Wellington: New Zealand's political opposition has denied hacking the Treasury department to obtain highly secure state budget documents and says the Ardern government is conducting a "witch-hunt".

The country's centre-right National Party on Tuesday released what it said were details from the Labour-led administration's much-anticipated national budget, but refused to say how it got the information.

Treasury Secretary Gabriel Makhlouf later announced the department believed its systems had been "deliberately and systematically hacked" and confirmed there had been 2000 attempts to access budget documents over two days.

The matter had been referred to police, he said.

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Opposition leader Simon Bridges said on Wednesday the government had been left embarrassed and was looking for scapegoats.

"There has been no hacking under any definition of that word. There has been entirely appropriate behaviour from the National Party the whole [way] through. There has been nothing illegal and even approaching that," Bridges said.

"They are not in control of what they are doing so they are lashing out and they are having a witch-hunt."

He accused both the Treasury department and the finance minister, Grant Robertson, of misleading the public, but repeatedly refused to say how National had obtain the information it had released.

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Earlier, Robertson said he had contacted the opposition to request it not release any further information.

The budget details released prematurely by the opposition on Tuesday included figures of planned funding across a series of government departments.

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It came just two days ahead of what the Ardern government has labelled its "wellbeing budget", which it says will shake up government budgets by measuring elements of public welfare, such as mental health and child poverty, alongside the usual economic indicators.

AAP

I was in a café with a friend, and a well-dressed businessman approached. He told me he was a fan of my writing, and that he’d love to meet up some time. Later, he called me, and we chatted for half an hour. He said he was divorced with a child, and that he was headed interstate, but that he’d call when he returned.

He never called. And I may never have known why, but for a chance meeting in the city shortly afterwards. The businessman was with a female friend. Turns out, she was his long-term girlfriend.
I didn’t say anything at the time. I felt mightily pissed off, but I swallowed it down.

I’ve swallowed down all sorts of shitty behaviour from men over the years, in the dating world, and on the internet.

I’ve been ghosted. I’ve had men lie about their marital status. I’ve been pressured for sex. I’ve received grossly inappropriate messages. And I’ve had men run hot and cold, messing with my feelings, with no care at all for my wellbeing.

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And you know what? I put up with it all. What else could I do? There seemed to be no real point in calling it out. Partly, I knew it wouldn’t change the outcome. Best to just let it slide, forget the men, and move on.

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But I didn’t move on, not really. The resentment grew. It wasn’t right that I had to deal with so much shit. It wasn’t right that men behaved this way. With every new episode of poor behaviour, I felt my resentment simmer into rage.

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I realised I wanted to tell these men off. I realised had a right to do so. And I realised that the reason I hadn’t yet done so yet had little to do with "no point", and more to do with fear.

I didn’t want to make a scene. I didn’t want to be disruptive. As much as I was angry at the men, I still wanted them to like me. I still wanted them to like me, even after they treated me so poorly. I’m a woman, after all. We are socialised to keep the peace. We are socialised to play nice, keep smiling, stay calm.

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Shortly afterwards, there was a confluence of events in my dating and online life. A man I’d been out with once suggested I come to his house, and became aggressive and offensive when I declined. A man I’d been interested in told me he didn’t want a relationship, and when I agreed to be friends, tried to hit me up for sex. A random reader tried to flirt with me in private messages, despite his profile stating clearly that he was married.

And then, months after we’d spoken, the businessman with a girlfriend started following me on Instagram and liking my posts. The chutzpah!

Something in me clicked. I didn’t want to play nice anymore. I was tired of men’s bullshit. I was tired of the lack of respect. And I was tired of putting up.

I called them out. I messaged each of the men and told them in no uncertain terms that their behavior wasn’t acceptable. I got angry. I was harsh. I was unlikeable. I didn’t care.

It felt good to do it. It was incredibly empowering. I didn’t have to let things slide and live with a simmering pool of resentment. I could stand up for myself and for all of us women. I was starting a revolution in my own little life.

The reactions of the men differed. One argued, a little absurdly, and then gave up. One apologized profusely. One apologized conditionally. Another immediately disappeared.

But their reactions were irrelevant, because it wasn’t about them. It was about me, and my desire to reclaim my power. It was about me and my refusal to put up with their shit.

I wanted to be liked. I think we all want to be liked. But I need to respect myself more than I want anyone to like me, and I respect myself when don’t tolerate bad behavior. The men’s reactions were irrelevant, because I got what I needed.

And maybe, just maybe, they’ll treat the next woman better. That is a fine outcome too.

Australia's greenhouse gas emissions in 2018 rose for a fourth year in a row, an increase at odds with the country's Paris climate pledge, according to a government submission to the United Nations.

The National Inventory Report to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change showed emissions last year were 537 million tonnes of carbon dioxide-equivalent (which include all greenhouse gases), based on preliminary figures.

That tally, which includes changes to land-use and forestry, was up 0.4 per cent from 2017's 534.7 million tonnes of carbon dioxide-equivalent.

The Morrison government is due to release its full figures for 2018 emissions by the end of this month. The UN report provides an indication of which way the trajectory will be pointed.

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The responsibility for emissions will formally fall to Angus Taylor, who has had emissions added to his energy portfolio following the Coalition's election win earlier this month. Comment on the UN report has been sought.

The government's emissions figures would have shown a faster increase if not for land use, land-use change and forestry – known by the acronym LULUCF – serving as a carbon sink for the past four years.

The report noted that Australia's forest area had increased by an estimated 772,000 hectares in 2017, and by 4.6 million hectares since 2010.

Those estimates, though, have been disputed by some environmental groups that point to the Queensland government showing a rapid rise in land-clearing in recent years, while NSW has also loosened its native vegetation laws in the past two years.

Australia pledged at the Paris climate summit in 2015 that it would lower emissions by 26 to 28 per cent from 2005 levels by 2030.

About half that reduction, though, were to come from the use of so-called Kyoto carry-over credits generated during the current climate accord known as the Kyoto Protocol. Labor promised at the elections it would achieve a 45 per cent reduction on 2005 levels without resorting to the Kyoto credits.

In 2005, Australia's greenhouse gas emissions reached 610.6 million tonnes of carbon dioxide-equivalent.

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Controversial tech group GetSwift has landed in hot water with the stock exchange after an undisclosed 'strategic partnership' in Kuwait appears to have sent its shares soaring by 20 per cent on Tuesday.

The last mile logistics operator faces a shareholder class action and is being sued by ASIC after allegedly misleading the market by not revealing in 2017 that half the customer contracts it had boasted did not generate a cent of revenue. Now, it appears to be in trouble with another corporate regulator for the opposite reason: failing to disclose a 'strategic partnership' in the Middle East nation.

The Australian Securities Exchange (ASX) suspended GetSwift from trading on Tuesday after its shares rocketed as much as 20 per cent on high turnover.

"ASX observed some unusual trading and share price movement in GetSwift Limited (GSW) securities following this morning’s open," said a spokeswoman for the sharemarket regulator. "Trading was suspended at 12.07pm, pending a response by the company to ASX’s price query."

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Shares of GetSwift, which was founded by former AFL player Joel Macdonald, were up 19 per cent to 19¢ when trading was suspended. GetSwift has yet to respond to the ASX query.

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Earlier Tuesday morning, a press release distributed on trading terminal Bloomberg announced that GetSwift had firmed up a "strategic partnership" in Kuwait with The Kout Food Group, which operates the local franchises for Pizza Hut, Taco Bell, and Burger King.

Kout, which also has operations in the UK, announced that it will be deploying the GetSwift platform across the delivery segment of these, and other brands it operates.

In the press release, Kout's deputy chief executive Amin Mohamed, described the GetSwift solution as "best in class" and said "we have recommended and suggested GSW solution to partners around the globe and this could be their preferred solution."

GetSwift chief executive Bane Hunter acknowledged the importance of this contract win.

“Although this has been a lengthier journey than expected, we are honoured and humbled by the trust and faith our partners at Kout Food Group have given us during a period of time that was challenging for GSW due to external pressures," he said in the press release.

"We look forward to the next chapter in our global story.”

The press release was not disclosed on the ASX, and did not contain any financial details or the length of contract. GetSwift did not respond to requests for clarification from The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age.

GetSwift is trying to convince the market it has a viable business model. Prior to Tuesday's share spike the company had a market value of just $30 million, despite holding $74 million cash and no debt.

Last month the company reported that its revenue for the March quarter exceeded $1 million, up more than 200 per cent compared to the prior March quarter.

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The shareholder class action and ASIC legal action relate to allegedly misleading statements the company made to the market in 2017 about customer contracts with the Fruit Box, Commonwealth Bank and Amazon.

The stock crashed from $2.92 to a low of 98¢ after the company revealed that fewer than half the contracts it had been publicising were actually generating any revenue.

GetSwift had raised $75 million from investors at $4 a share just months prior to the shock announcement.

GetSwift has said it will vigorously defend itself, and its executives, against the actions. ASIC has also taken action against Mr Macdonald and Mr Hunter.

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Namchne, Nepal: Scaling Mount Everest was a dream few realised before Nepal opened its side of the mountain to commercial climbing a half-century ago. This year the government issued a record number of permits, leading to traffic jams on the world's highest peak that likely contributed to the greatest death toll in four years.

As the allure of Everest grows, so have the crowds, with inexperienced climbers faltering on the narrow passageway to the peak and causing deadly delays, veteran climbers said.

After 11 people died this year, Nepal tourism officials have no intention of restricting the number of permits issued, instead encouraging even more tourists and climbers to come "for both pleasure and fame," said Mohan Krishna Sapkota, secretary at the Ministry of Tourism and Civil Aviation.

Nepal, one of the world's poorest countries, relies on the climbing industry to bring in $US300 million ($433 million) each year. It doesn't cap the number of permits it issues or control the pace or timing of the expeditions, leaving that to tour operators and guides who take advantage of brief clear weather conditions whenever they come, leading to pileups near the peak.

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On May 22, a climber snapped a photo from a line with dozens of hikers in colorful winter gear that snaked into the sky.

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Climbers were crammed crampon-to-crampon along a sharp-edged ridge above South Col, with a 2000-metre drop on either side, all clipped onto a single line of rope, trudging toward the top of the world and risking death as each minute ticked by.

"There were more people on Everest than there should be," said Kul Bahadur Gurung, general secretary of the Nepal Mountaineering Association, an umbrella group of all expedition operators in Nepal.

"We lack the rules and regulations that say how many people can actually go up and when."

The death toll this season is the highest since 2015. Most of those who died are believed to have suffered from altitude sickness, which is caused by low amounts of oxygen at high elevation and can cause headaches, vomiting, shortness of breath and mental confusion.

Once only accessible to well-heeled elite mountaineers, Nepal's booming climbing market has driven down the cost of an expedition, opening Everest up to hobbyists and adventure-seekers. Nepal requires climbers to have a doctors' note deeming them physically fit, but not to prove their stamina at such extreme heights.

Because of the altitude, climbers have just hours to reach the top before they are at risk of a pulmonary edema, when the lungs fill with liquid. From Camp Four at 8,000 meters (26,240 feet) to the 8,850-meter (29,035-foot) peak, the final push on Everest is known as the "death zone."

The conditions are so intense at such times that when a person dies, no one can afford to expend energy on carrying the body down from the mountain.

"Every minute counts there," said Eric Murphy, a mountain guide from Bellingham, Washington, who climbed Everest for a third time on May 23. He said what should have taken 12 hours took 17 hours because of struggling climbers who were clearly exhausted but had no one to guide or help them.

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Just a handful of inexperienced climbers, he said, is "enough to have a profound effect."

The deaths this year on Nepal's side of the mountain included Don Cash, a sales executive from Utah, and Christopher Kulish, an attorney from Colorado, who both died on their way down from the peak.

Kulish, 62, had just reached the top with a small group after crowds of climbers congested the peak last week, according to his brother, Mark Kulish.

He described his brother as an attorney who was an "inveterate climber of peaks in Colorado, the West and the world over."

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Just before he died, Kulish made it into the so-called "Seven Summit Club" of mountaineers who have reached the highest peaks on every continent, his brother said.

Cash, 55, collapsed at the summit and was given CPR and massages by his two Sherpa guides. He got up only to fall again in the same way at Hillary Step, the first cliff face down from the summit. His body was left near there.

Cash had said on his LinkedIn page that he left his job as a sales executive to try to join the seven summits club.

Nepal doesn't have any regulations to determine how many permits should be issued, so anyone with a doctor's note can obtain one for an $US11,000 fee, Sapkota said.

This year, permits were issued to 381 people in 44 teams, the highest number ever, according to the government. They were accompanied by an equal number of guides from Nepal's ethnic Sherpa community. Some climbers were originally issued permits in 2014 that were revoked mid-season when 16 Sherpa guides died in an avalanche and other Sherpas, whose support as guides and porters is essential, effectively went on strike.

Another factor was China's limit on the number of permits it issued this year for routes in its territory on the north side of Everest for a clean-up. Both the north and south sides of the mountain are littered with empty oxygen canisters, food packaging and other debris.

Instead of the overcrowding, Sapkota blamed the weather, equipment and inadequate supplemental oxygen for this year's deaths.

"There has been concern about the number of climbers on Mount Everest but it is not because of the traffic jam that there were casualties," Sapkota said in Namche, the town that serves as the staging area for Everest trips.

Still, he said, "In the next season we will work to have double rope in the area below the summit so there is better management of the flow of climbers."

Mirza Ali, a Pakistani mountaineer and tour company owner who reached Everest's peak for the first time this month, on his fourth attempt, said such an approach was flawed.

"Everybody wants to stand on top of the world," but tourists unprepared for the extremes of Everest endanger the entire industry, he said.

"There is not a sufficient check on issuing the permits," Ali said. "The more people come, the more permits, more business. But on the other side it is a lot of risk because it is costing lives."

Indian climber Ameesha Chauhan, soaking her frostbitten toes in medicine at a hospital in Kathmandu, described the agony of turning away from the peak when she realised her supplemental oxygen supply was low.

Two of her team members died on the May 16 ascent.

She returned and scaled the peak a week later.

"If you look at it, the inexperienced climbers do not even know how to tie on the oxygen masks around their face," she said. "Many climbers are too focused on reaching the summit."

AP

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It is tempting for normal people to ignore our President when he starts ranting about treason and corruption at the FBI. I understand the temptation. I'm the object of many of his rants, and even I try to ignore him.

But we shouldn't, because millions of good people believe what a president of the United States says. In normal times, that's healthy. But not now, when the President is a liar who doesn't care what damage he does to vital institutions. We must call out his lies that the FBI was corrupt and committed treason, that we spied on the Trump campaign, and tried to defeat Donald Trump. We must constantly return to the stubborn facts.

Russia engaged in a massive effort to interfere in the 2016 presidential election. Near as I can tell, there is only one US leader who still denies that fact. The FBI saw the attack starting in mid-June 2016, with the first dumping of stolen emails. In late July, when we were hard at work trying to understand the scope of the effort, we learnt that one of Trump's foreign policy advisers knew about the Russian effort seven weeks before we did.

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In April 2016, that adviser talked to a Russian agent in London, learnt that the Russians had obtained "dirt" on Hillary Clinton in the form of thousands of emails, and that the Russians could assist the Trump campaign through the anonymous release of information damaging to Clinton. Of course, nobody from the Trump campaign told us this (nor about later Russian approaches); we had to learn it, months after the fact, from an allied ambassador.

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But when we finally learnt of it in late July, what should the FBI have done? Let it go? Go tell the Trump campaign? Tell the press? No. Investigate, to see what the facts were. We didn't know what was true. Maybe there was nothing to it, or maybe Americans were actively conspiring with the Russians. To find out, the FBI would live up to its name and investigate.

As director, I was determined that the work would be done carefully, professionally and discretely. We were just starting. If there was nothing to it, we didn't want to smear Americans. If there was something to it, we didn't want to let corrupt Americans know we were on to them. So, we kept it secret. That's how the FBI approaches all counterintelligence cases.

And there's the first problem with Trump's whole "treason" narrative. If we were "deep state" Clinton loyalists bent on stopping him, why would we keep it secret? Why wouldn't the much-maligned FBI supervisor Peter Strzok – the alleged kingpin of the "treasonous" plot to stop Trump – tell anyone? He was one of the very few people who knew what we were investigating.

We investigated. We didn't gather information about the campaign's strategy. We didn't "spy" on anyone's campaign. We investigated to see whether it was true that Americans associated with the campaign had taken the Russians up on any offer of help. By late October, the investigators thought they had probable cause to get a federal court order to conduct electronic surveillance of a former Trump campaign adviser named Carter Page.

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Page was no longer with the campaign, but there was reason to believe he was acting as an agent of the Russian government. We asked a federal judge for permission to surveil him and then we did it, all without revealing our work, despite the fact that it was late October and a leak would have been very harmful to candidate Trump. Worst deep-state conspiracy ever.

But wait, the conspiracy idea gets dumber. On October 28, after agonising deliberation over two terrible options, I concluded I had no choice but to inform Congress that we had reopened the Clinton email investigation. I judged that hiding that fact – after having told Congress repeatedly and under oath that the case was finished – would be worse than telling Congress the truth. It was a decision William Barr praised and Hillary Clinton blamed for her loss 11 days later. Strzok, alleged architect of the treasonous plot to stop Trump, drafted the letter I sent Congress.

And there's still more to the dumbness of the conspiracy allegation. At the centre of the alleged FBI "corruption" we hear so much about was the conclusion that deputy director Andrew McCabe lied to internal investigators about a disclosure to the press in late October 2016. McCabe was fired over it. And what was that disclosure? Some stop-Trump election-eve screed? No. McCabe authorised a disclosure that revealed the FBI was actively investigating the Clinton Foundation, a disclosure that was harmful to Clinton.

There is a reason the non-fringe media doesn't spend much time on this "treason" and "corruption" business. The conspiracy theory makes no sense. The FBI wasn't out to get Donald Trump. It also wasn't out to get Hillary Clinton. It was out to do its best to investigate serious matters while walking through a vicious political minefield.

But go ahead, investigate the investigators, if you must. When those investigations are over, they will find the work was done appropriately and focused only on discerning the truth of very serious allegations. There was no corruption. There was no treason. There was no attempted coup. Those are lies, and dumb lies at that. There were just good people trying to figure out what was true, under unprecedented circumstances.

The Washington Post

James Comey is a former director of the FBI and a former US deputy attorney general.

The AFL community is reeling following the death of Anna Green, the wife of Demons champion Brad Green.

Ms Green, a mum and lifestyle blogger, died on Monday, leaving behind two young sons, Oliver and Wilba.

Tributes have started pouring in for the former flight attendant, who described herself on Instagram as a “lover of sunshine, palm trees, yoga, beaches, travel, summer, sunsets, cocktails [and] style”.

Her husband made a touching message to his wife on social media.

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“Goodbyes are not forever, are not the end. It simply means, I’ll miss you until we meet again. Rest easy my darling #xxx3boys.”

The Green family also released a statement on Tuesday.

"It is with the heaviest of hearts that we confirm the passing of beloved mother, wife, daughter, sister and friend, Anna Green," it reads.

"Anna suffered a cardiac arrest last week and passed away peacefully at lunch time yesterday surrounded by her immediate family.

"The family would like to thank the committed medical team at the Intensive Care Unit at Melbourne's Alfred Hospital and would now ask for privacy as they come to terms with their loss."

Fashion label J’Aton Couture founders Jacob Luppino and Anthony Pittorino remembered “Divine Anna” as an incredible woman who will always remain “with us”.

“Til well all reunite with our beautiful sister Audrey [Anna] in our hearts forever J&Axx,” the pair wrote on Instagram.

Fan page DeeBrief posted on Facebook it was “devastated” by the news of Ms Green’s death and urged her husband, former Dees captain, to “stay strong”.

“Anna leaves behind two sons, a husband and distraught family and friends. Our sincerest condolences are with Brad, his children and everyone affected by this horrible news.”

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Ms Green has in recent years worked in the fashion industry, including launching online women’s boutique Wilo Green in 2012, and starting an Instagram blog.

Her social media is filled with sun-kissed photos of her, her sons and lifestyle images.

It can be hard to like your body. Even in the years when I've dieted and felt "thin", I've hated trying on swimwear in a tiny changing room, every flaw spotlit in a full-length mirror.

It seems being unhappy in our bodies is the norm. The theme of this year's UK Mental Health Week is body image; a foundation survey of UK adults found that one in five felt shame, 34 per cent felt down or low, and 19 per cent felt disgusted because of their body image in the last year.

I get the impression that, like me, most women have a constant low-level feeling of our bodies not being good enough. Friends of mine are always happy to talk about their hang-ups. One, a great runner, calls her thighs "huge". Another apologises that she's "got no tits". We have ugly names for the parts we point out to each other: cankles, spare tyre, bingo wings.

My body shame started in puberty. I remember being on a beach in Egypt aged 14, looking down and for the first time, seeing my body through the eyes of a critic rather than as the person living in it. I saw that my stomach stuck out, my breasts were too big.

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In academia, this lack of body-mind connection, seeing the body not as yours but from the outside, is one of the defining features of negative body image. "It is viewing our bodies as objects, as a collection of parts to be critiqued and scrutinised and monitored," says Nadia Craddock, of the Centre for Appearance Research, UWE Bristol, whose PhD is on what industry can do to foster positive body image. This leads to us seeing our bodies as a project to fix, to fit with society's strict and slim beauty norms.

So, until the past few years, going on a diet, for me, was a normal part of this. I did my first diet aged 13; boiled eggs, grapefruit and cardboard crispbread. Aged 22, March to July, all I consumed per day was one slice of ham, two pieces of toast and 10 Marlboro Lights. I spent three, joy-free years of my 30s eating zero carbs.

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But in the past few years, the rise of the Body Positivity movement, especially on Instagram, has made us rethink. I smile at @bodyposipanda dancing in her underwear. I've cheered on Bryony Gordon running in her underwear. I love Stephanie Yeboah’s fashion shots. I have begun to see the beauty in women of every shape and size.

Body Positivity hasn't given me all the answers, though. While it started as a political movement for bodies that didn't fit the ideal, it has been co-opted as a marketing tool to sell products to women who aren't a size 10, so the message has increasingly become commercial. That explains the size six #fitspo Instagram influencers hashtagging their posts as #BP. And spending time and energy thinking about your body's appearance still puts the focus on what your body looks like.

The anti-diet dietitian Laura Thomas, author of Just Eat It, told me about a new way of looking at the body that might suit me, Body Neutrality. "It's what's called rational self-acceptance in body image literature," she says. "It's knowing that I don't have a perfect body or it doesn't align with societal ideals, but it's my body and it allows me to move through the world. It functions for me. It's being accepting of the fact that this is your body, your home."

On a practical level, the idea is simply to have fewer thoughts about your body's appearance – both criticisms and positive ones, to not let the way you look define how you feel.

This is the thinking behind Jameela Jamil's brilliant I Weigh campaign on Instagram too – that appearance is a tiny drop in the wonderful mix of your qualities, accomplishments and reasons to feel worthy.

If body neutrality sounds like a comfortable place to be, how do we get there? What I've found helps is focusing on what my body can do, on the fact I am able and healthy, on yoga and swimming and walking. "It doesn't have to be about being able to achieve impressive sporting accomplishments, like running a marathon," says Craddock. It can include things as everyday as housework, as creative as craft, as emotional as hugging.

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Anuschka Rees, another body neutrality advocate and author of new book Beyond Beautiful, stopped wearing any tight or uncomfortable clothes, bras that dig in, high heels. "Every time you wear uncomfortable clothes, you're telling yourself your wellbeing is less important than what you look like to others," she says.

This year, I have promised myself, no more diets.

I am still not looking forward to trying on swimwear, but then we are all just our own work in progress, right?

The Telegraph, London

It has been two months since US Attorney General Barr released his summary of Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 US election, and just over a month since the redacted report was made public. President Trump, of course, claims the report “fully exonerated” him, and replies with the sound bites “no collusion, no obstruction” whenever the subject comes up.

The initial coverage of The Mueller Report seemed to spell an end to the cottage industry of Trump related podcasts that sprung up looking into the President’s Russian connections and ongoing investigations. The most vulnerable seemed the show named after the man himself, Mueller, She Wrote.

Hosted by three San Diego based comedians, Jordan Coburn, A.G. and Jaleesa Johnson, Mueller, She Wrote has followed the investigation in minute detail, with a weekly breakdown of investigations, and a playable fantasy Indictment League. Host AG says the show copped a wave of abuse following Barr’s summary letter.

“We got a lot of responses, tweets and messages [laughing and saying] mud on your face? Or don't you feel stupid for having this podcast for a year and a half that's dedicated to this farce witch hunt hoax?”

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But since then, the podcast has only grown in popularity and authority. The show is picking up subscribers to the free show, as well as paid subscribers to a new spin-off daily podcast. Recent guests have included former FBI director Andrew McCabe and Michael McFall, former ambassador to Russia under President Obama.

“I hate to use the word vindication because it indicates like a victory, and this country is in a very, very precarious and terrible position. And I hate to be seeming victorious when we're in such perilous times. But I feel like this administration and Trump supporters and press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders have been gaslighting us for a really long time. And now we have written proof in 450 pages that we weren't crazy. And so it's kind of like we've put the gas light out. And we’re now in a position where America is catching up …”

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Despite comedians at the helm, the podcast goes into incredible detail on the investigation and its many characters. Responding to the news that just three per cent of Americans have read The Mueller Report, the podcast has just released the first episode of a chapter-by-chapter breakdown of the report.

“In 40 years when they do a documentary on the Mueller investigation, I wanted to be a part of that, because I just consider this so historical and so important. But how can I possibly do that? I'm not a journalist, I can't just go on MSNBC and get a show. I'm a comedian but I’m not known for political humour, so I can just go on stage and go around and be like Bill Maher.”

“But podcasting, that's accessible to anyone. Anyone who wants to start a podcast can start a podcast. So that's what we did. We had zero marketing budget, we just started with 50 bucks in my kitchen and went from there.”

The Dee Why RSL Club faces a disciplinary hearing following an investigation into allegations of irresponsible gambling practices after the death of one of its customers last year.

Gary Van Duinen died by suicide after an all-night gaming binge at the club that occurred after family members begged the club to help curb his gambling.

Liquor & Gaming NSW has completed an investigation and as a result lodged a formal disciplinary complaint with the Independent Liquor and Gaming Authority (ILGA).

According to Mr Van Duinen’s mother, Joy, by the end of his life her son was commonly spending up to 13 hours at the club’s poker machines, and had destroyed both his business and his marriage.

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Both she and Mr Van Duinen’s estranged wife had asked the club for help.

The morning after he failed to return home from his gambling binge Mrs Van Duinen went to the club to look for him and ask for help. His body was later found in nearby bushland.

“They do not care. All they care about is the money going into their machines and into their coffers,” said Mrs Van Duinen of the Dee Why RSL Club yesterday.

“Clubs have become so much like casinos that you can’t tell the difference. Now they are building a new whopping great building down there from the tax breaks and the gambling money. It is not what clubs are meant to be.”

Since her son’s death a year ago this Friday, Mrs Van Duinen, has campaigned for poker machine reform in NSW, and she continues to call for the machines to be slowed down and for minimum bets in NSW to be reduced. Mr Van Duinen’s ashes will be scattered in a ceremony on Saturday.

The ILGA can impose formal reprimands, change, suspend or cancel the club’s licence or levy fines of up to $550,000 where it finds practices have encouraged the misuse and abuse of gambling.

Reverend Tim Costello, spokesman for The Alliance for Gambling Reform, said he believed the club should face significant punitive measures.

“I believe the Dee Why RSL’s conduct was so egregious towards the late Gary Van Duinen, that they should have their licence to operate a NSW pokies venue suspended for at least six months, plus suffer the maximum $500,000 fine,” he said.

“This is a cowboy industry which won’t ever learn to be responsible until the NSW government and the regulator breaks free from industry capture and proves they can fearlessly govern this industry to stamp out predatory behaviour.

“The DEE Why RSL is the 11th biggest pokies club in NSW with 494 machines and is currently embarking on a $100 million expansion after taking $44.4 million from gamblers in 2018 and declaring a profit of $11.5 million on total revenue of $67.4 million.

“It can well afford to suffer a multi-million reduction in its 2019 profit through a meaningful suspension of its pokies operating licence which would serve as a wake-up call to the industry."

Dee Why RSL and Clubs NSW declined to comment while the matter remained before ILGA.

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