The Iraq War, 9/11 and John Howard’s prime ministership were among the most pivotal news events of the early 2000’s.
During the same period, Australia had its biggest corruption scandal. Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein was paid kickbacks for lucrative Australian wheat contracts.
Investigative reporter Richard Baker launches a major new LiSTNR podcast, Secrets We Keep: Baghdad Nights, diving deep into the scandal, offering new revelations and focusing on the humanity of the people caught up in it.
Listen to the first episode of LiSTNR’s brand-new investigative podcast ‘Secrets We Keep: Baghdad Nights’:
AWB Limited is a major grain marketing organisation based in Australia. It was founded in the 1930s to regulate the wheat market after the Great Depression.
In 2006, an Inquiry found that AWB had misappropriated $300 million to President Hussein for his regime in Iraq. In dollar terms, it was the biggest corruption of its kind in the nation’s history.
Baker reflects on how Australia’s politics and media can fail to capture the nuance of a major scandal/
“I got this photo of Trevor Fluggie shirtless, sweaty, a chain around his neck and he’s reclining on this seat in a hotel room in Baghdad. Pointing a revolver at the camera. And the way I wrote that up and the timing of it, it kind of summed what everyone was perceiving. As a cowboy kind of culture there where, you know, do whatever it takes to get a deal. And it changed Trevor’s life forever,” Baker said.
Baker joined The Briefing host Bension Siebert to discuss the lessons he’s learned getting to know the real people involved.
“We might learn more about what’s it like to be the poster child for the biggest scandal ever in Australian corporate history and… only 18 months earlier, you’d been a trusted insider.”
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