{"podcast":{"title":"Conspiracy Cabal","slug":"conspiracy-cabal-7759106","podcast_index_feed_id":7759106,"rss_url":"https://feeds.acast.com/public/shows/692e431c1fc8491a7b9a3769","website_url":"https://shows.acast.com/conspiracy-cabal","image_url":"https://assets.pippa.io/shows/692e431c1fc8491a7b9a3769/1780012564788-fbe66255-abc6-4b7b-97a1-b15d86551a5f.jpeg","author":"Southern Ocean Media","episode_count":38,"summary":"The sh*t that's in your group chat...just a fair bit more fact checked and a lot more explained. Big Pharma. The deep state. The crisis actors. Alien life. Spy agencies and cover ups. Whatever it is, award winning journo Richard Baker and Dr Nick Coatsworth are your guides on the search for the kernel of truth. Conspiracies are everywhere right now. But, we don’t peddle theories, we go to their point of origin and follow the breadcrumbs to sort the bullsh*t from the verified, while keeping an open mind to things that can’t be explained. Rich has spent years exposing the crooked and corrupt, and Nick has copped death threats from people who thought he was one of THEM. They know what real cover-ups look like, and they also know what happens when paranoia meets the algorithm. Sometimes the conspiracy is real. Sometimes it's designed to sell you on something. Often, it's both. Our mission is to entertain and inform. Rather than condemn and judge. Hear the Conspiracy Cabal every week, and contact the show at conspiracycabal@outlook.com Conspiracy Cabal is proudly supported by WholeLife . Use code CABAL10 for $10 off your first order of $50 or more. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privac…","last_synced_at":"2026-09-09T06:20:27.742949+00:00","page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/conspiracy-cabal-7759106"},"episode":{"title":"14: Melbourne Fire Bombings | What's really behind them?","slug":"14-melbourne-fire-bombings-what-s-really-behind-them","published_at":"2026-05-26T15:00:00+00:00","page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/conspiracy-cabal-7759106/14-melbourne-fire-bombings-what-s-really-behind-them","show_page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/conspiracy-cabal-7759106","url":"https://shows.acast.com/conspiracy-cabal/episodes/14-melbourne-fire-bombings-the-real-cause","audio_url":"https://sphinx.acast.com/p/open/s/692e431c1fc8491a7b9a3769/e/6a159863cb11d38a8bc37fcc/media.mp3","summary":"The $7 billion crime industry. The excise rate that built it. The health department that knew — and kept raising the tax anyway. The global protocol to combat illicit tobacco that 100 countries signed, and Australia quietly ignored. The enforcement agency with no enforcement powers, led by someone with no law enforcement experience. The smoking rate data that nobody's measuring — or maybe nobody wants to see. The thing is — some of this is documented. Australia's illicit tobacco market, once a niche customs headache, now accounts for an estimated 75–80% of all tobacco consumed in the country. Firebombings have terrorised suburban shopfronts. Legitimate small businesses can't get insurance. So how did a public health policy designed to stop people smoking end up creating the largest organised crime industry this country has ever seen? In this episode, Richard Baker and Dr. Nick Coatsworth are joined by Rohan Pike — former AFP, foreign bribery investigator, and the man who's been shouting about illicit tobacco since before most people knew it was a problem — to ask how we got here, who knew what and when, and why the response still doesn't match the scale of the crisis. How Australia's world-leading tobacco excise created a world-leading criminal market — and when the warning signs were first visible to law enforcement The health department's role in suppressing those warnings — and the theory that a single-minded focus on one public health metric blinded policymakers to everything else The firebombings, the organised crime turf wars, and the name every Australian now knows: how illicit tobacco went from a customs problem to a national security issue The global protocol on illicit tobacco that Australia never signed — and what that decision looks like in hindsight The ha…","meta_description":"The $7 billion crime industry. The excise rate that built it. The health department that knew — and kept raising the tax anyway. The global protocol to co…","key_points":[],"chapters":[],"topics":[],"duration_seconds":2839,"processing_state":"not_requested","actions":[{"name":"request_transcript","method":"POST","url":"https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/conspiracy-cabal-7759106/episodes/14-melbourne-fire-bombings-what-s-really-behind-them/transcription-requests","description":"Idempotently request low-priority transcript generation for this episode."},{"name":"read_markdown","method":"GET","url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/conspiracy-cabal-7759106/14-melbourne-fire-bombings-what-s-really-behind-them.md","description":"Read the agent-friendly Markdown representation of this episode resource."}]}}