patel's incompetence, both from staff and patients, since May 2003, less than two months since Dr Patel started there on 1 April. Doctors and nurses that knew about Dr. Patel's performance used to hide their patients and book them in with other surgeons for fear of getting them killed through incompetence. Nurse Toni Hoffman witnessed the incompetence and blunders for two years but none of her complaints and reports, either verbal or in writing through official channels, had any result. It was only when one of her letters reached National Party MP Rob Messenger that the matter was discussed in Queensland Parliament. Next The Courier-Mail discovered that Dr Patel had been struck off and discredited in the United States for botched surgery which killed a number of patients and finally Premier Peter Beattie decided on an inquiry, headed by Tony Morris, QC. Airports and police around the world were told to be on the lookout for Dr. Patel, but he was later found in his house in Portland, Oregon, where he answered the door pretending to be his brother and praised himself as a top surgeon.
After lengthy investigations including 35,000 pages of evidence and about 350 people interviewed, health inquiry commissioner Tony Morris recommended Dr. Patel be charged with murder, manslaughter and fraud. He suggested an urgent provisional arrest be made, pending extradition. He also criticized Queensland Health for not checking history and references of overseas-trained doctors.

Genital Friday Club

In 2011 staff a a New South Wales nursing home would take photos with their mobile phone of elderly patients genitals and then others would have to guess which patient they belonged to.

Peter Reith's phone bill

Workplace Relations Minister Peter Reith had been issued with a government mobile phone and tele-card but in October 2000 it was revealed that he had passed card number and pin code on to his son who then also passed it on to a flatmate again and very soon there was a $50,000.- phone bill.
The opposition called on John Howard to sack Peter Reith which did not happen but it was reported that Peter paid the phonebill out of his own pocket rather than leave it to the taxpayer. In 2010 he also had to repay $2841 for flights taken by his wife Julie to various destinations.

Royal Prank Call

Prank calls are a popular item on some radio stations, but this one got way out of hand.
In December 2012 Michael Christian and Mel Grieg of radio station 2DayFM made a prank call to King Edward VII's Hospital in central London and convinced Saldanha they were the Queen and Prince Charles.
Despite their accents sounding like a bit of a joke nurse Jacintha Saldanha transferred them to the nurse looking after Kate Middleton, who divulged details about the Duchess’s pregnancy.
Many people had a good laugh about it but it all took a different turn when several days later Jacintha committed suicide and made reference to the prank call in her suicide note.
The shit hit the fan, the show was immediately off the air, Scotland Yard investigated, the radio station made a sizable payment to the family of the nurse, and then it all gradually disappeared from the news headlines and in February Michael Christian sneaked back into his DJ job again. Listen to the call here.

The children over-board affair

On October 7, 2001, yet another boat load of refugees had entered Australian waters and the navy intercepted them. These boats were a regular headache for the governement in those days and they were getting tougher on them. What made this arrival stand out from the others was that John Howard, under a bit of pressure to look like he was dealing with this in a tough manner just before the election, claimed that people on the boat had thrown their children overboard and he said he would not want that sort of people in Australia. The opposition claimed that the children had not been thrown overboard and John Howard was trying to score political points with this.
Just before the next elections in 2004 the scandal was recycled again and resurfaced when public servant Mike Scrafton claimed Howard had been informed very soon after his first claim that no children had been thrown overboard but that he had ignored that advice as it did not suit him.
John and Mike kept disagreeing on the event and Mike even took a lie-detector test on Channel 9 that he passed. The scandal then gradually disappeared from the media again.

The Foxtail palm affair

Foxtail palms in the remote Cape Melville region north of Cooktown

In the late 1980s the remote Cape Melville area north of Cooktown in north Queensland used to be the only place in the world where the foxtail palms grew. Some people realized the value of the seeds and every wet season they used to go up there to raid the palms and strip them of their seeds to smuggle to the States at a healthy profit.
Usually national park rangers back away from heavy shit like this but Pat Shears, being a Vietnam vet, decided to enforce the law. He found barricades to a closed off section to the park knocked down and when he went to investigate he found a camp with several vehicles with guns and chainsaws. In his ususal style, barefoot, rifle at the ready, by himself and without a sound, he snuck into the camp and drove away in one of their vehicles that he impounded and delivered to Cooktown police station.
This was a job well done but when they traced the rego plate the shit hit the fan!
The vehicle belonged to the brother of the secretary of the Queenland Premier! Several high ranking government officials became involved in the situation and attempted cover things up.
Pat was sacked, received death threats, and a huge CJC inquiry was launched. In the end none of the people involved were charged and Pat had to wait for a change of government to work for National Parks again! Meanwhile Four Corners TV show and many newspapers did his story, and he became the first man in Cape Tribulation to feature in Penthouse Magazine! ( With his clothes on)

Police man holds shares in speed camera company

In October 2004 it was revealed the New South Wales Traffic Services Commander had held shares in Redflex Holdings, a speed camera company, which holds major contracts with the Roads and Traffic Authority.

The Winegate affair

Indigenous Affairs Minister Liddy Clark made a trip on a government jet to the alcohol-restricted Aboriginal community at Lockhart River in Cape York in February 2004 but while the plane was on the tarmac there, a bottle of red wine was discovered on board by Lockhart River airport manager John Hardaker.
Government media adviser to Liddy Clark Teresa Mullan had brought it along and was sacked but later reinstated by Premier Peter Beattie. After lengthy investigations by The Crime and Misconduct Commission and countless taxpayers dollars wasted nobody was charged as the tarmac of the airport was considered not a public place under liquor legislation. The airport was later renamed Iron Range Airport, to shake off its Winegate stigma.
Tourists have also been fined thousands of dollars for having alcohol with them on their holidays driving through these areas, if you head this way ring 1300 789 000 for up to date info on restricted areas.

The Wheat Scandal

Early 2006 a scandal hit the news headlines that is still being unraveled today with the Cole inquiry.
W hile Iraq was under United Nations sanctions and only trade through the "Oil For Food" program was allowed, the Australian Wheat Board used to deliberately inflate wheat prices to pay Saddam Hussein illegal kickbacks that amounted to no less than A$300 million!!! This was discovered when a UN report into the now notorious Oil For Food program revealed that AWB was the largest single supplier of illicit funds to the Iraq regime!
So far the Cole inquiry has claimed one scalp; the AWB's managing director Andrew Lindberg has admitted the company deceived the UN and resigned from his $800,000 a year job, but he claimed he had learned about the inflated prices only after they occurred. The inquiry is now starting to look at what the Howard government knew about this, even though they keep saying they knew nothing.
Some people claimed Foreign Minister Alexander Downer and the Howard government knew about this all along and Kevin Rudd said the federal Government had already been informed about payments to Saddam back in 2000. Others claimed that the plans for the illicit payments were already hatched before the AWB became independent and was still under control of the Howard government.
The inquiry discovered an AWB plan to pay more than $US2 million to a man who was the Six of Hearts card in the Most Wanted Iraqis pack of cards, most payments were made to Jordanian trucking company Alia which was owned by Saddam. These payments were then added to the price of the wheat shipments from Australia, and presented to the UN who then approved them.
During the inquiry Mr Lindberg was asked a dozen times whether he had deliberately deceived the UN by inflating the wheat price by U$12.- a tonne and continuously denied, until he finally admitted and said that they had no other option because the Iraqi trade minister Mohammed Medhi Saleh had told them to pay up or he would not allow Australian wheat to be unloaded that had already arrived at the port of Umm Qasr.
It was then decided to pay up and recover the cost by inflating future shipments.

So while Australian soldiers were busy preparing to go to war in Iraq at great taxpayer's expense the Australian Wheat Board was busy propping up Saddam's bank account to the tune of A$300 million!!
AWB share holders were not happy with all this as the value of their shares dropped by at least 30% and took AWB to court in a class action, and around February 2010 the issue was settled for nearly $40 million.

The Governor General Peter Hollingworth

Just over two centuries later Australia legally left the Empire in 1986 with the passing of the Australia Acts .
The Australia Act 1986 declared Australia to have the status of a Sovereign Independant and Federal Nation. The Act also terminated all British legal jurisdiction over Australia, though officially the Queen is still the head of state and she has a representative in Australia called the Governor General who is officially the most powerful person in Australia. In reality G-Gs stick to drinking expensive champagne at public functions and do not really mingle in affairs and many Australians do not even know that they do have a G-G, let alone know his name. One G-G that Australians did know by name in 2003 was Peter Hollingworth who was forced to step aside in May 2003 after a church-initiated child sex abuse inquiry found he permitted a disgraced priest to stay on when he was still Archbishop of Brisbane. Even though he served Australians for less than two years in the vice-regal role Mr Hollingworth is entitled to an annual pension of $184,000 and he has already moved himself into a plush office in Melbourne's 101 Collins St building with an estimated rental of $100,000 a year and the bill for a staff member to run Mr Hollingworth's affairs adds another $74,821.
Australian taxpayers are forking out up to $4.9 million in pensions and entitlements for the growing club of retired Governor-Generals. Every state in Australia also has its own Governor, which does the same as the Governor General. One of the most expensive was Tasmania's Richard Butler, see below. Many Australians would like to see the country break ties with Britain completely and become a republic, but at the last referendum held in 1998 it was decided by a small margin to maintain the status quo.

The Governor of Tasmania

As chairman of UN Special Commission on Iraqi Disarmament from1997 till 1999 Richard Butler unsuccesfully tried to find Iraq's nuclear weapons, and became world famous by having his name and face on TV all over the world every night to tell us that they had found nothing today but maybe tomorrow. A few years later Tasmania's premier Jim Bacon thought he had a good idea by appointing Richard Butler with his high profile name as the Governor of Tasmania to help in the island's econcomic recovery. Richard was given a $370,000 a year salary and free accommodation in a $12 million dollar castle but his performance and rising tensions between him and his staff led to the termination of his appointment. By this time Paul Lennon was premier of Tasmania and for reasons still unclear and to everyone's outrage he gave Richard a 'golden handshake' of $650,000 on termination of his tenure, even though he had received legal advice that Richard was not entitled to this payout. People all over the country were outraged that he was payed two years pay for only ten months of work, of which he had been absent for several months anyway. After Richard's departure several senior staff memners who had previously walked out tried to get their jobs back. The Department of Foreign Affairs also investigated Richard for something dating back to the time when he was an ambassador in Europe; two years late he had submitted a year's worth of "expenses to be re-imbursed" with receipts with consecutive numbers and all with the same date from a single receipt book! Even more amazing was that the investigation concluded that it was all OK! How would you rate your chances submitting something like this in your taxreturn?

The Home Insulation Fiasco

In 2009 the Australian Government allocated $2.4 billion to subsidize the installation of foil insulation in tens of thousands of houses and ex-Midnight Oil Singer Peter Garrett, who was now Environnment Minister, was overseeing the whole project.
He was warned several times of dodgy operators and that the metal foil exterior of the insulation batts that were lying on ceilings meant that if there was any damage to house wiring then the whole ceiling became electrified, but the money kept rolling and installers kept installing.

By February 2010 the shit hit the fan and Peter was demoted by PM Kevin Rudd. The whole scheme had by now proven to be a total WOFTAM with four installers electrocuted and dead, a spate of house fires, and many scams by dodgy and fraudulent installation companies that had come out of nowhere when suddenly there was copious amounts of money to be handed out. The Government then had to foot the bill to inspect and rectify around 40 000 houses.

The Qantas Mile-High scandal

Early 2007 Actor Ralph Fiennes flew from Darwin to Mumbai with Qantas in first class. All was well on board until he was seen exiting the toilet cubicle together with Qantas hostess Lisa Robertson.
Thinking they had joined the Mile-High Club, the other crew informed Qantas management, the media got hold of it and the shit hit the fan. (Hostesses are supposed to provide good service in first class, but not quite that good).
Interestingly enough they came up with two very different excuses, Lisa said she had gone to the toilet and then Ralph had followed her in to the cubicle and tried to get it on with her, while Ralph reckoned he had gone there to do his own business and the horny hostie had followed him in and forced herself upon him.
The instantly world famous trolly dolly then started using her "mile high" claim to fame to promote Sydney bordello The Site, although her job description read" promotions and marketing" she was reported to be accepting appointments with customers too.
This was not a career change for her as she had already worked in the Pelican Club in Auckland making around two grand a night when she could not get by on her $NZ29,000 Qantas salary.

The following year there was another rumour that hit the media about two male flight attendants allegedly getting a bit naughty in the galley with a young female passenger, Qantas went on the defensive again suspending the two men while investigations were carried out whether this was all true or not.
We are not sure why Qantas is so possessed with their puritan image, their opposition Richard Branson of Virgin Airlines uses slogans like "Hello gorgeous", "Love at first flight", "You never forget your first time",
"More experience than the name suggests", and "Extra inches where it counts".
Richard was also more than happy during an interview to enlighten the world on himself joining the mile-high club at the age of 19 on a Freddie Laker flight heading to Los Angeles and he still remembered that when they were finished there were four handprints on the mirror which he wiped off as a courtesy to the next passenger. He complained about the problem of plane loos being very small, and that the acrobatics can't take too long because there's no room and people start banging on the door. Despite his experiences the toilets on the Virgin planes nowadays are still just as small as any other airline.
One of our readers sent us a handy guide to joining the mile-high club, click here to view the inflight sex guide.
A survey by online travel company ZUJI.com.au found that seven per cent of men surveyed have joined the exclusive Mile-High club and only one per cent of women saying they had, but 48 per cent of men and 26 per cent of women said they had fantasised about joining the mile-high club.

Have you heard of, or been involved in, a good scandal? Then tell us!

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