{"id":475,"date":"2024-08-07T03:37:55","date_gmt":"2024-08-07T03:37:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.radioindustrynews.com.au\/?p=475"},"modified":"2024-08-07T03:37:55","modified_gmt":"2024-08-07T03:37:55","slug":"australias-biggest-corruption-scandal-is-under-the-spotlight-for-a-new-series-of-listnrs-award-winning-podcast-secrets-we-keep","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/radioindustrynews.com.au\/index.php\/2024\/08\/07\/australias-biggest-corruption-scandal-is-under-the-spotlight-for-a-new-series-of-listnrs-award-winning-podcast-secrets-we-keep\/","title":{"rendered":"AUSTRALIA\u2019S BIGGEST CORRUPTION SCANDAL IS UNDER THE SPOTLIGHT FOR A NEW SERIES OF LiSTNR\u2019S AWARD-WINNING PODCAST, SECRETS WE KEEP"},"content":{"rendered":"

– How Australia funded a dictator, told by the men on the inside –<\/strong><\/p>\n

LiSTNR has today released the third series of\u00a0Secrets We Keep<\/em><\/strong>, an exploration of Australia\u2019s biggest corruption scandal when a trusted Australian company funnelled hundreds of millions of dollars to dictator\u00a0Saddam Hussein in the lead-up to the Iraq War.<\/p>\n

Secrets We Keep: Baghdad Nights<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0follows multi-award-winning journalist\u00a0Richard Baker<\/strong>\u00a0and his investigation into Australia\u2019s biggest-ever international trade scandal, told by the men on the inside. Listeners will hear a thrilling and personal account of how Australia conducts its dirty business in far-flung places and who pays the price when scandal erupts. The audience is taken into war zones, secret meetings, and the offices of the country\u2019s most powerful people, whilst hearing what it is like to have the nation\u2019s media bearing down.<\/p>\n

The scandal, which unfolded in the early 2000s, revealed a complex web of corruption and deceit involving the United Nations’ oil-for-food program in Iraq. At the heart of the scandal was the Australian Wheat Board (AWB), a corporation responsible for selling Australia\u2019s wheat crop to the world. AWB, once a pillar of the Australian agricultural industry, was implicated in a scheme to funnel $300 million to the regime of Saddam Hussein, which Australia and its allies ultimately declared war on.<\/p>\n

The key players from AWB implicated in the scandal, are integral voices in the series. The trio, including former AWB Chairman\u00a0Trevor Flugge<\/strong>, have never spoken about their work in Iraq nor what it was like to go from being trusted government insiders to the poster boys of a national scandal.<\/p>\n

Richard Baker said: \u201cSecrets We Keep: Baghdad Nights<\/em>\u00a0takes you behind the scenes of how Australia conducts itself on the world stage – in making money and making war. It\u2019s about how our country deals with scandal, who is held to account and who gets away with it.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn telling this story I\u2019m hoping it will cause people to think about how quickly we leap to judgement to declare someone as good or evil. This especially applies to people like me in the media. The truth is there\u2019s always more to the story.<\/p>\n

\u201cStories like this matter. They matter because what Australian governments and companies get up to overseas, whatever\u2019s done, it\u2019s in all our names\u201d.<\/p>\n

LiSTNR Head of Factual, Clair Weaver, said: \u201cOnce again, the LiSTNR Factual team has resurfaced an important Australian story that impacted the fabric of Australia. The far-reaching consequences of the AWB scandal extended beyond financial loss and reputational damage. It eroded public trust in corporate governance and highlighted the urgent need for robust anti-corruption measures.<\/p>\n

\u201cRichard\u2019s investigations and discoveries are a stark reminder of the importance of ethical conduct and transparency in business. It underscores the need for vigilant oversight and accountability to prevent such breaches of trust from recurring.\u201d<\/p>\n

About LiSTNR:<\/strong><\/p>\n

LiSTNR is a curated and personalised, free app offering radio, podcasts, music, and news, creating a new audio destination for all Australians. Featuring a fun and intuitive onboarding process, LiSTNR delivers an audio destination that is built for individual listeners\u2019 routines and preferences. Highly personalised, it provides listeners a new world of audio entertainment, with their own daily feed of audio and easy discovery of new content through curated recommendations. Available across a large array of devices including both iOS and Android, CarPlay and Android Auto, Google Assistant and Alexa and Android TV, LiSTNR enables a fantastic listening experience, anytime and anywhere. Open your Ears to a new world of audio \u2013 download the free app today.\u00a0LiSTNR.com<\/a><\/p>\n

About Richard Baker:<\/strong><\/p>\n

Multi-award-winning journalist Richard Baker has partnered with LiSTNR\u2019s in-house Factual team to develop new original investigative documentary series, continuing his reputation for compelling, narrative content.<\/p>\n

A long-time\u00a0The<\/em>\u00a0Age<\/em>\u00a0and\u00a0Sydney Morning Herald<\/em>\u00a0journalist, in recent years Baker has become renowned for his critically acclaimed podcast series, including\u00a0Phoebe\u2019s Fall<\/em>,\u00a0Wrong Skin<\/em>,\u00a0The Last Voyage of the Pong Su<\/em>\u00a0and\u00a0The Confession<\/em>, which sat at number one on the Australian and NZ podcast charts for several weeks in late 2022.<\/p>\n

Baker\u2019s podcasts have garnered worldwide audiences, along with accolades at the New York Festivals, the Kennedy journalism awards and the Melbourne Press Club. Baker has won five Walkley Awards, Australia\u2019s most prestigious journalism honour.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

– How Australia funded a dictator, told by the men on the inside – LiSTNR has today released the third series of\u00a0Secrets We Keep, an exploration of Australia\u2019s biggest corruption scandal when a trusted Australian company funnelled hundreds of millions of dollars to dictator\u00a0Saddam Hussein in the lead-up to the Iraq War. Secrets We Keep: … Continue reading “AUSTRALIA\u2019S BIGGEST CORRUPTION SCANDAL IS UNDER THE SPOTLIGHT FOR A NEW SERIES OF LiSTNR\u2019S AWARD-WINNING PODCAST, SECRETS WE KEEP”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-475","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-australian"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/radioindustrynews.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/475","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/radioindustrynews.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/radioindustrynews.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/radioindustrynews.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/radioindustrynews.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=475"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/radioindustrynews.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/475\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/radioindustrynews.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=475"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/radioindustrynews.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=475"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/radioindustrynews.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=475"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}