Speaker 1: The public has had a long held fascination with detectives.
Speaker 1: Detective see 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. We've retired
Speaker 1: New South Wales Police Assistant Commissioner Mark Goodwin and former
Speaker 1: New South Wales Police Minister Carl Scully. Welcome back, guys,
Speaker 1: Thank you now. If you miss part one. The two
Speaker 1: men that we've got in the studio today, they were
Speaker 1: in their roles as police Minister and Assistant commission that
Speaker 1: we were in charge or overseeing what happened in the
Speaker 1: Crenulla Rights and the aftermath of the Cronulla Rights. In
Speaker 1: Part one we talked about the build up to the rights,
Speaker 1: specific incidents that had occurred, and that was on the
Speaker 1: eleventh of December two thousand and five. What the public
Speaker 1: don't know, and I think this is where we'll get
Speaker 1: into it a little bit in a little bit more depth,
Speaker 1: is what happened after the rights. Let's call them revenge attacks.
Speaker 1: A lot of it's been covered in the book that
Speaker 1: our two guests of co authored called The Cronulla Rights. Guys,
Speaker 1: can you tell me about the revenge attacks? We finished
Speaker 1: off in part one talking about Okay, on that particular night,
Speaker 1: people went home, people got tired, they went home. But
Speaker 1: that was just the start of what happened to happen
Speaker 1: in regards to law enforcement, to make sure the situation
Speaker 1: didn't escalate.
Speaker 2: Probably best mark if you want to deal with Yeah.
Speaker 3: Look, the six o'clock news hit that night after the
Speaker 3: incidents during the day at Crinella, which was primarily a protest,
Speaker 3: and as we've discussed in Part one that there was
Speaker 3: violent incidents occurred down there, but the media had strung
Speaker 3: them together in such quick succession with excited voiceover that
Speaker 3: it made it look like a five thousand strong Caucasian
Speaker 3: crowd had carried on like that all day long, which
Speaker 3: was not the case. Regardless, that was seen obviously wired
Speaker 3: and fired and justified the media beat.
Speaker 4: Up and build up to the actual day.
Speaker 3: So what occurred then is that's put broadcast into every
Speaker 3: lound room around certainly New South Wales, if not Australia
Speaker 3: and even internationally, and that enraged the young Lebanese Muslim
Speaker 3: youth that had seen people from their community being assaulted
Speaker 3: on the beach by these inebriated Caucasians. And what started
Speaker 3: from them almost instantly we started hearing and having information
Speaker 3: brought to my attention was things that started popping up
Speaker 3: at I think the first one was at Saint George
Speaker 3: Hospital and then at Brighton the Sands and incidents that
Speaker 3: were occurring which were of violent nature and.
Speaker 4: Quite extreme.
Speaker 3: And then we moved the command center then to the
Speaker 3: Sydney Police Center and opened up the large Police Operations Center,
Speaker 3: which had already been running in a support role to myself,
Speaker 3: but we activated in full mode then and I called
Speaker 3: back and luckily, in the planning for this, we had
Speaker 3: anticipated that this may occur. So we immediately called back
Speaker 3: in a large number of extra police to relieve the
Speaker 3: ones that had been on duty all day in the
Speaker 3: hot sun, and even they were kept on though anyway
Speaker 3: on overtime. But and I recalled an number of superintendent
Speaker 3: local commanders to specific areas around the cocker Rockdale, Brighton,
Speaker 3: Lessens and Uncliff area, the campsy La Kember Cannbury Bankstown
Speaker 3: area and also in the eastern suburbs.
Speaker 4: And what occurred is that.
Speaker 3: We had then closed down the bridges into the Sutherland Shire.
Speaker 3: We didn't even have the powers to do this, but
Speaker 3: we just anticipated what was coming because I had been
Speaker 3: a crome manager at Banksdown for five years and before
Speaker 3: that had detected for five years as well in the
Speaker 3: early eighties. But I knew what was coming and my
Speaker 3: experience told me that this is going to be bad.
Speaker 4: And it was.
Speaker 3: And what we started seeing was these marauding groups of
Speaker 3: up to fifty cars of young Lebanese Muslim men, very enraged,
Speaker 3: very angry, and they armed themselves with baseball bats, knives, guns,
Speaker 3: and we had entire suburbs attacked, such as Muruba, because
Speaker 3: they couldn't get into the Sutherland because the bridges were shut,
Speaker 3: even though we didn't have the power to do it.
Speaker 3: We just closed them off, anticipating and knowing what may happen.
Speaker 3: So that first night they didn't get in there, but
Speaker 3: they went to Ruber instead because what had occurred was
Speaker 3: in the lead up to it, most unehelpfully, there'd been
Speaker 3: an article run where the head of the Bra Boys
Speaker 3: had said in the front page of the Daily Telegraph
Speaker 3: that either reason they don't come here to Maruber is
Speaker 3: because of us the bra Boys.
Speaker 4: Well they came to Ruber, all right. They came that.
Speaker 1: Night waving the red flag.
Speaker 4: Rave the red flag.
Speaker 3: A very irresponsible article and it absolutely caused Maruba to
Speaker 3: be trushed. And what occurred over there was there was
Speaker 3: rated paging gangs of up to fifty cars. They got
Speaker 3: out with baseball bats, knives and they just went ballistic
Speaker 3: on the town and they smashed car windows, shop windows,
Speaker 3: People walking down the streets were baseball battered. We had stabbings.
Speaker 3: We had over that period. That night and the next
Speaker 3: following nights. This went on with more and more viciousness,
Speaker 3: and you know, there was churches, Christian churches burnt down
Speaker 3: in the West suburbs.
Speaker 4: There was people stabbed. They got into the Shire.
Speaker 3: The following night into the sutherland Shire, there was a
Speaker 3: young guy stabbed outside viciously and almost died outside Willowere
Speaker 3: Golf Club. And look, there was numerous baseball battings going
Speaker 3: on and assaults, people being punch kicked and stuff for
Speaker 3: no other reason that they were just Caucasians.
Speaker 4: So that escalated to a point where.
Speaker 3: We were having a lot of trouble responding to this
Speaker 3: because there was so mobile, they were so random. They
Speaker 3: were unlike popularist media have reported that they were all
Speaker 3: coming from a particular park in Punchbow, they were emanating
Speaker 3: from numerous areas in the western suburbs, all done by
Speaker 3: mobile phane and meet up points organized very quickly. And
Speaker 3: these mobile rampaging gangs very hard to police with. What
Speaker 3: traditionally we see of public order is the static police
Speaker 3: lines protests.
Speaker 1: A one hundred right squad police up this OA. It
Speaker 1: don't turn up there.
Speaker 3: In a particular area because you well know that's where
Speaker 3: the protest.
Speaker 4: Is going to be. But this was random.
Speaker 3: That was a lot night under the cover of darkness,
Speaker 3: and you know this way years later we see that
Speaker 3: and we say that there's just this media coverage of
Speaker 3: the daytime events at Cornella is all you see. If
Speaker 3: you google the Cronella RTEs, that's all you will see.
Speaker 3: Because the media couldn't keep up. They literally decided and
Speaker 3: they often act as a pack, and they decided at
Speaker 3: about five o'clock at Cronell it was all over and
Speaker 3: went in and they were out to dinner when the
Speaker 3: main event occurred, which was the revenge attacks. And there's
Speaker 3: no imagery, and these revenge attacks would have fed you've said,
Speaker 3: like the six o'clock news, and I remember anyone around
Speaker 3: at the time would remember how it was covered and
Speaker 3: how you described it as it was a right of
Speaker 3: large group of ossie males attacking anyone that came to
Speaker 3: the beach of Middle Eastern appearance. And from what we've
Speaker 3: learned in part one, that wasn't entirely as yeah, as
Speaker 3: straightforward as that, and that wasn't the numbers that were
Speaker 3: portrayed in the media. But I know, like I was
Speaker 3: speaking to in prep for the podcast, speaking to a
Speaker 3: Lebanese friend, and she said she was getting calls as
Speaker 3: you touched on from overseas, going are you guys all
Speaker 3: right over there?
Speaker 1: What's happening? Because that was the type of thing, that's
Speaker 1: thing that was being portrayed, all the images that were
Speaker 1: being portrayed in the media. What happened in the follow
Speaker 1: up attacks didn't capture the media's attention because a little
Speaker 1: bit harder, as you started to explain. But from a
Speaker 1: policing point of view, and I ask you this, and
Speaker 1: I'd also defer to you, Carl, because I think there
Speaker 1: had to be changes in the legislation that got pushed through.
Speaker 1: The type of powers mark that you were seeking to
Speaker 1: quell that like stopping cars and pulling people over, we
Speaker 1: didn't have those powers readily available. There was a little,
Speaker 1: let's call it a gray area on what authority they
Speaker 1: could use.
Speaker 3: Yeah, well, what we found was is that first off,
Speaker 3: this mass text messaging that was going on and that's
Speaker 3: how things were being organized, we didn't have powers to
Speaker 3: search phones and discover what had been said and where
Speaker 3: it was being said and where they were going to.
Speaker 3: So that was one issue. Another issue, we didn't have
Speaker 3: powers to actually lock down suburbs. And you know there
Speaker 3: was in those days, there was random breath testing legislation,
Speaker 3: so we use that, but we literally didn't have the
Speaker 3: We didn't have the power to lock down these bridges
Speaker 3: to keep them out of the Sutherland Shower or any
Speaker 3: other suburbs, Ruber or anywhere else.
Speaker 4: But he just did it anyway.
Speaker 3: And in discussions with the government with Carl Scully, who
Speaker 3: was a police minister, we said, we think we need
Speaker 3: these powers.
Speaker 4: We need to be able.
Speaker 3: To search these people, and we need to be able
Speaker 3: to stop search these marauding gangs of cars. We need
Speaker 3: to be able to confiscate their cars.
Speaker 4: We need to be able to search.
Speaker 3: Through their phones and if these messaging, seize those phones,
Speaker 3: because these are the weapons you're literally being used to
Speaker 3: organize and then also to shut licensed premises in case
Speaker 3: there was more an ebriot sort of action on the beach.
Speaker 3: And look, we went to the government and the response
Speaker 3: and Car can talk about this because he was the minister.
Speaker 3: But like the response week, I've never seen anything like it. Like,
Speaker 3: as I said before part one, the Parliament was in recess,
Speaker 3: so they finished for the year.
Speaker 5: You've got holidays, Car, not quite holidays, but the parliament
Speaker 5: itself it was in recess, and you know, and the
Speaker 5: response that week, I wish I let Carl talk about
Speaker 5: now from our law enforcement perspective was phenomenal how the
Speaker 5: government reacted and able to car for what was actually done.
Speaker 2: So I'll give an example.
Speaker 6: Once we gave the power of entering public transport, inspect
Speaker 6: all cars, inspecting phones, and then arresting and confiscating, it
Speaker 6: went through like a bush telegraph. Suddenly these young men
Speaker 6: realized the cops are there. If I've got this on
Speaker 6: my phone, I can be put in prison. So that
Speaker 6: was very rapidly impacted upon this incitement, and certainly the
Speaker 6: out of lockdown suburbs and to seize cars and detain
Speaker 6: people was enormously important. But yes, Mark's right, we acted
Speaker 6: as quickly as we possibly could. Eleventh of December it occurred,
Speaker 6: and the fifteenth that became law. So we had a
Speaker 6: cabinet meeting a minute and the cabinet resolved very quickly.
Speaker 6: By the way, there was no twenty page cabinet minute
Speaker 6: with all this stuff. We met and the Cabinet secretary
Speaker 6: made some notes about what we decided, and those notes
Speaker 6: went to the Parliamentary Council and a bill was quickly
Speaker 6: drafted and Parliament recalled and it.
Speaker 2: Was all very very quick.
Speaker 1: Credit to you, because I've been involved in trying to
Speaker 1: get legislative changes on certain things, and I can assure
Speaker 1: you it doesn't go that quick.
Speaker 6: It was pretty impressive to see, but it gave them
Speaker 6: what they needed. So, as I said, my job was
Speaker 6: to provide the powers, the personnel and resources and to
Speaker 6: nudge the commissioner around when he needed to be, to
Speaker 6: give the backing to someone like Mark Goodwin and his commanders.
Speaker 6: And I think the government did that well.
Speaker 1: At what point you mentioned in part one early that
Speaker 1: you flagged the idea of bringing the military in At
Speaker 1: what stage in events was that when.
Speaker 6: You straight after the main event? And I had the
Speaker 6: concerns historically from McQuary Fields, And perhaps if I could
Speaker 6: recount a quick story. The day after the mcquarie Fields
Speaker 6: first day, which you might call went for about four
Speaker 6: days or so, I had a meeting. I'd been minister
Speaker 6: for about four or five weeks and we met out
Speaker 6: at McQuary Fields and I said, all right, what are
Speaker 6: you doing this evening? Oh, I've got one hundred and
Speaker 6: fifty police said is that enough? Do you think that's enough?
Speaker 6: And on the way back to the office I rang
Speaker 6: the commissioner. I said, I'm just a lawyer who went
Speaker 6: into politics who ended up as police minister. But you
Speaker 6: guys have been doing this for decades.
Speaker 2: He rang me back.
Speaker 6: Five minutes later and said, well, actually, there's going to
Speaker 6: be six hundred and so when at the end of
Speaker 6: the same year I got oh, we're putting six hundred in,
Speaker 6: I thought, well, is that the magic number for law
Speaker 6: and order events? And I said this is a lot
Speaker 6: worse than mcquarie fields. Do I need to ask the
Speaker 6: premier to bring soldiers in? We'll need to put troops
Speaker 6: on the street. And he got the message very quickly.
Speaker 6: We changed the law, We gave the powers to the cops,
Speaker 6: and the commissioner authorized two thousand police officers. So he
Speaker 6: did what was expected of him, and I believe the
Speaker 6: government did what was expected of it. All we can
Speaker 6: do is empower the police with personnel, resources and powers,
Speaker 6: and there was up to them to do that work.
Speaker 6: But we knew he had plans in place. He already
Speaker 6: had those escalation plans in place, which he was already
Speaker 6: implementing from the previous evening.
Speaker 1: Okay, mark those powers when they came in the play
Speaker 1: and the resourcing that we just talked about, then, how
Speaker 1: much did that assist in staying on top of the situation.
Speaker 3: Look, I think the people of this South Wales have
Speaker 3: really got no idea what threat they were under. And
Speaker 3: I'll talk about the second the intelligence that we had,
Speaker 3: and then you know we needed those powers. We were
Speaker 3: acting and hoc really and just doing it because it
Speaker 3: was the right thing to do. Bit like Craig Campbell
Speaker 3: on the on the train. If people want to say
Speaker 3: that's a defensive weapon and he was using it offensively,
Speaker 3: well that's what was required at the time. We shut
Speaker 3: down bridges, we shut down suburbs and stuff because there'd
Speaker 3: be people dead otherwise and that's your job as policing.
Speaker 4: Worry about it later.
Speaker 3: But we did need these powers to give the police
Speaker 3: the assurance on the street of doing what I was
Speaker 3: asking them to do was lawful and that they needed
Speaker 3: that morale boost. And look, the government responses I've outlined
Speaker 3: already was was, I mean, it's a fantastic example of
Speaker 3: the system, the best I've ever seen to have legislation
Speaker 3: after I opened my mouth on the table four days
Speaker 3: and I'm using it four days later.
Speaker 4: So we gave police a great morale boost.
Speaker 3: We certainly then organized our plans around that and you know,
Speaker 3: the following week again we had to run an operation
Speaker 3: because of the amount of intelligence we had. We had
Speaker 3: to run an operation that extended from Woollongong in the
Speaker 3: south to Newcastle in the north, with two thousand police involved.
Speaker 3: And that was the largest public order operation ever run
Speaker 3: in Australia and still to this day is it was very,
Speaker 3: very complex in seven zones and shut We used this
Speaker 3: legislation and were shut down and lockdown areas based upon
Speaker 3: the intelligence we had, mostly beachside suburbs, but certainly inner
Speaker 3: western Sydney as well. And you know, people entering and
Speaker 3: leaving those had to give reasons they were there, They
Speaker 3: had to show identification, so they are lockdown with roadblocks
Speaker 3: like you know in COVID. People saw it in COVID,
Speaker 3: but this this happened in parts of as I said,
Speaker 3: right from Wollongong to Newcastle, Beach suburbs lockdown completely and
Speaker 3: you had to either live there or show identification as
Speaker 3: to why you were going in there, have a reason
Speaker 3: to go in there, and your car would be searched
Speaker 3: and you would be searched. And but look, the public
Speaker 3: were very cooperative because you know, I can't recall one
Speaker 3: single complaint that we had against any police officer during
Speaker 3: that period of time, which is just bizarre for the
Speaker 3: amount of this law enforcement that was done, and.
Speaker 4: It was over the top.
Speaker 3: But they were built in safeguards in this law enforcement
Speaker 3: activity too, because the use of these powers can only
Speaker 3: be authorized by an Assistant commissioner, which was me sign
Speaker 3: You had to sign off on it, a bit like
Speaker 3: I say, controlled operation type thing. It's not just an
Speaker 3: everyday power that exists normally, so it has to be
Speaker 3: extreme circumstances and this then gets signed off and it
Speaker 3: then becomes the fact that the police can use it.
Speaker 3: They can't use these powers on any other normal day,
Speaker 3: So they were these safeguards build into it. But it
Speaker 3: gave police enormous confidence and it was.
Speaker 1: Used, and it was used heaps and making the difference.
Speaker 1: Let's talk about the intel that there's some that's referred
Speaker 1: to in the book and conversations I've had with you
Speaker 1: quite horrific the potential for what they'd been rumored to
Speaker 1: be about to occur.
Speaker 3: Yeah, look, I'll give you a couple of examples, and
Speaker 3: we reveal this in the book. For the first time ever,
Speaker 3: we had intelligence, for instance, that there was going to
Speaker 3: be a drive by shooting with Uzi submachine guns at
Speaker 3: the Northey's Hotel at Cronulla, which is the local drinking
Speaker 3: whole of a Friday Saturday night. The following weekend there
Speaker 3: was going to be this drive by shooting.
Speaker 4: There was also in.
Speaker 3: That same incident going to be a hand grenade thrown
Speaker 3: into the front bier garden. We knew from existing task
Speaker 3: forces of the police that there was attempts being made
Speaker 3: to purchase a hand grenade on the black market. There
Speaker 3: was an undercover operation that the police ran that week
Speaker 3: and took a hand grenade off the street and purchased
Speaker 3: it and it was secured by the bomb squad and removed.
Speaker 3: There was search warrants also done to remove guns off
Speaker 3: the street and another potential source that we knew was
Speaker 3: another potential source of another hand grenade from intelligence that
Speaker 3: we'd been provided. And we also had intelligence for instance
Speaker 3: that Westfield's at Miranda and the Thursday night before Christmas,
Speaker 3: because all this was in the lead up to Christmas,
Speaker 3: there was going to be a raid done on the
Speaker 3: west Fields at moriunded by fifty car loads of young
Speaker 3: Lebanese Muslim men with baseball bats, knives and good nos
Speaker 3: what else. And we saw the result of one offender
Speaker 3: recently in Bondo and what rampaging through a shopping center
Speaker 3: that can do this was going to be fifty So
Speaker 3: we had a lot of conversations with Westfields about this
Speaker 3: and we locked down that whole precinct with enormous amounts
Speaker 3: of police and it didn't occur as thwarted. You know,
Speaker 3: the attack at Cernulla was thwarted and what was really
Speaker 3: going on behind the scenes, And you wonder why there
Speaker 3: was a special sitting of New South Wales Parliament because
Speaker 3: it was frightening Gary what the intelligence we were receiving.
Speaker 3: And we had intelligence in the abundance load because thankfully
Speaker 3: there was a lot of existing police task forces that
Speaker 3: were already working on some of the criminals that were
Speaker 3: acting in these revenge attacks. And we also have a
Speaker 3: lot of informants coming forward, a lot of also concerned
Speaker 3: parents from both sides that were giving police information.
Speaker 4: So we had a lot of intelligence.
Speaker 2: About authorities also feeding.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I was approached by our federal counterparts and some
Speaker 3: agencies that I can't really mention approached me quite concerned
Speaker 3: and had the exact identical intelligence that we did.
Speaker 1: It was sound, sound intelligence.
Speaker 3: And for instance, like we one of the I don't
Speaker 3: want to name him here, but one of the people
Speaker 3: we interviewed saw a bootload of oozy submachine guns outside
Speaker 3: the mosque that was going to be used, and him
Speaker 3: and other senior Muslim leaders shut that down. And you know,
Speaker 3: you can't underestimate the work that was done over there
Speaker 3: at Campsy because you know, after Ruba was attacked, there
Speaker 3: was a it was actually a quite false rumor went
Speaker 3: around that in retribution for that, every surfy was going
Speaker 3: to turn up there and destroy the mosque, and so
Speaker 3: you know, that went round like wildfire in the Arabic
Speaker 3: Muslim community, and all of a sudden, thousands of people
Speaker 3: literally started turning up to the mosque and it was hostile.
Speaker 4: And the police.
Speaker 3: Commander over there, John Richard, did an absolutely fantastic, marvelous
Speaker 3: job with the local game because of fantastic existing relationships
Speaker 3: that they already had with the local Muslim leaders, and
Speaker 3: you know, they screamed themselves hoarse outside that mosque to
Speaker 3: close down what the potential was going.
Speaker 1: To prevent their credit to prevent this. The role that
Speaker 1: law enforcement plays in it, but the community play such
Speaker 1: a big part, The community leaders play such a big
Speaker 1: part in its.
Speaker 3: Absolutely, and they got there their unsung heroes and of
Speaker 3: all this because you know what was prevented by them,
Speaker 3: by John Richardson and also the and most particularly actually
Speaker 3: the I say John richards I mean police, his frontline police,
Speaker 3: and I'm talking about the superintendent, I mean the actual
Speaker 3: bodies on the ground, the frontline troops that we all
Speaker 3: know did a wonderful job, but the Muslim leaders themselves
Speaker 3: did an absolutely fantastic job there to calm the situation.
Speaker 3: It would have been way, way worse if it wasn't
Speaker 3: for their involve already existing liaisons with the police.
Speaker 1: Actually, yeah, and I hope that type of stuff gets
Speaker 1: reported because we talk about the media, the sensational type stuff,
Speaker 1: but that doesn't carry it for the story as much doesible.
Speaker 6: As goary, it didn't happen, So it didn't happen, Yeah,
Speaker 6: and we've tried to say, but it could have happened,
Speaker 6: and it didn't happen for all these reasons, primarily because
Speaker 6: of police, but there's also a great contribution from community.
Speaker 6: And one of the stories we try and tell is
Speaker 6: John Richardson his commander and his relationship.
Speaker 2: With the commutingmunity, and that wasn't isolated.
Speaker 6: The police did a good job, and I can tell
Speaker 6: you as police minister, I respected the efforts that these
Speaker 6: local area commanders put into building relationships with their stakeholders
Speaker 6: and community. But I'm disappointed people. It's almost like, well,
Speaker 6: it didn't happen, so it didn't.
Speaker 2: Maybe that it almost did.
Speaker 1: Maybe people can look at the consequences if just one
Speaker 1: of those incidents happened. I don't think our society be
Speaker 1: the same way we are today. I think it'll be
Speaker 1: game changing. It would just escalate. An assault on the
Speaker 1: beach at Cronulla escalated into the riots. Could you imagine
Speaker 1: if something more sinister occurred, or a larger magnitude.
Speaker 6: So look, I think we would have had to have
Speaker 6: responded had it got out of hand. Potentially troops would
Speaker 6: have been brought in onto the streets with personnel carriers,
Speaker 6: we would have increased powers federally in state. We wouldn't
Speaker 6: have stood by and not responded aggressively. But to societally
Speaker 6: repress a whole chunk of our community is not something
Speaker 6: I got into politics for. I really didn't but having
Speaker 6: these thoughts in my head at the time, Yeah, some
Speaker 6: of which I probably didn't even share with Mark, but
Speaker 6: I remember considering them, at what level do we need
Speaker 6: to take this to to win the fight? And we
Speaker 6: would have gone to whatever level we needed to do
Speaker 6: to deal with it. Thankfully, these who went back to barracks,
Speaker 6: they got the message. They didn't like being arrested, they
Speaker 6: didn't like their phones and cars being taken off them.
Speaker 6: And when all these streets and beaches and suburbs were
Speaker 6: all being shut down, they thought, oh, there's a whole
Speaker 6: ton of men and women in blue.
Speaker 2: No thanks.
Speaker 6: They turned around and went home. But it was touch
Speaker 6: and go for a while.
Speaker 1: It certainly sounds that it comes out out in the book.
Speaker 1: How long did this go on? For Mark? Like the
Speaker 1: when did you Because you have Australia Day coming up?
Speaker 1: I remember that was So that was a big day
Speaker 1: in itself, just because of what it represents. So we're
Speaker 1: talking over the whole summer period basically.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Look, the most violent of the incidents certainly occurred
Speaker 3: in the first few nights, but you are right, it
Speaker 3: went on and we kept receiving intelligence of incidents that
Speaker 3: we had to shut down and we kept targeting and
Speaker 3: using these powers. They were extended and used over the
Speaker 3: entire summer. So incidents days I should say, such as
Speaker 3: Australia Day, even Christmas Day, Boxing Day, New Year's Eve,
Speaker 3: they were all extreme risk events that are not normally
Speaker 3: risk rated.
Speaker 4: At that high level.
Speaker 3: It's the highest level you can have because of the
Speaker 3: intelligence that we had about incidents that were being planned
Speaker 3: and were going to happen amongst crowd activity, particularly on
Speaker 3: say New Year's Eve and things like that. The intelligence,
Speaker 3: as I said, you know, we've revealed some of it
Speaker 3: in the book, but what we had overall was frightening.
Speaker 3: I've never seen anything like it my life in the
Speaker 3: police and as I said, I worked at Bankstown for
Speaker 3: quite a number of years and in the drugs world
Speaker 3: and in the homicide and I understand you so I've
Speaker 3: seen the.
Speaker 4: Worst of the worst, but as you have.
Speaker 3: But it was it was to a frightening level, even
Speaker 3: to as I said, the federal counterparts have come to
Speaker 3: me that we don't normally deal with state police forces,
Speaker 3: and we're very very concerned themselves. But one of the
Speaker 3: things I think is interesting to talk about that we
Speaker 3: instigated because these were such mobile random revenge attacks. We
Speaker 3: decided and it was a bit of an epiphany. Really
Speaker 3: we need to be able to respond in a similar
Speaker 3: mobile fashion, So none of this mobile right squads waiting
Speaker 3: for things, just that we locked down these suburbs. Sure,
Speaker 3: but we needed to attack these marauding gang's head on.
Speaker 3: So one thing we do know is that young young
Speaker 3: men like their driver's license and there's hided up sporty
Speaker 3: cars and they don't like having it taken from them.
Speaker 3: So we came up with the idea we put groups
Speaker 3: of ten v eight pursuit cars with pursuit drivers and
Speaker 3: three other right Squad police in each one of those
Speaker 3: cars in groups of ten cars, so thirty right police
Speaker 3: in ten higher Patrol cars. And there was numerous of
Speaker 3: these teams throughout Sydney, and a minute that we got
Speaker 3: any information about a group forming that were intent on
Speaker 3: rampaging around in these marauding.
Speaker 4: Mobs, they were swarmed upon by these.
Speaker 3: Police, very very good police, highly trained, highly trained Higher
Speaker 3: Patrol officers.
Speaker 4: They all stuck.
Speaker 3: Together these vehicle in convoy and there was there was
Speaker 3: a site to be seen. When they know it was
Speaker 3: head on into these gangs of marauding mobs going around
Speaker 3: and it actually got worldwide attention.
Speaker 1: Of these in the in the book that came across there.
Speaker 3: There So being a right on the move is not
Speaker 3: something that certainly we've ever experienced in Australia uh and
Speaker 3: even internationally in most jurisdictions haven't haven't had to deal
Speaker 3: with such a marauding groups in these high speed vehicles
Speaker 3: in convoys pulling up randomly just destroying complete such streets
Speaker 3: and suburbs. So it got the attention of overseas jurisdictions,
Speaker 3: and Carl will certainly talk about, Like I know William Bratton,
Speaker 3: who is his renowned police commissioner from both l A
Speaker 3: and an NYPD. He spoke to us and he was
Speaker 3: intrigued by the fact that we that we had used
Speaker 3: these rapid right response plus we call.
Speaker 4: Them for one of a better word.
Speaker 3: And also I think Carl was spacking to you by
Speaker 3: the French authorities about it as well.
Speaker 6: I had a meeting with the French authorities who had
Speaker 6: their own riot three weeks before we did, and I
Speaker 6: was really intrigued how they learned from that what they did.
Speaker 2: They just wanted to talk about.
Speaker 6: Our mobile policing And one of my favorite stories was
Speaker 6: when I got called by the police commander responsible for
Speaker 6: Castle Hill. He said, Castle Hill Towers, a whole lot
Speaker 6: of mums and dads and kids had been turning up
Speaker 6: for Christmas shopping and there are about twenty of these
Speaker 6: youths harassing them at the entrance. I said, what have
Speaker 6: you done? And he said, don't worry. We ordered five
Speaker 6: highway patrol vehicles. Highway patrol right squat fifteen rights everyone.
Speaker 6: They got out and got their batons and shields and
Speaker 6: went in a short in a slow trot towards the entrance.
Speaker 6: I said, what happened? He said, they ran like the wind.
Speaker 6: That would have been I wish i'd seen the video
Speaker 6: of that, but yeah, got international coverage, and I think
Speaker 6: a mark and they had a highway patrol should have
Speaker 6: got innovative policing awards.
Speaker 1: Well. That is, I liked the idea of thinking outside
Speaker 1: the square, and that's definitely thinking outside of the square
Speaker 1: when I read it. When I read it in the book,
Speaker 1: I'm thinking it makes sense, and I'm thinking, but why
Speaker 1: hadn't we thought of that before? But yeah, it's about
Speaker 1: being adaptable to the circumstances and the situations and reflecting
Speaker 1: on what happened there, the changes of the legislation, the
Speaker 1: changes in policing, I've got to say too. And I
Speaker 1: don't want to cry a poor with police because we
Speaker 1: sign up to it and that's what we do. But
Speaker 1: I still remember during that period of time the amount
Speaker 1: of leave that we had to cancel on police officers
Speaker 1: to come in and fill the fil and these are
Speaker 1: people and I'd be like a crime manager, well we
Speaker 1: need to give ten, but I've got my holiday book
Speaker 1: dom seem yea all that and it was all canceled.
Speaker 1: And full credit to the people that got in there
Speaker 1: and contributed that way, you.
Speaker 4: Know, as I said, we had to put this look.
Speaker 3: I was mentioned in Part one there was a thing
Speaker 3: called the Olympics in Sydney in two thousand and luckily
Speaker 3: we had a blueprint from how to release so many
Speaker 3: resources into this special operation. So we literally used that
Speaker 3: Olympic blueprint and we joined all the local area commands
Speaker 3: into bigger.
Speaker 4: Areas and released all these troops.
Speaker 3: But that part of that was and you know, the
Speaker 3: Justice Department a very good of deferring court matters. Leave
Speaker 3: was canceled for all police and then that freed up
Speaker 3: sufficient resources. You know, any proactivity, productive units and operations
Speaker 3: were all closed down over this period. They're all sent
Speaker 3: to Sydney to deal with this marauding groups of revenge
Speaker 3: attackers that was just growing exponentially. And you know it
Speaker 3: hats off to the police and im I was one
Speaker 3: of them myself, but to the front line police. They
Speaker 3: you know, they didn't they didn't get Christmas that year.
Speaker 3: They were working, you know, and they worked down hard
Speaker 3: and long hours. And you know, one of the things
Speaker 3: that I got praise for is that we brought in
Speaker 3: the police union very early in the piece.
Speaker 4: That was good thinking to make sure that you.
Speaker 3: Know that these police were looked after, and it wasn't
Speaker 3: you know that I don't want to deal with blues
Speaker 3: inside the police, so you know, things that were required
Speaker 3: in terms of their safety and their accommodation and their
Speaker 3: meals and just to make sure that things ran smoothly.
Speaker 3: We had the police union involved right from the start
Speaker 3: in the planning for it all.
Speaker 4: And this was planning on their own.
Speaker 3: This wasn't some terrorist operation that you knew was working
Speaker 3: on a group a cell that's been a six month investigation.
Speaker 3: This was thinking on their own, you know, and these
Speaker 3: things were escalating rather rapidly and quickly, and it was
Speaker 3: a very very changing, rapid environment that we had to
Speaker 3: resource it and respond to it. And the logistics people
Speaker 3: that I had working for me took up a whole room.
Speaker 1: Oh logistical nightmare. I'm looking at the magnitude of it.
Speaker 1: And I probably should apologize to you Mark that when
Speaker 1: I was canceling people's holidays and blaming you, I'm sorry,
Speaker 1: I've said some beads that bloody Mark good, but yeah,
Speaker 1: don't blame me. I can't help, but these telling us
Speaker 1: look true. That's what you needed to do.
Speaker 4: The troops were fabulous. I didn't get any complaints.
Speaker 3: They all threw in, you know, they needed Coppers are
Speaker 3: like that, mate, you know when the when the chips
Speaker 3: are down, they know what's got to be done. And
Speaker 3: they did it, you know, and they did a sterling job.
Speaker 3: And I didn't hear any winges. And people literally had
Speaker 3: to cancel family holidays and paid stuff.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 3: It was it was horrendous times and I felt very
Speaker 3: sorry for all those police and families and you know,
Speaker 3: apologies now, but it was absolutely necessary and you know,
Speaker 3: they knew what was going on, but the public just
Speaker 3: don't know how severe it was and how much risk
Speaker 3: they are under.
Speaker 1: What about the arrests that followed on and the it
Speaker 1: was controversy I think with Dennis Spray was that strike
Speaker 1: force and Nogra, Yeah, and that was arrests that followed on,
Speaker 1: followed on on the back of the everything that occurred,
Speaker 1: basically team of detectives coming in and looking at locking
Speaker 1: up people that had committed the criminal offenses. Was that
Speaker 1: successful in the way that that was approached.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Look, initially there was a great imbalance of the
Speaker 3: arrests that were made, and that's simply because during their
Speaker 3: daytime events at Cronulla, everything that occurred down there was
Speaker 3: videoed by professional cameraman from one hundred Angeles and that
Speaker 3: was all available to the police. And so I'm like
Speaker 3: that the revenge attacks that were occurring was a much
Speaker 3: harder investigation in that community. Amongst those types of people,
Speaker 3: there's not willing witnesses to come forward and identification becomes
Speaker 3: a big issue as well, and.
Speaker 4: You know that, and these attacks were happening at night.
Speaker 3: Revenge attacks were happening at night under the cover of darkness,
Speaker 3: and there was no journalists around. You know, the best
Speaker 3: that we had at nighttime was a couple of stringers
Speaker 3: as they call it, which are people that go and
Speaker 3: try and capture image and sell it to the news works.
Speaker 3: And they were around or not, but they didn't even
Speaker 3: know where these attacks were occurring.
Speaker 4: They were so random. So there's no imagery much of
Speaker 4: it at all.
Speaker 3: But there was CCTV footage in certain places of these
Speaker 3: attacks occurring, and the police had done a marvelous job
Speaker 3: in rounding that up and they had that imagery, but
Speaker 3: of course that wasn't released to the public at that
Speaker 3: point in time because they were working on a number
Speaker 3: of angles with that. One was it's grainy imagery and
Speaker 3: they were trying to get enhancements done and you know
Speaker 3: the issues with it takes time and with the imagery
Speaker 3: getting enhanced and so forth for suitable for court identifications
Speaker 3: most particularly, and then second to that, it's a strategic
Speaker 3: issue for police as to when to release that imagery
Speaker 3: because quite often if there's surveillance techniques put in place,
Speaker 3: you as a strategic time to release that imagery to
Speaker 3: sure that though that look and as certainly fane calls
Speaker 3: may get of your red top because I saw it
Speaker 3: on the news tonight. You know, ready Adida's track sit
Speaker 3: pants mate and so forth and everything, and then starts
Speaker 3: to formulate the actual evidence.
Speaker 4: So that's what the police were doing.
Speaker 3: But it was a massive imbalance in the amount of
Speaker 3: Caucasians arrested originally versus the other side of the Arabic
Speaker 3: youth arrested. And then the politics and the sniping started
Speaker 3: that Carl's level, he's best to explain what occurred there really.
Speaker 6: So mostly the commissioner, of course, there was this absurd
Speaker 6: suggestion that as the Premier was the member for La Kemba,
Speaker 6: he was directing police not to arrest Middle Eastern males
Speaker 6: and ridiculous, I mean, imagine how that sort of conspiracy
Speaker 6: or Watergate type conversation could stay unleaked. Was just absurd, ridiculous,
Speaker 6: and it was and the Commissioner was then roundly criticized
Speaker 6: for not arresting the offending revenge attackers.
Speaker 2: And I think I mentioned.
Speaker 6: Earlier freestyle he announced in the middle of a press
Speaker 6: conference without I think giving a moment's thought, Oh that's
Speaker 6: because there's no footage.
Speaker 2: Well, there was hours and hours and hours.
Speaker 6: Of footage from businesses and then that those businesses got
Speaker 6: upset because they stayed mum.
Speaker 2: They then released it.
Speaker 6: The media had a field day, and then the commissioner's
Speaker 6: reaction was to sack Bray for not telling him about
Speaker 6: it when he hadn't been asked. And then the force,
Speaker 6: his detectives then threatened to strike.
Speaker 1: So I remember they they stood up.
Speaker 6: Then he got semi rean stated with Slasher Mackay coming
Speaker 6: down another one hundred detectives, but it didn't do the trick,
Speaker 6: and the Commissioner's back was against the wall. He was
Speaker 6: being roundly condemned for an own goal, making up stuff
Speaker 6: on the run, and his solution was to announce an
Speaker 6: inquiry into police performance and went on leave, and his
Speaker 6: staff insisted Mark Goodwin announced why he was now being investigated.
Speaker 6: Not a morsel of criticism to that point from anyone, nobody,
Speaker 6: both sides of politics, all the communities all lauded police performance.
Speaker 6: But as a media distraction device it was brilliant because
Speaker 6: soon the media came to the view, oh, there must
Speaker 6: be something wrong with police performance, otherwise the commissioner wouldn't
Speaker 6: announce it.
Speaker 1: In quirt, How did that make you feel, Mark, because
Speaker 1: I and it's not. I won't put this book in
Speaker 1: saying that it's a self serving book. It's a book
Speaker 1: about the facts that you were presented with. I know
Speaker 1: the world, I know policing, and I know how hard
Speaker 1: you would have worked, and I look at it and
Speaker 1: think that was good policing. But then to be announced
Speaker 1: that there's an inquiry into how it was managed, how
Speaker 1: did it make you feel?
Speaker 3: I was absolutely mortified, and I'd worked my absolute ass off,
Speaker 3: and the loyalty i'd change that organation was just off
Speaker 3: the Richter scale, to be honest with you, and I
Speaker 3: don't want cutest for that and never had asked for it.
Speaker 3: But I found out in a caravan park by someone
Speaker 3: waving a newspaper in the street to come up the
Speaker 3: road to me and said, do you know the Commission
Speaker 3: has announced an inquiry into you, into your performance and
Speaker 3: the cornell are rights, And I've gone, what give it
Speaker 3: to you?
Speaker 4: Shame me?
Speaker 1: And there it was front page.
Speaker 4: You know it's been announced to the media. No one
Speaker 4: rang me.
Speaker 3: I don't have a phone call and I only just
Speaker 3: you know, I missed. I missed Christmas, and I'd missed
Speaker 3: all of January holidays like everyone else, and I was
Speaker 3: down there on a day off and finally had a
Speaker 3: day off, and I was talking to my kids are
Speaker 3: around and stuff in a black as I said, black
Speaker 3: hat come up with a newspaper announced it, and I'd
Speaker 3: just been from a distance following this stuff with the
Speaker 3: Task Force and accusations flying around between politics and the
Speaker 3: media about who who'd been arrested and who hadn't, and
Speaker 3: well that Bras stood down and Braise reinstated and stuff
Speaker 3: had nothing.
Speaker 1: To do with the criminal investigations are completely separate from
Speaker 1: the man of the incidence that you were involved in
Speaker 1: me and then got dragged into it.
Speaker 3: And then all of a sudden at the same time
Speaker 3: that Braves reinstated, and there's a huge number of increase
Speaker 3: in Task Force members and all that sort of stuff
Speaker 3: and everything to appease the what had been going on
Speaker 3: in the media and the embarrassment that had been caused.
Speaker 4: At the very same time, there's.
Speaker 3: A strike force, not a debrief And as you know,
Speaker 3: we conduct and I already started the process for substantial debriefs,
Speaker 3: and they're open, honest, transparent, fair processes where everyone from
Speaker 3: a to the police dog has their say about what
Speaker 3: went well, what didn't work well, what we could improve,
Speaker 3: what can be what can we improve in police training, equipment, policies, procedures,
Speaker 3: and it's all very open and everyone.
Speaker 4: Has their say.
Speaker 3: This was a strike force launched into me and my
Speaker 3: commands commanders, which is normally reserved for criminal investigation. So
Speaker 3: I was absolutely mortified that this had occurred and I
Speaker 3: hadn't even been told about it and found out by
Speaker 3: person waving a newspaper in front of me in the
Speaker 3: caravan park. After what I had burned through in the
Speaker 3: last month and a loyalty and I'd shown that organization
Speaker 3: and the amount of hours I had done to find
Speaker 3: out I was now under investigation by a strike force
Speaker 3: and not even had a decency of a phone call
Speaker 3: was disgraceful.
Speaker 6: And Mark Mark can't outline this what happened mccruary fields
Speaker 6: because he wasn't involved, didn't have the functions or roles
Speaker 6: around that, but I can tell you so. Deputy Commissioner
Speaker 6: Dave Madden was given the carriage by the Commissioner to
Speaker 6: conduct an internal review about police performance, what we could learn,
Speaker 6: how we could improve from the McQuary Fields right. I
Speaker 6: sat in four separate meetings with the two Deputy Comms,
Speaker 6: the Commissioner, head of the Ministry Police, and my own
Speaker 6: senior staff. Fast forward, there was criticism of the McQuary
Speaker 6: fields policing performance. There'd been none in relation to Cromala.
Speaker 2: But look, it worked. It was a media strategy from
Speaker 2: the Commissioner and it worked.
Speaker 1: Okay, So, and I want to talk more about the
Speaker 1: rights and lessons lessons learned from the rights and what
Speaker 1: in contemporary times you think this type of thing can
Speaker 1: happen again. But just why we're touched on the subject
Speaker 1: that basically cost you your career.
Speaker 3: Well, yeah, because there was a report produced and released
Speaker 3: to the media that I was never shown. There was
Speaker 3: findings in it, findings that I'm still waiting to be spoken.
Speaker 4: About at all. It's very frustrating.
Speaker 3: And then then this report is released to the media
Speaker 3: before any person's had a right of reply. I mean fundamentally,
Speaker 3: if you go to the Police Integrity Commissioner Ikak or anything,
Speaker 3: you know there's a there's a fundamental procedural fairness that
Speaker 3: people are asked, or a coroner's hearing or anything. Really,
Speaker 3: when you look at like the Link Cafe siege, which
Speaker 3: police command, there was certainly under the microscope. But they're
Speaker 3: represented legally down there, and you know they read the
Speaker 3: coroner's report on that and their version of events and
Speaker 3: what they say legally represented is in the report. I'm
Speaker 3: still waiting to be interviewed about half the things that
Speaker 3: were in report. It was released to the public in
Speaker 3: a draft form that was put out there under a
Speaker 3: haze of media about accusations that the Minister was hiding
Speaker 3: this report and then unfortunately it contained issues that caused
Speaker 3: an absolute tsunami of negative media against me personally and
Speaker 3: other police commanders. And there are things that we dispute
Speaker 3: to this date and there's a number of those, and
Speaker 3: you know, I haven't got time to go into the now.
Speaker 3: But for instance, we talked about in part one the
Speaker 3: risk assessment being raised to higher risk and the reasons
Speaker 3: it was, and who was briefed and so forth, including
Speaker 3: the Police Minister of sitting right beside me now and
Speaker 3: the Premiere and the Commissioner.
Speaker 1: Like the right call there.
Speaker 4: But this report says that.
Speaker 3: The risk assessment was left at medium and therefore planning
Speaker 3: was all poor. And these were headlined news that all
Speaker 3: over Australia that the police were dunderheads and how could
Speaker 3: they have left this risk assessment at medium and how
Speaker 3: could therefore planning?
Speaker 4: Was there all the blame for this?
Speaker 2: You know?
Speaker 3: So the media that was instigated against me personally, I had,
Speaker 3: you know, I had my head put on television frozen
Speaker 3: like a mugshot, with these alleged like almost like criminal
Speaker 3: convictions being scrolled out underneath, with my head, with my
Speaker 3: children sitting there watching it, crying and my wife crying,
Speaker 3: you know, and totally unjustified. And I've never been I'd
Speaker 3: never been interviewed about them. I'd never been spoken to
Speaker 3: about these findings, and then here they are released to
Speaker 3: the media, and there's quite a number of issues that
Speaker 3: are are to this day in dispute in that. But
Speaker 3: the way it was released was was car will talk
Speaker 3: about which is what cost him his career?
Speaker 1: No? Sorry, just before we go on there, Mark, and
Speaker 1: I understand the frustration that you went through it, and yeah,
Speaker 1: I honestly you shouldn't have to go through that. The
Speaker 1: year's service that you've given in the police, I think, yeah,
Speaker 1: for what it's worth, because I can say it's a
Speaker 1: path I've walked to a degree that just hold your
Speaker 1: head up, hi, you know what you did you know
Speaker 1: how this was stopped. And when it's all said and done,
Speaker 1: if people that you don't respect the criticize and you
Speaker 1: don't worry about the criticism. I know it's frustrating, but
Speaker 1: hold your head up because I understand the anks that
Speaker 1: can cause. For what it's worth.
Speaker 6: Sorry, Carlin, You're challenge the challenges and Gary you I
Speaker 6: the three of us understand the question, at the end
Speaker 6: of an unfair and during experience, how do I get
Speaker 6: my reputation back?
Speaker 2: And Mark I felt for him.
Speaker 6: This nonsense that was written without with almost no consultation,
Speaker 6: and it's the official account of the New South Wales
Speaker 6: Police Force, untested, without an alternative view being put forward,
Speaker 6: and all that media tsunami.
Speaker 2: That's Mark Goodwin.
Speaker 6: I'm not the least bit surprised he was humiliated out
Speaker 6: of the New Southwest Police Force.
Speaker 2: It's a sad story.
Speaker 6: And the only way the two of us can get
Speaker 6: some of our reputation back is to write what really
Speaker 6: happened and hopefully that is seen as a better account
Speaker 6: of what happened. In my own case, I could have
Speaker 6: done nothing.
Speaker 2: Gary. In fact, a number of political and parliamentary.
Speaker 6: People said why don't you just step back and let
Speaker 6: the cops fight it out themselves. I said, I'm not
Speaker 6: going to see a commander get vaporized.
Speaker 2: After what he did.
Speaker 6: This guy returned peace to the streets of Sydney. I
Speaker 6: know what he did, and I know he hasn't been consulted,
Speaker 6: and I can smell why this process was set up.
Speaker 6: I had very little to do with criticisms of that
Speaker 6: laudable police performance. So I put a pause on it,
Speaker 6: and the Commissioner agreed there had been insufficient consultation. He
Speaker 6: designated it as a draft until that consultation had finished.
Speaker 2: In the House.
Speaker 6: I referred it to as a draft in parliament. In
Speaker 6: Parliament and that was considered misleading because there were leaks
Speaker 6: coming out and the author of it did a very
Speaker 6: unpleasant interview on the front page of the Herald referring
Speaker 6: to his report and my criticism of it requiring further consultation. Therefore,
Speaker 6: it was a report, wasn't a draft. I'd misled Parliament
Speaker 6: for which I should then resign. And it's absurd now
Speaker 6: on the range of things requiring a minister's resignation in
Speaker 6: the last fifty years, Gary, I know this is self serving.
Speaker 6: It is the least serious of any I've ever seen
Speaker 6: or read about. Yeah, was sacked because I referred to
Speaker 6: a report as a draft.
Speaker 1: I was again to say, the floor Parliament, it's not
Speaker 1: just even warrant.
Speaker 6: Well, the other issue was I did get asked had
Speaker 6: I spoken to ABCTV and I said no, and that
Speaker 6: was considered misleading. Well, I'd actually spoken to ABC Radio,
Speaker 6: not ABC TV, and in the scheme of things, that
Speaker 6: then got seen as the second misleading. And then the
Speaker 6: Premier said, oh, look all this media fanfait. But he
Speaker 6: never actually said I'm getting rid of you because of
Speaker 6: misleading the house, because I haven't.
Speaker 2: He explained. It was the.
Speaker 6: Media ferociousness to how I was being presented now. As
Speaker 6: Bob Carr, Paul Keating, Bob hawk All said to me
Speaker 6: at the time, my goodness, you'd hardly have a cabinet
Speaker 6: left if a minister got sacked for bad media. It
Speaker 6: was pretty traumatizing. As I said, I figured I had
Speaker 6: years to serve I'd done a good job, I'd supported
Speaker 6: the cops, We did what was asked for us. I
Speaker 6: didn't expect any thank yous, but nor did I expect
Speaker 6: a career ending event.
Speaker 1: It's almost like dancing with the devil, delving into policing,
Speaker 1: isn't it. There's so many people that have Yeah.
Speaker 6: And I was horrified at that. Why do you get involved?
Speaker 6: Why don't you just leave it out?
Speaker 2: Yeah? I never was an injustice what was done to
Speaker 2: Mark Goodwin.
Speaker 1: Again, here I am offering out advice to you now,
Speaker 1: and people might laugh because they hear how sometimes it's
Speaker 1: blatantly obvious. I haven't got over what happened to me.
Speaker 1: But the same with you, Carl. I'd prefer to go
Speaker 1: down fighting, and go down doing what you believe is
Speaker 1: right than cowering the cow towing.
Speaker 6: The irony is I wrote a memoir, yeah, and a
Speaker 6: bit cathartic. But I also wrote about how I did
Speaker 6: transport for the Olympics and built roads and roads and
Speaker 6: rail lines and all that my history and my romance
Speaker 6: with my wife. And it was a good cathartic process.
Speaker 6: But I said to Mark the other day, the good
Speaker 6: thing out of this is we've written this account which
Speaker 6: only a small part of maybe fifteen to twenty percent
Speaker 6: is what happened to us personally, maybe eighty percent is
Speaker 6: the story what happened, what could have happened and why
Speaker 6: did it happen and why has it not come back?
Speaker 6: And that's through our own personal and professional trauma. That's
Speaker 6: a good thing.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, I think it's a good thing to get
Speaker 1: it out there because there is and I put my
Speaker 1: hand up, like the misconceptions I've had and I've called
Speaker 1: a lot of things, and you, Jacob becomes part of
Speaker 1: the Australian.
Speaker 6: It must have happened because I saw it.
Speaker 1: The way we communicate about the Cronulla riots or the
Speaker 1: Southern Cross tattoo and things like that. I want to
Speaker 1: focus and Mark, I think it was you before we
Speaker 1: started the podcast brought my attention to the back page
Speaker 1: of the book or the back cover of the book.
Speaker 1: Talk us through that, because I do like on we
Speaker 1: talk some heavy stuff on this podcast, but I do
Speaker 1: like stories that bring some joy to the world. Talk
Speaker 1: us through what the back cover of your book is about.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Sure, after the dust settled of the Cronella rights and
Speaker 3: revenge attacks, there was a lot of will in the
Speaker 3: community on both sides to form more relationships and open up.
Speaker 3: And as we've said in this podcast, there's the very
Speaker 3: small number of people from actually both sides of the
Speaker 3: events that were involved in not the slightest bit representative
Speaker 3: of their wider communities anyway. So then the Lebanese Muslim
Speaker 3: community leaders like Jim l Riffi, who we interview in
Speaker 3: the book here, and the Surf Life Saving New South
Speaker 3: Wales put on a program at the North Run at
Speaker 3: the North Coronol, the Surf Club and it was called
Speaker 3: on the Same Wave and what it did was to
Speaker 3: train young Muslim life savers and to come and share
Speaker 3: in the beach and open up the beach and to
Speaker 3: share in the experiences and the camaraderie that that is
Speaker 3: amongst life savers. And so they put on this program
Speaker 3: and I think we thought it was a very good
Speaker 3: fitting book. ND which is the rear of our book,
Speaker 3: is the photo of the actual graduation of these these
Speaker 3: young young guys and ladies.
Speaker 4: And look, Lee Howell, who was.
Speaker 3: A former police officer, was actually the one that ran
Speaker 3: the program. He's a long term member of the Surf
Speaker 3: club down there and did an absolute fantastic job.
Speaker 4: But we've had a couple of laughs about.
Speaker 3: The fact that when some of these kids turned up
Speaker 3: they could barely swim, you know, and the life savers
Speaker 3: had to save them and they're supposed to be becoming life savers,
Speaker 3: you know, and look, you know, to their absolute credit
Speaker 3: and their persistence, they showed those young kids they did
Speaker 3: a fantastic committed effort, and so did the life savers
Speaker 3: down there. And then they all got through. They had
Speaker 3: that they weren't at a lower the standards for them.
Speaker 3: There's a certain requirement that's the Surf Bronze Medallion required
Speaker 3: to become a Surf life Saver, and they all passed,
Speaker 3: and they all passed legitimately, and they put in a lot,
Speaker 3: a lot of effort. And on the book is the
Speaker 3: big beaming smiles and faces of these young guys and
Speaker 3: girls who were the first ever Muslim life savers on
Speaker 3: the beach in Australia. And the girl in the middle
Speaker 3: we actually interview in the book. Her name's Mecha Lala,
Speaker 3: fantastic young lady. And you'll see that she's wearing the
Speaker 3: first ever burkini that was manufactured and designed for her
Speaker 3: and that now is seen on beaches and his swimming
Speaker 3: pools and so forth all over the world.
Speaker 4: And it went worldwide.
Speaker 3: But it started and a bit of an unknown fact
Speaker 3: that actually started with the Cornella riots and this surf
Speaker 3: life saving program. After and we're interviewing Mecca and she says,
Speaker 3: Mark and Carl, I couldn't believe it. You know, one minute,
Speaker 3: I'm just a young girl doing the lifesaver program, and
Speaker 3: next minute I'm on billboards all over the world and
Speaker 3: I've got journalists from New York wanting to interview me
Speaker 3: and stuff.
Speaker 4: So it was it was terrific. You know, it was
Speaker 4: a fantastic.
Speaker 1: Who would have been the next story Cronala to become
Speaker 1: the fashion cap of the world.
Speaker 6: What's important, Gary, The story of Cronulla begins and ends
Speaker 6: with lifeguards and the troubling events begins with our front
Speaker 6: cover and ends with the back.
Speaker 1: I can see when you pointed out the front and
Speaker 1: this symbolic there's there's a journey through it, and that's
Speaker 1: where we've come to. And that's what you would like
Speaker 1: to think comes from a situation or a series of events.
Speaker 1: What happened there bring it to contemporary times, like the
Speaker 1: world is a crazy place at the moment. It's just
Speaker 1: I don't know, I get a sense like it's a
Speaker 1: powder powder keg.
Speaker 2: At the moment.
Speaker 1: Maybe I'm looking at it too negatively, but this type
Speaker 1: of thing. We don't want it ever occurring in our
Speaker 1: country if we can help it, and it occurs across
Speaker 1: the world in so many different places. How do you
Speaker 1: think the lessons that we've learned from what happened at
Speaker 1: Cranulla and where we can take it from there to
Speaker 1: prevent this type of thing?
Speaker 6: Just this a bit, How what can we apply from
Speaker 6: this to more contemporary troubles. What I say is some
Speaker 6: of our more contemporary troubles in different parts of the
Speaker 6: world are exponentially worse, like one hundred times worse. But
Speaker 6: if people want to get a better understanding of tribalism
Speaker 6: and fractious group identity and what's really going on in
Speaker 6: people's minds, in the minds of a group, there's something
Speaker 6: we can provide. And I think it's about the hope
Speaker 6: of searching for what we have in common. And there
Speaker 6: are always differences. Sometimes it leads to awful violence and persistent,
Speaker 6: pervasive trouble between two groups. But I think the message
Speaker 6: we've given out of Cronulla is, let's hope for that
Speaker 6: search for what we have in common, what makes us
Speaker 6: the same, what makes us feel comfortable with each other,
Speaker 6: not what would not how we're different all, it's easy
Speaker 6: to find difference and discord and divisive. Let's look for
Speaker 6: what drives us commonality. That's probably a lesson out of
Speaker 6: the book for more contemporary problems here as people here
Speaker 6: interpret what's happening overseas.
Speaker 1: Okay, that's a sound advice, Mark.
Speaker 3: Look, I think it was a big wake up call Gary,
Speaker 3: and how people responded to it back then was some
Speaker 3: of the ones that responded to it on the beach
Speaker 3: and in the revenge attacks was disgraceful.
Speaker 4: But it went away. Why did it go away? We
Speaker 4: look very carefully at that.
Speaker 3: In the book, and in our view, is because that
Speaker 3: it wasn't driven we think by hardcore racism in Australia.
Speaker 3: And look, there's racism exists, and there was racism on
Speaker 3: display on the Dankronal and certainly in the revenge attax,
Speaker 3: but it.
Speaker 4: Wasn't the causal factor for it.
Speaker 3: The causal factor, as I explained in Part one, was
Speaker 3: the behavior. You know, there was groups coming to the
Speaker 3: beach and it was all about the behavior and the
Speaker 3: spatial domain and male preening and forth, But it wasn't
Speaker 3: about It wasn't a hard core thing about racism. But
Speaker 3: I think this really drew it to the attension.
Speaker 4: It was a wake up call.
Speaker 3: I think there's been a lot of discussion since, and
Speaker 3: certainly people want to put it behind them, and certainly
Speaker 3: now no intention of ours to raise the skeletons of
Speaker 3: the past through this book, but we felt that it
Speaker 3: was extremely important to set the record straight of a
Speaker 3: factual account because you know, not that I know of
Speaker 3: is that there's no actual participants in the actual events
Speaker 3: have been involved in any such writings or documentaries and
Speaker 3: so forth that have been done. And you know, from
Speaker 3: what we've seen, there's a very secwed recording and documentaries
Speaker 3: and academic research papers and stuff that are they're just
Speaker 3: not correct because they're not the full facts. So what
Speaker 3: we've done is provide a very factual account from where
Speaker 3: to go, all warts and all, and we certainly hope
Speaker 3: that this becomes the go to reference because as I said,
Speaker 3: it is done by firstly by tap participants. Lots of
Speaker 3: participants that were involved are also interviewed in it from
Speaker 3: both sides of the divide, and it is just a
Speaker 3: factual account. Some might like it, some will, but it
Speaker 3: is what it is and it needs to be recorded.
Speaker 4: It's now historic reference.
Speaker 6: That's an important thing. Gary. I often get asked, what
Speaker 6: would you do if your elbow on issue X?
Speaker 2: What should Dutton do?
Speaker 6: Well?
Speaker 2: What should mens you? And I go?
Speaker 6: I'm not I'm not there. I don't have the job.
Speaker 6: There was a time when I had the job. I
Speaker 6: made the calls. I made the decisions. This was a
Speaker 6: big one and I've explained them. Mark Goodwin had the job,
Speaker 6: made the calls. But we can't comment on other polleys,
Speaker 6: other police leaders.
Speaker 2: Well, we count on this, we have.
Speaker 1: I think the fact that you've done the book and
Speaker 1: you were so closely involved in it, and it's not
Speaker 1: in the Mote book, it's not driven by and I've
Speaker 1: seen in prep for this, I was watching all the documentaries,
Speaker 1: all the coverage of it, and reading the book, and
Speaker 1: there was a lot of emotion that was put into
Speaker 1: some of the telling of the story. I enjoyed the read.
Speaker 1: You know, it always takes me back into policing, which
Speaker 1: is a good thing and a bad thing in a way.
Speaker 1: But I enjoyed the read. And look, we'll wrap up
Speaker 1: now and I just want to thank both of you.
Speaker 1: I know you've paid putting everything aside with what's happened
Speaker 1: at what happened at Cronulla and the flow on effect
Speaker 1: the work that you did at the time at a
Speaker 1: crucial time. Both of you you stood up and did
Speaker 1: your job and served the community which you were both
Speaker 1: there to do. And so congratulations on what you did
Speaker 1: did at the time, because I look at it as
Speaker 1: an ex law enforcement officer and I know the potential
Speaker 1: that was a time bomb waiting to go off, and
Speaker 1: that could have gone a lot worse. So full credit
Speaker 1: to the work that you did did there, guys, Thank you,
Speaker 1: and I hope life's good for you and make it
Speaker 1: from me. Sometimes you get wrong and you've just got
Speaker 1: to keep on. And I see you're smiling. So I
Speaker 1: think that's the way that we got to approach life.
Speaker 2: Wake up each morning and other day.
Speaker 1: Yeah, here I am still standing. Thanks guys, Thank you.
Speaker 4: It's still a Warman vertical.
Speaker 2: I say, thank you.
Speaker 1: Well, that's in a nutshell what the Cronulla Rights were about.
Speaker 1: I hope it gave you an understanding of what took
Speaker 1: place during those I call them shameful times in Australian history.
Speaker 1: I don't think it's anything that we can be proud of.
Speaker 1: But the two people we spoke to the day. They
Speaker 1: were the people responsible for ensuring law and order. But
Speaker 1: the message that I take away from it, I'd like
Speaker 1: to take some a good message away from it. What
Speaker 1: started out as a right ended up in people coming
Speaker 1: together and making a difference, as demonstrated by the back
Speaker 1: cover of their book, The Cronulla Rights Inside Story, where
Speaker 1: you've got a group of Middle Eastern Muslims that have
Speaker 1: joined the surf Club and learning to be surf life savers.
Speaker 1: I think if any good comes out of what occurred
Speaker 1: that Cronulla paps that Semach, we should hold on to
Speaker 1: h