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 back to part two of my chat with former
Speaker 1: greenpeace warrior, state politician the current Australian Capital Territory Attorney
Speaker 1: General Shane Rattenberry. Welcome back, Shane, Thanks very much. Now, Shane,
Speaker 1: before we get back talking about crime and solving all
Speaker 1: the all the issues in the world of crime, You're
Speaker 1: obviously a very busy person, very driven person. How do
Speaker 1: you find balance in your life?
Speaker 2: I think in a job like I have. It is
Speaker 2: important to get that balance otherwise you just burn yourself out.
Speaker 2: So I used to do triathlon. It was a great
Speaker 2: outlet for me as a young person. Kept me pretty
Speaker 2: focused as well. And these days I just run. I've
Speaker 2: got time to do.
Speaker 1: That, just run marathons, but I do a bit.
Speaker 2: I do trial running. Yah. It's sort of become a
Speaker 2: really popular sport in Australian so the races are held
Speaker 2: in beautiful places, you know, the Blue Mountains, national parks,
Speaker 2: coastal locations. It's a good outlet and I enjoy the training.
Speaker 2: I usually run by myself in training and running with
Speaker 2: mates is really fun and social. But because my job's
Speaker 2: so full on actually having some quiet time just think
Speaker 2: about things, I actually find it very meditative.
Speaker 1: I think I do meditation and I do describe running
Speaker 1: it can have the same effect because you can just
Speaker 1: switch off and get lost in your thoughts and don't
Speaker 1: worry about anything else other than one foot after the other.
Speaker 2: And I think for people who've never runners, they think, oh,
Speaker 2: running must just be painful. But once you get fit enough,
Speaker 2: you know, and your body's adapted a little bit, you
Speaker 2: can't just go out for a run and it doesn't hurt.
Speaker 2: You're just sort of cruising along. And especially in Canberra
Speaker 2: I live, we've got some nice nature reserve areas and
Speaker 2: you go out and kangaroos and wildflowers in the spring.
Speaker 2: It's pretty good for the soul.
Speaker 1: Actually, yeah, and you can get lost in that, so
Speaker 1: let's your balance. You talk triathons, Did you do the
Speaker 1: Hawaiian Triathlon?
Speaker 2: I have done it once. Yeah, that's a tough. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Just tell people that don't understand how far you ran,
Speaker 1: swim and cycle, because.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so the I Man in Hawaii it's really hot
Speaker 2: and humid as well, so the temperature adds a whole
Speaker 2: lot to it. But it's a three point eight kilometer swim,
Speaker 2: then one hundred and eighty k's on the bike, and
Speaker 2: then you jump off and run a marathon. So forty
Speaker 2: two k's at the end. How'd you feel after that?
Speaker 2: Pretty poorly? Yeah, yeah, big, it's just a tough day
Speaker 2: out I've had. I've done the I Man about half
Speaker 2: a dozen times. Yeah, in various places. I've had some
Speaker 2: good ones and I've had some bad ones. Yeah. If
Speaker 2: you hit the wall, it's long. It's a long day
Speaker 2: out there, and you st get home for prettyquasy, but
Speaker 2: if you get it right, it's the most exhilarating thing.
Speaker 2: And hitting that finish line you've achieved something you never
Speaker 2: thought you could do. There's an enormous sense of self
Speaker 2: satisfaction in it of having pushed yourself through some dark moments,
Speaker 2: get out there and you're like, I just want to stop,
Speaker 2: I just want to give up, and you keep going.
Speaker 2: So the thrill of finishing is pretty.
Speaker 1: Powerful, and it builds up that resilience, doesn't it. If
Speaker 1: you put yourself through that sort of pain and that
Speaker 1: sort of tests that you've got through that so other
Speaker 1: things that you face you go, okay, well I can
Speaker 1: manage this.
Speaker 2: It's really true. And in some ways, the race day
Speaker 2: is the fun day. It's the preparation that's hard. Now.
Speaker 2: I once saw one of the professional triathlets say I
Speaker 2: love race day because you know, you get out of there,
Speaker 2: there's people come and cheer for you. It's catered because
Speaker 2: they have aid stations and things. When you're out training
Speaker 2: by yourself, they're the long, hard, lonely times. But it
Speaker 2: does teach your focus and discipline and overcoming hard obstacles.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and also you get what you put in like,
Speaker 1: you can't shortcut your training. You're going to put the
Speaker 1: kilometers in your legs and get yourself ready for it.
Speaker 1: Soun't take shortcuts. So it's a good lesson in life,
Speaker 1: isn't it.
Speaker 2: And that's always pena motivation for me in trainings. If
Speaker 2: I don't do it there, it's going to be a
Speaker 2: lot worse when you try and do the event later.
Speaker 1: Do you try to train early in the morning or.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I do, because if otherwise you get in the
Speaker 2: day and the day takes over and it's a nice
Speaker 2: peaceful time of day. I guess I've probably become a
Speaker 2: morning person as a results of it. There's not many
Speaker 2: people around, the sun's coming up, you know, the birds
Speaker 2: are out. It's a pretty good time a day to
Speaker 2: be out there. People who are not mourning people are
Speaker 2: missing out. I reckon.
Speaker 1: I let's not tell two many people because I'm a
Speaker 1: morning person.
Speaker 2: I love it.
Speaker 1: You get up, get all your stuff done, do your training,
Speaker 1: there's no one around, and that then you've got the
Speaker 1: day ahead of you. I would imagine in politics, like
Speaker 1: in policing too, if I got my training done in
Speaker 1: the morning, I didn't care what happened for the rest
Speaker 1: of the day because I've already had my men time
Speaker 1: in the training.
Speaker 2: It's a perfect description of it. Absolutely.
Speaker 1: Now I've also spoken to your staff and I'm not
Speaker 1: going to name names, and I won't even look in
Speaker 1: the direction, but they want me to find out seeing
Speaker 1: this is called I catch kill it. Whether you're a robot, now,
Speaker 1: if that's a reflection on how hard do you keep
Speaker 1: your staff going or how hard you work? But how
Speaker 1: would you answer that if someone said, are you a robot?
Speaker 2: I hope not.
Speaker 1: No.
Speaker 2: Look, I think I have got an ability to keep
Speaker 2: at it, you know, because I just find the work
Speaker 2: so interesting and so motivating, and the ability to make
Speaker 2: a difference does keep you going. And I think I've
Speaker 2: got a bit of stamina. I think the endurance sports
Speaker 2: speak to that. But that's you do hit a point
Speaker 2: sometimes where you've just got to go home, you know.
Speaker 2: And I do have that real bell and sometimes I
Speaker 2: just go home at the end of the day and
Speaker 2: the work is really intense. And I'm sure you have
Speaker 2: this experience, well, and you literally you get home, you
Speaker 2: sit on the couch and you just don't move because
Speaker 2: you've spent all your not just your physical energy it's
Speaker 2: the expandite of emotional energy.
Speaker 1: You Sometimes I get home, I didn't even have the
Speaker 1: energy to say hello. You have just drained everything out
Speaker 1: of you.
Speaker 2: And that's part of the sacrifice for the family as well,
Speaker 2: because you're coming in like, don't talk to me, I
Speaker 2: just need some quiet time, and they're waiting for you
Speaker 2: at home. You've been gone a long time, so that
Speaker 2: you know, that's some of the toll of these kind
Speaker 2: of roles. You've got kids. I don't know, but I
Speaker 2: met a part in the later in life. She's got
Speaker 2: kids and we're now starting to see green kids come along.
Speaker 2: So that's been a lot of fun for me. And
Speaker 2: it's a good a good balance.
Speaker 1: That's a good experience that that balances you out, doesn't it.
Speaker 1: You come home and that you've got someone that doesn't
Speaker 1: care what you've done, that doesn't care that you're under pressure.
Speaker 2: And they're hilarious. They're just so much fun.
Speaker 1: Good fun. Okay, Well, get back to quite a few
Speaker 1: topics we've got here. First, nations, people, over representation in
Speaker 1: the in the prison system. Now, you also had a
Speaker 1: portfolio Indigenous affairs I did early.
Speaker 2: On in my ministry.
Speaker 1: Yeah time, yes, yeah, what's your what's your thoughts on that,
Speaker 1: because it's it's quite confronting.
Speaker 2: This is a blight on Australia. The rate of Indigenous
Speaker 2: incarceration in this country is appalling, and it's we're talking
Speaker 2: about overrepresentation. You are far more likely now up in
Speaker 2: jail if you're an Aboriginal Australian then if you are
Speaker 2: visual Australian, and in the Act, that proportion is actually
Speaker 2: the highest in the country. Really, that's partly because our
Speaker 2: rate of imprisonment of non Indigenous people is actually much lower.
Speaker 2: When we first built out O Jail, we had a
Speaker 2: very low rate of imprisonment, and partly I think it's
Speaker 2: because the judges didn't want to send people away and
Speaker 2: they kept them in the community. As soon as we
Speaker 2: have in the jail, the prison rates skyrocketed and in
Speaker 2: the last five years we've actually managed to bring that
Speaker 2: back down, but we haven't brought it down as much
Speaker 2: for Indigenous people, and so that tells me we've got
Speaker 2: a lot of work still to do. Because the programs
Speaker 2: are putting in place are having an effect. They're reducing recidivism,
Speaker 2: they're cutting the rate of imprisonment, we're giving the judges
Speaker 2: alternative diversion pathways for people, but they're not working nearly
Speaker 2: as well for Aboriginal people, and that is saying we've
Speaker 2: got to do more work on Okay.
Speaker 1: Is there when I'm dealing with Aboriginal people? Quite often
Speaker 1: they say, when people are trying to find solutions for us,
Speaker 1: why don't they come and ask us, is there anything
Speaker 1: that's in the pipeline that you think might provide that
Speaker 1: type of listening, finding out what needs to be done
Speaker 1: and finding the solution.
Speaker 2: Oh, definitely, We've got to have more Aboriginal community controlled organizations.
Speaker 2: That's the sort of tag you've put on them, but
Speaker 2: running a lot of our programs, and certainly we are
Speaker 2: trying to build them up, but we only had a
Speaker 2: couple in the act. In recent years, we've started to
Speaker 2: have more come in. They've got some really great ideas
Speaker 2: on how to support people because the cultural stuff is
Speaker 2: so important. It goes right back to the beginning where
Speaker 2: young Aboriginal people, you know, they've got a distrustful relationship
Speaker 2: with police for all the historical reasons we know that
Speaker 2: leads to them coming into contact with the justice system.
Speaker 2: More often they see a police officer, they give them
Speaker 2: a bit of lip. The police react like, how dare
Speaker 2: you challenge my authority. We've seen the examples that do
Speaker 2: get captured sometimes unfortunately, and so there's this whole toxic
Speaker 2: relationship that just escalates and Aboriginal people end up in
Speaker 2: the system much more the non Aboriginal people.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we've I don't know what the answer. It's complex,
Speaker 1: but it's just the ratio of Indigenous people, First Nations
Speaker 1: people in their prisons. It's just it's sad.
Speaker 2: Yeah. One thing I'm a little bit proud of is
Speaker 2: in the Act. In the last sort of five years
Speaker 2: we've seen nationally the increase in Indigenous people in go
Speaker 2: by about ten percent. We've cut it by five percent.
Speaker 2: So stuff starting to work, but it's still whatever. We've
Speaker 2: got a goal to have the rate of imprisonment of
Speaker 2: Indigenous people the same as non Indigenous people by twenty
Speaker 2: thirty one, who are a long way from it. We've
Speaker 2: got some hard work to do.
Speaker 1: Yeah, okay, well, it's something that's definitely worth working towards.
Speaker 1: Another topic I want to talk about and I found this.
Speaker 1: I hadn't thought about this, and it's amazing. You work
Speaker 1: in the field and you think you understand everything, and
Speaker 1: then this issue was raised character references for child sex abuses.
Speaker 1: It was mentioned to me when I was doing a
Speaker 1: podcast series called Predatory with Madeline West about child the
Speaker 1: sex offenders, and I think it was Andrew Carpenter, a
Speaker 1: solicitor from South Australia, talked about character references for petiphile
Speaker 1: and I'm thinking, yeah, well, everyone's got a right to
Speaker 1: have a character reference. You get sense. But the nature
Speaker 1: of pedophiles child sex offenders is that they groom people
Speaker 1: and so they present it could be the scout leader,
Speaker 1: it could be the minister at the church, it could
Speaker 1: be the soccer coach. They groom people that they can
Speaker 1: be trusted and that's how they pray on the young children.
Speaker 1: So a character reference coming in when someone's been sentenced
Speaker 1: for sexually abusing the child is almost like it shouldn't
Speaker 1: be taken into account. This is my take on it.
Speaker 1: I'll get yours shouldn't be taken into account because it
Speaker 1: was almost part of the crime in itself that they
Speaker 1: presented as a fine up scending citizen, So any character
Speaker 1: reference should be discarded. That's my interpretation of it. I
Speaker 1: know you've raised it in some of the documents. I've
Speaker 1: got what's your thoughts.
Speaker 2: I think it's a really important topic you consider. It
Speaker 2: came on to my radar because there's some young guys
Speaker 2: here in New South Wales and winning Canberra who started
Speaker 2: a campaign about this. Harrison James has sort of been
Speaker 2: leading this and they exactly the point you're touching on is,
Speaker 2: you know, the very nature of the offense is abusive
Speaker 2: trust and as young people, the people in their lives
Speaker 2: who are supposed to look after them have actually preyed
Speaker 2: on that relationship, that trust to then abuse them. And
Speaker 2: they comes back to that victim perspective we were talking
Speaker 2: about earlier. They then have to sit there in court
Speaker 2: and have people turn up and say, oh, this offender,
Speaker 2: this pedophile, they're a good person for all these reasons,
Speaker 2: and the victims in they go, hang on a second.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you can see how confronting it would be.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's just totally offensive to them. So we're having
Speaker 2: a look at that now, and in light of that
Speaker 2: advocacy from Harrison and his colleagues, the legal community is
Speaker 2: sort of trying to bring some yuans. So they're saying,
Speaker 2: we get that argument, but at the same time, we
Speaker 2: also need to think about, well, you know, is there
Speaker 2: reability of prospects for this person and how does the
Speaker 2: court take that into account? And we found ourselves with
Speaker 2: the Bar Association and Harrison and his colleagues really at
Speaker 2: loggerheads and we had a really interesting meeting two months
Speaker 2: ago now where we got them all in a room together.
Speaker 2: How that would an interesting It actually went really well
Speaker 2: as a real credit. We had the police there, we
Speaker 2: had some sexual assault services, we had Harrison and his colleagues,
Speaker 2: we had the Director of Public Prosecutions, and we sat
Speaker 2: around and said, well, how do we deal with this
Speaker 2: where we make sure that we want to be able
Speaker 2: to the court to have all the information, but we
Speaker 2: deal with this impact on victims. We don't have an
Speaker 2: answer just yet. It is like so many things in
Speaker 2: the law, the nuances of a complex. But it was
Speaker 2: so powerful to have everyone sit in a room together
Speaker 2: and hear each other's perspectives and acknowledge the different things
Speaker 2: and go away with some more ideas. So I've got
Speaker 2: my department off now having a think about what the
Speaker 2: legal answer looks like and we'll get something done on this.
Speaker 1: We have to, Okay, I think the fact that you're
Speaker 1: having discussions and it is hard to change the laws,
Speaker 1: but laws need to be changed.
Speaker 2: We need to evolve.
Speaker 1: Society changes, values change, all sorts of things change. The
Speaker 1: law needs to change change as well. Sometimes you've got
Speaker 1: to drag the legal system along because it's enshrined in
Speaker 1: legal tradition.
Speaker 2: And that's a real challenge for me as a as
Speaker 2: an attorney general. I am a reformer by natually. I
Speaker 2: think we should be getting on making things better. And
Speaker 2: this is a great example where the world has changed
Speaker 2: and we understand better the impacts and people have got
Speaker 2: a voice. But we also need to be mindful of
Speaker 2: those really important premises in our legal system that make
Speaker 2: sure that it is fair. Justice is done. There is
Speaker 2: a presumption of innocence, people have a fair trial, all
Speaker 2: of those really fundamental principles that we want to have.
Speaker 2: How do we reform at the same time. And so
Speaker 2: that's been a real challenge for me in this role,
Speaker 2: is wanting to get on and get stuff done, but
Speaker 2: then having really smart people push back and say, well,
Speaker 2: there could be some unintended consequences here, and trying to
Speaker 2: find the nuance in the right way through.
Speaker 1: Well, it's like I think the law about no body
Speaker 1: no parole for people convicted of the murder if the
Speaker 1: body's not recovered, as in they're obviously pleaded, not guilty
Speaker 1: being convicted, No body, no parole. I see that. I
Speaker 1: see the impact when victims of homicide families don't get
Speaker 1: their loved one back. I see the impact, and I
Speaker 1: think that it's a worthwhile legislation for some. But there's
Speaker 1: other cases where it won't work, and it makes it
Speaker 1: very difficult. When I'm never a big believer in one
Speaker 1: law fits all, I think there needs to be mandatory sentences.
Speaker 1: Scares the hell out of me, because each case should
Speaker 1: be judged on its own merits.
Speaker 2: So let's say I know the judges find really hard
Speaker 2: because the whole premise of a lot of our legal
Speaker 2: system is that idea of individualized justice to recognize the many, many,
Speaker 2: myriad circumstances that come before them. And then you see
Speaker 2: cases being reported in the press and they get beaten up,
Speaker 2: and the judges sat there and listen to all this
Speaker 2: and they make this really nuanced and thoughtful decision. They're
Speaker 2: smart people. They work their way through really carefully, and
Speaker 2: then you get this very simplistic representation in the media
Speaker 2: at times. There's been some really interesting studies done around
Speaker 2: leniency right right, because often we see people saying that
Speaker 2: that sentence was too lenient. The judges are out of touch.
Speaker 2: And they've done examples where they taken ordinary citizens and
Speaker 2: sat them down and actually briefed them in detail on
Speaker 2: a case and then ask them what penalty they give.
Speaker 2: And it turns out that the people who are just
Speaker 2: coming and they get all the circumstances and all the
Speaker 2: pleads and all these kind of things, they're usually more
Speaker 2: lenient than the judges. It's done studies of people on
Speaker 2: these things. Is one in Victorian one in Tasmania. In
Speaker 2: both cases the community were more lenient than the judges.
Speaker 1: That's very interesting, Shane, because I think the perception would
Speaker 1: be if the community got the hold of that, we'd
Speaker 1: sort this legal system out, we'd give.
Speaker 2: A few lynchings out there exactly.
Speaker 1: But that's a very interesting, interesting take on it and study.
Speaker 2: Because they're objective and know they've sat down and measured
Speaker 2: it and have had academics oversee them and really interesting
Speaker 2: pieces of work.
Speaker 1: And look, as you said, you said, judges are smart people.
Speaker 1: Sometimes I get amazed at what they can absorb in
Speaker 1: a complex matner and then succinctly summarize what's happened. I
Speaker 1: don't say I like all the judges, but they are
Speaker 1: generally pretty smart people.
Speaker 2: That's why they get there. I'll see about the case
Speaker 2: in New South Wales, the Bruce Lehman defamation dry Justice
Speaker 2: Michael Leevy came of his national if. People don't often
Speaker 2: know who the judges are, but he's so succinctly made
Speaker 2: his judgment. He talked about that notion of going back
Speaker 2: to the lions Den for the hat and people just went, yeah,
Speaker 2: that's something that's well.
Speaker 1: We watched all that play out. Were you heavily involved
Speaker 1: in that tour?
Speaker 2: We have been, and that's been a really difficult episode
Speaker 2: in the Act because the trial took place in the Act,
Speaker 2: high profile, very high profile, a lot of politics around it.
Speaker 2: We've had to subsequently have a Board of Inquiry because
Speaker 2: their allegations made by the police and the DPP about
Speaker 2: each other's conduct. We then had issues where the head
Speaker 2: of the Board of Inquiry gave the report to journalists,
Speaker 2: they had to giving it to the government. The whole
Speaker 2: thing has really tested the system in the Act and
Speaker 2: I think exposed some cracks, but also given us some
Speaker 2: we've seen where the system works and where we might
Speaker 2: need to make some more reform.
Speaker 1: Well, I think if mistakes have made if the thing
Speaker 1: is we mentioned that in part one, we all make mistakes.
Speaker 1: You'll make a mistake, I'll make them miss stake to day.
Speaker 1: It's just human nature. But if we learn from its
Speaker 1: mistakes and it can fix it, that's a good thing.
Speaker 1: But yeah, we won't delve into it. I imagine you
Speaker 1: would have been in the thick of it when it
Speaker 1: was going on.
Speaker 2: Yeah, obviously not in the actual trial itself, but the many,
Speaker 2: many things that have flowed onwards. Yes, I've had to,
Speaker 2: as the Attorney General, as the first law officers, as
Speaker 2: we talked about in the first episode, take responsibility for
Speaker 2: some of these things and try and pick our way
Speaker 2: through sort of them out. You know, our Director of
Speaker 2: Public Prosecutions lost his job, and then there's all the
Speaker 2: fallout of recruiting a new one in a really political
Speaker 2: environment and all these sort of things. It's been very challenging.
Speaker 1: Okay, electronic monitoring, I think there is so much that
Speaker 1: can be done in that area.
Speaker 2: I know, when we're.
Speaker 1: All going through the COVID times, we could track everyone
Speaker 1: in the country, everywhere people went. I think it can
Speaker 1: be Electronic monitoring can be used so in so many
Speaker 1: different ways that we could make a huge difference on
Speaker 1: the way that we prevent crime and deal with crime.
Speaker 1: What's your thoughts.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Look, the ACT is actually the only jurisdiction in
Speaker 2: Australia that does not have it. We're currently working on
Speaker 2: putting it in place. I think it's got a lot
Speaker 2: of possibilities. It's also again the nuances of it are
Speaker 2: really interesting. I think people think it could be a panacea.
Speaker 2: The work we're doing at the moment to build up
Speaker 2: a system to implement it, we're having to think very
Speaker 2: carefully about well, what type of people do you apply
Speaker 2: it to, what's a suitable crime offending type, what point
Speaker 2: in people's journey through the justice system. People see a
Speaker 2: lot of potential around domestic and family violence particularly and
Speaker 2: the idea that you can have a bracelet on the
Speaker 2: offender and potentially the victim also carrying a chip or something.
Speaker 2: But even within that, you know, we're talking to the
Speaker 2: domestic violence services some of the victims they don't want
Speaker 2: to be carrying a chip around the whole time, and
Speaker 2: this questions rule, are you creating a false sense of security?
Speaker 2: The idea with that is, you know, when the perpetrator
Speaker 2: gets close, alarm goes off. That's premise then on having
Speaker 2: the police resources, the police turned up in time. Otherwise
Speaker 2: you are creating this false sense of security. So there's
Speaker 2: a whole lot of nuance in it. I think it's
Speaker 2: got enormous potential, but it's probably, like all these things,
Speaker 2: not as black and white as you know you might
Speaker 2: think it is.
Speaker 1: I spoke to Hannah Clark's parents, Lloyd and Sue Hannah
Speaker 1: from Queensland the terrible tragedy, the domestic violence where Hannah
Speaker 1: and her three children were set alight in the car,
Speaker 1: and I asked that question. And the way that they've
Speaker 1: got on with her life is just amazes me. This
Speaker 1: is how people overcome adversity. But we talked about electronic
Speaker 1: monitoring and they lived and proved that they saw what
Speaker 1: was going on with Hannah and the partner. And they
Speaker 1: made the point that if she had if he had
Speaker 1: a bracelon when it became obvious, like yeah, domestic domestic situations,
Speaker 1: a domestic violence order taken out or protection order taken out.
Speaker 1: People often say it's only worth the paper written on,
Speaker 1: which is quite right if people aren't compliant to it.
Speaker 1: But if he had a bracelet on, and it doesn't
Speaker 1: have to be a bracelet, it could be a ring
Speaker 1: these days, who knows. There's so many different ways that
Speaker 1: it could be could be done. And Hannah had one,
Speaker 1: and if he came within a five kilometer the radius,
Speaker 1: she'd be notified, or if he took the monitor off,
Speaker 1: she'd be notified. It would have given her peace of mind.
Speaker 1: And it's a system to I think it's something that
Speaker 1: really we should push. I think it's a way of
Speaker 1: giving comfort to the victims. And I take on board
Speaker 1: what you're saying that the victims might necessarily want to
Speaker 1: wear something that's tracking all their movements, but they should
Speaker 1: have that choice.
Speaker 2: I think is that have that choice?
Speaker 1: And I've also had people say, well, it's resource intensive
Speaker 1: and all that, but that's where I wind it back to.
Speaker 1: During COVID, we seem to seem to work out how
Speaker 1: to monitor people people's movements, So I think there's something
Speaker 1: something definitely there.
Speaker 2: I also and I don't have resources intensive thing. I mean, yes,
Speaker 2: but no, if we can save somebody's life. YEA, well,
Speaker 2: resources don't really should spend that. Money don't really can't.
Speaker 1: Come into it. And it's not at the moment that
Speaker 1: restraining all that has taken out that you get the
Speaker 1: bracelet put on your ankle. But if you're saying the
Speaker 1: propensity to ignore the conditions of it, maybe one or
Speaker 1: two strikes and you've got a bracelet.
Speaker 2: The great risk though, as we see in these domestic
Speaker 2: violence homicides often very rapid escalation. It's working at that
Speaker 2: point intervened. And this is the bit we're trying to
Speaker 2: think through at the moment, is well, what's the right
Speaker 2: way to put in place? What's the intervention points? Yeah,
Speaker 2: they're the bits that so we don't want to create
Speaker 2: that false sense of security.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I understand what you're saying. Coercive control is another
Speaker 1: legislation that's coming in and I think that will be
Speaker 1: a powerful legislation that once police understand how to use
Speaker 1: it properly. And we've spoken on the podcast about its
Speaker 1: coercive control as if the partner it might be physical abuse,
Speaker 1: but it might be controlling your finances, who you speak to,
Speaker 1: access to your phone, that type of thing that is
Speaker 1: considered domestic violence. It's not the physical violence. I think
Speaker 1: there's a lot of a lot of improvements that can
Speaker 1: be made in that area as well.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So we have a thing called the Standing Council
Speaker 2: of Attorneys General, and that's all the attorneys around the country.
Speaker 2: We issued some principles last year and what coercive control is.
Speaker 2: Because I don't think it's very well understood yet, people
Speaker 2: beginning to understand it much more clearly. We've got a
Speaker 2: lot of community education to do. We've now seen a
Speaker 2: couple of jurisdictions have made coursive control and offense a
Speaker 2: standalone offense in the act, it's not at the moment.
Speaker 2: It is part of the definition of domestic and family violence.
Speaker 2: So you can get a restraining order based on coursive control,
Speaker 2: and then if someone breaches the restraining order that becomes
Speaker 2: the criminal offense. There is a suggestion we should make
Speaker 2: it a standalone offense. Now a couple of jurisdictions have
Speaker 2: done it. We've opted not to at this point, but
Speaker 2: we are watching very closely and seeing how that pans out.
Speaker 2: Because one of the issues with concursive control is what's
Speaker 2: called misidentification and often not often there are circumstances where
Speaker 2: people get identified as the perpetrator rather than the victim
Speaker 2: after a wholer coercive control. They then lash out and
Speaker 2: they're seen as the perpetrator of domestic violence, and you're
Speaker 2: getting perverse outcomes. And so there's a really I think
Speaker 2: fierce debate going on amongst domestic violence experts and advocates
Speaker 2: and service providers about how we work our way through this.
Speaker 2: And the advice we've been given at the act at
Speaker 2: the moment is we should not criminalize coercive control until
Speaker 2: we have better community education, better police training, otherwise we're
Speaker 2: going to see the wrong people being locked up. Okay, I.
Speaker 1: Can't speak to community education, but police training is like,
Speaker 1: if you bring legislation in, we need to know how
Speaker 1: to use it if we're in the police. So i'd
Speaker 1: take your point there. Back on electronic monitoring a substitute
Speaker 1: for people going to prison, what potentially, Yes, that could
Speaker 1: be you've got to be homed by eight o'clock because
Speaker 1: you're normally committing your fences at night.
Speaker 2: And yeah, there's a range of ways you can use them.
Speaker 2: Monitor you can use it for you can put geographic
Speaker 2: boundaries on it, you can time, curfuse on it. There's
Speaker 2: a range of things you can do. And again that's
Speaker 2: for me, the really interesting part of it presenting the
Speaker 2: judges with an alternative, because one of the things I've
Speaker 2: had conversations with judges is they say, well, I don't
Speaker 2: necessarily want to send this person away, but I haven't
Speaker 2: got good alternatives. And that's where we've tried to really
Speaker 2: work on these alternatives in the A Sity, things like
Speaker 2: the drug court, the circle sentencing, various other models, because
Speaker 2: the judges isn't there thinking well, I've got to do
Speaker 2: something to this person. There's got to be accountability, there's
Speaker 2: got to be some punishment, there's got to be time
Speaker 2: to learn their lesson, whatever the thinking is. But that
Speaker 2: can look like many different things.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think we've got to start looking at that
Speaker 1: way of approaching that. There can be a lot of
Speaker 1: the positives that come from that. Then put the restrictions, so, yeah,
Speaker 1: protect the community if that's one of the risks, but
Speaker 1: also put the restrictions on the person so they don't
Speaker 1: fall back into old habits.
Speaker 2: And particularly interesting for female offenders, we know that women
Speaker 2: of course have much more family responsibility. If they go
Speaker 2: to jail. It has a much bigger impact on the
Speaker 2: family because they so often are the primary care giver
Speaker 2: in a household. They keep the household together. If we
Speaker 2: can have a female detainee at home with the ankle
Speaker 2: bracelet rather than in custody, you know, likely the kids
Speaker 2: are going to be a lot better off, the household
Speaker 2: is going to be running better. I don't want to
Speaker 2: get into gender stereotypes here, but this is the reality
Speaker 2: of many households in our country.
Speaker 1: I think we don't fully appreciate. Whenever we're talking about
Speaker 1: prisons chance, the conversation tends to go towards the male inmates,
Speaker 1: and we do have a lot of female inmates as well.
Speaker 1: But I understand what you're saying taking away from the family,
Speaker 1: that the impact it's going to have. If you send
Speaker 1: a woman that's the primary care for the children at home,
Speaker 1: you've disrupted, disrupted these kids and probably possibly set them
Speaker 1: on the path that they're going to follow their mother.
Speaker 2: Yeah, because they will potentially have to go into foster
Speaker 2: care and all the other things that you know, the
Speaker 2: disruptions that happened in kids life. Where As if that
Speaker 2: mother can serve her sentence at home, but subject to
Speaker 2: a curfew, are subject to various other restrictions. That family
Speaker 2: unit's going to be, in many cases a lot better.
Speaker 1: Off keeping keeping people out of prison too. From a
Speaker 1: financial perspective, like, how much does it cost? Are you
Speaker 1: aware how much it costs to keep an inmate in
Speaker 1: prison for a year.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we've just got some new data in the Act.
Speaker 2: It's one hundred and ninety eight thousand dollars a year,
Speaker 2: give or take a little bit perate per inmate per year.
Speaker 2: It's a huge amount of money. And you think about
Speaker 2: the things we could do alternatively with that money, particularly
Speaker 2: in investing in the services that will actually break that
Speaker 2: cycle of crime that we've been talking about. You know,
Speaker 2: there's actually a really economically rational case. If you just
Speaker 2: want to be a bean counter, these measures make sense.
Speaker 2: We've just done an evaluation of the Drug and Alcohol
Speaker 2: court that I was speaking about earlier. It was done
Speaker 2: by KPMG, So again it's been done by your hard
Speaker 2: headed accountant types, and they've come back and said it's
Speaker 2: saving us more money than it's costing us to run it.
Speaker 1: Imagine yeah, okay, what you could do with that type
Speaker 1: of type of money invested in Someone pointing them in
Speaker 1: the right direction. I think if people understood that. I
Speaker 1: don't think people fully underappreciate, appreciate the money that goes
Speaker 1: in the keeping someone in custody.
Speaker 2: And that's that cost that I just gave you one
Speaker 2: hundred and eight. That's just being in jail. You've got
Speaker 2: all the other steps, the police costs for investigations, the
Speaker 2: costs of the court system, and all the things go
Speaker 2: around that. Let alone the cost of the impact on victims.
Speaker 2: Now that's saying you can't that's way hard hearted. It's
Speaker 2: not about the dollar figure. But if you stack up
Speaker 2: the cost there's the ones we can measure, and then
Speaker 2: there's the immeasurable costs that are actually perhaps the most
Speaker 2: important ones.
Speaker 1: I love food for thought. There isn't there definitely.
Speaker 2: It's what keeps me awake at night times.
Speaker 1: Also for a run.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it motivate you to get back into it, though,
Speaker 2: because you can get you know, if we can make
Speaker 2: these changes.
Speaker 1: But when we break it down, it's exciting what can
Speaker 1: be done, potentially can be done. And it's good that
Speaker 1: you come back with the complexities of it because everything's
Speaker 1: not black and white and we'll go, oh, this is
Speaker 1: simple there's always other little nuances there that make it
Speaker 1: a little bit more difficult. Lived experience form of prisoners.
Speaker 1: You talk about people that have got out of prison
Speaker 1: or gone down the path, been employed, or doing something
Speaker 1: to help other people because they've got that lived experience
Speaker 1: and they can explain that. I am a big believer
Speaker 1: in that. I've had some very impressive people here that
Speaker 1: have had a horrific criminal record, but I know if
Speaker 1: they went and spoke to kids that were heading off
Speaker 1: in the direction, or even adult inmates, there'd be some respect.
Speaker 1: Then they would listen to what they've got to say,
Speaker 1: what's your thoughts there?
Speaker 2: There's a lot of potential here, and I've seen an
Speaker 2: example recently the Justice Reforming Initiative run by Mini City.
Speaker 1: Yeah, a great great friend of the podcast.
Speaker 2: Yes, they've got a lived experience speaker program and they've
Speaker 2: just started it. In the act. We recently had an
Speaker 2: event talking about justice reinvestment and one of the members
Speaker 2: of that program came along, actually two of them came along,
Speaker 2: and their stories were so powerful, so interesting, and they
Speaker 2: really made the case so effectively. You know, we had
Speaker 2: one fellow there, he'd been in and out of custody,
Speaker 2: for years. He'd started drinking and taking drugs at a
Speaker 2: really young age. And he told his whole story about
Speaker 2: how he progressed through the system, and he said it
Speaker 2: wasn't until he got put into the drug and alcohol
Speaker 2: court did he start. He said, when I went into it,
Speaker 2: I was real cynical. He said, I'd seen it all.
Speaker 2: He's only thirty, but he had fifteen years in and
Speaker 2: out of the system half his life. And he said,
Speaker 2: but I wented this drugger. And he said, I was
Speaker 2: skeptical at the start. I didn't reckon it was going
Speaker 2: to work. But it did. And he was standing there,
Speaker 2: really nicely dressed, looking very sharp, telling us about how
Speaker 2: he's back with his girlfriend now, he was studying, he
Speaker 2: had career goals that he wanted to achieve, so that
Speaker 2: lived experience style. It can be and it can also
Speaker 2: inspire others. You know. For me to sit there and
Speaker 2: tell someone, hey, you get your life back on track,
Speaker 2: I've got no credibility.
Speaker 1: That's the thing. That's the thing. If someone's walk the
Speaker 1: path that these people are heading towards, and they're coming
Speaker 1: in and going, hey, look, I'm telling you it's not
Speaker 1: the way to go. This is what you can do.
Speaker 1: It gives them potentially to turn turn lives around. I'm
Speaker 1: a big believer in that. I'd like to see. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm not just talking the ACT. I think across the board,
Speaker 1: like people that have been to prison, working back in
Speaker 1: the prisons, or working with people after they've got out
Speaker 1: of prison and help pointing them in the right direction.
Speaker 2: And we've got some great peer workers out there in
Speaker 2: some of our services in the ACT and the drug
Speaker 2: and alcohol services. Again, people who've been down the path
Speaker 2: of having addiction. When they talk to someone else, you know,
Speaker 2: there's a real solidarity, a sense of it's truer to.
Speaker 1: The yeah, and that that credibility.
Speaker 2: What's your thoughts on?
Speaker 1: Like we've talked to what goes on in prison when
Speaker 1: people are at least from prison, that's that danger period
Speaker 1: and finding employment doing something worthwhile. What's your what's your
Speaker 1: thoughts here? Because I think we can look in isolation
Speaker 1: what happens in prison, but it's what they come into
Speaker 1: when they come out of prison quite often dictates whether
Speaker 1: they're going to go back inside.
Speaker 2: Now you spot on it's such a critical time, you know,
Speaker 2: it's this real fork in the road you come out
Speaker 2: do you go back to your mate's place, start taking
Speaker 2: drugs with them and doing all the things, or do
Speaker 2: you go down a different path. We started a program
Speaker 2: in the Act called Justice Housing, and part of the
Speaker 2: reason we did that was because one reason people weren't
Speaker 2: even getting parole was because they didn't have a stable
Speaker 2: address to go to. For all the reasons they've lost
Speaker 2: their tendency, family didn't want to see them, their relationship
Speaker 2: was broken down because they're in custody. And so we've
Speaker 2: actually created dedicated properties where when you come out, you're
Speaker 2: entitled to go into these for sort of up to
Speaker 2: three five months, this kind of time period, not a
Speaker 2: long term homent. It's sort of a landing pad. The
Speaker 2: service providers come in so we know where people are
Speaker 2: even though they've been released and they're free to do
Speaker 2: their thing. They've got a landing pad where they can
Speaker 2: start to rebuild their lives from Practical measures like that
Speaker 2: help people in that fork in the road. Having somewhere
Speaker 2: stable to leave is such a powerful starting point. How
Speaker 2: you found that play out, It's gone really well. Again,
Speaker 2: We've just evaluated are evaluating all these things so I
Speaker 2: can make the case to Treasury because that's how government works.
Speaker 2: I've got to make the case to Treasury to keep
Speaker 2: investing in these things, and you know, the evaluation is
Speaker 2: come back on this again really positively, showing that it's
Speaker 2: giving people that platform to build from.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well again, And I just keep repeating myself, but
Speaker 1: it just makes sense if a system's not working, if
Speaker 1: we acknowledge we've got this high recidivism, right, we've got
Speaker 1: to change something.
Speaker 2: The other area that I think is really interesting to
Speaker 2: talk about his mental health. I was also the mental
Speaker 2: Health Minister for a while while I was Corrections minis.
Speaker 2: It's a really cross crossovers in the Act. We've only
Speaker 2: got eight or nine ministers and we cover a whole
Speaker 2: gamut of things, so we've always got multiple portfolios, but
Speaker 2: it gives you some opportunities to cross them over. Have
Speaker 2: a look. The police in the Act are telling us
Speaker 2: now that thirty to forty percent of their callouts are
Speaker 2: mental health related and having it, frankly, a police officer
Speaker 2: turned up to a mental health crisis is not the
Speaker 2: best way to approach it, and the police are that'll
Speaker 2: be the first ones to say that, you know. So
Speaker 2: we've been able to do some really interesting things. One
Speaker 2: of the ones we created was a model called PACER.
Speaker 2: It's a police ambulance clinician emergency response is what it
Speaker 2: stands for. We've created these little teams and it's a
Speaker 2: model we got from the UK. We didn't invent. Others
Speaker 2: are doing it, but you've got it. When the call
Speaker 2: comes in, you've got a car that goes out and
Speaker 2: it's got a police officer in it, paramedic and a
Speaker 2: mental health clinician because they are the three things you
Speaker 2: need in that environment. And most times, and ideally the
Speaker 2: mental health clinician will take the lead because that's their
Speaker 2: skill set.
Speaker 1: Well, with police turning up quite often that can confront
Speaker 1: in the mental health episode or incident where police turn
Speaker 1: up in their uniforms, it escalates, it escalates.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so in this environment, the mental health will go
Speaker 2: the lead, but you know, if it turns violent, you've
Speaker 2: got the police officer there with the skills, the training
Speaker 2: and the equipment to potentially interven in that. And so
Speaker 2: often a mental health incident involves physical harm, if someone's
Speaker 2: self harming or whatever, the paramedics there as well, and
Speaker 2: so it proves to be this really effective different model,
Speaker 2: and it means people are not any up in the
Speaker 2: agency department. They're getting treatment at their home maybe where
Speaker 2: they're comfortable. Again, it's a different way of thinking about things.
Speaker 2: And the police love it.
Speaker 1: I was going to I'm looking at it from a
Speaker 1: former police officer. I think that'll be fantastic.
Speaker 2: I've gone in the car with these guys at times.
Speaker 2: You know under lights, you know that's find having. They've
Speaker 2: got the skills to drive under lights to get there urgently,
Speaker 2: and it's almost a love and you sit in the
Speaker 2: car gender the stuff and like this is such a
Speaker 2: great model. We so love working like this because it
Speaker 2: again it brings a different way of thinking to how
Speaker 2: to deal with what is a crisis situation that police
Speaker 2: are not the best equipped for. The police was sit
Speaker 2: there and say I don't have mental health training, that's
Speaker 2: not my giit.
Speaker 1: And look, we've had situations and jobs that I've been
Speaker 1: involved in where there's been mental health issues and if
Speaker 1: someone's been shot and killed. One of the ones I
Speaker 1: did prior to leaving the police, Courtney Topic that was
Speaker 1: having a mental health episode and the police turned up
Speaker 1: and she was shot and killed. She was carrying the knife,
Speaker 1: shot and killed. Within forty five seconds. I think it
Speaker 1: was just escalated. And on the back of that the inquest,
Speaker 1: there was a lot of recommendations came in about need
Speaker 1: for training police in mental health issues and that. But
Speaker 1: that's what you've described is taking it to another level
Speaker 1: and having a dedicated practitioner there with the police when
Speaker 1: they're responding. And I know police don't like responding to
Speaker 1: mental health issues. I can remember it from my early days,
Speaker 1: from years gone by, and I think there was a
Speaker 1: lot less when I was in uniform than there is today.
Speaker 1: And it's not the type of job you want to
Speaker 1: want to go to. No police have been trained to
Speaker 1: do us as to other things. They're not trained mental
Speaker 1: health clinicians. You know, we could free up a lot
Speaker 1: of police resources. There's always a debate about it, and
Speaker 1: we're having one at the moment in the act. Are
Speaker 1: there enough police If we could take this thirty or
Speaker 1: forty percent of callouts out of the police's responsibility or
Speaker 1: some police responsibility in these pacers teams bit are both,
Speaker 1: that's a whole lot of police resources to focus on
Speaker 1: the things police really should be doing.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think I've earned the right to comment on policing.
Speaker 1: But there's so many things that we should be doing
Speaker 1: and other things that we get allocated to do that
Speaker 1: really shouldn't fit in that role of a police officer.
Speaker 2: There are a lot of.
Speaker 1: Different things you're working on, So is do you have
Speaker 1: a vision where this is going to go? Where all
Speaker 1: the different things that you're working towards.
Speaker 2: I think what I'd really love to see is this
Speaker 2: notion of justice reinvestment embedded into government policy, that sense
Speaker 2: of spend the money up front to try and avoid
Speaker 2: the crime, rather than just building bigger and bigger prisons.
Speaker 2: As we've talked about, prisons are expensive, they're not great
Speaker 2: places to be. The cycle of crime continues. Having a
Speaker 2: more nuanced and thoughtful conversation about how to tackle crime,
Speaker 2: that's my goal.
Speaker 1: Delving into politics, do you think it needs when you're
Speaker 1: talking issues like this, can it be capable of having
Speaker 1: the bipartisan approach A system needs to come in?
Speaker 2: It is possible. You look at something like the Justice
Speaker 2: reform and isitative which is a great model here in Australia,
Speaker 2: and there's some terrific people involved in that. It's people
Speaker 2: from both sides of politics, all sides of politics ex police,
Speaker 2: ex judges, people who know about it. It says to
Speaker 2: me there is scope there to build this up and
Speaker 2: to have good people come forward and say there's a
Speaker 2: better way to do it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so okay, we can get that possibly all working
Speaker 1: together towards it. Bringing it back to what we're talking
Speaker 1: about very early in the piece that these election you've
Speaker 1: got an election coming up, yeah, just a few weeks away. Now,
Speaker 1: law in order, it's not going to be the big
Speaker 1: talking point, al it is.
Speaker 2: The Liberal Party are running a pretty strong law and
Speaker 2: order campaign. You know, there's about more police and we've
Speaker 2: just allocated a whole lot of new police in the
Speaker 2: last budget, because you do need to grow to the
Speaker 2: number of police. We've got fast growing town we've got
Speaker 2: new suburbs coming on stream. We do need the police resources.
Speaker 2: But my argument is we can't just be doing that.
Speaker 2: We have got to meet those needs and there's a
Speaker 2: demand there, and we've got to build a new police
Speaker 2: station in the new area. Those kinds of things, they're
Speaker 2: just practical, ordinary government things, But that can't be the
Speaker 2: only answer.
Speaker 1: I think one of the biggest things, and a little
Speaker 1: bit off topic for what we've been focusing on, but
Speaker 1: one of the biggest things. The problem policing have got
Speaker 1: across the country is we can't attract people to policing.
Speaker 1: I look at that and I don't know why. Maybe
Speaker 1: it's just a shift in I think COVID didn't help,
Speaker 1: like it was all the police were doing very unpopular work.
Speaker 1: But when we talk about increasing policing, I think it's
Speaker 1: quality over quantity that is most important. If you get
Speaker 1: a good police officer, and I can only say from
Speaker 1: my career whether they be in uniform or a detective
Speaker 1: or in a specialist area, one good police officer can
Speaker 1: make a world of difference. I know when New South
Speaker 1: Wales elections when they said we're going to increase police
Speaker 1: and I had a couple of issues with police officers
Speaker 1: that weren't performing. It took me to the PMO as
Speaker 1: in the psychological issues, and it was said to me,
Speaker 1: just in a fra away comment that what happens when
Speaker 1: whenever we have a state election and Laura in order
Speaker 1: becomes an issue, someone's promising we're going to bring in
Speaker 1: more police, so they accept police that were initially rejected
Speaker 1: and then and then it's like this, you could see
Speaker 1: the cycle. Okay, state election, we've increased police and then
Speaker 1: you can see the ones that have created problems in
Speaker 1: the cops perhaps shouldn't have got the job in the
Speaker 1: first shouldn't have got the job in the first place,
Speaker 1: rejected first up. But let's just lower that bar a
Speaker 1: little bit further. So, Yeah, I think it's a very
Speaker 1: rewarding job policing. But yeah, the fact that we can't
Speaker 1: can't attract attract people.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think people probably perceive it as a pretty
Speaker 2: tough job because there's a touched on earlier. Police are
Speaker 2: going to things that frankly, the rest of the community
Speaker 2: should be pretty grateful. I don't have to deal with
Speaker 2: worst day in people's lives, horrendous violence, horrendous abuse of others.
Speaker 2: You know, it's don't need me to tell you this,
Speaker 2: I'm self, But I think people do perceive it as
Speaker 2: a potentially tough job. But I think it's also a
Speaker 2: very rewarding job. Again, like being a corrections officer, you
Speaker 2: can make such a difference for the community.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well that's my eyes were opened up to the
Speaker 1: quality of the people that were in corrections and the
Speaker 1: work work that they were doing. But I think in
Speaker 1: policing them, maybe even corrections everyone is so accountable in
Speaker 1: this day and age, Like as a young police officer,
Speaker 1: now you make a mistake and you become a YouTube
Speaker 1: sensation on social media and you've done something. When I
Speaker 1: was going through you have to learn somehow you make
Speaker 1: a mistake and someone and say that's not the way
Speaker 1: we do it, this is how to do it.
Speaker 2: It's interesting to say that we had the debate a
Speaker 2: couple of years ago about bringing body cameras for our
Speaker 2: police in the AD, and I was a real supporter
Speaker 2: of it in both directions, you know, because you also
Speaker 2: see police being accused of things they didn't do, and
Speaker 2: then there's also times where you do get people that
Speaker 2: go beyond what they should be doing and preach the
Speaker 2: protocols or whatever. And the beauty of the body camera
Speaker 2: is it just there's no argument the tapes there and
Speaker 2: you know what happened. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Look, I would like I think I'm ahead of my time.
Speaker 1: I use my phone, but look where that got me
Speaker 1: record recording on my phone. Maybe I was just a
Speaker 1: head of my time. I agree like body cameras would
Speaker 1: be good. But what we've got, the adjustment that we've
Speaker 1: got to make for that is that we've got to
Speaker 1: be able to present all the evidence and otherwise not
Speaker 1: this stunted evidence that gets presented at court where everyone's
Speaker 1: you know, I said this. He said that if I'm
Speaker 1: talking to a crook on the street or whatever, police think,
Speaker 1: I communicate in a level that they understand. So if
Speaker 1: I'm talking to someone that's likes to swear, I'll throw
Speaker 1: some swear words in there just to get that communication.
Speaker 1: As if I'm talking to a politician, I'll talk talk differently,
Speaker 1: you know, like that's.
Speaker 2: The way context matters. That's the way that.
Speaker 1: You I forgot you're a politician when I said that,
Speaker 1: But that's the way you communicate as a police officer. Now,
Speaker 1: if we're all wearing body cameras, I think we've got
Speaker 1: to Yeah, the courts have got to accept that. We've
Speaker 1: got to loosen things up a little bit. But you know,
Speaker 1: sometimes you've got to talk in a way that you
Speaker 1: can get that communication across. And I think it'll save
Speaker 1: a lot of problems. Certainly, when they bought in recording interviews.
Speaker 1: That was as a detective there and some of the
Speaker 1: old school detectives where we used to do it on
Speaker 1: the type rise. What they're going to have a camera
Speaker 1: and we're going to record what we're saying in the
Speaker 1: inter room. Interview room sacred, we can't let people in
Speaker 1: there with a camera. But that was the best thing
Speaker 1: that saved us so much court court time, that you
Speaker 1: in an interview room, you put on the camera and
Speaker 1: start recording. So yeah, it might be a step in
Speaker 1: the step in the right direction. Is there a resistance
Speaker 1: from police on it.
Speaker 2: No, I think they were pretty keen. Yeah, it was
Speaker 2: just working through even the legislative issues around privacy and
Speaker 2: how could we use in some of those points you
Speaker 2: were touching on as well. But I think most people
Speaker 2: saw that it was going to work well for everybody involved.
Speaker 2: It just it clears things up and it takes away
Speaker 2: some of the activity so that when you turn up
Speaker 2: a court later, the context often is captured there.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and like turning up I'm thinking for domestic violence incidents,
Speaker 1: like turning up and having having a camera there. But
Speaker 1: it's that that privacy issue and that but the world
Speaker 1: has changed that much. You walk out in the street,
Speaker 1: CCTV cameras catching every every movement, everything that you do.
Speaker 1: So maybe we're just going to adjust just our thinking
Speaker 1: that way.
Speaker 2: It's the same as a politician. We all saw Barnabie
Speaker 2: Joyce on the footpath in camera a few months ago.
Speaker 2: You know, as a politician you've got everyone's got a
Speaker 2: camera out there, so we're all, you know, accountabilities up
Speaker 2: for everybody.
Speaker 1: Yeah, see before like Barnaby Joyce sat with a would
Speaker 1: have just fallen into folklore all that time there.
Speaker 2: But now, yeah, I do enjoy the Australie sense of
Speaker 2: human I don't know how much you followed that one,
Speaker 2: but you people then went down and chalked out body
Speaker 2: images on the ground on the footpaths justs near my place.
Speaker 2: It's right in the middle of where it happened, and
Speaker 2: so you know, I did enjoy that. People always had
Speaker 2: a bit of a laugh about it.
Speaker 1: Well, I think we've got to keep keep our sense
Speaker 1: of humor. I take it that just in the conversations,
Speaker 1: we've had a lot of heavy subjects that we're talking about,
Speaker 1: but you've got to be able to laugh at things
Speaker 1: and see some fun fun in the world, otherwise it
Speaker 1: can just weigh you down.
Speaker 2: There's nothing like a bit of dark humor to get
Speaker 2: through some moments as well. I'm sure it's pretty prevalent
Speaker 2: and the police. You hear it from when I talk
Speaker 2: to doctors and the like. You know, there's stuff that, yeah,
Speaker 2: you point around, it'd be seemed pretty poorly out of context.
Speaker 2: But it's a coping mechanism.
Speaker 1: One hundred percent. That's how I survived in the cops
Speaker 1: and other people survived that long. You've got to have
Speaker 1: a laugh when we would turn up with a homicide scene,
Speaker 1: like we might be there for twenty four hours, we
Speaker 1: might have slept for forty eight hours, and you're there
Speaker 1: and you're talking. It's cold, and you'd say something and
Speaker 1: I might say something.
Speaker 2: To you and you laugh or whatever.
Speaker 1: You have to be wary because then if that's taken
Speaker 1: out of context, you're standing there smiling as you're standing
Speaker 1: over a dead body. And I used to I was
Speaker 1: told when I was a young homicide detective. Yeah, just
Speaker 1: keep the bear in mind. Cameras are watching you the
Speaker 1: whole time. And I would pass it, pass that advice on.
Speaker 1: But yeah, it's an interesting world, the world of crime.
Speaker 1: And I've got to say, Shane, I do like and
Speaker 1: that's what excited me about you coming on the podcast.
Speaker 1: I like the way that you're looking at it. I
Speaker 1: don't want this tough talking chest bleeding we're going to
Speaker 1: crack down on crime because I personally don't think it
Speaker 1: always works.
Speaker 2: Now there, You spoke very earlier about being smart on crime,
Speaker 2: not tough on crime, and that's actually what it's about.
Speaker 2: It's not about letting people off, it's not about having
Speaker 2: no accountability. It's about how do we make our community
Speaker 2: safety in the long run. And what I like about
Speaker 2: the work we're doing in the Act, and we're doing
Speaker 2: a lot of evaluations around it. The data is starting
Speaker 2: to prove it, and that's I think we're going back
Speaker 2: to the other conversation about how do we get by
Speaker 2: paths and support on this. People believe in things they
Speaker 2: can see.
Speaker 1: You show them the figures and how it works, show them.
Speaker 2: What's possible, and I reckon most people get on board that.
Speaker 2: That's a bit of doing something like today where we
Speaker 2: get a chance to talk about it. People listening, they
Speaker 2: hear some different takets, perhaps what they've heard before. It's
Speaker 2: a slow journey, but I think we can build it
Speaker 2: up into a different way of doing.
Speaker 1: It well having that discussion. That's why I like to
Speaker 1: talk about these things so I catch killers we can Yeah,
Speaker 1: we could just go down a dark hole every week,
Speaker 1: but people get sick of it and we've got to Yeah,
Speaker 1: we've got to look at ways of ways of fighting crime.
Speaker 1: And it opened my eye is up so much after
Speaker 1: I left the cops because I wanted to fight. I
Speaker 1: still wanted to fight crime. Like my career ended quickly.
Speaker 1: But I'm finding speaking to people like yourself and just
Speaker 1: learning about different ways of approaching things that can make
Speaker 1: you huge difference. So I got to say, I like you,
Speaker 1: so good luck in your good luck in your election.
Speaker 1: I can't vote for you. It's not that I'm not
Speaker 1: in that electorate, but good luck for it. If things
Speaker 1: go well for you, Where do you see your future?
Speaker 1: You're staying in politics, You've still got the energy for it.
Speaker 2: As I said, you've got to commit for the whole
Speaker 2: term and you sign up. So we have four year
Speaker 2: terms in the asy Tea. So I'd love to be
Speaker 2: the attorney again. I think there's a lot of we're
Speaker 2: still to be done in this space. I feel like
Speaker 2: we're still betting it down and there's really interesting research
Speaker 2: coming out all the time. There's new ways of doing it.
Speaker 2: We spoke earlier about bringing more Aboriginal controlled organizations in
Speaker 2: so there's a lot of unfinished business there. The fire
Speaker 2: is definitely in the ability to get on with it.
Speaker 1: Well, good on you, and it's nice to have a
Speaker 1: chat with someone that's in there that that can make
Speaker 1: that can make a difference. So thank you so much
Speaker 1: for coming on I Catch Killers.
Speaker 2: It's been great to be here. Thanks a lot cheers.
Speaker 1: I found the real privilege to sit down and have
Speaker 1: a discussion on I Catch Killers with a current Attorney general.
Speaker 1: It's the highest law officer in the state. And what
Speaker 1: I liked about Shame was his attitude to fixing the
Speaker 1: problem of crime, thinking outside the square a little bit,
Speaker 1: and I like his ideas and for a politician, I've
Speaker 1: got to say I quite like him.