Speaker 1: From Shorts Media. I'm Ashlyn McGee. This is seven AM.
Speaker 1: The tasering of a ninety five year old grandmother, the
Speaker 1: double murder of a Surrey Hills couple, the Bruce Lherman
Speaker 1: defamation trial, and now the spike in domestic violence. These
Speaker 1: have been some of the biggest stories in Australia over
Speaker 1: the past twelve months, and all of them have drawn
Speaker 1: in this one very powerful woman, Karen Webb, the commissioner
Speaker 1: of New South Wales Police. The veteran cops found herself
Speaker 1: at press conferences and interviews having to defend herself and
Speaker 1: the force to a national audience. Today, senior reporter for
Speaker 1: the Saturday Paper, Rick Morton on who Karen Webb really
Speaker 1: is and how she climbed her way through the viper's
Speaker 1: nest of the New South Wales Police Force. It's Friday,
Speaker 1: May tenth, Rick, People all around the country would have
Speaker 1: been seeing a whole lot more of New South Wales
Speaker 1: Police Commissioner Karen Webb than they're probably used to, So
Speaker 1: to start with, took me through the events that have
Speaker 1: thrust her into the spotlight.
Speaker 2: I mean, I guess unless you're a seasoned cop watcher,
Speaker 2: the name Karen Webb really didn't mean anything to you,
Speaker 2: except for maybe a few grabs on the nightly news
Speaker 2: during her first year as new South Wealth Commissioner. But
Speaker 2: I guess you can probably say that people started to
Speaker 2: feel a lot more of a almost exactly a year
Speaker 2: ago around this time in May last year, when the
Speaker 2: ninety five year old great grandmother, Claire Nolan was tased
Speaker 2: allegedly by New South Wales Police officer and she died
Speaker 2: a week later in hospital.
Speaker 3: The elderly woman who was tasered by a New South
Speaker 3: Wales Police officer in the state Snowy Mountains region has
Speaker 3: died in hospital. The announcement came just hours after the
Speaker 3: officer who tasered her at her nursing home in Koma
Speaker 3: was charged.
Speaker 2: Now Karen Webb, who's been in the job really just
Speaker 2: for a year at this point, found herself very early
Speaker 2: on defending not only obviously the conduct to the alleged
Speaker 2: conduct of her own offices, but also the early media
Speaker 2: release that was drafted by the New South Wales Police
Speaker 2: media team and the former spin doctor there, Liz Degan,
Speaker 2: and approved by the Deputy Commissioner David Hudson, which went
Speaker 2: out to journalists to indicate that something had gone on
Speaker 2: in Cuma at the nursing home there, but that release
Speaker 2: made no mention whatsoever or the fact that a taser
Speaker 2: police tayser had been deployed, and it made no mention
Speaker 2: of the fact that an officer's employment was at that
Speaker 2: point currently under review.
Speaker 4: Like start by saying that we all care for and
Speaker 4: share the concerns for what happened to missus Nolland in.
Speaker 2: Cuma, and later said that this was because Nolan's large
Speaker 2: extended family had not been informed of the manner in
Speaker 2: which she had been hospitalized and that police did not
Speaker 2: want that family learning of it from the media.
Speaker 4: Well, firstly, there is a need, with immediate need, that
Speaker 4: the family were notified first, and that was respect for
Speaker 4: the family. They've got a big family that is dispersed
Speaker 4: around New South Wales and other places, and that took
Speaker 4: some time.
Speaker 2: But of course senior officers had already attended the hospital
Speaker 2: where Claire Nolan was at that point, and later that
Speaker 2: week on a Saturday morning, Web again found herself right
Speaker 2: in the middle of the media spotlight during this investigation
Speaker 2: when she was asked whether she should watch the bodycam
Speaker 2: footage and webtold reporters that that may twenty press confidence.
Speaker 2: I don't really intend to know.
Speaker 4: I've heard what's in the body worn and I don't
Speaker 4: see it necessary that I actually view it now.
Speaker 2: And of course that made a lot of people very angry,
Speaker 2: because it seemed to them to suggest a commissioner who
Speaker 2: just didn't want to see for herself the cold, hard
Speaker 2: reality of what had happened. Her defenders say that she
Speaker 2: was actually just trying to project this kind of impartial
Speaker 2: confidence in the investigative process, and that if she had
Speaker 2: to make a decision, she didn't want that to have
Speaker 2: been I guess infected by any of you that she
Speaker 2: might have formed by watching that footage. But really, this
Speaker 2: is the first moment that she burst onto the public
Speaker 2: consciousness as the commissioner for the country's largest and oldest
Speaker 2: police force.
Speaker 5: Evening the bodies of Jessebaird and Luke Davies have finally
Speaker 5: been found a week after the couple disappeared from a
Speaker 5: Paddington home, and then.
Speaker 2: Of course after that, she becomes embroiled in more national
Speaker 2: global stories, including the alleged double murder of a couple
Speaker 2: in Surrey Hills. Buyer serving police officer.
Speaker 3: Why did it take you three days to front up
Speaker 3: over an alleged double murder involving one of your own.
Speaker 4: Yeah, well, dep as you point out, there's been a
Speaker 4: very active investigation and it's only been today that we've
Speaker 4: located the bodies of Jesse and Luke.
Speaker 2: Then a spin doctor becoming embroiled in the Bruce Lherman defamation.
Speaker 5: Trial and breaking news, and the senior media advisor just
Speaker 5: hired by the New South Wales Police Force has lost
Speaker 5: the job before he even got started.
Speaker 4: The appointment the former Channel.
Speaker 5: Seven journalist Steve Jackson on an interim basis has been
Speaker 5: marred by controversy.
Speaker 2: This fad of stabbing attacks in Sydney.
Speaker 4: About three point thirty this afternoon, mail with the knife
Speaker 4: entered the Westfield shopping center at Bondi Junction.
Speaker 2: And of course, the greatest ongoing rolling crisis in policing,
Speaker 2: which is the spike in domestic violence, including the alleged
Speaker 2: murder of Molly Tyhurst in New South Wales.
Speaker 5: The Premier has ordered an urgent review of New South
Speaker 5: Wales bail laws following this week's murder of Forbes mother
Speaker 5: Molly Tyshurst. Her accused killer was freed by a court
Speaker 5: earlier this month, a decision made by a registrar who
Speaker 5: was standing in for a magistrate, all of.
Speaker 2: Which happened in April.
Speaker 1: In so many of these stories, Karen Webb's becomes such
Speaker 1: a public figure and she's really copped it from some
Speaker 1: sections of the media and the public. Why do you
Speaker 1: think that is Rick?
Speaker 2: She just hasn't really played the game that so many
Speaker 2: of her predecessors have played, which is courting particularly the
Speaker 2: right wing conservative media. We're talking talkback radio station two GB,
Speaker 2: the Daily Telegraph, which is the major daily tabloid in Sydney.
Speaker 2: She hasn't really done that in the way that her
Speaker 2: predecessors Mick Fuller and Andrew Scippioni did. But there's also
Speaker 2: no doubt that some of her woes have been self inflicted. Now,
Speaker 2: if you go back to the double murder of the
Speaker 2: Surrey Hills couple, which happened right on the eve of
Speaker 2: Mardi Gras, you've got all this tension between the police
Speaker 2: and the queer community, and you've got this horrific act
Speaker 2: of violence which is allegedly conducted by one of their
Speaker 2: own officers. And Karen again comes under increasing media scrutiny
Speaker 2: about why she's remained quiet apparently so long into this investigation,
Speaker 2: and then comes out and is asked about all of
Speaker 2: this stuff on breakfast television, and she invokes the touring
Speaker 2: megapopstar Taylor Swift to say, you know, haters are going
Speaker 2: to hate.
Speaker 4: There will always be haters like to hate. Isn't that
Speaker 4: what Taylor says? But I've got a job to do.
Speaker 4: As I said, it's a big job. This is just
Speaker 4: one of many jobs. We actually had seven excuse me,
Speaker 4: seven murders last week.
Speaker 2: And of course it's just so tone deaf in the
Speaker 2: context to what has just happened.
Speaker 4: I'm the commissioner, like I said, the haters are going
Speaker 4: to hate, and I've got the confidence of the minister
Speaker 4: and the Premier, and I've got a job to do.
Speaker 4: And really, as I said, the important thing this is
Speaker 4: really about these families and not just the families, the
Speaker 4: friends and the gay community.
Speaker 2: And of course this then segues into another element of
Speaker 2: the criticism, which is that Karen Webb doesn't know how
Speaker 2: to handle the media and has therefore blamed her own
Speaker 2: spin doctors for letting her down. So Liz Deegan, who
Speaker 2: we mentioned help draft the Claire nol and Taser police
Speaker 2: media release. She's been sacked by Karen Webb and now
Speaker 2: there's a new advice of being brought in in the
Speaker 2: process of being hired. He's basically signed the documents they're
Speaker 2: doing final checks in his name, Steve Jackson, and he's
Speaker 2: just about to start when he gets dragged in by
Speaker 2: a bitter former colleague, Taylor Orbach, who signs an affidavit
Speaker 2: several apidavids in the defamation proceedings involving Bruce Lehman and
Speaker 2: Channel ten. All Back makes no secret of the fact
Speaker 2: that he hates Steve Jackson and has been background in
Speaker 2: media about Steve Jackson's appointment to the three hundred thousand
Speaker 2: dollars a year job in Karen Webb's office, and Steve
Speaker 2: Jackson's position is then terminated. This is her fourth spin
Speaker 2: doctor since she became commissioner in early twenty twenty two,
Speaker 2: and now after Steve Jackson was terminated, she is onto
Speaker 2: her fifth chief media advisor in just two years, and
Speaker 2: that is just a temporary appointment.
Speaker 1: Okay, So she clearly has a bit of a media problem.
Speaker 1: She doesn't have good relationships with her media advisors or
Speaker 1: journalists by the sound of it. But parking that for
Speaker 1: a moment, what kind of police commissioner is she?
Speaker 2: So this is where things get really interesting. That's the
Speaker 2: oldest police force in the country, as I mentioned, and
Speaker 2: she is the first woman commissioner in its one hundred
Speaker 2: and sixty year history. And there is this still after
Speaker 2: all these decades, this huge cultural and policy ship that
Speaker 2: needs to happen. And in saying all of that, she's
Speaker 2: kind of come into this position against two other blokes
Speaker 2: who were vying for the top job. She's got it unexpectedly,
Speaker 2: and to rise through what many people call the kind
Speaker 2: of viper's nest of the internal politicking to get those
Speaker 2: top jobs is both an achievement and also a source
Speaker 2: of ongoing ammunition I guess for people who want to
Speaker 2: bring it down.
Speaker 1: After the break, What does Karen Webbs rise through a
Speaker 1: viper's nest? Tell us about the kind of police officer
Speaker 1: she is? So rick this job of New South Wales
Speaker 1: Police commissioner. You've said that being in that seat can
Speaker 1: expose you to a bit of a viper's nest. Tell
Speaker 1: me more about why that's the reputation.
Speaker 2: The job this is what I'm really interested about in
Speaker 2: this story. Like you know, there's really no one in
Speaker 2: politics who knows that better than Federal Green Senator and
Speaker 2: former New South Wales Upper House Member David Shubridge, who
Speaker 2: was actually involved in this series of ongoing inquiries into
Speaker 2: the newth Health Police Force, and he said to me,
Speaker 2: he said, some of the most unprincipled and aggressive internal
Speaker 2: politics that I've ever seen occurs in the upper reaches
Speaker 2: of the New South Wales Police Force. The biggest example
Speaker 2: of this really, and it was kind of consumed so
Speaker 2: much of my early career when I was working in
Speaker 2: Sydney for mainstream newspapers, was the tussle for succession that
Speaker 2: happened when Andrew Scippioni was commissioner, and he was commissioner
Speaker 2: for ten years from two thousand and seven. Now he
Speaker 2: kind of had two popular choices for successor. His anointed
Speaker 2: successor was cat Burn, who at one time headed the
Speaker 2: Internal Investigations Unit. She had a counter terrorism which is
Speaker 2: an important string in the bow of anyone who wants
Speaker 2: to lead the New Forth Health Police Force. But also
Speaker 2: she was going head to head it essentially with another
Speaker 2: Deputy Commissioner, Nick Caldas, and to say that there was
Speaker 2: bad blood between them doesn't really do it justice. They
Speaker 2: hated each other. The main source of anger between the
Speaker 2: two of them is two thousand Sydney Olympics. The city's
Speaker 2: on show. Everyone's having the time of their lives, so
Speaker 2: I've been told I watched it at home in Queensland.
Speaker 2: But everyone was apparently very happy and the city was
Speaker 2: very proud of itself. But at that time, in September
Speaker 2: two thousand, there is a secret warrant drawn up. It's
Speaker 2: called the Bell Warrant to secretly tape bug and otherwise
Speaker 2: record covertly one hundred and twelve serving police officers and
Speaker 2: two civilians by this kind of Operation Mascot. Now the
Speaker 2: team leader of Operation Mascot in the Internal Division of
Speaker 2: the New South Wales Police Force was cap Burnt. She
Speaker 2: was involved in authorizing this warrant. She had people more
Speaker 2: senior people above who were her bosses, but she was
Speaker 2: the team leader. One of the forty six people who
Speaker 2: were named on that one who should never have been
Speaker 2: on that warrant because there was no valid reason for
Speaker 2: them to have been on that warrant was Nick Kyldos.
Speaker 2: Both of them became Jeoparty commissioners. Both of them have
Speaker 2: hated each other ever since. Cap Burne previously said that
Speaker 2: she had a reasonable suspicion that he was involved in corruption,
Speaker 2: which she admitted under parliamentary inquiries Deputy chaired by David
Speaker 2: Hubridge that that is now false and she accepts that
Speaker 2: that was a false suspicion, but she said that she
Speaker 2: held it reasonably at the time. And Caldice of course
Speaker 2: says that cap burn used the secret power of that
Speaker 2: job to bring down her enemies and the enemies of
Speaker 2: her allies. He was cleared completely by that inquiry Deputy
Speaker 2: chaired by Schuebridge. His name should never have been on
Speaker 2: that warrant. The warrant was not validly held and it
Speaker 2: became this weeping saw within New Southwest Police that just
Speaker 2: never closed. Cawdice leaves the force very shortly after the
Speaker 2: parliamentary inquiry. Cat Burne stays but doesn't get the top job.
Speaker 2: That goes to a guy called Fuller. So the two
Speaker 2: big contenders are just they're gone. And Mick Fuller reigned Supreme.
Speaker 1: So that's quite a lot of drama for Mick Fuller
Speaker 1: getting to the top job. Is there as much drama
Speaker 1: to the story of Karen Webb getting to the top job.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, there was never not going to be right,
Speaker 2: So Mick Fuller. There are those who believe that Mick
Speaker 2: Fuller had his own favorites, as you tend to do
Speaker 2: when you're in those jobs. Now, Mick Fuller also apparently
Speaker 2: broke what is unwritten convention within the New South Wales
Speaker 2: Police is that if you know you're going, and he did.
Speaker 2: He'd announced his retirement by April twenty twenty two and
Speaker 2: it was eventually brought forward. But he knew he was going,
Speaker 2: and in the twelve months before he left, he installed
Speaker 2: a bunch of people to very powerful positions. He elevated
Speaker 2: people to assistant and deputy commissioner levels across the force.
Speaker 2: Now that's a pretty big no no, because the idea
Speaker 2: is that you're meant to leave those positions for the
Speaker 2: next commissioner to shape the force they want. One of
Speaker 2: the people that he promoted was Mick Willing. And so
Speaker 2: Mick Willing is this big figure. He's been groomed for
Speaker 2: the job, according to people who know him, and he
Speaker 2: was the only name out of the three candidates, including
Speaker 2: Karen Webb that actually went forward on the six person
Speaker 2: panel as the preferred candidate for the Commissioner of New
Speaker 2: South Wales Police Now. Despite the panel's recommendation, the top
Speaker 2: job has always been a political appointment, and the New
Speaker 2: South Wales Premier Dominic Perrote, who was lobbied very hard
Speaker 2: to pick Willing, including apparently by the broadcaster Alan Jones.
Speaker 2: In one account that was given to me, Paraite wanted
Speaker 2: to go with someone different and he chose Web Now.
Speaker 2: Very soon after she was appointed, web tears up Mick
Speaker 2: Willim's contract. It's a deputy commissioner still, she says, she
Speaker 2: phones him, and the version of the story I've heard
Speaker 2: from multiple people that she's phoned him to explain that
Speaker 2: he would no longer be employed by the force, that
Speaker 2: she didn't have to give him a reason, but that
Speaker 2: he's not part of the future. And his email was
Speaker 2: shut off about half an hour later, So you know,
Speaker 2: one of the main rivals of Karen Webb is effectively gone.
Speaker 2: So's surprise pick. And there's some messiveness around how she
Speaker 2: gets into the top job, but almost everyone I spoke
Speaker 2: to agree that she's a generational change in the type
Speaker 2: of leader that New South Wales Police has had in
Speaker 2: terms of her beliefs as a police officer. I think
Speaker 2: they're very important given the context that we've had this
Speaker 2: recent spate of violence, gendered violence against women, and she
Speaker 2: has from the very first day in the job, but
Speaker 2: also throughout her career, has made this one of her focuses.
Speaker 2: She calls it the silent scourge of domestic violence, which
Speaker 2: now when she talks to people in her own force
Speaker 2: around the state, generally makes up about sixty percent of
Speaker 2: general duties policing across New South Wales, so it is
Speaker 2: the biggest thing they do and I do I do
Speaker 2: believe that she cares about it and that change can happen.
Speaker 2: How quickly, how much, how soon, we don't know. And
Speaker 2: almost immediately after finishing writing this story, an officer in
Speaker 2: New South Wales was charged with stalking and intimidated offenses
Speaker 2: and illegally accessing information within the News of Police database,
Speaker 2: which just kind of goes to show that there is
Speaker 2: this ongoing problem and it lives everywhere, including within the force.
Speaker 1: That came web now leads So Rick, whether the version
Speaker 1: that we're seeing playing out is sort of the I
Speaker 1: guess a fair representation of the type of police force
Speaker 1: she wants to be running or not. Put that to
Speaker 1: one side. There is no doubt that some sections of
Speaker 1: the community are really unhappy with New South Wales Police.
Speaker 1: Just how seriously do you think she has to take that?
Speaker 1: How seriously does New South Wales Police have to take that?
Speaker 2: I think they have to take it very seriously, because
Speaker 2: I mean, you see this in examples around the world,
Speaker 2: but also in various studies and whatnot. Power just exerted
Speaker 2: for its own sake does not work, and so you
Speaker 2: can't just have a force that rules wide decree, right.
Speaker 2: You can't have cops just turn up and arrest people
Speaker 2: or lock them up because someone swore at them. And
Speaker 2: that's what we see happening all the time. And I
Speaker 2: think someone Karen Web needs to take that very seriously
Speaker 2: because we are living in an extraordinary ear I think,
Speaker 2: where people are not inclined to trust institutions full stop,
Speaker 2: and certainly not ones with runs on the board when
Speaker 2: it comes to systemically or otherwise violating the rights of
Speaker 2: the people they're meant to be protecting. Thanks for your time, Rick,
Speaker 2: Thank you, Ash appreciate it. Also in the news today,
Speaker 2: the federal government is facing criticism for its newly unveiled
Speaker 2: gas led transition plan, with some Labor backbenchers raising concern
Speaker 2: that Australia needs to be moving away from fossil fuels.
Speaker 2: Labour's future gas strategy includes initiatives to increase the extraction
Speaker 2: of gas and promotes controversial carbon capture and storage measures.
Speaker 3: And the Northern Territory could be getting an AFL team
Speaker 3: within the next decade, according to a business case published
Speaker 3: by the AFL and the NT government. The report outlines
Speaker 3: aspirations for a Darwin City stadium where an NTAFL team
Speaker 3: would be based.
Speaker 1: Seven Am is a daily show from Schwartz Media and
Speaker 1: The Saturday Paper.
Speaker 2: It's produced by Kara Jensen, McKinnon, Shane Anderson and Zalton Fetcho.
Speaker 2: Our senior producer is Chris Dngate. Our technical producer is
Speaker 2: Atticus Bastow. Our host is Ashlan McGee. Sarah McVie is
Speaker 2: our head of audio. Eric Jensen is our editor in chief.
Speaker 2: Mixing by Andy Elston, Travis Evans and Atticus Bastow.
Speaker 3: Our theme music is composed by Ned Beckley and Josh
Speaker 3: Hogan of Envelope Audio and I'm Scott Mitchell, the editor
Speaker 3: of seven AM, will be back next week with the
Speaker 3: cost a look at the living crisis as we head
Speaker 3: into the federal budget