The word ‘KOKODA’, like ‘ANZAC’, has a high public trust value because it reflects the values our diggers shared in a bygone era – mateship, mutual respect, courage, commitment, and self-sacrifice were a given among them. Australians inherently trust the word and subconsciously assume they can trust those who associate themselves with it.
Regrettably, this is not the case in today’s world, where Canberra officials and entrepreneurial carpetbaggers with no previous record of service or involvement with the veteran community can hijack the word.
I’ve been fortunate to have been instructed by Kokoda campaign veterans prior to my deployment to Vietnam in 1967 and to have met many more since I became involved with the Trail and its legacy in 1992. Sadly, they have all since passed on. They were a special breed of men who would be appalled if they knew that somebody as morally bankrupt as Wayne Wetherall was exploiting their legacy.
‘Kokoda’ provided Wetherall an opportunity to transform himself from an obscure suburban salesman into a self-proclaimed ‘adventurer, historian, explorer and philanthropist‘ with a ‘passion for our soldiers’ – until he was summoned to the Queensland Industrial Relations Commission (QIRC) where he faced a sordid raft of accusations about the dark side of his character.
Evidence during the four-day hearing related to Wetherall bullying, harassing and intimidating his female staff; targeting vulnerable female trekkers; soliciting sexual favours from female staff in Port Moresby; fathering an illegitimate child in PNG; and exploiting his guides and porters on the Kokoda Trail.
‘Okay. So there were many messages about Mr Wetherall and his girlfriends, and there were many messages of Mr Wetherall trying to get his girlfriends to engage in group sex with many men. There were many messages where Mr Wetherall would try and engage or coerce his current girlfriend into a gangrape situation with five or six men. There were just many messages where he insisted on – initially, (name omitted) a PNG staff member in – who lived in PNG. She was one of our staff and when he was going to PNG, messages would pop up when they were talking that he would insist that she meet him in his hotel room when he arrived, so that she could – she could perform fellatio on him. He wouldn’t use that terminology, and she – her payment for that would be something like a bottle of Johnnie Walker Red. There were – there was much talk about the fact that he would speak to whichever girlfriend it was at the time about how he loved cock. He would refer to – he would – the language was really vulgar and obscene and there’s pornographic – there were many messages, but there was also many photos, and the photos were very graphic of – of people’s – like, women’s vaginas and women’s – men’s penises, of dildoes, of Mr Wetherall performing fellatio on another man.’
Extract of evidence in the QIRC by Wayne Wetherall’s former female manager.
The exposure in the QIRC was certainly the antithesis of the ‘Kokoda Spirit’ Wayne Wetherall had so shamelessly promoted over the previous 17 years.
The first hint of his character flaws had been raised earlier back in 2011 by one of his trek leaders, a former army lieutenant decorated for gallantry during the Vietnam war:
‘My anecdotal-based overview of WW, gained inter alia, from a number of reputable sources whose opinion and judgement I would trust, and over the past seven years, is that he is a bullshit merchant of some standing, whose principal position in life seems to be based on a carefully planned programme of self-aggrandisement and self-promotion. Notwithstanding his clever self-marketing skills, his trekking “exploits” both on and off the Track appears to me to lack any real credibility, He seems somehow to survive on a predetermined network of manipulative exploitation of, at best, half-truths, something akin to a shonky second-hand car salesman!!’[i]
The following chronology of Wayne Wetherall’s involvement with the Kokoda Trail is supported by email correspondence with his former PNG associates, a former trek leader, and extensive research on the Internat Archive Wayback Machine:
QUEENSLAND INDUSTRIAL RELATIONS COMMISSION EXTRACTS
My issues with Wayne Wetherall, who I have known of since he ‘gatecrashed’ Kokoda tourism in 2004, are related to his personal integrity and lack of moral values.
In 2021, I was contacted by one of Wetherall’s former female employees, Mrs Julie Elliot, a former Qld Police Sergeant, who wanted to discuss an issue regarding the impact of Wetherall’s bullying of his manager and her friend, Mrs Lyn Kelly. I was obviously sceptical, as they were aware of our mutual dislike of each other over the previous decade.
I met with Julie Elliot on the Sunshine Coast and learned that the suggestion to catch up came from Lyn Kelly’s son, a university student who was worried about his mother’s mental health.
I later met with Lyn’s husband, Bill Kelly, a local high school teacher, who advised me that he was prepared to gamble their house if necessary to lodge an appeal against the Workers Compensation Regulator due to the emotional impact their refusal to award compensation to Lyn over Wetherall’s bullying was having on her.
The issue culminated in a four-day hearing in the Queensland Industrial Relations Commission, which found in favour of Lyn Kelly with costs awarded to her.
The hearing exposed the dark side of Wetherall’s character – his explosive temper in dealing with his female staff, his ruthlessness in dealing with his PNG support crews, his targeting of vulnerable female trekkers and his sexual deviency. The case was reported in the Brisbane Times on this link:
A full transcript of the case is available on this link:
Wetherall’s volatile and aggresive nature did not escape the attention of Commissioner I.C. Dwyer in handing down his judgementl in favour of Mrs Lyn Kelly in her appeal against her employer, Wayne Wetherall:
‘They broadly assert volatile and aggressive behaviour by Mr Wetherall at various times during the period between June 2014 and April 2020 . .
‘In her second report dated 24 June 2020, Ms Baker opines that the impact of the workplace bullying on Ms Kelly was that she experienced ‘features of extremely severe depression, stress and anxiety’ that also impacted her sleep and functioning . . .
‘In her second report dated 24 June 2020, Ms Baker opines that the impact of the workplace bullying on Ms Kelly was that she experienced ‘features of extremely severe depression, stress and anxiety’ that also impacted her sleep and functioning . . .
‘In her second report dated 24 June 2020, Ms Baker opines that the impact of the workplace bullying on Ms Kelly was that she experienced ‘features of extremely severe depression, stress and anxiety’ that also impacted her sleep and functioning . . .
‘I accept Ms Kelly’s account that Mr Wetherall was aggressive, defensive and angry in his dealings with her on 1 and 2 April 2020 . . .
‘While the emails that are Exhibit 6 are not evidence of the events that transpired from 27 March to 3 April 2020, they certainly provide a reliable degree of insight into the mindset of Mr Wetherall at the time. Not only do they reveal the aggression and defensiveness particularised by Ms Kelly in her list of stressors, but they reveal that Mr Wetherall was in all likelihood driven exclusively by self-interest without any hint of the responsibility he had to Ms Kelly as her employer
‘To be clear, I consider the actions of Mr Wetherall go beyond mere blemishes. Further, this is not merely a case of industrial unfairness . . .
‘But Mr Wetherall’s actions in that period were inconsistent and unnecessarily unclear and, having regard to the emails subsequently exchanged on 6 and 7 April 2020, driven exclusively by his personal interests . . .
‘I accept Ms Kelly’s account of the conduct of Mr Wetherall between 27 March and 3 April 2020. I consider the actions of Mr Wetherall in that period to be unreasonable or alternatively, to the extent they might be regarded as reasonable, they were taken in an unreasonable way.’
PNG Investment Authority Records: 2004 – 2025
According to the following link on the Kokoda Spirit website, the company is ‘the largest employer of PNG Guides, Carriers and Porters on the Kokoda Trail’:
Kokoda Spirit also claims to have led 8,900 trekkers across the Kokoda Trail since 2004:
The average price for a trek with Kokoda Spirit is $3,700 (K11,500). This would have generated a gross income in the region of $34 million (K106 million) from 2004 to 2025.
This is not reflected in the Annual Returns submitted to IPA, which list the following employees in PNG for Kokoda Spirit:
- 2004 to 2013: Nil Employees
- 2014 to 2018: 4 x Full-Time, NIL Part-Time
- 2019: 3 x Full-Time, NIL Part-Time
- 2020: Nil Employees
- 2021-2022: No trekking due to COVID
- 2023: No return
- 2024 – 2025: Nil Employees
It is simply not possible to lead groups across the Kokoda Trail without the support of a full-time employee in PNG and part-time casuals (village guides and porters, employed at a minimum ratio of 2:1 per trekker) along with admin support.
The above employee figures appear to be an attempte to avoid personnel employment obligations in PNG.
The figures submitted for the value of assets and liabilities appear unrealistic and seem to have been constructed to avoid any taxation obligations.
Annual IPA Returns submitted by Kokoda Spirit listed NIL Part-Time employees. However the following pictures show the extent of his engagement of PNG guides and porters enlisted to support the 8,900 trekkers he claims to have led across the Kokoda Trail:
