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 staid,
Speaker 1: I'm taking the public.
Speaker 2: 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: Claud Robertson, Welcome back to I Catch Killers.
Speaker 2: Thanks Gerry.
Speaker 1: Now in part one, Claude, We've got a very interesting
Speaker 1: take on your life, and I've got to say it.
Speaker 1: I've just been thinking about the.
Speaker 2: Chaos of your life, the chaos of your life.
Speaker 1: When it goes down a path that you're dependent on drugs.
Speaker 1: You did seven years in prison, caught for different things,
Speaker 1: made a lot of stupid decisions.
Speaker 2: Yep, likely.
Speaker 1: And I look at it the way that your life is,
Speaker 1: the way we left you in and out the jail,
Speaker 1: in there and just not learning, still your addictions carrying
Speaker 1: through the prison system. I got to say, from my
Speaker 1: point of view, it looked like you're going down the
Speaker 1: one way straight. You're even going to end up dead
Speaker 1: or in prison for the rest of your life.
Speaker 2: That's funny you say that, because that was a pivotal moment.
Speaker 2: I think. You know, we left the last time. My
Speaker 2: dad had died at Gold and I was up for
Speaker 2: a parole and I was going to Rainbow Lodge where
Speaker 2: on our work, and I remember that last six months
Speaker 2: coming up. I'd got my parole, I got the date,
Speaker 2: and I was getting in some inheritance. And the insanity
Speaker 2: was I thought this because through all that chaos, I
Speaker 2: still had believe that a big bag of money or
Speaker 2: a big bag of dope would fix it all. And
Speaker 2: I thought this, and I was right, this was it.
Speaker 1: I was going to get out, so the big bag
Speaker 1: of money, to get the big bag of dope or
Speaker 1: the big bag of money to invest wisely and become
Speaker 1: a citizen.
Speaker 2: Yeah probably not, yeah, probably not invest wisely. You know,
Speaker 2: I think you know when I was coming out. You
Speaker 2: know what, I don't even think I thought about it
Speaker 2: that much. This is it.
Speaker 1: I'm just I'm wondering when you've gone through that like
Speaker 1: you did three years in gold when you were sold
Speaker 1: of the prison officer in Cesnok, you're not having a
Speaker 1: good time in Golden Goblin's not a fun place.
Speaker 2: It's a horrible place. Do you so you were what
Speaker 2: at this age you were thirty thirty six thirty six?
Speaker 1: Do you have moments of reflection when you're sitting there,
Speaker 1: because you've got a lot of time to time to
Speaker 1: think when you're in prison, do you have moments and think,
Speaker 1: why has my life gone down this path? Not?
Speaker 2: At that stay, I think I was so focused on
Speaker 2: that I was getting my inheritance, that this was going
Speaker 2: to change everything, and still in huge.
Speaker 1: Change everything, as in give you access to drugs?
Speaker 2: What was the change? Well, I think still then I
Speaker 2: was in a lot of denial and I still thought
Speaker 2: I could use manageably if I had enough access and
Speaker 2: I did it the right way.
Speaker 1: Right, so I've got money, I can still have my drugs.
Speaker 1: I don't have to be a criminal, and I live all.
Speaker 2: Not do crime. That I'm not desperate crime insane, So
Speaker 2: you know, I leave there and I end up at
Speaker 2: Rainbow Lodge, and you know, two weeks later, I and
Speaker 2: at this stage, I'm still on I think i'd reduce
Speaker 2: I was only seventy five meals of a methadone because
Speaker 2: they wouldn't let me on parole without still being on methodone.
Speaker 2: Two weeks after that, you know, I get my inheritance,
Speaker 2: and five weeks later I'm back in prison. But that
Speaker 2: last day, you know, and I sat in the Estoria
Speaker 2: with my girlfriend at the time, and I just shot
Speaker 2: it all up on co in heroin, and I remember
Speaker 2: the insanity of going, you know, when it gets to
Speaker 2: thirty twenty ten, well stop, yeah, yeah, you're going down.
Speaker 2: You know, we'll stop like well, you know. And what
Speaker 2: happened was I wake up the last day and it
Speaker 2: had all gone, and I was that crazy that I
Speaker 2: jumped a cab with her because I again I just thought,
Speaker 2: I need to get a shot of heroin to work
Speaker 2: out what I'm going to do, just insane. So I
Speaker 2: jump a cab. I go to the Leichhart Social Security
Speaker 2: Office where I'm registered at because I've been at Rainbow
Speaker 2: Lodge and I'm that insane I believe that. I go
Speaker 2: up to the counter and I said to my girlfriend,
Speaker 2: I'll get a counter check because I'll tell them i'm
Speaker 2: on the run, which I was at this stage from parole,
Speaker 2: and they'll give it to me because otherwise I'm going
Speaker 2: to have to rob someone.
Speaker 3: And like I thought, that was that's your logic, that
Speaker 3: was my logic.
Speaker 2: And so I go up to the guy and you
Speaker 2: can still get counter checks in those days, and you know,
Speaker 2: he said no, and I just jumped the counter and
Speaker 2: you know, hit him and robbed him. And don't worry
Speaker 2: about prison. The Airport centerally know more about you than
Speaker 2: fucking anyway. It was the most in and it camera
Speaker 2: like it was just so desperate, and I knew I
Speaker 2: was in trouble because as we were running out with
Speaker 2: this guy's will and phone my girlfriend, who unfortunately is
Speaker 2: still up the cross using said to me, you're fucking fucked,
Speaker 2: And I thought, well, I'm in trouble here because she's bad,
Speaker 2: you know if she reckons. Yeah, so you know, I
Speaker 2: jump another two cabs and it's like a movie because
Speaker 2: we're going up Paramatta Road towards Kings Cross and all
Speaker 2: the vans are coming towards like can't And I get
Speaker 2: there and you know, I've got this phone and still
Speaker 2: I'm thinking, I just got to get a shot at
Speaker 2: Heroin to work out what I'm going to do, and pivotal,
Speaker 2: very pertle moment at a moment of clarity, spiritual awaiting,
Speaker 2: call it whatever you want. I saw the undercovers across
Speaker 2: the road. My girlfriend goes, I think they've peggja. Something
Speaker 2: just overcame. I said, I can't do this anymore. I
Speaker 2: gave the wallet, the phone and kisser and said I'm
Speaker 2: going to give myself up. And I remember walking across
Speaker 2: the road and they're looking at me and I'm walking
Speaker 2: towards it, and you know, I don't know what they thought,
Speaker 2: but they're on, you know, And I said, oh, you're
Speaker 2: looking for me. They gave them my name and they're
Speaker 2: you know, And I was so defeated that he said,
Speaker 2: I don't even need to carf your doing. I said, no,
Speaker 2: you know.
Speaker 1: Is that that watershed name of is that.
Speaker 2: One hundred percent? One hundred percent? You know? And they
Speaker 2: put me because at King's Cross they're not even cells
Speaker 2: there like docs, and I just remember them put me
Speaker 2: in there. And I just burst out crying and just thought,
Speaker 2: fuck that. Fuck that's over, you know now, And I
Speaker 2: just wanted to go back where there was no responsibility.
Speaker 2: In prison.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well that's you can become institutionalized. Like I've said,
Speaker 1: had a lot of people say to me when I
Speaker 1: was in the cops that it's easier in there. Im fair,
Speaker 1: I know what I'm doing, I know people in there.
Speaker 1: I don't have to worry about where I'm going to
Speaker 1: get my next dollar's.
Speaker 2: Well, i'd left, you know, that was it. You know,
Speaker 2: this was the moment I'd wait my whole life for,
Speaker 2: and again it just ended in this disaster. Okay.
Speaker 1: So, and I'm really interested in what's going through your
Speaker 1: mind because I think people who have been listening to
Speaker 1: this podcast will really get a sense of how desperate
Speaker 1: and ridiculous the life of an addict is. Yeah, it's chaos. Yep,
Speaker 1: you're giving yourself up. Did you just think, Okay, this
Speaker 1: is going to be my life. Just send me back
Speaker 1: back to prison because you get your drugs in prison.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, yeah. I had access to drugs every single
Speaker 2: not that I use them every day, but there's access.
Speaker 2: You know, it's full of drugs. No, you know, I
Speaker 2: just I didn't know what I thought. I just knew
Speaker 2: I needed to be protected from myself, you know. And
Speaker 2: so I end up back at MRC, and I remember,
Speaker 2: it's embarrassing to even talk about it, and I'm going
Speaker 2: to the wing officer and saying, I want to see
Speaker 2: the AOD you know, the drug worker, you know, And
Speaker 2: he said to me about time Robert, and I was
Speaker 2: quite offended. Yeah, you know, I'm the last to catch
Speaker 2: on always.
Speaker 1: Well, yeah, with any addiction, I think the first step
Speaker 1: is you've got to want to give it up, isn't it.
Speaker 1: You within yourself have got one to stop it. So
Speaker 1: that's probably the first step you needed to take.
Speaker 2: That's the first step. The second step is I'm walking
Speaker 2: on doing laps in at MWRC. You know, I've been
Speaker 2: back in a couple of weeks. I've got a sweeper's job,
Speaker 2: I've got a one out with a TV full of cockroaches,
Speaker 2: and I've got nikes on and me and this other
Speaker 2: guy are hanging shit on this other guy because he's
Speaker 2: went and done lot volleys and there's a guy on
Speaker 2: the other side of him doing laps and that's I'm
Speaker 2: like thirty six, got nikes and greens on, thinking I'm
Speaker 2: killing it. We're hanging shit because that's what you're doing jail.
Speaker 2: You have to hang shit on someone else to feel
Speaker 2: better about itself. And there's the next guy across from him,
Speaker 2: looked in his sixties, could have been younger, and I
Speaker 2: just I just had this moment where I looked past
Speaker 2: the guy in the dun lot Volleys and went, fuck,
Speaker 2: it's that's it. It's this is gonna Is this it?
Speaker 1: You know?
Speaker 2: Is this it?
Speaker 1: I've heard people have spent a lot of time in
Speaker 1: prison when they come to the realization said when they
Speaker 1: see the older prisoners, and it's all exciting when you're
Speaker 1: a young gangster.
Speaker 2: You know I'm going to make a mark. I'm a
Speaker 2: tough guy.
Speaker 1: I'm doing this, and there was some glory to it,
Speaker 1: and you know you had the women, you had this,
Speaker 1: you had that. And then then they see the people
Speaker 1: that had been broken by the jail system and how
Speaker 1: sad it really is. You look a look at that old,
Speaker 1: old person. You're looking at that old person thinking, fuck,
Speaker 1: that could be me very soon.
Speaker 2: One hundred percent. So I've breached my paroles. I'm in
Speaker 2: for a breach of parole and a new assault charge
Speaker 2: and you know, I think that's still from personal they
Speaker 2: caught they charged me with so but first of all,
Speaker 2: I don't even I don't worry even about the charge
Speaker 2: I got before the parole board. And I've seen the
Speaker 2: AOD worker and I'm like, fuck, I'm ready to change.
Speaker 2: I want to go rehab. And he writes a report
Speaker 2: and all that, and I go before the parole b
Speaker 2: and the parole board because I met mac. So it's
Speaker 2: I'm in a booth like this and my lawyer and
Speaker 2: the parole border in the city and I've just got
Speaker 2: a phone to speak to my lawyer. I speak, you know,
Speaker 2: I want to go to who's aware of it? What
Speaker 2: you know? And I'm thinking, yeah, they're gonna they're gonna
Speaker 2: clap me, like insaying like and go oh about time,
Speaker 2: robo what a good man. He's finally decided, Yeah, it
Speaker 2: comes on. He you know, my lawyer does his bit,
Speaker 2: you know, and they go away for like ninety seconds
Speaker 2: and come back and they just changed the parole laws
Speaker 2: there so it was automatic one year then for breaching
Speaker 2: for breaching automatic, So they came back and they just said,
Speaker 2: may you're not going anywhere. You fucking you've been out
Speaker 2: five six weeks. You're doing a year. We'll see you
Speaker 2: in a year. I just broke down cry and it
Speaker 2: saved me because the guard was he didn't know what
Speaker 2: to do, so he didn't come and grab me. But
Speaker 2: I grabbed the phone again and my lawyer was still there,
Speaker 2: and like I just knew I just needed some and
Speaker 2: I said to him, mate, you've got to get it.
Speaker 2: You've got to get I need something. I need. Fuck,
Speaker 2: I can't do this again. I need something. I need
Speaker 2: it to be different. To this day, they still don't
Speaker 2: know what he said to them because it was off.
Speaker 2: The screen was off, you know, and you know because
Speaker 2: I was crying the guard and then the guard says
Speaker 2: that they're going to come back on. They come back
Speaker 2: on the screen and they say to me, all right,
Speaker 2: you know you're lawyers, but you're going to still do
Speaker 2: a year in prison, but we're going to send you
Speaker 2: to do a rehab in jail called Nara Nara. And
Speaker 2: that was enough. Okay, that was I just thought, fuck,
Speaker 2: all right, that was hope.
Speaker 1: You know, that was enough as a program they're going
Speaker 1: to put you on in prison.
Speaker 2: They were saying, so the last six months because it
Speaker 2: went for six months, I think it did. So you
Speaker 2: do six months and then the last six months of
Speaker 2: this period and by that, you know. So as soon
Speaker 2: as I got that, you know, I speak to my line,
Speaker 2: plead guilty to the charge, you know, and they don't
Speaker 2: give me.
Speaker 3: I don't know what they gave me eight months.
Speaker 2: Or whatever it was. So you know, I wasn't going
Speaker 2: to do any more time. So what was you said?
Speaker 1: Yes, that was enough? That is that really the turning point? Yeah?
Speaker 1: Is that your moment where you've gone, I'm going to
Speaker 1: make this work.
Speaker 2: It is. But I'll tell you addiction such a strong
Speaker 2: thing because I then go to fifteen when they moved
Speaker 2: me to Long Bay because that's where the program was.
Speaker 2: So I'm at fifteen Wing, not where the program is,
Speaker 2: pre the program, and I'm using every day.
Speaker 1: Even so, this is a great new model, claud that
Speaker 1: has pleaded with everyone, and there people are moving mountains
Speaker 1: to put in this program.
Speaker 2: But as you just said before, I was broken. That
Speaker 2: was pathetic. So you know, the start shooting the wire
Speaker 2: of the fence at Paramatta, you know, getting stabbed. Now
Speaker 2: I'm swiping, I'm swapping my white ox for Sarah Wall
Speaker 2: to take on top of my one hundred and fifty
Speaker 2: mils A methodone to fucking wipe me out every night
Speaker 2: and getting up every morning with my We used to
Speaker 2: have they would put a video on in the wing,
Speaker 2: you know, and your wake up a sh as a
Speaker 2: video and I'd have porridge a'll owed me that I
Speaker 2: can't remember making, and I go, oh fucking I'd see
Speaker 2: the guy I bought the cerracle off. I go, you know, fuck,
Speaker 2: I'm not doing that again. At three o'clock, I'd be
Speaker 2: racing to his cell, thinking, fuck, I hope he hasn't
Speaker 2: sold him and ever you go, I know you're always
Speaker 2: coming back. Yeah, you know. And that was and that
Speaker 2: was changed. But I couldn't stop. And then you know,
Speaker 2: I got into Nara Noura, and then I made the
Speaker 2: first serious decision. I just went all right because I
Speaker 2: was on methadone. I've never been allowed to come off
Speaker 2: methadone in jail because of the risk I posed. So
Speaker 2: they were going to reduce me from one hundred and
Speaker 2: fifty down to fifty before they.
Speaker 1: And just explain for people. I think most people understand methadone,
Speaker 1: but explain the science behind.
Speaker 2: That, so they give it to you as a blocker
Speaker 2: to stop you from using heroin. So it's the Germans invented,
Speaker 2: and actually because they couldn't get access to opium because
Speaker 2: the British rought India and Afghanistan in World War two.
Speaker 2: So they need it because you know, you needed it
Speaker 2: from all the wounded soldiers and stuff. So it's a
Speaker 2: long acting so you can you drink it once a
Speaker 2: day and it last twenty four hours and it takes
Speaker 2: away the appetite for heroin. Or if I was on
Speaker 2: that high, you couldn't use any heroin, it wouldn't make
Speaker 2: any difference. So they started to reduce me. But that
Speaker 2: was when I the first serious and I believe this
Speaker 2: was the start of my recovery because I made it
Speaker 2: not to anyone else, no one to myself. In my cell,
Speaker 2: I went, or I'm just going to take my methodone
Speaker 2: as prescribed, nothing else. That's it, because that's I couldn't
Speaker 2: come off it. I knew that I had to accept
Speaker 2: my circumstances, but I had to make a commitment, and
Speaker 2: I did that and I got through that program. I
Speaker 2: got down to fifty mils of methodone, and I couldn't
Speaker 2: get parole because my family lived in a state my
Speaker 2: parents were didn't because they changed the parole or so
Speaker 2: you needed a suitable address, so you had to do
Speaker 2: it an extra year and you needed a suit and
Speaker 2: I couldn't get a suitable address, which I'm so glad
Speaker 2: because the only place that I could go to And again,
Speaker 2: you know, sliding door moment. You know, at that time,
Speaker 2: there was two places in the world that brought you
Speaker 2: off methadone. There was Who's in Sydney and there was
Speaker 2: one in New York. And I was lucky. So you know,
Speaker 2: I got parole to Who's, which was on Cleveland Street,
Speaker 2: and I went back down to the methadone clinic that
Speaker 2: I used to go to and I had to walk
Speaker 2: down there, and you know, they took me to meetings
Speaker 2: of Narcotics Anonymous, and they you know, reduced me off heroin,
Speaker 2: you know, And but you know, it was there was
Speaker 2: pivotal moments there because it was there was about eighteen
Speaker 2: people in the house, I remember, but sitting out the
Speaker 2: back one night and never one was winge. And at
Speaker 2: this stage, you know how shit it was, I thought
Speaker 2: it was the fucking best thing that had ever happened
Speaker 2: to me, And it's crazy. The food, because the food
Speaker 2: in jail shit, you know, and it's worse now than
Speaker 2: when I was in there, but it was because we
Speaker 2: could cook up the food. But I had three pellows
Speaker 2: and I know that sounds insane, but I spent half
Speaker 2: of my time in prison. They will give you a
Speaker 2: pellow slip, but no pellow and you had to roll
Speaker 2: up your tracksuit pants to put it inside the pellow
Speaker 2: slip to sleep on.
Speaker 3: So I seen it so little luxuries those and they
Speaker 3: call me claude.
Speaker 2: You know. I usually heard me at Parliament. You know.
Speaker 2: I started my speech three five nine two three seven
Speaker 2: my MIN number.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah you did, and you made a point and
Speaker 1: I understood the point, but I think it hit people
Speaker 1: pretty hard. That's your identification when you're in prison, you're
Speaker 1: mid number.
Speaker 2: And that's mine for life. No one will no one
Speaker 2: else will ever get that number. You know, as I
Speaker 2: said there, I don't remember my childhood phone number, but
Speaker 2: my MIN number. And I haven't been in for seventeen years
Speaker 2: because in prison you can't do anything without that. In
Speaker 2: the moment, you know, that's what you become, that number.
Speaker 2: So it's very dehumanizing. So yeah, so I was at
Speaker 2: and I was on parole, and I was that rehabing parole.
Speaker 2: It said to me, I had to do six months
Speaker 2: in who And I remember before going there, I had
Speaker 2: an argument with one of the staff at Nara Nura,
Speaker 2: one of many along the way, you know, and I'm like, fuck,
Speaker 2: I've just done all this time. It was fucking six
Speaker 2: months and I didn't know but he was a recovering
Speaker 2: addict too, and he just he said, you're a fucking idiot, CLRD,
Speaker 2: You're a fucking idiot. You'll do two years for a
Speaker 2: fifty dollar shot at heroin, but you won't do six
Speaker 2: months to change your life. And I didn't have an answer.
Speaker 1: When he breaks it down like that, it's a pretty
Speaker 1: hard thing to come back again.
Speaker 2: Fuck. I just grabbed my tail and walked out. And
Speaker 2: it was one of those many moments that rehab I
Speaker 2: went into. You know, they got me down to the
Speaker 2: last mill of methadone and I'm like, you know, I
Speaker 2: remember going up and seending the coordinator and going, fuck,
Speaker 2: I don't need to do it. I can jump off now,
Speaker 2: you know. And again, pivotal moment. He didn't say to me, no,
Speaker 2: you've got to take it. These are the rules. He
Speaker 2: asked me a question, He said, tell me what's happened
Speaker 2: every other time you've come off methadone? And I went, fuck,
Speaker 2: I've used Tehran every time. And he said, mate, we've
Speaker 2: brought hundreds of people off methodone they've never used again.
Speaker 2: Another moment of humility.
Speaker 1: Okay, all these little moments. And it's interesting you say humility,
Speaker 1: but it's almost acceptance of how low you've hit. And
Speaker 1: you've got to start listening to people because your path
Speaker 1: is not going to see you clear.
Speaker 2: Look it. You know, people go, what happened? What changed?
Speaker 2: You know? And you know they want you to say
Speaker 2: I had this spiritual fucking did what I was told
Speaker 2: for the first time in my life, simple as that
Speaker 2: that's the only thing that changed. And I just was
Speaker 2: at this point where as you heard like, you know,
Speaker 2: the decisions I'd made for the last twenty five years
Speaker 2: were fucking terrible. Yeah, oh, you got no argument, you
Speaker 2: know what I mean? And I just thought like, there's
Speaker 2: nothing these people can do to harm me more than
Speaker 2: I harm myself. And then you know that guy, you know,
Speaker 2: he said six months to change your life. He was right.
Speaker 2: That guy who said, you know, stay on the method
Speaker 2: in one more week. I've never had methodone again. I've
Speaker 2: never used the drug since I followed his path. So
Speaker 2: I started to not only listen to what people see,
Speaker 2: because I'm a very practical person, like your shit doesn't change.
Speaker 2: I'm not in want like I needed. I want to
Speaker 2: get better. And it started to get better, you know,
Speaker 2: And you know, my life started to get better. And
Speaker 2: you know that rehab that I complained about going to
Speaker 2: for six months and parole is really clear. You leave
Speaker 2: one day for any reason before your six months, you're
Speaker 2: doing your bop. And I think I had twenty months
Speaker 2: left or eighteen, okay, so you needed to be that. Yeah,
Speaker 2: they know, they knew. They were really strict, like you weren't,
Speaker 2: you know what I mean?
Speaker 1: And I think I get a sense with a lot
Speaker 1: of addicts when they come and try to pull the
Speaker 1: wool over people's eyes or whatever. It's people like you,
Speaker 1: like you've become and the like the people that did
Speaker 1: this to you, the ones that have been there, done
Speaker 1: that know all the bullshit that comes out of your mouth,
Speaker 1: because bullshit just comes out of the people's mouths when
Speaker 1: they're addicted to drugs.
Speaker 2: How do you know when a junkies line, you know,
Speaker 2: their lips move. Yeah, I've heard that before. That's so true.
Speaker 2: You know it is true, and you know and you
Speaker 2: believe it. The other thing that happened in that that
Speaker 2: started to happen in that Nara and Nura program that
Speaker 2: was pivotal, and is what I talk about now is
Speaker 2: I've never ever, ever seen anyone punished out of her behavior.
Speaker 2: Don't stop it, why the behavior is in place. The
Speaker 2: only way I've seen people change what happening in Nara
Speaker 2: and Nora was the guards. We had to call each
Speaker 2: other by our first names.
Speaker 1: Okay, that's interesting, and let's take take the conversation there
Speaker 1: because you know, quite often prison is about rules. You
Speaker 1: break the rules, you get punished. That what you're saying
Speaker 1: is that with this Nara that it wasn't about punishment. No,
Speaker 1: it wasn't.
Speaker 2: It was about helping you along the path. Yeah, it
Speaker 2: was so different. You know that the guards would tell
Speaker 2: me that you know, when they went to because they
Speaker 2: volunteered to work in there, that they would scratch the
Speaker 2: other guards would scratch their cars, let their ties down.
Speaker 2: You know, some of them would have to stop eating
Speaker 2: in the cafeteria because they would spit in their burgers.
Speaker 1: They were being ostracized, whether you being you're soft on
Speaker 1: these crims.
Speaker 2: Yep, yep, yep. And that program's the most successful program
Speaker 2: ever run in New South Wales and then they closed
Speaker 2: it in twenty ten.
Speaker 1: Right, I think that's something you're beating on about in
Speaker 1: one of your talks.
Speaker 2: Well, I spoke at the closing and I think the
Speaker 2: Deputy Commissioner was there and that's the last time I
Speaker 2: opened a speech with my min number was there and
Speaker 2: I thought that speech at Parliament House was the same gravity.
Speaker 1: So that you're saying that it was one of the
Speaker 1: most successful programs, yep.
Speaker 2: The most It was shut down when twenty ten. Why
Speaker 2: why do you think that they said it was too expensive?
Speaker 1: Okay, which is and it brings us right back to
Speaker 1: where we started at the start with about the fiscal
Speaker 1: side of keeping the keeping the person in cus Well.
Speaker 2: It's insane, you know, as I spoke about in Parliament,
Speaker 2: the police budget in New South Wales for the current
Speaker 2: financial year is five point two billion dollars and the
Speaker 2: corrective services budget is two point one b and so
Speaker 2: seven point three billion dollars. The whole budget for housing
Speaker 2: and homeless in New South Wales for the current year
Speaker 2: is seven hundred and eighty million.
Speaker 1: That's pretty startling when you break it down that.
Speaker 2: You know, like it's and people it's insane. You know,
Speaker 2: it really does come down to that. You know, when
Speaker 2: you in prison someone for a year and I'm sorry,
Speaker 2: and this may upset people, but prison offers no value
Speaker 2: to the community. Now I'm not soft on crime. There
Speaker 2: is people that fucking should never get out. We still
Speaker 2: let them out. You know, if the guys in prison
Speaker 2: got to them, you know, they wouldn't go and be there.
Speaker 1: I know what you're saying, and prisoners i've spoken to
Speaker 1: about prison reform, all acknowledged is some people that shouldn't
Speaker 1: get out. Not a society need to be protecting mate.
Speaker 2: I was at the dentist at Golden when they brought
Speaker 2: in Ivan Malatt you know from super Max in the
Speaker 2: orange suit, you know, and made the play and in
Speaker 2: goldwhen you didn't speak to the guards after he left
Speaker 2: because there was a chill in the air.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I actually saw him down in Golden and.
Speaker 2: I don't know if evils, but fuck, I don't know,
Speaker 2: you know, what I mean. And you know in Golden
Speaker 2: you know, I was in there with Glover, the Granny murderer,
Speaker 2: and you know that yard. I think that there was
Speaker 2: forty blakes and then that killed sixty five people. And
Speaker 2: I look back now and think, funk, I was just
Speaker 2: a kid from the suburb smoking pot. How the fuck?
Speaker 2: How do you get there? How am I? Why am I? Even? Yeah?
Speaker 2: It was you know when I look back, that there
Speaker 2: was you know, the change took a while, but it
Speaker 2: really was. You know, I thought, these people just kill
Speaker 2: people for killing people, like that's rights.
Speaker 1: And I think the message gets lost. And I think
Speaker 1: when we've had Mindy Story speaking to she's been on
Speaker 1: the podcast and a lot of people saw the pushback. Well,
Speaker 1: you're trying to help prisoners, and they're not distinguishing between
Speaker 1: the Ivan Malats or the Claude Robertson's. It's just they're
Speaker 1: all prisoners. This is how they should be treated. What
Speaker 1: you're saying, with this lived experience and now seven llion
Speaker 1: years out, seventillion years clean, seventeen years doing good work
Speaker 1: for society, you're saying, we've got to change the system.
Speaker 1: We've got to look at things differently, break it down there.
Speaker 1: A lot of people listen to the podcast. What messaging do.
Speaker 2: You want to go? You know, and I'm a very
Speaker 2: pragmatic so the pure economics don't make sense, you know
Speaker 2: what I mean? Seven point three billion dollars and that
Speaker 2: doesn't even take anto the courts. If you had the
Speaker 2: courts and all that in New South Wales alone, probably
Speaker 2: ten billion dollars a year. We've got a housing crisis,
Speaker 2: you know what I mean. You know, the Minister was
Speaker 2: winging about the other day because you know, the government
Speaker 2: they wanted an extra billion dollars over two years. We
Speaker 2: could take half a billion from that tomorrow and build
Speaker 2: as many houses as we needed. You know, people don't understand.
Speaker 2: And it's our explayers. So we don't need any more money.
Speaker 2: We need to spend it differently. And the thing is
Speaker 2: why I say jail isn't of value to the communities
Speaker 2: because and I've spoken at events. You know, I spoke
Speaker 2: at an event up in Maribra, North queenslanda while, you know,
Speaker 2: probably eight years ago, and you know, there was the
Speaker 2: parents of their daughter had been murdered by the husband
Speaker 2: and domestic violence, and there was a sister. Her sister
Speaker 2: had been murdered by the boyfriend, and she was a
Speaker 2: prison guard at the prison where the boyfriend was now incarcerated,
Speaker 2: you know. And I spoke up there at the time
Speaker 2: with the manager of the Rainbow Lodge, who was one
Speaker 2: of the few men trained in men's at a PhD
Speaker 2: or a Masters in men's change behavior. And people think,
Speaker 2: you know, like, if I do crime related to drugs
Speaker 2: when I go to jail, they made me to do
Speaker 2: drug courses. No, they didn't. Don't make you do anything
Speaker 2: if if people and you know, at the bad writer
Speaker 2: is seeing. When I was talking a couple of years ago,
Speaker 2: a lady asked me this question either but the prison
Speaker 2: populations increase because they're locking up all these people on
Speaker 2: a vohs. And I said, I've been in prison with them,
Speaker 2: and I said to you, you know what happens. They're
Speaker 2: in there with all the other guys on AVOs, getting
Speaker 2: more angry, more violent, and then they come out and
Speaker 2: their next victim is oblivious to their history. So we're
Speaker 2: actually making them worse because they're not they don't have
Speaker 2: to do anything, Okay. So I think that my experience
Speaker 2: when I've spoken to the community, they're shocked because they
Speaker 2: just blindly believe that there was an expectation that if
Speaker 2: you commit this crime, that when we incarcerate you, that
Speaker 2: you're being offered or made to address or at least
Speaker 2: look at. And that's not the reality.
Speaker 1: Okay, So breaking down what you're saying, So I haven't
Speaker 1: misunderstood that someone goes in for a crime of violence.
Speaker 1: You assume if someone just repeatedly goes back in the
Speaker 1: prison because of violent actions, that when they're in print
Speaker 1: and maybe there'll be someone there trying to address that.
Speaker 2: That makes sense, doesn't it?
Speaker 1: Like if someone, let's break it down, domestic violence at
Speaker 1: such a topical subject, domestic violent offenders go in there,
Speaker 1: you'd like to think something's being corrected in what causes
Speaker 1: them to do that, rather than they've just been put
Speaker 1: away cranky and as you said, sit there and get
Speaker 1: quite angry and then come out, Well I'm back out, Now,
Speaker 1: what are you going.
Speaker 2: To do to me?
Speaker 1: Drug addicts, like, how many people are in there with
Speaker 1: the drug addictions that commit crimes to support their drug
Speaker 1: addictions commit crimes because of the stupidity is you're demonstrated
Speaker 1: that your mind plays when you're addicted to drugs. Are
Speaker 1: they being treated for their drug problem? Are they they
Speaker 1: getting help? They go into the core of the problem
Speaker 1: that's for them in the prison. Now, when we break
Speaker 1: it down like that, I'm with you. I think most
Speaker 1: people will assume, well, a system that's spending that much money,
Speaker 1: what are we invest in that. What you're saying here
Speaker 1: with your T shirt that says jail is failing? Yep,
Speaker 1: what you're saying here is it's not working.
Speaker 2: It's not. You just need to look at the numbers
Speaker 2: and these are box are government numbers. You know, the
Speaker 2: average prison sentence in New South Wales is eight months.
Speaker 2: Eight months is the average sentence. So they're not ivan malats,
Speaker 2: you know what I mean and anyone at the moment,
Speaker 2: there's about twelve and a half thousand people in prison
Speaker 2: today in New South Wales. Yet nineteen thousand people will
Speaker 2: cycle through every year. Ten thousand of those will go
Speaker 2: to homelessness.
Speaker 1: Right go from prison to homelessness. Will break those figures
Speaker 1: down again, because.
Speaker 2: That's true, there's twelve about twelve and a half thousand
Speaker 2: people in prison in prison today in New South Wales.
Speaker 2: This year about nineteen thousand people will cycle through those
Speaker 2: twelve and nine thousand beds and then ten thousand of
Speaker 2: that nineteen thousand will be released to homelessness. So I
Speaker 2: don't know.
Speaker 1: I'm not, you know, a social commentator, but you have
Speaker 1: people in jail and release them to homelessness. I'm thinking
Speaker 1: there's probably good reason why these people are recycling back
Speaker 1: into prison.
Speaker 2: And not only were really and I know this because
Speaker 2: I've met with Minister Jackson, the minister, and had this
Speaker 2: conversation and you know, with her, you know they're being
Speaker 2: dumped by corrections on her the homeless you know, So
Speaker 2: the ministry with two point one billion dollars is dumping
Speaker 2: the inmates because once they come out of prison, not
Speaker 2: my responsibility, onto the homelessness budget, which has seven hundred
Speaker 2: and eighty million dollars, and she is burning through money
Speaker 2: because they give them three nights tenory accommodation and these
Speaker 2: shith hostels in the city but are just crack dans. Yeah,
Speaker 2: and like it's insane.
Speaker 1: I've always had concerns about that because if they walk
Speaker 1: out the prison gate, we've all got the image of
Speaker 1: the person, yeah see you back here next week, and
Speaker 1: walk out the gates and to lift to their own devices.
Speaker 1: It's not that far from the truth.
Speaker 2: It's not, it's not. You know, we're filming a four
Speaker 2: corners documentary about our service at the moment, you know,
Speaker 2: and you know one of the men who's going to
Speaker 2: be the pivotal of that. You know, they filmed him
Speaker 2: as he lodge. This is the Rainbow Lodge. So they
Speaker 2: filmed him coming out of Coomba Prison a few weeks ago,
Speaker 2: and he's been through Rainbow before, and you know, they
Speaker 2: stopped and had to McDonald and had to chat with him,
Speaker 2: you know, and the journalists asked him the question, you know,
Speaker 2: what would be the perfect on our own? He would
Speaker 2: say that I never leave Rainbow Lodge. Yeah, okay, you know,
Speaker 2: because that's the other thing. So he came through us
Speaker 2: previously and we housed him in a support in a
Speaker 2: semi independence. He got a unit, but it was miles away.
Speaker 2: It was down near La Peru's miles from US, no
Speaker 2: public transport. He got so isolated, you know, it was
Speaker 2: so sad. When we went back into the house, he
Speaker 2: hadn't even said his furniture up and he just used
Speaker 2: drugs and gone to prison.
Speaker 1: Yeah that is at set, I don't you know. We
Speaker 1: can all be tough guys and go, well, we go
Speaker 1: back where he deserves it. It's just said, if you
Speaker 1: isolate people, and if.
Speaker 2: You met this guy, he's like someone's grandfather. Yeah, you know,
Speaker 2: like you know, yes, you know he breaks into people's houses,
Speaker 2: but you know, he generally tries not to hurt anyone.
Speaker 2: And you know, he he takes drugs because he's in pain.
Speaker 2: Because I think one of the things that people need
Speaker 2: to understand about the people that end up in prison,
Speaker 2: and this is why society and the community needs to
Speaker 2: take responsibility for my experience is that ninety eight percent
Speaker 2: of the guys that come through my service have been
Speaker 2: removed from their as children put into a government service,
Speaker 2: whether they then being sexually abused, and you know we're
Speaker 2: talking rape, they've been raped as children. You know, I
Speaker 2: have one guy, an Aboriginal guy who told them most
Speaker 2: horrific story, gets taken off his mum, sent to you know,
Speaker 2: an orphanage that's run by a church. The priest starts
Speaker 2: raping him. His younger brother, who's a couple of years younger, comes,
Speaker 2: So this kid, he's eight years older, he gets an agreement,
Speaker 2: he negotiates with the priest that you can rape me
Speaker 2: and I won't tell anyone as long as you don't
Speaker 2: rape my brother. It breaks your heart, doesn't he I'm
Speaker 2: nearly crying talking about it. He then, you know, the
Speaker 2: trauma that is so much that he starts acting out,
Speaker 2: So they send him off to Minda, and the priest
Speaker 2: starts raping the brother until he grows up starts acting out,
Speaker 2: and then they send him off to Minda. Then they
Speaker 2: both end up in jaw and the brother kills himself.
Speaker 2: You know, so what this is?
Speaker 1: Well, see stories like that, I think everyone just takes
Speaker 1: a black and white attitude on things. When you hear
Speaker 1: stories like that, You've got to have some humanity for
Speaker 1: what's happening here.
Speaker 2: You do, And like all I hear the same story.
Speaker 2: And why I say that is because what we did
Speaker 2: as a community is we let these children down and
Speaker 2: to not take responsibility for we then criminalize their trauma
Speaker 2: response behavior and send them to boys homes. And you
Speaker 2: know that you dealt with the killers that it went
Speaker 2: through all the boys hearts. They are a breathing ground. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And I've also with the recent times of what we've
Speaker 1: done here in time that I've spent in prison doing
Speaker 1: that podcast series, got an appreciation of the amount of
Speaker 1: people that A person that's a good friend of the podcast,
Speaker 1: Russell Manster who sadly passed away. He made the point
Speaker 1: that the amount of you want to reduce crime, look
Speaker 1: at the trauma, these trauma, these people have suffered, been
Speaker 1: victims of child sexual abuse, and how that plays out
Speaker 1: in the future.
Speaker 2: All of them, you know, all of them that come
Speaker 2: across across my desk. You know, I think I think
Speaker 2: I said it at at Parliament House. You know, seventy
Speaker 2: eight point I think seventy eight point one percent of
Speaker 2: the men that come through us had engagement in the
Speaker 2: juvenile justice system. And I was saying that because they
Speaker 2: just changed the bail laws and because there's two things
Speaker 2: that the governments do.
Speaker 1: You talk about the baile laws, because there's a lot
Speaker 1: of anger in Parliament.
Speaker 2: Well it's ridiculous because disproportionately going to affect First nations
Speaker 2: people and at the moment, you know, my service we're
Speaker 2: not a first nation's only service, but ninety eight percent
Speaker 2: of the people in my service are First nation because
Speaker 2: we've got a lot of funding to work with them.
Speaker 2: You know, they make up thirty percent of the prison
Speaker 2: population in New South Wales, but three percent of the
Speaker 2: general population think of those figures like yeah, and it's disproportionate.
Speaker 2: Even scarier, we incarcerate them at the highest So First
Speaker 2: Nations people in New South Wales are incarcerated per hundred
Speaker 2: thousand at the greatest rate in the world, four times
Speaker 2: what African Americans are incarcerated, the second most incarcerated people
Speaker 2: in the world. It's nothing to be proud of. Well,
Speaker 2: not only we should be as I said in part,
Speaker 2: we should be disgusted, like we've got a labor government
Speaker 2: federally and a labor government state. They were telling us that,
Speaker 2: you know, let's vote for a voice. Then they're bringing
Speaker 2: in laws they're going to dispropose affect First Nations.
Speaker 1: How do you see the bar laws doing that having
Speaker 1: that effect.
Speaker 2: I was having this debate with my friend last night
Speaker 2: as an ex policeman. You may have it differently. The
Speaker 2: insanity and it's like the decisions I made. The insanity
Speaker 2: of government is you don't ask the police how to
Speaker 2: stop crime. The police solve crime, that's their job, and
Speaker 2: you don't ask corrections how to stop people coming to jail.
Speaker 2: It's not their job. Their job is to keep people
Speaker 2: in jail, and New South Wales do that really well,
Speaker 2: like I said it, because you know Parliament, the Deputy
Speaker 2: Commissioner was there and I'm not one of these you know,
Speaker 2: fucking clothes. All the prisons defund the police. It's ridiculous.
Speaker 2: You know, I've worked with the police really closely in
Speaker 2: some of my jobs. And you know, as I said
Speaker 2: to that, and I looked at the Deputy Commissioner, I said,
Speaker 2: you know, we're in prison and a guy, so you're
Speaker 2: having to go and deal with mental health because we
Speaker 2: don't have a social worker at the hospital and you're
Speaker 2: not trained for it. And put all this unreal expectation
Speaker 2: on our police officers and and on our prison guards.
Speaker 2: That's not their job. And we do the same with
Speaker 2: our school teachers, you know. And my thing is we
Speaker 2: do that because we waste all this money in prison
Speaker 2: in people. Because I think about it, if you take
Speaker 2: it right back, because I believe there should be a
Speaker 2: five year moratorium in New South Wales'm building any new
Speaker 2: prisons if we are seriously serious about doing it different.
Speaker 2: We don't need any more prisons. Get rid of all
Speaker 2: the private prisons. That's the other thing people don't realize
Speaker 2: Australia incarcerates more people. So twenty five percent of our
Speaker 2: prison population are incarcerating private prisons, highest in the world.
Speaker 2: The US is second in seventeen percent.
Speaker 1: I don't know anyone that speaks favorably of the principle
Speaker 1: of privatizing prisons, running a prison for a profit. The
Speaker 1: people that are in the prisons, I've never heard a
Speaker 1: good thing said about private highest prisons.
Speaker 2: Look, I think they just jumped on the wagon the
Speaker 2: same as the right wing wagon, you know, when they
Speaker 2: sold telecom and all those things, and said that the
Speaker 2: you know, government bureaucuracy, you know, is it costs us money,
Speaker 2: it's not efficient. And I think they just jumped on
Speaker 2: the back of that and said that we can run
Speaker 2: prisons more efficiently. But what we call them correction center,
Speaker 2: so that the idea is we're correcting them. But who
Speaker 2: runs a business for profit that puts yourself out of business?
Speaker 1: Yeah, well if her correction is private, you know, and
Speaker 1: do their job, well, they won't have a business.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Like So it's so insane. And what we've seen
Speaker 2: in New South Wales and around the country when we're
Speaker 2: with the more private prisons, all the bail laws have
Speaker 2: come so.
Speaker 1: In new can I just bring you back on that
Speaker 1: point to the bar laws? So the new bar laws.
Speaker 1: When we were at Parliament was there was a lot
Speaker 1: of huffing and puffing going on about specifically, why do
Speaker 1: you think that's not going to be a good thing.
Speaker 1: You said that police shouldn't be saying how to stop.
Speaker 2: C Well, you know, the police have two things, more
Speaker 2: reasons to arrest people and harsher bail. Like they're the
Speaker 2: two tools you have as a really as a police officer,
Speaker 2: more reasons to stop and arrest someone and more reasons
Speaker 2: to not let them out on bail.
Speaker 1: So if I'm silver cop, there's claud You're you're annoying me,
Speaker 1: you're out, you're doing something, You've broken the window or whatever,
Speaker 1: I'm going to arrest you. We're going to refuse. Refuse
Speaker 1: Barlin an extreme and unlikely extreme. But you're you're saying
Speaker 1: that something that, well, it makes it easier for us
Speaker 1: police if people are in jail, because then we don't
Speaker 1: have to look for them. So I acknowledge what you're saying,
Speaker 1: like police shouldn't be involved in that it is easier.
Speaker 2: But I have real life experience of this so my
Speaker 2: previous job, I managed to use service over the Northern
Speaker 2: Beaches and I met with the I think he was
Speaker 2: the coman crime commander. Yeah, for the Northern Beach. I
Speaker 2: love amazing guy. I think, you know, solution focused whatever
Speaker 2: it takes, and community solutions, not like so I've had
Speaker 2: lots of good ones. So there was at this stage
Speaker 2: and people did know people when it's the Northern Beaches,
Speaker 2: but the highest uptake of people in juvenile detention or
Speaker 2: prison in New South Wales or from the Northern Beaches,
Speaker 2: you know. So and there was lots of these kids,
Speaker 2: you know. So I met with him and said, you know,
Speaker 2: this is a problem. What can we do? And he
Speaker 2: said to me, you know, on any Saturday night on
Speaker 2: the Northern Beaches at anyone time, I got five cars babysitting.
Speaker 2: Because people don't realize, he said it as soon as
Speaker 2: I become have an interaction with a child under sixteen,
Speaker 2: I become speaking of and I can't let them go
Speaker 2: until I hand them over to a responsible person. So
Speaker 2: he said, you know, I've got eight cars on the
Speaker 2: beaches and five of them you know, so real crimes,
Speaker 2: you know, the things that we want police to come
Speaker 2: to they can't get to them because of these kids.
Speaker 2: So you know, we came up with this scene called
Speaker 2: Beach Reach where we went out with we had a
Speaker 2: car with youth workers and they would call us up
Speaker 2: and go, we've got these kids. Would ring mum, you know,
Speaker 2: because the other thing we found was, you know, they
Speaker 2: said to us, he ring mum and dad and on
Speaker 2: the northern beaches they're smashed so they can't come and
Speaker 2: pick up little Johnny, you know. So they were able
Speaker 2: to the police, could you know, ring the parents and go, hey,
Speaker 2: tell them money's here the youth workers and I tell
Speaker 2: you and this is why I say that police don't
Speaker 2: solve crime. Because he was I can't think of his
Speaker 2: name out a Greek name, but he said to me,
Speaker 2: he said, I know the moment I put a child
Speaker 2: in a car, even to take them home to their parents,
Speaker 2: I changed their relationship to the police instantly forever.
Speaker 3: And I just went, wow, okay, well he's thinking, you
Speaker 3: know what I mean.
Speaker 2: So he said, if I can have you guys who
Speaker 2: not only take them home so I don't have to
Speaker 2: put them in a police car, you know, then we
Speaker 2: have a therapeutic conversation. We can go, oh, what's going
Speaker 2: on because while you're out, something's going on at Hount,
Speaker 2: you know, and give them a card. And from that
Speaker 2: guru that we went into chrome a high school, you know,
Speaker 2: and we would say, look, where do you go high school?
Speaker 2: We're here on a Tuesday. You just tell the teacher
Speaker 2: and we'll call you out in class no one or
Speaker 2: no you know. So there is solutions. And because he
Speaker 2: knew that if we stop these kids now, we're working
Speaker 2: with these kids now, he's not dealing with them in
Speaker 2: five years when they're committing much more serious crimes.
Speaker 1: Well, all the things that you're raising sort of I'll say,
Speaker 1: thinking out of the square to a degree. It's not
Speaker 1: that just okay, this happens, and just pushing against each
Speaker 1: other the whole time. It's thinking, if it's not working,
Speaker 1: why aren't we changing it back to.
Speaker 2: Your T shirt? Jailing's failing.
Speaker 1: Yeah, if the idea of putting people into jail correctional center,
Speaker 1: as you say, it's a correctional center, so your behavior
Speaker 1: is going to be corrected and then when you come
Speaker 1: out into society, you're going to integrate.
Speaker 2: Back into society better.
Speaker 1: All the bad things about the prison system that I
Speaker 1: hear from you, and when I talk to Mindy, that's
Speaker 1: not what it's doing. And the high rate of recidivism,
Speaker 1: it's ridiculous across the country.
Speaker 2: Within two years, most people back in prison. And they're
Speaker 2: not all bad. You know. We've just been funded by
Speaker 2: the Paul Ramsey Foundation to take how Wallamus First Nation's
Speaker 2: programs into John Maroney Prison. And you know, Jason Hodges
Speaker 2: is the governor out there, and he thinks outside the box.
Speaker 2: You know, he's got all these guys on remand you know,
Speaker 2: and he's got ramand d V romand addictions, Romanda aggressions,
Speaker 2: you know. And I was at a meeting with him
Speaker 2: a little while about a couple of months ago, when
Speaker 2: we're finalizing what we were going to do, and he said,
Speaker 2: you know, we've had the first person on remand go
Speaker 2: back before the judge. And because we'd offered them a
Speaker 2: different solution and programs, the judge didn't have to send
Speaker 2: into prison. He could sentence a person to.
Speaker 1: Re yet, because when they're on romand they traditionally don't
Speaker 1: get access, they don't get access to anything. That's something
Speaker 1: that I hadn't even thought about, but one ex prisoner
Speaker 1: raised it or some discussion on having I think it
Speaker 1: was here that when you're on remand, and you can
Speaker 1: be on remand for a very long time, you know,
Speaker 1: the court system is not in the rush. You could
Speaker 1: be there for years and you don't have access to
Speaker 1: all these things.
Speaker 2: Well, you know the scary thing is, you know today
Speaker 2: this twelve and a half thousand people in prison. Today,
Speaker 2: five thousand of them are on romand forty percent of
Speaker 2: the population in prison. I didn't realize there's no presumption
Speaker 2: of innocence. That's a fallacy because when we brought in
Speaker 2: the private prisons, we had to change the bail laws
Speaker 2: because we needed to keep them in business. And that's
Speaker 2: what's happened. And we as a society we have figures.
Speaker 2: Pass me again, you keep hitting me for these figures
Speaker 2: on process. Today there is about twelve five hundred people
Speaker 2: in prison and about five thousand of days are on RAN.
Speaker 2: I think it's thirty nine point three percent of the
Speaker 2: people in prison in your South Wales the wrong remarks
Speaker 2: and not found guilty of which.
Speaker 1: I wouldn't have thought that naively. I wouldn't have thought that.
Speaker 1: Then I've been even brought it written down right, you've
Speaker 1: got the notes. Okay, well it's proof.
Speaker 2: No, no, this is available data to the governments everyone.
Speaker 1: I'm not making that except what you're saying, but I'm
Speaker 1: saying from a CoP's point of view, career cop. I
Speaker 1: never thought about it, like I thought it would have
Speaker 1: been a much smaller percentage onen.
Speaker 2: Remark when I and it's changed now because you've got
Speaker 2: you know, John Maroney and people like justin hostage. So
Speaker 2: you know, as I said, with the police, you know,
Speaker 2: corrections is the same. There's some good people trying to
Speaker 2: do things different and you know to allow us, you know,
Speaker 2: and that's taken the Deputy Commissioner lose Grant's approval too.
Speaker 2: So there is people.
Speaker 1: Look, I was I did that breaking badness in mcquarie
Speaker 1: Correctional Center. I was blown away by what I saw there,
Speaker 1: Like good people in corrective services trying to make a difference.
Speaker 2: No, there is, but you know you're talking about your
Speaker 2: yeah energy.
Speaker 1: Yeah, there's a culture that you're trying to change, and.
Speaker 2: It's really difficult. You know, you can highly unionize and
Speaker 2: it's an old school thing, but there is, you know,
Speaker 2: and where Rainbow with our Aboriginal partners, you know, Gammarata
Speaker 2: in digital Resources in wimpitture to be able to the
Speaker 2: chance to go out there and run this, and you know,
Speaker 2: I had an amazing experience. I took Ivan Clark, who
Speaker 2: runs our Healing the Warrior program from Wimpitcher. We took
Speaker 2: out some guys who are going to run out there,
Speaker 2: all ex criminals, all Aboriginal, and you know, we went
Speaker 2: out to the jail and we came in and like,
Speaker 2: because you have ideas, Like I have an idea, and
Speaker 2: I thought, this is the environment I've met Jason that
Speaker 2: we're running some programs. You know, a lot of the
Speaker 2: Wellemer guys out there. I knew that thirty percent of
Speaker 2: the people in John Moroni or Aboriginal, you know. I
Speaker 2: thought this is the place, you know, and I thought
Speaker 2: if we it was actually the DPP through the wallhemer
Speaker 2: program was the one who said to me because he
Speaker 2: met Ivan and the programs and started to see the impact,
Speaker 2: and he said, oh, this would be great. Jail like
Speaker 2: the guy, they should be doing this before they even
Speaker 2: come for bail. You know how they didn't get make sense. Yeah,
Speaker 2: so you know, but I had this idea, but you
Speaker 2: don't know what's going to work. And then I took
Speaker 2: them out there to tour the jail and to be
Speaker 2: shown around and make the impact. Like the guys, you know,
Speaker 2: the conversations they had because three hours we toured the
Speaker 2: jail for you know, three hours, and I remember I
Speaker 2: Evan said to me, you know, three hours and we
Speaker 2: sat down with Jason Hodges, the governor out there for
Speaker 2: half an hour, and you know, we had to go
Speaker 2: and have lunch because the guys were so like I had.
Speaker 2: You know, one guy, Paul Bird, who spent twenty years,
Speaker 2: twenty five years, and Jay was in tears and you know,
Speaker 2: and you can't bull as you said, you can't bullshit
Speaker 2: these guys. These guys are tough guys. But you know,
Speaker 2: Paul Bird's been like me nearly seventeen years. You know,
Speaker 2: all these guys. You know Ivan his story, you know
Speaker 2: he was taken from his mother, institutionalized raped, you know.
Speaker 2: Now he's one of the foremost speakers on Aboriginal men's
Speaker 2: change programs and his thing is and this goes back
Speaker 2: to why I say, especially with the prevalence of the
Speaker 2: conversations around domestic violence, women can't fix men and where's
Speaker 2: a community you need to accept that. And it's very
Speaker 2: difficult and doing it like it's.
Speaker 1: And people will shout you down for that, going, oh, well,
Speaker 1: maybe women should be the ones fixing men. But I
Speaker 1: understand what you're saying.
Speaker 2: Do we want justice or do we want revenge? That's
Speaker 2: the question I asked. Obviously justice is, of course, because
Speaker 2: if we want revenge, we end up with two lots
Speaker 2: of trauma. And as we've talked about those people, you know,
Speaker 2: very few I don't know, it'd be less than half
Speaker 2: a percent of people in prison in Australia don't get released.
Speaker 1: So we you know, they're all coming out, and that's
Speaker 1: that's that's the point that I know when I was
Speaker 1: talking about what they were doing in Macquarie and I
Speaker 1: was I was sort of thinking, Okay, people are going
Speaker 1: to push back on a pushback on this, so we're
Speaker 1: getting soft. They're in jail for a reason, they've done
Speaker 1: something bad. They're in there for a reason making break
Speaker 1: rocks and bread. Who cares their prisoners? And I was
Speaker 1: worried that what I was am I going soft? I've
Speaker 1: been out of the cops. Am I looking at this
Speaker 1: through the wrong lens? I spoke to Ken Marslew, whose son.
Speaker 2: Was murdered and.
Speaker 1: A terrible situation robbery out of pizza hut and his
Speaker 1: son was shot and killed. He was working there. Ken
Speaker 1: was angry. Ken was angry when it happened. The people
Speaker 1: were responsible for it were caught, and he was pushing,
Speaker 1: let's get tough on crime, blah blah blah. He's changed
Speaker 1: his tune now. And I'm sure you've crossed paths with
Speaker 1: him over the years. He's a good friend of Mindy's.
Speaker 2: And I spoke to him.
Speaker 1: I said, Ken, your thought on it, your thoughts like
Speaker 1: you have the right to be angry. You are your
Speaker 1: son has been murdered. You've felt the full pain of
Speaker 1: what crime can do to a family. And he said,
Speaker 1: I was angry. I was angry, and I'm still angry today.
Speaker 1: But I'm not going to let the angers destroy me.
Speaker 1: And I say this, Gary, I say this, but if
Speaker 1: people are saying, well, you're just getting soft on crime.
Speaker 1: If we're reducing crime, we're reducing victims. And agree the
Speaker 1: moment he said that, I'm thinking, yeah, Well, sometimes the
Speaker 1: simplest solution is the most obvious, and that's what he's saying.
Speaker 1: We're not getting soft on crime, We're getting smart. On
Speaker 1: crime and if you want to protect victims, reduce crime
Speaker 1: and you protect victims.
Speaker 2: So one hundreds I couldn't agree. No, And that's why
Speaker 2: I say, do you want justice or do you want revenge? Yeah?
Speaker 2: You know, because I think we get them mixed up
Speaker 2: because you know, do you want to punish? And don't
Speaker 2: get me wrong, you know, victims of crime have every right,
Speaker 2: you know, and I imagine you know, the families the
Speaker 2: victims of crime, you know, have every right to be angry,
Speaker 2: to have all the normal human emotions. We're not saying that,
Speaker 2: you know, but do they you know, if you're and
Speaker 2: this is what I said to these people, you know,
Speaker 2: up in Mareva. I said, you know, your daughter's been murdered.
Speaker 2: There's nothing we can do to bring her back. But
Speaker 2: do you want that person to be released and put
Speaker 2: another family through what you have gone through? Or do
Speaker 2: you want to have a system where that person is
Speaker 2: held accountable but they're also supported to heal from their
Speaker 2: trauma and to address their behaviors. So at least when
Speaker 2: they get out, we're given ourselves, the community, a much
Speaker 2: better chance that they're not going to perpetrate onto the
Speaker 2: next victim.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And it's hard. It's hard to think through that.
Speaker 1: But when you break it down, you strip all the
Speaker 1: emotion away and all that it is the right thing
Speaker 1: to do.
Speaker 2: I think it is. You know, I was reading this
Speaker 2: singing a little while ago. You know the the safest
Speaker 2: communities have the least amount of police. Yeah, well, you
Speaker 2: know what I mean. It makes and I remember a
Speaker 2: while ago.
Speaker 1: Heard some informed police, some senior police, say well, we
Speaker 1: can't arrest our way out of the situation. No. I
Speaker 1: like that attitude because sometimes the pub talking it will
Speaker 1: put more police when stayed elections.
Speaker 2: I was in the cops.
Speaker 1: I used to hate it when there was a law
Speaker 1: and order issue and what they'd say, well, we're going
Speaker 1: to increase the police. And I look, they announced before
Speaker 1: the election, we've increased five hundred new police. Nothing about
Speaker 1: the quality of the five hundred that they've signed up.
Speaker 1: We'll just give you numbers and then may cause problems
Speaker 1: for the rest of their career until they retire for
Speaker 1: some bizarre reason. That's not the way to reduce crime.
Speaker 1: I always thought I said this throughout my police career,
Speaker 1: and people thought it was a little bit strange. When yeah,
Speaker 1: because people think a cop they're going to come up
Speaker 1: to me go, yeah, let's get more police, and I go,
Speaker 1: I would be putting the money. If we want to
Speaker 1: reduce crime into education, I thought that was the way
Speaker 1: to go.
Speaker 2: Well can you you know I started on it before.
Speaker 2: Can you imagine? You know, the average class now is
Speaker 2: twenty six twenty eight. If you reduced the spend on crime,
Speaker 2: on police and prisons, and you put that into education
Speaker 2: and the teacher's got twenty kids, you know, those kids
Speaker 2: that get more one on one, they don't slip through.
Speaker 2: They can get if we catch them there, you know,
Speaker 2: we can change the whole trajectory of And I'll tell
Speaker 2: you this. So I did some quick mathematics. So you know,
Speaker 2: twenty years engaged in the criminal justice system ire at
Speaker 2: five million. That's the cost to the community that I
Speaker 2: cost five million, you know to send someone to treatments
Speaker 2: about twenty four thousand dollars. And you know, I'm laughing
Speaker 2: because when you break it down like that, wall, No,
Speaker 2: it's insane. The only you know, I say to people,
Speaker 2: the only bed I can guarantee you is a prison bed.
Speaker 2: I can't guarantee you tonight, are betting a mental health hospital.
Speaker 2: I can't even guarantee you a betting a hospital. I
Speaker 2: can't guarantee you a better at a domestic violence refuge.
Speaker 2: That's where we should be able to, isn't it? The
Speaker 2: systems upside down? The only bed and again, and this
Speaker 2: is why, you know, I think it's easy for people
Speaker 2: to blame the police and corrections. The politicians make the
Speaker 2: laws that those two institutions implement.
Speaker 3: Yeah, at the end of the day, I think there
Speaker 3: needs to be accountability.
Speaker 2: And there isn't you know, they just go, oh, you know,
Speaker 2: it's the police. So we've got all this sort of stuff.
Speaker 2: But as you said, like you know, the war on
Speaker 2: drugs doesn't work, and now we've got a war on
Speaker 2: domestic violence, and it's like, have we not you know
Speaker 2: you heard how stupid I was. Yeah, it's you know
Speaker 2: that the insanity is doing the same thing and thinking
Speaker 2: we're going to get a different outcome, and we're doing
Speaker 2: you know, I say to people.
Speaker 1: And like the war on domestic violence, and it's a
Speaker 1: complex one, that it's an emotional one, that it's scary
Speaker 1: what's happened, and we see the results of it. Yep,
Speaker 1: But let's break you down what we're saying here choosing
Speaker 1: their words carefully. Okay, we're going to get tough on
Speaker 1: domestic violence. You're you're at home, you say something, the
Speaker 1: cops are going to come and lock you up. They're
Speaker 1: going to get more powers for domestic violence. Lock you up,
Speaker 1: you get put in the cell. You're an angry person.
Speaker 1: Nothing to address what's caused the anger. You're just getting
Speaker 1: more and more angry. And then you get let out.
Speaker 2: And have you changed? No, you haven't changed.
Speaker 3: You're just angry.
Speaker 2: So let's address the problem. And there's no we've taken
Speaker 2: away the discretionary power of our police and our court.
Speaker 2: You know, I was on the board at Rainbow Lodge
Speaker 2: for eight years and I sat on there with a
Speaker 2: great man. He's no longer here, Judge Joe Moore. And
Speaker 2: you know he said to me, you know two proud things,
Speaker 2: claud You know I'm the most appealed judge in the
Speaker 2: district Court. He said, I'm proud of that. And he
Speaker 2: said the new South Wales Crime Act clearly states that
Speaker 2: in prisonment is the last option, not the first, okay,
Speaker 2: And so held on to that. Yeah, And he also
Speaker 2: said to me, as a judge, he said, you know
Speaker 2: The problem is with mandatory sentencing. He says, when the
Speaker 2: guy comes to me first time, he needs to go
Speaker 2: to jail. When he comes the second time, he needs
Speaker 2: but the third time, I go, ah, I can't send
Speaker 2: him to rehab because he's three times he's mandatory got
Speaker 2: to go to jail. I lose the disc you know,
Speaker 2: he said, I've spent my life practicing in learning law,
Speaker 2: like I'm a judge there.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 2: We put them in these positions because they're trusted, so
Speaker 2: we need to give them the discretionary power to make
Speaker 2: the decisions. I look, I agree with you.
Speaker 1: I never and a career as a policeman locking people up.
Speaker 1: I never liked that mandatory sentencing. No, to me, it
Speaker 1: didn't fit because every crime I did there was some
Speaker 1: different factor.
Speaker 2: There's a nuance. Yeah, we work with people whether they're
Speaker 2: good or bad. Yeah, that's right.
Speaker 1: But the mandatory sentence that never I always and I
Speaker 1: know the pub test is people going, yeah, of course
Speaker 1: they should get ten years electioneering.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's not based on evidence or and it doesn't
Speaker 2: help anyone, you know. So that two things with the police.
Speaker 2: When I was doing that thing on the Northern Beaches,
Speaker 2: I watched you know, and don't get me wrong, like anything,
Speaker 2: there's bad police, but I watched these police officers stabbed
Speaker 2: on the body camp footage at Central Station and as
Speaker 2: I was watching it, I'm going I would have shot
Speaker 2: the guy three times. And the officer didn't and he
Speaker 2: got that thankfully didn't die. But you know what I thought,
Speaker 2: fucking like you know, and it's that thing you hear
Speaker 2: the bad stuff, but you don't hear the good stuff.
Speaker 2: I'll tell you a great story. So one of the
Speaker 2: things we do is we transport Aboriginal people from treatment
Speaker 2: centers around New South Wales from custody to treatment center
Speaker 2: and we deal with our Aboriginal peer workers on that.
Speaker 2: So one of my Aboriginal peer workers who's lived experience,
Speaker 2: good old Raymond Salad, who finished his parole just the
Speaker 2: other day. He did the Welcome to country at Parliament.
Speaker 2: So he's transporting this guy from I think he was
Speaker 2: going from Kemsi Mid Northcote prison to Iran, a haven
Speaker 2: outside Wolgat forty k fifty k's out of whild but
Speaker 2: he hits a wild pig. There's no reception out there.
Speaker 2: The guides on Supreme Court Baale has to be at
Speaker 2: this treatment center. He knows because it's his country, he's
Speaker 2: been out there. He goes, fuck, I've got to ring
Speaker 2: the police. No one else is coming in the middle
Speaker 2: of nowhere. He rings. What they gets put through the
Speaker 2: sergeant at WOLGA tells in the situation, they send a
Speaker 2: car out, they pick him up. He explains, you know,
Speaker 2: this guy's like six hours out of jail. Shouldn't instagram,
Speaker 2: and Raymond's going nonah like this like when they come,
Speaker 2: they're coming to help. They don't worry. This is you know,
Speaker 2: and they the sergeant organized, they picked him up and
Speaker 2: they drove them to that rehab. So he got to
Speaker 2: that rehab within his bail and that that that action
Speaker 2: changes the view or you know, I don't I shouldn't
Speaker 2: say this, but I will. Raymond called me the other day,
Speaker 2: I don't know the van our workban had run out.
Speaker 2: He had five guys. He was one day off finish
Speaker 2: in his parole. He had five six Aboriginal man in
Speaker 2: a brand new car. I'm sorry, but there is racial profile.
Speaker 2: There wasn't this time. So it came up and you know,
Speaker 2: the cameras read the number plates that came up. There
Speaker 2: was no regio. He pulled Raymond over. Raymond explained what
Speaker 2: he was doing, and he said, I'll ring my boss
Speaker 2: and I spoke to him and I don't know where,
Speaker 2: and he didn't find us or anything. And I was
Speaker 2: able to get on within fifteen minutes and get it registered. Now,
Speaker 2: I don't know whether he made a conscious decision or not,
Speaker 2: but those guys in that car, their experience of policing
Speaker 2: isn't that you know, it's the same as the guy
Speaker 2: who come and picked up the guys, you know at
Speaker 2: the pig. Yeah, but the impact they have, like the
Speaker 2: guys come back and they're talking about, oh he didn't
Speaker 2: he was a cool cop. Well he saw you know,
Speaker 2: Raymond said, this is what we're doing. The car's registered here.
Speaker 2: And you know, I didn't have that conversation, but I
Speaker 2: imagine he went, fuck, this is I need to do
Speaker 2: the right thing. That's a discretionary. Yeah, a good policing.
Speaker 1: You need discretionary. If you don't, the problems can go bad. Look,
Speaker 1: I'm conscious of the time. We are running out of time.
Speaker 1: I'm really enjoying the discussion. I just want you to
Speaker 1: give me a quick rundown on Rainbow Lodge because you're
Speaker 1: a manager there and they've been doing good work and
Speaker 1: good work for a long time.
Speaker 2: So yep, perhaps so Rainbow Lodge, it's this is our
Speaker 2: sixtieth year. So we are now the longest continuous running
Speaker 2: halfway house in the world. There was one in Canada,
Speaker 2: unfortunately he didn't survive COVID, so we've run. We've been
Speaker 2: open twenty four hours a day for sixty years. So
Speaker 2: we work with men leaving a term of incarceration. Currently
Speaker 2: we have we're partnered in a program called the Wallamullist
Speaker 2: Trial in the district called a New South Wales is
Speaker 2: like a circle sentencing type thing where because most of
Speaker 2: the diversionary programs have been in the lower court, so
Speaker 2: this is the first one for more serious district offenses.
Speaker 2: And this is another you know, Justice Jaya had this
Speaker 2: vision because this is another thing. Our laws have got
Speaker 2: more punitive, so these guys are being charged in indictable
Speaker 2: so they don't ever get a chance for merit drug court,
Speaker 2: you know what I mean. So we're part of that.
Speaker 2: So you know, we've got some two beds there, so
Speaker 2: we have eight beds funded and there's some figures here.
Speaker 2: This I'm the largest provider of post incarceration support for
Speaker 2: men in New South Wales. And I have eight beds
Speaker 2: for thirty two places for the nineteen thousand people leaving.
Speaker 2: It's not much, is it.
Speaker 1: No?
Speaker 2: No, And I have another two beds funded by the
Speaker 2: Paul Ramsey Foundation for First Nations men engaged in the
Speaker 2: Wallomer program and they funded.
Speaker 1: Us, and this is a place where they get released
Speaker 1: from prison they can go.
Speaker 2: They come and we run programs and drug and alcohol
Speaker 2: living skills. In the last year and a half, you know,
Speaker 2: we've gone so three years ago we were at forty
Speaker 2: percent First Nations. Last year we were sixty eight. Currently
Speaker 2: we're ninety seven point one. Because of the programs, we've
Speaker 2: been able to use this funding to bring Ivan clark
Speaker 2: in and Gamma Rada, people like Raymond, you know, lived
Speaker 2: experienced guys. You know, one of the guys who's come
Speaker 2: through the well and my list now does peer work.
Speaker 2: So when we go and pick up the Wallemer guys
Speaker 2: and transport and there's an Aboriginal.
Speaker 3: Guy who's on it, and how much difference that makes.
Speaker 2: You the pride in him, so you know, rainbow, you know,
Speaker 2: but we need half a dozen rainbows you know, and
Speaker 2: there's you know, as Mindy said, you know, I think
Speaker 2: in her report there's a list of one hundred services
Speaker 2: doing great work. So you know, if there's anything I
Speaker 2: have to say is the money we spend now is wasted.
Speaker 2: We don't need any more data, research or anything. We
Speaker 2: know what works, we know what doesn't work. What we need,
Speaker 2: as I said in Parliament, is the political will to
Speaker 2: implement it.
Speaker 1: Okay, that's that's a very important message, isn't it It
Speaker 1: is I've got all the research has been.
Speaker 2: Done, we know what the solution is. Yeah, we don't
Speaker 2: need any more committees, no more raw commissions. You know,
Speaker 2: we actually need the political will to go. We're not
Speaker 2: going to build any more prisons, as I said at
Speaker 2: Parliament for five years, We're going to divert that funding
Speaker 2: into diversionary programs pre and post and as I said
Speaker 2: in parliament, if in five years it doesn't work, lock
Speaker 2: them up, and you know, I'll go and do something else.
Speaker 1: Well what what a novel idea crack down on law
Speaker 1: and order and go down that path instead of increasing jails,
Speaker 1: increasing police and making mandatory sentencing. Look at it a
Speaker 1: little bit differently, Yeah, if it hasn't worked. Let's change it.
Speaker 2: And clear thing because I never answered your question about
Speaker 2: the new bail laws because I don't think what people understand.
Speaker 2: So that the new bail laws were based on some
Speaker 2: of the rural communities a rise in crime, but they
Speaker 2: were specific to breaking enters and car theft.
Speaker 1: Okay, so it's going to catch a certain yeah, but
Speaker 1: we know.
Speaker 2: And this is the outrage, that it's going to disproportionately
Speaker 2: affect First Nations because they make up about eighty percent
Speaker 2: of the juvenile country town especially in the country towns
Speaker 2: and in the juvenile centers. And we know that the
Speaker 2: evidence tells us that putting people into custody, as I said,
Speaker 2: seventy eight point one percent of the men in my service,
Speaker 2: we're all in the juvenile justice system. We know it's
Speaker 2: the apprenticeship and sets them up for a lifetime of
Speaker 2: our our incarceration. But it's like and it's politics for
Speaker 2: re election. It's it's politics of fear. The premiere made
Speaker 2: that this isn't based on fear because a part of
Speaker 2: the community was outraised and it was on you know,
Speaker 2: a current affair or you know one of those shock
Speaker 2: jocks who you want to talk about the fear and
Speaker 2: all that, but it doesn't make any sense. It doesn't
Speaker 2: It doesn't solve the problem.
Speaker 1: It's a shame we can't look at it as bipartisan
Speaker 1: And yeah, it would make sense here, we're all on
Speaker 1: board this.
Speaker 2: Do we want safer communities? It is a community. And
Speaker 2: you know you've been in the police and you know
Speaker 2: the decent police I speak to go. You know, we
Speaker 2: can't arrest our way out of drugs or domestic Like
Speaker 2: it's a community solution.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I like it when police look at it
Speaker 1: that way. There's other other ways of dealing with things. Look,
Speaker 1: I just want to say thanks so much for what
Speaker 1: you've done. Congratulation on how you've turned your life around. Like, yeah,
Speaker 1: I sit here and laugh at some of your life
Speaker 1: decisions in let's call it part part one. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: they are very concerning Part one. Who's some of the
Speaker 1: decisions you make? But I think you've articulated very well
Speaker 1: on what happens when you get in the system. You
Speaker 1: become a drug addict, you become dependent, you make stupid decisions.
Speaker 1: But what I find most interesting about our chat is
Speaker 1: the way that you're looking at solutions to problems problems
Speaker 1: that affect all of us. It's always in our face, Laura,
Speaker 1: and all the crime. Everything's in our face about that money, homelessness,
Speaker 1: that type of thing. And you're looking at solutions. And
Speaker 1: I just like to sum up the bit as well
Speaker 1: that you're saying, we don't need to review this again,
Speaker 1: we don't need more committees, we don't need that.
Speaker 2: We know what the solution is. Let's have the balls
Speaker 2: to do it exactly. Yeah, yeah, okay, good pleasure. Thanks,
Speaker 2: thanks very much. Well. Claude's an interesting character.
Speaker 1: It really gave an insight into what goes through the
Speaker 1: mind of an attic and the chaos of his life,
Speaker 1: the decisions that he was making. Look, he comes across
Speaker 1: as a nice person, but he's just making ridiculous decisions
Speaker 1: and how driven he was because of his drug addiction.
Speaker 1: I think some of the points he's made are very worthwhile.