05 | Bondy | A castle built on sand

Bondy’s been secretly, and illegally, stashing away money that isn’t his to keep as his empire crumbles, and while Alan Bond’s beating away the creditors trying to bankrupt him, he’s also building a back-up plan. As decades of dirty deals and backroom manoeuvres begin to surface Bondy isn’t just being chased for the billions he owes, criminal investigators are also on his tail and this time he has nowhere to run. This is episode 5 of a 6-part history podcast series from ABC Rewind for Radio National and the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.

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• 0:39Speaker 03

  It's February 1989 and journalist Paul Barry is standing out the front of a rundown office building, not in Perth, not in Sydney, but on Rarotonga in the Cook Islands, a tiny island in the middle of the South Pacific. Paul's been trying to get to the bottom of Alan Bond's complicated business structure for years, and according to his latest intel, this one-storey building, it's the epicentre of Bondi's empire.

• 1:11Speaker 04

  Bond published his accounts and had made $400 million profit, and almost all of it was in the Cook Islands. And I thought, Cook Islands? What are they doing in the Cook Islands? There's no Bond office there, there's no Bond employees there, you can't buy Bond beer there. What the F do they do in the Cook Islands?

• 1:30Speaker 03

  Indeed, it's one of the five Ws of journalism. Who, when, where, why, and what the F do they do? Paul walks up to the front door of the office, if you could call it that. It's basically a small house. He opens the door only to find a pretty basic setup, a few fax machines, some typewriters, and a handful of people just standing around. Paul's there reporting for Four Corners, and he wants to talk to the man in charge.

• 2:01Speaker 04

  Wearing white pants and white shoes and a blue Hawaiian shirt and an embarrassed grin, he could not answer a single question.

• 2:11Speaker 05

  How does Bond make his profits here?

• 2:14Speaker 06

  Well, I don't think I can answer that question for you.

• 2:17Speaker 05

  But how broadly? I mean, $250 million in an island with 9,000 people, where Bond Corporation isn't even present. I mean, it seems bizarre.

• 2:28Speaker 06

  I don't think I'm in a position to discuss that with you either.

• 2:32Speaker 05

  But what do these companies do? These companies that make all this profit?

• 2:36Speaker 06

  Well, I don't propose to answer that question.

• 2:39Speaker 05

  Has Alan Bond never been to the Cook Islands?

• 2:42Speaker 06

  Not to my knowledge, not, not him personally.

• 2:44Speaker 04

  He was such a train wreck, and that kind of told you everything you knew.

• 2:49Speaker 03

  But even if Paul had kept asking this guy what the F they do, he was never going to get an answer.

• 2:56Speaker 04

  The Cook Islands made it an offence to reveal any information about companies that were there. You couldn't search the register to find out whether they existed. You certainly couldn't find out any details about them.

• 3:06Speaker 03

  The Cook Islands are a financial black hole. Their secrecy laws are a dodgy businessman's wet dream.

• 3:14Speaker 05

  The Cook Islands have been growing in importance as a tax haven. Foreign companies that do business here pay no tax of any sort on their profits. And there are now some 1,500 companies set up here to avoid paying tax elsewhere. Foremost among their owners is Australia's pride and joy, our very own Bond Group.

• 3:34Speaker 03

  And to think we made him Australian of the year.

• 3:39Speaker 03

  Most of Bondi's business deals are run through offshore tax havens, not just the Cook Islands, but Hong Kong and the Channel Islands too. This means he pays only a tiny amount of tax here in Australia. And the crazy thing is, this is all legal. Ethical? Well, you decide. But legal? Yes. And when folks back in Australia learn about Bond's tax dodging, let's just say, they start sharpening their pitchforks. There's a growing list of people who are very keen to give Bondi an absolute skewering: banks, shareholders and investigators. So buckle up, the Bondi train's about to come to a grinding halt.

• 4:24Speaker 03

  I'm Mark Humphreys and from ABC Rewind, this is Bondi: From Hero to Zero. Episode five, A Castle Built on Sand.

• 4:48Speaker 03

  Let's cut to the chase. Bondi is up shit creek without a paddle. Not even a winged keel can get him out of this one. Remember Roland Tiny Roland, the British tycoon Bondi met on the French Riviera and pissed off by trying to take over his company Lonro? Well, Tiny has just dropped his explosive investigation into Bond Corp's finances, the Lonro Report, and it's blown everything up. For the first time, Alan Bond's astronomical debt load has been laid bare.

• 5:23Speaker 05

  Bond must rue the day he took him on, for Roland is the toughest of street fighters, who is renowned for dragging his opponents to the gutter. The attack on Bond has been relentless.

• 5:33Speaker 03

  Despite what Alan's been telling everyone, he's about $5 billion in the red, which means the banks have lost faith in him and they want their money back, stat. He's not just in the red, he's in deep brown.

• 5:49Speaker 03

  For years, Bondi's been riding the wave of national hero, but now the tide is turning. As journalists poke and prod at his empire, Bond's shiny veneer is tarnishing, fast.

• 6:02Speaker 07

  What do we want? Tax justice. When do we want it? Now. What do we want? Tax justice. When do we want it? Now.

• 6:13Speaker 03

  When Paul Barry's Four Corners goes to air, revealing Bond's Cook Islands tax dodging and false profit reporting, it's a turning point. The Australian public is mad as hell, and they're not going to take it anymore.

• 6:26Speaker 07

  It was the workers, blue collar, electricians, printers and other tradesmen who took on Alan Bond outside his Sydney office. Several thousand people turned up, the banners told the story. Billion-dollar companies are ripping off the system. Alan Bond pays only 1% tax. The corporations are getting away with murder. It's no good moaning in the pubs.

• 6:48Speaker 03

  Bond Corp shareholders are out for blood too. At the 1990 Annual General Meeting, they demand to know what the hell's happening with their investment.

• 6:59Speaker 07

  What are we here for? Are we to save ourselves, these small shareholders? No, we have already lost everything. Whether this sale goes ahead or not is not going to save us.

• 7:10Speaker 03

  And there it goes. Once you've lost the love of the people, well, there's no other way but down. Alan Bond's reputation is in tatters, but that's the least of his worries. Bondi is a heartbeat away from insolvency, and the only way he's going to get out of this one alive is to start selling everything. And so begins the epic fire sale of the Bond empire. Cue downward spiral whirly sound.

• 7:39Speaker 07

  The main assets which have been sold from the group, the Chilean Telephone Company, Bond Brewing Assets, the coal operations, the Harriet Wharf Field, the Rome Land, San Maritz Hotel, the Lord Forest Hotel, the Chifley Square Development, the Hong Kong Tower, Bond International, Bond International Gold, Bond University and the Bond Tower.

• 7:56Speaker 03

  As the empire is sold off, piece by piece, Bond's forced to do the unthinkable and part with his beloved Van Gogh painting, Irises. He begrudgingly takes it off the boardroom wall of his family company Dalhold and sells it to the Getty Museum in LA, where it hangs to this day. Incidentally, he never does pay back the money Sotheby's lent him to buy it. I think they'll manage though. But perhaps the most humbling moment of Bond's fire sale is when he's forced to sell Channel 9 back to the very man who sold it to him, media magnate Kerry Packer.

• 8:34Speaker 04

  Bondi was the sucker who bought Channel 9 from Packer for $1 billion. It was never worth $1 billion, Channel 9, and he was forced to sell it when he sold it to Packer for $200 million. So he lost $800 million on the deal. And that was in the space of, I think, I don't know, 18 months? Not long.

• 8:51Speaker 03

  Extraordinary.

• 8:51Speaker 04

  It's a pretty quick way of burning your money. And as, as Packer said, you only get one Bondi in your lifetime.

• 8:57Speaker 03

  Fun fact, in the brief time that Bondi owned Nune, he had green marble flooring installed on the executive level. When the less ostentatious Packer regained control, he had it carpeted over. But Bondi's not just dealing with this embarrassing fire sale. His entire empire is collapsing before his eyes.

• 9:20Speaker 07

  It's an understatement to say it's been a bad year for Bond. There were questions from the stock exchange. Bond got downgraded from B to triple C. The ABT said Bond was not a fit and proper person to hold a TV licence. Bond's annual report was placed.

• 9:36Speaker 03

  In September 1990, Alan Bond succumbs to the pressure and resigns as chairman and director of Bond Corporation. You might think that now, finally, Alan would take a moment to reflect and accept some responsibility for his downfall. But no, he has a fall guy, his loyal right-hand man, Peter Beckwith.

• 9:59Speaker 04

  Bond had a habit of blaming everything, everything bad on other people. He basically said it was all Peter Beckwith's fault.

• 10:05Speaker 07

  Bond says of Beckwith, "He drove it as if it were his own business. If I made any mistake at all, it was to give him too much responsibility, too much autonomy."

• 10:15Speaker 03

  Not only is this brazen, it's also crass, because Beckwith can't defend himself. He died from a brain tumour just a few months earlier.

• 10:24Speaker 07

  Bond says Peter was ill for quite a lot of the time, and maybe his judgements were out.

• 10:29Speaker 04

  His wife Valerie was absolutely incensed, and it was such an appalling accusation, because the truth was entirely the other way around. Beckwith was the guy who made things work when Alan went around the world and bought stuff.

• 10:45Speaker 07

  Beckwith's widow Valerie said tonight Bond had treated her family cruelly. She said Alan knows perfectly well that Peter worked himself to death for Bond Corporation while Alan floated around the world. It's despicable that after all he did to try to save Alan from his own self-destruction, Alan should blame Peter for the downfall of the company.

• 11:05Speaker 03

  Indeed. But karma has its own set of rules, and now, in December 1990, Bondi's chickens come home to roost.

• 11:15Speaker 07

  Alan Bond was arrested in Perth today and charged in connection with a The rescue of the failed Rothwell's merchant bank three years ago.

• 11:22Speaker 03

  Remember that fee Bond paid himself when he rescued old mate Laurie Connell's bank Rothwell's?

• 11:28Speaker 00

  The former America's Cup hero now faces legal action over a claim that he concealed the fact that Bond Corporation was charging a $16 million fee for coordinating the rescue.

• 11:39Speaker 03

  Well, he forgot to tell a few people about it. And now Bondi's been caught red-handed, not that he'd ever admit it.

• 11:48Speaker 07

  After his release today, Bond said he was innocent of the charge. He denied he'd acted dishonestly or concealed anything. He also denied any fee had been paid to him or any company associated with him in connection with the Rothwell's rescue.

• 12:02Speaker 03

  Bondi can deny this all he likes, but the punishment for this crime is prison. Ay, ay, ay. And if that's not enough, a political scandal is brewing. One that threatens to bring down both Alan and the West Australian government.

• 12:20Speaker 03

  Okay, scene change and trigger warning, because this story takes us back a few years into the men's change room at an exclusive hockey club in Perth. Don't get too excited, though, everyone's wearing towels. One of the men in this change room is Laurie Connell. He hasn't come a cropper yet, he's still riding high as the chairman of Rothwell's. Another man in the room is prominent Perth activist and lawyer Bevan Lawrence. He's known Laurie for years.

• 12:50Speaker 02

  Laurie Connell was a young 19-year-old when I first met him. And he clearly was a character who was going to cause all sorts of issues throughout his life. And he was young and brash and on the make.

• 13:04Speaker 03

  Bevan says that decades on, Laurie hasn't changed a bit. He's still in his cocky era, always cutting corners and playing outside the rules. And he's forever talking himself up, making sure everyone knows that he's got mates in high places, like WA Premier Brian Burke.

• 13:24Speaker 02

  He would often make a grand play of ringing important people such as Burke from the change room and letting other people hear what he was saying and what he was doing. And that was really a bit of the measure of the man.

• 13:43Speaker 03

  Bevan keeps a close eye on politics. A few years earlier, he'd lobbied against the introduction of a national ID card, the Australia card, and helped trigger a double dissolution federal election. Now, Bevan senses something's off in WA. There's a pong spreading through the big end of town. This cosy relationship between business and government, it's not right. Connell is bragging all over town, and so Bevan Lawrence starts keeping notes. If this all blows up, he wants receipts.

• 14:21Speaker 02

  Then I started talking to many people who were decent, honest people, who would give you snippets of information here and there. His involvement with government was scary, and Bond, of course, was there as well.

• 14:36Speaker 03

  Bevan's outraged, and he's thinking, someone's got to do something about these questionable deals lining the pockets of corporate cowboys.

• 14:45Speaker 02

  Friends of mine and lawyers are saying, why don't you do something? And so eventually, we decided we would.

• 14:52Speaker 03

  So Bevan forms another lobby group. This one's called People for Fair and Open Government. Sure, it doesn't sound sexy, but it does what it says on the tin. They want a royal commission into what's becoming known around town as WA Inc. No, it's not a tattoo parlor, it's a nod to the government's uncomfortably close relationship with business. There's a twist, though, and that is, by pushing for a royal commission, Bevan's going up against someone he's very close to. His own sister, Carmen Lawrence, is a minister in the state Labor government. That'll be a fun shout at Christmas lunch.

• 15:33Speaker 03

  She's not at all involved in these shenanigans, but an investigation into WA Inc. risks tearing Labor apart.

• 15:42Speaker 02

  And so I thought, really, this was a huge benefit for the community, because I know her to be a decent person. And so I knew that sooner or later, despite whatever pressures were on her, she would eventually do what she thought was right.

• 15:58Speaker 03

  The first thing Bevan's organisation does is place an ad in the West Australian newspaper, which these days sounds piss weak, but back then attracted a lot of eyeballs. The ad asks questions about the government's deals with high-profile businessmen.

• 16:15Speaker 02

  It was probably the hardest thing I ever did of this nature, and probably the thing I'm proudest of, because the cover-up needed to be exposed. And the whole purpose of this advertisement was to expose it.

• 16:28Speaker 03

  And it does. This ad, it sets off a chain reaction.

• 16:34Speaker 02

  People were coming in from everywhere, giving me money to publish more things and to do things, because everybody could see what had happened was disgraceful. Everyone could see that.

• 16:47Speaker 03

  Bevan's ads are challenging the WA government, asking pointed questions about its latest deal with Bond and Connell. A deal we haven't mentioned yet, a big one, a project that's been bubbling away in the background for years. It's the deal that's going to blow everything up. In the mid-1980s, Laurie Connell and Perth casino owner Dallas Dempster bought land south of Perth to build a petrochemical plant. Premier Brian Burke avidly supports the project, but when he resigns in 1988, the plant is still just a block of land and a bunch of plans.

• 17:27Speaker 03

  And then the state government makes the odd decision to go halvesies with Alan Bond and buy the project from his mates Connell and Dempster for $400 million.

• 17:39Speaker 00

  $400 million for a petrochemical plant which never had a ghost of a chance of getting off the ground.

• 17:50Speaker 03

  The deal stinks, and the timing is totally sus. Laurie Connell needs yet another bailout for his merchant bank Rothwell's. And Connell uses the sale money to hold off debtors. But just weeks later, Rothwell's goes under anyway.

• 18:09Speaker 02

  The government had really underwritten the whole thing, and it was just a total merry-go-round.

• 18:15Speaker 03

  And the petrochemical plant, well, it never sees the light of day. This deal, it's the final straw. The political fallout of these deals has seen Bevan's sister, Carmen Lawrence, rise to become the first female premier in Australia. For nine months, she resists calls for a royal commission. But the pressure is so intense, she's left with no choice.

• 18:43Speaker 00

  I've decided to establish a royal commission. It will be given extensive powers to inquire into claims of corrupt or other illegal conduct relating to government business activities over the past decade. Indeed, I agonised over the decision. But the confidence in the political process has been so severely undermined, I now believe there is no other way to proceed.

• 19:05Speaker 02

  It must have taken a lot of courage for her to call that royal commission, because you're calling a royal commission into your own party. And I know that many, many people in that party still detest what she did and will take that feeling to the grave.

• 19:24Speaker 03

  The so-called WA Inc. Royal Commission gets underway in February 1991. And for months, it investigates the commercial activities of the previous government.

• 19:36Speaker 07

  At the Royal Commission today, the petrochemical project and its presentation to the West Australian public was basically attacked as a sham and a joke, and the people involved as not having done too well either.

• 19:46Speaker 03

  It doesn't take long for Alan Bond to get pulled in for questioning over the deal, and of course, about the Rothwell's rescue. And then, a bombshell. The commission reveals that Premier Brian Burke had kept a secret political slush fund, the Leaders Account, author Quentin Beresford.

• 20:07Speaker 07

  That Royal Commission found that Burke's Leaders Account may have had about $7 million in it. We're talking late 1980s, so you could probably double that.

• 20:16Speaker 03

  Bondi, Laurie Connell, all of Perth's big boys have been donating millions to WA Labor since Burke was elected in 1983.

• 20:25Speaker 07

  And with that money, Burke funded Labor parties federally and interstate. He was like the centre of the spider's web. There were no receipts, there was no transparency, and who had given what.

• 20:42Speaker 03

  Now, a Leaders Account, that's actually not uncommon in politics. But what is uncommon is that Brian Burke secretly kept $100,000 of those donations in a safe in his office.

• 20:56Speaker 07

  The donations were going into a safe in his premier's office, which only he and his secretary knew about. When the police commissioner rolled up to inspect the actual safe, he was shocked, there was just no records there at all. Burke was running this slush fund to build his political empire.

• 21:18Speaker 03

  Burke uses this slush fund to invest in gold, the short-term money market, and famously, stamps, to make money for the Labor Party. I've heard of states making money off stamp duty, but this is something else. The key detail is he does this without telling his cabinet.

• 21:37Speaker 07

  In other words, the rest of the Labor Party was going about the normal business of government. And in the end, many of their reputations were tainted by association.

• 21:49Speaker 03

  In 1992, after nearly two years and more than 500 witnesses, the Royal Commission hands down its report. It finds past West Australian governments had become dangerously entangled with powerful business interests, which risked creating public perception that favour could be bought, that it had a culture of improper conduct, and that Premier Brian Burke, quote, "presided over a disastrous series of decisions to support Rothwell's," end quote. It also found that WA Inc. had cost taxpayers at least $600 million. Somehow, I don't think stamps are going to cover it.

• 22:34Speaker 05

  It's the sort of report that is dynamite, right across the business community and the political community. A monster which others tried to and could not control.

• 22:43Speaker 00

  The joke in Perth used to be that CBD stood in fact for Connell, Bond and Dempster.

• 22:48Speaker 03

  Has ended up as pretty much a giant steaming heap of manure, to put it at its most vivid. Kerry O'Brien there, demonstrating why he's a six-time Walkley Award winner. The Royal Commission sparks a bunch of legal investigations, including into the man at the top of that heap, Brian Burke.

• 23:06Speaker 07

  Brian Burke said he could answer every rumour of impropriety.

• 23:09Speaker 06

  I will vigorously and strenuously rebut those allegations.

• 23:15Speaker 03

  Burke will later be charged and found guilty of four counts of fraud, illegally claiming $17,000 in travel expenses, and be sentenced to two years in jail. He's also later jailed for stealing campaign funds, but that conviction is overturned. Laurie Connell is convicted of horse racing fraud and is mid-trial over his improprieties at Rothwell's when he dies suddenly from a massive heart attack at just 49 years old. And as for our Bondi, well, his time in court is coming. But first, he's facing another kind of trial, a trial of the heart.

• 24:00Speaker 03

  Alan and Eileen's marriage has been limping along for years. His external love interests have taken their toll. And truth be told, the flame he's held for ex-girlfriend Diana Bliss has never gone out, not even when she tired of being the other woman, called things off and moved to London. Through all this, Eileen's hung in there, sailing many winds with Alan, calm and rough. Good Catholic girl that she is, she's given her marriage a red hot go. Thirty-seven years of red hot go. She still loves Alan, but by 1992, Paul Barry says she's finally had enough.

• 24:43Speaker 04

  Eileen's idea entirely to split the marriage. I think she's fed up with his girlfriends, I think fed up with the fact that he seemed to have no interest in her any longer. Was probably totally preoccupied with money and saving his empire and also with, you know, Diana Bliss. And I think she just decided, time to go, time to move on. And so she filed for divorce.

• 25:04Speaker 03

  So at this point in time, it's fair to say Bondi's life is a mess. He's facing a divorce settlement as complex as his tax evasions, a court case over the Rothwell's rescue, and a long list of creditors just keep breathing down his neck. They want to bankrupt him and claw back the billions he owes.

• 25:29Speaker 03

  Alan Bond begins to spiral. He's spotted frantically destroying documents. At least he can claim the shredder as a business expense. He does everything he can to stop receivers from coming in. Blindly optimistic, he can hold on. His lawyers push back court dates and dream up all sorts of schemes to avoid Bondi being served bankruptcy papers. But it's all for naught, because in April 1992, Bond finally has to face the music.

• 26:02Speaker 05

  Well, a full stop to the eighties tonight, decade of greed, era of entrepreneurs. Alan Bond, the biggest of them all, is bankrupt. His personal debts are at least $250 million, but that's a drop in the ocean compared with the billions lost by his companies. No more Rolls Royce travel, no more French champagne, the bubble's well and truly burst.

• 26:27Speaker 03

  Under bankruptcy law, the Bonds have to live on a very tight budget. But their friend, Perth social columnist, Wanita Walsh, reckons they'll cope just fine, even the extravagant, larger-than-life Eileen.

• 26:42Speaker 05

  As soon as problems started, she changed and she's always been the same person. She's terribly generous. I mean, I remember going there when our children were babies and I'd take my children for swim in the pool. And in those days, we'd take a flagon of wine or I'm sure it'll be no different. Eileen's friends will turn up for drink and we'll all take the cask wine and everyone will be happy to drink it.

• 27:07Speaker 03

  So it's cask wine for Eileen from now on. And Bondi, how will he go tightening his belt?

• 27:14Speaker 05

  He came from nothing. He's a tough person. He has the most amazing ability to bounce back. He doesn't have that sort of ego. I think he'll find it quite amusing to go somewhere for lunch and have the special menu and it won't be that hard for him. I saw him two months ago and we were out to dinner and here's this man sitting there with his immense problems. To then said, and genuinely meant it, he said, my God, it's good to be alive, isn't it? Isn't life wonderful?

• 27:46Speaker 03

  So wonderful. Until it's not. Just a month after being declared bankrupt, Alan Bond's trial over that $16 million fee from the Rothwell's rescue begins.

• 27:59Speaker 07

  It's something that a lot of people in West Australia would never have thought would happen to see Alan Bond in the dock like that. Now, the, uh, the defence has put the case that Alan Bond did not act dishonestly because he didn't dishonestly conceal anything.

• 28:11Speaker 03

  But the judge isn't having a bar of it. He finds Alan Bond guilty of fraud.

• 28:18Speaker 07

  The 54-year-old Alan Bond, immaculate in a dark blue suit, looked pale and drawn as he stood in the dock. His face was impassive as Judge Peter Blackswell delivered sentence.

• 28:27Speaker 03

  Bondi, national hero, the man who once lofted the America's Cup high into the sky, is going to jail for two and a half years. It is a major shock to a lot of people in Western Australia. It's a shock to Eileen too. Despite their divorce, she's been there day in, day out, loyally supporting Alan.

• 28:49Speaker 07

  In the back of the court, Eileen burst into tears. There were loud gasps from friends and family. And as he was led from the dock, he turned ashen-faced to an emotional wave from his estranged wife. Eileen, any comment?

• 29:02Speaker 00

  Oh, well, he's, he's very strong.

• 29:05Speaker 07

  As she left the court, she was asked, how did Alan take it? She said, like the man that he is.

• 29:10Speaker 03

  Gracious words from the woman who's still standing by her man. But oh, how the mighty have fallen.

• 29:20Speaker 03

  On the 29th of May, 1992, Alan arrives at prison to start his sentence.

• 29:26Speaker 00

  Mr. Bond arrived at Wurulue Prison Farm, about 55 kilometres east of Perth, to the sounds of inmates singing, living next door to Alan.

• 29:35Speaker 03

  That's a parody song about Bondi by musician and satirist Kevin "Bloody" Wilson. I'd play it for you, but well, let's just say it's not really Radio National material. Now, as far as prisons go, Bondi's got it pretty good. Wurulue is minimum security. There are no bars on the windows or locks on the doors. But there are also no marble bathrooms, no phones next to the shitter. And oh yeah, he has to share a bedroom, and not in a fun way. Bondi's old mate, Richard Adams, visits him in prison. But those days of power lunches at the Mediterranean restaurant, making multimillion-dollar deals, they're long gone.

• 30:20Speaker 01

  He seemed to be happy enough, as much as you could be in that environment. I felt for him, having been a boarding school and how it's like, it must be even worse than that. He seemed to be coping with it, didn't seem to be bitter and twisted about it. He just realised he had to do his time and that was it. I had to admire him for that. It'd been hard.

• 30:42Speaker 03

  Alan puts on a brave face for visitors, but he's struggling in big boy boarding school and it's really taking a toll on his health. At one point, he's rushed to hospital.

• 30:53Speaker 01

  Fallen West Australian entrepreneur Alan Bond is resting comfortably in Royal Perth Hospital after he was admitted yesterday suffering chest pains related to a heart condition.

• 31:03Speaker 03

  While Bondi's recuperating in bed, his solicitors are working overtime. They're pushing for an appeal to overturn his sentence, and they get one. The judge finds that Laurie Connell was an unreliable witness in giving evidence against Bond. Turns out, asking someone dodgy to provide evidence of dodginess against someone else being dodgy is, well, a bit dodgy. So in a miraculous turn of events, Bondi's sentence is quashed, and after just 90 days behind bars, Alan Bond walks free.

• 31:38Speaker 00

  Facing journalists outside the prison and looking thinner, unshaven and fighting back tears, Mr. Bond said prison life really didn't agree with him.

• 31:46Speaker 01

  Uh, no, I wouldn't say it agrees with me. I don't agree with it, which is why I'd like to go about it. I'm very pleased to be being released. It does support what I'd been saying that I was innocent of the charge in the first place. And that the sentence was beyond any reasonable position that should have been imposed. I'm now going to spend some, uh, time with my family and that's all. Thanks.

• 32:13Speaker 03

  Unlike certain other disgraced businessmen, turns out Alan Bond really is unwell and he's put on bedrest while he waits for heart surgery. But there's a glimmer of hope for Alan. Bondi's been back in touch with his lost love, Diana Bliss, and she offers to come home to Perth and nurse him after surgery. And so, along with Eileen, they take turns prepping meals and waiting on Alan hand and foot. They've sure come a long way from the days of Eileen cutting off the legs of Bondi's pants after he was pictured in Paris, holding hands with Diana. Eileen really is a good egg. But bedrest and home-cooked meals is as good as it's going to get for Alan from now on.

• 32:59Speaker 03

  Now that he's bankrupt, life's going to look very different. Or is it?

• 33:08Speaker 03

  On the next and final episode of Bondi from Hero to Zero.

• 33:13Speaker 04

  He's supposed to confine himself to 200 bucks a week, but no, he took no notice at all. He continued to live in the fabulous house, drive around in his Rolls Royce Cornish, fly around the world. And he clearly had millions and millions and millions of dollars at his disposal.

• 33:28Speaker 03

  Bondi has seen this all coming.

• 33:30Speaker 04

  He had planned for it. He'd hidden his money all over the world in Jersey and Panama and Isle of Man and Liechtenstein and Liberia and Switzerland, Austria, Christ knows where.

• 33:41Speaker 03

  And now the hunt is on to find Bondi's missing bounty.

• 33:45Speaker 05

  We had an insider in the Bond camp, an informant. They had been providing us with a lot of information about what was happening inside the house and the office.

• 33:54Speaker 04

  And as we drive past his garden, there he is, sitting in a deck chair. And we go, fuck, that's him, quick!

• 34:02Speaker 03

  Bondi from Hero to Zero is an ABC Rewind production for Radio National. It's produced on the lands of the Naluma, Gadigal, Jodhjuk Wurung and the Wadjuk people of the Nungar nation. I'm Mark Humphries, catch you next time.

• 34:22Speaker 03

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