Speaker 1: Welcome to Sunday Night, Cruise Imagine and now here's your radio,
Speaker 1: Reverend Bill Cruise.
Speaker 2: A great, big, warm Welcome to your Sunday Night family. You, yes, you,
Speaker 2: you really are welcome here and we're all together on air,
Speaker 2: on digital and online. So come on call in now
Speaker 2: and share with us on one three one eight seveny three.
Speaker 2: Soon we discuss feminism and plastic surgery with Eva Cox.
Speaker 2: Later this hour, we talked to the original lead singer
Speaker 2: and a founding member of The Wiggles, Greg Page, who's
Speaker 2: currently playing President FDR in the current Australian production of Annie.
Speaker 2: Next hour, and with National Reconciliation Week winding down, we
Speaker 2: talked to one of Australia's leading Aboriginal psychologists, Dr Tracy
Speaker 2: Westerman about the launch of Change Direction, a powerful new
Speaker 2: short film which delivers the stark truth about Aboriginal suicide rates,
Speaker 2: particularly among young people, and they are continuing to rise.
Speaker 2: In our last hour, we talked to critically acclaimed author
Speaker 2: Hilda Hinton about her book The Opposite of Lonely, which
Speaker 2: deals with loneliness, social disconnection and the power of friendship.
Speaker 2: Last week, there were tears and hope as families mourned
Speaker 2: the Bondi stabbing victems. On inquest's final day and last Friday,
Speaker 2: a teen was arrested in Melbourne over the Northland shopping
Speaker 2: center machete brawl. He had previously been found with horrifying
Speaker 2: images of himself posing with knives, buying machetes, and graphic
Speaker 2: video of the stabbing of another young male. The fifteen
Speaker 2: year old was already on four counts of bail when
Speaker 2: he allegedly became involved in last Sunday's violent melay, sparked
Speaker 2: by rival gang members looking at each other the wrong way. Meanwhile,
Speaker 2: Victorian retailers are clambering to remove prohibited machetes from store
Speaker 2: shelves as an Australian first ban on the sale of
Speaker 2: the weapons comes into effect. The ban was fast tracked
Speaker 2: last Monday after the terrifying weekend of knife crime, and
Speaker 2: forced as of midday last Friday. The measures imposed an
Speaker 2: interim ban on the sale of cutting a knives with
Speaker 2: a blade longer than twenty centimeters, excluding kitchenware. So what
Speaker 2: do you think of the Victorian government's retail machete ban?
Speaker 2: Is it something we should be looking at? In New
Speaker 2: South Wales, Queensland and the Act. How serious is knife
Speaker 2: and machete crime become in the community? Will this ban
Speaker 2: improve public safety? As online access to these products remains unregulated?
Speaker 2: Should the Commonwealth step in to regulate the sale of
Speaker 2: knives and machetes across Australia wide? Could a buyback scheme
Speaker 2: similar to the gun buy back be an effective way
Speaker 2: of removing machetes from the community. So your thoughts on
Speaker 2: a ban on machetes and cutting edge knives with a
Speaker 2: blade longer than twenty centimeters? Is it a good or
Speaker 2: a bad idea? One three, one eight seven three And
Speaker 2: As National Reconciliation Week winds down for twenty twenty five,
Speaker 2: we are a minded of Australia's shared history and our
Speaker 2: ongoing journey towards reconciliation. It's been a time to reflect,
Speaker 2: learn and take action, honoring the resilience, culture and achievements
Speaker 2: of Aboriginal and Torrestraate islander peoples. The theme this year
Speaker 2: has been bridging Now to Next and has urged all
Speaker 2: Australians to unite in advancing reconciliation. It has called on
Speaker 2: us to learn from the past, take action in the present,
Speaker 2: and build a more inclusive future. So what is National
Speaker 2: Reconciliation Week twenty twenty five meant for you? Have you
Speaker 2: participated in any events over the past week? How important
Speaker 2: has it been for you to reflect, learn and take
Speaker 2: action honoring the resilience, culture and achievements of Aboriginal and
Speaker 2: Torrestrad Island of People's over National Reconciliation Week? What would
Speaker 2: you like to see happen to advance reconciliation into the future.
Speaker 2: What do we need to do to build a more
Speaker 2: inclusive future with our Indigenous brothers and sisters and in
Speaker 2: advancing reconciliation, what must we learn from the past and
Speaker 2: what about closing the gap between Indigenous and non Indigenous Australians.
Speaker 2: Do we need to do more? Meanwhile, there have been
Speaker 2: community calls for answers after another death in custody of
Speaker 2: a twenty four year old Aboriginal man in Alice Springs.
Speaker 2: The man was declared dead in hospital about seventy minutes
Speaker 2: after he was restrained on the ground following an altercation
Speaker 2: with security guards at a local court Coals about one
Speaker 2: ten pm last Tuesday. So are we doing enough to
Speaker 2: end Aboriginal deaths in custody? How? How can we get
Speaker 2: these numbers down? And suicide rates among Aboriginal and Torrestrate
Speaker 2: Islander that's First Nations people are substantially higher than those
Speaker 2: of non Indigenous Australians. What can be done to reduce
Speaker 2: deaths by suicide and suicide behavior among First Nations people?
Speaker 2: And does this need to be a public health priority
Speaker 2: for all Australian governments? And last Monday May twenty six
Speaker 2: was National Sorry Day, which remembers and acknowledges the mistreatment
Speaker 2: of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people who are forcibly
Speaker 2: removed from their families and communities, which we now know
Speaker 2: as the Stolen Generations. So what are we doing? Are
Speaker 2: we doing enough to help Stolen Generation survivors? And can
Speaker 2: we all play a part in the healing process? Today,
Speaker 2: twenty three years after the Bringing Them Home Report and
Speaker 2: twelve years since the National Apology, Aboriginal and Torres Strait
Speaker 2: Islander children are still over ten times more likely than
Speaker 2: non Indigenous children to be removed from their families. What
Speaker 2: needs to be done to turn this around? So come on,
Speaker 2: I'd like your thoughts on National Reconciliation Week twenty twenty
Speaker 2: five and its significance to you. One three one eight
Speaker 2: seven three and American singer Charlene was born in Los Angeles, California,
Speaker 2: on this day in nineteen fifty, so she's seventy five.
Speaker 2: Her only hit was in nineteen eighty two with I've
Speaker 2: Never Been to Me, which spent six weeks at number
Speaker 2: one in Australia.
Speaker 3: Really you.
Speaker 4: Cursing your life?
Speaker 5: You're a discontented mother into regmentu. I've no doubt you
Speaker 5: dream about the things you never do.
Speaker 6: But I wish someone had to talk to me.
Speaker 7: Like I want to talk to you.
Speaker 5: Who have been to Georgia and California anywhere I could
Speaker 5: all run.
Speaker 3: Took the hand of a preacher, man me me.
Speaker 8: Love in the sun. But I ran out of places
Speaker 8: and friendly faces because I had to be free.
Speaker 4: To parent. I spad, I never been to me.
Speaker 6: Please, lady, please leady, don't just walk away, because I
Speaker 6: have this need to tell you why.
Speaker 8: All alone today I can see so much he still
Speaker 8: living in your eyes, or to shed about of a
Speaker 8: very hut that has lived and really lies.
Speaker 4: Oh, I've been to Nice and the Isle of Greece.
Speaker 7: While I said to Champagne, yet I moved like Harlow and.
Speaker 6: Love to come and showed them what I've got.
Speaker 7: I've been.
Speaker 8: I'm dressed by kings, and I've seen some things that
Speaker 8: are all minds most deceit.
Speaker 4: Two pair and die never been.
Speaker 9: To me.
Speaker 7: Hair, you know, appearces.
Speaker 10: It's a lie, a fantasy we create about people and
Speaker 10: places as we'd.
Speaker 3: Like them to be here.
Speaker 8: But you know a true it's that little baby you're holding,
Speaker 8: and it's that man your father this morning, the same
Speaker 8: one you're going to make love with tonight.
Speaker 4: That's true.
Speaker 3: That's the sometimes I've been.
Speaker 6: To crying and formal moorn children.
Speaker 7: Then my husband made me complete.
Speaker 3: I took the sweet life that never loved like me
Speaker 3: been from.
Speaker 4: The sweet I spent my last exploring the.
Speaker 7: Son, horring that cost too much to be for.
Speaker 3: Love them to bear.
Speaker 2: To Welcome to the show, seem.
Speaker 11: Okay, Bill, how are you going mate?
Speaker 2: Good today?
Speaker 12: That's good to hear.
Speaker 11: Yeah, just on this this machete thing, particularly the band
Speaker 11: they're instituting him in Victoria. I look, I think that's
Speaker 11: it's an interesting thing. I think there'll be other states
Speaker 11: around the country that are clamoring for that to happen.
Speaker 11: It's probably going to be a national approach anyway, because
Speaker 11: other states will be asking their government what about us? Yeah, well,
Speaker 11: why you know that? And as for repeat offenders, particularly
Speaker 11: repeat youth offenders, something's not quite working out because if
Speaker 11: they can keep being put on bail and they keep
Speaker 11: reaffect well, obviously something's going wrong there in the system
Speaker 11: where never.
Speaker 2: We've never, we've never in this country done enough for
Speaker 2: our youth sieve never.
Speaker 11: Yeah, well, I mean, and that's that's your talking probably
Speaker 11: about getting in early and all that kind of thing,
Speaker 11: really early before they give this stage. And I would
Speaker 11: agree with that. I think you do have to get
Speaker 11: in very very early. I also think when crimes like
Speaker 11: this happen, and people don't like to hear this, but
Speaker 11: when crimes like this happen, yes, you do have to
Speaker 11: have rehabilitation. I'm all in favor of that, but there
Speaker 11: does have to be some kind of punishment or some
Speaker 11: kind of consequence for that action. Otherwise, you know, the
Speaker 11: message won't get through.
Speaker 2: Yes, right, that's right.
Speaker 12: You've got to do both, got to do both.
Speaker 11: If you don't do both, then I'm afraid these kinds
Speaker 11: of issues will happen. And when you have when you
Speaker 11: have repeated that this being let out repeatedly, so to speak, Well, then.
Speaker 13: You know, what can you expect if you're going to
Speaker 13: do the same thing you get And.
Speaker 2: The reason they get let out is because none of
Speaker 2: them people in who are looking after these sorts of
Speaker 2: kids know what to do, or they do know what
Speaker 2: to do, they just haven't got the resources to do it.
Speaker 14: Well.
Speaker 11: Yeah, I don't know where the magistrates have actually said that,
Speaker 11: but I wouldn't be surprised if that were to be
Speaker 11: the case. But you know, it is a real problem.
Speaker 11: It's a problem right across the place. And I do
Speaker 11: think that governments they've got to get their heads around
Speaker 11: this issue because if they don't, the community anger is
Speaker 11: just going to keep boiling over.
Speaker 2: I think it'll just keep boiling over. God bless you
Speaker 2: Siev Thanke you for you come on your thoughts on
Speaker 2: the Machete Band one three one eight seven three.
Speaker 1: You're with the radio Reverend Bill Crooves.
Speaker 2: Good a Michael, what made you pick up the phone?
Speaker 9: Mate?
Speaker 15: Oh?
Speaker 16: Well, just talking about the issues of all the night
Speaker 16: crimes and banning twenty centimeter blades. They look a ten
Speaker 16: centimeters play could still kill somebody. Yeah, that's one thing,
Speaker 16: but they should introduce something right where people who kill
Speaker 16: people from stubbings and machetes or any sort of knife
Speaker 16: or shootings or whatever locked away for life, and what
Speaker 16: they should do. They should open a TV channel where's
Speaker 16: twenty four to seven. They watch the prisoners there, They
Speaker 16: watch them and then they go, Okay, what's changed about him?
Speaker 16: And nothing? Just his fingernails for a bit longer. He's
Speaker 16: just in their waist of a life because he thought
Speaker 16: he was cool to carry a knife around. And that
Speaker 16: should be the consequence, because if the consequence is, you know,
Speaker 16: the risk is very high, what rewards do they get
Speaker 16: if they're going to risk their whole life because they
Speaker 16: don't like someone.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it sounds it kind of looked like in Melbourne
Speaker 2: like it was some sort of gang crime, didn't the.
Speaker 16: Yeah, well they should walk him up for light. In Sydney,
Speaker 16: now we've got you know, the worst or the worst
Speaker 16: at the moment with all the shooting is all the shootings.
Speaker 2: Yeah, the people are quick to go out to people
Speaker 2: with the knives. But in Sydney it's his full line,
Speaker 2: isn't it? With guns?
Speaker 16: Well, I was nearby, I was there when it happened.
Speaker 16: I was just on the other side of the road.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so how do you mean tell us?
Speaker 17: Oh, well, I was about to start a new job.
Speaker 16: Last week on Monday. So I started a new job
Speaker 16: and I'm trying to find the quickest way to get
Speaker 16: the Paramatta and I was on Paramatter Road turning with
Speaker 16: a Mercedes.
Speaker 2: Yes.
Speaker 17: Yeah, And then when I went down there, Oh, this
Speaker 17: year's just people screaming, going crazy, horns beeping, pinging as
Speaker 17: a car accident, but no, it was gunshots being fired.
Speaker 16: And they sped off there and he didn't get shot there,
Speaker 16: got shot a few a bit before that, and seeing
Speaker 16: all the blood everywhere, and you know, for people to
Speaker 16: see that look even after that young bloke is around
Speaker 16: my age, got shot in front of his house. Yeah,
Speaker 16: I'm scared to go into my own house because I
Speaker 16: live around that sort of area. You know, at night time.
Speaker 2: I'm going to get what needs to be done, Michael, Well, strict.
Speaker 16: The gun laws, the border security, what's coming to our country.
Speaker 16: There's too much illegal drugs, which is fueling.
Speaker 2: The gang crome and the cigarettes as well.
Speaker 16: Now, well the cigarette that's more of the Yeah, that's
Speaker 16: a big one on the tobacconists and well, it's really
Speaker 16: disgusting what we're seeing. You know, you import the third world,
Speaker 16: you become the third world.
Speaker 2: So do you think do you think the police are
Speaker 2: doing enough?
Speaker 9: No, not at all.
Speaker 16: They are under resource. They don't have the resources. They
Speaker 16: can't figure out who shot that guy in Condell Pass
Speaker 16: the other week, that twenty three year old guy. They
Speaker 16: can't even find out who that was, even though they
Speaker 16: can still get evidence from the burnt out cars, the
Speaker 16: fake plates that they use, sort all the illegal stuff.
Speaker 16: But what they do is they steal a car, they
Speaker 16: find a car with similar number plates, take a phoo,
Speaker 16: gets on the copy it over, send them a plate
Speaker 16: so they can go to it, go and detect it
Speaker 16: on the police cameras.
Speaker 2: Yep, yep.
Speaker 16: So the very underresourced, if they could stop guns coming in,
Speaker 16: you know, all these knives to who gets the hold
Speaker 16: of knives? Who get to hold of this? Like the
Speaker 16: stop and search what they had in the UK, they
Speaker 16: had to stop it because it was considered racist because
Speaker 16: a majority of the people that were carrying knives were
Speaker 16: of African descent. So they stopped that because it was racist.
Speaker 16: And they're pulling up, you know, the typical suspect and
Speaker 16: what is what the police thought. So it's all the
Speaker 16: wake stuff that's getting in the way and people dying,
Speaker 16: Like it's very obvious to tell who could possibly be
Speaker 16: carrying someone wearing a hoodie, you know, trying to cover
Speaker 16: their face, trying to you know, one of those what
Speaker 16: do they call them, chees or whatever, But they're more
Speaker 16: likely they something on them on them than someone you know,
Speaker 16: dressed in you know, a polo shirt or a suit.
Speaker 16: So it's not really racist. That's what they should bring in.
Speaker 16: Tould be a commonwealth wall that stop and stop and search.
Speaker 16: They would really prevent things, give police more power to
Speaker 16: search vehicles and houses as well.
Speaker 2: Police police used to have those, Michael, but they abused it.
Speaker 16: They abused it, Yes, that's right.
Speaker 2: But now so that there's almost a no win suits
Speaker 2: the situation, if you get what I.
Speaker 16: Mean, I know exactly what you're saying, but yeah, that's
Speaker 16: the only thing that can that can really stop them.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, I wonder how much it's kind of
Speaker 2: communities as well, that we we leave certain communities isolated
Speaker 2: and don't go near them and then then it just
Speaker 2: festers in there. How much do you think.
Speaker 16: It's that well, more rural town to places where you know,
Speaker 16: more outback and whatever, more smaller town. Obviously you've got
Speaker 16: Kendall which William Tyrell went missing. Yeah, the sort of
Speaker 16: a man of pedophiles that were over there. That lots
Speaker 16: of pedopoles in that little small town which is the
Speaker 16: size of you know, a normal suburban Sydney. There's not
Speaker 16: a they're not resourced enough the police and they don't
Speaker 16: have enough power anymore, and that's what's getting people.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well it sounds like it sounds like we need
Speaker 2: to have a full in a full kind of get
Speaker 2: together and make society look look at itself and make
Speaker 2: things a bit better. God bless you, Michael, and thanks
Speaker 2: very much for you to thank you. We seem to
Speaker 2: be living in a society where a whole lot of
Speaker 2: issues are kind of boiling over that the lid's been
Speaker 2: kept on all these issues for so long, they just
Speaker 2: boil over. What do you think knife crime and all
Speaker 2: of this sort of stuff. Give me hearing on one
Speaker 2: three one eight seven three. There'll be an inquiry into
Speaker 2: the cosmetic surgery industry after a raft of botch beauty
Speaker 2: procedures everything from life persuction to breast implants and even butterlifts.
Speaker 2: For sure, that's bad enough in itself, but more broadly,
Speaker 2: it raises bigger questions about women and their body image. Indeed,
Speaker 2: a fair minded observer might conclude that the cosmetic surgery
Speaker 2: industry was built on making young women feel bad about
Speaker 2: their looks. Why are women surrendering to the cosmetic industry's
Speaker 2: ideal of female beauty? Eva Cox, you're a proud feminist.
Speaker 2: Does it sadden you to see so many young women
Speaker 2: feeling the need to get cosmetic beauty procedures?
Speaker 13: I'm not sure it saddened to me, or puzzle to me.
Speaker 13: I can't work out why, you know, because we're supposed
Speaker 13: to be feeling good about ourselves. You don't feel good
Speaker 13: about yourself if you want to sort of go to
Speaker 13: the cosmetic surgeon to sort of add bits to your
Speaker 13: tits or ad bits to your bottom, or you know,
Speaker 13: take away a bit from here and a bit from there.
Speaker 13: It sounds wasteful and cruel in a sense. I really
Speaker 13: wonder where the young women are coming from. Where that
Speaker 13: becomes so important. I think one of the points about
Speaker 13: feminism was to get is less feeling that we had
Speaker 13: to sell our bodies for you know, for comfort or pleasure.
Speaker 2: More on that later, because it's got to be worth
Speaker 2: noting that most of these cosmetic surgeons are male. So
Speaker 2: you've got men prescribing an ideal of female beauty.
Speaker 13: Oh, they've been doing that forever. That's on the point
Speaker 13: about it is, you know that the idea is because
Speaker 13: you know, women had to sort of sell their parents
Speaker 13: and their capacities to men to sort of put up
Speaker 13: with the fact that the men have been supposed to
Speaker 13: take care of them for the rest of their lives
Speaker 13: or various other.
Speaker 12: Ways of doing it.
Speaker 13: So we really haven't got through the idea that there's
Speaker 13: a genuine male and female partnership which should depend on
Speaker 13: a range of relationship attraction things and not just on
Speaker 13: where your physical bumps stick out in particular ways or
Speaker 13: don't stick out enough, or whatever happens to me. I mean,
Speaker 13: I just am appalled about the level of women that
Speaker 13: sort of feel they've got to adjust their bodies, and
Speaker 13: they often not even because of men, but because of
Speaker 13: things in magazines or online or whatever it is.
Speaker 2: What about social media? Is it fair to say social
Speaker 2: media plays a crucial role in heightening female body image issues.
Speaker 13: I think social media does, and I gather. This is
Speaker 13: where these cosmetic surgeons or cosmetic doctors are not really surgents,
Speaker 13: constantly sort of advertised because that's where they get the
Speaker 13: women and sort of convince them that if they don't
Speaker 13: get their laby as trimmed, that they're going to be
Speaker 13: soon as unattractive.
Speaker 2: I'm talking with feminist ever Cox. Either women seemingly get
Speaker 2: boob jobs, butteroglyphs and the rest to please men. So
Speaker 2: has feminism failed women or have they simply rejected feminism.
Speaker 13: I don't know whether they've rejected feminism. I think what
Speaker 13: feminism gives a sort of mixed message to some of
Speaker 13: them in the way that they do it in so
Speaker 13: far as they feel they have the right to have
Speaker 13: the body that makes them feel good. I don't even
Speaker 13: know how fight's to do with the attraction of men
Speaker 13: or how fight is to do we're just looking good
Speaker 13: for the general community at large. But certainly there is
Speaker 13: a sense where women feel one of the rights that
Speaker 13: feminism has imposed on them is the right to sort
Speaker 13: of make their body look whatever they think it ought
Speaker 13: to be. And I'm not sure they actually, as I say,
Speaker 13: responding to individual men, or even responding to individual cosmetic surgeons.
Speaker 13: It's just that sort of feeling that somehow or other
Speaker 13: we've got to look like some sort of plastic dog.
Speaker 13: I think what feminism has done is fail to give
Speaker 13: women enough of a good sense of who they are
Speaker 13: that their body in toto is taken into account and
Speaker 13: not whether they stick out in an appropriate way in
Speaker 13: various sexual or even non sexual things.
Speaker 2: Do you think young women especially see feminism as something
Speaker 2: that doesn't matter to them.
Speaker 13: No, I think they get confused about it and say,
Speaker 13: feminism is about my freedom to do whatever I want,
Speaker 13: in the same way that there's a whole lot of
Speaker 13: politics at the moment that seems to be saying exactly
Speaker 13: that sort of stuff, that that sort of emphasis on self.
Speaker 2: But feminism isn't it about freedom from mil oppression?
Speaker 13: Well, I mean you can put that in, but I
Speaker 13: think feminism is basically about the recognition of all of
Speaker 13: those things that we tend to put down because that's
Speaker 13: what women do.
Speaker 12: If you take a look at the world generally.
Speaker 13: You know that care is actually undervalued and underpaid sort of.
Speaker 13: You know that the contributions we make are undervalued and underpaid.
Speaker 13: That it's what we look that seems to be important.
Speaker 2: I've got to ask you, do women still need feminism either.
Speaker 13: Yes, because we're still in a world that's entirely run
Speaker 13: by men. I mean, we wouldn't have made such quite
Speaker 13: a stuff up of a lot of the politics at
Speaker 13: the moment if we were sort of concerned about society
Speaker 13: and not concerned about bloody economics, which is something that
Speaker 13: was definitely is a discipline that seems to have a
Speaker 13: penis erected and amongst the you know, the various figures,
Speaker 13: because it doesn't seem to deal with emotions, it doesn't
Speaker 13: deal with relationships, it doesn't deal with society, it doesn't
Speaker 13: deal with obligations, it doesn't deal with ethics. We're making
Speaker 13: a profit, and that's you know what blokes, And I
Speaker 13: mean I feel sorry for blokes because they very often
Speaker 13: get forced into the idea that if they're not making
Speaker 13: a profit, they're not a real man. So, I mean,
Speaker 13: we've still got huge inequalities about power, relationship, what's good
Speaker 13: and what's bad.
Speaker 2: We got into the place where cosmetic beauty became the ideal.
Speaker 13: It becomes a product because mesics makes us a product,
Speaker 13: and a product is saleable.
Speaker 2: Thanks very much, Eva, God bless you and thanks for
Speaker 2: talking to us tonight.
Speaker 11: It was a pleasure.
Speaker 1: Australia's favorite Sunday night radio with Bill Cruise.
Speaker 18: Hot Potato, Hot Potato, Hot Potato, Hot Potato, Hot Potato,
Speaker 18: Hot Potato, Potato, Potato, Potato Potato.
Speaker 2: Everyone under six and their parents knows that song. And
Speaker 2: of course, former Yellow Wiggle Greg Page, who was the
Speaker 2: original lead singer and a founding member of the children's
Speaker 2: band Wiggles from nineteen ninety one to two thousand and
Speaker 2: six and again in twenty twelve, and he's currently playing
Speaker 2: FDR in the Australian production of the legendary musical Annie
Speaker 2: and I got Greg on the line. Hello Greg, Oh,
Speaker 2: Reverend Bill, how are you good? Mate? Thanks? Now you've
Speaker 2: just come off stage after two shows today. It must
Speaker 2: be pretty grueling.
Speaker 9: Oh look, it's not too bad compared to I mean,
Speaker 9: we do eight performances a week with Annie. Sometimes with
Speaker 9: the Wiggles we used to do up to twenty one
Speaker 9: performances a week, so it's like comparison. This is a breeze.
Speaker 19: Now.
Speaker 2: Did you ever guess back in ninety ninety one that
Speaker 2: that Wiggles would morph into a worldwide phenomenon.
Speaker 9: No, we had no idea, and I guess that's the
Speaker 9: beauty of life. You never know what's around the corner
Speaker 9: waiting for you, and if you take opportunities. And I
Speaker 9: guess the opportunity that we saw was just the opportunity
Speaker 9: to create good quality children's entertainment. And it was really
Speaker 9: Anthony Field. The Blue Wiggle was his dream to do this,
Speaker 9: and you know, we just did it because we had
Speaker 9: a passion for it. It wasn't about global domination or
Speaker 9: becoming big or successful. I think the greatest success you
Speaker 9: can have in life is if you go to work
Speaker 9: every day and do something you'd love. That's success. Everything
Speaker 9: else's cream on top.
Speaker 2: Because a lot of us remember the Australian band the
Speaker 2: cock Coaches that served as the foundation for the Wiggles, didn't.
Speaker 9: I yeah, I kind of did it. So Anthony and
Speaker 9: Jeff were in the Wiggles, sorry, in the Cockroaches, and
Speaker 9: I was a fan of the Cockroaches growing up listening
Speaker 9: to their music and I had to do work experience
Speaker 9: in year ten at school, I said I wanted to
Speaker 9: do work experience with the Cockroaches as a roadie, as
Speaker 9: a sound engineer and that's when I really first met
Speaker 9: Anthony and Jeff, and I stayed in touch with them.
Speaker 9: I ended up doing early childhood teaching at university with Anthony,
Speaker 9: and that's where the genesis of the Wiggles came from,
Speaker 9: that connection to early childhood education and of course music.
Speaker 2: So you must have been difficult for you to pass
Speaker 2: the Alabatton in twenty twelve.
Speaker 9: Yeah, Look, I've done it before in two thousand and
Speaker 9: six when I was unwell and I had to leave
Speaker 9: the group back in two thousand and six, and the
Speaker 9: guys asked me back in twenty twelve because the current
Speaker 9: Yellow Wiggle at that time, Sam was leaving the group
Speaker 9: and they needed somebody to fill in for that year.
Speaker 9: And as it turned out, not that I knew it
Speaker 9: at the time because I was only back for a
Speaker 9: few months, but Murray and Jeff decided to make twenty
Speaker 9: twelve their final year with the Wiggles as well, So
Speaker 9: it ended up working out well and I was back
Speaker 9: that year because then could actually have a whole year
Speaker 9: of shows as the original group of Wiggles, saying farewell
Speaker 9: for three of us at the same time.
Speaker 2: Now I didn't know this, but you amassed the fourth
Speaker 2: largest collection of Elvis Presley memorabilia in the world. What's
Speaker 2: satinal about?
Speaker 9: Well, look, I visited Graceland back in nineteen ninety nine
Speaker 9: when the Wiggles were on tour in the US, and
Speaker 9: I felt just a strong connection to Elvis's story. I mean,
Speaker 9: he was a very spiritual person and he questioned life,
Speaker 9: and he questioned why he was chosen to be the
Speaker 9: superstar that he was, but he had a lot of
Speaker 9: personal struggles as well, and I thought, you know, there's
Speaker 9: a lot more to this legend than people realized. And
Speaker 9: I found it very deep, and I started collecting things
Speaker 9: that he had owned, so shirts, books, documents, cars, he's
Speaker 9: marriage certificate, furniture from his homes and I set up
Speaker 9: a museum in Parks where they have the annual Eldest
Speaker 9: Festival every year. So that museum has been there, it's
Speaker 9: called the King's Castle. It's been there since two thousand
Speaker 9: and eight. I think it was the first set it
Speaker 9: up there. So the collection a loan to the council
Speaker 9: out there. So if people are ever passing through the
Speaker 9: central West of New South Wales, if they're going through Parks,
Speaker 9: calling to the King's Castle, it's at the information center
Speaker 9: there and see if you feel a connection to the
Speaker 9: story of the king as well.
Speaker 2: And you're an im Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 9: So I got an Order of Australia back in twenty ten,
Speaker 9: actually it was, And I mean that's one of the
Speaker 9: biggest honors I think I've received. You know, we've received
Speaker 9: a whole lot of ARIA awards, a whole lot of
Speaker 9: other accolades. But for me, that am says a lot
Speaker 9: because it's not just awarded by peers. Whereas you know
Speaker 9: music awards generally awarded by peers. This is awarded by
Speaker 9: people in the community who recognize your service to the
Speaker 9: country in various ways. So to have that award and
Speaker 9: order bestowed upon me and the other members of the
Speaker 9: Wiggles was a huge honor indeed, and a big thrill.
Speaker 2: And you were really lucky, won't you, because you had
Speaker 2: a heart attack in January twenty twenty and you're only
Speaker 2: one in twenty survive.
Speaker 9: Yeah, that's right. Look, it's a terrible statistic that there's
Speaker 9: more than thirty two thousand cardiac arrests every year in
Speaker 9: Australia and only one in twenty survived. Five percent survived
Speaker 9: to go home to their family so I do count
Speaker 9: my blessing.
Speaker 2: What's what's the lesson from that?
Speaker 9: Well, look, the lesson is that bystanders really need to
Speaker 9: understand that when somebody is not responding, they need to
Speaker 9: call triple zero straight away, and if they're not breathing
Speaker 9: normally or at all, you start CPR and you use
Speaker 9: an AED as soon as possible, because you know, we
Speaker 9: can look up to our hearts as much as we can,
Speaker 9: but sometimes you just don't know what's going on inside it.
Speaker 9: And you know, for me, yes, I had heart disease,
Speaker 9: but I didn't know that. So you know, you can
Speaker 9: think you're healthy, you can get all the tests done
Speaker 9: and not be aware that there's actually something inside that
Speaker 9: could kill you instantly. But for the grace of God,
Speaker 9: there were people around me who knew how to do
Speaker 9: CPR and knew how to access an AED and deliver
Speaker 9: that shock to save my life.
Speaker 2: So you're an advocate for all that stuff.
Speaker 9: Now, absolutely. Yeah. Look, I started a charity called Heart
Speaker 9: of the Nation back in twenty twenty, just a few
Speaker 9: months after I had the cardiac arrest. So for the
Speaker 9: past five years I've been out there advocating for people
Speaker 9: to learn how to do CPR, but also to know
Speaker 9: that if you have to do it, you don't need
Speaker 9: to be qualified or certified to have a go to
Speaker 9: try and save somebody's life, because any attempt at resuscitation
Speaker 9: has been no attempt. And now we're actually merging with
Speaker 9: the Heart Foundation. My little charity Heart of the Nation
Speaker 9: is becoming a part of the National Heart Foundation, which
Speaker 9: is a huge honor.
Speaker 2: Now come on, we get on too, Andy, how'd you
Speaker 2: get involved in that?
Speaker 9: Well, look, it really came about another blessing, reven Bill.
Speaker 9: I had wanted to do musicals for some time, and
Speaker 9: I never knew how to get into them. And late
Speaker 9: last year I received a call from the producers of
Speaker 9: Annie asking me if I'd like to be in a musical.
Speaker 9: And at that point I didn't know what the musical was.
Speaker 9: But when they told me what it was, and when
Speaker 9: they told me who else was in it, look, I
Speaker 9: thought it's an opportunity too good to turn down. I
Speaker 9: just had to say yes and give it a go
Speaker 9: and see if I'm any good at it. And hopefully
Speaker 9: the people that have been along so far think that
Speaker 9: I'm okay and I do a good job. But there
Speaker 9: is a lot of competition on stage for great voices
Speaker 9: and great talent.
Speaker 2: I got to you've got an all star cast. Tell
Speaker 2: us who some of them?
Speaker 9: Yeah, look, certainly do. The biggest star on stage is
Speaker 9: Anthony Warlow. I mean, this guy is a legend of
Speaker 9: musical theater, not only here in Australia, but he's performed
Speaker 9: on Broadway. He actually did Annie on Broadway back in
Speaker 9: twenty twelve, so I'm enjoying learning a lot from him.
Speaker 9: But we also had the Cries act playing Miss Hannigan.
Speaker 9: Anthony's wife, Amanda Lee Laverne is playing Grace Farrell, and
Speaker 9: she's a Broadway performer. She spent twenty years in New
Speaker 9: York performing on Broadway, and so she's bringing what she
Speaker 9: knows about Broadway to Australia, which is really fascinating. It
Speaker 9: really is a great musical. There's so much to love
Speaker 9: about it.
Speaker 2: Are you having much fun playing Fdr?
Speaker 16: Yes?
Speaker 2: I am.
Speaker 9: And I got to tell you one reason why I
Speaker 9: took the job was because FDR was in a wheelchair.
Speaker 9: He had polio, and so I get to get pushed
Speaker 9: around on stage in a wheelchair all night while everybody
Speaker 9: else is dancing and singing and cavorting around. I just
Speaker 9: get pushed around and I don't have to worry about
Speaker 9: where I've got to be because somebody's pushing the wheelchair
Speaker 9: for me.
Speaker 2: So what do you put down to Annie's enduring success
Speaker 2: over all these years?
Speaker 9: Look, I think that really is the story of optimism
Speaker 9: and hope. Everybody knows that song The sun will come
Speaker 9: now to marrowl so you got to hang on till.
Speaker 9: It's a beautiful song. But message is that tomorrow nobody
Speaker 9: knows what's going to happen. Tomorrow. It might be raining
Speaker 9: and cloudy today, but tomorrow the sun will come out
Speaker 9: and everything looks different. And I think that's such a
Speaker 9: great message for anybody in life. I mean, we all
Speaker 9: get dealt bad cards from time to time in life,
Speaker 9: and it's how we play those cards. And you know
Speaker 9: whether the sun is shining on us as we play
Speaker 9: those cards in life as to how things might turn out.
Speaker 9: I think if we always approach life with optimism, then
Speaker 9: you're always looking at a glass that's half full and
Speaker 9: not half empty.
Speaker 2: Because you guys have got big shoes to fill, haven't
Speaker 2: you got Jill Perriman, Hayes Gordon, Kevin Johnston, Nancy Hayes.
Speaker 16: Yeah, look, it did.
Speaker 9: The show started here in Australia back and I think
Speaker 9: it was nineteen seventy nine or something like that, with
Speaker 9: those stars playing those characters, those much beloved characters. So yeah,
Speaker 9: we do have big shoes to fill. It's a show
Speaker 9: that a lot of people know, either through the movie
Speaker 9: Annie that came out in the eighties or through seeing
Speaker 9: it on stage over many years here in Australia. So
Speaker 9: it's well known and there is a lot of pressure
Speaker 9: to deliver the goods. So you have to make sure
Speaker 9: that I have to make sure that you're on the
Speaker 9: money every night.
Speaker 2: So it's an updated production, isn't it.
Speaker 9: It is, yes, so people might have seen it before,
Speaker 9: but it is updated and hopefully people come along and
Speaker 9: think that the guy that's playing the president doesn't look
Speaker 9: too old, not outdated.
Speaker 2: Now Annie's coming to Sydney's Capital Theater for a few
Speaker 2: more weeks and where to next.
Speaker 9: Yeah, So we've been here in Sydney for a couple
Speaker 9: of months now, We've got three weeks left, so if
Speaker 9: you still want to come along and see this in Sydney,
Speaker 9: we'll be here until the twenty first of June. Then
Speaker 9: we go to Melbourne. I'm excited about that. So we're
Speaker 9: open in Melbourne at the Princess Theater on the tenth
Speaker 9: of July, and then after that we go to Brisbane
Speaker 9: at the end of the year. So look out for
Speaker 9: Annie at those places, Melbourne and Brisbane because we really
Speaker 9: look forward to coming to these towns bringing this spectacular
Speaker 9: production to everybody there.
Speaker 2: Greg Page, it is so great to talk to you tonight.
Speaker 2: Continued success, mate, continued success night, and.
Speaker 9: You too, Reverend Bill.
Speaker 20: The sun come out tomorrow. Bet your bottom dollar that
Speaker 20: tomorrow there'll be sun. Just thinking about tomorrow clears away
Speaker 20: the cobwebs and the sorrow.
Speaker 3: Till there's none.
Speaker 20: When I'm stuck with the day, let's.
Speaker 21: Great, a Lord, I just think up my chick and
Speaker 21: and see the sun come out tomorrow.
Speaker 20: So you gotta hang on till.
Speaker 3: Tomorrow, come one.
Speaker 7: To tom I love God to Mom. You're always a
Speaker 7: day way.
Speaker 3: And I'm stuck with that day.
Speaker 21: That's great.
Speaker 3: And Lord, I just stick.
Speaker 4: Out my cheese and bread and set.
Speaker 3: The supper tomorrow. So you've got to hang on till
Speaker 3: come on.
Speaker 7: Tomorrow to morn.
Speaker 2: I love God Tomorrow.
Speaker 7: You're always it.
Speaker 19: You know.
Speaker 2: They're both household names who have topped the charts and
Speaker 2: become two of the most recognizable country music artists in Australia.
Speaker 2: So next week Tanny Kernighan and Joseph Owen Jason Owen
Speaker 2: join us and also coming up after the News, Dr
Speaker 2: Tracy Westerman will be talking about a Change Direction campaign.
Speaker 1: Imagine Welcome back to Sunday Night, cruise with you alreadio
Speaker 1: reverend will cruise.
Speaker 2: On this first day of winter. I hope you're rugged
Speaker 2: up and warm. Welcome back, dear listener, a warm welcome back.
Speaker 2: This hour and with National Reconciliation Week winding down, we
Speaker 2: talk with one of Australia's leading Aboriginal psychologists, Dr Tracy
Speaker 2: Westerman about the launch of Change Direction, a powerful new
Speaker 2: short film which delivers the stark truth about Aboriginal suicide rates,
Speaker 2: particularly among young people, which continue to rise. And in
Speaker 2: the last hour we talked to critically acclaimed author Hilda
Speaker 2: Hinton about her book The Opposite of Lonely, which deals
Speaker 2: with loneliness, social disconnection and the power of friendship. Last
Speaker 2: week there were tears and hope as families mourned the
Speaker 2: Bondai stabbing victims. On inquest's final day and last Friday,
Speaker 2: a teen was arrested in Melbourne over the Northland shopping
Speaker 2: Center machette brawl. He had previously been found with horrifying
Speaker 2: images of himself posing with knives, buying machetes, and graphic
Speaker 2: video of the stabbing of another young mail. The fifteen
Speaker 2: year old was already on four counts of bail when
Speaker 2: he allegedly became involved in last Sunday's violent melay, sparked
Speaker 2: by rival gang members looking at each other the wrong way. Meanwhile,
Speaker 2: Victorian retailers are clambering to remove prohibited machetes from store
Speaker 2: shelves as an Australian first ban on the sale of
Speaker 2: the weapons comes into effect. The ban was fast tracked
Speaker 2: last Monday after the terrifying weekend of knife crime and
Speaker 2: forced as of midday last Friday. The measures imposed an
Speaker 2: interim ban on the sale of cutting edge knives with
Speaker 2: a blade longer than twenty centimeters, excluding kitchenware. So what
Speaker 2: do you think of the Victorian government's retail machete ban?
Speaker 2: Is it something we should be looking at in New
Speaker 2: South Wales, Queensland and the Act? How serious is knife
Speaker 2: and machete crime become in the community ban improve public safety.
Speaker 2: As online access to these products remains unregulated, should the
Speaker 2: Commonwealth step in to regulate the sale of knives and
Speaker 2: machetes across Australia wine could a buyback scheme similar to
Speaker 2: the gun buy back be an effective way of removing
Speaker 2: machetes from the community. So your thoughts on a ban
Speaker 2: on machetes and cutting edge knives with a blade longer
Speaker 2: than twenty centimeters? Is it a good or a bad idea?
Speaker 2: One three one eight seventy three. And as National Reconciliation
Speaker 2: Week winds down for twenty twenty five, we are reminded
Speaker 2: of Australia's shared history and our ongoing journey towards reconciliation.
Speaker 2: It's been a time to reflect, learn and take action,
Speaker 2: honoring the resilience, culture and achievements of Aboriginal and Torrestrate
Speaker 2: Islander peoples. The theme this year has been bridging Now
Speaker 2: to Next and has urged all Australians to unite in
Speaker 2: advancing reconciliation. It has called on us to learn from
Speaker 2: the past, take action in the present, and build a
Speaker 2: more inclusive future. So what is National Reconciliation Week twenty
Speaker 2: twenty five meant for you. Have you participated in any
Speaker 2: events over the past week? How important has it been
Speaker 2: for you to reflect, learn and take action honoring the resilience,
Speaker 2: culture and achievements of Aboriginal and Torrestrade Island of People's
Speaker 2: over National Reconciliation Week. What would you like to see
Speaker 2: happen to advance reconciliation into the future. What do we
Speaker 2: need to do to build a more inclusive future with
Speaker 2: our Indigenous brothers and sisters and in advancing reconciliation? What
Speaker 2: must we learn from the past and what about closing
Speaker 2: the gap between Indigenous and non Indigenous Australians Do we
Speaker 2: need to do more? Meanwhile, there have been community calls
Speaker 2: for answers after another death in custody of a twenty
Speaker 2: four year old Aboriginal man in Alice Springs. The man
Speaker 2: was declared dead in hospital about seventy minutes after his
Speaker 2: restrained on the ground following an altercation with security guards
Speaker 2: at a local court Coals about one ten pm last Tuesday.
Speaker 2: So are we doing enough to end Aboriginal deaths in custody?
Speaker 3: How?
Speaker 2: How can we get these numbers down? And suicide rates
Speaker 2: among Aboriginal and Torrestrate Islander. That's First Nations people are
Speaker 2: substantially higher than those of non Indigenous Australians. What can
Speaker 2: be done to reduce deaths by suicide and suicide behavior
Speaker 2: among First Nations people? And does this need to be
Speaker 2: a public health priority for all Australian governments? And last
Speaker 2: Monday May twenty six was National Sorry Day, which remembers
Speaker 2: and acknowledges the mistreatment of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander
Speaker 2: people who are forcibly removed from their families and communities,
Speaker 2: which we now know as the Stolen Generations. So what
Speaker 2: are we doing? Are we doing enough to help Stolen
Speaker 2: Generation survivors? And can we all play a part in
Speaker 2: the healing process. Today, twenty three years after the Bringing
Speaker 2: Them Home Report and twelve years since the National Apology,
Speaker 2: Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children are still over ten
Speaker 2: times more likely than non Indigenous children to be removed
Speaker 2: from their families. What needs to be done to turn
Speaker 2: this around? So come on, I'd like your thoughts on
Speaker 2: National Reconciliation Week twenty twenty five and its significance to you.
Speaker 2: One three, one eight seven three No Canadian singer songwriter
Speaker 2: Alanis Morissette was born in Ottawa, Canada, on this day
Speaker 2: in nineteen seventy four. She's fifty one. Her third album,
Speaker 2: Jagged Little Pill nineteen ninety five, became the best selling
Speaker 2: debut album by a female artist, and in twenty oh
Speaker 2: two she made number one in Australia with the album
Speaker 2: under Rug Swept. Her biggest hit single was Ironic in
Speaker 2: nineteen ninety six.
Speaker 4: Hey no man, turn none eating You are a lottery.
Speaker 16: Day.
Speaker 4: The next day it's a black fly you Shirney. It's
Speaker 4: pardon two minutes too late and it isn't an ironic,
Speaker 4: don't you think?
Speaker 3: It's like right there on the guy by.
Speaker 4: The ju jumped down back and.
Speaker 3: It's big.
Speaker 19: Used to play safe.
Speaker 4: Was great fly he backed to stood gas, kiss this kids, goodbye.
Speaker 6: He really is all them life to take that flight.
Speaker 4: There's the pain branch down fet people listen to this
Speaker 4: size and did I runic judging It's like ready day
Speaker 4: it figure.
Speaker 10: This is funny, Yeah, I damn tarlings ay and narrowing
Speaker 10: gas was funny. Why am I everylands gathering verything that
Speaker 10: was up.
Speaker 3: In your bay?
Speaker 4: Traffic jam when you're a.
Speaker 3: Very late and no small game side.
Speaker 4: On your cigarette break.
Speaker 20: It's like ten thousand fool as well, yet it is
Speaker 20: a knife.
Speaker 4: It's sweeting the mint my dreams and then.
Speaker 2: Meeting his beautiful wife.
Speaker 4: Sent it ironic, judge, think you a little too ironic?
Speaker 4: And yeah, really do sick.
Speaker 7: It's not grady out.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's a funny way. It's a funny funny.
Speaker 2: Tom, Welcome to the show.
Speaker 14: Hello mate, how are you good? Reverend? I thought you'd
Speaker 14: be the most polite person to talk to about this subject.
Speaker 14: I come from a Polish background.
Speaker 9: Yep.
Speaker 14: I'm first generation Australian. I consider myself Australian. I respect
Speaker 14: Australia for what it was I was in. You know,
Speaker 14: I got to bicentenary coin in nineteen eighty eight. I
Speaker 14: still have a you know, all that sort of stuff.
Speaker 15: You know.
Speaker 14: I speak Polish as well as I speak you know,
Speaker 14: English or Australian, so my grit might be with We've
Speaker 14: been able to forgive Germany and now I'll just give
Speaker 14: you a little bit background. My grandfather was in labor camp.
Speaker 14: My grandmother was underground, uh Polish basically in US. We've
Speaker 14: recently found out she is an assassin of of of
Speaker 14: of German UH forces and stuff like that. So regardless
Speaker 14: of this, uh, I'm very aware of it. But we're
Speaker 14: able to forgive Germany for the atrocities that have happened,
Speaker 14: uh in the Holocaust, the the you know, the millions
Speaker 14: of Jews, the millions of other innocent civilians that were murdered.
Speaker 2: It was awful, just awful life. I know, we've got
Speaker 2: I've got some Polish refugee people in my congregation.
Speaker 14: Yes, yeah, I mean, I mean I've been to my
Speaker 14: grandmother's house and her walls are still peppered with the
Speaker 14: bullet the bullets of Germans. Anyway, in in fifty years
Speaker 14: or I'm sorry, my mass might be a little bit wrong,
Speaker 14: seventy five years, we're able to acknowledge that Germany is
Speaker 14: now part of our society. We're able to re establish
Speaker 14: trade and commerce and all the normalities that would be
Speaker 14: you know, a functional in our in our modern society.
Speaker 14: So my objective to the conversation about our own diigenous
Speaker 14: population is, in two hundred years, can we not build
Speaker 14: a bridge?
Speaker 1: Can we?
Speaker 9: There?
Speaker 14: There are so there are so many, there are so
Speaker 14: many you know, olive branches in terms of our you know,
Speaker 14: you know, giving to you know, certain populations, and you know,
Speaker 14: and I totally acknowledge that, you know, you know, they
Speaker 14: may feel deeply disheartened by you know, the past that
Speaker 14: it has happened. But also with our education and our
Speaker 14: and our you know, modern society. Can we can we
Speaker 14: not see that that's not an affliction of our modern
Speaker 14: day people like where we're here, a multiculture nation from
Speaker 14: many parts of the world.
Speaker 15: You know.
Speaker 2: Yes, But in a way, Tom, in a way we
Speaker 2: haven't come to grips with our history. We we we
Speaker 2: haven't that the original people we just moved in, shot
Speaker 2: them and poisoned them and pushed them into corners and
Speaker 2: things like that, you know, so that they have to
Speaker 2: tell their story of what it was like to be
Speaker 2: one of them.
Speaker 14: Absolutely, and but.
Speaker 15: I beg that this.
Speaker 14: You know, we we hold many ceremonious occasions where you know,
Speaker 14: we have days that are entitled to indigenous rights, yes,
Speaker 14: and also we have you know, the appeals of our government.
Speaker 14: When I say government, you know, I don't really you know,
Speaker 14: it's it's tough to see when you when you see
Speaker 14: Kevin Rudd saying I'm sorry, I see that as a
Speaker 14: political you know a little you know, a bit of
Speaker 14: a grab at a at a you know, at something
Speaker 14: just to make himself a little bit you know, appeal,
Speaker 14: you know, and and all that sort of stuff.
Speaker 2: But well, what would make it real to What would
Speaker 2: make it real to you? That's what I want to ask,
Speaker 2: What would make it real to you?
Speaker 14: Well, I think, well, we have many Aboriginal people that
Speaker 14: are that are you know, hold hold the flame high
Speaker 14: for you know, reconciliation and and and and moving forward.
Speaker 14: Although at the same time we have a lot of
Speaker 14: we have a lot of I guess societies in our
Speaker 14: out back areas like Burke I know that's that's that's
Speaker 14: one place which is is terrible for crime and you know,
Speaker 14: you know, yes, and it is largely affiliated with our
Speaker 14: indigenous population. And why would that be Well, I would
Speaker 14: say it's it's it's about education.
Speaker 12: It's well, why aren't we doing.
Speaker 15: To me?
Speaker 14: To me, it seems like, you know, their fathers, their
Speaker 14: mothers told them a story or or you know, and
Speaker 14: and they're following through with.
Speaker 15: With that.
Speaker 14: That element.
Speaker 2: What do you mean their fathers or mothers told them
Speaker 2: a story mate?
Speaker 14: Well, I mean like, okay, so.
Speaker 12: So a narrative.
Speaker 14: Perhaps they've becadd in a narrative to them. Okay, and
Speaker 14: I mean we're all affiliate. We all know what early
Speaker 14: education does to us. It either points us in one
Speaker 14: way or or another way. I mean there may be
Speaker 14: many stories, you know where you can see you know, disparage,
Speaker 14: you know, poor populations pointed to you know, whether it
Speaker 14: be you know, post nineteen eighty two New York, you
Speaker 14: know Black American society. You know, given a whatever they
Speaker 14: whatether they say, a baby bonus, sorry for and that
Speaker 14: money is spent on TV instead of education, and the
Speaker 14: kids are put out on the street. And then you know,
Speaker 14: eighteen years later there's a massive spiking crime. You know,
Speaker 14: whether it be that or you know, you know Iraq,
Speaker 14: or or you know the stories that are told to
Speaker 14: those children. You know that the Americans or the you know,
Speaker 14: the Greater West are horrible. You know, Like what I'm
Speaker 14: saying is that there should be a bridge that buy
Speaker 14: in two of the years should have been gapped. You know,
Speaker 14: we we all in the nineteen fifties, we all hated
Speaker 14: the Japanese for example, you know, for what they did
Speaker 14: to you know, Pearl Harbor, or what they what they
Speaker 14: did to you know, you know, they they penetrated Darwin
Speaker 14: and bombed us, you know, like, but we were able
Speaker 14: to build this bridge, right.
Speaker 2: So well, let's get onto it. Tom, Let's get onto
Speaker 2: building this bridge. That's that's what I'm taking from what
Speaker 2: you've said, and it's so true. Let's build this bridge.
Speaker 2: How do we build the bridge? Everyone? I'd love to
Speaker 2: get your mess ideas on that on one three one
Speaker 2: eight seven three.
Speaker 1: You're listening to Sunday Night crews.
Speaker 2: Hi Rowan, Welcome to the show.
Speaker 12: Thank you very much, Bill and Mike. Can I just
Speaker 12: say on in my sixties now? So yeah, I'm getting there.
Speaker 12: But I've worked all across the country in the in
Speaker 12: the middle of the desert and in the remote regions
Speaker 12: and everything, and I've worked with the most beautiful and
Speaker 12: the worst Harbor originals that you can imagine, and I
Speaker 12: loved them. I think it's just amazing people. And I
Speaker 12: think they misunderstood. But my point is, we built the city,
Speaker 12: have a bridge, and we've always got this divide. We've
Speaker 12: got this like we've going to bridge the gap and
Speaker 12: everything else. So we've done all these things and we've
Speaker 12: thrown billions of dollars over the years to the Aboriginal
Speaker 12: cause and everything else. And you know what, in my opinion, mate,
Speaker 12: what we don't need is billions of dollars or I
Speaker 12: think we stand up money the originally meet in the
Speaker 12: middle and just talk and say, well, what do you want?
Speaker 14: What do we want?
Speaker 12: And yep, we've made bad mistakes in the laws and
Speaker 12: and we've you know, we we were good to you people,
Speaker 12: and we weren't really good to you know, but you
Speaker 12: also stabbed Captain Cook. So you know, well, we'll got
Speaker 12: we've got anything.
Speaker 2: It's called truth. That's what it's trying to happen.
Speaker 12: Yeah, and that's what I think needs to happen. Doesn't
Speaker 12: need money, It doesn't need politics, it doesn't need a
Speaker 12: promise that say sorry or we'll go to the country
Speaker 12: any It needs to meet in the middle and just
Speaker 12: go right, I will here are your chief and also
Speaker 12: not bad but and then we'll say what are you
Speaker 12: what do you want? Let's just live in harmony.
Speaker 2: One of the most moving times in my life, or
Speaker 2: some of the most moving times were in the old
Speaker 2: redfin where on the block. Ever in the winter's like this,
Speaker 2: they'd have a big fire, a big fire, and everybody
Speaker 2: had come out and sit around the fire, and you
Speaker 2: could sit around with the indigenous people and just talk
Speaker 2: and it'd be Bill and George or whatever whatever, whatever,
Speaker 2: and they'd talk, and the mothers had come and they'd
Speaker 2: all share and we'd talk and they'd talk about how
Speaker 2: the government people used to come and take their children
Speaker 2: and they'd cry and all this. And it was the
Speaker 2: most moving time for me just to sit there and
Speaker 2: feel the pain and feel the suffering and feel the
Speaker 2: struggles that people had, and just to sit and share
Speaker 2: and just people to people. And I found so many
Speaker 2: of the Indigenous people had got above above the anger
Speaker 2: at what had happened, and we're reaching out and what
Speaker 2: we've got to do is more of that. And that's
Speaker 2: one of the reasons I'm all supportive of the truth
Speaker 2: telling things that that governments are trying to set up
Speaker 2: now and just have a whole, big truth so it
Speaker 2: all comes out, the whole lot, The whole lot comes out,
Speaker 2: so everybody knows. That's my bit ron.
Speaker 12: You will build it. You're still there.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm still here.
Speaker 22: You will.
Speaker 19: You know.
Speaker 12: I love of it. You're the most you're on the
Speaker 12: mostly sorry repeating, but the fact that you do, you
Speaker 12: have You've gone and sat at the block, and you've
Speaker 12: gone and sat.
Speaker 23: At your place where your restaurant is in ordinary and
Speaker 23: you know you've done it all Bill, and you do
Speaker 23: it because you believe in your love.
Speaker 12: And that's something I've learned over the years. I've heard
Speaker 12: a lot of people, so I'm going to do this,
Speaker 12: I'm going to do that. And you're someone that has
Speaker 12: done this and done exactly what you said you're going
Speaker 12: to do? Why and mate, I don't. I will show
Speaker 12: something else in I don't have any religious belief and
Speaker 12: I don't. I'm not, you know, I'm just sort of
Speaker 12: I suppose an atheist, I guess. But I love everything
Speaker 12: you do because I know you're an amazing man publishing.
Speaker 2: Thank you for calling you. Thank you. With National Reconciliation
Speaker 2: Week winding up for another year, I wanted to highlight
Speaker 2: a timely and powerful new short film, Change Direction, which
Speaker 2: delivers a stark truth Aboriginal suicide rates, particularly among young people,
Speaker 2: continue to rise on the and on the line to
Speaker 2: tell us about that. The film and the campaign that's
Speaker 2: built around it is one of Australia's leading Aboriginal psychologists.
Speaker 2: Dr Tracy Westerman, Hi, Tracy.
Speaker 22: Oh, Thank you so much for having you on the show.
Speaker 2: Oh, it's a pleasure, it really is. Now the campaign
Speaker 2: goes beyond awareness, isn't it. It's a call to action
Speaker 2: to support the Western and Julia Institute. Tell us about
Speaker 2: the institute and your role in it.
Speaker 22: Yeah, okay, So I volunteer in Julia and I actually
Speaker 22: started the Junior Institute. I guess out of frustration with
Speaker 22: the lack of government action on Indigenous child suicides. And
Speaker 22: for the listeners that don't understand the context here is
Speaker 22: that in Western Australia, in my own home state, we've
Speaker 22: had four government inquiries into Indigenous suicides, mostly around the Kimbley,
Speaker 22: and when I started the scholarship, it was really looking
Speaker 22: at those four inquiries. The last one was thirteen beautiful
Speaker 22: young Indigenous young people took their own lives from the
Speaker 22: Kimberley and when I read the reports, they all concluded
Speaker 22: pretty much the same thing, and that was that children
Speaker 22: were literally dying due to a lack of access to
Speaker 22: culturally competent services. And I guess on the complex treatment side,
Speaker 22: so I just went it looked like and fix this.
Speaker 22: I'm a psychologist, I'm an Indigenous one, and from a
Speaker 22: remote community. I self funded the doctor Tracy Westerman Indigenous
Speaker 22: Psychology Scholarship Program, not really thinking, to be honest with all,
Speaker 22: that it was going to grow to the exists as
Speaker 22: I thought I'd probably fund one scholarship and that would
Speaker 22: be it, But Australia sort of had other ideas, and
Speaker 22: now we're actually funding sixty four, most of whom I've
Speaker 22: now graduated. So the Change Direction film, the great part
Speaker 22: of it is that it literally gives people something to do.
Speaker 22: Often you see campaigns and people go, Okay, that's good.
Speaker 15: What do we now do?
Speaker 22: The institute is sorry, you'll figure.
Speaker 2: So what does your director Change Direction campaign do?
Speaker 22: And basically what it does is it takes people into
Speaker 22: a reality and I think for a lot of people,
Speaker 22: sadly they don't really understand relate to the experiences of
Speaker 22: Indigenous people in the country. So the film just very
Speaker 22: beautifully takes people on our journey. And so essentially what
Speaker 22: we're doing is really inviting Australia into what starts off
Speaker 22: as a painful journey. But I guess most people who
Speaker 22: have seen the film, you don't really predict the change
Speaker 22: and so what's really lovely about it as you take
Speaker 22: people into that pain, but also get them to understand
Speaker 22: when you actually do have that help, that you can
Speaker 22: actually get out of it as well.
Speaker 2: So in a way, the film follows the whole process.
Speaker 22: Yeah. Absolutely, And to be honest, when I first watched it,
Speaker 22: I didn't predict what was coming because it's so clever
Speaker 22: and it's just so brilliantly done.
Speaker 15: It's literally a.
Speaker 22: Poem that goes into dark spaces and then literally you
Speaker 22: start reading it backwards and the actor is amazing for
Speaker 22: Drea Jackson, it just goes backwards and then things start
Speaker 22: to lighten. But what it's actually about, obviously, is about
Speaker 22: the answers being in culturally competent services and that's what
Speaker 22: we're always known there.
Speaker 2: You wrote the poem featured in the film, so.
Speaker 22: Tell us about No, I didn't write it, which I'd
Speaker 22: love to take credit for a beautiful pode of fearer
Speaker 22: who's done.
Speaker 2: Tell us a bit about it.
Speaker 22: Yeah, So essentially what it does is it goes into
Speaker 22: the beautiful actor to Drea Jackson, who essentially goes into
Speaker 22: some dark places and says, look, my country tells me
Speaker 22: that I'm invisible. And it's very negative and it actually
Speaker 22: explains I guess what it's like to feel that way,
Speaker 22: to feel as if there's no hope, and then suddenly
Speaker 22: halfway through its switches and it literally goes backwards into
Speaker 22: hope and light and that there are people that care
Speaker 22: and I can actually change this in me. And so
Speaker 22: it really is I guess a visceral experience bill that
Speaker 22: you go into this feeling of what it would feel
Speaker 22: like and then literally it changes to go backwards and
Speaker 22: you feel like there is actually hope at the end
Speaker 22: of it, which.
Speaker 9: Is just very brilliant.
Speaker 22: Actually.
Speaker 2: So where was the film shot.
Speaker 22: I think it was in Adelaide. That was done by
Speaker 22: the wonderful Warwick the Wanton, who of course you know,
Speaker 22: has become incredibly famous and of course you know, from
Speaker 22: a remote community himself, so he had a passion to
Speaker 22: do something about indigenous suicides. And then Jackson Long, who
Speaker 22: was the creative person behind it, literally spent twenty months
Speaker 22: banging down doors. So he's just been incredible in terms
Speaker 22: of his will to do something about it. And then
Speaker 22: I sort of came along when they heard of my
Speaker 22: work because they were looking at someone like an organization
Speaker 22: to donate whatever money they raised from it.
Speaker 15: And it became.
Speaker 22: Very old, it became very obvious that there was a
Speaker 22: really good synergy there in terms of getting people something
Speaker 22: very clear that they could do.
Speaker 2: Now, what statistics can you provide us about the unacceptable
Speaker 2: rates of Indigenous suicide.
Speaker 22: Yeah, it's kind of heartbreaking. And I guess the thing
Speaker 22: that you know is the statistic that probably separates arguably
Speaker 22: Australia from all other developed countries is the age at
Speaker 22: which our young people are take in their lives. So
Speaker 22: it's really for Indigenous children, we have a six times
Speaker 22: the likelihood of dying by suicide and non Indigenous children.
Speaker 22: And a statistic that's probably the most sobering and heartbreaking
Speaker 22: is that every time an Indigenous child dies in this country,
Speaker 22: forty percent of them will do so by suicide. And
Speaker 22: I've said this many times. Children's suicide just does not
Speaker 22: belong in a center.
Speaker 9: Age.
Speaker 22: Yeah, it's kind of I guess when you're getting into
Speaker 22: those teenage years, you're sort of getting I mean, obviously heartbreaking.
Speaker 22: We we've had suicides of children as young as ten,
Speaker 22: but when you're getting in those teenage years around thirteen
Speaker 22: to fifteen, then the statistics get even worse. So we
Speaker 22: are looking at that you know that particularly particular vulnerability
Speaker 22: around the teenage years.
Speaker 2: Traca, What do you want Australians to do when they
Speaker 2: see the film or visit the website? What outcomes are
Speaker 2: you looking for?
Speaker 22: Oh, it's a really easy one. I mean, this is
Speaker 22: probably the easiest from campaign in that we are already
Speaker 22: taking care of this. We put a hand up. We
Speaker 22: don't have any federal government funding. I volunteer every single day.
Speaker 22: I'll never take awage from Juliette. They've registered charity. We've
Speaker 22: had our students graduate at eighty percent compared to twenty
Speaker 22: percent for heavily funded universities. And they're coming from our springs,
Speaker 22: the Kimberly, They're coming from the highest risk communities. Seventy
Speaker 22: percent of them first in their families to go to university.
Speaker 22: So we're literally making people who would never have had
Speaker 22: hope in their lives become psychologists. So it's an incredible program.
Speaker 22: And so literally all you have to do is donate
Speaker 22: every dollars tax deductible, and we're putting our hands up
Speaker 22: for it. It seemed quite simply we are saying we've
Speaker 22: got this. We're happy to take on the most complex
Speaker 22: issues in Australia. You just literally have to get behind
Speaker 22: us and know that every single dollar goes to putting
Speaker 22: another indigenous psychologists in the remote community.
Speaker 2: So what can we do, Tracy, as every day Australian,
Speaker 2: it's not just as part of Reconciliation Week, but throughout
Speaker 2: the year. What can we do to make a difference
Speaker 2: on this issue?
Speaker 22: Yeah, I guess the answer to that is that just
Speaker 22: for real public attention tool, we find it really difficult
Speaker 22: and it's great to be on shows like this, we
Speaker 22: find it really difficult for anyone to pay attention to
Speaker 22: this crisis. And as someone who spent my life on this,
Speaker 22: you know, it is actually really difficult to get media
Speaker 22: to pay attention to this. And of course we rely
Speaker 22: on the media to explain to people while we have
Speaker 22: such heartbreaking rates of suicide and and to get that
Speaker 22: message out that these are Australia's children and we should
Speaker 22: all be affected by the equally, and to just pay
Speaker 22: attention and just just get involved.
Speaker 2: Really, but you've got to do a bit more than
Speaker 2: just raise a winness, haven't you, Because White Ribbon Campaign
Speaker 2: and all of those try to do that as well.
Speaker 2: You've got to get people to do something as well,
Speaker 2: haven't you.
Speaker 22: Yeah, And I guess that's where the Jilliar Institute comes in.
Speaker 22: That I've had, you know, lots so do lots of
Speaker 22: public presentations, and so many people have come up to
Speaker 22: me and said just that that we've never known what
Speaker 22: to do, and this actually gives us something to do
Speaker 22: that we can donate money, and we know that this
Speaker 22: is actually going to changing generational trauma, generational risk in
Speaker 22: our highest risk communities, like our springs, you know, like Derby,
Speaker 22: like you know, Mount Eyes a Plate. We've got psychologists
Speaker 22: coming from those communities who ultimately will stay there, and
Speaker 22: we're skills building from the ground up. So this is
Speaker 22: really going to achieve massive change, or it already is
Speaker 22: achieving massive change in the country.
Speaker 2: So it kind of alignes with and complements existing government
Speaker 2: mental health programs.
Speaker 22: Yeah, it does. However, you know, Julia is kind of
Speaker 22: not beyond is outside of government. We have no government
Speaker 22: funding for what we do, and I think that's actually
Speaker 22: a good thing because we are truly grassed for its activism.
Speaker 22: We are truly about getting business as usual isn't solving
Speaker 22: this crisis. So what we need to do, we're quite
Speaker 22: on orthodox we, for example, students pick students who regularly
Speaker 22: reject students that have distinctions, So I don't pick students
Speaker 22: who will get there anyway. I'll pick students based on
Speaker 22: how many more gaps they have to close. So we're
Speaker 22: getting the most disadvantaged. But what that means is that
Speaker 22: likeels never leave right.
Speaker 9: Yes, so they yeah.
Speaker 2: So if any of our listeners would like to know more,
Speaker 2: or I view the film change Direction, what should they do?
Speaker 22: They just get onto www dot change direction literally and
Speaker 22: you can see that there. You can also, you know,
Speaker 22: if we would be massively grateful if people would donate
Speaker 22: some of their dollars, and bearing in mind that no
Speaker 22: public donations, one hundred percent of public donations go directly
Speaker 22: to our scholarship program. Nothing goes on paying you know,
Speaker 22: you know, admin or salaries. That's why I work for free,
Speaker 22: so to make sure that every cent goes directly into
Speaker 22: getting another Indigenous psychologist in a remote community.
Speaker 2: Now, before I let you go, how happy if you've
Speaker 2: been with the way National Reconcilient Reconciliation Week has gone
Speaker 2: in general?
Speaker 22: Look interesting enough. I was interviewed a couple of weeks
Speaker 22: ago on ABC, and I said, I think had without
Speaker 22: getting into the politic will have to get into the
Speaker 22: politics of I guess the election for a lot of
Speaker 22: Aboriginal people has been almost like a moral victory, and
Speaker 22: because we're sort of heading down a path of you know,
Speaker 22: a lot of negativity in terms of Indigenous issues, particularly
Speaker 22: after the referendum, and I think a lot of Australians
Speaker 22: probably you know, probably had really be honest, not a
Speaker 22: really good sense of what they're no vide actually meant.
Speaker 22: And so I think, you know, the rejection of what
Speaker 22: dare I say, the right wing rash wreck around, you know,
Speaker 22: people being really negative about welcome to country, and you know,
Speaker 22: the attacks on Indigenous organizations and so forth. Certainly the
Speaker 22: Indigenous people that I interact with all day every day,
Speaker 22: and there's thousands of them than I do, there's been
Speaker 22: a sense of people can breathe now, and I think now,
Speaker 22: I pray would have given a different answer four weeks ago.
Speaker 22: But I think, you know the fact that Australia has
Speaker 22: repudiated you know that real negative in negativity and right
Speaker 22: wing approach to Indigenous issues has certainly helped significantly.
Speaker 2: One of Australia's leading Aboriginal psychologists, Dr Tracy Westerman, thanks
Speaker 2: so much and God bless you, Tracy. God Bill grus
Speaker 2: on Sunday Night, Gary, Welcome to the show.
Speaker 9: Hey, doing good.
Speaker 15: About the knife crime. I just it's out of control, mate,
Speaker 15: Like I'm nearly sixty. In the eighties, when I was
Speaker 15: a kid, there was none of this.
Speaker 2: I was looking after homeless kids in the eighties, Gary,
Speaker 2: and lots of them had knives, yeah, but there wasn't.
Speaker 15: The stabbings like you see today on the news. Mate.
Speaker 15: There's one every day sometimes too. That didn't happen. And
Speaker 15: we used to fight on the streets, mate, and there
Speaker 15: was a fight with fists, you know what I mean,
Speaker 15: or a gang against the gang. Now, no one was
Speaker 15: running around with machetes. It didn't happen. You might have
Speaker 15: had one here and there, someone getting stabbed up across
Speaker 15: or something like that, but it's not right now. The
Speaker 15: young gangs, every gang, every gang, someone's got a knife
Speaker 15: on them, you know what I mean.
Speaker 2: Do you see any gangs, Yeah, you see them all
Speaker 2: the time.
Speaker 15: But there never used to be a lot of gangs.
Speaker 15: There wasn't a lot of gangs in the eighties. You
Speaker 15: had the sharpies and that and the skinheads in the
Speaker 15: sixties and the seventies. Yeah, but the eighties and the
Speaker 15: nineties there was there wasn't many gangs, not like there
Speaker 15: is now. And a lot of it's to do with
Speaker 15: Molti culturalism.
Speaker 20: Mate.
Speaker 15: You've got the Islanders, they've got their gangs, nothing against it,
Speaker 15: they want to have them. You've got the Lebanese, they've
Speaker 15: got their gangs. You got the Ossies, everyone's got a gang.
Speaker 2: You had the Irish and they had their gangs. You
Speaker 2: had the Catholics, the Anglicans.
Speaker 15: Yeah, but they in what they say on TV, let's
Speaker 15: get a gang, you know, like the crips and the
Speaker 15: bloods and stuff like that. It's just ridiculous and there's
Speaker 15: no penalty for nothing.
Speaker 2: Anything, So what would you do about it?
Speaker 15: The first thing you have to do is build a
Speaker 15: couple of jails so you could fit the people in,
Speaker 15: because people are just getting.
Speaker 2: Off and how does that, how does that stop it?
Speaker 2: How does that stop it happening?
Speaker 15: It gets them off the street for starters.
Speaker 2: And but then, like from your from your descriptions, won't
Speaker 2: there just be more? Don't they be followed up by
Speaker 2: other people?
Speaker 15: Not if the penalties are harsh, Mate, the penalty should
Speaker 15: be straight away. You got a knife on you on
Speaker 15: the street. Why you got a knife on you on
Speaker 15: the street? Why are you cane machette? Two years? You
Speaker 15: got two years for that. Do you want to stab
Speaker 15: someone on the street, it's five. Do you want to
Speaker 15: kill someone on the street it's twenty.
Speaker 2: But well, if if strong, if strong penalties work, why
Speaker 2: are there the shooting murders that go on in Sydney
Speaker 2: today because they get really strong penalties, but they still
Speaker 2: shoot one another.
Speaker 15: Yeah, but you're at the highest level there with the
Speaker 15: shooting and what do you mean what do you mean
Speaker 15: at the highest level? Well, that's the highest that where
Speaker 15: you can be shooting someone to death, you know what
Speaker 15: I mean? It's different to stabbing someone in the leg
Speaker 15: or in the arm. They stab.
Speaker 2: You think you think if they stab someone, it's not
Speaker 2: as bad as shooting someone.
Speaker 15: Well, mate, when you shoot someone ten times and in
Speaker 15: the head like they did the other day and you're dead,
Speaker 15: it's different if you stab someone in the leg, of
Speaker 15: the arm or in a spot that's not a bat
Speaker 15: like that.
Speaker 2: So they should get so they should get ten years.
Speaker 2: The the the the stabbers, But what about the.
Speaker 15: Shooters may you shoot someone? You should be getting life, mate.
Speaker 15: Well they do about it.
Speaker 2: They do, but it still doesn't get them.
Speaker 15: It doesn't. They get fifteen years and they're back on
Speaker 15: the street again. The system's a joke. The judges don't
Speaker 15: have any any I won't say it, but they don't
Speaker 15: know that. They're too scared to put anyone away, mate,
Speaker 15: and they're not going to do it. They should eeck
Speaker 15: the judges.
Speaker 2: One of the saddest days of my life has been
Speaker 2: to receive this email from A Michael and it goes
Speaker 2: the only thing the English got wrong was they didn't
Speaker 2: succeed in eliminating every single one of them. What a
Speaker 2: better place Australia would be. What do you think of that?
Speaker 2: What do you think of that? I'd love to get
Speaker 2: your comments on that. Eliminate The only thing the English
Speaker 2: got wrong was not eliminating the lot love to get
Speaker 2: your comments on that. One three one eight seven three.
Speaker 1: Imagine people, welcome back to Sunday night. Cruise with you
Speaker 1: already a reverend Bill Cruise.
Speaker 2: A big warm welcome back on this cold winter night.
Speaker 2: And as you know, it's the bewitching hour. So we've
Speaker 2: got every line into this building comes to this microphone
Speaker 2: so I can talk to you. Do you want to
Speaker 2: talk to me? I'd love to talk to you. And
Speaker 2: you know the number here, it's one three, one eight
Speaker 2: seven three and coming up. We talked to critically acclaimed
Speaker 2: author Hilda Hinton about her book The Opposite of Lonely,
Speaker 2: which deals with loneliness, social disconnection and the power of friendship.
Speaker 2: Last week, there were tears and hope as families mourned
Speaker 2: the Bondai stabbing victims on inquest's final day, and last Friday,
Speaker 2: a teen was arrested in Melbourne over the Northland shopping
Speaker 2: center machette brawl. He had previously been found with horrifying
Speaker 2: images of himself posing with knives, buying machetes, and graphic
Speaker 2: video of the stabbing of another young male. The fifteen
Speaker 2: year old was already on four counts of bail when
Speaker 2: he allegedly became involved in last Sunday's violent melay, sparked
Speaker 2: by rival gang members looking at each other the wrong way. Meanwhile,
Speaker 2: Victorian retailers are clambering to remove prohibited machetes from store
Speaker 2: shelves as an Australian first ban on the sale of
Speaker 2: the weapons comes into effect. The ban was fast tracked
Speaker 2: last Monday after the terrifying weekend of knife crime and
Speaker 2: forced as of midday last Friday. The measures imposed an
Speaker 2: interim ban on the sale of cutting edge knives with
Speaker 2: a blade longer than twenty centimeters, excluding kitchenware. So what
Speaker 2: do you think of the Victorian government's retail machete ban?
Speaker 2: Is it something we should be looking at in New
Speaker 2: South Wales, Queensland and the Act? How serious is knife
Speaker 2: and machete crime become in the community? Will this ban
Speaker 2: improve public safety? As online access to these products remains unregulated?
Speaker 2: Should the Commonwealth step in to regulate the sale of
Speaker 2: knives and machetes across Australia wide? Could a buyback scheme
Speaker 2: similar to the gun buy back be an effective way
Speaker 2: of removing machetes from the community. So your thoughts on
Speaker 2: a ban on machetes and cutting edge knives with a
Speaker 2: blade longer than twenty centimeters? Is it a good or
Speaker 2: a bad idea? One three one eight seventy three. And
Speaker 2: as National Reconciliation Week winds down for twenty twenty five,
Speaker 2: we are reminded of Australia's shared history and our ongoing
Speaker 2: journey towards reconciliation. It's been a time to reflect, learn
Speaker 2: and take action honoring the resilience, culture and achievements of
Speaker 2: Aboriginal and Torrestrate Islander peoples. The theme this year has
Speaker 2: been bridging now to next and deserge all Australians to
Speaker 2: unite in advancing reconciliation. It has called on us to
Speaker 2: learn from the past, take action in the present, and
Speaker 2: build a more inclusive future. So what is National Reconciliation
Speaker 2: Week twenty twenty five meant for you? Have you participated
Speaker 2: in any events over the past week. How important has
Speaker 2: it been for you to reflect, learn and take action
Speaker 2: honoring the resilience, culture and achievements of Aboriginal and Torrestrade
Speaker 2: Island of people's over National Reconciliation Week. What would you
Speaker 2: like to see happen to advance reconciliation into the future.
Speaker 2: What do we need to do to build a more
Speaker 2: inclusive future with our Indigenous brothers and sisters and in
Speaker 2: advancing reconciliation? What must we learn from the past and
Speaker 2: what about closing the gap between Indigenous and non Indigenous
Speaker 2: Australians Do we need to do more? Meanwhile, there have
Speaker 2: been community calls for answers after another death in custody
Speaker 2: of a twenty four year old Aboriginal man in Alice Springs.
Speaker 2: The man was declared dead in hospital about seventy minutes
Speaker 2: after he was restrained on the ground following an altercation
Speaker 2: with security guards at a local court Coals about one
Speaker 2: ten pm last Tuesday. So are we doing enough to
Speaker 2: end Aboriginal deaths in custody? How? How can we get
Speaker 2: these numbers down? And suicide rates among Aboriginal and Torrestrate
Speaker 2: Islander that's First Nations people are substantially higher than those
Speaker 2: of non Indigenous Australians. What can be done to reduce
Speaker 2: deaths by suicide and suicide behavior among First Nations people?
Speaker 2: And does this need to be a public health priority
Speaker 2: for all Australian governments? And last Monday May twenty six
Speaker 2: was National Sorry Day which remembers and acknowledges the mistreatment
Speaker 2: of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people who are forcibly
Speaker 2: removed from their families and communities, which we now know
Speaker 2: as the Stolen Generations. So what are we doing? Are
Speaker 2: we doing enough to help Stolen Generation survivors? And can
Speaker 2: we all play a part in the healing process. Today,
Speaker 2: twenty three years after the Bringing Them Home Report and
Speaker 2: twelve years since the National Apology, Aboriginal and Torres Strait
Speaker 2: Islander children are still over ten times more likely than
Speaker 2: non Indigenous children to be removed from their families. What
Speaker 2: needs to be done to turn this around? So come on,
Speaker 2: I'd like your thoughts on National Reconciliation Week twenty twenty
Speaker 2: five and its significance to you. One three one eight
Speaker 2: seven three. US lyricist Cynthia Whale died aged eighty two
Speaker 2: on this day in twenty twenty three. She wrote many
Speaker 2: many hit songs together with a husband, Barry Man, including
Speaker 2: We've got to get out of this place on Broadway.
Speaker 2: Make your own kind of music. You're my soul and inspiration.
Speaker 2: He's so shy here you come again and you've lost
Speaker 2: that love and feeling.
Speaker 3: You know who close as any more? When I kiss
Speaker 3: you'll leave.
Speaker 24: There's no tenderness like reop in your fante.
Speaker 3: You're trying hard, nothing soul, but oh there's he come up.
Speaker 3: If your fi fragach go yeahead. If your started to
Speaker 3: the size still I did it makes me? Yes? You
Speaker 3: hot frogging at you want.
Speaker 25: Me jeez, you can't sad, but now it's gone.
Speaker 24: Oh baby, baby, I'll get down all my knees, will you.
Speaker 7: If you don't move A lady love me that you
Speaker 7: used to do with the.
Speaker 26: We had abou fello, I love your fad every day,
Speaker 26: No a pleasing them.
Speaker 25: It's a case.
Speaker 2: La the three. Some songs are just timeless, aren't they
Speaker 2: Absolutely timeless? You get transported into a world that's just timeless. Michael,
Speaker 2: Welcome to the show.
Speaker 15: Hello, Hello, how are you deceiving?
Speaker 2: Good? Thank you?
Speaker 15: I was listening earlier to that chap Gary. I think
Speaker 15: it was he was speaking about the judges. I tend
Speaker 15: to agree with him that the sentences don't sit the
Speaker 15: crime in this country, and that people get off again
Speaker 15: and again and again, and they get bail and then
Speaker 15: they commit another crime. It's just ridiculous. I think if
Speaker 15: the judges don't have the spine to give the correct.
Speaker 2: Sentences, how much the correct sentence, they should be.
Speaker 15: Put out and someone should be put in that can
Speaker 15: do it.
Speaker 2: What do you mean, see, what do you mean what
Speaker 2: are correct sentences?
Speaker 15: Well, every day you're hearing about the public crying out
Speaker 15: that things are happening, and no one's getting anything done
Speaker 15: to them. The charges aren't being laid.
Speaker 2: What do you mean they're not being done? What do
Speaker 2: you mean they're not The courts are full of people.
Speaker 15: Yeah, I know, but nothing happens. Half the people just
Speaker 15: get let off or get bail, or they get community.
Speaker 2: Do you really believe that the jails are full, Michael, Yeah, I.
Speaker 15: Know the jails are full, but there could be a
Speaker 15: lot more people in jail, but they don't put them in.
Speaker 15: You just have to speak to all the people. Everyone,
Speaker 15: people getting murdered, people getting led off.
Speaker 2: So people are murdered and nothing happens.
Speaker 15: A lot of times nothing happened.
Speaker 2: What do you mean nothing happens. They don't go to prison.
Speaker 15: They'll get a little sentence of five years.
Speaker 2: Do you what for murder? Someone will get five years
Speaker 2: for murder.
Speaker 15: It happens. All that or they get off is mental health?
Speaker 15: Well you've got to do.
Speaker 2: Isn't mantel health a realistic thing?
Speaker 15: It's actually a raught because everyone why if they say it,
Speaker 15: they'll get off. Sure, there's people with Michael.
Speaker 2: You can't be that dumb, No, you can't be.
Speaker 15: That dumb, Reverence. Surely, if you watch a sixty minutes. Yes,
Speaker 15: there's someone.
Speaker 2: Saying, I idea with the courts almost every day.
Speaker 15: I know that there's so many people that get let
Speaker 15: off all the time. How does how does the kid
Speaker 15: that's got eighty chargers get arrested and then he gets
Speaker 15: out on bail.
Speaker 2: That's a problem for juvenile justice.
Speaker 15: But that's ridiculous.
Speaker 2: Why why, yeah, why why don't we treat to look
Speaker 2: after our children properly? Why don't we do proper things
Speaker 2: so that they don't end up in trouble?
Speaker 15: But what about the adults? Someone basses someone to death
Speaker 15: and they say, oh, it's man's laughter. Who will get
Speaker 15: four years?
Speaker 9: Four years?
Speaker 15: They give them seven, but they do four? Why is
Speaker 15: they seven? If it's not seven, Why don't they tell
Speaker 15: the truth and say it's four years?
Speaker 2: Like you and I, we both agree that the justice
Speaker 2: system needs looking at. Yes, we both agree. Well why
Speaker 2: is it broken, Michael?
Speaker 15: Because the judges don't have a spine to put the
Speaker 15: people away from what they've done.
Speaker 2: Why don't the judges Why don't no ask me, why
Speaker 2: don't the judges have the spine? Do you tell me?
Speaker 2: You tell me? Now you're the one going saying all
Speaker 2: these weak judges How are they weak?
Speaker 15: Do just have them look at the sentences that they're
Speaker 15: giving and it's not rocket science?
Speaker 2: Well not? Why are the judges? Why are they? Why
Speaker 2: are the judges like that? If you think they're too weak?
Speaker 2: Why do you think they're too.
Speaker 15: Weak because the sentences are giving and don't match the crimes?
Speaker 2: What encourages them to be weak?
Speaker 15: How would I know they should be sacked?
Speaker 2: Well, why aren't they sacked? Michael? Why aren't they sacked?
Speaker 2: You told me?
Speaker 15: Listen to listen to Mark Levy Ray Hadley. They go
Speaker 15: on about it all day, every day, about these judges
Speaker 15: letting off pedophiles, letting off criminals. It's absolutely a joke.
Speaker 15: It's absolutely a joke. If you speak to all the
Speaker 15: victims of crime and say to them, are you happy
Speaker 15: with the sentence? You're going to get it, get one
Speaker 15: percent that says they're happy, in ninety nine percent that
Speaker 15: say they aren't. It happens every day every day. There's
Speaker 15: no penalty.
Speaker 2: Well, how come how come I deal with people who
Speaker 2: are in jail because they shouldn't be there?
Speaker 15: How would I know?
Speaker 2: Well, that's what I mean, That's what I mean. If
Speaker 2: you've got there, if you've got a system like like
Speaker 2: like the system is working as best it can not really,
Speaker 2: so what would you do? Okay, what would be the
Speaker 2: maximum penalty?
Speaker 15: I believe they don't put the people in jail because
Speaker 15: they can't afford it, and there's no room. The jails
Speaker 15: are packed, they're overcrowded and there's no room.
Speaker 2: And why are they packed? Why are they packed?
Speaker 15: Well, so if there's people are breaking the law, if
Speaker 15: you break the law, you go to jail. That's what happens.
Speaker 15: But in this country you don't a lot of the times,
Speaker 15: they just get bail, or they'll get a community service
Speaker 15: order where although it's to be able to stay at home,
Speaker 15: what's that you stay at home? And what's TV? And
Speaker 15: that's your sentence, it's not. There's no deterrent, there's no deterrent.
Speaker 2: So do you feel safe in the world?
Speaker 15: No, I don't not at all. And a lot of
Speaker 15: people don't feel safe, I guarantee.
Speaker 2: Why that? Why? Actually crime's going down? It is going down, yes, oh.
Speaker 15: Yes, yes it is. There's a stabbing on the news
Speaker 15: nearly every day, yes, nearly every day. And do you
Speaker 15: think all that?
Speaker 2: Do you know what it was like here in the thirties.
Speaker 15: We're not talking about the thirties, no, but we're talking.
Speaker 2: But people are saying now there used to be razor
Speaker 2: gangs in the thirties around Sydney who attacked one another
Speaker 2: with razors.
Speaker 15: Yeah, and I bet you when they got caught, they
Speaker 15: went to jail and they did hard.
Speaker 2: And nothing stopped in there.
Speaker 15: But that didn't stay in They're watching TV and playing tennis.
Speaker 15: And you know, I made the jails need to be
Speaker 15: hardened up. You need to take out the TV straight away.
Speaker 15: There's no TV, there's no text.
Speaker 2: So what do people do in the jail? What would
Speaker 2: they do in the prison? What would they do?
Speaker 15: Work?
Speaker 2: Just stare at the door?
Speaker 9: Work?
Speaker 15: No, they should be working.
Speaker 2: Doing what breaking rock, taking right slave shammers, taking.
Speaker 15: Out taken out of a day and cleaning up the
Speaker 15: graffiti around the city rather than the taxpayers paying forty
Speaker 15: million dollars to remove the graffiti. It's absolutely ridiculous. While
Speaker 15: while the criminals sit in jail watching TV, there's drugs
Speaker 15: in jail. They've got that if they want that, they
Speaker 15: can network with other criminals when they come.
Speaker 2: Out, So what's the point of putting them in jail?
Speaker 15: Then they need to work and be rehabilitated, and the
Speaker 15: sentences need to be stiff enough as deterrent. If you're
Speaker 15: carrying a knife on the streets and you get caught
Speaker 15: and you know you're going to go to jail for two.
Speaker 2: Years, doesn't stop yet, it doesn't stop it. Massiveness doesn't
Speaker 2: stop people.
Speaker 15: But you don't know that, because so do we can.
Speaker 2: Look, we've got evidence that shows that.
Speaker 15: No, I don't believe that. Okay, if you stab someone
Speaker 15: on the street and you get ten years to jail,
Speaker 15: there's not going to be many people willing to stab
Speaker 15: someone knowing they're going to use it, lose a decade
Speaker 15: of their.
Speaker 2: Life, and that person will come out a better criminal.
Speaker 2: And he went in. God bless you, Michael. Thanks very
Speaker 2: much for your call. Come on, I gave him a
Speaker 2: hard time, right, do you agree with Michael or not?
Speaker 2: Give me a ring? One three one eight seven three.
Speaker 1: You're with the radio Reverend Bill Cruise.
Speaker 2: Look, I've just got this message. Hi Bill. I lost
Speaker 2: my dear mom on twenty fourth of May. She was
Speaker 2: ninety one. She had eleven children. We'll be burying her
Speaker 2: on Wednesday. Can you possibly give mam a prayer? Her
Speaker 2: name was Marie. Well, let's say ninety one eleven children.
Speaker 2: God knows how many grandchildren and great grandchildren. Dearest God,
Speaker 2: Dearest God, your arms are open for Marae. Welcome her
Speaker 2: in and may she live within the warmth and the
Speaker 2: radius and the joy of your smile. May she find peace,
Speaker 2: and may her family find peace and know that she
Speaker 2: is loving in the loving care with you in Jesus' name. Amen, Chris,
Speaker 2: Welcome to the show mate.
Speaker 27: Hello, Reverend, how are you good?
Speaker 2: Chris?
Speaker 27: I was just listening to your comment about I was
Speaker 27: just about suicized in custody and what to do about
Speaker 27: about that issue. And it's definitely a hard on al
Speaker 27: depth in custody, I should say. I guess, well, I'm
Speaker 27: indigenous myself, and I think that, but I've probably had
Speaker 27: an easier path than maybe a lot of people, especially
Speaker 27: in the you know, in the regional communities or you know,
Speaker 27: in rough city areas or whatnot. But I just think that,
Speaker 27: you know, there should be some positivity around maybe being
Speaker 27: able to that you can get yourself out of that
Speaker 27: sort of bad life and have self determination and you know,
Speaker 27: have a go. And I don't know if that message
Speaker 27: is getting through to you know, to the indigenous community
Speaker 27: out there, and that it's sort of they just get
Speaker 27: stuck in the cycle.
Speaker 2: Yes, how is life with you, Chris.
Speaker 27: Oh fantastic. Yeah, what do you do with a bit
Speaker 27: of a backt I'm an electrician. Yeah, I've been doing FIFO,
Speaker 27: which I did as a mature age apprentice. I started
Speaker 27: at thirty and now forty one. Yeah, and it's been
Speaker 27: very good to me and my family. And well that's
Speaker 27: how I try and raise my daughters is just that
Speaker 27: you know, you can become anything you want in life
Speaker 27: if you work hard, and.
Speaker 2: Yes, she can give to go.
Speaker 27: You know, like this is Australias, the greatest country in
Speaker 27: the world. I think probably have a little bit of
Speaker 27: bias as you probably do as well if you see
Speaker 27: what else is going on around the world, Like we've
Speaker 27: got it pretty good here, and I think there's just
Speaker 27: so many opportunities out there if if you're shown that
Speaker 27: sort of direction.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 27: A little backstory. I was adopted as a child born
Speaker 27: in the eighties SOT four, and my birth mother sort
Speaker 27: of said, you know at the time, maybe being indigenous.
Speaker 27: I never knew I was indigenous until I turned eighteen
Speaker 27: and finally met my sort of birth family, so that's
Speaker 27: you know, I've had a bit of a different path,
Speaker 27: but that probably goes you're talking about stolen generation. I
Speaker 27: think because she was adopted out as well, and I
Speaker 27: think my grandmother she was part of that stolen generation.
Speaker 27: So my oldest daughter she moved down to orang John
Speaker 27: in Brisbane and she she works in so work in
Speaker 27: indigenous communities, and she said it was real eye opening
Speaker 27: for her just seeing, you know, how people are living
Speaker 27: out there.
Speaker 2: So I mean, it's a hard it's a hard Has
Speaker 2: it been harder for you because you're indigenous? Has it
Speaker 2: been harder or you didn't know so it didn't happen, Well.
Speaker 22: It was.
Speaker 27: What was probably hard about finding out at the time
Speaker 27: was that I guess my father, you know, white Austraian.
Speaker 27: That's fine. In my mum's Filipino. So I've had a
Speaker 27: quite diverse upbringing. But he was actually quite racist to Originals,
Speaker 27: you know, and the things some of the things he
Speaker 27: said was like, oh, you know, I work hard, and
Speaker 27: all my bloody tax dollars goes to pay you know,
Speaker 27: Center Link for Aboriginals and all this sort of Ariginals
Speaker 27: and all this sort of stuff, and then when I
Speaker 27: found out it was a bit of and me and
Speaker 27: him had words about it, and I was just said,
Speaker 27: I'm sick of hearing about it. You know, like, you know,
Speaker 27: your tax money's going somewhere, it will get the government
Speaker 27: will spend it on something. Doesn't it's not necessarily that,
Speaker 27: you know, like get over it. But I mean that's
Speaker 27: probably maybe a feeling that a lot of people have,
Speaker 27: I guess, but maybe because of they can't see maybe
Speaker 27: the money is wasted. I don't know, you know, I'm
Speaker 27: not I don't really know what the government does with everything.
Speaker 27: But well, I guess back to my point, I just
Speaker 27: think that there is so much opportunity if you can
Speaker 27: get that message out, and you probably do have to
Speaker 27: start with the kids.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 27: Another side story I was, I was driving back from
Speaker 27: Adelaide back to Brisbane and I drove through a.
Speaker 16: Couple of the little.
Speaker 27: Out back towns out there, and you know, it's two
Speaker 27: o'clock in the morning and there's little indigenous kids, probably
Speaker 27: well eight years old, six years old, just running around
Speaker 27: in the park, no no adults to be seen.
Speaker 15: You know, it's.
Speaker 27: You know, it's I probably don't want to go home.
Speaker 27: I don't know what's that, you know what I mean,
Speaker 27: it's that's probably why the message he isn't getting through
Speaker 27: them that they can make something of themselves.
Speaker 2: They can, they can make so right something. When you
Speaker 2: go home, give your kids a big kiss from me. Mate,
Speaker 2: God bless yare and you're God bless share and I'm
Speaker 2: so pleased you wrung thank you. Critically acclaimed author Hilda
Speaker 2: Hinton has written three novels, and they all explore topics
Speaker 2: around mental health, loneliness, social disconnection, and the power of friendship.
Speaker 2: Her new book is the Opposite of Lonely and I've
Speaker 2: got Hilda on the line. Hi Hilda, Hello Bill, Thank
Speaker 2: you for having me. Now, Gosh, you work as a
Speaker 2: prison officer by day, so you must see firsthand the
Speaker 2: impacts of social disconnection and loneliness.
Speaker 15: Yes, I do.
Speaker 12: I think.
Speaker 19: I think we automatically in society have these sort of
Speaker 19: lock them up mentality and I think that's simplified. And
Speaker 19: you know, these are people that have often had trauma
Speaker 19: or sort of experiences that we can't imagine and find
Speaker 19: themselves where they are for a number of reasons, and
Speaker 19: of course what they miss, I think is a sense
Speaker 19: of community that we take for granted.
Speaker 2: Now, what about your own lived experiences, because that's in
Speaker 2: form doesn't it your empathy for the characters in your book?
Speaker 19: Yeah, I was the daughter of a mentally unwell woman
Speaker 19: and she did her best to look after us kids
Speaker 19: as best she could, but she had her demons in
Speaker 19: her battle. And being exposed so young, I guess gave
Speaker 19: me an understanding that not everybody is the same. And
Speaker 19: also it can isolate you a little bit from your
Speaker 19: friends because if they're not going through the same thing,
Speaker 19: then you feel a bit disconnected.
Speaker 2: And some of the things they go through their heroic,
Speaker 2: aren't they the way they do?
Speaker 19: Yeah, that's right. And you know there's such good work
Speaker 19: done in this space and has been for many years.
Speaker 19: And you know there's a lot of people can't unsee
Speaker 19: some things, and I certainly I certainly respect anybody that
Speaker 19: works in that industry.
Speaker 2: So you were a second hand book dealer and read
Speaker 2: in your spare times, and so was that what gave
Speaker 2: you the courage to write your first novel?
Speaker 19: Well, it certainly was a great apprenticeship. Bill, I was
Speaker 19: twenty years I did that with my dad. We sort
Speaker 19: of Yeah, lived a treasure hunt really just going around
Speaker 19: getting books and had our shops. And I think it
Speaker 19: was a really good apprenticeship because I read six books
Speaker 19: a week, read all sorts of genres, because I had
Speaker 19: to understand every section in the shop to be able
Speaker 19: to serve as customers. And by the time I came
Speaker 19: to well, by the time I finally made the decision
Speaker 19: that was time to write a book, I think it
Speaker 19: helped me in very good stead.
Speaker 2: Like the first novel you wrote Outness of Unsaid Things,
Speaker 2: that's almost Dylan esque, you know, it made a number
Speaker 2: of best seller lists. That credit called claim must have
Speaker 2: been very gratifying.
Speaker 19: Yet it certainly came out of the blue. I wasn't
Speaker 19: expecting it. You know, you're sort of bright for yourself
Speaker 19: in a way. And I think with that book, it
Speaker 19: touched a lot of people because like my own life,
Speaker 19: there was a there was a you know, sort of
Speaker 19: autobiographical thread through it, and a lot of people got
Speaker 19: in touch and said that they felt less alone after
Speaker 19: reading that because they were also children of somebody who
Speaker 19: had a mental illness or family of And I think
Speaker 19: now that we're talking about it more, I think it
Speaker 19: might be time to put on the table that, you know,
Speaker 19: let's offer some support for the people around and the
Speaker 19: families around people suffering mental health issues, because everybody goes
Speaker 19: on that journey with the individual.
Speaker 2: Now, tell us about your second novel, as Solitary Walk
Speaker 2: on the Moon.
Speaker 19: Yeah, yeah, Well Evelyn. Evelyn was my favorite character that
Speaker 19: I've written, actually, and she sort of socially self isolated
Speaker 19: herself and doesn't know how to connect with people and
Speaker 19: chops and changes her life and packs up and moves
Speaker 19: when she gets a bit close to people. But you know,
Speaker 19: it's also quite jaunty and uplifting, and it's about finding
Speaker 19: family when you don't have a biological one.
Speaker 2: And in your new book, The Opposite a Lonely, how
Speaker 2: have you tried to inspire your readers in what in
Speaker 2: that way?
Speaker 19: Well, this book's about friendship. It's about Yeah, it's about
Speaker 19: when you sort of find yourself a bit isolated because
Speaker 19: you've either had a breakup, you've had debts in your family,
Speaker 19: and you've sort of you've become a bit of a
Speaker 19: shut in when you go through these things. And the
Speaker 19: beauty of friendship is that somebody just comes into your
Speaker 19: life and gives you confidence and allows you to take
Speaker 19: life risks and supports you and uplifts you. And of
Speaker 19: course sometimes sometimes these friends aren't always what they've seen.
Speaker 19: But at the same time, friend well, sometimes people are
Speaker 19: really good for your life, but you may not see
Speaker 19: what they're really like. And you know, there can be
Speaker 19: I think all of us have gone through the loss
Speaker 19: of a friend or some sort of form of betrayal.
Speaker 19: So I want to just explore the irony of sort
Speaker 19: of losing a friend when that friend is the very
Speaker 19: person that actually lifted you up to the point where
Speaker 19: you can cope with the loss.
Speaker 2: We're really complex people, aren't we We are we are.
Speaker 19: Yeah, we are, and I just I mean, most of
Speaker 19: us are really lovely and consider it, and sometimes people aren't,
Speaker 19: and that's quite difficult to deal with.
Speaker 2: So how do you see the impact alone inness on
Speaker 2: our health and well being?
Speaker 19: Well, it's proven, you know, it has the same sort
Speaker 19: of medical effect as bad diet obesity. There's a lot
Speaker 19: of articles about this. The Japanese have their own language
Speaker 19: around loneliness, you know, where you're old young, they have Yeah,
Speaker 19: they've got so many I wish I could remember them.
Speaker 19: They're quite hard to pronounce. But the older people have
Speaker 19: a different loneliness to younger people, and they have different words,
Speaker 19: and I just think, you know, I just think it's
Speaker 19: important to talk about this stuff, especially as we're moving
Speaker 19: to self serve checkouts. Everything's done by tap and go,
Speaker 19: everything gets delivered. And we're not going out as much
Speaker 19: as we used to, and we're not talking to neighbors
Speaker 19: and strangers and having those casual conversations that really are
Speaker 19: an important fabric of our life.
Speaker 2: And kids aren't playing in the streets anymore.
Speaker 12: No, they're not.
Speaker 19: You know, you don't hear them out on the street
Speaker 19: kicking the ball and saying car, you know when a
Speaker 19: car is coming. It's very sad. There's a house over
Speaker 19: the road from me and a family moved in there
Speaker 19: about a year ago, and I haven't I haven't seen
Speaker 19: the kids.
Speaker 2: So you've got over and knocked on the door.
Speaker 19: Well no, I mean I've sort of waved, you know,
Speaker 19: when they were putting out Halloween decorations. But there wasn't
Speaker 19: a there wasn't a desire on the other end to engage.
Speaker 19: And that's okay.
Speaker 2: But we like that now, aren't we. You know, I
Speaker 2: keep telling people to go out and sail over to
Speaker 2: their neighbors and they go, maybe the neighbors don't want
Speaker 2: to talk to me.
Speaker 25: Yeah.
Speaker 19: Well, ironically, during COVID, our street became very friendly. We
Speaker 19: all put our chair out in our driveway and called
Speaker 19: out to each other and spoke to each.
Speaker 2: From across the world followed up it has it has.
Speaker 19: I live in a great street. We all know each
Speaker 19: other's names. We all keep an eye on each other's houses.
Speaker 19: It's really sweet. And you know we're missing that as
Speaker 19: we become a bit more shut in. I don't know
Speaker 19: why kids aren't on the street more. I think screens.
Speaker 19: I guess parental fear of you know, danger. But I'd
Speaker 19: love to a bit more and hear more because it's
Speaker 19: such a beautiful sound.
Speaker 2: The kid I used to wander around everywhere, you know,
Speaker 2: I come home at nine. Nowadays you've got these helicopter
Speaker 2: parents everywhere, haven't you.
Speaker 15: That's right.
Speaker 19: Yeah, And it's a real shame. And you know this
Speaker 19: this sort of school refusal, and you know I don't.
Speaker 19: It's yeah, it's really sad. And I think the mental
Speaker 19: health of our young people is clearly something that needs work.
Speaker 2: Now. In your book, you look at the importance of
Speaker 2: showing strangers compassion and empathy.
Speaker 19: Yeah, well, it's a part of life, isn't it. You know,
Speaker 19: I don't understand why people aren't lending a hand more
Speaker 19: to people they don't know. It's a great way to
Speaker 19: meet people. It's also human nature, I think to assist,
Speaker 19: you know, it's certainly my natural response. Yeah, and I
Speaker 19: really I value the strangers that I've met that have
Speaker 19: become friends, and I certainly value when somebody.
Speaker 2: Lends me a hand because if you don't go out
Speaker 2: and say loo, you don't have the opportunity of that happening,
Speaker 2: do you.
Speaker 19: That's right, that's right, And that's how it starts. It
Speaker 19: starts with looking people in the eye, you know, smiling, imagine,
Speaker 19: and you also.
Speaker 2: Look at the power of intimacy and friendship how important.
Speaker 19: Yes, well it's I think friendships have an intimacy that's
Speaker 19: sort of different from what you have with your partner,
Speaker 19: because when you meet a friend, you just sort of
Speaker 19: give them everything about you, all all your secrets, all
Speaker 19: everything about you just comes out and you just give
Speaker 19: it all over it sort of really quickly, whereas when
Speaker 19: you meet a partner, you're sort of trying to show
Speaker 19: your best side.
Speaker 3: You know, and until it all falls away, that's right.
Speaker 19: Yeah, So I think the intimacy of friendship with that,
Speaker 19: with that complete giving of yourself is a unique to
Speaker 19: friendship and.
Speaker 15: B it's just so important.
Speaker 19: We're just such communal creatures.
Speaker 2: So what would you like people to take away from
Speaker 2: the opposite a lonely.
Speaker 19: I guess just be aware of the people around you,
Speaker 19: Be aware of family members, be aware of changes in behavior,
Speaker 19: ask questions. You know, people don't volunteer information, show an interest,
Speaker 19: and same with neighbors and strangers. And you know, giving
Speaker 19: a smile costs nothing. And if people don't respond and
Speaker 19: look at you like your bonkers, well that's okay. Just
Speaker 19: smile at the next person because nine times out of
Speaker 19: ten you're going to get a lovely response. And yeah,
Speaker 19: we're a community and we just need to work together
Speaker 19: as humans to get through, especially in these sort of
Speaker 19: difficult worldly times.
Speaker 2: So what's next for Hilden? You're Hilton, Well, I was going.
Speaker 19: To have a big rest bill and take a year
Speaker 19: off writing, but I've had an idea.
Speaker 2: And so you're a bit of blessing of answer.
Speaker 19: Yeah, well the stories find me, I think, and yeah,
Speaker 19: so yeah, the next one is going to be sort
Speaker 19: of multi generational, because I think I really like young people,
Speaker 19: you know, sort of young adults. I think I think
Speaker 19: they're much more caring and giving, and they talk about
Speaker 19: their feelings more. They're open, and I think people think
Speaker 19: that they're entitled, whereas I don't think they're entitled. I
Speaker 19: think they're just standing up for what they believe in.
Speaker 19: And I really quite like them. And so I want
Speaker 19: to have some younger people interacting with older family. And
Speaker 19: as we watch the new guard.
Speaker 2: Come through Hilda hinton new novel, The Opposite are Lonely.
Speaker 2: Thanks for your time tonight, goblish him, thank.
Speaker 15: You, thank you Bill, thank you.
Speaker 28: MS ship ship with those blue with those blues records.
Speaker 28: Don't fraid I'm afraid this rob this Rover ross over,
Speaker 28: Ross over.
Speaker 3: If I.
Speaker 9: Be the jazz ro.
Speaker 2: Go down my feet all the time, all time street, Well,
Speaker 2: let's be all grandma listening, all grandma to get out
Speaker 2: and get out. Really want to thank you. I really
Speaker 2: want to thank my listener again again and until they
Speaker 2: are sad said good knocks
Speaker 3: Hm