Speaker 1: The public has had a long held fascination with detectives.
Speaker 1: Detective see a side of life the average persons never
Speaker 1: exposed to. I spent thirty four years as a cop.
Speaker 1: For twenty five of those years I was catching killers.
Speaker 1: That's what I did for a living. I was a
Speaker 1: homicide detective. I'm no longer just interviewing bad guys. Instead,
Speaker 1: I'm taking the public into the world in which I operated.
Speaker 1: The guests I talk to each week have amazing stories
Speaker 1: from all sides of the law. The interviews are raw
Speaker 1: and honest, just like the people I talk to. Some
Speaker 1: of the content and language might be confronting. That's because
Speaker 1: no one who comes into contact with crime is left unchanged.
Speaker 1: Join me now as I take you into this world.
Speaker 1: Welcome to another episode of I Catch Killers. On I
Speaker 1: Catch Killers, we'd like to look at crime from all perspectives.
Speaker 1: As a cop, I tried fighting crime with a gun
Speaker 1: and handcuffs. Since leaving the police, I've found there are
Speaker 1: other ways to fight crime. Today's guest looks at crime
Speaker 1: a bit differently, not just because of his beliefs, but
Speaker 1: because of the position he holds. See today's guest, Shane Rattenbury,
Speaker 1: is not only a politician, he also holds a position
Speaker 1: of significant power as the Act's attorney General. For those
Speaker 1: that don't know the role of an attorney general, it
Speaker 1: could be said the Attorney General is the highest law
Speaker 1: officer in the state. That position comes with immense responsibilities
Speaker 1: and powers, and today we're going to look at fighting
Speaker 1: crime from an interesting perspective. Shane is an interesting character
Speaker 1: and is true to his beliefs, as demonstrated in his
Speaker 1: activities as a green Peace activist. He has some amazing
Speaker 1: stories from those times. Today we're going to find out
Speaker 1: who Shane Rattenbury is and get his thoughts on a
Speaker 1: whole range of things, including how he thinks is the
Speaker 1: best way to fight crime. Shane Rattenbury, Welcome to I
Speaker 1: Catch Killers.
Speaker 2: Thanks very much, Gary.
Speaker 1: Now, I know you're a very busy man. We've been
Speaker 1: trying to a schedule a time for you to come on,
Speaker 1: so thanks for making the time.
Speaker 2: It's great to join you.
Speaker 1: Well, as a role of an attorney general, I would
Speaker 1: imagine that's a pressure position.
Speaker 2: It certainly is, and your description of it has sort
Speaker 2: of been the first law officer of the jurisdiction is
Speaker 2: exactly right. It means you've got responsibility for the court's
Speaker 2: legal policy, the direction of the criminal justice system, but
Speaker 2: also civil things, so we deal with defamation and all
Speaker 2: those sort of civil sides of the law as well.
Speaker 1: And you've got the background in law.
Speaker 2: Yes, I did my law degree at a and you
Speaker 2: quite some years ago now never went on too practice law.
Speaker 2: I actually then took my law skills into other places.
Speaker 2: But it's great to end up backing this role where
Speaker 2: you have an opportunity to think through how do we
Speaker 2: make the law better for people?
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, Well, it gives you that perspective on how
Speaker 1: you can change and make a difference. And that's what
Speaker 1: we're going to have a deep dive into today's chat
Speaker 1: because some of the things that you're looking at in
Speaker 1: terms of let's call law reform or just better ways
Speaker 1: of fighting crime. I'm passionate about that. Since I've left
Speaker 1: the I'm thinking, well, I thought that I was doing
Speaker 1: some good as a police officer, but there's a lot
Speaker 1: that can be doe outside of that realm.
Speaker 2: Yeah, indeed, And look, you know, the police play a
Speaker 2: fantastic role and I really admire the work they do
Speaker 2: because they every time they turn up somewhere they're usually
Speaker 2: meeting people on the worst day of their lives. Very
Speaker 2: much how I think about it, and I've seen that
Speaker 2: in action. What we need to do is make sure
Speaker 2: that the police are focused on the things that we
Speaker 2: really need police for. But so much crime is oriented
Speaker 2: around poverty, disadvantage, mental health issues, drug and health issues, drugging,
Speaker 2: alcohol issues, I should say, and we need to make
Speaker 2: sure that we have a different response to those issues.
Speaker 2: That's very much how I think about it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, there's definitely a school of thought that the prevention
Speaker 1: is better than cure. And I, even as a police
Speaker 1: officer for thirty four years, I was always concerned when
Speaker 1: we're going to solve a problem through arrests, like, Okay,
Speaker 1: this is a problem where we're going to raise the
Speaker 1: stakes high, We're going to bring in mandatory sentence, whatever.
Speaker 1: One thing that in the documentation I've been going through
Speaker 1: in preparation for this that I really like because it's
Speaker 1: been a pet hate of mind throughout my police career
Speaker 1: that come election time, quite often the platform is law
Speaker 1: and order and the response is, let's crack down on crime.
Speaker 1: We're going to make legislation tougher, We're going to put
Speaker 1: longer sentencing, that type of thing, and I always thought
Speaker 1: we miss the point, but that was what was often
Speaker 1: portrayed when there was a law and order issue in
Speaker 1: discussion leading up to an election. Quite often the response
Speaker 1: to that, Okay, we're going to get tough on law.
Speaker 1: From my perspective, I don't think that always works. Would
Speaker 1: you share that.
Speaker 2: It is a really common thing to see in election campaigns.
Speaker 2: We've just seen it in the Northern Territory election a
Speaker 2: couple of weeks and the new Chief Minister, her pitch was
Speaker 2: the first meeting I'll have after becoming Chief Minister is
Speaker 2: to go and see the Police Commissioner. We're seeing it
Speaker 2: come through in the Queensland election which is due later
Speaker 2: this year. We're in an election cycle in the Act
Speaker 2: at the moment, we're also seeing it there. It is
Speaker 2: really common and it's a simple and appealing answer, but
Speaker 2: it's not getting We're right across the country we are
Speaker 2: seeing prison populations go up. People don't feel any safer.
Speaker 2: But when you look at the Justice Reinvestment Agenda, which
Speaker 2: is saying that I'm really focused on, you are starting
Speaker 2: to see and we've got some great examples which I'm
Speaker 2: sure we'll get a chance to get into where it
Speaker 2: is starting to reduce crime. People have had long lives
Speaker 2: of criminal history are getting better. You know, they're going
Speaker 2: on better tracks. It makes our whole community safer if
Speaker 2: we can make this investment. I talk about it as
Speaker 2: building communities, not prisons.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, I'm all for it. The trouble is to
Speaker 1: sell that, Like I speak to people on the street,
Speaker 1: and they know as an ex cop and a crime
Speaker 1: will happen, they are this person should be put away forever.
Speaker 1: That type of narrative, And so I can see how
Speaker 1: it's easy leading into an election if you want the
Speaker 1: popular vote to let's just get tough on crime.
Speaker 2: But the alternative story is more complex, and so it's
Speaker 2: also harder when you're trying to tell a story and
Speaker 2: you know, fifteen second media grabs or a back and
Speaker 2: forth interview on radio where you've got six or seven minutes,
Speaker 2: it's hard to tell a more complex story. And so
Speaker 2: the simpler story works in that political context.
Speaker 1: Here, the journey I've been on, it's been a journey
Speaker 1: in the four or five years i've been out of
Speaker 1: the police. One thing that and I see him as
Speaker 1: somewhat as a mentor and people would have heard me
Speaker 1: reference him before is a man that had his son
Speaker 1: killed in a murder. It was a shocking murder, and
Speaker 1: that beats a arm robbery. Working there to pay his
Speaker 1: way through UNI and someone's coming and killed his son,
Speaker 1: shod his son. He talks about getting tough on crime,
Speaker 1: and when that happened, he reacted the way that you
Speaker 1: would expect someone to react. There was outrage, he wanted
Speaker 1: to get revenge, all the type of feelings that you'd
Speaker 1: come with having a loved one killing those circumstances. But
Speaker 1: he's of a view and I still the quote that
Speaker 1: we don't need to get tough on crime, we need
Speaker 1: to get smart on crime, and if we can reduce crime,
Speaker 1: we reduce victims. And it's a simple narrative, but whenever
Speaker 1: I have a discussion with someone, yeah, but if there's
Speaker 1: less crime, there's less victims. Isn't that where we should
Speaker 1: be heading.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, it's all about making our community safe. Now that
Speaker 2: grief is so understandable, horrible things happen to people, and
Speaker 2: particularly the lose child I think is one of the
Speaker 2: worst things that can happen to people. Because there's that saying,
Speaker 2: you know, you should never bury your own child. It
Speaker 2: takes a lot of courage to be able to overcome that,
Speaker 2: and I have absolute admiration. Now, there are some people
Speaker 2: simply need to go to jail. There are people who
Speaker 2: are genuinely dangerous to the community and they need to
Speaker 2: spend time in custody to keep the rest of the
Speaker 2: community safe. But so many people I spend eight years
Speaker 2: as corrections minutes. So there are so many people in
Speaker 2: these systems who are therefore reasons that are related to poverty, disadvantage,
Speaker 2: the way they grow up, mental health problems, all of
Speaker 2: these things. We can do so much better by putting
Speaker 2: them on a different track.
Speaker 1: Well, putting them on the different track. And that's very
Speaker 1: much what Ken Marslow dedicated a large portion of his
Speaker 1: life too, with an organization Enough is enough and he
Speaker 1: would go in the prisons and help where he could.
Speaker 1: But yeah, I find that type of focus on the
Speaker 1: way of fighting crime something that's productive and something that
Speaker 1: everyone everyone benefits from. Before we get into talking about
Speaker 1: how we're going to fight crime and reduce crime and
Speaker 1: make the well the better place, let's find out a
Speaker 1: little bit about yourself. Tell us you're sorry.
Speaker 2: Oh look, I grew up in a small country town,
Speaker 2: Bateman's Bay, on the south coast of It is great,
Speaker 2: it's grown a bit since I left. I then won
Speaker 2: a scholarship to go to school up in Canberra. My
Speaker 2: mom was a single parent household. My mom took my
Speaker 2: sister and I up to camera think it will be
Speaker 2: better opportunity for the whole family, and she was right.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 2: I got a great schooling and then first in family
Speaker 2: to go to university, so that was really a big
Speaker 2: thing as well. But you know, I grew up in
Speaker 2: public housing, so I sort of look at my life
Speaker 2: over very fortunate. Even though I grew up in a
Speaker 2: single parent household, we had good family around us, you know,
Speaker 2: because I see a of the people that come into
Speaker 2: our criminal justice system and they've grown up without that support,
Speaker 2: without the encouragement, And I reflect on that a lot
Speaker 2: in my own good fortune really that I did have
Speaker 2: people around me who sort of saw how to put
Speaker 2: a good life together. They encourage us into sport and
Speaker 2: cubs and those kind of community activities that really make
Speaker 2: a difference in your life.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's amazing that having one good person or that
Speaker 1: love and nurturing that can point lives in the right direction.
Speaker 1: You're somewhat of an activist, which I like it and
Speaker 1: I want to dig into that because I think it's
Speaker 1: fascinating the stuff that you did with Greenpeace. But when
Speaker 1: did you become an environmentalist? Was that the young age?
Speaker 1: What was it that drew you to that?
Speaker 2: Yeah? Relatively young. I sort of described myself as a
Speaker 2: child of the eighties. There was some big environmental issues
Speaker 2: around me. Had the hole in the ozone layer, there
Speaker 2: was the fight to protect the Antarctica from mining, big logging,
Speaker 2: conversations in Australia about protecting the forests, and that was
Speaker 2: just that age I was sort of starting I think
Speaker 2: about the world and it made a big impression on me.
Speaker 2: And you know, I got involved with some environmental groups
Speaker 2: when I was at university. The Green Party formed around
Speaker 2: that time, and Bob Brown, as the leader of the party,
Speaker 2: was a real role model and inspiration to me. And
Speaker 2: so I just got more and more involved and I
Speaker 2: guess found my place.
Speaker 1: Yeah, with Bob Brown. Is it just my recollection? But
Speaker 1: isn't there a classic failure of him on the surfboard
Speaker 1: in the harbor with a ship coming in?
Speaker 2: No, that's Ian Cohen was also involved in the early
Speaker 2: days of the Greens. But Bob's from tazzy Ian's from
Speaker 2: up here in.
Speaker 1: Sydney, damning the Franklin's Yeah, okay, yeah, but yeah, it
Speaker 1: was a sign of the times.
Speaker 2: And I was really inspired by that notion of peaceful activism. Yes,
Speaker 2: you know, it is a break in the law at times,
Speaker 2: but in a way that's not about it's about crime
Speaker 2: as such that there's not victims. It's a different type.
Speaker 2: It's the civil disobedience and very much that Gandhi sort
Speaker 2: of notion of putting yourself there to make a difference
Speaker 2: without harming others, and that nonviolent part of it's always
Speaker 2: been so important for me as an activist.
Speaker 1: I wasn't involved in a lot of from the policing
Speaker 1: point of view with protests, but I know that some
Speaker 1: people where there was logging or mining protests and all
Speaker 1: that there was a good relationship with the police because
Speaker 1: it wasn't a violent protest and there would be a
Speaker 1: bit of laughter and they'd end up playing cricket together
Speaker 1: or whatever. That was still achieving the goals, but it
Speaker 1: wasn't violent.
Speaker 2: Now, absolutely, I've had some terrific relationships with police over
Speaker 2: the years. Because I had a law degree by the
Speaker 2: time I started doing stuff with Greenpeace, I was often
Speaker 2: the one that was sort of designated to talk to
Speaker 2: the police and work through the issues and by help
Speaker 2: people out at the other end. You know, It's some
Speaker 2: fun times and sort of talking to the police about
Speaker 2: all right, how are we going to work this out?
Speaker 2: And they got a job to do. We totally respect
Speaker 2: that they shouldn't face violence in their workplace. Now I
Speaker 2: know they do, but in that kind of context, yeah,
Speaker 2: I think they do appreciate it. You sort of sit
Speaker 2: there saying, look, we're not here to give you guys
Speaker 2: a hard time. We're just here to do this. Yeah,
Speaker 2: and this is our plan, you know. And ultimately they
Speaker 2: ended up having to arrest people at times, but even
Speaker 2: those people went away peacefully and so it didn't present
Speaker 2: a of a personal safety risk to the police.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, what's for currency, what's going on down in Melbourne?
Speaker 1: That's ugly all round, isn't it? With the protests down
Speaker 1: there and not the nature of protesting. Respect people's rights
Speaker 1: to protest, but it just it seems to be escalating
Speaker 1: on both sides, and it's never nice to see.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't like to see that sort of stuff.
Speaker 2: I think there's a way to make your point without
Speaker 2: we see people throwing bottles and bricks at police. There's
Speaker 2: no place so that the police don't deserve to have
Speaker 2: that when they go to work.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, no, I agree, and that it's unfortunate when
Speaker 1: that happens. But with your involvement in Greenpeace, it wasn't
Speaker 1: just a fleeting uni radical get involved. You're right in
Speaker 1: you had positions in their held positions.
Speaker 2: I was lucky enough it became my job and I
Speaker 2: worked here in Australia for a number of years and
Speaker 2: then went overseas and actually went to lead Greenfiace's Global
Speaker 2: Oceans campaigning out of Amsterdam, which is where the international
Speaker 2: headquarters is, including a trip to Antarctica taking on the
Speaker 2: Japanese whaling fleet.
Speaker 1: Tell us about that, because that was fairly intense, was
Speaker 1: rammed and.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, it was a pretty full on time. So
Speaker 2: we took two ships and about sixty crew helicopter and
Speaker 2: headed off into the Southern Ocean to try and find
Speaker 2: the Japanese whaling fleet. Now that's the hardest part. It's
Speaker 2: actually fine, they don't want to be found, but That
Speaker 2: was a year that Japan announced that we're going to
Speaker 2: start taking hump back in fin whales, which at that
Speaker 2: point that was still both endangered species, and we just
Speaker 2: couldn't stand by and let that happen, so we sailed
Speaker 2: out of Cape Town. Turns out I get really seasick,
Speaker 2: so it was a pretty tough trip for me.
Speaker 1: It's not fun, is it. No.
Speaker 2: You're heading across the Roaring forties and fifties to get
Speaker 2: down to Antarctica, big oceans, and I was on an
Speaker 2: ice breaking vessel. I've got a rounded hule, so they
Speaker 2: blob around in the ocean. So I lost a bit
Speaker 2: of weight heating down there. And this is a visual
Speaker 2: not a visual meeting. Your listeners can't see me. But
Speaker 2: you know, I got a background in sort of running.
Speaker 1: And I've got a lot of weight to lose.
Speaker 2: I didn't thought I lost some weight down there just
Speaker 2: because I couldn't keep the food down. But look, once
Speaker 2: you get down there, we found the Japanese whaling fleet
Speaker 2: and we undertook a lot of that direct action, nonviolent,
Speaker 2: but you know, getting in those small inflatable boats, putting
Speaker 2: ourselves between the whale and the hardpurn it's pretty wild
Speaker 2: time you're down there. The water's freezing cold. It's only
Speaker 2: one or two degree.
Speaker 1: It can't last too long if you fall in.
Speaker 2: I mean it's the high of summer, so it's twenty
Speaker 2: four hours a daylight, but it's not warm, and you've
Speaker 2: got ice floating around in the water, small icebergs. There's whales.
Speaker 2: There's a guy with a grenade tipped harpoun pointed directly
Speaker 2: at you.
Speaker 1: It got fairly willing at stages because they're water cannons
Speaker 1: and all sorts of stuff. Did you get a rested?
Speaker 2: All?
Speaker 1: Did? Well?
Speaker 2: There's no police. You're on the highest seas. There is
Speaker 2: literally no law. It is the wild West out on.
Speaker 1: The ocean, and so this is your time playing pirates.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's just us versus them down there, and you
Speaker 2: know the rules really are I mean, there are rules
Speaker 2: of shipping, you know how to safely interact at sea.
Speaker 2: But obviously we're then we're trying to give them a
Speaker 2: hard time. We're trying to interfere and stop them catching
Speaker 2: the whales. Most of our putting our own bodies on
Speaker 2: the line and just being in the way and bearing
Speaker 2: witness to that as well.
Speaker 1: When you were down positioning yourself between the the whaling
Speaker 1: ships and the whale you were putting. I was watching that.
Speaker 1: There was fairly risky stuff. How did you feel.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you sort of do all this training, you think
Speaker 2: about what it's going to be like. But I never
Speaker 2: forget the first moment. I was standing on this small
Speaker 2: rubber boat in the middle of Antartia and there's we're
Speaker 2: going around at eighteen knights, there's ice, there's a whale
Speaker 2: just in front of us, and there's a guy putting
Speaker 2: this grenade tip tarpoon at and I looked up and thought,
Speaker 2: how did I get here? And am I going to
Speaker 2: survive this? Now we did, and you then just click
Speaker 2: into all the training mode and the adrenaline takes over
Speaker 2: and you're in the moment. But yeah, there was certain
Speaker 2: a moment I thought, oh, And the other moment was
Speaker 2: we did have an incident down there where we crashed
Speaker 2: in Japanese whaling ship crashed into us. I was on
Speaker 2: a small boat fifty meters long, so eight hundred times,
Speaker 2: and there's eight thousand Japanese factory vessel crashed into us.
Speaker 2: And at that moment I said and thought.
Speaker 1: Oh, oh, that would have made a hell of a noise.
Speaker 2: The noise was unbelievable, just the crunching of metal on metal,
Speaker 2: and I just had anything, this ship's going to turtle over,
Speaker 2: and we're in the fridge of waters of Antarctica, and
Speaker 2: we are in life here anyway, we obviously got away
Speaker 2: to live to tell the tale. But yeah, there are
Speaker 2: moments down there where you're thinking, oh.
Speaker 1: And the people that you're with in Greenpeace very much
Speaker 1: light minded people.
Speaker 2: Oh. Absolutely. We had a crew of eighteen on my ship. Now,
Speaker 2: eighteen different nationalities.
Speaker 1: I should say, Okay, that's interesting, and.
Speaker 2: We spent a Christmas down there. It was actually fantastic.
Speaker 2: So we had a you know, in the quieter moments,
Speaker 2: you know, we sort of shared all our different cultures
Speaker 2: and people came to things with really different perspective, but
Speaker 2: ultimately with a real conviction for making the planet better.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Oh, well done, because someone had to speak up.
Speaker 1: But yeah, putting yourself between the harpourn and the whale
Speaker 1: in the Antarctic a little bit risky.
Speaker 2: I'd sort of seen that earlier in my life and thought, wow,
Speaker 2: that's a gutsy thing to do, so defind myself in
Speaker 2: that circumstance was a bit of a moment in life,
Speaker 2: you think, oh yeah, here I go. Part of it
Speaker 2: was actually also telling the story. There had not been
Speaker 2: video footage of this sort of whale hunting process, and
Speaker 2: we had cameras on board, professional photographers and the like.
Speaker 2: So part of it is your two thousand kilometers south
Speaker 2: of Australia at the end of the Earth, and part
Speaker 2: of is capturing the pictures to tell the stories so
Speaker 2: that people back home could say, actually, we don't agree
Speaker 2: with this, we wanted to stop.
Speaker 1: Well, that's what it really came across. From those images,
Speaker 1: the brutality of it, and the whales and the heartburns
Speaker 1: and seeing them dragged up and cut up and different
Speaker 1: things pretty gross. Besides that, what was it like down
Speaker 1: there just from the environment looking at it must be
Speaker 1: an experience within itself.
Speaker 2: It's an incredible part of the world. I mean, the
Speaker 2: beauty of the icebergs, twenty four hours of daylight, penguins,
Speaker 2: pods of orcas swinging past, seeing the whales, all the
Speaker 2: birds you get, all the albatris and the birds that
Speaker 2: live in those parts of the world. It's an incredible
Speaker 2: part of the planet, largely untouched by humans, but I've
Speaker 2: actually been back last year on a climate change expedition, right, okay,
Speaker 2: and we're doing that. We were looking at the impact
Speaker 2: of climate change, but even plastics. We did a trawl
Speaker 2: for plastics in the water and finding plastics at that
Speaker 2: far end of the ocean. Got that far, small pieces,
Speaker 2: small fragments, but the circulation of the world's oceans means
Speaker 2: that as humans we have polluted every corner of this planet.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that drifts down there. Okay. How long were you
Speaker 1: involved with green Peace?
Speaker 2: About ten years okay here in Australia, as I said,
Speaker 2: and then I did six months in Bangkok in Southeast
Speaker 2: Asia where Greenpeace was establishing a presence.
Speaker 1: What sort of the issues were you dealing with in
Speaker 1: Southeast Asia?
Speaker 2: It was a lot about ocean pollution, industrial pollution, chemical
Speaker 2: outfalls countries like Thailand, the Philippines and like where. It
Speaker 2: wasn't the level of environmental protections, environmental rules and regulation
Speaker 2: that we would have in Australia now. So it was
Speaker 2: really for me coming from Australia and going to that
Speaker 2: role it was a bit of a step back in time.
Speaker 2: There were things being done that it had been outlawed
Speaker 2: in Australia many years earlier, and I was really pleased
Speaker 2: to go there for a period as and experienced activists,
Speaker 2: to work with activists from Thailand, the Philippines and Indonesia
Speaker 2: on ways you could campaign and ways you could expose
Speaker 2: these stories and help change things and lobby governments for
Speaker 2: better laws.
Speaker 1: Where do you think this came from your drive, your passion?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't know, in the sense there were no
Speaker 2: other activists in the family. We were not a political
Speaker 2: family at all.
Speaker 1: Right, So it wasn't your mum whipping it into you
Speaker 1: right from the start.
Speaker 2: I think it was just that thing of being a
Speaker 2: child of the eighties and these things were coming on
Speaker 2: to TV and organizations like Greenpeace. We're getting out there
Speaker 2: telling these stories, and I thought that's the way I
Speaker 2: can make a difference in the world.
Speaker 1: Okay, And looking back at your ten years, you're proud
Speaker 1: of what you achieved.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, you know, we made a real difference in a
Speaker 2: range of different areas. You know, Green Piece has got
Speaker 2: a proud history, controversial organization at times, and not everybody's
Speaker 2: cup of tea. I understand that, but that commitment to
Speaker 2: nonviolence has always been such an important part of it.
Speaker 2: Whilst it's been controversial, green Peace has done things that
Speaker 2: not everyone's agreed with. They've also shifted the dial and
Speaker 2: there's a lot of environmental wins around the planet that
Speaker 2: result from that, people being willing to get in and
Speaker 2: have a go.
Speaker 1: Well, I think without sometimes things that you've got to
Speaker 1: fight for and fight for it in that way to
Speaker 1: draw attention to it necessary because otherwise it's very easy
Speaker 1: just to sweep it under the carpet and someone else's problem.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and there's lots of people around the world who
Speaker 2: can point to some of those images that Green Pieces generated.
Speaker 2: You brought up they one of me and Cohen surfing
Speaker 2: on the bow That wasn't a Green Piece one. But
Speaker 2: the thinking in Green Piece was pictures tell a thousand words,
Speaker 2: and so creating those powerful images, bringing those images of
Speaker 2: whaling back from the Southern Ocean. People get those images,
Speaker 2: they leave an emotional impact on them and that's how
Speaker 2: you get change as well.
Speaker 1: Okay, all right, after the time in Greenpeace, what did
Speaker 1: you think you were going to do? Where was your
Speaker 1: life heading?
Speaker 2: Look, I was loving my job in greencaus I was
Speaker 2: sitting in Amsterdam doing the work. But I had been
Speaker 2: involved in the Greens back in Australia before I'd gone
Speaker 2: away and I got a call from some friends back home.
Speaker 2: He said, look, there's an election coming up. You consider
Speaker 2: going for pre selection and running for it. And I
Speaker 2: thought it was kind of I'd been away a while
Speaker 2: as overseas, you missed the family, you missed Australia. It
Speaker 2: felt like about the right time to come home. So
Speaker 2: I took up that opportunity, came back, literally flew in
Speaker 2: and started election campaigning and I was fortunate enough to
Speaker 2: get elected at that go in two thousand and eight.
Speaker 1: It's okay, what seat? And it was a local seat in.
Speaker 2: Camera, right in the heart of Camera, so the central
Speaker 2: bits of the city, an area that I called home.
Speaker 1: I asked people, listen and think, I know quite a
Speaker 1: few politicians and David Tchubridge is a good friend of mine.
Speaker 1: That you know David upmost respect for him. I think
Speaker 1: he changed my thinking on politicians. I've known him for
Speaker 1: probably fifteen or so years, and passionate person that fights
Speaker 1: for the right things, and very impressed by the way
Speaker 1: he goes about his business. But to put yourself up
Speaker 1: as a politician, I would imagine it's quite confronting. It's
Speaker 1: almost like at school, Am I going to be the
Speaker 1: popular kid?
Speaker 2: Like you?
Speaker 1: Really? Hey, look at me? Do you like me or
Speaker 1: don't like me? I would imagine you felt vulnerable.
Speaker 2: It's a really great observation. And for me it was
Speaker 2: a real change because going from Greenpeace, you were there
Speaker 2: sort of you know, I did media week for Greenpeace,
Speaker 2: but it was about the organization and about the issues.
Speaker 2: When you go into politics, you're right, it's actually about
Speaker 2: you personally. For me, it's still about the policies and
Speaker 2: where the party stands and those kind of things, but
Speaker 2: it is the way it's talked about. It is much
Speaker 2: more about you, and you get voted for and city.
Speaker 2: It almost gets harder once you've been elected the first
Speaker 2: time because then you come up for a re election
Speaker 2: and you're reapplying for your job in this really public way,
Speaker 2: and if you lose, you know, you sort of get
Speaker 2: sacked pretty publicly.
Speaker 1: Well it's brutal, isn't it. If the payment's the way
Speaker 1: politics plays out. If you make a mistake, you're going
Speaker 1: to get crucified and it's going to be public and
Speaker 1: you're going to get humiliated. And well, we've all seen
Speaker 1: so many politicians have the fall on this ord or
Speaker 1: be caught up in something.
Speaker 2: So now we all make mistakes. You know, in any
Speaker 2: career job, there's things you're going to probably look back
Speaker 2: later and think, I wish I'd done that differently one
Speaker 2: hundred And you get that feedback usually from your boss
Speaker 2: in a one on one meeting in the room. In politics,
Speaker 2: it's on the front page of the paper the next
Speaker 2: day if you know, you don't give a great quote,
Speaker 2: or you misjudge something and it does happen, or.
Speaker 1: You in a conference where you haven't got the facts
Speaker 1: in your head or whatever, and people get crucified for that.
Speaker 1: And I think we're hard task masters, but I suppose
Speaker 1: that comes with putting your hand up there going I
Speaker 1: want to be a politician.
Speaker 2: And on the flip side, it is a fantastic job.
Speaker 2: I do love it. You know, you have this and
Speaker 2: it's a real privilege to be in a role this,
Speaker 2: particularly once you become a minister and have that particular
Speaker 2: set of opportunities. But you have a chance to get
Speaker 2: up there and shape community perspectives, make an argument, and
Speaker 2: for me, I still feel like an activist. You know,
Speaker 2: people often say, oh, what's the difference between the role
Speaker 2: I haading Greenpeace and be in politics, and I still
Speaker 2: feel it's very similar in the sense that you're out
Speaker 2: there trying to make an argument for a different pathway forward,
Speaker 2: to convince people there is a good way to do this,
Speaker 2: and so it's like that, and it's a privilege to
Speaker 2: have that kind of a role.
Speaker 1: You can make a difference. So I think if you
Speaker 1: can hang on to that feeling, that's a privilege and
Speaker 1: the noma that would have to serve you well.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and certainly in act politics it's a bit different
Speaker 2: to say, federal politics. We have to go away all
Speaker 2: the time. We're in our community every day and it's
Speaker 2: a smallish place. We don't travel much, you know, come
Speaker 2: up to city. It's kind of a day out for
Speaker 2: me to come and record the podcast. But it keeps
Speaker 2: you very grounded as well. As you're in your community,
Speaker 2: just out getting your groceries and someone will come up
Speaker 2: to you and say, hey, Shane, you know.
Speaker 1: What about this about that local member as well?
Speaker 2: Yeah, so how.
Speaker 1: Long have you been in politics now for I've actually
Speaker 1: just come out for the end of my fourth term
Speaker 1: for sixteen years, okay, so that's a long. It wasn't
Speaker 1: what I said out for.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, you just sort of find yourself there
Speaker 2: and there's still things to keep doing and I've still
Speaker 2: got the energy for it. And as I said earlier,
Speaker 2: we come up to an election soon and as part
Speaker 2: of that, you've got to go through the pre selection
Speaker 2: process in the party, and that's the time to sit
Speaker 2: down and think, have I still got it? Do I
Speaker 2: still want to do this? Because it is a hard job.
Speaker 2: It's a constant job. It's NonStop pressure, non stop scrutiny,
Speaker 2: and so you've still got to have a passion for
Speaker 2: it or you've got to get out.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And I think were the pressure and the scrutiny
Speaker 1: that you've got to be on your game. If you're not,
Speaker 1: you probably shouldn't be there too. I think if you're
Speaker 1: there for an honorable reason, if you're tied or you're
Speaker 1: just going through the motions, you're not giving justice to
Speaker 1: the people you're there to there to serve.
Speaker 2: I think that's exactly right, and you've got to be
Speaker 2: honest with yourself about that. And I sat down and
Speaker 2: did that last year, sat down and thought, right, I've
Speaker 2: been here a while, have I got it? In me,
Speaker 2: and the obviously came out the other side is yes,
Speaker 2: so I'm having one more go.
Speaker 1: Okay, Now I understand that I felt the same when
Speaker 1: I was in as a homicide detective. If I got
Speaker 1: to a point where I thought I can't give it
Speaker 1: one hundred percent, it would have been time to step away.
Speaker 2: So, well, that's not a job where you can be
Speaker 2: half hearted of it.
Speaker 1: Well always said to people when I came in. It
Speaker 1: was told to me and when people came in under me,
Speaker 1: that that's not a nine to five job. If you're
Speaker 1: going to call yourself a homicide detective, if you're going
Speaker 1: to have to sign up and you're going to have
Speaker 1: to make sacrifices, I would imagine that's very similar to
Speaker 1: the role as a politician.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I sort of look at it now. We're having
Speaker 2: done it for a while and you do lose contact
Speaker 2: with friends. You just don't have the time to catch up.
Speaker 2: And that's not anybody's fault. It's just you know, the
Speaker 2: job gets in the way, and if you're passionate and
Speaker 2: committed to it, it does. You know, it takes your
Speaker 2: time and your energy.
Speaker 1: You can do what I did after I left the place,
Speaker 1: I went round the family and friends and apologize. I've
Speaker 1: just been busy for the past twenty or say years.
Speaker 2: But do they accept it?
Speaker 1: Some did, some did them. I'm working towards the ones
Speaker 1: that ones that didn't. So with crime, I'm fascinated by
Speaker 1: some of the things that you're focusing on and the
Speaker 1: way to way the fight crime. Just your background in politics.
Speaker 1: You're the Attorney General. Now we've talked about that, but
Speaker 1: you also held some portfolios that gave you a good
Speaker 1: understanding of the world of crime.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I first became a minister back in twenty twelve
Speaker 2: and they handed me the Corrections Portfolio. I had no background.
Speaker 2: I had the law degree, but I've not been a
Speaker 2: criminal lawyer and anything. My world had been environmental activism,
Speaker 2: a bit of interaction with the justice system, as we
Speaker 2: touched on, you know, bailing out activists, paying their fines,
Speaker 2: negotiating bail, but pretty in the grand scheme of a
Speaker 2: criminal justice system. Lightweight stuff. But I found myself with
Speaker 2: the Corrections portfolio and that was an absolute eye opener
Speaker 2: for me. It's not a popular portfolio. It's a tough
Speaker 2: portfolio in terms of there's not much good news comes
Speaker 2: out of corrections. But it's actually an amazing portfolio because
Speaker 2: if you get it right again, you make a real difference.
Speaker 2: And so I really got the bug for it. I
Speaker 2: did a four year term as Corrections Minister and you
Speaker 2: come around and the next election there's a bit of
Speaker 2: a reshuffle and they're like, what portfolio is do you want?
Speaker 2: I said, I'll keep corrections, and I think there's a
Speaker 2: bit of surprise at that. But it's an important portfolio.
Speaker 1: It's very important, but it's one that you're quite right.
Speaker 1: There's not a lot of positive stuff comes out of it.
Speaker 1: The only time you hear corrective services generally in the
Speaker 1: media or people are talking about when something's gone wrong.
Speaker 2: Yeah, death in custody, are riot, someone escapes, these sort
Speaker 2: of things. Yeah, that is generally what you see in
Speaker 2: the press. But like the police, I reckon there's a
Speaker 2: lot of people in corrections who go in there because
Speaker 2: they think they can make a difference. They go in there.
Speaker 2: A lot of it's with heart, actually, and I don't
Speaker 2: think that's a common perception of corrections, but I've met
Speaker 2: a lot of corrections officers who say I'm here because
Speaker 2: I think I can help people out.
Speaker 1: Look, I was guilty of looking at corrections when I
Speaker 1: was a police officer and we'd spend a lot of
Speaker 1: time in jail, but just thinking okay, corrective services officers.
Speaker 1: But since stepping away from the police and spending time
Speaker 1: in jail and spending time with corrective services officers, I'm amazed.
Speaker 1: I shouldn't say amazed, it's just I've become aware of
Speaker 1: how passionate they are about making a difference, because I
Speaker 1: think the public perception that we see on films or
Speaker 1: they walk around with a bat and just dragging a
Speaker 1: long the along the cell doors with a big set
Speaker 1: of keys hanging off, but it's so far different when
Speaker 1: they're inside.
Speaker 2: And it's a tough role as well. I mean, there
Speaker 2: are people in jail who use violence to resolve the
Speaker 2: spits because that's how they've learned to survive in the world,
Speaker 2: and the corrections officers are at risk of that violence.
Speaker 2: But there's also so much they can do. And as
Speaker 2: we've talked about earlier, so many people in jail are
Speaker 2: there they don't want to be there, and I've spent
Speaker 2: time chatting and prisons as well. Most of them just
Speaker 2: want to get home to their families. They want to
Speaker 2: see their mum. They feel they've brought shame on the family.
Speaker 2: So there's a lot of people in jail who have
Speaker 2: really interesting perspectives on life in a way that, again
Speaker 2: the community wouldn't understand through this sort of the stereotype
Speaker 2: of thinking about who's in jail, what it's like, that
Speaker 2: sort of thing. Most of the time, a lot of
Speaker 2: guys in jail and the ladies are just bored and
Speaker 2: they just want to get out.
Speaker 1: That's I look. I agree with what you're saying, and
Speaker 1: from a police officer's point of view, I'm thinking I
Speaker 1: didn't really care what happened to them when they went
Speaker 1: into jail. It wasn't my concern. I was just looking
Speaker 1: what's our next case. But having spent time in there,
Speaker 1: I'm not sure if you're aware, but I did a
Speaker 1: podcast series called Breaking Badness where Corrective Services invited me
Speaker 1: into a maximum security prison and I found a fascinating experience.
Speaker 1: I spent a couple of weeks in there and speaking
Speaker 1: to speaking to some of the inmates and what their
Speaker 1: stories were, and I'm thinking we could really make a
Speaker 1: difference and what they're doing there, and we might touch
Speaker 1: on it a little bit later about the way prisoners
Speaker 1: have been treated so they can integrate better into society. So,
Speaker 1: talking in a general sense what we touched on about
Speaker 1: the election promises cracked down on crime and all that,
Speaker 1: what's your overall view on the way we should approach
Speaker 1: approach crime and law and order.
Speaker 2: In the big picture, anyone who goes to just mostly
Speaker 2: going to come out again. And so if we want
Speaker 2: to make our community safer, we need to take that
Speaker 2: opportunity to intervene either while they're in custody ideally before
Speaker 2: they ever get there. As I've touched on a lot,
Speaker 2: so much crime comes from poverty and disadvantage and the like.
Speaker 2: Use that phrase before a building communities, not prisons. So
Speaker 2: if you think about the history of what's done as
Speaker 2: justice reinvest it came out of the US, out of
Speaker 2: Texas and out of all places. And I think this
Speaker 2: surprises a lot of people, and out of the conservative
Speaker 2: side of politics, and it came from actually economic rationalism,
Speaker 2: the idea that jails are really expensive places to run.
Speaker 2: The criminal justice system costs a lot of money to run.
Speaker 2: And what we see is and you'll have seen this
Speaker 2: in your police create and our police in Canberra complain
Speaker 2: about this all the time. They're just they're arresting the
Speaker 2: same people time after time. People are just cycling through
Speaker 2: the system. They're not getting the rehabilitation, they're not getting
Speaker 2: the support to put their lives back on track, and
Speaker 2: so you continue to just keep getting victims, as we
Speaker 2: touched on earlier, and so if we can break that cycle,
Speaker 2: we make better lives for the people who are in
Speaker 2: custody if people are in the system, and we make
Speaker 2: our community safer, and that's better for all of us,
Speaker 2: and it's more cost effective.
Speaker 1: It does seem like a no brainer when you put
Speaker 1: it down there, but it's just got to get the public,
Speaker 1: I think, changing their thoughts on crime, because our instinct
Speaker 1: with crime is Okay, that happens, we'll lock them up
Speaker 1: for away the key, but it doesn't necessarily create a
Speaker 1: good environment.
Speaker 2: And you know, if you go to the law, there's
Speaker 2: a range of stated outcomes or stated reasons for having sentencing,
Speaker 2: and that includes punishment deterrence, but it's also about rehabilitation,
Speaker 2: about holding people to account. I guess the view I
Speaker 2: take is there's lots of ways to hold people account
Speaker 2: for and some of the alternative options we've put in
Speaker 2: place in the Act, which reckon we'll get into in
Speaker 2: a minute. They're not soft options the whole people accountable,
Speaker 2: but they're pretty grueling to go through.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but just a different, different way of approaching it.
Speaker 1: I'm just looking at some of the notes I've made
Speaker 1: here that we don't if we can prevent people from
Speaker 1: offending in the first places, that would be the perfect
Speaker 1: world if we could do that. Obviously, we can't achieve that.
Speaker 1: Achieve that all the time. You've talked on some of
Speaker 1: the crimes, the lesser crimes, the way that we deal
Speaker 1: with deal with people and they're on the wrong path
Speaker 1: and they end up in jail, and that the recidivism
Speaker 1: that we have not just in this state but in
Speaker 1: every state, like across the country, it's ridiculous. What about
Speaker 1: the diversionary programs? Can we talk about that?
Speaker 2: Yeah, it'd be great to look and you talk about
Speaker 2: avoiding it in the first place. One of the changes
Speaker 2: we've just made in the Act is to raise the age.
Speaker 2: There's this thing called the minimum age of criminal responsibility
Speaker 2: and across most of Australia it's ten years old. And
Speaker 2: that idea is that that's the age of which you
Speaker 2: can be held responsible for your criminal acts. The evidence is,
Speaker 2: of course, that kids don't have the thinking that developed,
Speaker 2: ways of critically analyzing the world to really understand the
Speaker 2: consequences of their crime, and and age like that. So
Speaker 2: we've just raised the age in the Act to twelve,
Speaker 2: and next year it will go to fourteen. Now that's
Speaker 2: not just about saying you can't get in trouble, because
Speaker 2: we know that young kids will do things that are
Speaker 2: harmful to themselves and to others. But instead of them
Speaker 2: going into jail and starting that life in the system
Speaker 2: and then media up with other people who are like that,
Speaker 2: they'll instead be averted into programs that address their needs.
Speaker 2: Now that could be drug and alcohol issues, it could
Speaker 2: be the fact that they're just homeless and they're stealing
Speaker 2: to survive. All of them are different, they've got different needs,
Speaker 2: But the clear intent is that they will be helld accountable,
Speaker 2: but they'll also be given the support to make sure
Speaker 2: they don't keep going down that path. So it is
Speaker 2: actually about starting right at the beginning. When you think
Speaker 2: about something like kids and their early interactions, you know,
Speaker 2: I've met these kids and I've heard the stories. Are
Speaker 2: the ones who are in jail and they've grown up
Speaker 2: in households where no one's ever had a job. They're
Speaker 2: not encouraged to go to school. They just sit around
Speaker 2: the couch. Their parents are taking drugs all the time.
Speaker 2: And what sort of role modeling is that these kids
Speaker 2: have got no chance?
Speaker 1: Yeah, and like you look at you hear lives like
Speaker 1: that and think, well, how will they how are they
Speaker 1: meant to turn out like yourself? Myself, we had people
Speaker 1: that cared for you, poiled in the right direction, and
Speaker 1: if you didn't have that. So it's an interesting concept
Speaker 1: like raising the age for been liable for a criminal offense, because.
Speaker 2: The alternative is if that you could be sent to
Speaker 2: jail in Australia as young as eleven years old, going
Speaker 2: to juvi. You know, if you're in juv at eleven,
Speaker 2: you know it's mostly the kids that are a little
Speaker 2: bit older twelve and thirteen where you really start to
Speaker 2: see the trouble. But you know, the northern territories also
Speaker 2: raise their age of criminal responsibility. But then your governments
Speaker 2: come into actually we're going to push it back. I
Speaker 2: just don't kids if they get into the system at
Speaker 2: that age, they're just going to get institutionalized, they're hanging
Speaker 2: out with other people who are in the same circles,
Speaker 2: and the cycle is going to build.
Speaker 1: I've had too many people on here that have gone
Speaker 1: down the criminal path and talk about when they went
Speaker 1: into the juvenile system that virtually marked their cards. It
Speaker 1: was absolutely okay, this is a path I'm going on,
Speaker 1: and it was almost in that environment you've got credit
Speaker 1: for being the worst kid in the system.
Speaker 2: The stories we hear from these kids.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, so we break that. What about with drug
Speaker 1: and alcohol the courts specifically set up for those type
Speaker 1: of things, because we had a recent guest on them
Speaker 1: talking about he was hooked on heroin for twenty years
Speaker 1: or whatever, and he's now working on the thing that
Speaker 1: it's not about treating the drug addiction. That's about treating
Speaker 1: what drove people to drugs. And I think from a
Speaker 1: policing point of view, we'd go lock up the same
Speaker 1: people and you always knew it was drug related or
Speaker 1: alcohol could play the factory in it. How do you
Speaker 1: see that working? Changing the focus that let's treat the
Speaker 1: problem your addiction to drugs. We've got to work that
Speaker 1: out otherwise you're going to keep coming back to court.
Speaker 1: So what's your thoughts there.
Speaker 2: The Drug and alcohol courts are a really powerful model.
Speaker 2: Now we've brought one in relatively recently compared to some
Speaker 2: other jurisdictions, but the results are they're really life changing.
Speaker 2: I went and saw one in New Zealand to see
Speaker 2: what it was like the first time. I was over
Speaker 2: there for a Corrections Minister's conference and I went and
Speaker 2: checked out the call while I was there, and the
Speaker 2: judge it was a lady. She was a fantastic mix
Speaker 2: of frightening school teacher and caring auntie okay, and the
Speaker 2: way she run a court and the way the premise
Speaker 2: of the drug and alcohol courts is you get support
Speaker 2: when you're going well, but if you fall off the wagon,
Speaker 2: you get pulled into line and you get held accountable.
Speaker 2: And our one in the act, the judge there happens
Speaker 2: have been a mail. He's done to play that same
Speaker 2: sort of role of pushing both sides of it. And
Speaker 2: we've just done some evaluations of it and the results
Speaker 2: have been fantastic. We've now had thirty three people graduate
Speaker 2: through the program. So basically, you're going to be sentenced
Speaker 2: to jail and instead you get sent into this stream
Speaker 2: in the Drug and Alcohol Court. You're back out in
Speaker 2: the community, but it's intensive. You've got to go to
Speaker 2: court once or twice a week to check in with
Speaker 2: the judge. You're getting urine testing pretty regularly. You've got
Speaker 2: to do other courses that sort of go to why
Speaker 2: you're involved in the system. Of the thirty three people
Speaker 2: that have been that are graduated so far, not one
Speaker 2: of them is reoffended. And the sort of people we're
Speaker 2: talking about it ones that have been in and out
Speaker 2: of the system for fifteen years. They've gone in and
Speaker 2: out of jail, they come out, they maybe get out
Speaker 2: for three months or six months, and then they offend
Speaker 2: and they go back again.
Speaker 1: So just breaking it down, shame with that court because
Speaker 1: the figures quite interesting if you're having the success rate
Speaker 1: like that. So you've got the local offender the drugs.
Speaker 1: Of course, he breaks into places or stole something because
Speaker 1: he's addicted or she's addicted to a drug. Okay, you
Speaker 1: charge with the offense. You go before the drug court.
Speaker 1: Explain the steps from there.
Speaker 2: Well, first of all, you actually go before the regular court,
Speaker 2: magistrate or Supreme Court. You're in there, you've been sentenced.
Speaker 2: You're going to get two, three, four years, but you're
Speaker 2: given the option to go into the drug and alcohol court.
Speaker 2: They have to choose.
Speaker 1: Okay, so that's not compulsory that they've got to go.
Speaker 2: To jails if I want to. But obviously this looks
Speaker 2: like a more attractive option, you know, some of the
Speaker 2: people looking and go that's a bit of a soft option.
Speaker 2: You get to hang out in the community instead of
Speaker 2: going to jail and just have to turn up to court.
Speaker 2: But as I said, it is really intensive. There's high
Speaker 2: expectations placed on people. There's a series of service providers
Speaker 2: that so you go into the drug and alcohol court,
Speaker 2: you get assisted. We've got health staff working there, we've
Speaker 2: got social services staff working there. Average on Torres rail
Speaker 2: on the support services because obviously there's the over representation
Speaker 2: of our first nation's community. And you then get prescribed
Speaker 2: as sort of activities you have to be involved in.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and how long does the how long do they
Speaker 1: stay on the program.
Speaker 2: It can vary a little bit, but it's sort of
Speaker 2: a twelve to eighty month timeframe is roughly it. And
Speaker 2: even those who haven't graduated, you know, they finish up
Speaker 2: because their sentence runs out or for various reasons they
Speaker 2: don't finalize the program. Even in that cohort, we've seen
Speaker 2: a sort of eighty to ninety percent rate of not reoffending.
Speaker 1: And is the not reoffending because you've taken drugs out
Speaker 1: of the mix their addiction. You've dealt with the addiction
Speaker 1: pretty much, and they were offending because of their addiction,
Speaker 1: and it was like a cat chasing its tale.
Speaker 2: Yep, that's exactly it. But the other benefits that come
Speaker 2: out of us are so powerful. The breaking an addiction there,
Speaker 2: stopping the offending, but then stories of people being reunited
Speaker 2: with their children because they're now they're clean, they're getting
Speaker 2: a life, they're getting jobs. We had one fella spoken
Speaker 2: an event recently, had been through the court and he
Speaker 2: talked about going getting himself some education, getting that reunification
Speaker 2: with partners and kids, really stuff that matters.
Speaker 1: In our lives. There's a lot to be said about
Speaker 1: the need for people that have been taken out of
Speaker 1: the society, whether they're in prison or they're on the
Speaker 1: verge of going to prison, having that connection with community,
Speaker 1: having that connection with their families.
Speaker 2: Yeah, there's a risk of people being ostracized because they've
Speaker 2: been in jail because they've committed a crime, and the
Speaker 2: only people that will associate with them other people who've
Speaker 2: been in jail, and they're not pro social influencers. They're
Speaker 2: not people that say, Hey, come to this party with
Speaker 2: me and do some drugs, or come and help me
Speaker 2: knock over this servo or whatever the story is. Whereas
Speaker 2: if you reconnect with family friends, you're able to get
Speaker 2: a job. You know, that's probably the ultimate success is
Speaker 2: actually getting re employed. But all those influencers, they're the
Speaker 2: things that keep you on track.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, and gives you a sense of self worth too.
Speaker 1: I've seen people that turned their life around and they
Speaker 1: walk differently, they walk with pride. Then they're not slinking
Speaker 1: around them that they have that sense of self worth.
Speaker 1: What about restorative justice? Yeah, thoughts on that because I'm
Speaker 1: really fascinated by.
Speaker 2: This is such an interesting area of justice for people
Speaker 2: who don't know about it. The idea of restorative justice
Speaker 2: is essentially making peace, and again it's definitely not a
Speaker 2: soft option. The way it operates in the acts, you
Speaker 2: have the offender, you have the victim, and through a
Speaker 2: supported process, they have facilitators who run it and there's
Speaker 2: a lot of preparatory workers in you don't just check
Speaker 2: them in a room together, but ultimately you get them
Speaker 2: in a room together and the offender has to sit
Speaker 2: and speak with the victim, and the victim talks about
Speaker 2: the impact that crime had on them, how it's left
Speaker 2: them feeling unsafe at night in the dark, the sense
Speaker 2: of violation from having someone break into their house, whatever
Speaker 2: the circumstances are. The victim will talk about the impact
Speaker 2: that's had on them, and the perpetrator has to sit
Speaker 2: and confront that, and it is a powerful thing. Out
Speaker 2: the other side, the intent is the victim the perpetrator
Speaker 2: takes responsibility for what they've done. The intent is they apologize,
Speaker 2: and there's a reparations process where the victim can then
Speaker 2: talk about what they want the perpetrator to do that
Speaker 2: would leave the victim feeling like the perpetrator had taken responsibility.
Speaker 1: Yeah, have you seen examples of that.
Speaker 2: I've never been in a conference. I've spoken to a
Speaker 2: lot of the facilitators and I've spoken to people who've
Speaker 2: been through the process. They find it. Victims of crime
Speaker 2: find it really empowering because one of the things that
Speaker 2: being a victim of crime is it takes away your
Speaker 2: sense of agency. Someone's done something to you that you
Speaker 2: couldn't control, and so many victims they're out the other side,
Speaker 2: that's what most impacts them, and this is a way
Speaker 2: of giving agency back. It's a way of finding peace
Speaker 2: out of it. And again in the surveying we've done,
Speaker 2: if people who've been through it, we sort of get
Speaker 2: this ninety eight ninety nine percent satisfaction rate. And it
Speaker 2: sounds too good to be true. Now. I say that
Speaker 2: because often there are entering into this process and it
Speaker 2: doesn't always work. If the perpetrator is not prepared to
Speaker 2: take responsibility, they won't be put in the room with
Speaker 2: a victim because that could just make it worse again.
Speaker 2: But that ability to sit down with somebody and make
Speaker 2: peace come out the other side in the sense of
Speaker 2: them understanding what they did to you, you understanding perhaps
Speaker 2: why they did it, and they're making that active apology
Speaker 2: and doing other reparations is well.
Speaker 1: It potentially helps a victim too. Absolutely, Like I've seen
Speaker 1: victims that their lives have been destroyed because of the
Speaker 1: This might be families of victims of homicide or victims
Speaker 1: of crime themselves that survived, but they carry this anger,
Speaker 1: this fear, this whole range of emotions that can be
Speaker 1: soul destroying if you're angry and hanging onto that. And
Speaker 1: I've spoken to people I won't name them for the
Speaker 1: privacy side of things, but people who have their family
Speaker 1: members killed and they've sat down and I won't say
Speaker 1: make peace, but they've come to terms with what the
Speaker 1: person has done and actually met with the person, and
Speaker 1: they get a better understanding and still stay angry, but
Speaker 1: the anger is channeled in the more positive, positive direction.
Speaker 2: So it's a good way to scope victims have a
Speaker 2: whole range of experiences and how they feel out of
Speaker 2: these processes. But part I was talking before about how
Speaker 2: this is an empowering process because the alternative the criminal
Speaker 2: justice is you go to court. The victims don't have
Speaker 2: a role in court often. I mean, we now have
Speaker 2: victim impact statements and the like, but historically the victims
Speaker 2: feel very much marginalized in the process. Yet you go
Speaker 2: in the court room and the perpetrators in the dock,
Speaker 2: the judges up there, the lawyers are sort of having
Speaker 2: the argument, and the victims sort of sitting in the back,
Speaker 2: probably not often not understanding the process because it's complex.
Speaker 2: It's legal ease. You know, the witnesses come in. The
Speaker 2: victim may or may not be a witness. People are
Speaker 2: spoken to me about the fact. They come out of the
Speaker 2: other side of that now like that all happened around me.
Speaker 2: But I'm sort of still here and I don't know
Speaker 2: what happened, and I don't have a sense of having
Speaker 2: got to tell my story very well. You know, the
Speaker 2: defense Paris was cross examining me. I felt like a criminal.
Speaker 2: So it's a pretty dissatisfying process for a lot of victims,
Speaker 2: whereas restorative justice is a very different process.
Speaker 1: I hadn't even thought about the thought about it in
Speaker 1: that context. But yeah, I do understand what you're saying,
Speaker 1: because quite often for murder trials, I'm with the family
Speaker 1: the whole time and they come out and they just
Speaker 1: what was that all about? Speaking in legal jargon and
Speaker 1: not understanding and being excluded from the courts on certain things.
Speaker 1: I was involved in the first victim impact statement here
Speaker 1: in the state that was a murder of Ioline Cantlay,
Speaker 1: and I remember when that came in. It was the
Speaker 1: first time being used in New South Wales, and I
Speaker 1: got the sense there was a lot of resentment from
Speaker 1: the court system because the court system like, we don't
Speaker 1: need to hear from the victims. Yeah, that type of
Speaker 1: let's call it intellectual arrogance that comes with the legal
Speaker 1: for eternity. But I see that the way it helps
Speaker 1: victims at least having their say, like coming in there
Speaker 1: and actually speaking, speaking the impact that's had on them.
Speaker 1: And quite often it's very traumatic for them sitting there
Speaker 1: and it's always emotional when they're reading their victims Impact statement.
Speaker 1: But I think that's bringing some sort of humanity into
Speaker 1: the courts.
Speaker 2: One of the things I developed a few years ago
Speaker 2: in the AC was a victim's Charter of Rights because
Speaker 2: there's a whole series of points in the justice process
Speaker 2: where victims interact with the system and it can be
Speaker 2: really dissatisfying for them, from the police obligations on the
Speaker 2: police to keep them updated on the investigation, through to
Speaker 2: the Director of Public Prosecutions again keeping the victim in
Speaker 2: the lube telling them what's happening. Some of the worst
Speaker 2: examples I've seen where people are so upset is where
Speaker 2: there's been a plea deal done and the victims saying
Speaker 2: there going what the hell just happened?
Speaker 1: Not consulted.
Speaker 2: So having we've now formalized this into the victim's charter
Speaker 2: to give both victims a clear sense of their rights,
Speaker 2: but also to put the pressure on the agencies who
Speaker 2: are busy but saying them, actually, the system is going
Speaker 2: to work a whole lot better if we step through
Speaker 2: these processes.
Speaker 1: And the system should be there. The system, I always think, laws, courts,
Speaker 1: it's here to serve the community. So if it's not
Speaker 1: providing the service that the community want, we've got to
Speaker 1: try and change it. I always think that's a good
Speaker 1: definition of police and quite often police are rating themselves
Speaker 1: on are we doing a good job or whatever. I
Speaker 1: think a police force should be judged on are they
Speaker 1: providing the service to the community that the community require,
Speaker 1: and if they are, they're doing their doing their job. Well,
Speaker 1: let's just wind back to restorative justice a little bit too.
Speaker 1: I think it's very powerful for the offender, especially a
Speaker 1: young offender that might quite understand what it meant when
Speaker 1: he robbed the little old lady of the handbag and
Speaker 1: ran off the street, but if he had to sit
Speaker 1: down and speak to that person and the impact that
Speaker 1: it's had on the victim, I think there has to
Speaker 1: be some benefits here because I don't know about you,
Speaker 1: but when I was a kid, I saw the ignorant
Speaker 1: to other people's emotions because your will just revolves around
Speaker 1: you pretty much. That's been a teenager, so been dragged
Speaker 1: into that situation where you've got to confront what you've
Speaker 1: done and understand. I'm sure that has to have a
Speaker 1: good effect on that people.
Speaker 2: That's the lesson out of it. You're absolutely right, And
Speaker 2: in recent times we've opened the scheme up to domestic
Speaker 2: and family violence and sexual offenses, and they're obviously much
Speaker 2: more difficult issues, but the case studies are fascinating. You know,
Speaker 2: people often think of domestic violence as being between intimate partners,
Speaker 2: but it can also be young people, often young men,
Speaker 2: assaulting brothers and sisters or their parents, these kind of things.
Speaker 2: You've got a situation there where the family doesn't want
Speaker 2: the young person to go to jail. I definitely want
Speaker 2: the violence to stop, and so this can be a
Speaker 2: really powerful process of that because you're putting people in
Speaker 2: a room who want to get an outcome, who want
Speaker 2: to restore their family unit, but the violence has to stop,
Speaker 2: it can't continue. People at first instance, thinking how can
Speaker 2: you do that? But then you look at the case
Speaker 2: studies that come through and it's so powerful.
Speaker 1: You said sex offenders as well. How's that play out?
Speaker 2: Yeah, Look, we haven't seen so many we've had this.
Speaker 2: We open it up probably about two or three years ago. Now,
Speaker 2: we've not had so many sexual assault matters coming through.
Speaker 2: It's obviously the most difficult area.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I could imagine the beacon, the fronting.
Speaker 2: And the whole point of a storative justice is it's
Speaker 2: all done with consent. No one's forced into it on
Speaker 2: either side of the equation of a victims. There's no
Speaker 2: way then it's just it's never going to happen. And
Speaker 2: if the offender is not there saying I'm open to
Speaker 2: taking some responsibility, well it's not going to happen. And
Speaker 2: so the facilitators who run the process have a really
Speaker 2: important role to sort of make that judgment. There's a
Speaker 2: series of pre meetings and it takes quite a bit
Speaker 2: of preparation where because you can't have people going in
Speaker 2: there just trying to get off scot free or get
Speaker 2: the easy route.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and you've got to give the agency to the
Speaker 1: victims too. So the fact that you can't well, this
Speaker 1: person's assaulted you. Now you've got to sit in this
Speaker 1: room and talk to this person.
Speaker 2: And clearly, for some victims of crime, it's just something
Speaker 2: they're not going to want to do. But that goes
Speaker 2: that spectrum of victims and their hopes and their aspirations
Speaker 2: and there you know what they think they might get
Speaker 2: out of.
Speaker 1: It will wrap up shortly for part one that when
Speaker 1: we come back, we're going to break down some other
Speaker 1: aspects of way of fighting crime. But I just want
Speaker 1: to talk in a general sense because a lot of
Speaker 1: it's going to be about what happens. What happens in
Speaker 1: the prisons. My observation of prisons, and it's not these
Speaker 1: are not my figures, but when it was said to
Speaker 1: me and the work that I did within the prisons,
Speaker 1: it makes a lot of sense. You've got probably twenty
Speaker 1: or thirty percent of people that are in prison that
Speaker 1: are let's call them professional criminals. They've just chosen that life.
Speaker 1: They know they could be the thief that we know
Speaker 1: what's going to happen. We're going to get out, we're
Speaker 1: going to do our crime, and we're going to come
Speaker 1: back in. So they're a hard group to change. That
Speaker 1: might be their family history, that might be you know
Speaker 1: what they were raised, values, their rays. So they're the
Speaker 1: professional criminals. Then you probably sit with maybe sixty percent
Speaker 1: of people that have made mistakes. These are the people
Speaker 1: that they're inherently good people. They've just gone on the
Speaker 1: wrong path, surround themselves with the wrong people, had no
Speaker 1: direction in their the hate being in jail. They hate
Speaker 1: themselves and not hate, that's a strong word, but they're not.
Speaker 1: This is not what they want their life to be.
Speaker 1: So that sits sixty percent. Then the leftovers are the
Speaker 1: people that society needs to be protected by. And really, yeah,
Speaker 1: I haven't gone too soft my attitude with some of
Speaker 1: that level of people. I don't care what happens to them.
Speaker 1: They've got to be taken away from society because of
Speaker 1: the nature of the crime. So any work that we
Speaker 1: can do in that space if we can't, you know,
Speaker 1: you can't change everyone. Sometimes the things that you've proposed
Speaker 1: will fail. But if you can change a few of
Speaker 1: those people in there, it has to be better, doesn't it.
Speaker 2: It's that sixty percent that I'm most interested in. You
Speaker 2: you're it's a good description of them. It's my experience
Speaker 2: of watching who's in the system and what they're there
Speaker 2: for and why they found themselves in those circumstances. If
Speaker 2: we can get that sixty percent, that's a great start.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah. For me. With mcquarie Correctional Center in New
Speaker 1: South Wales, the work that they're doing there.
Speaker 2: I have not been a Macquarie nine Yeah, okay.
Speaker 1: I went up there, spent a couple of weeks in there,
Speaker 1: invited by Corrective Services and what they're doing at maximum
Speaker 1: security prison. But they have the prisoners living in dorms,
Speaker 1: which I thought in maximum security prison that's going to
Speaker 1: be a blood bath. You can't put twenty five prisoners
Speaker 1: in a dorm and just lock the keys and leave
Speaker 1: them there. But there's no When I say there's no violence.
Speaker 1: If there is violent actions up there, they're removed from
Speaker 1: Mcquarie Correctional Center. They work for six hours a day,
Speaker 1: like go to a employment within the prison whatever they're doing,
Speaker 1: and they study for six hours a day and they
Speaker 1: resolve their conflicts, not with a ship which happens in
Speaker 1: most prisons. And it was like I was sitting down
Speaker 1: speaking to the prisons and they go, okay, we'll live
Speaker 1: in here. Twenty five of us in this dorm. If
Speaker 1: I've got an issue with Shane, we'll raise it and
Speaker 1: we'll discuss this, and then we might suggest that Shane
Speaker 1: should go to another dorm or whatever. And while I
Speaker 1: was picking up from them, the corrective services officers, they
Speaker 1: treat them with respect, and there was mutual respect between
Speaker 1: the two groups. It wasn't that clear line the blue
Speaker 1: and the green that normally occurs in prisons, basically setting
Speaker 1: them up so when they get back out in the society,
Speaker 1: they've got skills that they have. The skills that they developed,
Speaker 1: they're transferable into when they get back into the community.
Speaker 1: I was amazed by the work that was done there,
Speaker 1: and I think part of the reason Correactive Services invited
Speaker 1: me in there as a cop. You know, people assume
Speaker 1: I've got this natural leaning towards get tough on the crooks.
Speaker 1: The modeling of the prison system. The Scandinavian countries do
Speaker 1: similar type things. I was amazed at what happened, what
Speaker 1: happening in that prison. I walked away very impressed. I'm
Speaker 1: speaking to speaking to people. I'm not naive speaking to
Speaker 1: the inmates, but there were some hard cases in there
Speaker 1: and going, look, we've been treated like humans. We've been
Speaker 1: treated with respect. That sets us up better when we
Speaker 1: get to get out back into the community. What's your
Speaker 1: thoughts on that type of prison system.
Speaker 2: It's interesting to say that the Act didn't have a
Speaker 2: jail until two thousand and nine ten. That sort of era,
Speaker 2: people used to be sent to Kuma or Goldwyn or
Speaker 2: various other places. The jar was open with a very
Speaker 2: similar model in mind. And we've got a campus style
Speaker 2: jail where people do live in cottages, they order their food,
Speaker 2: they cook together, again building some of those skills. I
Speaker 2: think it's got a lot of potential. I don't think
Speaker 2: we quite got it right in the Act. Our jail
Speaker 2: was built with no industries they were built. It was
Speaker 2: built with people were just going to get education and study.
Speaker 2: And this is not a cohort of people who are
Speaker 2: going to sit on the books too well, you know,
Speaker 2: they need much more practical things. I've been to a
Speaker 2: visit to Long Day Jail where they've got a whole
Speaker 2: stream of industry sets. You know, I really found that
Speaker 2: inspiring because you're walking through and you're chatting the guys
Speaker 2: and they're like, this is great. I've developed this skill.
Speaker 2: I'm making things that your earlier point around a sense
Speaker 2: of self worth. So there's definitely that's the model we
Speaker 2: should be going down so that when people come out
Speaker 2: they've got skills. And because we didn't build our jail
Speaker 2: with industries, we've got a significant problem. A board and
Speaker 2: people just sitting around.
Speaker 1: And bore them creates.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it creates, creates, violence, create drugs, drug seeking behavior,
Speaker 2: all of those things.
Speaker 1: So the thing that I came away with after spending
Speaker 1: time in that prison, and I also went into another
Speaker 1: prison that was more the traditional but at the Macquarie
Speaker 1: Correctional Center, there was people that the sense of pride
Speaker 1: there was. There was a different feel, a different vibe
Speaker 1: in the prison, and prisons have that vibe. You walk
Speaker 1: in and you're just, oh, this is a horrible place.
Speaker 1: But there were some positive things happening there. And the
Speaker 1: way that they were being treated and the inmates were
Speaker 1: being treated, the way they treated each other, and the
Speaker 1: way that the staff were treating the inmates and vice versa.
Speaker 1: I thought that was really positive. So I from a
Speaker 1: police point of view, and again I reference it back
Speaker 1: to Ken Marslow that if there's less crime, yeah, there's
Speaker 1: less victims.
Speaker 2: So and the whole community is say, we're all better.
Speaker 1: Off and people I think, and this is wind the
Speaker 1: clock back centuries ago. If someone misbehaved invariably, they had
Speaker 1: to you know what sort of discipline. Well, they were
Speaker 1: part of the tribe or part of the community. So
Speaker 1: we couldn't just get rid of that person and send
Speaker 1: them off to a prison. There had to be punishment.
Speaker 1: But they've got to be part of the community. They
Speaker 1: might have been the hunter there or the gatherer or whatever.
Speaker 1: Now we're in these big cities and someone misbehaves, let's
Speaker 1: just send them off to jail. We don't care. We're
Speaker 1: not worried about when they come back into the community.
Speaker 1: But they do come back into the community.
Speaker 2: It's a really good point and it goes to another
Speaker 2: example we're operating in the Act where we have a
Speaker 2: circle sentence in court. Yeah, it's called jalumbarney, which is
Speaker 2: a local Aboriginal word, and it's for Abridginal and tost
Speaker 2: other people. And there's a judge that sits on it.
Speaker 2: But then they also have a panel of elders sit
Speaker 2: with them, and so usually young offenders, they're most of
Speaker 2: the young people they have to come in and they
Speaker 2: have to sit there and explain themselves to the arnies
Speaker 2: and uncles yea who know their family and probably know
Speaker 2: their parents, you know, And there's a is that community
Speaker 2: element of all. Actually, you're part of our family. But
Speaker 2: what you've done has harmed our family, shamed our family,
Speaker 2: caused a problem for us. What are you going to
Speaker 2: do about it?
Speaker 1: There's that punishment, but we've also we need you as
Speaker 1: part part of the community in the.
Speaker 2: Community is taking responsibility for that as well.
Speaker 1: I think it was down there Bateman's Bay area. Someone
Speaker 1: was telling me about a young fellow and he was
Speaker 1: sentenced on that aspect of it to go fishing with
Speaker 1: an old fellow.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Like, how good's that?
Speaker 1: Like, Okay, you've done the wrong thing and he's sitting
Speaker 1: with an old wise man just sort of steering him
Speaker 1: in the right direction. And to me, that seems a
Speaker 1: lot better than throwing them in a juvenile detention center
Speaker 1: and going hard on them. Indeed, So it's just changing,
Speaker 1: changing the way of approaching things. We have got so
Speaker 1: much to talk about, But we'll have a break now
Speaker 1: and when we come back we'll deal further into our discussion.
Speaker 2: Terrific cheers,