A secret video reveals that publishing giant Penguin harboured major concerns about conwoman Belle Gibson's "survival" story before it released her book that promoted dumping conventional medicine to beat cancer.
The video shows Penguin staff interviewing a fresh-faced Ms Gibson ahead of the 2014 release of The Whole Pantry, quizzing her for 90 minutes about her "roller coaster ride" story, terminal brain cancer diagnosis, and claims of philanthropy.
"This is just for us … so that if you are sitting opposite a Good Weekend journalist who's asking you quite investigative questions ... we want to rehearse some questions with you," a Penguin official says in the recording.
"Because what we suspect might happen now, is that because you are the success story of the moment … you know what journalists do, they want to start scratch, scratch, scratching away."
"Well, they already are," a grimacing Ms Gibson says.
A senior Penguin staffer replies: "Exactly. And we're concerned about that."
The video goes on: "I'm going to ask you some of these questions, and some of them you won't like, but that's OK because it's just us," the publisher explains.
"And we're here to help you come to what you want to be saying about you, and your life, and your cancer, and your book, and your family, and all those things."
At one point a Penguin official advises Ms Gibson that the interview process was about "protecting yourself so the source of truth is you."
Penguin has since been forced to admit failing to fact-check Ms Gibson's book, The Whole Pantry, in which she claims to have cured herself with a healthy lifestyle.
The book's 3000-word preface contained Ms Gibson's false claims of beating terminal brain cancer by eschewing conventional medicine, and the unlawful fundraising appeals she ran in 2013 and 2014.
As part of a landmark Consumer Affairs action, Penguin was ordered to pay $30,000 and will also be forced to include "prominent warning" notices on all future books containing claims about natural therapies that explain they are not evidence-based.
The media training video, produced to the Federal Court as part of Consumer Affairs Victoria's case against Ms Gibson, shows Ms Gibson giving a rambling and highly questionable one minute explanation about her alternative therapy treatment, which Penguin fails to question but then suggests she learns more about in order to explain it.
"Just a line," one Penguin staffer says.
"You can say you're following a non-conventional European cancer protocol," says the other. "You can certainly do that."
The Penguin staff also ask Ms Gibson if a newspaper wanted to audit her claims of philanthropy whether she could "facilitate that process".
"Yeah, at the moment because we've just changed structures we're getting all our books tidied," Ms Gibson responds. "But probably could in six months once I get my shit together."
The questioner presses her on the financial trail, to which Ms Gibson smiles and says "easy".
Later, the lead Penguin interviewer says: "I think you really need to get your story straight about the charities. I think they're going to go there with that."
In one part of the lengthy video interview, in which Ms Gibson details having a stroke but not being treated in hospital, the Penguin interviewer asks: "Really? And you got some tests?" before dropping that line of questioning.
Ms Gibson says she was then diagnosed with cancer and "lost a lot of her short-term memory".
Other than asking where Ms Gibson was diagnosed and where she is being treated, Penguin did not seek any detailed information about its star author's vague claims of being given "six weeks to four months to live".
Consumer Affairs Victoria's case against Ms Gibson went ahead in the Federal Court in her absence on Tuesday after the disgraced wellness blogger again failed to appear.
The consumer watchdog alleges she falsely claimed to have healed herself of terminal cancer with a healthy lifestyle and ran unlawful fundraising appeals to promote her top-rating app and cookbook.
Barrister Catherine Button, for Consumer Affairs, combed through Ms Gibson's medical records, social media postings and media coverage to outline the many discrepancies and contradictions in her story.
In relation to the cancer diagnosis, Ms Button said: "The claims were clearly made, they were clearly false."
The court heard there was an implicit suggestion in Ms Gibson's story that could encourage sick and vulnerable people that "if it worked for her, it might work for you". Ms Button said such conduct was unconscionable.
"It is profiting from commercial activities that are promoted on a premise that is false and is false in a way that offends the moral sensibilities of the community," she said.
Ms Button forensically examined Ms Gibson's financial records and various fundraising claims, concluding they "fall a long way short of being a large part of everything the company earned."
She said promises to donate a portion of sales to worthy causes was "well over the threshold of unconscionable conduct".
The court heard that Ms Gibson made in excess of $420,000 in app and book sales in less than two years but gave away just a fraction that she promised to charity - and mostly after Fairfax Media exposed her fundraising activities in March 2015.
Consumer Affairs launched an investigation into Ms Gibson's fundraising activities after Fairfax Media revealed she had stolen thousands of dollars raised through charity fundraisers and lied about giving $300,000 from her business profits to charity.
Ms Gibson has refused to file a defence in the civil case against her and faces penalties of up to $1.1 million.
Justice Debra Mortimer has reserved her decision until a later date.
