Wayne Bennett was to be witness at Ken Talbot corruption trial

Legendary supercoach Wayne Bennett, who Ken Talbot referred to as “God”, has revealed he was to be a star defence witness at the Queensland coal king’s funeral.

Supercoach Wayne Bennett has revealed he was to be a star defence witness in the corruption trial of Queensland coal king Ken Talbot – declaring “it would have been hard to disbelieve me”.

The legendary rugby league figure – who Talbot referred to as “God” and gifted $1 million – has also told of the anger he felt towards Labor politicians assembled at the billionaire’s funeral – thinking “f--- you and your politics” and telling them “I hope you realise you’ve lost a great man today”.

Bennett’s key role in the mining baron’s plan to clear his name has been detailed in a new biography of Talbot, Rum and Coal, which reveals notes he made in preparation for his trial and his reflections on his extraordinary rise from truckie’s son to one of Queensland’s richest and most powerful men.

And for the first time, it shows the haunting final photo of the down-to-earth business baron smiling aboard the plane in which he and 10 others tragically perished, taken from a roll of film retrieved from the crash site.

Ken Talbot (centre) pictured before his death.

Talbot, 59, died in June 2010, when a light plane he was flying on to visit an iron ore mine in the Congo crashed into thick jungle, killing all 11 people on board.

The tragedy came just months before he was to stand trial in Brisbane charged with making $300,000 in corrupt payments to disgraced Beattie Government minister Gordon Nuttall.

Nuttall was sentenced to seven years’ jail in 2009 after being found guilty of corruptly receiving payments from Talbot, who founded Macarthur Coal and also owned a string of southeast Queensland pubs through his Talbot Group.

MASTER AND MINER

Talbot was a Broncos tragic – he had a corporate box at Suncorp Stadium was part of The Thoroughbreds group of businessmen who supported the club and mentored players – and became close friends with Bennett.

Talbot, Rum and Coal says, kept a photo of the Broncos players and Bennett in his bar and would point to the coach and say: “That’s God.”

It also reveals how Bennett was earmarked as the key witness for the defence at Talbot’s trial.

He planned to give crucial evidence about Talbot’s incredible generosity to people from all walks of life to counter the prosecution case that the businessman had tried to bribe Nuttall – rather than lend him money to help his children buy their own homes, as the defence contended.

As well as the $1 million super gift for the care of Bennett’s two disabled children, Talbot also had his private jet modified to accommodate Bennett’s daughter’s wheelchair.

Ken Talbot was a keen Broncos supporter.

“I would have been one of the prime witnesses (at Talbot’s trial), I have no doubt, and I told him that I’d be happy to go through it,” Bennett tells.

“It would have been hard to disbelieve me, because I believed it myself and I knew I would be a very credible witness for him.”

Bennett said he rang Talbot straight away “when the Gordon Nuttall thing (first) blew up” and asked him if he had made the payments to Nuttall as bribes.

When Talbot said no, Bennett responded: “That’s all I wanted to hear from you. ’Cos if that’s not the way it was meant, then I believe you, mate.”

Bennett says: “He never told me a lie.”

Ken Talbot with Dave Taylor during a visit to Red Hill for Broncos training.

The book reveals details of the ill-fated June 2002 meeting Talbot had with Nuttall in the offices of Macarthur Coal where the minister hit him up for cash to “help set up his children” with their own homes.

The pair had become friends after burying the hatchet 11 months earlier over a “vile spray” then-opposition MP Nuttall had given Talbot in state parliament in 1998 in which he described the businessman as “shady” with a “tarnished reputation”.

“He was man enough to apologise to me,” Talbot noted in a 500-page statement for his legal defence.

“He wanted to right that wrong (of the speech), and that impressed me enormously. He wanted to be mates. His profound apology – along with several rum and cokes – went a long way to fast tracking that process.”

Wayne Bennett attends Ken Talbot’s funeral in Brisbane in July 2010.

Talbot, described in the book by friends as somewhat naive and a “soft touch”, agreed to loan Nuttall $100,000, which ballooned to $300,000 in monthly instalments and led to both of them being criminally charged.

In his legal statement, Talbot insisted there were no sinister motives for what was a “mates loan”.

“I was not dealing with Gordon the Minister, I was dealing with a guy I had got to know and like, a father who needed a hand to set his children up,” he wrote.

“He was from a State School background like me, very much self-made, hardworking and an espouser of the importance of family. He had no real airs or graces, he was a knockabout person, fun and likeable. In short, he just seemed like a good bloke to me. I certainly liked him, and of that there can be no doubt.”

While Talbot and those around him were confident he would be acquitted, Amanda admits she was “very worried” he might be found guilty and go to jail.

“I thought about it all the time, but never let on to Ken I was worried because then he would worry that I was worried,” she says.

“I wanted to be strong for him and be positive that all would be well in the end.”

Bennett says he is convinced Talbot would have beaten the charges even without his help as a character witness, and told defence barrister Martin Burns as the trial loomed: “Mate, put him in front of 12 jurors. You’ve got to put him in the box, because they will see an honest guy. They won’t have seen a more decent person. He’ll win the case on his own.”

A handcuffed Gordon Nuttall in the back of a police van after being jailed for seven years. Picture: Channel 7

In an emotional foreword to the book, Bennett writes that Talbot’s “greatest traits were his kindness, generosity, and care for people”.

“To me, he was such an Australian. He was down to earth and there was no bullshit about him,” he says.

“It didn’t matter who you were or what company you were in; he treated everyone the same, regardless of their position.

“He always had a kind word and time for people, and he was always very loyal to his mates.”

Bennett recounts how, in 2008 when he quit the Broncos after 21 years as foundation coach, he confided in Talbot.

“I’d told him things were over at the Broncos, and I wasn’t sure what would happen next,” Bennet recalls.

“It was then that Ken asked me a very unusual question: ‘What team would you like to coach? You tell me, and I will go and buy that football team for you.”

Bennett says he immediately declined the offer, telling Talbot that “you couldn’t do things like that in rugby league”.

“He kept on about it, but I explained that the game just didn’t work that way,” he says.

Talbot told him: “Well, I am here for you,” he said. “And if that included me buying a team, I would.”

NOTES FROM BEYOND GRAVE

Talbot’s hundreds of pages of hand-signed diary notes made before his death reveal his deep frustration and heartache at being charged over the Nuttall saga.

He accused the Crime and Misconduct Commission (now the Crime and Corruption Commission) and Director of Public Prosecutions of “playing God, judge and jury” in pursuit of “a pot of gold”.

“What happened, these people saw that a Minister was on one side of the transaction and I, being an easy target, was on the other side of the transaction,” he wrote.

“These people thought there must be a pot of gold. What an error in judgment. Where is their accountability? CMC & DPP now playing God, judge & jury.”

Talbot wrote that he accepted responsibility for his actions and “I am not here to blame anyone or anything”.

The Ken Talbot biography Rum & Coal is out now.

“But it is the first time I have got into trouble for helping someone,” he wrote.

“You are taught from your early years to tell the truth and everything will be okay.

“It is the first time that this basic, right-from-wrong, handed-down generationally, concept has not prevailed for me. I felt used by this system and its people.”

Talbot also agonised about “the flow-on effects to family and friends”.

“The other significant influence is how do I ultimately get acquitted?,” he wrote.

“How do I clear my name? How do I restore any damage to my reputation and to the brand name of my company: Talbot Group Holdings Pty Ltd.”

In a passage for the book, former premier Peter Beattie writes: “Ken Talbot was one of Queensland’s most successful businessmen in an era where hard work and business innovation were valued.”

Ken Talbot pictured at dinner with his fellow travellers before his death.

Ken Talbot in the lobby of his hotel the morning of the plane crash.

“I found him decent and honest and was saddened by his unexpected death in the plane crash in Africa,” Beattie says.

“I was also saddened that he was badly advised in lending Gordon Nuttall money. I have no doubt that he was misled by Nuttall and paid a heavy price as a result.”

Talbot wrote in his diaries that he “would like to avoid retirement, to keep relevant, to avoid a ‘use-by date’”.

“I wish to work to at least 80 years old, then I will reassess on a three-year or maybe a five-year basis,” he wrote.

He never got the chance.

Rum and Coal reveals tragic last photos of him and his fellow travellers enjoying their last dinner together, in a hotel lobby in Cameroon on the morning of the disaster and finally aboard the charter plane just before the fateful flight took off.

Ken Talbot and his son Liam. Picture Instagram @liamtalbotracing

A bitter battle over Talbot’s original $1.1 billion estate, including a $300 million charitable foundation, has raged since his death, with ugly family feuds and ongoing court cases.

“The vultures swooped in and none of the family were prepared for those types of people,” Amanda Talbot says in the book.

The eldest of Talbot’s four children, Liam, 41, says: “We still haven’t finished the grieving process.”

Ken Talbot in 2010 with wife Amanda and daughters Claudia and Alex.

“Because of the business stuff, it’s still a bit raw for me, I don’t know if the others feel the same,” he says.

“I still can’t think of my father as my father, it’s all facts and figures. It’s hard to finish grieving when all of this is still taking place.”

Amanda adds: “Ken had so many big dreams and it just came to this grinding halt. He had such big plans for the future and what he wanted to do, and it was smashed to smithereens on the floor of an African jungle.”

THE PATRON SAINT OF BUNDABERG RUM

When the makers of Bundaberg Rum dared to change the formula of Ken Talbot’s favourite drop, he bought up every remaining bottle of his beloved Bundy Black he could lay his hands on.

Forced to drink Havana Club rum in his luxury villa on the shores of Lake Como in Italy where he loved to holiday, Talbot noted in his diary: “The rum you drink when a Bundy is not available.”

When his daughter Courtney suggested naming their new boat Spirit of Bulimba, Talbot put a big picture of a rum bottle on the side.

“I’m not sure that was the spirit in question, but OK,” she told him.

An entire chapter in Talbot’s new biography, Rum & Coal, is devoted to his passion for the iconic Queensland spirit. It’s simply called “Rum”.

“If Bundaberg Rum and Coke had a patron saint, it would be Ken Talbot,” writes biographer Chris Wright.

“Despite his reputation, Ken wasn’t actually that big a drinker. His game was much more about making sure everyone else’s glass was full, and watching the mayhem unfold.”

Ken Talbot and his guests once downed a record 230 rum and cokes at his corporate box at Ballymore.

The book is laced with rum-soaked anecdotes – like the time Talbot and his guests downed a record 230 rum and Cokes in his corporate box while watching a rugby union game at Ballymore. Or the morning when the Macarthur Coal boss bumped into a new colleague in the Queen St Mall and invited him into a coffee shop – for a rum and Coke.

“He told me that rum was his solution to all his complex business problems,” says Wally Towner, a friend from Talbot’s Harvard University days. “He’d get everybody loaded and then they’d agree to anything.”

Another Harvard mate, Richard Thoburn, says Talbot used rum “as a catalyst for reinforcing old friendships, making new ones and having fun”.

“It’s no surprise that when I heard that Ken’s plane had gone missing, Courtney suggested I have a rum and Coke and pray that he was OK,” Thoburn says.

When Courtney later told Thoburn that the plane had been found with no survivors, she asked him to drink one for her dad.

The Ken Talbot biography Rum & Coal is out now.