Ray Lindwall, a partner at Marshalls & Dent Lawyers, has given evidence at the controversial trial of former government minister, Gordon Nuttall.

The former Blake Dawson Partner has told the court he was astonished by the former cabinet minister’s bid for a $1 million loan from a Brisbane businessman. Nuttall has pleaded not guilty to receiving almost $300,000 in corrupt payments from coal-mining magnate, Ken Talbot, over a three-year period and a one-off payment of $60,000 from businessman Harold Shand in April 2002.Lindwall has given evidence about a lunch meeting involving Shand’s business associate Jim Gorman and Nuttall in 2002. The Brisbane District Court jury was told Talbot, the former Macarthur Coal chief, paid Nuttall 34 corrupt payments between October 2002 and September 2005.Lindwall says he later wrote to Shand about the loan and the fact that it would have to be listed on Nuttall’s parliamentary pecuniary interest register even though Nuttall believed that was not so if the money went to his children. Lindwall says he “found the whole proposition astonishing”. The trial continues.