WEBVTT - Part 2: Nina Funnell Has A New Fight. This One Will Shock You 0:00:00.280 --> 0:00:03.239 This is part two of my conversation with Nina Fanell. 0:00:03.520 --> 0:00:05.760 Before you listen to this, make sure you've listened to 0:00:05.840 --> 0:00:09.240 part one. There's a link in our show notes before 0:00:09.280 --> 0:00:13.000 you listen today. This episode contains stories of child sexual abuse, 0:00:13.240 --> 0:00:17.319 sexual assault, and suicide. I want to move on to 0:00:17.360 --> 0:00:21.520 another huge campaign that you worked on, the let Her Speak, 0:00:21.600 --> 0:00:23.880 which turned into the let Us Speak campaign. 0:00:25.040 --> 0:00:27.600 Where did that start for you? Okay, So interestingly that 0:00:27.680 --> 0:00:31.000 actually also started in that year of university reporting it. Yeah, 0:00:31.120 --> 0:00:34.720 so back in twenty sixteen seventeen, when I was doing 0:00:34.760 --> 0:00:38.080 all of that work, I got a phone call from 0:00:38.600 --> 0:00:42.360 the student Women's offices at the University of Tasmania to 0:00:42.360 --> 0:00:44.880 tell me that there was a convicted sex offender living 0:00:44.920 --> 0:00:47.559 on campus in one of the residential colleges. I think 0:00:47.560 --> 0:00:51.440 it was John Flynn Residential College. And he was an 0:00:51.479 --> 0:00:55.560 elderly convicted child sex offender and his name's Nicholas Sbester, 0:00:55.680 --> 0:00:58.560 and he was living in co ed facilities and he 0:00:58.680 --> 0:01:01.360 was making a number of the students on campus feel 0:01:01.480 --> 0:01:04.399 very very uncomfortable, and they didn't understand why he was 0:01:04.440 --> 0:01:07.800 living along side seventeen and eighteen year old girls. And 0:01:08.080 --> 0:01:10.880 I mean they had shared bathroom facilities as well, and 0:01:10.920 --> 0:01:12.479 he was I think a sixty eight year old man 0:01:12.520 --> 0:01:15.480 at the time. Anyway, I said, yeah, I'll do that 0:01:15.640 --> 0:01:18.680 story as part of the fifty two and then I said, 0:01:19.200 --> 0:01:22.679 but I just want to check how to his original victims, 0:01:22.680 --> 0:01:25.440 because he'd been to jail. I said, how, how do 0:01:25.480 --> 0:01:26.760 you know who that is? Do you know how they 0:01:26.800 --> 0:01:29.520 feel about this? Do you know if they feel comfortable 0:01:29.560 --> 0:01:31.880 with the story coming out? And they said yes. Her 0:01:31.959 --> 0:01:35.080 name's Grace Tame. She lives in LA And I said, okay, well, 0:01:35.080 --> 0:01:37.920 I'd like to check him with her first about how 0:01:37.959 --> 0:01:40.800 she feels about me reporting on him living at college, 0:01:40.880 --> 0:01:43.759 and also she'd like to say anything. And I made 0:01:43.760 --> 0:01:46.639 contact with Grace, who he had abused as a fifteen 0:01:46.720 --> 0:01:49.440 year old school girl when he was her maths teacher 0:01:50.600 --> 0:01:54.840 at Saint Michael's Collegiate Girls School in Hobart, and Grace 0:01:54.880 --> 0:01:57.280 said that yes, absolutely, she was happy for the story 0:01:57.280 --> 0:02:00.120 to go ahead. And actually her mum, Penny, was a 0:02:00.120 --> 0:02:02.680 mature age student on campus at the time and had 0:02:02.680 --> 0:02:06.120 been running into her daughter's offender, so you can imagine, 0:02:06.200 --> 0:02:10.200 so that was impacting her right to access education. So 0:02:10.560 --> 0:02:12.800 Grace also said that she would like to be quoted 0:02:12.840 --> 0:02:14.680 in the article. And so you know, I wrote up 0:02:14.680 --> 0:02:17.600 this piece and as with every article, we run it 0:02:17.639 --> 0:02:21.080 past our legal department first before we publish it. And 0:02:21.320 --> 0:02:24.360 my lawyer, Gena McWilliams came back and she said the 0:02:24.400 --> 0:02:26.520 piece is good to go, but you can't name Grace. 0:02:27.200 --> 0:02:30.240 And I was like, why the offender has been convicted, 0:02:30.280 --> 0:02:32.840 he's gone to jail. There's no defamation, there's no sub 0:02:32.880 --> 0:02:34.959 judicy or contempt issues, you know, the normal stuff we 0:02:35.000 --> 0:02:37.760 come up against. And she said, well, there's a thing 0:02:37.840 --> 0:02:39.639 called Section one nine four K of the Evidence Act 0:02:39.680 --> 0:02:42.760 in Tasmani, which prohibits survivors from being identified unless they 0:02:42.760 --> 0:02:46.120 go to court and get a court order. And I 0:02:46.160 --> 0:02:49.440 remember going, well, can we do that? Can we get 0:02:49.480 --> 0:02:51.959 her a court order if she wants to be named? 0:02:52.600 --> 0:02:54.519 And Gina was like, look, if she wants to be 0:02:54.600 --> 0:02:56.480 named that badly, we can do it. But you know, 0:02:56.520 --> 0:02:58.800 it's a bit of work. And I went away and 0:02:58.800 --> 0:03:00.919 I thought about it and I was like, so wait, 0:03:01.040 --> 0:03:03.680 every survivor in that state who wants to tell their 0:03:03.720 --> 0:03:05.520 story has to go to court or has to get 0:03:05.520 --> 0:03:07.840 the media organization to go to court first before they 0:03:07.880 --> 0:03:12.639 can tell their story that doesn't seem right. And Grace 0:03:12.760 --> 0:03:15.000 was twenty two at the time, and I'd gone public 0:03:15.000 --> 0:03:18.000 when I was twenty three, and it suddenly occurred to 0:03:18.000 --> 0:03:22.240 me that had my assault happened in Hobart instead of Sydney, 0:03:22.320 --> 0:03:24.560 I wouldn't have been able to tell my story. I 0:03:24.560 --> 0:03:26.360 would have had to or I would have at least 0:03:26.360 --> 0:03:29.079 had to go to court get a court order. And 0:03:29.200 --> 0:03:32.080 that's that can be you know, up to ten thousand dollars. 0:03:32.120 --> 0:03:33.679 It's going to say it's a lot of money. Yeah, 0:03:33.720 --> 0:03:36.040 So we did Grace's work. I went to Grace and 0:03:36.040 --> 0:03:38.680 I said, how would you feel about us doing getting 0:03:38.680 --> 0:03:40.200 you a court order? Will cover the cost. So we 0:03:40.240 --> 0:03:42.840 did the work and Gina did it and it costs about, 0:03:42.920 --> 0:03:46.200 I think with about nine two hundred dollars to do it. Now, 0:03:46.240 --> 0:03:48.800 if the individual survivor was expected to wear the cost 0:03:48.840 --> 0:03:51.000 of that, that's outrageous. But more than that, I started 0:03:51.040 --> 0:03:54.320 to go, well, this is really problematic because it means 0:03:54.320 --> 0:03:56.840 that the media get to pick and choose which survivors 0:03:56.920 --> 0:03:59.000 end up telling their story based on where you know. 0:03:59.200 --> 0:04:01.560 And it also means that commercial media media with big, 0:04:01.600 --> 0:04:03.280 deep pockets are the ones that are going to be 0:04:03.320 --> 0:04:06.960 able to tell these stories. What happens if a survivor 0:04:06.960 --> 0:04:09.040 doesn't want to tell their story to mainstream media and 0:04:09.080 --> 0:04:11.840 they just want to tell it through their own blog 0:04:12.040 --> 0:04:15.200 or through an autobiography, does that mean that they then 0:04:15.560 --> 0:04:17.800 wear the cost? And even more than that, I was 0:04:17.839 --> 0:04:22.360 realizing this actually reinscribes the victim survivor back into the 0:04:22.400 --> 0:04:25.360 criminal justice system, which was often very traumatic to begin with, 0:04:26.080 --> 0:04:28.479 and it puts them in this position where they have 0:04:28.640 --> 0:04:31.880 to ask a judge for permission to say their own name, 0:04:32.440 --> 0:04:33.960 like it's so paternalistic. 0:04:34.600 --> 0:04:36.800 It's also making them feel shame when there is no 0:04:36.920 --> 0:04:39.240 shame there one hundred percent. 0:04:39.320 --> 0:04:42.279 And also the offender, the offender doesn't need a court 0:04:42.360 --> 0:04:45.120 order to tell what they want to say. And Nicholas Besta, 0:04:45.760 --> 0:04:48.400 the offender had actually gone and done a seventeen minute 0:04:48.440 --> 0:04:51.240 interview with a woman called Bettina Aren't where they had 0:04:51.240 --> 0:04:54.520 actually mocked Grace and made light of the offending. So 0:04:54.920 --> 0:04:59.080 I ended up speaking to my editors at the time 0:04:59.120 --> 0:05:00.760 and saying, I think this is more than a story. 0:05:00.800 --> 0:05:04.080 I actually think we should campaign on this, and they said, 0:05:04.080 --> 0:05:05.720 all right, go away and put together a pitch. And 0:05:05.760 --> 0:05:09.000 so that was an interesting process in and of itself, 0:05:09.160 --> 0:05:11.800 because I remember thinking, like, you know, I'm writing for 0:05:11.839 --> 0:05:15.440 a national outlet. I'm trying to draw attention to a 0:05:15.560 --> 0:05:18.279 law that, frankly, no one in Tasmania even seems to 0:05:18.279 --> 0:05:20.240 think is that much of a problem. No one was 0:05:20.279 --> 0:05:22.080 calling it a gag law at the time, they were 0:05:22.120 --> 0:05:24.760 just calling it. In fact, the local Sexual Assault Service 0:05:24.760 --> 0:05:26.760 in TASMANI thought it was a good thing that survivors 0:05:26.760 --> 0:05:29.120 had to go to court and ask for permission, because 0:05:29.120 --> 0:05:31.719 they thought that that would stop exploitative journalism by adding 0:05:31.839 --> 0:05:34.279 an extra step. It was bizarre, but they asked survivors 0:05:34.320 --> 0:05:38.440 about yeah, good, yeah, very good question. So I was like, 0:05:38.440 --> 0:05:41.159 how do I design a campaign. My one and only 0:05:41.200 --> 0:05:44.599 case study is living in la and can't be named 0:05:44.720 --> 0:05:47.200 or photographed. So it's very hard to humanize the issue 0:05:47.200 --> 0:05:51.120 when you can't name and photograph people. I'm writing about 0:05:51.400 --> 0:05:56.080 the smallest state, which people around the country don't necessarily 0:05:56.120 --> 0:05:59.600 click on articles about how do I make this national 0:05:59.600 --> 0:06:01.440 news and how do I get people to care about it? 0:06:01.480 --> 0:06:03.840 And so the answer to that was the first thing 0:06:03.880 --> 0:06:05.279 that we decided to do was to call it a 0:06:05.320 --> 0:06:08.599 gag law. It immediately kind of constructs what the problem is. 0:06:09.760 --> 0:06:12.200 The second thing was I decided that I would interview 0:06:12.400 --> 0:06:16.279 victim survivors from every other state that didn't have gag 0:06:16.360 --> 0:06:19.880 laws who had already gone public, to ask them why 0:06:19.920 --> 0:06:21.880 that had been important for them to be able to 0:06:21.880 --> 0:06:24.039 tell their story on their own terms. So I photographed 0:06:24.600 --> 0:06:25.960 and I got them all to hold a sign that 0:06:25.960 --> 0:06:27.880 said let her Speak. So that became the name of 0:06:28.080 --> 0:06:31.080 the campaign, hashtag let her Speak, So people like Saxon Mullins, 0:06:32.040 --> 0:06:36.400 Tara Moss and in the end, I interviewed fourteen survivors 0:06:36.440 --> 0:06:38.279 from around the whole country who had gone public to 0:06:38.320 --> 0:06:41.760 ask them why was that important for them? And because 0:06:41.760 --> 0:06:44.400 I'd been doing all this work with university survivors, a 0:06:44.440 --> 0:06:48.960 number of those fourteen were themselves university from universities. So 0:06:49.000 --> 0:06:54.240 the campaign actually really was born out of those series 0:06:54.240 --> 0:06:57.240 of events. And when we launched on day one, I'd 0:06:57.279 --> 0:07:00.240 partnered with sixty Minutes. We did it as this big 0:07:00.240 --> 0:07:02.520 sort of news dot com dot a u slash sixty 0:07:02.560 --> 0:07:06.680 Minutes launch to say, there is this absurd law in Tasmania. 0:07:06.760 --> 0:07:10.320 Here are all these survivors around the country calling out Tasmania, 0:07:10.360 --> 0:07:11.800 and so that makes it national. 0:07:11.520 --> 0:07:14.040 Makes it national, and everyone else care and. 0:07:13.960 --> 0:07:16.720 It also means that you've got faces, you've got other survivors, 0:07:17.080 --> 0:07:20.520 and then it becomes a survivor led campaign. And I 0:07:20.600 --> 0:07:23.280 decided to also include my own name and story in 0:07:23.360 --> 0:07:25.040 that as well as a survivor, to say, you know, 0:07:25.720 --> 0:07:28.120 at twenty three, telling my own story had actually been 0:07:28.160 --> 0:07:30.920 really important for me because it was how I reclaimed 0:07:31.640 --> 0:07:34.080 some of my agency in a moment when I felt 0:07:34.200 --> 0:07:38.560 very powerless, and so I sort of reinserted myself as 0:07:38.600 --> 0:07:41.640 both a journalist and victim survivor. And obviously we got 0:07:41.680 --> 0:07:43.680 Grace's court order for her and she was able to 0:07:43.720 --> 0:07:45.960 tell her story. But I knew that once we told 0:07:46.000 --> 0:07:48.720 her story with her face, I would get inundated with 0:07:48.840 --> 0:07:53.400 other victim survivors from Tasmania who would realize, oh my gosh, 0:07:53.440 --> 0:07:56.160 like most survivors in Tasmania didn't even realize that there 0:07:56.320 --> 0:07:58.080 was this requirement that they go to court if they 0:07:58.120 --> 0:08:01.400 want to tell their story. I get these other survivors 0:08:01.440 --> 0:08:03.360 coming forward saying, hey, could you get me a court order? 0:08:03.400 --> 0:08:05.080 Could you get me a court order? And knowing that 0:08:05.080 --> 0:08:07.360 that's going to be about ten thousand dollars each time. 0:08:07.320 --> 0:08:07.880 Can't do that? 0:08:08.280 --> 0:08:09.920 Well, No, we actually decided we should do that. 0:08:10.160 --> 0:08:12.360 So really the yeah, the media company decided they could 0:08:12.360 --> 0:08:13.520 do ten thousand. 0:08:13.480 --> 0:08:17.920 No I decided we should do it. So I decided 0:08:18.040 --> 0:08:20.600 to set up a go fundme and to partner with 0:08:21.360 --> 0:08:24.640 two organizations and Rape on Campus Australia because this was 0:08:25.720 --> 0:08:29.560 this was born out of university student activism and also 0:08:29.640 --> 0:08:32.440 Mark Lawyers, who are a brilliant law firm here in Sydney, 0:08:32.480 --> 0:08:34.040 and Mark Lawyers said that they would do all the 0:08:34.120 --> 0:08:37.480 legal work pro bono and so the GoFundMe would cover 0:08:37.520 --> 0:08:39.480 the costs of So it cost about I think it 0:08:39.480 --> 0:08:41.679 was about two thousand dollars per application or something to 0:08:41.840 --> 0:08:43.600 pay for some of the court fees and so on. 0:08:43.720 --> 0:08:46.120 We ended up doing it over twenty times, getting these 0:08:46.160 --> 0:08:49.040 court orders, and every time we'd get a court order, 0:08:49.720 --> 0:08:51.960 I would then tell the story of the victim survivor 0:08:53.200 --> 0:08:55.640 who wanted to go public. And now it turned out 0:08:55.679 --> 0:08:57.719 it wasn't just TASMANI that had that law, it was 0:08:57.760 --> 0:09:01.280 also the Northern Territory. So I was running to let 0:09:01.280 --> 0:09:04.160 her speak campaign in both Tasmania and the NT. The 0:09:04.200 --> 0:09:06.520 idea being that we would go to court get these 0:09:06.559 --> 0:09:09.679 court orders so that survivors could tell their story I 0:09:09.720 --> 0:09:11.880 would then do their story and as part of that story, 0:09:11.920 --> 0:09:13.920 I would once again highlight the fact that oh, by 0:09:13.920 --> 0:09:15.520 the way, we had to go to court to do this, 0:09:16.280 --> 0:09:19.080 that's not sustainable. We need legal change, and so we 0:09:19.080 --> 0:09:21.720 were pressuring that. So the campaign was pressuring the attorney 0:09:21.720 --> 0:09:25.959 generals in both jurisdictions to say change the legislation, and 0:09:26.240 --> 0:09:30.480 in it was April twenty twenty that the Tasmanian law 0:09:30.640 --> 0:09:34.560 changed and in July twenty twenty the Northern Territory law change. 0:09:34.600 --> 0:09:37.319 So survivors in those two jurisdictions now are able to 0:09:38.720 --> 0:09:41.600 tell their stories under their own names without having to 0:09:41.600 --> 0:09:43.839 go to court. And I do want to shout out 0:09:43.880 --> 0:09:46.840 to the other survivors because obviously Grace was named Australian 0:09:46.840 --> 0:09:49.280 of the Year for her bravery in telling her stories 0:09:49.600 --> 0:09:52.480 an adult survivor of child sexual abuse, but there were 0:09:52.760 --> 0:09:55.280 multiple other survivors in the campaign who did the same 0:09:55.280 --> 0:09:57.520 thing of going to court getting a court order, so 0:09:57.600 --> 0:10:01.320 like to Meeka, Janelle Lavinia in particular, like up in 0:10:01.360 --> 0:10:04.640 the NT Sandra, they all did an amazing job. And 0:10:04.679 --> 0:10:07.079 I want to give credit to all of the survivors 0:10:07.080 --> 0:10:07.319 in the. 0:10:07.280 --> 0:10:10.680 Campaign that did that such an amazing effort that you 0:10:10.760 --> 0:10:16.560 were able to get those laws changed. What was that 0:10:17.000 --> 0:10:18.280 campaign like for you? 0:10:18.520 --> 0:10:21.920 It sounds exhausting, Yeah, I mean like the worst part 0:10:22.559 --> 0:10:26.520 was the week that I got notification that the Tasmanian 0:10:26.600 --> 0:10:28.640 law was going to change. I also got notification that 0:10:28.760 --> 0:10:33.320 Victoria had just introduced a gag law, the exact gag 0:10:33.360 --> 0:10:36.840 law that we'd just gotten changed in Tasmania, and it 0:10:36.920 --> 0:10:39.800 went one step further. Not only were victim survivors in 0:10:39.920 --> 0:10:42.600 Victoria now required to go to court and get court 0:10:42.640 --> 0:10:47.000 permission to tell their stories, but any women or anyone, 0:10:47.040 --> 0:10:49.640 sorry I should say, who had been the victim of 0:10:49.960 --> 0:10:53.040 sexual assault and murder, or anyone who was now a 0:10:53.160 --> 0:10:56.320 deceased victim of sexual assault could no longer be named. 0:10:56.320 --> 0:10:59.680 So people like Jill Maher Urriticy Dixon, I'm Masawa overnight 0:11:00.080 --> 0:11:03.520 came illegal to publish their names, including by their own 0:11:03.559 --> 0:11:07.040 family members, on memorial pages and so on. So when 0:11:07.040 --> 0:11:12.280 I got that news and sidebar, I'd also just found 0:11:12.280 --> 0:11:18.960 out I was pregnant. Information overload, I just my heart 0:11:19.160 --> 0:11:22.640 sank and I knew. I knew that this was going 0:11:22.679 --> 0:11:26.920 to be a really different fight in Victoria because Tasmania, 0:11:26.920 --> 0:11:30.560 in the northern territory are very small jurisdictions population wise, 0:11:31.640 --> 0:11:34.679 and these laws had been on the books forever. In 0:11:34.760 --> 0:11:37.920 Tasmania in the NT no one was particularly attached to 0:11:37.920 --> 0:11:42.480 them or wanted to defend them, whereas in Victoria, the 0:11:42.840 --> 0:11:46.560 Attorney General Jill Hennessy at the time had actually just 0:11:46.760 --> 0:11:50.080 passed and introduced this gag law, which meant that she 0:11:50.280 --> 0:11:52.240 was going and her government was going to defend it 0:11:52.320 --> 0:11:54.200 as a good thing. But why do they think it 0:11:54.320 --> 0:11:56.560 is a good thing. We now think that what they 0:11:56.559 --> 0:12:02.080 did was an error in like drafting the legislation which 0:12:02.200 --> 0:12:04.719 was so sloppy and so embarrassing for them that they 0:12:04.760 --> 0:12:07.360 had to double down and defend it. But the other 0:12:07.400 --> 0:12:09.760 thing that was really different in Victoria. Victoria has a 0:12:09.880 --> 0:12:13.160 very very large population of victim survivors who have already 0:12:13.160 --> 0:12:16.120 been very public and active at that time. So if 0:12:16.160 --> 0:12:18.600 we think about things like the Royal Commission into Institutional 0:12:18.600 --> 0:12:22.040 Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, a whole lot of survivors 0:12:22.040 --> 0:12:25.560 in places like Ballarat, yeah had you know, to do 0:12:25.600 --> 0:12:29.479 with clergy abuse, had gone public to get that inquiry 0:12:29.559 --> 0:12:32.520 up in the first place, that Royal Commission up. It's 0:12:32.559 --> 0:12:35.320 also just it's a bigger jurisdiction, it's got a more 0:12:35.440 --> 0:12:38.439 lively and active feminist community. There were lots of survivors 0:12:38.440 --> 0:12:41.360 who had already exercised their right to go public, who 0:12:41.360 --> 0:12:44.760 had written autobiographies. Overnight, those autobiographies were in contempt of 0:12:44.800 --> 0:12:47.040 court because of this new law. So I knew that 0:12:47.080 --> 0:12:50.280 when I broke that story, it was going to go 0:12:51.559 --> 0:12:55.200 fucking ballistic, and it did like it went it. To 0:12:55.240 --> 0:12:59.679 give you context, the let her Speak petition in Tasmania 0:12:59.760 --> 0:13:03.400 got total of late seven thousand signatures. This one, which 0:13:03.440 --> 0:13:05.960 I didn't even create, some random created at just copying 0:13:06.000 --> 0:13:09.800 and pasting my article got over two hundred thousand signatures 0:13:09.800 --> 0:13:13.080 within twenty four hours. Wow, Like in Victoria, like it went, 0:13:13.360 --> 0:13:17.680 it was huge. All were angry, Yeah, And because survivors 0:13:17.720 --> 0:13:20.679 who had already exercised their right to be public were 0:13:20.679 --> 0:13:23.559 suddenly being put back in the closet and being told 0:13:23.760 --> 0:13:26.040 you now need to shut up and you can't say 0:13:26.040 --> 0:13:27.840 your name until you go to court and get a 0:13:27.880 --> 0:13:30.960 court order. And that was really really distressing and traumatic 0:13:31.000 --> 0:13:33.120 for them, as well as for those survivors who were 0:13:33.200 --> 0:13:35.440 right on the cusp of wanting to tell their story. 0:13:35.440 --> 0:13:38.360 And there was one in particular, a woman called Jamie, And. 0:13:38.360 --> 0:13:41.880 I think Jamie's story is a really good way to 0:13:41.960 --> 0:13:46.199 explain just how damaging these laws could be. Can you 0:13:46.240 --> 0:13:48.640 tell us a bit about her story and how these 0:13:48.720 --> 0:13:49.480 laws affected her? 0:13:49.640 --> 0:13:52.000 Yeah, absolutely so. Jamie Lee Page, in the same way 0:13:52.000 --> 0:13:54.480 that Grace Tame was our I guess, original case study 0:13:54.520 --> 0:13:58.480 in Tasmania, Jamie Lee Page was our original survivor that 0:13:58.520 --> 0:14:02.080 we worked with in Victoria. Who And it's a very 0:14:02.080 --> 0:14:04.960 distressing story I should warn people. So, Jamie and her 0:14:05.000 --> 0:14:10.040 older sister had been sexually abused by Jamie's biological father, 0:14:10.600 --> 0:14:14.120 and Jamie had been abused from age eight. And when 0:14:14.240 --> 0:14:17.800 Jamie had disclosed to her older sister what had happened, 0:14:18.679 --> 0:14:21.840 her older sister, Carol, went to police and reported her 0:14:21.840 --> 0:14:25.800 own sexual abuse, and the father then turned around and 0:14:25.920 --> 0:14:30.560 murdered Carol. The father was then charged and convicted of 0:14:30.640 --> 0:14:33.400 the murder, but never of any of the sexual offenses. 0:14:34.480 --> 0:14:38.040 The father then served his jail term and was about 0:14:38.080 --> 0:14:41.800 to be released, and Jamie suddenly realized Jamie's now an adult, 0:14:41.840 --> 0:14:45.080 she's a mum, She's got three kids. Jamie realizes that 0:14:45.160 --> 0:14:48.000 this man is going to be released back into the community, 0:14:48.080 --> 0:14:50.360 and no one knows that he's a child sex offender, 0:14:50.400 --> 0:14:53.120 because that's not what he went down for. And so 0:14:53.240 --> 0:14:56.200 Jamie made the very brave decision to as an adult, 0:14:56.240 --> 0:14:59.560 to go back to court and to tell her story 0:14:59.720 --> 0:15:02.680 of he had done to her as a child, and 0:15:02.760 --> 0:15:06.400 she got him convicted of child sexual offenses. However, as 0:15:06.480 --> 0:15:11.760 often happens in these cases, the judge made the decision 0:15:12.480 --> 0:15:16.400 to give him a reduced concurrent sentence, so that basically, 0:15:16.480 --> 0:15:19.200 by the time he finished his murder sentence, he would 0:15:19.200 --> 0:15:23.920 also be completing his sexual offensive sentence. So Jamie at 0:15:23.960 --> 0:15:26.720 that point was irate and she was like, well, I 0:15:26.800 --> 0:15:29.480 want to name him so that everyone in the community 0:15:29.560 --> 0:15:32.240 knows that this man is a sex offender and a 0:15:32.400 --> 0:15:37.160 risk to children. Now, when that gag law came in place, 0:15:37.600 --> 0:15:40.720 it meant that Jamie couldn't be named now because her 0:15:40.880 --> 0:15:46.000 father is related to her. Had he been named, it 0:15:46.040 --> 0:15:50.520 would have indirectly identified Jamie, which is also against the law. 0:15:50.560 --> 0:15:53.040 So his name became because Jamie's name is suppressed. His 0:15:53.120 --> 0:15:56.040 name became suppressed because he's related to her, so he 0:15:56.120 --> 0:15:59.200 was actually protected by the law by this gag law 0:15:59.240 --> 0:16:03.360 on Jamie's name. So Jamie became determined that she would get. 0:16:03.360 --> 0:16:05.600 And we became determined, and I worked with Mark Lawyers 0:16:05.640 --> 0:16:08.360 on this. We became determined that we would get Jamie 0:16:08.600 --> 0:16:10.960 a court order so that she could be named. Now, 0:16:11.000 --> 0:16:13.760 I mentioned before that there was also a gag on 0:16:13.920 --> 0:16:17.240 any women, men, children who had been sexual assaulted and 0:16:17.280 --> 0:16:20.960 were now deceased. That included Jamie's sister. So when we 0:16:21.000 --> 0:16:22.880 went to court to get Jamie's court order so she 0:16:22.880 --> 0:16:26.400 could name herself and her father, the judge said, well, 0:16:26.440 --> 0:16:29.720 but there's also this secondary suppression on the sister's name 0:16:29.760 --> 0:16:32.320 which also affects all of you. So I'm sorry, but 0:16:32.440 --> 0:16:35.000 you can't name yourself, Jamie because you don't have permission. 0:16:35.720 --> 0:16:39.640 This whole circular logic anyway, so we had to keep 0:16:39.680 --> 0:16:41.680 going back. We had to in effect also get a 0:16:41.720 --> 0:16:44.320 court order to name the deceased sister as well, and 0:16:44.360 --> 0:16:46.360 pay each time, and pay each time, and so that 0:16:46.480 --> 0:16:48.680 was the go fund me. So thank you to everyone 0:16:48.720 --> 0:16:50.320 in the public that donated to that gro fundan. We 0:16:50.440 --> 0:16:52.640 ended up getting over two hundred thousand dollars that paid 0:16:52.640 --> 0:16:55.440 for all of the court orders across Tasmania, the NT 0:16:55.720 --> 0:16:57.800 and Victoria. And each time I would go to court 0:16:57.880 --> 0:17:00.920 with these people and Mark Lloyd would do the legal work, 0:17:00.960 --> 0:17:03.200 we'd get these court orders and then I'd break the story. 0:17:03.280 --> 0:17:05.879 But of course this was in twenty twenty, which was 0:17:06.000 --> 0:17:09.679 Victoria was in lockdown because of COVID, and so the 0:17:09.720 --> 0:17:13.800 survivors that I was working with in Victoria they were 0:17:13.880 --> 0:17:17.480 kind of holding this double trauma of being silenced by 0:17:17.520 --> 0:17:21.840 the law, also having the Attorney General defend the law, 0:17:23.160 --> 0:17:27.960 and also then having COVID and being in lockdown. So 0:17:28.040 --> 0:17:31.199 that part of the campaign was actually incredibly traumatic. And 0:17:31.240 --> 0:17:34.159 I was pregnant and I had a complex pregnancy. So 0:17:34.359 --> 0:17:39.360 in the end, eventually, finally in November twenty twenty, we 0:17:39.520 --> 0:17:42.520 actually got the Victorians to reverse course and to finally 0:17:42.600 --> 0:17:48.520 change that law. And I'm obviously very pleased that they 0:17:48.560 --> 0:17:51.919 did change the law, but it was by the end 0:17:51.960 --> 0:17:55.800 of that year. I was completely burnt out and traumatized, 0:17:56.200 --> 0:17:59.600 I have to say, And I was heading into twenty one, 0:18:00.600 --> 0:18:02.440 had no idea that Grace Hand was just about to 0:18:02.480 --> 0:18:04.320 be named Australian the year and the Brittney Higgins stuff 0:18:04.400 --> 0:18:07.720 was all about to explode, and I was yeah, I 0:18:07.800 --> 0:18:11.399 was now heavily, heavily pregnant, and I had the baby 0:18:11.400 --> 0:18:12.680 and as soon as I had the baby, I had 0:18:12.680 --> 0:18:15.919 to became actually developed an auto imune condition, and I 0:18:15.960 --> 0:18:19.200 had to then completely step back for quite a while. Yeah, 0:18:19.200 --> 0:18:22.640 so I've got the same autoimmune condition that Michael Klym has. 0:18:22.680 --> 0:18:26.119 It's a degenerative nerve condition. And I lost the ability 0:18:26.160 --> 0:18:30.639 to walk for a while, and it was actually very 0:18:30.640 --> 0:18:32.280 traumatic because we didn't know what it was and I 0:18:33.480 --> 0:18:37.159 was in excruciating pain and I lost the ability to walk. 0:18:37.320 --> 0:18:40.480 And I would hold my newborn and I couldn't feel, 0:18:40.880 --> 0:18:43.680 So it effects your sensory nerves. I couldn't actually feel him, 0:18:43.840 --> 0:18:46.159 my hands couldn't hold like I would hold him, but 0:18:46.200 --> 0:18:49.240 I couldn't feel, but my lips still had feeling, and 0:18:49.240 --> 0:18:50.920 I would just kiss the back of his head. Cons 0:18:50.920 --> 0:18:52.720 Like in every photo my lips are on the back 0:18:52.720 --> 0:18:54.320 of his head because that's where I could still feel 0:18:54.359 --> 0:18:58.000 in Yeah, so I had to really really step back 0:18:58.000 --> 0:19:01.360 in twenty twenty one for health reason, and then it's 0:19:01.440 --> 0:19:02.840 sort of only been in the last few years that 0:19:02.840 --> 0:19:04.000 I've been able to get back to work. 0:19:04.119 --> 0:19:05.840 I feel like a lot of people won't know that context. 0:19:05.880 --> 0:19:07.160 And thank you for sharing that. 0:19:07.320 --> 0:19:10.359 Yeah, And I still again like big thanks to everybody 0:19:10.400 --> 0:19:14.000 who donates plasma or blood products I get every four weeks, 0:19:14.040 --> 0:19:16.760 I have a four to five hour plasma transfusion to 0:19:16.800 --> 0:19:19.720 manage my illness and that's why I'm able to walk again. 0:19:19.760 --> 0:19:22.640 And it still has a huge impact on your life. 0:19:22.680 --> 0:19:26.600 Oh yeah, absolutely, Like I've had to relocate back to Sydney, 0:19:27.080 --> 0:19:31.840 you know, because there's better hospitals here. I've Yeah, it 0:19:32.040 --> 0:19:34.880 impacts my movement, my day to day physicality and so on, 0:19:35.000 --> 0:19:40.440 but thankfully because of plasma transfusions. So it's called chronic 0:19:40.440 --> 0:19:43.000 inflammatory demolinating polynuropathy, which is a bit of a mouth 0:19:43.680 --> 0:19:47.119 CIDP for sure, And it's been its own journey and 0:19:47.480 --> 0:19:49.800 it's made me quite interested actually in the relationship between 0:19:50.840 --> 0:19:54.720 trauma and autoimmune connections or autoimmune conditions, because there is 0:19:54.760 --> 0:19:58.600 a connection between the two. And it's highly likely that 0:19:58.720 --> 0:20:01.280 the amount of dress and trauma that I was under 0:20:01.280 --> 0:20:04.199 in twenty twenty is actually really a direct trigger to 0:20:04.359 --> 0:20:05.680 me developing the illness. Yeah. 0:20:05.800 --> 0:20:07.480 Yeah, it's what made you want to go back in 0:20:07.560 --> 0:20:10.520 and do more, because in twenty twenty two you did 0:20:10.720 --> 0:20:16.040 a whole new campaign, yes, called Justice Shouldn't Hurt. So 0:20:16.440 --> 0:20:17.280 it didn't stop you. 0:20:17.680 --> 0:20:19.880 Tell me for a while, but no, well, what made 0:20:19.920 --> 0:20:21.920 me want to come back was it was an email 0:20:21.920 --> 0:20:24.360 that I received from a guest that you've had on recently, 0:20:24.440 --> 0:20:29.720 Michelle Milthorpe. I got this email from Michelle, who's a mum, 0:20:30.080 --> 0:20:34.119 saying that her daughters had gone through the criminal justice 0:20:34.160 --> 0:20:36.679