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

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Speaker 1: Bungelung Calcottin woman from Gadigol 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 Tuesday,

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Speaker 2: the eighteenth of July. I'm Sam Kazlowski.

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Speaker 3: I'm Zara Seidler.

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Speaker 2: It feels like a distant memory.

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Speaker 4: Her giant padlock is about to snapshot on Sydney and

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Speaker 4: the rest of the state as we go into an

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Speaker 4: unprecedented lockdown.

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Speaker 2: A time when going too far away from your home

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Speaker 2: or meeting more than one person in public could land

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Speaker 2: you a one thousand dollar fine.

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Speaker 1: Heavy fines were handed out to more than one hundred

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Speaker 1: and sixty thousands.

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Speaker 4: More people have been slapped with huge fines for flouting

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Speaker 4: COVID restrictions.

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Speaker 2: In New South Wales, around sixty thousand COVID fines were

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Speaker 2: issued and one more half of them were canceled last year.

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Speaker 2: The rest remain. It's also been revealed that not everyone

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Speaker 2: in New South Wales was impacted by those fines equally.

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Speaker 2: So what went wrong and what will happen now to

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Speaker 2: those remaining fines. We're going to let you know in

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Speaker 2: today's deep dive. But first, aara some important news about

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Speaker 2: the upcoming referendum.

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Speaker 3: Today the Australian Electoral Commission will publish the yes and

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Speaker 3: the No cases for the Indigenous Voice to Parliament referendum.

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Speaker 3: The AEC is going to use separate, unedited documents to

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Speaker 3: begin work on official pamphlets. These pamphlets will eventually be

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Speaker 3: mailed out to you and I and every single voter

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Speaker 3: in the country ahead of the referendum, So we are

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Speaker 3: really going to see those yes and no arguments from today.

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Speaker 2: A woman has been hospitalized after being attacked by four dingoes.

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Speaker 2: Paramedics say the twenty three year old woman was bitten

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Speaker 2: on her limbs and torso while jogging on Gury formerly

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Speaker 2: known as Fraser Island. She was taken to hospital in

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Speaker 2: a stable condition.

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Speaker 3: At least thirty nine people have died in torrential race

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Speaker 3: in South Korea. Downpours have lashed certain parts of the

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Speaker 3: country over the past week.

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Speaker 2: And today's good news is from the Sunshine State. All

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Speaker 2: Queenslanders will be eligible for a free flu vaccination. It

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Speaker 2: will be available for five weeks from the twenty second

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Speaker 2: of July and offered at pharmacies and gps across the state.

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Speaker 2: So at the end of last year, the New South

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Speaker 2: Wales government was forced to cancel over thirty three thousand

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Speaker 2: fines issued for COVID nineteen restriction breaches. There's now a

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Speaker 2: legal challenge on foot seeking to have the remaining almost

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Speaker 2: thirty thousand fines fully canceled and just to bring some

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Speaker 2: fond memories back for everybody. When we're talking about the fines,

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Speaker 2: we're talking about the breaches to public health orders. So

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Speaker 2: there were things like how far you could travel from

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Speaker 2: your home, how many people you could have in your home,

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Speaker 2: and who you could socialize with, what the self isolation

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Speaker 2: rules were if you had COVID or if you were

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Speaker 2: a close contact, or if you could travel regionally.

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Speaker 3: It was definitely a moment in time.

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Speaker 2: And during that period of the twenty twenty one lockdown,

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Speaker 2: over forty five million dollars worth of fines were issued

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Speaker 2: by New South Wales police for breach of the Public

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Speaker 2: Health Act. And to put that into context, during a

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Speaker 2: three month period during the twenty twenty one lockdown, over

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Speaker 2: forty five million dollars worth of fines were issued by

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Speaker 2: New South Wales police for breach of the Public Health Act.

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Speaker 3: I mean, for forty five million dollars worth of fined

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Speaker 3: in a three month period, sounds like a great revenue

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Speaker 3: generator for the New South Wales government. But at the

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Speaker 3: end of last year, half of all fines in New

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Speaker 3: South Wales were actually canceled. Talk me through that. Why

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Speaker 3: did it happen?

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Speaker 2: Yeah, so it came about from a test case in

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Speaker 2: the New South Wales Supreme Court where lawyers representing the

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Speaker 2: government did concede that some of those fines were invalid

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Speaker 2: because the fine itself didn't have enough information on it

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Speaker 2: as to why it was issued. And so to dive

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Speaker 2: deep into this, you've got to look at the wording

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Speaker 2: of the fine, which said that the person who was

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Speaker 2: issued the fine failed to comply with noticed direction and

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Speaker 2: that was instead of you know, failed to remain within

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Speaker 2: five kilometers of their home or any specific offense. And

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Speaker 2: this is really important because if you don't know exactly

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Speaker 2: what you were fined for, you can't challenge the fine,

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Speaker 2: and you can't verify whether it was a fair or

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Speaker 2: appropriate amount of money. It's kind of similar to if

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Speaker 2: you've got to find in the mail that said failure

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Speaker 2: to comply with a speed limit. You don't know what

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Speaker 2: exactly you've been fined for, and therefore you can't take

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Speaker 2: the appropriate action.

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Speaker 3: Okay. So the court basically found that those COVID fines

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Speaker 3: weren't specific enough in setting out what the offense was,

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Speaker 3: and therefore all of those fines were canceled. So what

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Speaker 3: happened then for the people who had received them in

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Speaker 3: the first place.

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Speaker 2: Well, just after the court made that ruling, Revenue New

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Speaker 2: South Wales, which is the body that issued the fines,

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Speaker 2: they issued their own statement and they said, because of

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Speaker 2: that court case, they would be withdrawing those fines issued

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Speaker 2: for the same reasons as the ones that came in

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Speaker 2: front of the court. They were really careful to say

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Speaker 2: that them withdrawing the fines didn't mean that the offenses

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Speaker 2: weren't committed in the first place, but they did say

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Speaker 2: that the fines would be withdrawn. There were thirty three thousand,

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Speaker 2: one hundred and twenty one of them, and that's around

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Speaker 2: half of the total number of COVID nineteen fines issued

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Speaker 2: in the state. In the state, in the cases where

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Speaker 2: the people had already paid a fine, New South Wales

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Speaker 2: Revenue said they would be issuing a refund, all.

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Speaker 3: Right, So half of the fines were withdrawn somewhere in

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Speaker 3: the thirty thousand, yeah, yeah, So then there was still

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Speaker 3: another thirty thousand because you said they were around sixty

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Speaker 3: years together. So what happened to the remaining thirty thousand.

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Speaker 2: Well, that's what we're talking about today. A new case

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Speaker 2: being brought to the New South Wales courts by the

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Speaker 2: Redfern Legal Center could change that now. According to the Center,

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Speaker 2: the client in this case was issued a three thousand

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Speaker 2: dollar fine for leaving Grace Sydney without a permit. At

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Speaker 2: the time when she was fined, the woman was homeless

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Speaker 2: and living out of her van, and she was near

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Speaker 2: the New South Wales border waiting on a permit to

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Speaker 2: enter South Australia where a friend had offered her some accommodation.

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Speaker 2: And this case will use the same logic as the

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Speaker 2: last case, and they'll basically argue that the remaining finds

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Speaker 2: don't meet a legal requirement to clearly and unambiguously set

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Speaker 2: out exactly what the police were finding the woman for.

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Speaker 2: So this case is in its early days. It's just

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Speaker 2: been filed and we're going to have to keep tabs

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Speaker 2: on it to see what happens. But based on what

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Speaker 2: we know about the first case and how the courts

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Speaker 2: received that, it is possible that all remaining code finds

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Speaker 2: are going to be canceled in New South Wales.

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Speaker 3: I have no doubt that that would be very welcome

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Speaker 3: news for those who got fined. But I can't help

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Speaker 3: but think about when we're having this conversation that it

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Speaker 3: is extremely important to acknowledge that not everybody was equally

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Speaker 3: impacted by these finds, at least here in New South Wales.

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Speaker 3: What do we know about who was receiving them?

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Speaker 2: Well, we understand more about the profile of who was

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Speaker 2: fined in New South Wales because of some research done

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Speaker 2: by the UNSW Center for Crime, Law and Justice, and

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Speaker 2: what they found was the burden of the fines fell

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Speaker 2: heavily on socioeconomically disadvantaged individuals, families and communities, especially in

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Speaker 2: areas like southwestern and western Sydney as well as western

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Speaker 2: New South Wales. Now We've also heard that First Nations

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Speaker 2: people were disproportionately impacted. The town of Woalgot, where twenty

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Speaker 2: one percent of the population identify as Aboriginal, experienced the

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Speaker 2: highest rates of COVID penalty notices per capita in the state.

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Speaker 2: In a statement, the Daro Elders Group said the New

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Speaker 2: South Wales government made a big mistake for our community

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Speaker 2: in tasking police to lead the local emergency response to

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Speaker 2: this public health crisis. Police have a long history as

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Speaker 2: an intimidating presence in Wolgot, without a track record of

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Speaker 2: building trust or communicating well with the local Aboriginal community. Now,

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Speaker 2: this report also founds that not only did the findes

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Speaker 2: lead to debt for those who received them, but it

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Speaker 2: also really damaged that relationship between police and communities, which

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Speaker 2: was already pretty strained.

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Speaker 3: I think now enough time has passed that we're able

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Speaker 3: to start assessing how some of the responses to the

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Speaker 3: pandemic played out. I think at the time it felt

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Speaker 3: very novel, it felt very new. You know, a lot

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Speaker 3: of people just accepted what was being told because it

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Speaker 3: was so foreign to all of us. Now in retrospect,

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Speaker 3: and certainly I guess with an eye to moving forward.

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Speaker 3: What do you think the lessons in all of this are.

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Speaker 2: Well, first, I'll say that I hope that we never

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Speaker 2: have another public health emergency to have to play out

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Speaker 2: similar restrictions. But if we look then at some of

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Speaker 2: the recommendations for what to do next time, there are

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Speaker 2: some outlines in that unsw report. One of the writers

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Speaker 2: of the report made a comment about the police force

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Speaker 2: and they said that the new South Wales Police Force

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Speaker 2: should review its use of penalty notices for all offense

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Speaker 2: categories and prioritize less punitive methods of encouraging compliance, including engagement,

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Speaker 2: education and negotiation. Ultimately, the report says that these finds

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Speaker 2: do not increase public safety or improve health outcomes, but

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Speaker 2: rather what they do is they exactly about harm's experience

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Speaker 2: by already disadvantaged communities.

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Speaker 3: Thanks for listening in to this episode of The Daily OS.

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Speaker 3: We have loved reading your reviews on Spotify. So if

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Speaker 3: you liked this episode, you can go to your Spotify

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Speaker 3: app and it'll give you a little box under the

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Speaker 3: episode name, and there you can tell us how you

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Speaker 3: felt about the episode and any questions you might have.

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Speaker 3: Have a fabulous Tuesday and we'll see you tomorrow,