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Speaker 1: My name is Lily Maddon and I'm a proud Arunda

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Speaker 1: Bunjelung Calcottin woman from Gadighl country. The Daily oz acknowledges

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Speaker 1: that this podcast is recorded on the lands of the

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Speaker 1: Gadighl people and pays respect to all Aboriginal and Torres

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Speaker 1: Strait Island and nations. We pay our respects to the

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Speaker 1: first peoples of these countries, both past and present.

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Speaker 2: Good morning and welcome to the Daily os It's Thursday,

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Speaker 2: the first of June. Happy winter. I'm Sam, I'm Zara.

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Speaker 2: You might remember a conversation we had in September last

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Speaker 2: year on this podcast about allegations of racism against the

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Speaker 2: Hawthorne Football.

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Speaker 3: Club, Allegations that Hawthorne pressured Indigenous players to separate from

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Speaker 3: their partners and in one case terminate a pregnancy.

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Speaker 2: Well, the AFL has now ended their investigation into those allegations.

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Speaker 3: No adverse findings have been made in the independent investigation

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Speaker 3: against any of the individuals against whom allegations have been made.

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Speaker 2: So what's led to this result and what does it

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Speaker 2: say about how we deal with allegations of racism in

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Speaker 2: sport in Australia. Tom and I are going to get

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Speaker 2: into today's deep dive, but first, Sarah, what is making headlines.

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Speaker 4: The federal government has proposed changes to tobacco laws. They

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Speaker 4: want to create stronger graphic warnings on tobacco products and

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Speaker 4: add vapes to the current advertising restrictions. Draft legislation was

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Speaker 4: released on Wednesday and it'll be open for consultation until July.

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Speaker 2: We've got a new premier in WA. Roger Cook is

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Speaker 2: set to succeed Mark McGowan as Premier of Western Australia.

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Speaker 2: McGowan announced his resignation on Monday, saying he was exhausted.

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Speaker 2: Cook has been McGowan's deputy and served as Health Minister

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Speaker 2: during the COVID pandemic.

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Speaker 4: Elizabeth Holmes has begun her prison sentence for defrauding investors

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Speaker 4: of her now defn technology company, Therenos. Holmes founded the

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Speaker 4: company in two thousand and three, which claimed to accurately

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Speaker 4: run multiple blood tests from one drop of blood. She

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Speaker 4: was sentenced to over eleven years behind bars in November

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Speaker 4: and reported to a text in prison this week. If

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Speaker 4: you want more on that story, there's a link in

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Speaker 4: the show notes to a party. We have done on

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Speaker 4: this previously.

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Speaker 2: And today's good news. The Therapy Goods Administration has approved

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Speaker 2: a proposal by the Australian Red Cross to remove questions

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Speaker 2: related to a person's sexual activity when donating plasma. The move,

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Speaker 2: which will impact men who have sex with men and

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Speaker 2: sex workers, has been welcomed by the Federal government. Good Ay, Tom,

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Speaker 2: Welcome back to the podcast. Thanks Sam, it's good to

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Speaker 2: be here. It's been a couple of weeks since I've

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Speaker 2: been on here today to talk about the allegations of

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Speaker 2: racism at the Hawthorne Football Club in the AFL. The

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Speaker 2: AFL dropped its months long investigation into those allegations earlier

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Speaker 2: this week. The investigation didn't get very far. We'll get

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Speaker 2: into that in a moment, but they're certainly very serious

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Speaker 2: allegations at the center of this. It's been a thorny

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Speaker 2: and difficult thing to work through and has implications not

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Speaker 2: just in the world of football, but of course the

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Speaker 2: broader conversation in Australia about racism towards First Nations communities.

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Speaker 2: And I'm keen to get into those implications soon. But

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Speaker 2: why don't we start with a little bit of context.

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Speaker 2: Where did these explosive allegations come from? So We've got

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Speaker 2: to go back a little bit to April of last year.

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Speaker 2: And in April last year, former Hawthorne First Nations player

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Speaker 2: Seal Rioli gave an interview to the Age where he

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Speaker 2: talked about experiences of racism during his time at Hawthorne.

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Speaker 5: There were some racist comments said to have been made

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Speaker 5: by players, and inappropriate comments said to have been made

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Speaker 5: by former president Jeff Kennett. And it was a really

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Speaker 5: significant story. You might remember at the time, Sam, And

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Speaker 5: you know, Cyril Rioli was part of a very successful

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Speaker 5: Hawthorne football club in the twenty tens. It was the

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Speaker 5: most successful club in football and serious it was, and

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Speaker 5: Cyril Rioli was a really big part of that. It's

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Speaker 5: a significant story in its own right. His voice carried

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Speaker 5: a lot of authority and it prompted Hawthorne to take

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Speaker 5: a closer look.

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Speaker 2: At its own practices.

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Speaker 5: So, in response to siro Riali's allegations, Hawthorne commissioned some

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Speaker 5: consultants to come into the club and review the way

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Speaker 5: that it had treated First Nations players, both past and present.

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Speaker 5: So the consultants spoke to First Nations players and their families,

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Speaker 5: collected their experiences and presented them to the Hawthorne Football Club. Now,

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Speaker 5: this process unearthed some very serious allegations, and those allegations

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Speaker 5: would eventually become what we're talking about today.

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Speaker 2: Okay, so give me a sense of what those allegations were. Yeah, Well,

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Speaker 2: the first thing to say is that we don't know

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Speaker 2: in full. So what the consultants unearthed, we still haven't seen.

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Speaker 2: It has never been published. Hawthorne received it, found it troubling,

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Speaker 2: passed it on to the AFL. We came to know

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Speaker 2: about this when ABC journalist Russell Jackson came across the consultants'

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Speaker 2: findings and he himself interviewed some of the players who'd

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Speaker 2: made the allegations and published last September a lengthy article

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Speaker 2: that detailed really three sets of stories from three players

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Speaker 2: and their partners, and those allegations all centered around the

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Speaker 2: suggestion that officials at the Hawthorne Football Club had tried

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Speaker 2: to separate First Nations players from their partners. So the

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Speaker 2: first family alleges that, upon hearing of the player's partner's pregnancy,

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Speaker 2: that the club pressured the player to have the partner's

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Speaker 2: pregnancy terminated and then took steps to separate them by

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Speaker 2: changing his sin card. The second couple also suggests that

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Speaker 2: while the partner was pregnant, the club had tried to

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Speaker 2: intervene to separate them and kept them apart for a

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Speaker 2: long period of time, that there had been an altercation

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Speaker 2: at the player's house involving club officials, and the third

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Speaker 2: couple suggested that the club had intervened to try to

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Speaker 2: stop the partner from realin locating into state to live

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Speaker 2: with the player. So all three really based around I

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Speaker 2: suppose a similar theme. And there were three Hawthorne officials

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Speaker 2: who were named in the ABC article, and they are

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Speaker 2: the former coach Alistair Clarkson, former assistant Chris Fagan, and

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Speaker 2: the former player welfare management officer Jason Burt. All three

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Speaker 2: had since moved on from the club. They weren't involved

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Speaker 2: in this consultant process. But they were named in the

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Speaker 2: ABC piece and that really exploded upon its publication and

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Speaker 2: became a really significant story of public interest. So it's

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Speaker 2: now June. That story was published in September. What has

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Speaker 2: the fallout been for those three men in particular.

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Speaker 5: So the three men very quickly and very strenuously denied

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Speaker 5: all allegations of wrongdoing. Again, they had not been involved

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Speaker 5: in the consultant process. They weren't at the club at

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Speaker 5: the time, and the consultants weren't seeking to investigate claims.

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Speaker 5: They were seeking to record first hand ex experiences of

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Speaker 5: First Nations players and their families, and they did that.

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Speaker 5: And so the first that Clarkson, Fagan, and Bert heard

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Speaker 5: of the allegations, they say, is when the ABC journalist

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Speaker 5: gets in touch with them and puts questions to them

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Speaker 5: just before it was published. And basically until it seems

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Speaker 5: this week, they hadn't seen the full detail of the allegations.

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Speaker 5: They'd only seen what we've seen in the ABC article.

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Speaker 5: But nonetheless they denied any wrongdoing, any racism towards First

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Speaker 5: Nations players. Now, Clark's and Fagan are still well and

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Speaker 5: truly in the public eye. They've moved on to become

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Speaker 5: senior coaches at other AFL teams. Bert works at a

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Speaker 5: high school in a high school football program. All three

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Speaker 5: of them took leave briefly following the airing of these allegations,

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Speaker 5: but then they went back to work. The AFL, for

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Speaker 5: its part, I guess, wanted to be seen on the

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Speaker 5: front foot and said, well, we will investigate this. So

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Speaker 5: the AFL sets up its own investigation, shared by a

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Speaker 5: respected lawyer, with the purpose of hearing both sides of

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Speaker 5: the story, trying to get to the bottom of the

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Speaker 5: truth of the claims, trying to run some sort of mediation,

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Speaker 5: some sort of potential resolution between the players, the club,

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Speaker 5: and the coaches, and I guess trying to bring this

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Speaker 5: matter to an end. That was the intent.

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Speaker 2: And so the review has now been dropped without there

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Speaker 2: being any findings. That's why we're talking about it today

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Speaker 2: is because that's the news this week. What exactly has

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Speaker 2: happened there?

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Speaker 5: So this week, after basically eight months, the AFL said

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Speaker 5: we're dropping the investigation and it hasn't made any findings,

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Speaker 5: and really it didn't even get off the ground floor.

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Speaker 5: So almost immediately the investigation, I think it became pretty

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Speaker 5: clear to everyone who was watching this that it wasn't

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Speaker 5: going to get anywhere. So one of the players and

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Speaker 5: two of the partners said, we don't want to be

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Speaker 5: involved in the AFL's process, refused to participate. The ones

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Speaker 5: who did participate, there was a lot of difficulty agreeing

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Speaker 5: on the terms of how the investigation should proceed, and

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Speaker 5: as a result, there was no form of me. But

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Speaker 5: more than that, it didn't get to the point where

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Speaker 5: the investigation was able to put the allegations to Clarkson

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Speaker 5: Burton Fagan for a response, So as far as being

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Speaker 5: able to investigate the truth of the claims again, it

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Speaker 5: just really couldn't get off the ground. But despite that

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Speaker 5: it went on for about eight months. The people who

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Speaker 5: were involved were bound for confidentiality agreement and so obviously

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Speaker 5: Fagan and Clarkson AFL coaches, they're often in the media,

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Speaker 5: they're often being asked about this. They weren't able to

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Speaker 5: comment on it. The players remain anonymous and also haven't

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Speaker 5: been able to comment on it publicly, And so the

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Speaker 5: whole thing has gone on for an extended period of

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Speaker 5: time and the AFL acknowledged this week that it's caused

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Speaker 5: great distress to really all all parties. AFL CEO Gillen

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Speaker 5: McLachlin maybe acknowledging that this hadn't been very satisfactory. He

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Speaker 5: called it an imperfect resolution.

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Speaker 3: The AFL acknowledges each one of the compliants feels hurt,

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Speaker 3: pain and anguish following their time at Hawthorne, and the

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Speaker 3: parties acknowledge that the man in which their allegations were

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Speaker 3: leaked to the media was not in any party's best interests.

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Speaker 5: And he also acknowledge that the AFL has a history

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Speaker 5: of racism towards First Nations players and promised to take

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Speaker 5: steps towards fixing.

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Speaker 3: That the AFL knows that during the long history of

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Speaker 3: our game, there have been instances of racism and that

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Speaker 3: players have been marginalized, herd or discriminated against because of

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Speaker 3: the race, and for that we say sorry.

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Speaker 5: Fagan has also responded. He said that it was long

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Speaker 5: overdue that the process he brought to a close. He

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Speaker 5: called it a farce, and he said, you know, now

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Speaker 5: that he has seen the allegations made against him, that

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Speaker 5: he would be happy for all of the documents that

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Speaker 5: the consultants prepared to be made public. He says that

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Speaker 5: they support his long running denial that he's done nothing wrong.

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Speaker 2: Is Clarkson still on indefinitely.

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Speaker 5: Still on indefinitely even we haven't heard from him in

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Speaker 5: the immediate aftermath of this, but he has again repeatedly

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Speaker 5: denied the allegations.

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Speaker 2: So taking a broader look at things now, we're in

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Speaker 2: a situation where a review has been abandoned. We're almost

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Speaker 2: a bit of a standstill. What are the next steps

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Speaker 2: from him.

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Speaker 5: So it's really all up to the players, their partners

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Speaker 5: and what they want to do. But what they now

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Speaker 5: have the ability to do if they want to, is

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Speaker 5: to escalate this to the Australian Human Rights Commission. Now

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Speaker 5: that sounds like a very dramatic step, but it really

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Speaker 5: is an official mediation process. So the Human Rights Commission

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Speaker 5: hears all sorts of claims, including claims about racial discrimination,

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Speaker 5: and it offers an impartial mediation where it hears both

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Speaker 5: sides of the story and again tries to work towards

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Speaker 5: a resolution similar in structure to what the AFL was

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Speaker 5: trying to do, but of course independently managed by a

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Speaker 5: government body. If that doesn't work as a resolution, then

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Speaker 5: the players and their partners would theoretically have the option

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Speaker 5: to bring forward a lawsuit basically seeking damages for racial

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Speaker 5: discrimination to the federal court.

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Speaker 2: Now that would be a civil lawsuit, not a criminal.

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Speaker 5: A civil case, that's right, And of course we don't

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Speaker 5: know who they are. We don't have any direct indication

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Speaker 5: of whether they intend to pursue any of those routes,

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Speaker 5: but there are suggestions from AFL media sources who say

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Speaker 5: they've been in conversation with the players and their partners

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Speaker 5: who suggest that that's likely, but of course we don't know.

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Speaker 2: Tom. There's been some very disturbing allegations made by former

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Speaker 2: AFL footballers towards the Hawthorne Football Club and it's led

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Speaker 2: to this review, and that review has ended this week

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Speaker 2: with the findings of no findings. What is the proper

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Speaker 2: process meant to be here?

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Speaker 5: Well, I think the first thing to say is that

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Speaker 5: we don't have a perfect answer to the question of

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Speaker 5: what is the proper process. We're getting pretty used to

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Speaker 5: stories in the news about serious allegations being raised in

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Speaker 5: organizations and those organizations and the legal system struggling to

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Speaker 5: satisfactorily deal with them. But clearly in this case there

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Speaker 5: is a legal framework, right. The Australian Human Rights Commission

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Speaker 5: obviously has a process in place and expertise to deal

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Speaker 5: with sensitive claims of racial discrimination and to mediate them

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Speaker 5: toward towards a proper outcome. And you know, the AFL

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Speaker 5: defended its investigation this week, but I think that there's

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Speaker 5: a general recognition that I mean, clearly, it went for

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Speaker 5: eight months and it didn't resolve, so it wasn't a success.

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Speaker 5: And perhaps if the AFL had its time again, you know,

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Speaker 5: it might have seen that it was more appropriate for

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Speaker 5: this mediation to take place completely outside of its own remit,

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Speaker 5: you know, with the Human Rights Commission, and that may

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Speaker 5: be where it ends up, but it'll end up months

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Speaker 5: later than it could have.

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Speaker 2: So there's that part of it.

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Speaker 5: I think there's also a really interesting conversation for all

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Speaker 5: of us in the media about how we treat these stories.

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Speaker 5: You know, there was a lot of controversy about the

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Speaker 5: original ABC article and a really fierce debate about you know,

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Speaker 5: on the one hand, a story of public interest and

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Speaker 5: would it have ever seen the light of day had

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Speaker 5: it not been written about, But on the other hand,

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Speaker 5: the media conversation that follows that. In you and I

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Speaker 5: consume a lot of footy media, Sam, it's been talked

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Speaker 5: about non stop for months in a way that the

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Speaker 5: AFL recognized this week, and I think the players involved

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Speaker 5: recognized and everyone recognizes has an been in the best

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Speaker 5: interests of any of the parties and probably in this

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Speaker 5: particular case now it's just been so public and dragged

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Speaker 5: through the public sphere so much that it's unclear now

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Speaker 5: whether there is any path to a satisfactory resolution, and

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Speaker 5: I think it's a really interesting question how much the

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Speaker 5: media conversation and the public conversation.

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Speaker 2: Played a role in that. Thank you for joining us

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Speaker 2: on the Daily OS this morning. If you learned something

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Speaker 2: from today's episode, don't forget to hit subscribe so there's

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Speaker 2: a TDA episode waiting for you every morning. We'll be

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Speaker 2: back again tomorrow. Until then, have a great day.