I made this while I was at Greenpeace in the first half of 2019, working closely with Chris Phillips, an amazingly talented filmmaker, and Nicola Casule, head of Research and Investigations at Greenpeace.
I'd had the idea to investigate the links between the coal industry and the government for a long time, but hadn't been able to get the project off the ground. It just seemed clear to me that there must be a lot of connections between the two, why else would the coal industry hold so much sway over government policy?
Eventually it was clear Nicola felt the same way, so he commissioned Michael West, a well-known investigative journalist, to start the research and we got underway. I brought Chris onboard as I knew he'd be able to create visuals that would do the story justice.
It helped that Michael was already investigating this kind of thing, in fact he had been doing so for years, so he kept at it and I started working on a script that would bring the research together into a coherent narrative, and Chris started work on the design.
Although lacking new revelations for the first time this film shone a light onto the network of people closely connecting the three most powerful pillars of conservative Australian power; the coal industry, the Coalition and the Murdoch Press.
By the time I left Greenpeace in June 2019 the film had the best engagement stats of any Greenpeace video, and at present has over 500,000 views on facebook.
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