James O'Loughlin

You gave him advice on how to make his pitch.

It's a bit like threading a needle with that kind of a meeting, isn't it?

Like Greg Combay told you in mind.

How did you advise Jum to make his pitch?

Yeah, but there was an ABC story coming up on him.

You have to find a way to actually bring that up without it making it sound like a threat, but being a threat in a kind of a way, is that the kind of angle you have to take?

They would have appreciated.

So what did the ACT government advise John to do next?

Meanwhile, how was Jim going with his chemo?

So you found a way to lobby Greg Hunt's Federal Health Minister's office directly.

And what came of that?

That's so much what it's like.

That's such a good description.

So even if this goes to a cabinet, there's going to be someone from Treasury or Finance in the room saying, trying to calculate what it's going to cost.

When you did your back of the envelope calculations of what this would cost the ACT and federal government, what were those sums starting to look like, James?

$80 million?

Yeah.

That's like a drop in the bucket for the federal health budget, isn't it?

Mental health awareness campaign.

Children's cancer support fund, whatever.