If you don’t look, you can’t see: Inside the world of the protected and powerful

It is surprisingly easy to corrupt someone.

The art of the bribe is, at least initially, to make it appear like a gift. Then you must persuade the willing target no harm will be done in the process.

Offer an envelope of cash and the bribed has to accept they are crooked.

Give them free accommodation at your holiday house (“no one is using it, you’ll be doing me a favour”), or best seats at an expensive show (“given to me by the promoter and I can’t use them”), and the gradient is gentle before the slope turns slippery.

It has always surprised me how many people can be owned for the price of a cheap suit.

This is a story of corruption that has many faces, and of power that can be used to expose or conceal it.

For police, there is noble-cause corruption where cops fabricate evidence to strengthen cases against those they believe have committed crimes.

Then there is stealing money from crime scenes using the self-serving logic that crooks would use it to fund their legal defence. There are also those who turn gangster, selling out investigations, soliciting bribes for protection and organising crimes themselves.

This is, of course, conducted in secret to avoid exposure, prosecution and jail.

There is another kind. Those who are so powerful they believe they are untouchable. If anyone dares look, they just stare them down because they know the ugly truth. If you don’t look, you can’t see.

There can be no greater example than the rich, entitled and vile Jeffrey Epstein.

The New York Times wrote of the Epstein files: “The pages tell a story of a heinous criminal given a free ride by the ruling class in which he dwelled, all because he had things to offer them: money, connections, sumptuous dinner parties, a private plane, a secluded island and, in some cases, sex.”

Epstein’s history was there to see. Even though he was convicted of child sex crimes in 2008, it didn’t stop the rich, ruthless and randy beating a path to his tropical getaway, known by locals as Paedophile Island.

There is another man with a tainted reputation. His sphere of influence covers three continents, and when he picks up the phone to world leaders, they will answer. He should be investigated by police, but he’s not, and he won’t be.

If you don’t look, you can’t see.

The bribes, deals and backhanders to the tainted CFMEU that has cost taxpayers billions was an open secret for years. Now those in authority appear shocked at what is in front of their faces.

A series of exposés in this newspaper showed the misconduct of the security firm MA Services – a company that had a number of government contracts.

Multiple times, executives from legitimate security companies told government officials MA could not provide the services at the quoted price without cheating. One even put an undercover agent into MA who reported he would be paid cash off the books at a reduced rate.

Hacking scandal

The media often plays a role in standing up to those who believe they are untouchable, but what happens when the media is part of the problem?

In the UK, some Murdoch mastheads hacked voicemails, bribed police and royal officials, while destroying the lives of their enemies.

Senior police and politicians, including prime ministers, were frightened of them. Multiple editors and executives covered up their crimes and tried to stare down their critics.

The Guardian newspaper stared back and Murdoch closed his lucrative Sunday News of the World, settling hundreds of legal claims with none going to court.

A subsequent inquiry was critical of the police assistant commissioner and the director of public prosecutions involved in the case.

The policeman, John Yates, was on the shortlist to become Victoria’s chief commissioner, and the DPP, Keir Starmer, is now prime minister.

In the United States, the right-wing media cheerleads a president who lies for practice and starts war without consultation with the allies he demeans.

While the left wing failed to reveal that his predecessor, the elderly Joe Biden, was no longer mentally fit for the most powerful office in the world.

Airbrushed from history

Then there is the case of “George Weaver”.

Weaver is a member of a powerful Melbourne family, but you can’t look him up because that is not his real name.

He is a convicted child sex offender, whose identity has been protected because he was, the court was told, a suicide risk.

In a powerful suppression order, any details that could identify him, including the suburb where he was raised, his number of siblings, and the suburb of the community corrections centre he had to attend as part of his sentence, has been removed.

Despite the judge describing his offending as “disgusting, reprehensible and, frankly, deeply disturbing”, he has been airbrushed from history.

Power unplugged

Power can only protect you as long as you have it. For decades, Sydney radio broadcaster Alan Jones used the airwaves as a political weapon.

State and federal ministers queued up to be lectured or lauded on his program.

And while there were questions about his private life, few would utter them out loud.

One exception was standover-man-turned-author Mark Brandon “Chopper” Read who, when invited as a guest on the Midday Show for the Jones treatment, decided to get in first.

He returned Jones’ serve by pointing to the broadcaster’s London arrest (he was later released). Jones responded by imitating a goldfish, his mouth opening and shutting without words.

It was only after Jones retired and was no longer powerful that he was charged. He is now facing multiple counts of sexual assaults against nine alleged victims. He maintains his innocence.

Hollywood knew film producer Harvey Weinstein was a serial rapist. While his movies made money, his victims were paid off. When they didn’t, he was sentenced to 16 years.

Above the law

There are people who simply believe they are above the law. There is a man who was charged with murdering his wife. He increased her insurance, befriended a hitman, and was having an affair. To the shock of this reporter, the defence and prosecution, he was acquitted.

Despite the allegations, he was accepted back into polite company and cosy clubs.

Recently, he applied for $50,000 (five times the amount he was alleged to have paid the hitman and decades after the death) in victim’s compensation for the loss of his wife. It was refused. He protests his innocence. So did Stalin.

The inside running for the privileged is nothing new.

In the 1960s, the second most powerful politician in Victoria was Sir Arthur Rylah.

In March 1969, his wife, Lady Ann Rylah, was found in the back garden of their Kew home suffering a head wound. She died without regaining consciousness.

A witness at the post-mortem, held on a Saturday night, told me the pathologist was so drunk he was held up by homicide detectives who persuaded him to find there were no suspicious circumstances.

The case was closed less than 48 hours after the death.

The most powerful politician of the time was premier Sir Henry Bolte. By 1984, he was retired but still had plenty of mates. After a pub session and a major collision, Bolte’s blood sample was sabotaged and there was no case.

Long before Bob Hawke became prime minister, he unwisely accepted an invitation to step outside the Police Club to engage in fisticuffs with an enraged detective. Hawke was knocked out, and the case covered up. He was so confident it wouldn’t leak, he successfully sued a newspaper for hinting at the episode.

As a child, I had my first brush with power and who holds it.

After my mother died, my ex-Royal Navy father would distract himself working as the unpaid engineer on a luxury cruiser owned by a self-made millionaire.

Too young at 12 to be left alone, I would tag along, leaving our East Preston housing commission home to park the EH Holden among the Bentleys and Lincolns.

One day, out on Port Phillip Bay, the owner’s two sons, who lived with their mother, were horsing around and could have fallen overboard. Perhaps too sternly, I suggested they back off.

They (naturally) told their dad, a generous man, who later gave me access to a sailing dinghy to learn marine craft. He also had a short temper and a blunt turn of phrase.

He told me to shut up or f--- off. I chose the latter and when we moored at Sandringham, I disembarked, hoping to find a train station.

The millionaire ran after me (no mean feat as he smoked 100 cigarettes a day) and apologised. I was stunned and impressed that he saw the error of his ways and was humble enough to admit he had crossed the line.

Back on board, the navigator quietly told me my father had gathered the spark plugs from the twin inboard Chrysler motors and held them over the stern suggesting no one was going anywhere until his son received an apology and an invitation to reboard.

Sometimes it takes just a little spark to restore justice.

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