$50K PAYDAY DOWN TO LOVE OF POLITICS

TASMANIAN media adviser Pat Caruana has won $50,000 on a popular television quiz show thanks to his knowledge of politics.

Mr Caruana, 35, of Battery Point, won the cash on Channel 9’s Millionaire Hot Seat, which screened on Monday night.

“I was very pleasantly surprised to win,” he said. “I was terrified I would bomb out on the first question.

“They’ve changed the format of the show so you really only get one crack to win any money. But I thought

I would still be winning because I got a free trip to Melbourne to take part.”

Mr Caruana successfully auditioned for the show in 2019 and was approached to take part in the middle of last year but had to decline because of the imminent birth of his second son. He picked up the money for correctly answering who was late prime minister Gough Whitlam’s last deputy PM.

The late Lance Barnard, a former Tasmanian, was at one time Mr Whitlam’s deputy but the correct answer was the late Dr Frank Crean – father of one-time

Tasmanian treasurer Dr David Crean.

Mr Caruana, who worked as a journalist for Australian Associated Press across Australia before moving to Tasmania, has been media adviser to Australian Greens Senator Nick McKim since 2015. He has always loved politics and grew up on quiz shows with his mother, Jill, also a winner on a television show 20 years ago.

Mr Caruana’s partner, Lucy Valentine, won $11,000 on The Chase in 2019 and the pair are pub trivia regulars.

“I love politics and history and we watched a lot of television quiz shows growing up, it was a thing we did as a family,” Mr Caruana said.

“Mum won $1000 on Million Dollar Chance of a Lifetime.”

He and his three brothers set up the Fayyaz Sumbal Foundation a few years ago to help victims of terrorism and raised more than $80,000 through several charity cricket games.

Mr Caruana, a Bulldogs supporter, said he enjoyed talking to Millionaire Hot Seat host and former Collingwood Football Club president Eddie McGuire, who, he said, was “friendly and chatty”.