Share
By the evening of October 5, Liberal senator Hollie Hughes knew she had the numbers for her biggest political coup – the establishment of a Senate inquiry that she would chair into the e-cigarette industry.
After months of wrangling, she was ready to celebrate – over drinks with two British American Tobacco lobbyists.
“Oh we do love you @senator hollie,” Michael Kauter, the former deputy federal director of the Nationals, posted on social media that night last year alongside a photo of Hughes in a Canberra restaurant with her arm around him. Kauter’s husband, Professor David Gracey, was on Hughes’ other side. Gracey, who is a renal specialist at Royal Prince Alfred Hospital, is an adviser to Kauter’s lobbying firm.