Speaker 1: The public has had a long held fascination with detectives.
Speaker 1: Detective sy a side of life the average person is
Speaker 1: never exposed to. I spent thirty four years as a cop.
Speaker 1: For twenty five of those years I was catching killers.
Speaker 1: That's what I did for a living. I was a
Speaker 1: homicide detective. I'm no longer just interviewing bad guys. Instead,
Speaker 1: I'm taking the public into the world in which I operated.
Speaker 1: The guests I talk to each week have amazing stories
Speaker 1: from all sides of the law. The interviews are raw
Speaker 1: and honest, just like the people I talk to. Some
Speaker 1: of the content and language might be confronting. That's because
Speaker 1: no one who comes into contact with crime is left unchanged.
Speaker 1: Join me now as I take you into this world.
Speaker 1: Welcome back to part two of my chat with Lucas Williams.
Speaker 1: In part one, we learned about Lucas rough upbringing that
Speaker 1: led to substance abuse, crime, and lengthy terms in prison. Sadly,
Speaker 1: that's the path that's followed too many times by a
Speaker 1: young young people, particularly young Indigenous men. In part two,
Speaker 1: we're going to talk about what Lucas is doing now
Speaker 1: to break the cycle. Lucas, welcome back. Thanks Gay, Well,
Speaker 1: we gave you all the heavy stuff in part one
Speaker 1: and dissected your life, and thanks for being so open
Speaker 1: and honest about what's happened. I want to just read
Speaker 1: out a quote. I was doing the research for the
Speaker 1: podcast and looking at things you had said and done
Speaker 1: and been quoted on. I just read this quote out.
Speaker 1: The work that I do aims to put an end
Speaker 1: to racism in Australia and put symphasis on healing. If
Speaker 1: we do not heal, then the past simply repeats itself
Speaker 1: and the next generation is stuck in another cycle of trauma.
Speaker 1: Breaking the cycle takes work, Healing takes time and effort,
Speaker 1: and I want to be there to be a guide
Speaker 1: and a mentor to those who need a helping hand.
Speaker 1: After all, I was in the same boat twelve years ago,
Speaker 1: so I understand the real lived experiences that people had suffered.
Speaker 1: They're pretty lofty goals and that's a pretty tough, tough task.
Speaker 1: Is this the type of thing that you're doing now?
Speaker 1: What you want to achieve with the work that you're
Speaker 1: doing now?
Speaker 2: Yeah, Look, it definitely is the work I want to achieve,
Speaker 2: and it is the work I'm doing now. I would
Speaker 2: like to see a country where we have all cultures
Speaker 2: come together, no matter the story and the history. But
Speaker 2: to do that, we have to really sit in the
Speaker 2: depth of some of the storytelling and their history so
Speaker 2: healing can take place. I'm a big believer that healing
Speaker 2: can't take place unless an individual has an opportunity to
Speaker 2: tell the story. And for First Nations people in this
Speaker 2: particular instance, with that quote, I think we need to
Speaker 2: have a space whether the real deep stories come out.
Speaker 2: And what I see is that people don't want to
Speaker 2: hear those stories because they're quite deep and they're painful.
Speaker 2: But if we can create a society that can actually
Speaker 2: create safety to hear those stories, we're going to see
Speaker 2: healing on great deep levels. And that's my mission is
Speaker 2: to do those things for all people.
Speaker 1: Well, I think it's a very worthwhile mission, and that
Speaker 1: I know it's not just words. You're actually doing stuff
Speaker 1: to achieve what you're setting out to achieve. So let's
Speaker 1: talk about your release from prison. You had your six years,
Speaker 1: you went out, you ended up back in eighteen months,
Speaker 1: and you've come out talkers about who you were at
Speaker 1: that particular point in time.
Speaker 2: When I got out of jail, I was a person
Speaker 2: that I didn't know where I was going. And again
Speaker 2: I hit a bit of a spiral for a year
Speaker 2: or two on the drugs in our cohol. And then
Speaker 2: some not so good things happen around me. Some people
Speaker 2: were murdered and different things like that, and I switched.
Speaker 2: I changed, and at that moment I was taken in
Speaker 2: by my mother.
Speaker 1: And this was this was when sorry two thousand.
Speaker 2: Two thousand, so December twenty eleven.
Speaker 1: Okay, and knew were how old?
Speaker 2: Roughly twenty eight? Okay, twenty eight so I was twenty
Speaker 2: eight years old. I just spent basically from the age
Speaker 2: of twelve through to twenty eight in chaos. And it
Speaker 2: was not long after that. It was in January twenty
Speaker 2: twelve that my mother said, I want to take you
Speaker 2: into Battle on a tafe in New South Wales and
Speaker 2: enroll you into a cert for in drug and alcohol. See,
Speaker 2: my mother was one of the first aberiginal tri and
Speaker 2: ladies in Australia to do a cert for that was
Speaker 2: ever introduced to Australia back in the ninety sevens or whatever.
Speaker 2: So she wanted me to follow that path. So she goes,
Speaker 2: she takes me into Battle on a tape and I
Speaker 2: signed into a cert for and so that was the
Speaker 2: first introduction basically to education really, despite the ones that
Speaker 2: I had been through in jail. It was the first
Speaker 2: introduction into an academic world that I knew nothing about,
Speaker 2: so much that I actually failed my first assessment because
Speaker 2: I played arisen. I copied people's work. I didn't know
Speaker 2: what was about.
Speaker 1: It would have been intimidating, confusing. Yeah, source your quotes
Speaker 1: and do this. What's this all about? It's a completely
Speaker 1: foreign worll too.
Speaker 2: Yeah, definitely it was. You know that the teachers I'm hearing,
Speaker 2: I'm hearing teachers talk about things from an academic lens
Speaker 2: that I had no idea about. You know, I couldn't
Speaker 2: I couldn't write one hundred words, and so I was
Speaker 2: very vulnerable because I had to. It was also it
Speaker 2: was also a course where it was academic, but yet
Speaker 2: it was telling your story also, and so this was,
Speaker 2: you know, some of the first times that I ever
Speaker 2: told stories. And I'm in a classroom of thirty And
Speaker 2: I've always been quite truthful and open about my story
Speaker 2: because I feel like that's the way to heal. But
Speaker 2: here I am telling the stories that made people kind
Speaker 2: of jewels at the ground because they didn't know how
Speaker 2: to deal with it in the room. And that's kind
Speaker 2: of what also made me think, you know, I want
Speaker 2: to start to learn how we create safe places so
Speaker 2: everybody in the room can actually hear stories, how they
Speaker 2: can share their stories when they hear stories.
Speaker 1: So these are people that had an experience the world
Speaker 1: you've experience, and you're telling your story and that's almost
Speaker 1: too confronting them. They're looking at you differently, and yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's right. And these are people, and look, I
Speaker 2: hold great respect for those people, but these are people
Speaker 2: that's going into the industry to help people like me.
Speaker 2: It's only that I had lived experience in the room,
Speaker 2: and you know, many people didn't, not on the level
Speaker 2: that I probably did. They probably had lived experience in
Speaker 2: many other areas. And I remember going through the journey
Speaker 2: when I tried to heal, you know, the mental health
Speaker 2: services and the hospitals used to kind of send me
Speaker 2: out the door because I didn't know how to help
Speaker 2: me and I wanted to. And I want to make
Speaker 2: a difference in that space. Is that we need people
Speaker 2: that can actually hear the stories of deep trauma. And
Speaker 2: if we don't have those people. We're going to have
Speaker 2: a generation that repeats that trauma outputs to society.
Speaker 1: Okay, so you've enrolled, and how did that change. Was
Speaker 1: there a turning point where you started to feel comfortable
Speaker 1: and yeah, I can actually do this or I'm getting
Speaker 1: where they're coming from.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that was. It was a lady by the name
Speaker 2: of Jenis. She was one of my teachers, and a
Speaker 2: lady by the neigh of Sue, and they were my
Speaker 2: two first teachers. But I got a ninety percent in
Speaker 2: my first assessment. I failed the first one, but then
Speaker 2: when I went back and done and I got ninety percent.
Speaker 2: That was the first assessment I've ever passed them life,
Speaker 2: you know, out of primary school, high school. So I
Speaker 2: didn't believe it to start with because I didn't think
Speaker 2: it was possible. But then I knew that I could
Speaker 2: do something different and I went on and smashed that out. It.
Speaker 2: It took me twelve months. I got all high kind
Speaker 2: of marks for all my assessments, and one of the
Speaker 2: biggest ones that I was the highest thing was actually
Speaker 2: communication and I never knew that, you know, and I
Speaker 2: thought I was I thought I was a shit communicator.
Speaker 1: Well, I'm sitting here and you're a very good communicator.
Speaker 1: But that's funny, and you're like, your self esteem must
Speaker 1: improve so much like doing that. Okay, so I'm not worthless,
Speaker 1: so I've got something to say and do.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's exactly right. And it was in that also
Speaker 2: that moment that people in the room that stayed on
Speaker 2: to do the course, as in other students, when I
Speaker 2: started to tell my story, they were really inspired. You know,
Speaker 2: by six months into the course, they used to really
Speaker 2: love me, kind of checking in their mornings or you know,
Speaker 2: whenever it might be because I bring something new or
Speaker 2: a journey that I just moved through. And so and
Speaker 2: I started to learn not only am I good at
Speaker 2: some of the academic stuff, I'm also good at lived
Speaker 2: experience and sharing stories to help people with inspiration. And
Speaker 2: so I learned quite quick that I was once a
Speaker 2: good drug dealer, I was once a good criminal, but
Speaker 2: now I can be a really good person in this field.
Speaker 2: And that's what really inspired me to transform the skills
Speaker 2: into a different set of kind of work areas, which
Speaker 2: was the trauma reform lens. And that's where I've used
Speaker 2: the not so good experiences from the old life and
Speaker 2: put it to practice in my healthy life.
Speaker 1: Well something's worked. And in two thousand and later and
Speaker 1: you rewarded the Northern Territories Government Aboriginal Services Remote Worker
Speaker 1: of the Year.
Speaker 2: Tell us about that, So I was life went on.
Speaker 2: I went on to do diplomas, degrees, masters, now into PhD.
Speaker 2: And in twenty eighteen I got.
Speaker 1: Sorry, just break that down. So it's all a matter
Speaker 1: of fact, but you're saying the very first one that
Speaker 1: you were enrolled in you were so far out of
Speaker 1: your depth. What have you there?
Speaker 2: So I went from my search for I went into
Speaker 2: a double diploma a year later. That was again that
Speaker 2: was more academic, so it was more writing, more research.
Speaker 2: But again I loved it. It was it was like it
Speaker 2: was like a it was like a fix, you know.
Speaker 2: I was learning something deep for the body. So I
Speaker 2: achieved that. It was it was. It was a journey,
Speaker 2: but I achieved it. And then I went to after
Speaker 2: I finished that, I had never thought in a million
Speaker 2: years I would have a diploma. That was back in
Speaker 2: twenty thirteen. And then I went to Woongoan University and
Speaker 2: I'd done a degree in Indigenous Trauma and Recovery Practices
Speaker 2: that was twenty sixteen, and then at that moment, I thought, Wow,
Speaker 2: there's just no other nowhere else I could go here.
Speaker 2: But then I went on to do a master's. I'd
Speaker 2: had a master's in Indigenous health and I finished that
Speaker 2: got high marks, and then I was considered an academic then.
Speaker 2: And when I say that, I still feel a bit
Speaker 2: with you know, I'm thinking academic. I'm an ex criminal.
Speaker 2: You know, I'm not an academic, but I that's what
Speaker 2: I've become. So I'm quite proud to share that, you know,
Speaker 2: to share that I'm now an academic. And then I've
Speaker 2: gone on now to enter into a PhD. So I'm
Speaker 2: doing a PhD around healing using traditional healing circles and
Speaker 2: how that improves the social emotional being for First Nations people. Okay,
Speaker 2: but not only that, how we create a service where
Speaker 2: the nation has a tool to use with our people.
Speaker 2: So that's what it's all about.
Speaker 1: Well, we'll break that down and delve into that, but
Speaker 1: I just want to ask a question that, Yeah, your
Speaker 1: mum took you in in two thousand of December twenty eleventh,
Speaker 1: and she still had some trust in you. How proud
Speaker 1: was your mum and dad, when you've got to this
Speaker 1: stage where you're graduating and the master's degrees.
Speaker 2: Yeah, look, they I'm the first family member in my
Speaker 2: family of you know, six hundred just from my grandmother's
Speaker 2: line that went on to do a master's and into
Speaker 2: a PhD. So no one's ever graduated in this space.
Speaker 2: So they're pretty proud. They're pretty proud to have, you know,
Speaker 2: a son that they never thought would come out of
Speaker 2: the criminal world and now they feel like it's part
Speaker 2: of their win, you know that they're proud to talk
Speaker 2: about it. So wherever they go, you know, if my
Speaker 2: name gets mentioned, they're like, yeah, that's my son.
Speaker 1: Before they might have been shame.
Speaker 2: They were shame. You know, I put them through a
Speaker 2: lot of shame when I was a young fellow, and
Speaker 2: I might didn't give a shit at the time, but
Speaker 2: I was very selfish. Where now they can be proud.
Speaker 1: Did you have family at the graduation?
Speaker 2: I actually didn't go to my graduation because I was
Speaker 2: actually in community doing work and at the time I
Speaker 2: thought that was more important.
Speaker 1: That says a lot about the person you have become.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, it was more important. It was I was
Speaker 2: in community doing work around suicide which is which is
Speaker 2: the which is linked to the two thousand and eight
Speaker 2: and awards.
Speaker 1: So yeah, so describe us white city dwellers down here.
Speaker 1: When you talk going into community in the Northern Territory,
Speaker 1: what are we looking at? What the people realize?
Speaker 2: So we're going into a community where firstly language for
Speaker 2: local mob, well English is like maybe six language. Yeah,
Speaker 2: sitting with old people that I call so I call
Speaker 2: go into community Bush University. Some of the old people
Speaker 2: that I've sat without on community are some of the
Speaker 2: most smartest people I've ever sat with. And they come
Speaker 2: across to me like a professor in UNI, you know.
Speaker 2: So we're firstly, you know, we've got to move in
Speaker 2: community in a way that's safe. But we're faced with
Speaker 2: trauma beyond our imagination in my experience, And when we
Speaker 2: go in and we start to actually sit, like I said,
Speaker 2: if we create safe enough places, we're gonna hear some
Speaker 2: of the stories. Example, ynd me, you know in the
Speaker 2: Connstant massacres, when one went out to do the work
Speaker 2: out there, we went out onto country, we went back
Speaker 2: to the Connaistant massacres and we sat down for days
Speaker 2: and told them stories. But these are the stories that
Speaker 2: I guess the rest of Australia. I think, you know,
Speaker 2: as in like the cities they may not know about.
Speaker 2: And it's not until you go and sit down and
Speaker 2: hear those stories that you get to grasp the depth
Speaker 2: of trauma and why maybe you know that it might
Speaker 2: be so hard to live in remote because of those
Speaker 2: reasons and why there's needed. You know, there's more resources needed,
Speaker 2: there's more understanding needed, there's more trauma and form skilled
Speaker 2: workers needed. So yeah, it's it's it can be, it
Speaker 2: can be. It can be a hard journey if someone
Speaker 2: doesn't know how to navigator.
Speaker 1: But paying a picture of sitting down and telling telling stories.
Speaker 1: But describe that to us.
Speaker 2: I might use yams as a as a story. Okay,
Speaker 2: So at the time, and again I just want a
Speaker 2: name that I got permission from the family to speak
Speaker 2: about this story. So at the time that Coleman J.
Speaker 2: Walker had been shot, I got a phone call about
Speaker 2: two days later and said, look, would you come out
Speaker 2: into Unimo because no one was allowed to come and
Speaker 2: go at that time. Luckily enough, I was knowing in
Speaker 2: other communities and so they gave me a call to
Speaker 2: go out and sit with the community. So I went
Speaker 2: out in the community and I took about ten or
Speaker 2: fifteen men out onto country. And this is keeping in
Speaker 2: mind just like a week or so just after the shooting,
Speaker 2: and when we sat down on country, we went out
Speaker 2: and the first thing we started to talk about was
Speaker 2: obviously the shooting and the amount of pain that come
Speaker 2: from that conversation was it went straight to the massacres
Speaker 2: and the stories was so in depth. It was the
Speaker 2: fear that the men now in the community feared that
Speaker 2: they might be next in the firing line. And then
Speaker 2: you really will it was real.
Speaker 1: Can you just link the massacres that you talk about
Speaker 1: what the history of that is? Sure so people understand
Speaker 1: and how that history is carried through and.
Speaker 2: Through to the And that's a good point, Gary, is
Speaker 2: the Connist the massacres, you know, happened one hundred or
Speaker 2: so years ago and it was around you know. I
Speaker 2: won't share deeply about the story. It's not my story
Speaker 2: to share, but I share the knowledge that I have,
Speaker 2: and it was around you know. It was a bunch
Speaker 2: of police officers that coming on horseback and shot a
Speaker 2: lot of people out at Conniste. Massac massacre out at Conniston,
Speaker 2: which is fifty k from Mu basically Mu really and
Speaker 2: so they rode through and they shot you know, women,
Speaker 2: children and men. And so now we come to two thousand,
Speaker 2: you know, two thousand and eighty nine and at the time,
Speaker 2: and we go out on country and we start to
Speaker 2: talk about the shooting of common Jay, that shooting at
Speaker 2: that time of common Jay. When we went out on country,
Speaker 2: it was lingering. But the pain of Coniston massacre matched
Speaker 2: and linked to that event because they were very similar.
Speaker 2: Not only you know, did we think the shootings were
Speaker 2: finished at that moment. What was named is that the
Speaker 2: vuneage just also just begun again. And the fear within
Speaker 2: the young men at that time, they were quite worried
Speaker 2: to actually walk around the community because they weren't sure
Speaker 2: if they were actually next. You know, there was a
Speaker 2: deep fear there. And for the old men that held
Speaker 2: the stories of Coniston, the fear was very real because
Speaker 2: they've heard the stories directly from the family members that
Speaker 2: were actually linked to Coniston. So it's not like it was,
Speaker 2: you know, a million years old, this was very recently.
Speaker 2: It was near so and you've got to hold those
Speaker 2: stories with great care, and you've got to listen deeply
Speaker 2: and it's real, you know, it's really real. And the
Speaker 2: sit with some of the young men and the uncles
Speaker 2: and hear those stories. I could, I could, I could
Speaker 2: see the realness and the pain that sat inside them.
Speaker 2: And then we had workshops where all the services would
Speaker 2: come together, and I remember in those workshops we had
Speaker 2: some unfortunately non indigenous workers. When you've got a room
Speaker 2: full of fifteen Yindimou mob say why would you you know,
Speaker 2: why would you think that people are going to be
Speaker 2: shot in this community? And so like it was the
Speaker 2: whole room would go silent, you know. And I remember
Speaker 2: in that moment, like the community just looked around and
Speaker 2: was like, well, actually, we've just had a young person
Speaker 2: shot in this community and we're living on we're living
Speaker 2: on grounds or on country where the colors of the
Speaker 2: Massaic took place. So we had we had to map
Speaker 2: through that to bring some understanding for some of the
Speaker 2: service providers that well, individuals. I should say that pushed
Speaker 2: back on some of that converse.
Speaker 1: See it's interesting talking about it because I do understand
Speaker 1: the world for a variety of reasons, but they also
Speaker 1: understand very much on my white man and when I'm
Speaker 1: working Indigenous communities that I'm trying to be sensitive, but
Speaker 1: sometimes you come in there and it's quank. You've just
Speaker 1: missed the point somewhere. And I know when I did
Speaker 1: work in the Bearable community, elders that pulled me aside,
Speaker 1: like grow that big time when I first came in.
Speaker 1: You're a white man, you're a cop. Why would we
Speaker 1: trust you? And that just h I had to learn,
Speaker 1: and I was fortunate that some of the elders pulled
Speaker 1: me aside and said, hey, just try it this way
Speaker 1: and the difference it makes. But I think there's just
Speaker 1: that misunderstanding. And you would agree. I'm sure that ignorance
Speaker 1: causes problems. If people are ignorant to things, that's where
Speaker 1: where things break down.
Speaker 2: Yeah, definitely. Look, I think you're spot on. And I
Speaker 2: also see it as a few different kind of scenarios,
Speaker 2: Like you have people that made misunderstand and then be
Speaker 2: some ignorance, but they're willing to learn. And then you
Speaker 2: have people that come in that come with the same
Speaker 2: kind of understanding misunderstanding, but yet there's this embedded racism
Speaker 2: that comes. So there's two different lenses. And when that
Speaker 2: other person comes in that has got that deep racis
Speaker 2: and we feel it and we know actually this this
Speaker 2: person is coming in with some deepness that doesn't fit
Speaker 2: this kind of this scene, and so it's not long
Speaker 2: before they've actually marched out a community compared to someone
Speaker 2: that might be non indigenous and comes in may not
Speaker 2: be fully accustomed to everything, or might not understand everything,
Speaker 2: but they're willing to actually hear and listen and take
Speaker 2: on different stuff. And those are the people that make
Speaker 2: a big difference for First Nation's mob, you know, that
Speaker 2: are willing to listen and hear and speak and you know,
Speaker 2: and sit and listen to the elders and be directed
Speaker 2: that way.
Speaker 1: I think some people come in with an unconscious bias,
Speaker 1: which is almost as ignorance, where they think they're saying
Speaker 1: the same thing or saying the right thing, but they're
Speaker 1: showing their biases and the way they think by the
Speaker 1: comments that they're making. It is a delicate area. But
Speaker 1: I'm interested in hearing it from a black fellow's side
Speaker 1: and saying from a white fella. Sometimes it's scary. You
Speaker 1: go in there and you think, okay, I want to
Speaker 1: be appropriate. I'll reference one point because I think this
Speaker 1: is interesting. I've probably talked about it before, but it
Speaker 1: was significant with the Bearable community. When I first became friendly,
Speaker 1: we've started working with them like family. Now I feel
Speaker 1: part of the mob. They said, why doesn't the commissioner
Speaker 1: come up and apologize? If three kids have been murdered,
Speaker 1: they've been a failed investigation, all sorts of things that
Speaker 1: had occurred because of it, Why can't the boss man
Speaker 1: come over and say sorry? And mister SKIPPIONI was the
Speaker 1: commissioner at the time. I remember going to his office
Speaker 1: and he was getting advised by all the people around him,
Speaker 1: and he was listening, and it could see him getting confused,
Speaker 1: more and more confused, and it was becoming more and
Speaker 1: more complicated. He basically said, Gary, what should I do
Speaker 1: when I go there? If I go there? And I said,
Speaker 1: go there and treat them like you treat your own familyircumstances.
Speaker 1: And he ended up coming up and addressing the families
Speaker 1: and saying that we're sorry, we got it wrong, we
Speaker 1: could have done it better. And it was so powerful
Speaker 1: to the community. They still haven't got justice and they're
Speaker 1: still fighting for justice, but just someone to come up there.
Speaker 1: And there were little things like he was going to
Speaker 1: land the police helicopter near the area where the meeting
Speaker 1: was and we pointed out to him it might be
Speaker 1: a good look when the big boss man comes down
Speaker 1: in the helicopter, so maybe driving. But I found that
Speaker 1: good that something like that happened. But yeah, it's all
Speaker 1: about this miscommunication and overcoming these and that's why I'm
Speaker 1: really interested in the work that you're doing, that you're
Speaker 1: trying to break down those barriers.
Speaker 2: A nineteen year old man has been shot dead by
Speaker 2: police in a remote Northern Territory community. Northern Territory police
Speaker 2: officer Zachary Rolf has been acquitted of all.
Speaker 1: Charges over the fatal shooting of Kuma Jal in twenty nineteen.
Speaker 1: Going into the community two days after that shooting, it
Speaker 1: was volatile. It was made national news. There was outrage
Speaker 1: and there was a lot of things happening there. There
Speaker 1: was a lot of pressure going in there. How does
Speaker 1: it feel? What could you feel the tension in the community.
Speaker 2: I could feel. I wouldn't say at tension, I'd feel this.
Speaker 2: I'd say the sadness I didn't feel. I'd never feel
Speaker 2: when I go into community, someone else might feel a tension,
Speaker 2: but I definitely feel the depth of trauma in the
Speaker 2: community rather than the tension. And that took me a
Speaker 2: couple That took me a couple of days to actually
Speaker 2: start to make sense of it. I knew that I'd
Speaker 2: stepped into Yindhu and other places that I go, you know,
Speaker 2: and it's always quite vibrant, and but this time I
Speaker 2: could feel the sadness. I knew that there was a
Speaker 2: lot of sorrow. Obviously we knew, you know, just spend
Speaker 2: a shooting. But I had to actually go, how am
Speaker 2: I going to move in this space? You know, I
Speaker 2: don't want to make a mistake. Even though I am
Speaker 2: a blackfellow, I can still make mistakes. So I had
Speaker 2: to be respectful and I had to And the first
Speaker 2: thing I could think about is I had to just
Speaker 2: move and just listen deeply. I had to practice everything
Speaker 2: that I've been preaching to every other service that I
Speaker 2: work with. I was the one that had to do
Speaker 2: this now, and that's what I did for the last
Speaker 2: you know, up until today. Even I actually literally spoke
Speaker 2: with common Jay's family two days ago to let them
Speaker 2: know what was coming on here to speak with you,
Speaker 2: and they gave me their blessing to speak about different things.
Speaker 1: Okay, and that was out of respect. That was out
Speaker 1: of respect understanding. But because it's those little things, showing
Speaker 1: that respect makes it makes a big difference.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's exactly right.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Yeah, the relationship between police and you can talk
Speaker 1: in a general sense, or you can talk that community
Speaker 1: between police and indigenous community. So how would you describe
Speaker 1: describe you talking in general or you talk let's talk
Speaker 1: the community first up and then in general.
Speaker 2: Look, right now, I'm not sure, and again I wouldn't
Speaker 2: want to cross boundaries and trying to portray what I think.
Speaker 2: But I know at the time, you know, that was
Speaker 2: at the time that the shooting took place, and then
Speaker 2: at the time that the trial was on, I was
Speaker 2: contracted to go and sit with the community for that
Speaker 2: six weeks to sit with community do healing stuff. And
Speaker 2: at that time I remember that the community had said
Speaker 2: to the police, if you want to come and speak
Speaker 2: to us, you put your guns up. And at that time,
Speaker 2: the police put their guns up and they left them
Speaker 2: in the station and they would come down and then
Speaker 2: they would have a meeting with community and they would whatever,
Speaker 2: you know, there'd be conversations. Put it that way. And
Speaker 2: then so at that time, there was a respect happening,
Speaker 2: but again there was still I know, even me as
Speaker 2: an outsider, there wasn't a trust there.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 2: I was like, I'm not just not sure about what's
Speaker 2: happening here. Community has been hurt so much through this
Speaker 2: experience that how do you trust or how are you
Speaker 2: sure with some of the stuff that's happened in Australia
Speaker 2: From a government government perspective, how can you be sure
Speaker 2: that what the people that are showing up here are
Speaker 2: coming with true intent? That was my perspective. That doesn't
Speaker 2: mean that was the perspective of community, but I think
Speaker 2: that I think that we all had that kind of feeling.
Speaker 2: But again, there was there was a respect where the
Speaker 2: police would turn up and have conversations. And again it's
Speaker 2: not my thing to talk about that. I don't want
Speaker 2: to disrespect community and pretend like I know what was
Speaker 2: going on there. That's that's probably more for community to
Speaker 2: speak about. But yeah, look, I do know that at
Speaker 2: the time, some of the elders would say that, you know,
Speaker 2: there was some old police officers that come back to
Speaker 2: work in the community and they respected them. They said
Speaker 2: that that person's okay, you know, we're okay to have
Speaker 2: her here. I remember that there's a particularity.
Speaker 1: So yeah, it's interesting you talk about the community want
Speaker 1: certain police back. I know, the bearable mob one of
Speaker 1: the Lulu She made a comment to me once because
Speaker 1: they rotate police through the stations and the invariably it's
Speaker 1: a two year tenure or three year tenure, and she goes,
Speaker 1: they send us here, these new guys, and it takes
Speaker 1: us two years to train them, and then they get
Speaker 1: rotated out. And I think, yeah, there's some really value
Speaker 1: if you line up police that match the community the
Speaker 1: community like, and if they can stay there forever. I
Speaker 1: don't think it. Don't think it's a bad thing for sure.
Speaker 1: I just think if people it takes a while for
Speaker 1: everyone to learn their place and learn how to communicate,
Speaker 1: and so I can see some benefits there. I had
Speaker 1: Jaron a badge at one of our early guests on
Speaker 1: the podcast, and we've become good friends. She was in
Speaker 1: the police. She grew up in Redfern, in the block
Speaker 1: during the volatile times, and she joined the police because
Speaker 1: she wanted to make a difference, because she saw how
Speaker 1: her family were treated by police growing up in the block.
Speaker 1: She made the comment and that how beneficial it would
Speaker 1: be if the police that are working in country towns,
Speaker 1: where you get some city cops coming up into a
Speaker 1: country town, if it's a high Indigenous population, let them
Speaker 1: go out on country for a week with the elders
Speaker 1: and just get a feel of what this is all about.
Speaker 1: And it wouldn't be a big impost on the police.
Speaker 1: Just say, okay, your first week there are you going
Speaker 1: out on country?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 1: For a week? What do you think of an idea
Speaker 1: like that?
Speaker 2: Look, I think when you tell that that way, what
Speaker 2: I call and what MOB about Central way and top
Speaker 2: end waste would say is that it's been done right way.
Speaker 2: It's been done in a way that's done in First
Speaker 2: Nations way, in MOB way, and anyone that goes out
Speaker 2: into communities this so often. When I brung together the
Speaker 2: fifty seven communities and UNIMUB at that time back in
Speaker 2: twenty nineteen, I think it was we had a room
Speaker 2: of about fifty people, all service providers, and those service
Speaker 2: providers there was half of those that didn't know each
Speaker 2: other and they're working in a community for the last
Speaker 2: eighteen months together, but yet they didn't know each other,
Speaker 2: and they didn't know some of the key elders. And
Speaker 2: so one of the things that I quite often talk
Speaker 2: about when we go into communities and remote communities is
Speaker 2: actually everybody that comes in the community need to do
Speaker 2: a cultural awareness introduction community way, and that means going
Speaker 2: out on country and learning some of the sacred spaces
Speaker 2: and spots of that community. The sacred story is the
Speaker 2: history of the community, because there's much more likely to
Speaker 2: be an understanding of what's took place on them lands.
Speaker 2: But too often you know that doesn't happen. But if
Speaker 2: it was to happen, there'd be a difference.
Speaker 1: I think I think there'd be And I can look
Speaker 1: at it from a police officer's point of view that
Speaker 1: it took me a long time to understand the Bearable
Speaker 1: community because they showed me the time, they had the
Speaker 1: patience with me. But doing something like that, I think
Speaker 1: it would potentially break down barriers. I want to see
Speaker 1: the communication between different different groups. So with that community,
Speaker 1: we've gone a long way from talking about your award.
Speaker 1: Let's bring your award back. That's the type of work
Speaker 1: that you were doing when you got the award in
Speaker 1: two thousand and eight.
Speaker 2: Well, that was one of them that this award here
Speaker 2: in twenty eight een was for another community. I've got
Speaker 2: a phone call there had been a couple of silicides
Speaker 2: and that asks if I'd come and work with the
Speaker 2: men in the community. This is one in a community
Speaker 2: in central Australia, and it earned up staying there for
Speaker 2: two years and we built one of the strongest men's
Speaker 2: groups in the territory and you know, sixty seventy men
Speaker 2: would come along every fortnight. The first time I ever
Speaker 2: run it, there was one person that come and it
Speaker 2: was a non Indigenous teacher and I thought to myself,
Speaker 2: Oh my god, you know, I ain't going to be
Speaker 2: able to pull this off. But two years later it
Speaker 2: was one of the most powerful groups in the territory.
Speaker 2: And we really got to talk about the impacts of
Speaker 2: those suicides on the community because we've seen a lot
Speaker 2: of copycat and happened happening after those two sulicides. You
Speaker 2: had family members trying to take their lives, and you know,
Speaker 2: there was times where I was showing up each weekly
Speaker 2: around one or two potential silicide attempts, and so it
Speaker 2: was pretty scary. For the first twelve months after those
Speaker 2: two sulicides. And so, and that's where the awards come from,
Speaker 2: you know, from that community and that work. It was
Speaker 2: recognized and I won those two awards.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and the high rate of suicide in the communities
Speaker 1: is yeah, it's a well, I say shameful, it's just sad.
Speaker 2: It's yeah, And I think it's very sad. It's very sad,
Speaker 2: and it's due to you know, when you're kind of
Speaker 2: mentioned there before, how do you how would you explain
Speaker 2: on what happens when you go to community and it's
Speaker 2: not until you go to community do you sit and
Speaker 2: you hear some of the experiences of trauma. And that
Speaker 2: I would kind of describe is that these are the
Speaker 2: reasons that some of these suicides are taking places because
Speaker 2: of some of that historical trauma, some of the intergenerational
Speaker 2: trauma that has never been addressed. And yet when I
Speaker 2: come from the city perspective or I see social media,
Speaker 2: it's always about you know, you know, blackfellows this or
Speaker 2: Aboriginal people this. But there's actually a story behind some
Speaker 2: of that stuff. You know, let's listen to that and
Speaker 2: we're going to make a difference. And so that's what
Speaker 2: I see playing out is suicides and not so good
Speaker 2: behaviors due to the impact of trauma.
Speaker 1: And you mentioned the copycat suicides when there's one in
Speaker 1: the community, invariably, yeah, it creates others doing the going
Speaker 1: down the same path.
Speaker 2: It definitely does. And I talk about this this term
Speaker 2: that's called unfinished business, and what that means is if
Speaker 2: you're a young person and you've maybe had the thought
Speaker 2: of suicide in your life, you know, you might forget
Speaker 2: about it from eleven through to twenty one, and then
Speaker 2: at twenty one you'll see somebody try to do suicide
Speaker 2: or they might actually succeed in side, and then you'll
Speaker 2: you know, those young people that has that that had
Speaker 2: that pain inside, that unfinished business will be will be triggered,
Speaker 2: and then all of a sudden, that's where the copycat
Speaker 2: will start to take place. And I see, I see
Speaker 2: that quite often, you know, in communities, and it's really sad.
Speaker 2: I think you named it very well, you know, spot on,
Speaker 2: it's sad. The men's group, YE talk us through what
Speaker 2: you can tell us of. You get a men's men's group.
Speaker 2: So you said you've met once a fortnight. What happens
Speaker 2: there so people understand. So look, firstly, what we do
Speaker 2: is we establish we establish a safe place. And more
Speaker 2: times than not, you know, when I go to a community,
Speaker 2: a lot of the service providers that fund me to
Speaker 2: come into the community, they might identify to have a
Speaker 2: men's men's group in the community. And one of the
Speaker 2: first things that we identified together as men is we
Speaker 2: go where is your safe place here? Like, where would
Speaker 2: you feel safe to meet and start to talk about
Speaker 2: these stories. And because one of my one of my
Speaker 2: things is I think that you know, there's this terminology
Speaker 2: is that men don't talk about emotions. I like to
Speaker 2: flip that on the head and I think, you know,
Speaker 2: it's not that, it's just there's not enough safe places.
Speaker 2: And so these men identify that usually there's safe places
Speaker 2: on country, usually on men's ceremony grounds, and so that's
Speaker 2: where we go back. We go back to that place
Speaker 2: that's safe, and more times than not one hundred percent
Speaker 2: of the time, when we do this, we then start
Speaker 2: to identify some traditional ways of being sitting in circle
Speaker 2: and what's the elements to create in safety for men
Speaker 2: to actually talk about those stories. And that's where it begins.
Speaker 2: It begins by finding a safe place on country that
Speaker 2: the men know in the body is safe because I
Speaker 2: know no one can go there and that's a safe
Speaker 2: place for them.
Speaker 1: Okay, And that creates it, and that creates it your
Speaker 1: business or that you've set up, what's the situation there.
Speaker 2: So I obviously developed a So I've got a business.
Speaker 2: It's Lucas Williams leadership inside out and connect to that
Speaker 2: is also a business of mind, which is called garner healing.
Speaker 2: When it's a model, Garner healing means deep listening and
Speaker 2: it's become best practice in Australia. It services some of
Speaker 2: the some of the Australia's largest mental health services and
Speaker 2: government bodies and so on, and so it's a trauma
Speaker 2: informed experiential program that can train up workforces from CEO
Speaker 2: down to your cleaner. And also that's one component. But
Speaker 2: then there's also leadership stuff in there. There's cultural awareness
Speaker 2: stuff in there. There's also just me working with CEOs
Speaker 2: in for example, there's a CEO at the moment in
Speaker 2: Australia and I'm working with that CEO on how to
Speaker 2: actually move within remote communities and it's going beautifully.
Speaker 1: So this is the cultural awareness and competency that needs
Speaker 1: to You can I'll say a mining company. I mean,
Speaker 1: it's a mining company going into a community. What are
Speaker 1: the type of things to approach the community.
Speaker 2: Yeah, But the difference with what I do is, so
Speaker 2: you've got your cultural awareness training where I actually come
Speaker 2: and I actually work with CEOs and different people more
Speaker 2: one on one rather because anyone can go through a training,
Speaker 2: but it's about being competent in the way that we
Speaker 2: move forward. And so I kind of work with people
Speaker 2: and all right, how do we do this? And then
Speaker 2: they'll bring me back stories that they're uncomfortable about or
Speaker 2: they didn't work out, or they didn't this, or they
Speaker 2: didn't that, and we story map that on how to
Speaker 2: actually do things a little bit different. So that's the
Speaker 2: cultural competency stuff, motivational speaking around my story. But the
Speaker 2: biggest component of what I do is the trauma and
Speaker 2: form work in remote communities for men, women and communities.
Speaker 2: And the element to it is deep listening. You know,
Speaker 2: if we can listen deeply a little bit like that
Speaker 2: Yindermuse story I shared with you. When I went into
Speaker 2: that community, I didn't know what to do, but one
Speaker 2: of the things that I fell upon was going back
Speaker 2: to my own model was deep listening and just being
Speaker 2: in the space and listening to the stories and then
Speaker 2: when I enter that, I usually find the solution that
Speaker 2: I need to that I need to go upon. And
Speaker 2: so that's kind of the journey that we take people on,
Speaker 2: you know. It's an experiential journey.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, And there'd be a lot of demand for it.
Speaker 1: I would imagine there is.
Speaker 2: I'm booked out way in events and there is a
Speaker 2: lot of demand, and I wish there was more like it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah, Hi guys, just a quick interruption to
Speaker 1: let you know about a new podcast from the team
Speaker 1: behind Eye Catch Killers. It's called The Mushroom Cook. It's
Speaker 1: about a case that made headlines around the world last year,
Speaker 1: the prosecution of a Victorian woman called Aaron Patterson over
Speaker 1: a family lunch that left three people dead. The podcast
Speaker 1: goes deep into what we know about those alleged murders
Speaker 1: in the coming months. It will also follow the twists
Speaker 1: and turns as erin who's denied any wrongdoing faces trial.
Speaker 1: If you subscribe to crimex Plus, you'll get access to
Speaker 1: The Mushroom Cook early and ad free. Just search for
Speaker 1: The Mushroom Cook on crimex Plus on Apple Podcasts. I'm
Speaker 1: going to ask you a question. It's because I'm genuinely
Speaker 1: curious the referendum from last year, the result the no
Speaker 1: vote went out. I'm not ashamed to say I was
Speaker 1: against that I was yes, and I'm not ashamed to
Speaker 1: say that I was yes all the way. So I
Speaker 1: was particularly disappointed when the no vote came through. But
Speaker 1: there was a lot of talk and there was a
Speaker 1: lot of confusion, like across the country, and you'd be thinking,
Speaker 1: you know, like in this are definitely it was going
Speaker 1: to be the yes vote that we went for. So
Speaker 1: when the no vote came out, I was disappointed. How
Speaker 1: did it feel in the communities? What was it because
Speaker 1: there seemed to be some division between there's people are
Speaker 1: respected that were saying no, and there's people are respected
Speaker 1: that were saying yes. And I'm talking Indigenous people. Divide
Speaker 1: the Indigenous community and what's your views on the whole thing.
Speaker 2: I had the same experience, like obviously I was a yes.
Speaker 2: I had sisters of mine, very close people that I
Speaker 2: was connected to that voted no. And what I did
Speaker 2: is I tried to stay out of the argument of
Speaker 2: it or that was very hurtful. And then I was
Speaker 2: traveling community at the time, and I remember every single
Speaker 2: elder or person I come up against was not up
Speaker 2: against that I actually connected with. They expressed the deep
Speaker 2: kind of pain of the no And one of the
Speaker 2: most probably pivotal things that i'd heard was that an
Speaker 2: old man said to me, you know, I think we've
Speaker 2: just confirmed that Australia has identified and confirmed that we're
Speaker 2: living a racist country. And I was like wow, and
Speaker 2: I said, oh, tell me why, uncle, and he goes, well,
Speaker 2: you know, a majority of our people actually wanted the
Speaker 2: yes vote, and the way that he expresses it and
Speaker 2: the way that I seen it, I think that was
Speaker 2: the case. And we've actually, unfortunately been there's been a
Speaker 2: decision made for us, but not from our own people.
Speaker 2: It's been from the rest the majority of Australia. And
Speaker 2: that's the same. You know, it's not the same. That's sad,
Speaker 2: because I would never want to make a decision for
Speaker 2: another culture that's not the same as my culture. I
Speaker 2: would want them to make the own decision what's right
Speaker 2: for them, and want to support that. And so that's
Speaker 2: how I see it, you know, I think, you know,
Speaker 2: if there's a culture that's hurting, no matter what culture
Speaker 2: they come from, no matter what background they have, and
Speaker 2: they're saying that something needs to change for them. Let's
Speaker 2: love them and support that, and let's just support that
Speaker 2: journey for them. And so I find it really hard
Speaker 2: to understand. I just I find it baffling to understand why,
Speaker 2: you know, why, why it was?
Speaker 1: It was a sad, sad day, I thought. And what
Speaker 1: worried me after it? This is just from my own
Speaker 1: personal experience. I was doing a talk to a large,
Speaker 1: large crowd and an acknowledgment from country, and people started
Speaker 1: doing and hissing, and you're thinking this wouldn't have happened
Speaker 1: three four weeks ago. But it was almost like, no,
Speaker 1: we're definitely for the no boat. It was almost making
Speaker 1: a statement that wasn't everyone. That was just a small group.
Speaker 1: But I'm thinking that wouldn't occur. And I just hope it, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I hope it doesn't make things worse. But I thought
Speaker 1: it was a sad day.
Speaker 2: Yeah, definitely. Look, and I actually done a keynote speech
Speaker 2: a couple of days after the no vote, and and
Speaker 2: I was emotional. I'd delivered in a way that was
Speaker 2: really good, but you know, I felt the pain of it.
Speaker 2: It was really painful. And so I had to be
Speaker 2: off social media. I had to not be involved in
Speaker 2: you know, because I was getting I noticed I was
Speaker 2: being asked questions about the yes or no vote, not
Speaker 2: purely to hear what I thought, more so so they
Speaker 2: could hear so they could respond to me. And I
Speaker 2: find that's pretty that's not good behavior. You know that game.
Speaker 2: Why would you want to do that to somebody yourself? Yeah,
Speaker 2: so so, yeah, it's it's a shame. But but I
Speaker 2: guess something that I will take from this, and something
Speaker 2: I've also said in my keynotes is that yes, it's
Speaker 2: a no, but I'm going to do everything in my
Speaker 2: power to continue to bring healing. So so that's that's
Speaker 2: still my mission, even though that's been an experience that's hurtful,
Speaker 2: same as the sixty seven but you know, well actually
Speaker 2: not the same as the sixty seven. My grandmother was
Speaker 2: part of the sixty seven referendum. So it's that pain's
Speaker 2: in there, but I need to dis continue to do
Speaker 2: the healing.
Speaker 1: Yeah, did you ever, in your wildless dreams think you'd
Speaker 1: be where you are now? When you were angry young man,
Speaker 1: even after they gave you six years, you decided to
Speaker 1: come out and settle some scores you had to go
Speaker 1: back in. Did you ever envision that you would turn
Speaker 1: your life around like this?
Speaker 2: No, Look, my my vision was there's a couple of movies.
Speaker 2: There's one The Postcard Bandit and the other is Blow
Speaker 2: and Has. So my vision as a young Fellows, I
Speaker 2: wanted to become an arm ROBBERI like postcard branded.
Speaker 1: I wanted to it or something.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I've done time with Abbot here ago. And
Speaker 2: I also wanted to have the money that Johnny Depp
Speaker 2: had in that movie. So that was my I was like,
Speaker 2: I wanted to achieve that, and that's where I've become.
Speaker 2: You know, I speak look and blah blah blah, but
Speaker 2: I would never imagine that I would actually be on
Speaker 2: the other side of the other side of the fence,
Speaker 2: helping people and looking back at that life and just
Speaker 2: thinking to myself, you know, even the language within the
Speaker 2: jail systems, I don't use that anymore in my life today.
Speaker 2: I don't want it to consist in my life that
Speaker 2: my kids here, because I just see it as a
Speaker 2: load of shit. And so I wouldn't ever see myself
Speaker 2: back in that world. And I always encourage the men
Speaker 2: that I sit with today is you know, to transform
Speaker 2: the brain, he must transform everything. And that means our
Speaker 2: language the way we talk about jail, because that doesn't
Speaker 2: that's not part of who I am anymore. My story
Speaker 2: is a different story. And I want the people in
Speaker 2: my life, to my kids to grow up with that.
Speaker 2: I don't want to grow up with the language of jail.
Speaker 1: Well, listening to listening to your talk, yeah, I can
Speaker 1: see why you're doing a lot of keynotes. That's someone
Speaker 1: that and they were right way back in the early
Speaker 1: days when they said you've got good communication skills. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: So you've definitely moved from that life. But there's so
Speaker 1: much to be learned from your lived experiences and it
Speaker 1: carries weight and what you're doing, and it's made you
Speaker 1: the person you are today.
Speaker 2: And it does And look, I remember this one police officer.
Speaker 2: I haven't heard of his name for a long time.
Speaker 2: His name was Aaron O'Sullivan and he was in He
Speaker 2: was a police officer, detective in New South Wales, and
Speaker 2: I remember he was one of the police officers that
Speaker 2: used to say to me, look, you're going to make
Speaker 2: it somewhere in life one day. This is a three
Speaker 2: and your old boy. And it was one of them
Speaker 2: cops that used to say, you know what made I've
Speaker 2: got youa you can lie you one, but I've got you.
Speaker 2: And I used to just go, yeah, you got me. Yeah,
Speaker 2: And I always remember him saying that to me, and
Speaker 2: I always believed it, always like, yeah, I'm going to
Speaker 2: do something different in my life, and here I am today.
Speaker 1: Well, it just shows how important when you're in those
Speaker 1: low points that you were in your life, if one
Speaker 1: person shows you some respect or it gives you some encouragement,
Speaker 1: the difference that can make.
Speaker 2: It's major. Yeah, yeah, it's major. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Well, I think this is about time that we wrap
Speaker 1: it up. I just want to say it's an absolute
Speaker 1: pleasure sitting down and having a chat with you, and yeah,
Speaker 1: if you ever reflect and laying there reflecting your balancing
Speaker 1: the ledger get back to what with the introduction that
Speaker 1: you wanted to make a difference, you wanted to heal,
Speaker 1: and you wanted to heal others, and you're actually doing
Speaker 1: all those things.
Speaker 2: Yeah, definitely. Well I hope I hope to like I
Speaker 2: hope to think I am doing those things. I want
Speaker 2: to do everything in my power to make sure that
Speaker 2: I do those things for people.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, you're working in a tough area, a difficult area,
Speaker 1: in an emotional area, sad, it's got all the emotions
Speaker 1: there and you're hanging in and you are making a difference.
Speaker 1: So congratulations and thanks for coming on. I catch killers.
Speaker 2: Yeah, thanks Gerry, thanks for having me.
Speaker 1: Cheers.
Speaker 2: Thanks.
Speaker 1: Well, we've done a lot of stories of redemption and
Speaker 1: he's right up there. His life was at a pretty
Speaker 1: low place when he was in prison, but look at
Speaker 1: the work he's doing now. I'm very familiar with the
Speaker 1: type of work Lucas is doing in remote communities, and
Speaker 1: it's a tough gig and I think quite inspiring. Not
Speaker 1: only has he healed himself, he's now trying to heal others.
Speaker 1: And it's important to bridge that gap between indigenous communities
Speaker 1: and the white communities and bring everyone together. And people
Speaker 1: like the work that Lucas is doing, or people like
Speaker 1: Lucas and doing the work he's doing, is doing just that.