The Sure Thing · The Australian Financial Review

Ep 6. The Green Governor

March 28, 2021·38 min·3 clips

Chris recounts the moment he had to fight back against a fellow prisoner at Port Phillip — and thought he had killed him.

The episode opens inside discomfort. Jail is strange and hostile, especially for a fraud offender trying to learn the rules fast: how to talk, how to act, when to stay quiet. The host then returns to Lucas, Chris, the ABS data, and the sentence that became the longest for insider trading in Australian history. Seven years and three months. It hits harder because Lucas had tried to push blame toward Chris, while Chris stayed loyal even after it came out that Lucas had been thinking about the crime for years before the two-day drinking session. From there, the episode gets smaller and better. It listens to what prison did to time, friendship, waiting, and ordinary ease. Beechworth is the release point. Chris remembers the last night before leaving as almost sleepless, with other prisoners waiting around him as the front gate finally came into view. The goodbye is quiet but loaded. Handshakes, fist bumps, swapped details, and a distance everyone seems to understand, because prison friendships do not neatly turn into outside friendships. The dry detail lands: hugging is not described as common there. Then Wangaratta, his parents, and a backyard. Chris lies shirtless in the grass for a couple of hours, and freedom sounds almost physical. The relief is not redemption. It is the first sustained ease he can remember after the best part of three years. Lucas still has almost three years left. By the end, even the series refuses to wrap itself cleanly, with an unexpected turn and a seventh chapter after the promised six.

As heard by us

A restrained aftershock chapter about loyalty, sentence, and the strange normality of jail.

Episode 6 stays close to the aftershock of Australia's largest insider-trading case: the sentence, the prison routine, and the bond that formed between Lucas and Chris while they waited to learn what came next.

Read the full review in PlayNext →

Why you'd press play

If you want the prison aftermath of Australia's biggest insider-trading case, start here.

Read the full recommendation in PlayNext →

Listen to the show on

Apple Podcasts Spotify

Play clips from this episode More from The Sure Thing