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Yahoo
3 days ago
- Yahoo
"It All Made More Sense To Me Once I Grew Up": 29 Shocking Family Secrets People Discovered As Adults That Will Leave You Reeling
Recently, we wrote about family secrets people discovered, and members of the BuzzFeed Community had some of their own secrets to share. Here's what they had to get off their chests.* *Along with more answers from the original Reddit thread. 1."That the 'holiday' I had at my aunt's house for a month, where my mum would call me a lot of days crying, was actually me being kidnapped and taken to a secluded town in the middle of nowhere (in rural Australia where it was four hours to the closest town). My mum didn't want to call the police at first because she was close to her sister and believed she was being manipulated by another family member (who had successfully kidnapped my brother many years ago). But she eventually called the police, and I was brought back. I had a feeling something was off with the way my mum would talk on the phone ... but she didn't want to scare me at the time. I didn't find out for sure until a few years later." —u/Consistent_Type4270 2."I was told my father was arrested and sent to prison for 15 years for being a part of a boiler room fraud scheme in the late '80s and that he was charged under RICO for communications fraud and theft on A LOT of counts. I went to visit him a few times, and he would send cards on holidays and my birthday. ... I remember him using a cane the first time I saw him in prison, and he said he 'got hurt.' My 4-year-old self thought this made sense. After a year or so, he stopped writing, and I stopped visiting." "I figured he didn't have our new address after a recent move. I finally received a call from him during my senior year of high school to reconnect. I blew him off and never really gave it a second thought. Then, I became a father a decade or so later, and I felt horrible for pushing away his last effort, so I attempted to reconnect. Turns out he'd passed. But in the process of looking him up, I came across his court records, and the truth was revealed. Turns out he was released on probation EVERY time for his multiple felonies. After violating his probation a third time via a DUI that resulted in a major bodily injury (that explains the cane), he was sentenced to five years. He served just under four. He waited 10+ years to call. I was in his local newspaper for some high school athletic achievements, and that is what reminded him I existed. Some added background: he was a Vietnam war vet who came back with a Vietnamese wife; they had two sons together, and about ten years into the marriage, he started an affair with my mother. He told his primary family he was working out of town three days a week but was living across town with my mother. Eventually, I was conceived. My mother was addicted to painkillers, and after my birth, I was removed from her care. I was lucky to have a couple ready to foster me, but my father fought it because he would owe child support. So, I got to live the incredible experience of being an affair partner's child at his wife's house and having no clue why everyone in the house hated me. I changed my last name to my adopted family. I hope his grave is unmarked and covered by a pig farm." —u/superduper Related: 3."My aunt Rosa was the only sister not living in the US. She had a child my mom's age but no husband and was never referred to as widowed. I always suspected something dark kept her in Mexico because the subject would get changed when someone brought it up. Back in 2009, I was visiting her and asked her why she'd never moved here. Turns out she did in the '50s, but her husband was an abusive drunk. He hit her son (my cousin) when he was three and broke his nose. That was the final straw. My aunt waited for him to go to sleep, packed her bags, loaded her car, cut his throat, and ran back to Mexico." —u/CordCarillo 4."For me, it was the lawsuit against my grandpa for groping my cousin. She was 15. I was 8. My parents left me alone with him after this, even though my cousin swears it happened. I didn't know the truth till I found my estranged cousin when I was 18, and my parents had the audacity to tell me that she was toxic." —u/Lexiwolf333 5."I only discovered a few years ago that the commune my parents were in in the 1970s was more like a sex cult than a commune. There was one leader, and everyone gave all their money to him; he set all the rules and made very arbitrary decisions. Like making my parents marry even though, as my mom said (which sort of traumatized 14-year-old me), 'we weren't even sleeping together that week!' Some seriously weird shit went down. It wasn't a commune; it was a cult. I asked my mom bluntly about it a few years ago, and she agreed." —u/Mapper9 6."My great-grandmother and her family were sex workers. Her mother and aunt ran a 'boarding house' for 'professional women' and the men they would 'entertain.' They also were part of a team smuggling liquor across the border into the US during prohibition. I had guessed at some point that the 'boarding house' was actually a brothel, which was confirmed to me once I was older." "I always thought it was a kind of cool story full of drama and intrigue, but what I hadn't realized in my youth was that my great-grandmother likely faced a lot of sexual and emotional abuse, causing trauma that she then passed on by being a pretty abusive wife and mother. My grandfather was an amazing man who was able to break the cycle with help from my grandmother and her side of the family, but his sisters weren't so lucky, and to this day, the family dynamics on their part are extremely toxic. It all made more sense to me once I grew up." —u/Fllyder 7."My mum passed away never knowing that it was my sibling who'd turned her in to local authorities after a decade on the run. She ended up only serving nine months of a 22-year sentence because she'd been living a quiet life during that time. This meant we could leave an abusive household to move in with her once she was out. Living with her was only mildly better in the end, but my sibling's actions might have saved our lives. I found out after I was married and moved out of state. I'd thought it was suspicious [that she was arrested] so soon after we'd discovered where she was living, but outright denial meant I gave up wondering as a teen." —u/BigRedButler85 8."I grew up with a single mother and no contact with relatives. I was told nothing about why it was only my brother, myself, and whatever random man my mother was involved with at the time. We moved constantly, and she seemed to have no friends either. If I asked any questions about why we didn't have relatives or why we were moving again, I would get frozen out, and she would not speak to me or look at me for months at a time, so I learned to stop asking. When I moved out at 16, I started trying to look for anything in libraries that might help me find out what the real story was about any family I might have." "This was long before DNA or the internet, and it was very hard even to get a copy of my birth certificate, which I finally did. Cut to much later in life when I had my DNA done on one of those sites and found some relatives. The whole story came out that my Mom was about to lose custody of me and my younger brother for abuse when she and my father got divorced (we were just toddlers, and I remembered nothing about it). She decided rather than lose custody, she would pay my father back for leaving her and just disappear with us. That was why we constantly moved and didn't seem to have relatives. She always used whatever boyfriend's last name she had hooked up with when registering us for school, and when the schools couldn't track down our records from the last school we had been in, we would disappear and move again. Apparently, my father had tried to find us many times, but it was fairly easy to disappear back then. I found out so much more, but all the truth came out, and buried memories came back to me. I am 67 now and still get flashbacks to suddenly understanding now some strange thing that happened back then. I never know what to say when people ask why I don't have any relatives." —Anonymous 9."My siblings and I could never figure out when we'd get together with my mom's family why my one aunt was always resentful about my other aunt who had a child out of wedlock. After about fifty years, we finally found out with the passing of my mom. My resentful aunt had a child and was forced to give it up. The reason she had to give up the baby was because she became pregnant by my father — he, my mom, grandparents, and aunt kept it all secret. My brother and I were in between the other baby. Sadly, we connected with the brother and were in the process of meeting when he died of a heart attack. It is so weird that my mom forgave everyone and acted like nothing was ever wrong. I feel so sorry for my mom, who has lived with this for so long. Even on her deathbed, she kept the secret." —Anonymous Related: 10."My sister has a different dad. That one just took thinking twice about some math that they'd been normalizing to us since we were tiny. We just didn't think about it! Yeah, she's the only brunette in a family of blondes, but that's my sister! If anyone asks, my mom fell pregnant at 16, a few months before meeting my 23-year-old father. We're unsure if our dad knew, but he's not the kind of magnanimous benefactor who would keep a kid that's not his. I respect my mother's decision because that kept my sister glued to our side during custody battles, the loss of our mom, secured a childhood for my sister under heinous circumstances." —u/stickandtired 11."I didn't know my dad for close to 40 years. Folks would tell me very little about him, and if I asked for any more details, I was always told to 'let sleeping dogs lie.' At one point, I even asked if he knew where we lived, and they said if he did know, 'we'd move again.' After my grandmother died, I got more information and was able to find my dad, except he had died 15 years before. His family was certainly shocked to learn about me. My dad's family told me his parents would have loved me, especially my Abuelo, with whom I share a birthday ... I've never forgiven my mom for this." —danetee_sliger 12."I had a great uncle on my mom's side who I just loved. He and his wife (they had no children) lived in the US (my family is Canadian), but they'd come to visit often. He'd spend most of their visits playing with me, telling me stories of where he'd traveled and bedtime stories from different countries from memory. My great-uncle died suddenly when I was eight. I was always told it was a heart attack. His wife, who was European, moved back to Europe but kept in touch with my grandparents. Fast forward a couple of decades, and my mom inherited my great-uncle's personal papers from her father (my great-uncle's brother). It turns out my great-uncle joined US Intelligence in the 1940s and was working for the CIA on an 'assignment' when he died. No idea if his wife knew." —Anonymous 13."I found out that my great-grandmother was a mail-order bride. Growing up, when my dad would tell me stories about her, he just said that she was 'essentially a mail-order bride.' I took that to mean that maybe she found a guy through a pen pal or something. Nope! I found out later she went through a company that connected mail-order brides to single men. Unfortunately, both her husbands were assholes. It sounded really ugly." —hiddencake55 14."My mother wasn't my grandfather's child. She didn't find out until I shared my 23andMe results with her. If she weren't an affair baby, I'd have been about 1/4 Italian. Instead, I'm 1/4 Latvian and absolutely 0% Italian. Grandma just so happened to be 'very good friends' with a Latvian man who had been one of her patients. What really sucked was when my mom told one of my aunts, she found out that not only did everyone else know, but they'd agreed not to tell my mother for going on 60 years now." —u/TheTurboDiesel Related: 15."I was in a cult. I didn't know the word for it [at the time], but I would constantly sit in church and just wonder if it was all made up by someone who enjoyed controlling other people. After some research (that I was told never to do!), my suspicions were confirmed." "It's a huge relief because I'm gay, and that wasn't allowed." —nomorepieohmy grandmother started getting dementia about 10 years ago, [and we found out that] neither of my mother's siblings are my grandfather's children. She had a 15-year affair, and my 'oops baby' mother is his only legitimate child. Granny also offed that same grandfather. There's no way to prove it, though, and at this point, it was over 20 years ago. He fell out of bed and broke his hip, and instead of calling for help, she unplugged all the phones and left him on the floor for three days. She 'found' him when the neighbor came by to take him fishing or something, but by that point, he was delirious and half unconscious. He died a couple of days later from a massive stroke." "When I was an adult, my mother had drunk a few glasses (she never drinks) and told me that her mother hated him because he was in the military, and they had to move away from her affair partner for several years. She took it out on my mother until my grandfather found out, and then she started taking it out on him." —u/erratic_bonsai 17."My now-dead father-in-law had multiple affairs during his marriage to my mother-in-law. It was a known family secret that all the men had second and even third families. My husband said his dad never had a second family, but there are photos of 'extended cousins' who look eerily like my husband and his brothers." —Anonymous 18."My grandmother (dad's mother) lied to my dad and his sister for decades about who their real fathers were. They believed their father had died when my dad was in his twenties and my aunt was in her teens — until 23andMe tests came back and showed they were only HALF siblings. My dad was rightfully angry and confronted my grandmother about it. It turns out the man she was married to was sterile, and her doctor (back in the '50s and '60s) told her if she wanted kids, she'd need to 'seek other options.' So she did — with her then-boss and another random man. She refuses to apologize to my dad and aunt for lying to them, even after her husband's death ages ago." "To make it even worse, my dad discovered his actual father was still alive but suffering from terrible dementia at nearly 100 years old; my dad made the difficult choice not to pursue a relationship with him so as not to further confuse him in his last years. So heartbreaking. Ironically, my dad used to tease my aunt about her not being his 'real' sister — if only he knew!" —Anonymous 19."My cousin who was super ill actually had a sickness that was preventable with medicine. ... [He] died because the woman my uncle married was a religious nut. ... [This was] confirmed later when I was an adult. I remember getting told off as a kid because I asked, 'Isn't there medicine for what he has?'" —u/Mental-Book-1555 20."My dad told me this full story on a camping trip recently. ... Basically, when my grandma and grandpa were still married and had my dad's older sister, my grandpa was very, very religious, but my grandma wasn't as invested. I'm not sure whether it was a splinter group of their church or an entirely different thing, but my grandpa eventually joined this hyper-religious, cult-like group (my dad just referred to it as a flat-out cult), which was led by a woman about the same age as my grandma and grandpa. My grandma knew this group was sketchy af, but this was the early '70s, so she felt like she had to go along with my grandpa's devotion to the group. The group was meeting one night at my grandma and grandpa's house, and somehow, possibly over the course of just that night, or maybe it had been ongoing, the leader convinced my grandpa to kill, or at least attack, my grandma, who at that time was pregnant with my dad." "So my grandpa went with it. He chased her out of the house with a kitchen knife, all in front of my aunt, who was luckily too young to remember any of this. Needless to say, that was the end of the marriage and the end of my horrible person of a grandpa being involved in his kids' lives." —u/Many-Mongoose-3463 21."When I was a kid, my parents were eager to send me upstairs to bed because they were hiding lots of things they didn't want me and others to know about. Mom drank too much. Dad was in the closet and in a long-term relationship with the man who lived in our house with us — and Dad's partner actually owned the house!" —u/Hedgehog-Plane Related: 22."My uncle was the local drug dealer. ... When I hit 14, he mentioned to me at a family event that if I ever wanted to experiment, I just had to talk to him. He would give me reasonable access. If he found out that I was using other stuff, he'd tell my parents. Never paid for drugs all through high school, and when he came to pick me up in Year 9 one time, I got so many shocked looks." —u/Lozzanger 23."That my aunt did not die of an asthma attack in her sleep but took her own life. She had been very depressed. As an adult, they admitted she purposely overdosed. As a child with asthma, I wish they had just told me the truth because before I started to suspect it was a lie, I was terrified that I was going to die too." —u/Cabbage-floss 24."I grew up in a small, rural community where everyone knew each other, especially if they had kids the same age. My parents were close friends with all of my friends' parents and would spend nights over at their houses and stuff. It turns out they were all doing drugs and swinging." —[deleted] 25."One of my aunts had a bad relationship with my grandpa. Grandpa was an asshole, so it wasn't hard to believe, but she never came around family events, and it was just odd. ... It turns out that my aunt was in charge of watching her infant sister when she was 10-11 years old; the infant sister died on 'her watch,' and grandpa blamed her for it. I first heard this story when I was 18, about a year after Grandpa died. I knew something fucked up had happened, but I didn't think it was that bad." —u/MaleficentAvocado1 26."My dad died of a heart attack. His heart was bad, but he was also a functional cocaine user. ... He made good money, provided for his family, and had nice cars — it was somewhat unexpected. My sister saw on his death certificate and showed me at about 28 years old that cocaine was in his system when he died, and they found the baggie in the bathroom. His artery was already blocked 95%, and he'd had chest pains those few days and set an appointment for Monday with doctors. The story was he was peeing in the bathroom and took a puff of his cigarette, and then that blocked his heart to 100%, so I guess I somehow figured plaque dislodged from one place in the artery to that final 95% place with the puff of that cigarette." "In reality, that last cocaine hit on Saturday constricted the artery one last time and closed it. If he hadn't done it, he'd probably have been rushed into emergency surgery and had a stent placed that Monday and be alive today. My mom finally admitted that, yes, he did it consistently. He was a truck driver, so it energized him too to do his job better, and eventually, truck driving worsened his dependency on the drug. He had gotten a new job as a trainer right before dying and would have regular 9-5 hours; relocation was required so we'd be away from the negative influences. He was going to start getting help to quit fully and had heard about a new drug that helps with addiction." —u/Davina_Lexington 27."That my dad is not my bio dad, and my mom was an unwed teen mom for the first year of my life. Before I get into it, my mom did what she had to do to get out of a tough situation, and I love my dad. He has never treated me differently than my siblings and told me after all this came out that I am his daughter regardless." "I suspected it when I was younger because I didn't look like my dad, and my sister looked a lot different than me, enough that kids in school did not know we were related. I was told that I just heavily take after my mom's side of the family. I found out when my suspected bio dad reached out to to then find out that I am also not related to him either after taking an ancestry test. I looked a lot like him, too, but apparently, my mom had a type (blonde hair, blue eyes, tall type). My bio dad does not know I exist, but I matched DNA to his mother and found him through that. My mom and he broke up before she knew she was pregnant and jumped into a new relationship almost immediately, so she thought I was related to the person who reached out initially. Now, I don't know if I should try to contact him or not." —u/IllustriousExit5820 28."My grandmother knew her second husband was sexually assaulting my mother as a child and did nothing until it came out to the rest of the world, too. Mom confirmed she told my grandma after the first or second time it happened, at seven years old. And this part hasn't been confirmed, but I believe there's enough evidence with how my grandmother talks about him that she never stopped loving him and only divorced him because it's what was expected of her. I don't talk to her anymore." —u/emmakane418 finally..."[I found out] that two of my dad's cousins had a kid [together]. No shit." —u/Virtual-Prize-7967 Also in Internet Finds: Also in Internet Finds: Also in Internet Finds: Solve the daily Crossword
CNN
21-06-2025
- CNN
Death cap mushrooms killed three lunch guests. Was it murder or a ‘terrible accident'?
A meticulously planned meal prepared in the home of an alleged killer is at the heart of a triple murder trial that's nearing its dramatic conclusion in rural Australia. For eight weeks, audiences have been glued to daily news reports and podcasts on an unusual case that alleges the world's most toxic mushroom was used to kill. A jury will soon decide if Erin Patterson, a 50-year-old mother of two, deliberately added death cap, or amanita phalloides, mushrooms to a Beef Wellington lunch she made for her estranged husband's parents and his aunt and uncle in July 2023. Three guests died within days of the meal, while a fourth recovered after spending several weeks in an induced coma. Patterson denies three counts of murder and one of attempted murder. The prosecution and defense agree death cap mushrooms were in the meal. The question is, how did they get there? During eight days of testimony at Latrobe Valley Magistrates' Court, Patterson acknowledged she repeatedly lied to police, dumped a dehydrator used to dry mushrooms, and reset her phone to delete images of mushrooms and the dehydrator from devices seized by investigators. But she said she did not intend to kill. Explaining her lies, Patterson told the jury she had a 'stupid knee-jerk reaction to just dig deeper and keep lying.' 'I was just scared,' she said. Defense lawyer Colin Mandy SC said Patterson accidentally added foraged mushrooms to the meal, along with ones she bought from an Asian grocer in Melbourne. 'What happened was a tragedy and a terrible accident,' he said. In his closing arguments, Mandy said the prosecution's case was based on 'ridiculous' propositions, including that Patterson 'would intend to kill these four people, blowing her entire life up in the process without a motive.' The prosecution doesn't need to prove a motive. But it does need to convince the 12-member jury beyond reasonable doubt that Patterson intended to kill the two elderly couples – including her children's grandparents – and that she deliberately picked death cap mushrooms to do it. On the morning of July 29, 2023, the smell of frying garlic and shallots likely filled Patterson's kitchen in the small town of Leongatha in rural Victoria. She was preparing a meal for two older married couples – Don and Gail Patterson and Heather and Ian Wilkinson. Don and Gail were the parents of Erin's estranged husband Simon. Heather and Ian were his aunt and uncle. Gail and Heather were sisters, and Ian the pastor of their local church. The two couples lived close by in Korumburra, a country town home to fewer than 5,000 people in the scenic hills of southern Victoria. Erin had asked Simon to come to the lunch, too, but he pulled out the night before, writing in a text that he felt 'too uncomfortable' to attend. Their relationship had become increasingly strained over finances and the children's schooling, and he was living elsewhere, the court heard. Erin told the jury she was 'a bit hurt and a bit stressed' by Simon's message, but the lunch went ahead the next day as planned. Patterson said she had started feeling left out of family gatherings and wanted to make more of an effort. She said she chose to cook Beef Wellington because she remembered her mother preparing the meal for special occasions. It was Patterson's first attempt at the dish, and she wanted to get it right. To the garlic and shallots, she added store-bought button mushrooms that she had chopped up in a processor, before simmering the mixture on low for 45 minutes, she said. The paste was used to coat the steaks, which she wrapped in pastry and baked in the oven. The prosecution alleges she prepared poisoned parcels for her guests and reserved an untainted one for herself. Patterson insists she made just one batch. In the witness box, Ian Wilkinson, the only surviving lunch guest, told the court he'd been surprised but 'very happy' to accept Patterson's lunch invitation. The 71-year-old said his relationship with Erin was 'friendly' and 'amicable.' He'd been a guest at her wedding in 2007 but considered her more of an acquaintance than a close friend. During the Covid-19 pandemic, Patterson helped to broadcast his church services on YouTube, and she attended his sermons, on and off, he said. 'She just seemed like an ordinary person,' he told the jury. Wilkinson said he didn't really understand why they'd been invited to lunch, but it became apparent when they'd finished eating the meal of Beef Wellington, beans and mash. 'Erin announced that she had cancer,' Wilkinson told the jury. 'She said that she was very concerned because she believed it was very serious, life-threatening.' Wilkinson said Patterson asked for advice about how to tell her children about, in her words, 'the threat to my life.' Wilkinson said Don Patterson offered some advice about being honest, but the conversation ended after about 10 minutes when one of the lunch guests noticed the children returning. Wilkinson suggested a quick prayer. 'I prayed a prayer asking God's blessing on Erin, that she would get the treatment that she needed, that the kids would be okay, that she'd have wisdom in how she told the kids,' he testified. Patterson had never been diagnosed with cancer, the court heard. Prosecutor Nanette Rogers SC put to Patterson on the stand: 'I suggest that you never thought you would have to account for this lie about having cancer because you thought that the lunch guests would die.' 'That's not true,' Patterson replied. Patterson said she didn't explicitly tell her guests that she had cancer, but acknowledged she allowed them to believe she may have a serious medical issue because she was exploring possible surgery for another problem – one that she was too embarrassed to reveal. Patterson said she'd always been self-conscious about her weight. As a child, her mother weighed her every week to make sure she wasn't getting too heavy. 'I never had a good relationship with food,' she said. Since her 20s, Patterson said she would binge and purge. Around the time of the fatal lunch in July 2023, she said she was doing it two to three times a week, maybe more. 'Who knew about it?' her defense lawyer Mandy asked Patterson. 'Nobody,' she said. Patterson told the jury she had resolved to do something about her weight 'once and for all,' and booked a consultation for potential gastric bypass surgery with a clinic in Melbourne in September. Evidence showed an appointment had been made. 'I didn't want to tell anybody what I was going to have done,' Patterson told the court. 'I was really embarrassed about it, so I thought perhaps letting (her in-laws) believe I had some serious issue that needed treatment might mean they'd be able to help me with the logistics around the kids,' she said. Instead, it was her lunch guests who needed serious medical attention. Hours after the meal Saturday, they started to become ill and went to hospital the next morning with vomiting and diarrhea, the court heard. By Monday morning, their condition had deteriorated, and doctors arranged for their transfer to Austin Hospital, a larger facility that provides specialist liver care. Death cap mushrooms contain toxins that stop the production of protein in liver cells and the cells begin to die, leading to possible liver failure and death. Treatments are available, but none are 100% effective, said Dr Stephen Warrillow, director of Austin Health's intensive care unit. 'Once the amanita poison is within the body, unfortunately the body tends to recycle it internally,' said Warrillow, who treated all four lunch guests. Gail Patterson, 70, and Heather Wilkinson, 66, were considered too weak for a liver transplant and died on August 4 from multiple organ failure, he said. Don Patterson, 70, received a transplant but died on August 5. Ian Wilkinson was in an induced coma on life support but responded to treatment and was eventually discharged in September. 'We thought he was going to die,' said Warrillow. 'He was very close.' Patterson told the court she took up foraging for mushrooms in early 2020, during the Covid-19 pandemic, when she would take long walks with her children in the countryside. Native to Europe, death cap mushrooms arrived in Australia by accident, expert mycologist Tom May told the court. They grow near oak trees and only appear above ground for a couple of weeks before decaying, he said. Most sightings in Victoria are in April and May, and some people upload photos of them to the citizen science website iNaturalist, May added. Christine McKenzie, a retired former poisons information specialist at the Victorian Poisons Information Centre, told the court she spotted death cap mushrooms in Loch – about 28 kilometers (17 miles) from Patterson's home – and uploaded them to iNaturalist on April 18, 2023. She'd been out walking with her husband, grandson and dog, and said she disposed of the mushrooms to avoid accidental poisoning but conceded that more could grow. Citing analysis of cellphone tower connections, the prosecution alleges it's possible Patterson saw McKenzie's post and went to the same location on April 28 to pick the mushrooms. Store records show that within two hours of the alleged visit, Patterson bought a dehydrator, which the prosecution said she used to dry the toxic mushrooms. Patterson concedes she bought the dehydrator, saying there is a 'very small season' of availability for wild mushrooms and she wanted to preserve them, and 'a whole range of things.' She denied foraging for mushrooms in Loch. May, the fungus expert, said that on May 21, 2023, he saw death cap mushrooms growing in Outtrim, about 19 kilometers (11 miles) from Leongatha, and posted the sighting to iNaturalist. 'I don't think I typed the street name in, but I put a very precise latitude-longitude geocode with the observation,' he said. Prosecutors said analysis of Patterson's cellphone movements placed her in the Outtrim region on May 22, when they say it's possible Patterson picked the mushrooms. The defense said broader analysis of her phone records suggests it's possible her cellphone picked up different base-station signals within her own home. 'These records are consistent with the accused never leaving the house,' said Mandy. Patterson denied ever foraging for mushrooms in Outtrim, and said she couldn't remember ever visiting the iNaturalist website and did not see the reported sightings. On August 1, three days after the lunch, Patterson was in hospital, having been convinced by doctors to stay after earlier discharging herself against their advice. They had impressed on her the importance of being treated for death cap mushroom poisoning because symptoms are known to worsen with time. Her children should be there too, they said, because she said they had eaten some of the leftovers on Sunday night, albeit with the mushrooms and pastry scraped off. It was in hospital on August 1 that Patterson said she had a conversation with Simon, her estranged husband, that made her start thinking about how toxic mushrooms had come to be in the meal. Patterson said she told Simon that she had dried mushrooms in a dehydrator, and he replied: 'Is that how you poisoned my parents, using that dehydrator?' Erin Patterson told the jury that Simon's comment had caused her to do 'a lot of thinking about a lot of things.' 'It got me thinking about all the times that I'd used (the dehydrator), and how I had dried foraged mushrooms in it weeks earlier, and I was starting to think, what if they'd gone in the container with the Chinese mushrooms? Maybe, maybe that had happened.' In his evidence, Simon Patterson denied ever suggesting to Erin that she poisoned his parents with the dehydrator. 'I did not say that to Erin,' he said. I was scared that they would blame me for it … for making everyone sick Erin Patterson, defendant The next day, on August 2, Patterson dropped her children at school, then returned home, retrieved the dehydrator, and dumped it at a waste and recycling center. She was seen on closed-circuit television. Asked about her actions, Patterson said child protection officers were due to visit her house that afternoon, and she was 'scared' about having a conversation about the meal and the dehydrator. 'I was scared that they would blame me for it … for making everyone sick,' she said. 'I was scared they'd remove the children,' she added. Analysis showed remnants of death cap mushrooms in the dehydrator, the prosecution said. Patterson acknowledged that when she dumped the dehydrator, she knew that doctors suspected death cap mushroom poisoning. She also accepted that she did not tell medical staff that foraged mushrooms may have been in the meal. Patterson said she had diarrhea after the lunch but brushed it off as a bout of gastro. She was not as ill as her lunch guests – and during her testimony, she offered a reason why. Gail Patterson had brought an orange cake to lunch to share, and Erin Patterson testified that after the guests left, she found herself eating slice, after slice, after slice. After consuming about two-thirds of the cake, she made herself throw up, she told the court. In her closing address, prosecutor Rogers said no evidence was offered suggesting expelling tainted food can lessen the impact of amanita toxin. To the jury, she said, 'we suggest (you) reject her evidence about vomiting after the meal as a lie.' In his closing argument, defense lawyer Mandy asked why, if it was a lie, Patterson hadn't been more precise about when she vomited? 'She surely would have said to you that it happened as soon as the guests left, because the earlier the better,' he said to the jury. During her testimony, Patterson also offered an explanation about how the death cap mushrooms came to be in the meal. Reject her evidence about vomiting after the meal as a lie Prosecutor Nanette Rogers to the jury Patterson said she dried store-bought and foraged mushrooms in her dehydrator and would store them in plastic containers in the pantry. If one box was full, she'd start another, she said. Patterson said that, back in April, she had bought dried mushrooms from an Asian grocer in Melbourne, but didn't use them at the time because they were 'too pungent.' Instead, she stored them in a plastic container in the pantry. Mandy asked her: 'Do you have a memory of putting wild mushrooms that you dehydrated in May or June of 2023 into a container which already contained other dried mushrooms?' 'Yes, I did do that,' Patterson said. Patterson said that, on July 29, as she cooked the lunch, she tasted the mixture of garlic, shallots and mushrooms and decided it was 'a little bland,' so she added dried mushrooms that had been stored in a plastic container in her pantry. Mandy asked her what she had believed to be in the plastic container in the pantry. 'I believed it was just the mushrooms that I bought in Melbourne,' Patterson said. 'And now, what do you think might have been in that tub?' Mandy asked. 'Now I think that there was a possibility that there were foraged ones in there as well,' she said. The Crown contends there was no Asian grocer and that Patterson faked illness after the meal to suggest that she, too, had suffered symptoms of death cap mushroom poisoning. Rogers alleged Patterson initially left hospital because she knew that neither she, nor her children, had consumed the poisoned lunch. When Patterson was examined on Monday, July 31, a doctor found 'no clinical or biochemical evidence of amanita poisoning or any other toxicological substance' in her system, Rogers said. 'By that stage, all four of the lunch guests were in induced comas,' she added. Of allegations Patterson faked her illness following the lunch, Mandy said it made no sense that she'd refuse medical help and discharge herself from hospital early, if she was pretending to have eaten poisoned mushrooms. 'If you're pretending to be sick, you're going to be saying to the medical staff, 'Hook me up, pump me full of drugs, I am very, very sick. Please,'' Mandy said. Furthermore, he said it was possible to have milder symptoms of amanita poisoning, depending on how much was consumed, according to expert evidence that said weight and age were also factors. This family I swear to f***ing god Erin Patterson in a message to friends Under cross-examination, Rogers put it to Patterson that she had two faces: A public one where she appeared to have a good relationship with her in-laws, and a private one expressed in her Facebook chat groups, where she vented to friends that she'd had enough of the family. In messages to Facebook friends read out in court, Patterson expressed her frustration that her in-laws would not get involved in her dispute with Simon over child support. 'I'm sick of this shit I want nothing to do with them,' she wrote in December 2022. 'I thought his parents would want him to do the right thing but it seems their concern about not wanting to feel uncomfortable and not wanting to get involved in their sons personal matters are overriding that so f*** em.' And another message read: 'This family I swear to f***ing god.' Asked by her defense counsel Mandy how she felt about that statement now, an emotional Patterson said: 'I wish I'd never said it … I feel ashamed for saying it, and I wish the family didn't have to hear that I said that. 'They didn't deserve it.' In his closing arguments, Mandy characterized the terse exchanges as signs of a 'brief spat' that was 'resolved amicably.' Mandy said there was no motive for triple murder, and that there were in fact several reasons why Patterson would not want to kill her guests. She had no money issues, lived in a big house, and had almost full-time custody of her two young children, who were very close to their grandparents, he said. The defense argues that Patterson unknowingly picked death cap mushrooms, dried them in her dehydrator and stored them in the pantry, until the day she inadvertently threw them into the pan. She starts panicking and she starts lying from that point. Defense lawyer Colin Mandy SC Mandy said some of the 'ridiculous' propositions included that Patterson planned to kill four lunch guests and 'thought it would all be passed off as some kind of strange case of gastro, where everyone died, except her.' To the prosecution's allegation that Patterson had 'blitzed' the death cap mushrooms into a powder to hide them in the meal, he said: 'Why would you need to hide mushrooms in a mushroom paste? It doesn't make any sense.' The moment in hospital when Erin said Simon asked her if she had used the dehydrator to poison his parents was 'when the wheels start turning,' Mandy said. 'She starts panicking and she starts lying from that point,' he said. 'What followed from this moment were actions taken to conceal … the fact that foraged mushrooms went into the meal because she feared if that was found out, she would be held responsible.' However, Rogers said Patterson had complete control over events and used it to 'devastating effect.' The cook had 'told too many lies,' said Rogers, as she urged the jury to reject Patterson's claims that she didn't know the meal was laced with toxins. 'We say there is no reasonable alternative explanation for what happened to the lunch guests, other than the accused deliberately sourced death cap mushrooms and deliberately included them in the meal she served them, with an intention to kill them,' Rogers said. The jury is expected to retire to consider their verdict this week – their decision must be unanimous.
CNN
21-06-2025
- CNN
Death cap mushrooms killed three lunch guests. Was it murder or a ‘terrible accident'?
A meticulously planned meal prepared in the home of an alleged killer is at the heart of a triple murder trial that's nearing its dramatic conclusion in rural Australia. For eight weeks, audiences have been glued to daily news reports and podcasts on an unusual case that alleges the world's most toxic mushroom was used to kill. A jury will soon decide if Erin Patterson, a 50-year-old mother of two, deliberately added death cap, or amanita phalloides, mushrooms to a Beef Wellington lunch she made for her estranged husband's parents and his aunt and uncle in July 2023. Three guests died within days of the meal, while a fourth recovered after spending several weeks in an induced coma. Patterson denies three counts of murder and one of attempted murder. The prosecution and defense agree death cap mushrooms were in the meal. The question is, how did they get there? During eight days of testimony at Latrobe Valley Magistrates' Court, Patterson acknowledged she repeatedly lied to police, dumped a dehydrator used to dry mushrooms, and reset her phone to delete images of mushrooms and the dehydrator from devices seized by investigators. But she said she did not intend to kill. Explaining her lies, Patterson told the jury she had a 'stupid knee-jerk reaction to just dig deeper and keep lying.' 'I was just scared,' she said. Defense lawyer Colin Mandy SC said Patterson accidentally added foraged mushrooms to the meal, along with ones she bought from an Asian grocer in Melbourne. 'What happened was a tragedy and a terrible accident,' he said. In his closing arguments, Mandy said the prosecution's case was based on 'ridiculous' propositions, including that Patterson 'would intend to kill these four people, blowing her entire life up in the process without a motive.' The prosecution doesn't need to prove a motive. But it does need to convince the 12-member jury beyond reasonable doubt that Patterson intended to kill the two elderly couples – including her children's grandparents – and that she deliberately picked death cap mushrooms to do it. On the morning of July 29, 2023, the smell of frying garlic and shallots likely filled Patterson's kitchen in the small town of Leongatha in rural Victoria. She was preparing a meal for two older married couples – Don and Gail Patterson and Heather and Ian Wilkinson. Don and Gail were the parents of Erin's estranged husband Simon. Heather and Ian were his aunt and uncle. Gail and Heather were sisters, and Ian the pastor of their local church. The two couples lived close by in Korumburra, a country town home to fewer than 5,000 people in the scenic hills of southern Victoria. Erin had asked Simon to come to the lunch, too, but he pulled out the night before, writing in a text that he felt 'too uncomfortable' to attend. Their relationship had become increasingly strained over finances and the children's schooling, and he was living elsewhere, the court heard. Erin told the jury she was 'a bit hurt and a bit stressed' by Simon's message, but the lunch went ahead the next day as planned. Patterson said she had started feeling left out of family gatherings and wanted to make more of an effort. She said she chose to cook Beef Wellington because she remembered her mother preparing the meal for special occasions. It was Patterson's first attempt at the dish, and she wanted to get it right. To the garlic and shallots, she added store-bought button mushrooms that she had chopped up in a processor, before simmering the mixture on low for 45 minutes, she said. The paste was used to coat the steaks, which she wrapped in pastry and baked in the oven. The prosecution alleges she prepared poisoned parcels for her guests and reserved an untainted one for herself. Patterson insists she made just one batch. In the witness box, Ian Wilkinson, the only surviving lunch guest, told the court he'd been surprised but 'very happy' to accept Patterson's lunch invitation. The 71-year-old said his relationship with Erin was 'friendly' and 'amicable.' He'd been a guest at her wedding in 2007 but considered her more of an acquaintance than a close friend. During the Covid-19 pandemic, Patterson helped to broadcast his church services on YouTube, and she attended his sermons, on and off, he said. 'She just seemed like an ordinary person,' he told the jury. Wilkinson said he didn't really understand why they'd been invited to lunch, but it became apparent when they'd finished eating the meal of Beef Wellington, beans and mash. 'Erin announced that she had cancer,' Wilkinson told the jury. 'She said that she was very concerned because she believed it was very serious, life-threatening.' Wilkinson said Patterson asked for advice about how to tell her children about, in her words, 'the threat to my life.' Wilkinson said Don Patterson offered some advice about being honest, but the conversation ended after about 10 minutes when one of the lunch guests noticed the children returning. Wilkinson suggested a quick prayer. 'I prayed a prayer asking God's blessing on Erin, that she would get the treatment that she needed, that the kids would be okay, that she'd have wisdom in how she told the kids,' he testified. Patterson had never been diagnosed with cancer, the court heard. Prosecutor Nanette Rogers SC put to Patterson on the stand: 'I suggest that you never thought you would have to account for this lie about having cancer because you thought that the lunch guests would die.' 'That's not true,' Patterson replied. Patterson said she didn't explicitly tell her guests that she had cancer, but acknowledged she allowed them to believe she may have a serious medical issue because she was exploring possible surgery for another problem – one that she was too embarrassed to reveal. Patterson said she'd always been self-conscious about her weight. As a child, her mother weighed her every week to make sure she wasn't getting too heavy. 'I never had a good relationship with food,' she said. Since her 20s, Patterson said she would binge and purge. Around the time of the fatal lunch in July 2023, she said she was doing it two to three times a week, maybe more. 'Who knew about it?' her defense lawyer Mandy asked Patterson. 'Nobody,' she said. Patterson told the jury she had resolved to do something about her weight 'once and for all,' and booked a consultation for potential gastric bypass surgery with a clinic in Melbourne in September. Evidence showed an appointment had been made. 'I didn't want to tell anybody what I was going to have done,' Patterson told the court. 'I was really embarrassed about it, so I thought perhaps letting (her in-laws) believe I had some serious issue that needed treatment might mean they'd be able to help me with the logistics around the kids,' she said. Instead, it was her lunch guests who needed serious medical attention. Hours after the meal Saturday, they started to become ill and went to hospital the next morning with vomiting and diarrhea, the court heard. By Monday morning, their condition had deteriorated, and doctors arranged for their transfer to Austin Hospital, a larger facility that provides specialist liver care. Death cap mushrooms contain toxins that stop the production of protein in liver cells and the cells begin to die, leading to possible liver failure and death. Treatments are available, but none are 100% effective, said Dr Stephen Warrillow, director of Austin Health's intensive care unit. 'Once the amanita poison is within the body, unfortunately the body tends to recycle it internally,' said Warrillow, who treated all four lunch guests. Gail Patterson, 70, and Heather Wilkinson, 66, were considered too weak for a liver transplant and died on August 4 from multiple organ failure, he said. Don Patterson, 70, received a transplant but died on August 5. Ian Wilkinson was in an induced coma on life support but responded to treatment and was eventually discharged in September. 'We thought he was going to die,' said Warrillow. 'He was very close.' Patterson told the court she took up foraging for mushrooms in early 2020, during the Covid-19 pandemic, when she would take long walks with her children in the countryside. Native to Europe, death cap mushrooms arrived in Australia by accident, expert mycologist Tom May told the court. They grow near oak trees and only appear above ground for a couple of weeks before decaying, he said. Most sightings in Victoria are in April and May, and some people upload photos of them to the citizen science website iNaturalist, May added. Christine McKenzie, a retired former poisons information specialist at the Victorian Poisons Information Centre, told the court she spotted death cap mushrooms in Loch – about 28 kilometers (17 miles) from Patterson's home – and uploaded them to iNaturalist on April 18, 2023. She'd been out walking with her husband, grandson and dog, and said she disposed of the mushrooms to avoid accidental poisoning but conceded that more could grow. Citing analysis of cellphone tower connections, the prosecution alleges it's possible Patterson saw McKenzie's post and went to the same location on April 28 to pick the mushrooms. Store records show that within two hours of the alleged visit, Patterson bought a dehydrator, which the prosecution said she used to dry the toxic mushrooms. Patterson concedes she bought the dehydrator, saying there is a 'very small season' of availability for wild mushrooms and she wanted to preserve them, and 'a whole range of things.' She denied foraging for mushrooms in Loch. May, the fungus expert, said that on May 21, 2023, he saw death cap mushrooms growing in Outtrim, about 19 kilometers (11 miles) from Leongatha, and posted the sighting to iNaturalist. 'I don't think I typed the street name in, but I put a very precise latitude-longitude geocode with the observation,' he said. Prosecutors said analysis of Patterson's cellphone movements placed her in the Outtrim region on May 22, when they say it's possible Patterson picked the mushrooms. The defense said broader analysis of her phone records suggests it's possible her cellphone picked up different base-station signals within her own home. 'These records are consistent with the accused never leaving the house,' said Mandy. Patterson denied ever foraging for mushrooms in Outtrim, and said she couldn't remember ever visiting the iNaturalist website and did not see the reported sightings. On August 1, three days after the lunch, Patterson was in hospital, having been convinced by doctors to stay after earlier discharging herself against their advice. They had impressed on her the importance of being treated for death cap mushroom poisoning because symptoms are known to worsen with time. Her children should be there too, they said, because she said they had eaten some of the leftovers on Sunday night, albeit with the mushrooms and pastry scraped off. It was in hospital on August 1 that Patterson said she had a conversation with Simon, her estranged husband, that made her start thinking about how toxic mushrooms had come to be in the meal. Patterson said she told Simon that she had dried mushrooms in a dehydrator, and he replied: 'Is that how you poisoned my parents, using that dehydrator?' Erin Patterson told the jury that Simon's comment had caused her to do 'a lot of thinking about a lot of things.' 'It got me thinking about all the times that I'd used (the dehydrator), and how I had dried foraged mushrooms in it weeks earlier, and I was starting to think, what if they'd gone in the container with the Chinese mushrooms? Maybe, maybe that had happened.' In his evidence, Simon Patterson denied ever suggesting to Erin that she poisoned his parents with the dehydrator. 'I did not say that to Erin,' he said. I was scared that they would blame me for it … for making everyone sick Erin Patterson, defendant The next day, on August 2, Patterson dropped her children at school, then returned home, retrieved the dehydrator, and dumped it at a waste and recycling center. She was seen on closed-circuit television. Asked about her actions, Patterson said child protection officers were due to visit her house that afternoon, and she was 'scared' about having a conversation about the meal and the dehydrator. 'I was scared that they would blame me for it … for making everyone sick,' she said. 'I was scared they'd remove the children,' she added. Analysis showed remnants of death cap mushrooms in the dehydrator, the prosecution said. Patterson acknowledged that when she dumped the dehydrator, she knew that doctors suspected death cap mushroom poisoning. She also accepted that she did not tell medical staff that foraged mushrooms may have been in the meal. Patterson said she had diarrhea after the lunch but brushed it off as a bout of gastro. She was not as ill as her lunch guests – and during her testimony, she offered a reason why. Gail Patterson had brought an orange cake to lunch to share, and Erin Patterson testified that after the guests left, she found herself eating slice, after slice, after slice. After consuming about two-thirds of the cake, she made herself throw up, she told the court. In her closing address, prosecutor Rogers said no evidence was offered suggesting expelling tainted food can lessen the impact of amanita toxin. To the jury, she said, 'we suggest (you) reject her evidence about vomiting after the meal as a lie.' In his closing argument, defense lawyer Mandy asked why, if it was a lie, Patterson hadn't been more precise about when she vomited? 'She surely would have said to you that it happened as soon as the guests left, because the earlier the better,' he said to the jury. During her testimony, Patterson also offered an explanation about how the death cap mushrooms came to be in the meal. Reject her evidence about vomiting after the meal as a lie Prosecutor Nanette Rogers to the jury Patterson said she dried store-bought and foraged mushrooms in her dehydrator and would store them in plastic containers in the pantry. If one box was full, she'd start another, she said. Patterson said that, back in April, she had bought dried mushrooms from an Asian grocer in Melbourne, but didn't use them at the time because they were 'too pungent.' Instead, she stored them in a plastic container in the pantry. Mandy asked her: 'Do you have a memory of putting wild mushrooms that you dehydrated in May or June of 2023 into a container which already contained other dried mushrooms?' 'Yes, I did do that,' Patterson said. Patterson said that, on July 29, as she cooked the lunch, she tasted the mixture of garlic, shallots and mushrooms and decided it was 'a little bland,' so she added dried mushrooms that had been stored in a plastic container in her pantry. Mandy asked her what she had believed to be in the plastic container in the pantry. 'I believed it was just the mushrooms that I bought in Melbourne,' Patterson said. 'And now, what do you think might have been in that tub?' Mandy asked. 'Now I think that there was a possibility that there were foraged ones in there as well,' she said. The Crown contends there was no Asian grocer and that Patterson faked illness after the meal to suggest that she, too, had suffered symptoms of death cap mushroom poisoning. Rogers alleged Patterson initially left hospital because she knew that neither she, nor her children, had consumed the poisoned lunch. When Patterson was examined on Monday, July 31, a doctor found 'no clinical or biochemical evidence of amanita poisoning or any other toxicological substance' in her system, Rogers said. 'By that stage, all four of the lunch guests were in induced comas,' she added. Of allegations Patterson faked her illness following the lunch, Mandy said it made no sense that she'd refuse medical help and discharge herself from hospital early, if she was pretending to have eaten poisoned mushrooms. 'If you're pretending to be sick, you're going to be saying to the medical staff, 'Hook me up, pump me full of drugs, I am very, very sick. Please,'' Mandy said. Furthermore, he said it was possible to have milder symptoms of amanita poisoning, depending on how much was consumed, according to expert evidence that said weight and age were also factors. This family I swear to f***ing god Erin Patterson in a message to friends Under cross-examination, Rogers put it to Patterson that she had two faces: A public one where she appeared to have a good relationship with her in-laws, and a private one expressed in her Facebook chat groups, where she vented to friends that she'd had enough of the family. In messages to Facebook friends read out in court, Patterson expressed her frustration that her in-laws would not get involved in her dispute with Simon over child support. 'I'm sick of this shit I want nothing to do with them,' she wrote in December 2022. 'I thought his parents would want him to do the right thing but it seems their concern about not wanting to feel uncomfortable and not wanting to get involved in their sons personal matters are overriding that so f*** em.' And another message read: 'This family I swear to f***ing god.' Asked by her defense counsel Mandy how she felt about that statement now, an emotional Patterson said: 'I wish I'd never said it … I feel ashamed for saying it, and I wish the family didn't have to hear that I said that. 'They didn't deserve it.' In his closing arguments, Mandy characterized the terse exchanges as signs of a 'brief spat' that was 'resolved amicably.' Mandy said there was no motive for triple murder, and that there were in fact several reasons why Patterson would not want to kill her guests. She had no money issues, lived in a big house, and had almost full-time custody of her two young children, who were very close to their grandparents, he said. The defense argues that Patterson unknowingly picked death cap mushrooms, dried them in her dehydrator and stored them in the pantry, until the day she inadvertently threw them into the pan. She starts panicking and she starts lying from that point. Defense lawyer Colin Mandy SC Mandy said some of the 'ridiculous' propositions included that Patterson planned to kill four lunch guests and 'thought it would all be passed off as some kind of strange case of gastro, where everyone died, except her.' To the prosecution's allegation that Patterson had 'blitzed' the death cap mushrooms into a powder to hide them in the meal, he said: 'Why would you need to hide mushrooms in a mushroom paste? It doesn't make any sense.' The moment in hospital when Erin said Simon asked her if she had used the dehydrator to poison his parents was 'when the wheels start turning,' Mandy said. 'She starts panicking and she starts lying from that point,' he said. 'What followed from this moment were actions taken to conceal … the fact that foraged mushrooms went into the meal because she feared if that was found out, she would be held responsible.' However, Rogers said Patterson had complete control over events and used it to 'devastating effect.' The cook had 'told too many lies,' said Rogers, as she urged the jury to reject Patterson's claims that she didn't know the meal was laced with toxins. 'We say there is no reasonable alternative explanation for what happened to the lunch guests, other than the accused deliberately sourced death cap mushrooms and deliberately included them in the meal she served them, with an intention to kill them,' Rogers said. The jury is expected to retire to consider their verdict this week – their decision must be unanimous.
ABC News
28-05-2025
- General
- ABC News
Concerns over "dire" regional mental health services
Right now, many rural Australians are grappling with the impacts of drought, floods and other natural disasters. But despite the added strain, there's a significant shortfall of mental health assistance available, driving calls for federal and state governments to de-centralise regional mental health services, to give local communities more control. FEATURED: Associate Professor Mathew Coleman, Chair of Rural and Remote Mental Health Practice at the University of Western Australia.
The Guardian
22-05-2025
- Politics
- The Guardian
How ditching the Liberals can put the grunt back into the Nationals – Australia's rural party
It's been a lonely week for the Nats. Personally, I am on Team Split. I think it's high time they put the grunt back into the country party. Yet having taken the hard decision, David Littleproud – at time of publication – is now sitting astride the barbed wire fence, poised between Team Stay and Team Split. It's the worst place to be. He appears to be having second thoughts. It is true that outside the Coalition, the Nationals will not get their bums on ministerial seats in a future government, but hear me out. This is not the end of the Earth in a more fractured political environment. Notwithstanding Labor's thumping win this month, you just need to look at data from rural voting booths to see more unpredictable patterns as more people challenge the Coalition status quo. The major parties' primary votes are trending downwards. Rural Australia holds the balance of power – if it wants to exercise it – in pretty much every parliament. Rural Australians are minority voters and at best 30% of the population. But it is a big enough bloc to wield with intent, if only we could muster our forces. You don't require night vision goggles to see the potential power of country Australia. There is a whole bloc of rural and regional MPs sitting in the Nats party room, minus Perin Davey (on votes) and Jacinta Nampijinpa Price via defection to the Liberals. Yet the new leadership team of the Liberal party both hold rural electorates: Sussan Ley in Farrer (NSW) and Ted O'Brien in Fairfax (Queensland). The putative challengers were Angus Taylor who has been a rural MP up until the last election when Hume was reclassified outer metropolitan. Price is a Country Liberal senator for the Northern Territory. The clue is in the title. The Liberals hold more rural territory than the National party. There are rural independents, like Indi MP Helen Haines, Mayo MP Rebekha Sharkie and former Nationals Calare MP Andrew Gee, who saw off the Nationals rival easily. The point is there are lots of rural political representatives in federal parliament, so how does the National party differentiate itself? Their sole branding point is that they only represent rural and regional people. The Coalition split was allegedly about four policies: nuclear energy, supermarket divestiture, a $20bn regional fund and action on rural phone and internet coverage (praise be!). Let's park the fact that they did nothing about these ideas in their long tenure under Abbott, Turnbull and Morrison. Leaving the nukes in the just-not-feasible basket, the old market-based Libs would never go for such interventionist policies. The most likely side to even talk about these would be the crossbench or the Labor party. The untethered Nats could plot a course to a sensible centre right position that carves out a new city-country contract. Or they could skip down the yellow brick road to Trump world. As a stand alone party, they will live or die by their policies and their capacity to connect with a changing rural voter base as margins get more unpredictable. Younger generations with different voting histories are also moving in, seeking cheaper housing and better lifestyles. There are good reasons to go for a full makeover while you have time to create a modern country political brand. The crossbench has shown the Nationals could develop policies that don't have to appeal to the Liberal party as long as they got support from other quarters. It could get weird. As Donald Trump has shown, transactional politics can make for the strangest of bedfellows. Free to roam, the Nationals could deal with any party, including Labor. Tony Windsor and Rob Oakeshott did such a deal for their respective electorates of New England and Lyne with Julia Gillard in 2010. They were hammered for it even though the agreement made major commitments to parliamentary reforms and regional Australia including their own electorates. Better still, the deal was made public for their own voters to see. As voters, we cannot see what the Nationals have demanded from the Liberals in the Coalition agreement. We cannot see what the Liberals demanded of the Nats. If you need examples of lateral thinking, the banking royal commission grew from a crossbench alliance driven by Nationals own senator John Williams going rogue with Greens senator Peter Whish-Wilson and senator Nick Xenophon. They successfully forced the two big parties to act. The federal Icac and action on climate were two key policy planks of both the Greens and the country community independents. Those issues formed part of a platform that provided a launching pad for the city-based teals, the same folk eating the Liberal party's lunch. The Nats own nuclear policy came about as a Coalition fig leaf for the Coalition's lack of climate policy. So to the Nats, sit down and do some hard yakka to reshape the party for the political landscape as it is, not as you would like it to be. Forget about bowing to oligopolies and billionaires. Remember the key employers in regional areas are not mining and farming now but health services, aged care, education, construction and retail. Professions mostly dominated by women. Where did the Coalition lose ground? With women. Labor has very little interest in the bush because there are no votes in it for them. What better way to get them interested in rural policy than to signal you are open to all sides of politics.
