Speaker 1: The public has had a long held fascination with detectives.
Speaker 1: Detective sy aside of life the average person is never
Speaker 1: exposed to. I spent thirty four years as a cop.
Speaker 1: For twenty five of those years I was catching killers.
Speaker 1: That's what I did for a living. I was a
Speaker 1: homicide detective. I'm no longer just interviewing bad guys. Instead,
Speaker 1: I'm taking the public into the world in which I operated.
Speaker 1: The guests I talk to each week have amazing stories
Speaker 1: from all sides of the law. The interviews are raw
Speaker 1: and honest, just like the people I talk to. Some
Speaker 1: of the content and language might be confronting. That's because
Speaker 1: no one who comes into contact with crime is left unchanged.
Speaker 1: Join me now as I take you into this world.
Speaker 1: Welcome back to part two of my chat with Nick Caldos,
Speaker 1: retired New South Wales Police Deputy Commissioner, United Nations Investigator
Speaker 1: and recently the Commissioner for the Royal Commission in the
Speaker 1: Defense and Veteran Suicide. Nick, welcome back, Thank you you've
Speaker 1: met the talkers.
Speaker 2: Thanks for having me.
Speaker 1: That's a podcast. Your career, the different things that you've
Speaker 1: done that is quite quite extraordinary, and I'll keep referencing
Speaker 1: things from the book because there's little bits and pieces
Speaker 1: I'm finding out about you that I didn't know. But
Speaker 1: one of the things I found interesting that your wife Natalie,
Speaker 1: who's a journalist. When you guys first started getting together,
Speaker 1: you had to keep it on the quiet because in
Speaker 1: your position in the police, there was an assumption that
Speaker 1: you'd be leaking information to Natalie.
Speaker 2: I wouldn't say it was a widely held assumption. I
Speaker 2: think there's probably a couple of people there that I
Speaker 2: didn't get on with who I knew you would weaponize
Speaker 2: that relationship against me to say that you're going out
Speaker 2: with a journalist. She was a senior member of the
Speaker 2: team at the Australian newspaper, and I was the Deputy
Speaker 2: Commissioner in charge of Cana Terrorism and organized crime and
Speaker 2: a whole bunch of other things. I was a member
Speaker 2: of the National Cana Terrorism Committee, so I knew a
Speaker 2: lot of what was going on. Anyway, long story short,
Speaker 2: it was a bit of an issue for a while.
Speaker 2: I guess one of the reasons I took the Lebanon
Speaker 2: investigation job was to sort of break that cycle. We're
Speaker 2: sort of on again, off again, and it was an issue.
Speaker 2: It was a clash of occupations. So I made a
Speaker 2: decision to go, and I knew both her and I
Speaker 2: assuming she agreed to come.
Speaker 1: With me awkwardly that would help the relationship.
Speaker 2: I would have been the end of it, really, but
Speaker 2: I thought it was a way to break that impass
Speaker 2: if you like, and both of us get away from
Speaker 2: the environment. She couldn't get a leave of absence, even
Speaker 2: though she'd done a couple of decades with news cours,
Speaker 2: so she decided to resign and she followed me, and
Speaker 2: we got.
Speaker 1: Married well then lived happily ever after, hopefully. I find
Speaker 1: that when people think that you're capable of releasing information,
Speaker 1: because I had some friendships with journalists and it was
Speaker 1: always yeah, I was hearing when Jubilin's releasing this. I
Speaker 1: think you're very similar to the way I would go
Speaker 1: about my time. If I've got something to say in
Speaker 1: the medium, my name will be on it. When I
Speaker 1: was in the police or not, I've never been this
Speaker 1: unknown police sources said that, and I just find it
Speaker 1: a little bit offensive because it's almost questioning your integrity, isn't.
Speaker 2: It It is. It's very much questioning here integrity, but
Speaker 2: in my experience, those who make that allegation are usually
Speaker 2: the ones who leak yes, and you know, quite in
Speaker 2: a nasty way. Really it's about hurting individuals.
Speaker 1: Yeah, no, I agree, and policing. And I was going
Speaker 1: to mention this in part one. I mentioned that here.
Speaker 1: I was going to do it on the back of
Speaker 1: Operation Mascot, but also the murder investigation that you headed
Speaker 1: up that became an inquiry that was a question in
Speaker 1: your integrity, the assassination of the politician, Yeah.
Speaker 2: John Yman, member of Parliament. Yeah, that was like a
Speaker 2: fifteen year stretch investigation itself, ware for seven or eight years,
Speaker 2: and then he convicted. He went all the way to
Speaker 2: the High Court. My memory is he wasn't allowed to
Speaker 2: have leave to appeal, so he never got to the
Speaker 2: High Court. And then you know, through connections and pressure,
Speaker 2: there's some really bad false allegations made in the media
Speaker 2: in particular, and led to a Royal commission into his conviction.
Speaker 2: So we had to go through it all again. It
Speaker 2: was nine months the inquiry went.
Speaker 1: For and it's hard when your integrity these main question.
Speaker 2: Is it is. Yeah, I mean, this is how ridiculous
Speaker 2: that situation was. One of the main allegations which caused
Speaker 2: him to have an inquiry into his conviction. By the way,
Speaker 2: the inquiry ended with the Judge pattern saying that he
Speaker 2: couldn't find a scarec of evidence that I had done
Speaker 2: anything wrong or that anyone in my team had done
Speaker 2: anything wrong. But the most ridiculous thing that was alleged
Speaker 2: is that we planted them murder weapon where it was
Speaker 2: found and it was matched ballistically with the weapon used
Speaker 2: to kill John Yuman. Now, the only way we could
Speaker 2: have planted or I could have planted space to have
Speaker 2: done it planted the murder weapon is if we had
Speaker 2: done the murder ourselves and we had possession of the
Speaker 2: murder weapon we didn't want. It was just ridiculous. We
Speaker 2: were the first ones. There's a couple of good things
Speaker 2: come out of it, which also I think recurred when
Speaker 2: I did the investigation the assassination of the Lebernice primesister, and
Speaker 2: that's communications analysis. So we proved that full no the
Speaker 2: murderer had been in the vicinity of the murder at
Speaker 2: the time of the murder. Then he went to the
Speaker 2: footbridge at Voyage, a point overlooking George's River and made
Speaker 2: a number of calls while they're in an attempt to
Speaker 2: alibi himself. And when we dredged that river and it
Speaker 2: was a tortuous process, we found the murder weapon right there,
Speaker 2: So pretty damn it I would have thought so.
Speaker 1: But it doesn't stop the allegations coming. Can we drift
Speaker 1: into another area you've got expertise in? Is there any
Speaker 1: area you haven't got expertise in that? Just working through
Speaker 1: the list terrorism, I'm watching with interest and concern on
Speaker 1: what's going on the world, and you've got a world
Speaker 1: view on things. It feels fairly volatile at the moment,
Speaker 1: and there's a lot of a lot of it feels
Speaker 1: like trouble brewing without creating creating unnecessary concern. But I
Speaker 1: notice of relatively recent times the general terrorism threat level
Speaker 1: is it probable that the head of Asia has decided
Speaker 1: And that is my understanding, and you'd have a better
Speaker 1: understanding that it's a greater than fifty percent chance of
Speaker 1: a non sure attack in the next twelve months. That's
Speaker 1: why the probable rating provides what's your thoughts on terrorism
Speaker 1: and all the stuff that And we've seen a couple
Speaker 1: of things well within the past twelve months are stabbing
Speaker 1: at the church, what happened at Bondai, things like that,
Speaker 1: the issues between the Jewish community and the slogans that
Speaker 1: have been painted, and everything else that's going on. What's
Speaker 1: what's your take on that?
Speaker 2: Look. I think it's a very volatile situation at the moment,
Speaker 2: There's no doubt about that. But we've been there before.
Speaker 2: If I think of the first golf for the second goal,
Speaker 2: for September eleven attacks, you could go on and on
Speaker 2: and on about the incidents that have occurred that affect
Speaker 2: us here and affect community members in Australia. I don't
Speaker 2: think it's reasonable for governments to say whatever happens overseas,
Speaker 2: you shouldn't it shouldn't affect you here. The reality is
Speaker 2: it does. There are people on all sides who feel
Speaker 2: very strongly about what's happening in other parts of the world.
Speaker 2: I mean, you haven't mentioned the Ukraine War and the
Speaker 2: Russian issue. I'm involved with many members or some members
Speaker 2: of the Ukrainian community and they feel very strongly about
Speaker 2: what's happening over there as well. But the reality is
Speaker 2: I hope that the threads hold together the community in
Speaker 2: New South Wales and Sydney, in Australia are strong enough,
Speaker 2: the harmony, the cohesiveness is strong enough to unite us
Speaker 2: rather than divide us. I hope this will pass soon.
Speaker 2: We all pray for peace. Obviously, there are thousands of
Speaker 2: people really feeling vulnerable at the moment over there, and
Speaker 2: it's just a dreadful situation. I don't know that there
Speaker 2: are going to be any winners out of all of this.
Speaker 2: I mean, humanity is a loser at the end of
Speaker 2: it all. But we all, I think we all do
Speaker 2: our part in Australia and in New South Wales and
Speaker 2: Sydney to try and keep the harmony, just to make
Speaker 2: sure that everybody is safe and feel safe. And I mean,
Speaker 2: it's obviously anti Semitism has raised its head again. Some
Speaker 2: of what's been occurring is not necessarily anti Semitism, but
Speaker 2: it does tend to get classed as that. And certainly
Speaker 2: Islama Fae has also read it's only a head, not
Speaker 2: to the same extent. But all of that's unacceptable, and
Speaker 2: I think we've all said that, you know, quite loudly
Speaker 2: that it is unacceptable. But it is what's happening over
Speaker 2: there that's causing all this heated feeling here so we
Speaker 2: all hope that the problems over there are solved.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it would take the sting out of it. Dave
Speaker 1: Gall a friend of yours who we both work with
Speaker 1: and know well, doctor Dave Gall. Now I had him
Speaker 1: on the podcast and he's talking about terrorism, and that's
Speaker 1: his area of expertise, as you know, but talking about
Speaker 1: if let's say that, without mentioning a specific group, if
Speaker 1: the right wing become radicalized, then you don't have to
Speaker 1: just look after the right wing. You're going to look
Speaker 1: after the left wing because whatever goes, if one becomes
Speaker 1: more radicalized, the other will up and up. And it
Speaker 1: just seems like they're up in the anti time and
Speaker 1: time again.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I mean, I think one of the issues that
Speaker 2: are occurring at the moment that hasn't received much publicity
Speaker 2: is the rise of more of a rise. I mean,
Speaker 2: it's always been there, but there is certainly a bit
Speaker 2: more of a rise in right extreme right wing extreme activity,
Speaker 2: and I think it suits them when there are problems
Speaker 2: in other parts of the world and people are marching
Speaker 2: and so on, and they try and tap into that
Speaker 2: and use it to their own nefarious ends.
Speaker 1: How is in policing or law enforcement can we We
Speaker 1: can't arrest our way out of it or make I
Speaker 1: don't think just make legislation harder and harder. We've got
Speaker 1: to take the animosity, we've got to take the anger
Speaker 1: and the fear away. You are very big when you're
Speaker 1: in New South Wales police about working with communities, getting
Speaker 1: communities liaising with the police and making that connection. There
Speaker 1: is that that that the way we.
Speaker 2: Can definitely and I think it's the only way to go,
Speaker 2: is to make friends at a time when there's a
Speaker 2: neck crisis, and then when bad things happen, you tap
Speaker 2: into the good will that you've built in the relationship.
Speaker 2: People can talk to you if you're in authority and
Speaker 2: so on. But I think, just to your point Gary
Speaker 2: about the police generally and how what they're going through
Speaker 2: at the moment across the nation, not just in Sydney,
Speaker 2: it is wrong absolutely to expect us to arrest our
Speaker 2: way out of this. There are societal problems, there are
Speaker 2: issues with radicalization, there are issues with people on the
Speaker 2: internet and their pajamas in the basement who will never
Speaker 2: hear about because they're lone wolves and so on, and
Speaker 2: it's almost unfair to expect the police to solve those problems.
Speaker 2: There must be more of an all hands on deck
Speaker 2: approach government departments and the communities and so on, and
Speaker 2: there is a lot of activity in that space to
Speaker 2: try and counter that process of radicalization and extremism. And
Speaker 2: that's the answer, that is really the answer. You can't
Speaker 2: dump it all on the cops and say just go
Speaker 2: and arrest everyone.
Speaker 1: Yeah, to me that sometimes pause, fire on the pause,
Speaker 1: fuel on the fire, I should say, yeah.
Speaker 2: I mean, I have to say, certainly, my experience has
Speaker 2: been that most of the information that has led to
Speaker 2: significant arrests encountering terrorism have come from the community. So
Speaker 2: it's about them faith in the authorities to just put
Speaker 2: their hand up and say, look, this person has run
Speaker 2: off the rails. You should know and if that happens,
Speaker 2: then you know, great, Okay.
Speaker 1: I just wanted to get your thoughts on it, because, yeah,
Speaker 1: I know your experience, but the work that you've done overseas,
Speaker 1: your background and the experience you've had in the police,
Speaker 1: I was interested in getting your take on it. The
Speaker 1: Royal Commission for Defense and Veterans suicide. I know in
Speaker 1: speaking to you it took a toll on you. It
Speaker 1: was a two year project, three years, three years, and
Speaker 1: do you want to tell us what you can about that?
Speaker 2: Sure, I don't think there's any secrets. I mean, we've
Speaker 2: published a I wish it was a shorter report, but
Speaker 2: it's seven volumes because we had to there was so
Speaker 2: much that we found out that we needed to report.
Speaker 2: I'm glad we tried to limit the number of recommendations
Speaker 2: and the executive summary and so on, because the shorter
Speaker 2: it is, the more chance that people were going to
Speaker 2: read it and really take it on board. We came
Speaker 2: in at one hundred and twenty two recommendations. I'm very
Speaker 2: happy that I'll come back to what we did. But
Speaker 2: I'm really happy that the government and the opposition, in fact,
Speaker 2: we called for a bipartisan approach. It should be a
Speaker 2: bipartisan issue. And it's about our military and our veterans
Speaker 2: who have retired getting to a point where they need
Speaker 2: they can't see a way out, and they suicide. And
Speaker 2: I learned that to use the words committing suicide is
Speaker 2: not acceptable, it's offensive. So what we're supposed to say
Speaker 2: is a person died by suicide or he's simply suicided.
Speaker 2: But the reality is the problem reached a point where
Speaker 2: we're essentially losing three people every fortnight and that is
Speaker 2: continuing as I understand it today. So there was a
Speaker 2: Royal commission. I was appointed as a chair. I was
Speaker 2: probably an interesting choice because usually judges chair royal commissions,
Speaker 2: but I was fortunate. I had a form of Supreme
Speaker 2: Court judge from Queensland and a psychiatrist, and the three
Speaker 2: of us I think brought different perspectives to the table
Speaker 2: and it worked very well. So it was really an investigation.
Speaker 2: When I asked why they'd picked me, they don't really
Speaker 2: tell you, and they don't tell you who nominated you,
Speaker 2: but they just said, look, you've been in war zones,
Speaker 2: but you're not military, so you don't have an allegiance
Speaker 2: or anything to the Australian Defense Force, and you've run
Speaker 2: major investigations internationally, and this is really an investigation into
Speaker 2: what is going on and how the heck it's happened.
Speaker 2: A couple of interesting things. We think up to eighty
Speaker 2: percent in any given year of people who suicide former
Speaker 2: or serving members of Defense Force have never been to war.
Speaker 2: So it's really what's happening in the barracks. It's the
Speaker 2: disciplinary system, it's your chain of command treating you badly,
Speaker 2: it's your workmate's treating you badly. It's that sort of stuff,
Speaker 2: and I saw a lot of similarities between that and
Speaker 2: what happens in policing. I'll come back to that. So
Speaker 2: we handed in our final report to the Governor General
Speaker 2: in September last year, and I was very happy that
Speaker 2: both the government and the opposition have been supportive of
Speaker 2: our recommendations. The Government has formally accepted in record time
Speaker 2: one hundred and four out of one hundred and twenty
Speaker 2: two recommendations, including the main one, which is to establish
Speaker 2: a permanent body to monitor this welfare, these welfare issues
Speaker 2: and report public here and make recommendations publicly. We identified
Speaker 2: about fifty seven inquiries that preceded us over thirty years
Speaker 2: into all aspects of suicidality, somewhere around seven hundred and
Speaker 2: seventy recommendations. Out of those fifty seven inquiries, we went
Speaker 2: back and a lot of them had simply there isn't
Speaker 2: a record that they had actually been acquitted, or if
Speaker 2: they have, was the intent of the recommendation actually achieved
Speaker 2: Some of A couple of them were Senate inquiries that
Speaker 2: were quite significant. So hence we I mean I literally
Speaker 2: lay awake at night saying because people were saying to us,
Speaker 2: veterans were saying to us, you're just a fifty eighth inquiry,
Speaker 2: nothing will happen, and I just we couldn't have allowed
Speaker 2: that to happen. So the main recommendation was to have
Speaker 2: a body with teeth like us, like the Royal Commission,
Speaker 2: to report publicly and frankly embarrass the government, the media
Speaker 2: and the public undertaking more notice. I mean there's been
Speaker 2: a distinct lack of interest, I have to say, by
Speaker 2: the media and community generally. The problems with veterans, people
Speaker 2: were coming back from eight to nine tours of duty
Speaker 2: of Afghanistan or they've been through some other horrendous experience,
Speaker 2: and there's a lot of homelessness, incarceration, the problems that
Speaker 2: really widespread misuse of drugs, alcoholism, financial problems. More could
Speaker 2: and should be done, and the earlier do it. The
Speaker 2: Americans call it so in terms of reference, required us
Speaker 2: to look at the five eyes the US, UK, Canada
Speaker 2: and New Zealand. The Americans call it going to the
Speaker 2: left of the problem, like where you begin to write
Speaker 2: something and if you get sort of pre emptying if
Speaker 2: you like the problems. So they're focused on getting to
Speaker 2: the left of the issue before it happens. It's simply preventative.
Speaker 2: It is. Yeah, I like it a lot. I'm a
Speaker 2: trendy person.
Speaker 1: You have to clip up with the trends.
Speaker 2: But it's just I you know, I tossed and turned
Speaker 2: when I received the course, saying would you do it?
Speaker 2: Would you be interested in doing it? I knew it
Speaker 2: was going to be a hard ask, and it was.
Speaker 2: It's just you'd have to be in human not to
Speaker 2: feel something. We did nine hundred odd, just under nine
Speaker 2: hundred private hearings. I only did about three hundred. I'm
Speaker 2: nearly three hundred, three hundred and fifty odd people gave
Speaker 2: evidence in public, and there's nearly six thousand written submissions
Speaker 2: and we try to read as many of those as
Speaker 2: we could. The three commissioners I mean, but it does
Speaker 2: take a toll. We would go to a city and
Speaker 2: do two or three or four private hearings or sessions
Speaker 2: each for a week, and you get to the end
Speaker 2: of the week and I did feel the impact that
Speaker 2: what do they call it? You know, where you feel
Speaker 2: it's not your problem, but you hear it and you
Speaker 2: really feel for the person that's telling you that story.
Speaker 1: Well, you've got the empathy. You demonstrate that there's a
Speaker 1: homicide investigator and understanding now people's PA and you took
Speaker 1: on a big, big role. Like I remember when I
Speaker 1: heard that you were doing it, I thought, you're the
Speaker 1: good person for it. And you talked about making people
Speaker 1: here in preparation for this. I was reading, and I
Speaker 1: remember when you're out there't you weren't pulling back in
Speaker 1: some of the comments you were making about the culture
Speaker 1: or that.
Speaker 2: I think it was probably a little bit unusual. Certainly,
Speaker 2: some of our lawyers felt was unusual for the chair
Speaker 2: of a sitting royal commission to do so much media,
Speaker 2: or to do media at all, and they did advise
Speaker 2: against it a bit. But I just felt the only
Speaker 2: way we're going to achieve what we wanted to achieve,
Speaker 2: which was to go public and raise the profile of
Speaker 2: the problems and the issues to such a degree that
Speaker 2: they became undeniable. That was our strategy and I'm happy
Speaker 2: to have led that, and I'm happy to have done
Speaker 2: Master of the Media in fact, because we needed to
Speaker 2: get these problems out in the public mind.
Speaker 1: Well, I can't speak for everyone in the military, but
Speaker 1: I know a few people in the military and came up.
Speaker 1: In fact, at New Year's Eve, I was at a party.
Speaker 1: It was a French spy ex fighter pilot at his
Speaker 1: house and there was some military. Yeah, I just thought
Speaker 1: I dropped that in. But at the New year z
Speaker 1: e party at his place and then there was some
Speaker 1: military blokes there and I didn't know a lot of
Speaker 1: people started talking to him and they said, oh, we're
Speaker 1: just talking about Nick Caldos, and I set the records
Speaker 1: straight because they were saying, you're a good guy. But
Speaker 1: they were people from the military, and they were actually
Speaker 1: talking about the commission and what had happened there, and
Speaker 1: I think, yeah, you said what needed to be said,
Speaker 1: and you identify the point when you made the connection
Speaker 1: between policing and that. Quite often people speak about the policing,
Speaker 1: and I've had so many cops sit here on the
Speaker 1: podcast or just people I know talk about it wasn't
Speaker 1: the frustration, or it wasn't the hard of the work.
Speaker 1: It was a culture fighting the system, fighting the system.
Speaker 1: And I get the sense speaking to the military, you guys,
Speaker 1: that's the type of thing that's chipping away.
Speaker 2: Them, certainly we can share Statistically. For some it is
Speaker 2: the blood and gore and the trauma of the work.
Speaker 2: For others, it's how the organization treats them. That's the
Speaker 2: only way to describe it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you get lost in the system, and yeah, certainly do.
Speaker 1: It can break you. I understand that. I think any
Speaker 1: working cop can understand that too. Looking back at your career,
Speaker 1: I'm not sure what you're going to do next. When
Speaker 1: you're going to the moon or you there to set
Speaker 1: up something.
Speaker 2: I haven't really decided. I'm not sure what I want
Speaker 2: to do when I grow up, but I've probably got
Speaker 2: one or two things left in me. But I don't
Speaker 2: think I'm going to do this forever. Obviously work forever,
Speaker 2: but I've got a nice set of golf clubs that
Speaker 2: was purchased for me at my retirement dinner and from
Speaker 2: the police.
Speaker 1: Have you played?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I have quite a few games, but not enough
Speaker 2: nowhere near enough, and I'm still terrible. But I think,
Speaker 2: you know, if things come up and they're meaningful. Certainly,
Speaker 2: my role and the Raw Commission was a bit of
Speaker 2: a first, and the chemical weapons and investigation Palestine, all
Speaker 2: these issues were significant and I thought I could do
Speaker 2: a lot of good by doing them. I certainly. I
Speaker 2: think I'm fond of saying I'm a really ordinary bloke
Speaker 2: who found himself at extraordinary places, sometimes at extraordinary times.
Speaker 1: Bit of Forest Gump in you is the movie Forrest Gump.
Speaker 2: Not for a lot of years. He just just pretty ordinary.
Speaker 1: Turns up the ordinary guy in extraordinary times. Something like that.
Speaker 1: You've been very humble.
Speaker 2: Chosen for those I appreciate that, Yeah, But I just
Speaker 2: hope I did what I was expected to do the job,
Speaker 2: really to get to get it done. And I hope that.
Speaker 2: I think I quated in the book. I can't remember
Speaker 2: if I mentioned it. It's one of my favorite sayings
Speaker 2: that so Don Bradman, the famous cricketer. When he retired,
Speaker 2: he did many interviews and they asked him, what's your
Speaker 2: message for players today? And he said that they have
Speaker 2: a sacred duty to leave the game in better shape
Speaker 2: than when they found it. And I think that really
Speaker 2: applies to policing and a lot of the investigative work
Speaker 2: that you and I have done and others have done.
Speaker 2: It's about leaving the world in a better place than
Speaker 2: where you found it. Whether it's righting wrongs, holding bad
Speaker 2: people to account, or just making a difference. We put
Speaker 2: so much thought into how we dealt with everyone who
Speaker 2: came in contact with the Royal Commission, so trauma informed
Speaker 2: approach and Peggy Brown, doctor Peggy Brown, who's a psychiatrist,
Speaker 2: really helped with all of that as well, and James Douglas,
Speaker 2: the Judge, and I were absolutely on board with that,
Speaker 2: and the first point of contact for anyone ringing or
Speaker 2: emailing the Royal Commission was a counselor, and that person
Speaker 2: theoretically hopefully stuck with them all the way through their
Speaker 2: engagement with us, whether they ended up giving evidence in
Speaker 2: public or private or otherwise. It's about making sure that
Speaker 2: what our motto was to do no harm. The worst
Speaker 2: thing we could have done is to actually hurt people
Speaker 2: in our journey to finding out what was the problems.
Speaker 1: Offering false hope like it was.
Speaker 2: Exactly that was a whole other problem. I think there
Speaker 2: were huge expectations about what the Raw Commission was going
Speaker 2: to achieve, and I have to say there's some fairly
Speaker 2: harsh criticism saying, well, you're just going to be another inquiry.
Speaker 2: They're never going to do anything you say. I think
Speaker 2: The main reason we went to media is to make
Speaker 2: sure that that didn't happen, that we weren't just another inquiry.
Speaker 2: I mean the fifty seven inquiries that preceded us. I
Speaker 2: guarantee you no Prime minister and probably no minister has
Speaker 2: actually read them thoroughly and demanded that actually be taken.
Speaker 2: And that's there's a failure of leadership and a number
Speaker 2: of levels at the political level, perhaps certainly in the
Speaker 2: leadership of the ADF. I think more could have been done,
Speaker 2: for sure, and they've seen that now and I think
Speaker 2: they've embraced the fact that the change needs to occur.
Speaker 1: Well, sometimes you got you've got to push that envelope
Speaker 1: a little bit to get that change. So I know
Speaker 1: it was very strong speaking now that I haven't seen
Speaker 1: someone speak out in a role that you're in like
Speaker 1: like you had, But it made people sit up and
Speaker 1: pay attention. Policing, current policing today, it saddens me. And
Speaker 1: I think I've read somewhere very recently there's more applications
Speaker 1: coming in that might have something to do the pay rise,
Speaker 1: but policing across the country and I think in other
Speaker 1: countries it's been hard attracting people to policing. What's your
Speaker 1: take on that. Why has it become so hard because
Speaker 1: we talk about our careers and we can't keep the
Speaker 1: smile off our faces. We enjoyed it so much.
Speaker 2: And I think we don't regret much at all. Look,
Speaker 2: I think society itself has changed. The ek system has changed.
Speaker 2: When you and I joined the cops and it's forty
Speaker 2: five years or something for me forty forty four years,
Speaker 2: we said this is what we're going to do for
Speaker 2: the rest of our lia. Yeah, I don't think that
Speaker 2: happens that much now. There's very few people that would
Speaker 2: say that. And I think, again relying on memory, we
Speaker 2: were hanging on to people who joined New South Last
Speaker 2: Beliefs for between five and seven years. It's disappointing, but
Speaker 2: that society, that's what happens. Now there's something better over there.
Speaker 2: I'm going to go. I'm not committed to this. I
Speaker 2: don't have to be here for the rest of my life.
Speaker 2: But just in policing generally, I'm aware that across the
Speaker 2: country everyone's having trouble recruiting and now people are looking
Speaker 2: at bringing people over from New Zealand and the ADFS
Speaker 2: looking people looking at bringing people in from other five
Speaker 2: Ice countries, the English speaking world. I don't know where
Speaker 2: everyone went during COVID, but over your coffee shore by Gatu,
Speaker 2: they're winging that they can't find people to work in
Speaker 2: the coffee shop. It's a problem across society. It's probably
Speaker 2: obviously a real issue for policing because you have to
Speaker 2: have the bums on seats, you've got to have the numbers.
Speaker 2: I think there's some really good things have happened in
Speaker 2: the last year or so under the Commissioner Karen Web
Speaker 2: She's managed to take out that issue of people having
Speaker 2: to pay to go to university while they're studying, which.
Speaker 1: Just let's break that down a bit because that had
Speaker 1: been a bugbear, and full credit to her for changing that,
Speaker 1: because that was turning away so many people from policing
Speaker 1: and for the listeners are not aware of what we're
Speaker 1: talking about. You went to the academy study down there
Speaker 1: for months, but you had to pay for the privilege.
Speaker 1: So you've got people that have got families or mortgages
Speaker 1: looking to join the police, but they financially couldn't afford it.
Speaker 2: So you're not getting a salary, you're studying full time
Speaker 2: you end up with a hex at a higher education
Speaker 2: tax and you've got to support yourself and if you've
Speaker 2: got kids and a wife, mortgage whatever, you might be down.
Speaker 2: I think it's seven or eight months. You've got to
Speaker 2: somehow support yourself through all of that. The worst scholarships given,
Speaker 2: but it wasn't for everyone. There were many that didn't
Speaker 2: get a scholarship for one reason or another.
Speaker 1: Now I had that was a positive change.
Speaker 2: Absolutely positive, and I think you know, a commissioner WEB
Speaker 2: is really doing her best to try and address a
Speaker 2: lot of these issues that were an absolute speed hump
Speaker 2: for people joining. What I mean, I don't know what
Speaker 2: the intention was when they brought in this system, but
Speaker 2: it was a huge mistake. And I think you know,
Speaker 2: there was at no point did someone say this didn't work. Stop,
Speaker 2: we're going to have to read calibrate.
Speaker 1: Someone got promoted for suggesting it. I can think of someone,
Speaker 1: but I think that would have been the.
Speaker 2: Yeah, the bottom line is if it's not working, pause
Speaker 2: and change it. But that just keep it going, you know.
Speaker 2: And what it actually did it has topped a lot
Speaker 2: of older people with life experience who may have a
Speaker 2: wife and kids and mortgage from joining because you can't
Speaker 2: support Most people can't support themselves for six or seven
Speaker 2: months and then come in on a probationary constable's wage. Look,
Speaker 2: you know, I really despair when I see the issue,
Speaker 2: and it's just on policing generally. There is an enormous
Speaker 2: amount of oversight, intrusive oversight on policing in modern society.
Speaker 2: If you look at car videos, body worn videos, I
Speaker 2: mean everyone's got a phone. Everything you do will be
Speaker 2: on Channel seven that night. All that sort of stuff,
Speaker 2: as well as the really destrictive sort of reporting. That
Speaker 2: there's any much reporting that the front line or first
Speaker 2: responsibilities have to do. It is onerous and I'm sure
Speaker 2: that people look at it and go, I don't think
Speaker 2: I want to do all that. The job's good, but
Speaker 2: the reporting and the administrative stuff is say, over.
Speaker 1: We almost got lost on the administrative stuff, doesn't it?
Speaker 1: Or didn't we? I would joke sometimes, Okay, it's two o'clock.
Speaker 1: Let's start doing police work now. Because I've done the
Speaker 1: car dories, I've added up the car doors, I've done
Speaker 1: the CMF, I've done the CMS, and I've probably winged
Speaker 1: to you about this.
Speaker 2: Once or twice. Yeah, So CMF as a command management framework,
Speaker 2: which is really a way of cataloging that everyone's doing
Speaker 2: the right thing.
Speaker 1: I just call them the Sea words. I haven't done
Speaker 1: the Sea words, but yeah, I would like to see policing.
Speaker 1: I think it's so rigid to the employment. You're either
Speaker 1: a police officer or another police officer. I would like
Speaker 1: to see some flexibility. Look at you, you reinvigorated yourself
Speaker 1: leaving the police, having time off and coming back and
Speaker 1: then coming back in the police. I think there should
Speaker 1: be much more flexibility for people to do that as well.
Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely, I couldn't agree more. I actually have suggested that,
Speaker 2: written papers about it over the years. It's not something
Speaker 2: and the unions are dead against it as well, about
Speaker 2: people moving from one police force to another. Giving people
Speaker 2: if you want to go to Queensland because family reasons
Speaker 2: or whatever it might be, it's very difficult. They want
Speaker 2: you to go back to being a probation reconstable after
Speaker 2: twenty years. It's more happening more often now where people
Speaker 2: are allowed to come in laterally, but it is opposed
Speaker 2: by serving members and probably a lot of the unions
Speaker 2: as well. But the idea of having a break and
Speaker 2: going away and doing something else and then coming back
Speaker 2: with fresh networks. You've refreshed yourself. A change as good
Speaker 2: as a holiday. I found it really refreshing walking away
Speaker 2: and then coming back a year later or six months
Speaker 2: later or whatever. Some organizations do it better than another.
Speaker 2: Victoria Police have had a program that I tried to
Speaker 2: introduce into the New South Wales where people will going
Speaker 2: to the National Australia Bank, for instance, and having six months.
Speaker 2: You've worked on homicide for seven years, eight years, you're
Speaker 2: really worn out, the arm robbery squad, child abuse, all
Speaker 2: of those things. You need a break. Yeah, go away,
Speaker 2: do something else for six seven, eight months and come
Speaker 2: back fresh our organization. I know this because after I
Speaker 2: left there were people from New Southwest beliefs who went
Speaker 2: to work in the United Nations to do something different,
Speaker 2: something really worthwhile, and they were told you've got to
Speaker 2: drop it and come back or we're stacking you. Basically,
Speaker 2: you'll have to go.
Speaker 1: Well, you're only I took twelve months off and I
Speaker 1: hung out with you in Perth for a bit during
Speaker 1: that time, but that recharged me. I was doing at
Speaker 1: work out for there, and but I could only take
Speaker 1: twelve months off and then had had to come back.
Speaker 1: But yeah, I found it reinvigorated.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I mean the other flexible thing which is really
Speaker 2: positive and I have to say the Australian Defense Force
Speaker 2: do it very well, which is to let people go
Speaker 2: and do something else and then choose whether to come
Speaker 2: back or not. But if you come back, you don't
Speaker 2: go back to being a private again. You actually come
Speaker 2: back at the rank you left and they value the
Speaker 2: fact that you've done something completely different and brought back
Speaker 2: new networks, new way of looking at things, contacts, et cetera.
Speaker 1: Et cetera, beneficial all around.
Speaker 2: I think there's a way to go with policing generally
Speaker 2: in Australia, accepting that that is something that they should encourage.
Speaker 2: And you know, to be fair, partly it's rejected because
Speaker 2: everyone's that short. They don't want anyone to go anywhere
Speaker 2: because they need they need them.
Speaker 1: I'd love to see it say we're getting the best
Speaker 1: you see with the state elections, if they increase the
Speaker 1: police or that's part of the election platform. It always
Speaker 1: worries me because you want you don't want to just
Speaker 1: take the bottom of the barrel. You want more people
Speaker 1: and taking the best people for policing, because you and
Speaker 1: I both know one good police officer can make a
Speaker 1: difference on an investigation, or just working in or not
Speaker 1: just working general duties, one good police officer the difference
Speaker 1: they can make in the serving the community.
Speaker 2: You know, you just see the worst of society and
Speaker 2: you see the best as well. But the reality is
Speaker 2: you're far more worldly having been a police officer than
Speaker 2: having been anything else. I think people who do brave
Speaker 2: things in really difficult circumstances as well. You know, we said,
Speaker 2: We've said it a couple of times, but I certainly
Speaker 2: don't regret anything I've had, and I think you'd agree.
Speaker 2: We've had a great career. We've done a lot of
Speaker 2: good and that's really what it comes down to. And
Speaker 2: you know, I think at our core and I have
Speaker 2: a friend I mentioned in the book, Mike Julian, who's
Speaker 2: a former deputy commissioner from NYPD and he's been the
Speaker 2: head of security in a number of companies. But he
Speaker 2: talks about people having been bullied in their childhood somewhere
Speaker 2: in their life and subconsciously they don't like bullies. They
Speaker 2: want to end bullies. So they joined the police as
Speaker 2: a mechanism for doing that. I mean, I don't remember
Speaker 2: being bullied too much, but maybe I was, you know,
Speaker 2: as a migrant who was treated a bit differently when
Speaker 2: we got But I think he's got something there where.
Speaker 2: One of our call motivations, I think for policing is
Speaker 2: to stand up against those and against bullies and help
Speaker 2: those who can't help themselves. You can't do it for themselves.
Speaker 1: I think that drives a lot of people for it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so is it going to be a second book?
Speaker 2: Well, let's just see how many we sell. I think
Speaker 2: I don't know. I really it's in the hands of
Speaker 2: the gods. And I mean I have to mention my publishers,
Speaker 2: HarperCollins and all the ladies and the our all ladies
Speaker 2: who have been involved in it. They've been so patient
Speaker 2: with me and gentle I've never done this before. What
Speaker 2: do I know about publishing a book? What did you
Speaker 2: know about publishing a book? And look at you, but.
Speaker 1: Look what everything you taught me.
Speaker 2: But I look, it's been I mean, I don't know
Speaker 2: how I'm going to feel in six months time. But
Speaker 2: at the moment, I finding it very daunting the fact
Speaker 2: that my whole life is sort of out there, and
Speaker 2: I hadn't thought it through, I think in some ways,
Speaker 2: But at the end of the day, I'm sort of
Speaker 2: glad I did it. I don't know what reception is
Speaker 2: going to get for my kids and my family and
Speaker 2: my friends and so on. I hope I've got everything right,
Speaker 2: and I make the point in there that any mistakes
Speaker 2: that might come up, I've got to take responsibility. I
Speaker 2: can't blame anyone else. I do recall having a conversation
Speaker 2: with Bob Carr, the former premier, when I was beginning
Speaker 2: this process, and he's written many books and he's really
Speaker 2: really high intellect, and he just said to me, you know,
Speaker 2: I'm not going to do the way he talks about Nick.
Speaker 2: You must check the facts because human memory is fallible.
Speaker 2: And he says there were things that he could have
Speaker 2: sworn were white, but when he went back and checked
Speaker 2: for his books, he found out it was black, and
Speaker 2: he said, he just can't trust your memory. So there's
Speaker 2: been many things where I had to go out and
Speaker 2: dig old records and talk to people and what have you,
Speaker 2: just to make sure I've got it right. I hope
Speaker 2: I have, and I hope it's a positive message of
Speaker 2: a migrant who comes out here without much in their
Speaker 2: pocket and does reasonably well. My family and I have
Speaker 2: been blessed. My brother was a medical doctor. He's a
Speaker 2: practiced for quite some years and then went into the priesthood.
Speaker 2: But he's just finished his PhD on top of his
Speaker 2: dock the background. I think you finished it roughly the
Speaker 2: same time his son finished his PhD. Okay, so I'm
Speaker 2: sort of the failure in the family.
Speaker 1: That might be the nick kwdoss. I've got you back
Speaker 1: on here as the academic. Look the book and all
Speaker 1: the insecurities you've got there, and you've given me a
Speaker 1: lot of advice throughout my career and a lot of help.
Speaker 1: And I'll give you this. With the book, it is
Speaker 1: confronting putting it out there. And when you it's easy
Speaker 1: when you people are approaching, write a book, write a
Speaker 1: book and gay yep. And then when it gets down
Speaker 1: to the nitty gritty, then you see it actually printed
Speaker 1: out and it's there and you're signing the book and
Speaker 1: you're thinking, oh, this is there's no secrets, this is me.
Speaker 1: But what I'm saying it's enlightening too. It takes pressure
Speaker 1: off you. Well, that's who I am, and that's what
Speaker 1: comes across in your book. And I think you finish
Speaker 1: off your book with the one thing that you say
Speaker 1: that you've got no regrets.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean you say to me, I've given you
Speaker 2: a lot of advice, probably mast have it unsolicited over
Speaker 2: the years, Gary, but you also have inspired me the
Speaker 2: journey that you've been on and rising from a denterful
Speaker 2: set of circumstances to where you are now. I think
Speaker 2: it's been inspiration on that and the two books you've published.
Speaker 2: I hap there's the third one. I probably if I
Speaker 2: was going to do another one, I would want to
Speaker 2: focus a bit more on leadership and lessons learned if
Speaker 2: you like. There is a bit of that in there.
Speaker 2: But I mean we really we ended up with hundreds
Speaker 2: of pages and we had to really trim it down. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Well, I thought, sitting reading, I thought you might delve
Speaker 1: more into the leadership. But it's a ripping yard and
Speaker 1: there's so many, so many stories there. And look, you're
Speaker 1: worried about people being interested in it, as I understand
Speaker 1: that there's going to be some future articles in the
Speaker 1: Telegraph on the weekend extracts from your book. So it's
Speaker 1: all all positive stuff and enjoy the speaking and all
Speaker 1: the book Book to a service. You'll get that you.
Speaker 2: And I would have no problem speaking in public and
Speaker 2: all of that. When you're speaking about yourself and your
Speaker 2: life story. I haven't done that before, so this is
Speaker 2: going to be interesting.
Speaker 1: Well, you've certainly lived a life, Nick, and I think
Speaker 1: that's probably a way we'll finish the finish the podcast.
Speaker 1: Thanks for being the friend that you've been for me
Speaker 1: and guiding me through my career and the little things
Speaker 1: that you do that are very genuine. And you're caught
Speaker 1: up with a member of my family just the other
Speaker 1: other week and that was really appreciated.
Speaker 2: Thanks, thank you for having me Gary. This is a
Speaker 2: fourth podcast we've done together.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well you've got more than Pam, but Pam's are
Speaker 1: better detective than me. That's how we'll leave it. That's
Speaker 1: how I'll just that's what I'll get away from this,
Speaker 1: to take away from this.
Speaker 2: Discussion, Thank you, matte. I wish you every success and
Speaker 2: happiness too. Thanks, cheers, Thank you,