# Part 2: Nina Funnell Has A New Fight. This One Will Shock You

An episode of [True Crime Conversations](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1469153910), 29 Apr 2026, 42 min.

Audio: https://traffic.omny.fm/d/clips/3ea926be-9be7-482a-8ac3-a44f016e43d1/abaa347e-8ac5-454e-85f9-aa64005c285f/7f7ad0ee-8f97-49ac-a7c3-b43b001d78a0/audio.mp3?utm_source=Podcast&in_playlist=6d9fdc19-147e-4f77-8d3f-aa64005e5923

This is Part 2 of Nina Funnell’s story. You can listen to Part 1 here. Nina Funnell survived a violent assault as a young woman, fighting off her attacker and escaping to call the police. Although he was never found, the experience became a turning point. Within weeks, she chose to speak publicly, challenging stigma, victim-blaming, and the silence surrounding violence against women. Since then, Nina has become a leading advocate and journalist, driving national conversations and legal reform. Through campaigns like Let Her Speak and Justice Shouldn’t Hurt, she has helped change laws, amplify survivor voices, and secure millions in funding for victim support services. Today, she joins us to discuss her work supporting victim-survivors and their families, and the fight for a more just system. LINKS Find out more about the Keep Counselling Confidential campaign here. If any of the contents in this episode have caused distress, know that there is help available via Lifeline on 13 11 14 or Beyond Blue on 1300 22 4636. Win a $2,000 Bed Threads voucher. Subscribe to Mamamia here before April 30 to be automatically entered. Current subscriber? You're already in the draw. T&Cs apply. GET IN TOUCH Follow us on Instagram and TikTok @truecrimeconversations Want us to cover a case on the podcast? Email us at truecrime@mamamia.com.au or send us a voice note. Make sure to leave us a rating and review on Apple & Spotify to let us know how you're liking the episodes. CREDITS Guest: Nina Funnell Host: Gemma Bath Senior Producer: Tahli Blackman Group Executive Producer: Ilaria Brophy Video Editor: Julian Rosario Audio Engineer: Jacob Round Mamamia acknowledges the traditional owners of the land on which we have recorded this podcast. Become a Mamamia subscriber: https://www.mamamia.com.au/subscribe See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

## Transcript

[0:00] Speaker 1: This is part two of my conversation with Nina Fanell.
[0:03] Speaker 1: Before you listen to this, make sure you've listened to
[0:05] Speaker 1: part one. There's a link in our show notes before
[0:09] Speaker 1: you listen today. This episode contains stories of child sexual abuse,
[0:13] Speaker 1: sexual assault, and suicide. I want to move on to
[0:17] Speaker 1: another huge campaign that you worked on, the let Her Speak,
[0:21] Speaker 1: which turned into the let Us Speak campaign.
[0:25] Speaker 2: Where did that start for you? Okay, So interestingly that
[0:27] Speaker 2: actually also started in that year of university reporting it. Yeah,
[0:31] Speaker 2: so back in twenty sixteen seventeen, when I was doing
[0:34] Speaker 2: all of that work, I got a phone call from
[0:38] Speaker 2: the student Women's offices at the University of Tasmania to
[0:42] Speaker 2: tell me that there was a convicted sex offender living
[0:44] Speaker 2: on campus in one of the residential colleges. I think
[0:47] Speaker 2: it was John Flynn Residential College. And he was an
[0:51] Speaker 2: elderly convicted child sex offender and his name's Nicholas Sbester,
[0:55] Speaker 2: and he was living in co ed facilities and he
[0:58] Speaker 2: was making a number of the students on campus feel
[1:01] Speaker 2: very very uncomfortable, and they didn't understand why he was
[1:04] Speaker 2: living along side seventeen and eighteen year old girls. And
[1:08] Speaker 2: I mean they had shared bathroom facilities as well, and
[1:10] Speaker 2: he was I think a sixty eight year old man
[1:12] Speaker 2: at the time. Anyway, I said, yeah, I'll do that
[1:15] Speaker 2: story as part of the fifty two and then I said,
[1:19] Speaker 2: but I just want to check how to his original victims,
[1:22] Speaker 2: because he'd been to jail. I said, how, how do
[1:25] Speaker 2: you know who that is? Do you know how they
[1:26] Speaker 2: feel about this? Do you know if they feel comfortable
[1:29] Speaker 2: with the story coming out? And they said yes. Her
[1:31] Speaker 2: name's Grace Tame. She lives in LA And I said, okay, well,
[1:35] Speaker 2: I'd like to check him with her first about how
[1:37] Speaker 2: she feels about me reporting on him living at college,
[1:40] Speaker 2: and also she'd like to say anything. And I made
[1:43] Speaker 2: contact with Grace, who he had abused as a fifteen
[1:46] Speaker 2: year old school girl when he was her maths teacher
[1:50] Speaker 2: at Saint Michael's Collegiate Girls School in Hobart, and Grace
[1:54] Speaker 2: said that yes, absolutely, she was happy for the story
[1:57] Speaker 2: to go ahead. And actually her mum, Penny, was a
[2:00] Speaker 2: mature age student on campus at the time and had
[2:02] Speaker 2: been running into her daughter's offender, so you can imagine,
[2:06] Speaker 2: so that was impacting her right to access education. So
[2:10] Speaker 2: Grace also said that she would like to be quoted
[2:12] Speaker 2: in the article. And so you know, I wrote up
[2:14] Speaker 2: this piece and as with every article, we run it
[2:17] Speaker 2: past our legal department first before we publish it. And
[2:21] Speaker 2: my lawyer, Gena McWilliams came back and she said the
[2:24] Speaker 2: piece is good to go, but you can't name Grace.
[2:27] Speaker 2: And I was like, why the offender has been convicted,
[2:30] Speaker 2: he's gone to jail. There's no defamation, there's no sub
[2:32] Speaker 2: judicy or contempt issues, you know, the normal stuff we
[2:35] Speaker 2: come up against. And she said, well, there's a thing
[2:37] Speaker 2: called Section one nine four K of the Evidence Act
[2:39] Speaker 2: in Tasmani, which prohibits survivors from being identified unless they
[2:42] Speaker 2: go to court and get a court order. And I
[2:46] Speaker 2: remember going, well, can we do that? Can we get
[2:49] Speaker 2: her a court order if she wants to be named?
[2:52] Speaker 2: And Gina was like, look, if she wants to be
[2:54] Speaker 2: named that badly, we can do it. But you know,
[2:56] Speaker 2: it's a bit of work. And I went away and
[2:58] Speaker 2: I thought about it and I was like, so wait,
[3:01] Speaker 2: every survivor in that state who wants to tell their
[3:03] Speaker 2: story has to go to court or has to get
[3:05] Speaker 2: the media organization to go to court first before they
[3:07] Speaker 2: can tell their story that doesn't seem right. And Grace
[3:12] Speaker 2: was twenty two at the time, and I'd gone public
[3:15] Speaker 2: when I was twenty three, and it suddenly occurred to
[3:18] Speaker 2: me that had my assault happened in Hobart instead of Sydney,
[3:22] Speaker 2: I wouldn't have been able to tell my story. I
[3:24] Speaker 2: would have had to or I would have at least
[3:26] Speaker 2: had to go to court get a court order. And
[3:29] Speaker 2: that's that can be you know, up to ten thousand dollars.
[3:32] Speaker 2: It's going to say it's a lot of money. Yeah,
[3:33] Speaker 2: So we did Grace's work. I went to Grace and
[3:36] Speaker 2: I said, how would you feel about us doing getting
[3:38] Speaker 2: you a court order? Will cover the cost. So we
[3:40] Speaker 2: did the work and Gina did it and it costs about,
[3:42] Speaker 2: I think with about nine two hundred dollars to do it. Now,
[3:46] Speaker 2: if the individual survivor was expected to wear the cost
[3:48] Speaker 2: of that, that's outrageous. But more than that, I started
[3:51] Speaker 2: to go, well, this is really problematic because it means
[3:54] Speaker 2: that the media get to pick and choose which survivors
[3:56] Speaker 2: end up telling their story based on where you know.
[3:59] Speaker 2: And it also means that commercial media media with big,
[4:01] Speaker 2: deep pockets are the ones that are going to be
[4:03] Speaker 2: able to tell these stories. What happens if a survivor
[4:06] Speaker 2: doesn't want to tell their story to mainstream media and
[4:09] Speaker 2: they just want to tell it through their own blog
[4:12] Speaker 2: or through an autobiography, does that mean that they then
[4:15] Speaker 2: wear the cost? And even more than that, I was
[4:17] Speaker 2: realizing this actually reinscribes the victim survivor back into the
[4:22] Speaker 2: criminal justice system, which was often very traumatic to begin with,
[4:26] Speaker 2: and it puts them in this position where they have
[4:28] Speaker 2: to ask a judge for permission to say their own name,
[4:32] Speaker 2: like it's so paternalistic.
[4:34] Speaker 1: It's also making them feel shame when there is no
[4:36] Speaker 1: shame there one hundred percent.
[4:39] Speaker 2: And also the offender, the offender doesn't need a court
[4:42] Speaker 2: order to tell what they want to say. And Nicholas Besta,
[4:45] Speaker 2: the offender had actually gone and done a seventeen minute
[4:48] Speaker 2: interview with a woman called Bettina Aren't where they had
[4:51] Speaker 2: actually mocked Grace and made light of the offending. So
[4:54] Speaker 2: I ended up speaking to my editors at the time
[4:59] Speaker 2: and saying, I think this is more than a story.
[5:00] Speaker 2: I actually think we should campaign on this, and they said,
[5:04] Speaker 2: all right, go away and put together a pitch. And
[5:05] Speaker 2: so that was an interesting process in and of itself,
[5:09] Speaker 2: because I remember thinking, like, you know, I'm writing for
[5:11] Speaker 2: a national outlet. I'm trying to draw attention to a
[5:15] Speaker 2: law that, frankly, no one in Tasmania even seems to
[5:18] Speaker 2: think is that much of a problem. No one was
[5:20] Speaker 2: calling it a gag law at the time, they were
[5:22] Speaker 2: just calling it. In fact, the local Sexual Assault Service
[5:24] Speaker 2: in TASMANI thought it was a good thing that survivors
[5:26] Speaker 2: had to go to court and ask for permission, because
[5:29] Speaker 2: they thought that that would stop exploitative journalism by adding
[5:31] Speaker 2: an extra step. It was bizarre, but they asked survivors
[5:34] Speaker 2: about yeah, good, yeah, very good question. So I was like,
[5:38] Speaker 2: how do I design a campaign. My one and only
[5:41] Speaker 2: case study is living in la and can't be named
[5:44] Speaker 2: or photographed. So it's very hard to humanize the issue
[5:47] Speaker 2: when you can't name and photograph people. I'm writing about
[5:51] Speaker 2: the smallest state, which people around the country don't necessarily
[5:56] Speaker 2: click on articles about how do I make this national
[5:59] Speaker 2: news and how do I get people to care about it?
[6:01] Speaker 2: And so the answer to that was the first thing
[6:03] Speaker 2: that we decided to do was to call it a
[6:05] Speaker 2: gag law. It immediately kind of constructs what the problem is.
[6:09] Speaker 2: The second thing was I decided that I would interview
[6:12] Speaker 2: victim survivors from every other state that didn't have gag
[6:16] Speaker 2: laws who had already gone public, to ask them why
[6:19] Speaker 2: that had been important for them to be able to
[6:21] Speaker 2: tell their story on their own terms. So I photographed
[6:24] Speaker 2: and I got them all to hold a sign that
[6:25] Speaker 2: said let her Speak. So that became the name of
[6:28] Speaker 2: the campaign, hashtag let her Speak, So people like Saxon Mullins,
[6:32] Speaker 2: Tara Moss and in the end, I interviewed fourteen survivors
[6:36] Speaker 2: from around the whole country who had gone public to
[6:38] Speaker 2: ask them why was that important for them? And because
[6:41] Speaker 2: I'd been doing all this work with university survivors, a
[6:44] Speaker 2: number of those fourteen were themselves university from universities. So
[6:49] Speaker 2: the campaign actually really was born out of those series
[6:54] Speaker 2: of events. And when we launched on day one, I'd
[6:57] Speaker 2: partnered with sixty Minutes. We did it as this big
[7:00] Speaker 2: sort of news dot com dot a u slash sixty
[7:02] Speaker 2: Minutes launch to say, there is this absurd law in Tasmania.
[7:06] Speaker 2: Here are all these survivors around the country calling out Tasmania,
[7:10] Speaker 2: and so that makes it national.
[7:11] Speaker 1: Makes it national, and everyone else care and.
[7:13] Speaker 2: It also means that you've got faces, you've got other survivors,
[7:17] Speaker 2: and then it becomes a survivor led campaign. And I
[7:20] Speaker 2: decided to also include my own name and story in
[7:23] Speaker 2: that as well as a survivor, to say, you know,
[7:25] Speaker 2: at twenty three, telling my own story had actually been
[7:28] Speaker 2: really important for me because it was how I reclaimed
[7:31] Speaker 2: some of my agency in a moment when I felt
[7:34] Speaker 2: very powerless, and so I sort of reinserted myself as
[7:38] Speaker 2: both a journalist and victim survivor. And obviously we got
[7:41] Speaker 2: Grace's court order for her and she was able to
[7:43] Speaker 2: tell her story. But I knew that once we told
[7:46] Speaker 2: her story with her face, I would get inundated with
[7:48] Speaker 2: other victim survivors from Tasmania who would realize, oh my gosh,
[7:53] Speaker 2: like most survivors in Tasmania didn't even realize that there
[7:56] Speaker 2: was this requirement that they go to court if they
[7:58] Speaker 2: want to tell their story. I get these other survivors
[8:01] Speaker 2: coming forward saying, hey, could you get me a court order?
[8:03] Speaker 2: Could you get me a court order? And knowing that
[8:05] Speaker 2: that's going to be about ten thousand dollars each time.
[8:07] Speaker 1: Can't do that?
[8:08] Speaker 2: Well, No, we actually decided we should do that.
[8:10] Speaker 1: So really the yeah, the media company decided they could
[8:12] Speaker 1: do ten thousand.
[8:13] Speaker 2: No I decided we should do it. So I decided
[8:18] Speaker 2: to set up a go fundme and to partner with
[8:21] Speaker 2: two organizations and Rape on Campus Australia because this was
[8:25] Speaker 2: this was born out of university student activism and also
[8:29] Speaker 2: Mark Lawyers, who are a brilliant law firm here in Sydney,
[8:32] Speaker 2: and Mark Lawyers said that they would do all the
[8:34] Speaker 2: legal work pro bono and so the GoFundMe would cover
[8:37] Speaker 2: the costs of So it cost about I think it
[8:39] Speaker 2: was about two thousand dollars per application or something to
[8:41] Speaker 2: pay for some of the court fees and so on.
[8:43] Speaker 2: We ended up doing it over twenty times, getting these
[8:46] Speaker 2: court orders, and every time we'd get a court order,
[8:49] Speaker 2: I would then tell the story of the victim survivor
[8:53] Speaker 2: who wanted to go public. And now it turned out
[8:55] Speaker 2: it wasn't just TASMANI that had that law, it was
[8:57] Speaker 2: also the Northern Territory. So I was running to let
[9:01] Speaker 2: her speak campaign in both Tasmania and the NT. The
[9:04] Speaker 2: idea being that we would go to court get these
[9:06] Speaker 2: court orders so that survivors could tell their story I
[9:09] Speaker 2: would then do their story and as part of that story,
[9:11] Speaker 2: I would once again highlight the fact that oh, by
[9:13] Speaker 2: the way, we had to go to court to do this,
[9:16] Speaker 2: that's not sustainable. We need legal change, and so we
[9:19] Speaker 2: were pressuring that. So the campaign was pressuring the attorney
[9:21] Speaker 2: generals in both jurisdictions to say change the legislation, and
[9:26] Speaker 2: in it was April twenty twenty that the Tasmanian law
[9:30] Speaker 2: changed and in July twenty twenty the Northern Territory law change.
[9:34] Speaker 2: So survivors in those two jurisdictions now are able to
[9:38] Speaker 2: tell their stories under their own names without having to
[9:41] Speaker 2: go to court. And I do want to shout out
[9:43] Speaker 2: to the other survivors because obviously Grace was named Australian
[9:46] Speaker 2: of the Year for her bravery in telling her stories
[9:49] Speaker 2: an adult survivor of child sexual abuse, but there were
[9:52] Speaker 2: multiple other survivors in the campaign who did the same
[9:55] Speaker 2: thing of going to court getting a court order, so
[9:57] Speaker 2: like to Meeka, Janelle Lavinia in particular, like up in
[10:01] Speaker 2: the NT Sandra, they all did an amazing job. And
[10:04] Speaker 2: I want to give credit to all of the survivors
[10:07] Speaker 2: in the.
[10:07] Speaker 1: Campaign that did that such an amazing effort that you
[10:10] Speaker 1: were able to get those laws changed. What was that
[10:17] Speaker 1: campaign like for you?
[10:18] Speaker 2: It sounds exhausting, Yeah, I mean like the worst part
[10:22] Speaker 2: was the week that I got notification that the Tasmanian
[10:26] Speaker 2: law was going to change. I also got notification that
[10:28] Speaker 2: Victoria had just introduced a gag law, the exact gag
[10:33] Speaker 2: law that we'd just gotten changed in Tasmania, and it
[10:36] Speaker 2: went one step further. Not only were victim survivors in
[10:39] Speaker 2: Victoria now required to go to court and get court
[10:42] Speaker 2: permission to tell their stories, but any women or anyone,
[10:47] Speaker 2: sorry I should say, who had been the victim of
[10:49] Speaker 2: sexual assault and murder, or anyone who was now a
[10:53] Speaker 2: deceased victim of sexual assault could no longer be named.
[10:56] Speaker 2: So people like Jill Maher Urriticy Dixon, I'm Masawa overnight
[11:00] Speaker 2: came illegal to publish their names, including by their own
[11:03] Speaker 2: family members, on memorial pages and so on. So when
[11:07] Speaker 2: I got that news and sidebar, I'd also just found
[11:12] Speaker 2: out I was pregnant. Information overload, I just my heart
[11:19] Speaker 2: sank and I knew. I knew that this was going
[11:22] Speaker 2: to be a really different fight in Victoria because Tasmania,
[11:26] Speaker 2: in the northern territory are very small jurisdictions population wise,
[11:31] Speaker 2: and these laws had been on the books forever. In
[11:34] Speaker 2: Tasmania in the NT no one was particularly attached to
[11:37] Speaker 2: them or wanted to defend them, whereas in Victoria, the
[11:42] Speaker 2: Attorney General Jill Hennessy at the time had actually just
[11:46] Speaker 2: passed and introduced this gag law, which meant that she
[11:50] Speaker 2: was going and her government was going to defend it
[11:52] Speaker 2: as a good thing. But why do they think it
[11:54] Speaker 2: is a good thing. We now think that what they
[11:56] Speaker 2: did was an error in like drafting the legislation which
[12:02] Speaker 2: was so sloppy and so embarrassing for them that they
[12:04] Speaker 2: had to double down and defend it. But the other
[12:07] Speaker 2: thing that was really different in Victoria. Victoria has a
[12:09] Speaker 2: very very large population of victim survivors who have already
[12:13] Speaker 2: been very public and active at that time. So if
[12:16] Speaker 2: we think about things like the Royal Commission into Institutional
[12:18] Speaker 2: Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, a whole lot of survivors
[12:22] Speaker 2: in places like Ballarat, yeah had you know, to do
[12:25] Speaker 2: with clergy abuse, had gone public to get that inquiry
[12:29] Speaker 2: up in the first place, that Royal Commission up. It's
[12:32] Speaker 2: also just it's a bigger jurisdiction, it's got a more
[12:35] Speaker 2: lively and active feminist community. There were lots of survivors
[12:38] Speaker 2: who had already exercised their right to go public, who
[12:41] Speaker 2: had written autobiographies. Overnight, those autobiographies were in contempt of
[12:44] Speaker 2: court because of this new law. So I knew that
[12:47] Speaker 2: when I broke that story, it was going to go
[12:51] Speaker 2: fucking ballistic, and it did like it went it. To
[12:55] Speaker 2: give you context, the let her Speak petition in Tasmania
[12:59] Speaker 2: got total of late seven thousand signatures. This one, which
[13:03] Speaker 2: I didn't even create, some random created at just copying
[13:06] Speaker 2: and pasting my article got over two hundred thousand signatures
[13:09] Speaker 2: within twenty four hours. Wow, Like in Victoria, like it went,
[13:13] Speaker 2: it was huge. All were angry, Yeah, And because survivors
[13:17] Speaker 2: who had already exercised their right to be public were
[13:20] Speaker 2: suddenly being put back in the closet and being told
[13:23] Speaker 2: you now need to shut up and you can't say
[13:26] Speaker 2: your name until you go to court and get a
[13:27] Speaker 2: court order. And that was really really distressing and traumatic
[13:31] Speaker 2: for them, as well as for those survivors who were
[13:33] Speaker 2: right on the cusp of wanting to tell their story.
[13:35] Speaker 2: And there was one in particular, a woman called Jamie, And.
[13:38] Speaker 1: I think Jamie's story is a really good way to
[13:41] Speaker 1: explain just how damaging these laws could be. Can you
[13:46] Speaker 1: tell us a bit about her story and how these
[13:48] Speaker 1: laws affected her?
[13:49] Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely so. Jamie Lee Page, in the same way
[13:52] Speaker 2: that Grace Tame was our I guess, original case study
[13:54] Speaker 2: in Tasmania, Jamie Lee Page was our original survivor that
[13:58] Speaker 2: we worked with in Victoria. Who And it's a very
[14:02] Speaker 2: distressing story I should warn people. So, Jamie and her
[14:05] Speaker 2: older sister had been sexually abused by Jamie's biological father,
[14:10] Speaker 2: and Jamie had been abused from age eight. And when
[14:14] Speaker 2: Jamie had disclosed to her older sister what had happened,
[14:18] Speaker 2: her older sister, Carol, went to police and reported her
[14:21] Speaker 2: own sexual abuse, and the father then turned around and
[14:25] Speaker 2: murdered Carol. The father was then charged and convicted of
[14:30] Speaker 2: the murder, but never of any of the sexual offenses.
[14:34] Speaker 2: The father then served his jail term and was about
[14:38] Speaker 2: to be released, and Jamie suddenly realized Jamie's now an adult,
[14:41] Speaker 2: she's a mum, She's got three kids. Jamie realizes that
[14:45] Speaker 2: this man is going to be released back into the community,
[14:48] Speaker 2: and no one knows that he's a child sex offender,
[14:50] Speaker 2: because that's not what he went down for. And so
[14:53] Speaker 2: Jamie made the very brave decision to as an adult,
[14:56] Speaker 2: to go back to court and to tell her story
[14:59] Speaker 2: of he had done to her as a child, and
[15:02] Speaker 2: she got him convicted of child sexual offenses. However, as
[15:06] Speaker 2: often happens in these cases, the judge made the decision
[15:12] Speaker 2: to give him a reduced concurrent sentence, so that basically,
[15:16] Speaker 2: by the time he finished his murder sentence, he would
[15:19] Speaker 2: also be completing his sexual offensive sentence. So Jamie at
[15:23] Speaker 2: that point was irate and she was like, well, I
[15:26] Speaker 2: want to name him so that everyone in the community
[15:29] Speaker 2: knows that this man is a sex offender and a
[15:32] Speaker 2: risk to children. Now, when that gag law came in place,
[15:37] Speaker 2: it meant that Jamie couldn't be named now because her
[15:40] Speaker 2: father is related to her. Had he been named, it
[15:46] Speaker 2: would have indirectly identified Jamie, which is also against the law.
[15:50] Speaker 2: So his name became because Jamie's name is suppressed. His
[15:53] Speaker 2: name became suppressed because he's related to her, so he
[15:56] Speaker 2: was actually protected by the law by this gag law
[15:59] Speaker 2: on Jamie's name. So Jamie became determined that she would get.
[16:03] Speaker 2: And we became determined, and I worked with Mark Lawyers
[16:05] Speaker 2: on this. We became determined that we would get Jamie
[16:08] Speaker 2: a court order so that she could be named. Now,
[16:11] Speaker 2: I mentioned before that there was also a gag on
[16:13] Speaker 2: any women, men, children who had been sexual assaulted and
[16:17] Speaker 2: were now deceased. That included Jamie's sister. So when we
[16:21] Speaker 2: went to court to get Jamie's court order so she
[16:22] Speaker 2: could name herself and her father, the judge said, well,
[16:26] Speaker 2: but there's also this secondary suppression on the sister's name
[16:29] Speaker 2: which also affects all of you. So I'm sorry, but
[16:32] Speaker 2: you can't name yourself, Jamie because you don't have permission.
[16:35] Speaker 2: This whole circular logic anyway, so we had to keep
[16:39] Speaker 2: going back. We had to in effect also get a
[16:41] Speaker 2: court order to name the deceased sister as well, and
[16:44] Speaker 2: pay each time, and pay each time, and so that
[16:46] Speaker 2: was the go fund me. So thank you to everyone
[16:48] Speaker 2: in the public that donated to that gro fundan. We
[16:50] Speaker 2: ended up getting over two hundred thousand dollars that paid
[16:52] Speaker 2: for all of the court orders across Tasmania, the NT
[16:55] Speaker 2: and Victoria. And each time I would go to court
[16:57] Speaker 2: with these people and Mark Lloyd would do the legal work,
[17:00] Speaker 2: we'd get these court orders and then I'd break the story.
[17:03] Speaker 2: But of course this was in twenty twenty, which was
[17:06] Speaker 2: Victoria was in lockdown because of COVID, and so the
[17:09] Speaker 2: survivors that I was working with in Victoria they were
[17:13] Speaker 2: kind of holding this double trauma of being silenced by
[17:17] Speaker 2: the law, also having the Attorney General defend the law,
[17:23] Speaker 2: and also then having COVID and being in lockdown. So
[17:28] Speaker 2: that part of the campaign was actually incredibly traumatic. And
[17:31] Speaker 2: I was pregnant and I had a complex pregnancy. So
[17:34] Speaker 2: in the end, eventually, finally in November twenty twenty, we
[17:39] Speaker 2: actually got the Victorians to reverse course and to finally
[17:42] Speaker 2: change that law. And I'm obviously very pleased that they
[17:48] Speaker 2: did change the law, but it was by the end
[17:51] Speaker 2: of that year. I was completely burnt out and traumatized,
[17:56] Speaker 2: I have to say, And I was heading into twenty one,
[18:00] Speaker 2: had no idea that Grace Hand was just about to
[18:02] Speaker 2: be named Australian the year and the Brittney Higgins stuff
[18:04] Speaker 2: was all about to explode, and I was yeah, I
[18:07] Speaker 2: was now heavily, heavily pregnant, and I had the baby
[18:11] Speaker 2: and as soon as I had the baby, I had
[18:12] Speaker 2: to became actually developed an auto imune condition, and I
[18:15] Speaker 2: had to then completely step back for quite a while. Yeah,
[18:19] Speaker 2: so I've got the same autoimmune condition that Michael Klym has.
[18:22] Speaker 2: It's a degenerative nerve condition. And I lost the ability
[18:26] Speaker 2: to walk for a while, and it was actually very
[18:30] Speaker 2: traumatic because we didn't know what it was and I
[18:33] Speaker 2: was in excruciating pain and I lost the ability to walk.
[18:37] Speaker 2: And I would hold my newborn and I couldn't feel,
[18:40] Speaker 2: So it effects your sensory nerves. I couldn't actually feel him,
[18:43] Speaker 2: my hands couldn't hold like I would hold him, but
[18:46] Speaker 2: I couldn't feel, but my lips still had feeling, and
[18:49] Speaker 2: I would just kiss the back of his head. Cons
[18:50] Speaker 2: Like in every photo my lips are on the back
[18:52] Speaker 2: of his head because that's where I could still feel
[18:54] Speaker 2: in Yeah, so I had to really really step back
[18:58] Speaker 2: in twenty twenty one for health reason, and then it's
[19:01] Speaker 2: sort of only been in the last few years that
[19:02] Speaker 2: I've been able to get back to work.
[19:04] Speaker 1: I feel like a lot of people won't know that context.
[19:05] Speaker 1: And thank you for sharing that.
[19:07] Speaker 2: Yeah, And I still again like big thanks to everybody
[19:10] Speaker 2: who donates plasma or blood products I get every four weeks,
[19:14] Speaker 2: I have a four to five hour plasma transfusion to
[19:16] Speaker 2: manage my illness and that's why I'm able to walk again.
[19:19] Speaker 1: And it still has a huge impact on your life.
[19:22] Speaker 2: Oh yeah, absolutely, Like I've had to relocate back to Sydney,
[19:27] Speaker 2: you know, because there's better hospitals here. I've Yeah, it
[19:32] Speaker 2: impacts my movement, my day to day physicality and so on,
[19:35] Speaker 2: but thankfully because of plasma transfusions. So it's called chronic
[19:40] Speaker 2: inflammatory demolinating polynuropathy, which is a bit of a mouth
[19:43] Speaker 2: CIDP for sure, And it's been its own journey and
[19:47] Speaker 2: it's made me quite interested actually in the relationship between
[19:50] Speaker 2: trauma and autoimmune connections or autoimmune conditions, because there is
[19:54] Speaker 2: a connection between the two. And it's highly likely that
[19:58] Speaker 2: the amount of dress and trauma that I was under
[20:01] Speaker 2: in twenty twenty is actually really a direct trigger to
[20:04] Speaker 2: me developing the illness. Yeah.
[20:05] Speaker 1: Yeah, it's what made you want to go back in
[20:07] Speaker 1: and do more, because in twenty twenty two you did
[20:10] Speaker 1: a whole new campaign, yes, called Justice Shouldn't Hurt. So
[20:16] Speaker 1: it didn't stop you.
[20:17] Speaker 2: Tell me for a while, but no, well, what made
[20:19] Speaker 2: me want to come back was it was an email
[20:21] Speaker 2: that I received from a guest that you've had on recently,
[20:24] Speaker 2: Michelle Milthorpe. I got this email from Michelle, who's a mum,
[20:30] Speaker 2: saying that her daughters had gone through the criminal justice
[20:34] Speaker 2: process in New South Wales and that the process was
[20:38] Speaker 2: worse than the abuse itself, which is not an uncommon thing.
[20:41] Speaker 2: I hear that all the time. But what was different
[20:43] Speaker 2: about this email was that the daughters had done research
[20:48] Speaker 2: and they had found a program called the Child Sexual
[20:51] Speaker 2: Offense Evidence Program which has proven to make court less
[20:54] Speaker 2: traumatic the children and young people going through sexual offense matters.
[20:58] Speaker 2: And the problem was and the program, and this is
[21:02] Speaker 2: really significant, and you know, having worked in a university context,
[21:05] Speaker 2: I know the importance of things being evidence based and
[21:08] Speaker 2: evaluated and best practice. And this program had been evaluated
[21:12] Speaker 2: by some academics who I happened to know, who are
[21:14] Speaker 2: very very good academics, and it was an independent evaluation
[21:18] Speaker 2: that showed it worked and that it was highly effective
[21:20] Speaker 2: in reducing trauma. The problem was that the program was
[21:24] Speaker 2: only available in Sydney and in Newcastle, which meant that
[21:29] Speaker 2: for every other child outside of those two locations in
[21:33] Speaker 2: New South Wales. They did not have access to that program,
[21:36] Speaker 2: which also means that they don't have equitable access to justice.
[21:39] Speaker 2: And this is what we call post code justice, this
[21:41] Speaker 2: idea that your access to justice is conditional on the
[21:44] Speaker 2: post code you living. The Millthorpe sisters had done this
[21:47] Speaker 2: research and were saying that they wanted to tell their
[21:51] Speaker 2: stories in order to push for this program to be
[21:54] Speaker 2: expanded across the state so that every child in need
[21:56] Speaker 2: of the program had access to it. And I thought, firstly,
[22:00] Speaker 2: that's incredibly impressive that not only have they identified the problem,
[22:03] Speaker 2: they've also identified a solution, and it's a solution that's
[22:06] Speaker 2: got an evidence base around it. Secondly, it's a campaign
[22:09] Speaker 2: waiting to happen because you've got all the elements. You know.
[22:13] Speaker 2: One of the things that I when I teach other
[22:15] Speaker 2: people about campaigning is that you need to be able
[22:18] Speaker 2: to really clearly explain the problem and also have a
[22:20] Speaker 2: really clear solution which is clear, measurable and specific. You
[22:25] Speaker 2: also need to have a clearly defined decision maker, the
[22:28] Speaker 2: person that has the power to actually make that change,
[22:30] Speaker 2: because often times I see campaigns where they spend an
[22:33] Speaker 2: awful lot of time convincing the wrong people. They're convincing
[22:35] Speaker 2: people that actually don't have the power to make the
[22:37] Speaker 2: change right. So I thought, I think I can help
[22:42] Speaker 2: the Millthorpe family and the Millthorpe sisters because they've done
[22:47] Speaker 2: the research, they had the lived experience to talk about
[22:51] Speaker 2: the impact of the justice system. What they don't have
[22:55] Speaker 2: is a megaphone and needed you to amplify them. And
[22:58] Speaker 2: so that is essentially what became Justice Shouldn't Hurt campaign.
[23:01] Speaker 2: To do that, we actually had to because in New
[23:03] Speaker 2: South Wales, you know, survivors can self identify in media
[23:07] Speaker 2: provided there over a certain age, and because of the
[23:10] Speaker 2: girl's young ages, we did actually need to go to
[23:13] Speaker 2: court and get them a court order to exempt them
[23:15] Speaker 2: so that they could self identify in the media. And
[23:17] Speaker 2: we made a lot of very We worked really hard
[23:21] Speaker 2: with the family to tell their story in a way
[23:23] Speaker 2: that were sensitive and ethical and respectful. You know, I
[23:26] Speaker 2: didn't ask them a single question about the abuse or
[23:28] Speaker 2: the abuse, or I didn't name the abuse, or I
[23:30] Speaker 2: didn't go into a single detail about any of that.
[23:32] Speaker 2: Really no, no, because they're because of their age. Yeah, okay,
[23:35] Speaker 2: so there were five and eight when the abuse happened.
[23:37] Speaker 2: They had to wait two and a half years for
[23:38] Speaker 2: it to even get to court, during which time they
[23:40] Speaker 2: couldn't speak to each other or their parents about what
[23:42] Speaker 2: had happened to them, because that's considered contaminating the witnesses.
[23:47] Speaker 2: If you can imagine you're five years old and then too,
[23:49] Speaker 2: you've got to retain this memory by yourself for two
[23:51] Speaker 2: and a half years before like that in and of
[23:53] Speaker 2: itself is possible. Well, it's cruel. It's actually cruel and heartless.
[23:59] Speaker 1: You spoke about it the start. Having to put your
[24:01] Speaker 1: life on hold for six months, two and a half years.
[24:03] Speaker 2: I mean, and that's half your life over again. They're
[24:06] Speaker 2: from Aubrey Wodonga. They had to relocate to Sydney and
[24:09] Speaker 2: live in a hotel room for three months when it
[24:11] Speaker 2: actually went to try or they couldn't have their parents present.
[24:14] Speaker 2: As you said, they were cross examined for days and
[24:17] Speaker 2: days on end. Then a jury member fell asleep, so
[24:21] Speaker 2: they had to release the jury in panel a new
[24:25] Speaker 2: jury and start the process all over again. I mean,
[24:29] Speaker 2: these and these are just these are young girls who
[24:32] Speaker 2: have already been through something incredibly incredibly distressing and traumatic.
[24:37] Speaker 2: Also the nature of our justice system in general, Like
[24:39] Speaker 2: we know that in terms of if somebody's been impacted
[24:41] Speaker 2: by sexual assault trauma, what they need is to be
[24:45] Speaker 2: able to tell their story, and particularly children, they need
[24:47] Speaker 2: to be able to tell their story in their own words,
[24:49] Speaker 2: in their own time and space, without intrusive interrogating, questioning.
[24:54] Speaker 2: They need to be able to, you know, ideally, like
[24:57] Speaker 2: in a therapeutic set setting, be believed and listened to.
[25:01] Speaker 2: And our justice system is the exact opposite of that.
[25:04] Speaker 2: The starting premise is that the accused person is innocent,
[25:07] Speaker 2: and so that therefore you must be lying. We're going
[25:10] Speaker 2: to interrogate, interrogate, interrogate. We're not going to let you
[25:12] Speaker 2: tell your story in your own way. We're going to
[25:15] Speaker 2: force it out of you in a way that suits
[25:17] Speaker 2: our purposes. There's a great quote by Judith Herman that
[25:20] Speaker 2: if you set out to design a system to provoke
[25:23] Speaker 2: the symptoms of trauma, it would look very much like
[25:25] Speaker 2: our current criminal justice system. So the girls, very bravely,
[25:29] Speaker 2: as part of the Justice Shouldn't Hurt campaign, told their
[25:32] Speaker 2: story and had written a petition and the goal was
[25:36] Speaker 2: to get twenty thousand signatures on the petition. Because if
[25:39] Speaker 2: you get twenty thousand signatures in New South Wales, then
[25:42] Speaker 2: Parliament is committed to at least debating the issue. When
[25:46] Speaker 2: we broke the story on new stot Com dot a,
[25:47] Speaker 2: you we got those twenty thousand signatures within eight hours,
[25:51] Speaker 2: which you know, it was such a mage for the girls. Yeah,
[25:54] Speaker 2: and huge kudos to the girls. And then three months later,
[26:00] Speaker 2: so we continue to write story after story about their
[26:04] Speaker 2: plight as a family, but also about other people's experiences
[26:08] Speaker 2: within New South Wales have access to this program and
[26:12] Speaker 2: the fact that it needed to be rolled out across
[26:14] Speaker 2: the whole state. And three months later the government came
[26:16] Speaker 2: to the party and they committed sixty four point three
[26:19] Speaker 2: million dollars to roll out that program across the whole state.
[26:24] Speaker 2: I raised that because I just think that those sisters,
[26:26] Speaker 2: what they did is extraordinary and deserves every accolade under
[26:33] Speaker 2: the sun.
[26:35] Speaker 1: They are so strong.
[26:37] Speaker 2: As you know Michelle Millthorpe. Their mother is now running
[26:41] Speaker 2: for a sept she is, so the people are fara
[26:44] Speaker 2: ye get around it on it. Tell me about what
[26:47] Speaker 2: you're doing now, because you're you're straight back into something new. Okay,
[26:50] Speaker 2: So my latest campaign, it.
[26:52] Speaker 1: Feels like you get each idea from the idea that
[26:55] Speaker 1: you're in, is that what's happened here?
[26:57] Speaker 2: Well, I think that, Like I'm I love campaigning, and
[27:01] Speaker 2: the thing about campaigning is you need a clearly defined problem,
[27:04] Speaker 2: a clearly defined solution, and then you need people who
[27:06] Speaker 2: are able to speak to that issue and humanize that issue.
[27:09] Speaker 2: And so it tends to be the other way around that.
[27:11] Speaker 2: Like someone will approach me like the Millthorpes will or
[27:14] Speaker 2: I'll just sort of, you know, I randomly met Grace.
[27:15] Speaker 2: I'll learn a problem, and then I'll start thinking, Okay,
[27:18] Speaker 2: now how do I work with this person to tell
[27:20] Speaker 2: their story and also to somehow get some sort of
[27:22] Speaker 2: positive reform out of it. So I was approached by
[27:25] Speaker 2: a young woman called Jess Denham. Now Jess's story is
[27:30] Speaker 2: again horrific. Jess is an adult survivor of child sexual abuse.
[27:34] Speaker 2: Both of her parents are currently in jail for what
[27:36] Speaker 2: they did to her starting at age five. Her father
[27:39] Speaker 2: is actually serving the longest jail sentence ever recorded in
[27:43] Speaker 2: Australian history for child sexual offending. His name's William Robert Gilfillan,
[27:47] Speaker 2: and I've been doing an investigation on him and I'm
[27:49] Speaker 2: now up to seventeen victims of his. Yeah, he used
[27:52] Speaker 2: to be a pe teacher in Victoria before he relocated
[27:55] Speaker 2: to New South Wales and had a family. As part
[27:58] Speaker 2: of the criminal case in two thousand and six against
[28:00] Speaker 2: the two parents, Jess's counseling notes were her sexual self
[28:05] Speaker 2: counseling notes were subpoened into evidence. Now, if you can imagine,
[28:10] Speaker 2: for anyone who accesses sexual sault counseling, the automatic default
[28:13] Speaker 2: assumption is that that material will be confidential. In fact, absolutely,
[28:18] Speaker 2: and I remember being in sexual self counseling at raw,
[28:20] Speaker 2: not sure after my own assault, and the very first
[28:22] Speaker 2: thing that my counselor said to me was what is
[28:24] Speaker 2: said in these four walls stays in these four walls.
[28:26] Speaker 2: And I believe that and that counseling actually probably it's
[28:30] Speaker 2: what kept me together, you know what, I have no
[28:33] Speaker 2: doubt it's what kept me alive at points. Now for Jess,
[28:36] Speaker 2: when her counseling notes were subpoened, that meant that her
[28:40] Speaker 2: father could then read the very detail like her deepest
[28:44] Speaker 2: darkest thoughts, fears, nightmares, everything and the impact of what
[28:48] Speaker 2: he had done to her. And we know that this
[28:50] Speaker 2: is actually happening all the time offenders or accused people
[28:54] Speaker 2: in sexual offense matters across Australia are subpoenaing the sexual
[28:58] Speaker 2: self counseling notes of victims. Now, what that does to
[29:02] Speaker 2: a person is that it erodes trust in vital mental
[29:05] Speaker 2: health counseling services, and often, as what happened with Jess,
[29:09] Speaker 2: they then disengage from that service.
[29:11] Speaker 1: So you're telling Jess's story.
[29:13] Speaker 2: Yeah, So basically I've told I've recently published Jess's story
[29:17] Speaker 2: where she has now gone public for the very first
[29:19] Speaker 2: time to tell her entire story of what happened to
[29:22] Speaker 2: her growing up, who her father is. He was convicted
[29:27] Speaker 2: of these additional offenses in December, facing he's actually facing
[29:30] Speaker 2: more sentencing right now. Since breaking that story, multiple other
[29:34] Speaker 2: victim survivors of his have come forward and made more
[29:36] Speaker 2: police statements. But Jess also wants to tell her story
[29:39] Speaker 2: to highlight the fact that the fact that her offender
[29:43] Speaker 2: could read her sexual assault counseling notes without her consent
[29:46] Speaker 2: is a violation and a retraumatization that should have never
[29:50] Speaker 2: ever happened. The fact that those counseling notes were then
[29:53] Speaker 2: shared with media who used them without consent is a
[29:56] Speaker 2: further egregious violation of her dignity and her and the
[30:01] Speaker 2: fact that we know it's not just Jess Denham who
[30:03] Speaker 2: has experienced this. So I've now done a freedom of
[30:05] Speaker 2: information investigation to find out how often is one eight
[30:08] Speaker 2: hundred respect being subpoened. It turns out one eight hundred
[30:11] Speaker 2: respect is being subpoened on average once a week, every week,
[30:14] Speaker 2: once a week yep. And not only are they handing
[30:17] Speaker 2: over the written client notes, they are handing over the
[30:20] Speaker 2: actual audio recordings of counseling phone calls and video recordings
[30:24] Speaker 2: of video calls. And I've spoken to a young woman,
[30:27] Speaker 2: Madeline Lane. So Madeline Lane was raped in twenty twenty
[30:31] Speaker 2: by a man named Boyd Kramer, a man from Mossman
[30:34] Speaker 2: who she met on Tinder, and he was subsequently convicted
[30:37] Speaker 2: of rape. The night of the rape, Madeline had fled
[30:40] Speaker 2: his apartment and called one eight hundred Respect and then
[30:43] Speaker 2: called Full Stop Australia. Both one eight hundred Respect and
[30:46] Speaker 2: Full Stop Australia were subpoened for the phone calls or
[30:49] Speaker 2: the contacts that she made to their services that night.
[30:52] Speaker 2: One eight hundred Respect didn't even check in with Maddie
[30:54] Speaker 2: before handing over word for word the beatim the entire
[30:59] Speaker 2: train script of that contact full stop. Australia did fight,
[31:03] Speaker 2: did challenge their subpoena and were successful. So what the
[31:07] Speaker 2: key Counseling Confidential campaign is all about is to say
[31:10] Speaker 2: that in this country, sexual assault survivors who access counseling
[31:16] Speaker 2: make the assumption that that is confidential, and they should
[31:19] Speaker 2: be able to make that assumption because counseling is not
[31:21] Speaker 2: safe if it's not confidential. People are not going to
[31:24] Speaker 2: open up if they think that anyone could eavesdrop, let
[31:26] Speaker 2: alone their rapist eavesdropping in on what they're talking.
[31:29] Speaker 1: The whole courtroom could hear it.
[31:31] Speaker 2: Yeah, So Maddie's Madeline Lane's contact to one eight hundred
[31:35] Speaker 2: respect was not only read by her offender, Boyd Kramer,
[31:38] Speaker 2: it was actually read out word for word in court.
[31:40] Speaker 2: So basically the idea of the campaign is to say
[31:44] Speaker 2: that we need an absolute privilege or an absolute protection
[31:47] Speaker 2: on counseling notes in these matters. So in the same
[31:50] Speaker 2: way that you know, if you go and talk to
[31:51] Speaker 2: your lawyer, you have client attorney privilege. What you say
[31:55] Speaker 2: in that room is sacred, it's safe, it's protected. Likewise,
[31:59] Speaker 2: you know some people go to their priests. That can
[32:02] Speaker 2: be a privileged conversation that can be protected. If people
[32:05] Speaker 2: come and speak to me as a journalist, I can
[32:06] Speaker 2: actually invoke media shield laws to refuse to hand that over.
[32:10] Speaker 2: And yet if you go to a sexual assault counselor
[32:13] Speaker 2: right now, that conversation is not protected. Scary it is.
[32:17] Speaker 2: It's really alarming, and I think particularly when I got
[32:20] Speaker 2: that Freedom of Information data back and discovered that they're
[32:24] Speaker 2: being foied once a week every week, that for me
[32:28] Speaker 2: was like this watershed moment of going, Okay, this is
[32:32] Speaker 2: not jess Denham's case is not an absurd outlier. This
[32:35] Speaker 2: is actually happening on the rag and we need to
[32:39] Speaker 2: stop this. So we started a petition called Don't Subpoena,
[32:42] Speaker 2: Our support Keep Counseling Confidential. People get on it right
[32:45] Speaker 2: now because that's the campaign that we're really pushing for
[32:47] Speaker 2: at the moment, and we're really hoping that the new
[32:50] Speaker 2: South Wales Attorney General, Michael Daily will will hear the
[32:53] Speaker 2: call and will realize that you know, what is said
[32:57] Speaker 2: in those moments in counseling. I mean from a legal perspective,
[33:01] Speaker 2: it's not even that useful because it's hearsay evidence anyway,
[33:04] Speaker 2: that's the first thing, But far more important than that
[33:07] Speaker 2: is that following a sexual assault, people should be able
[33:12] Speaker 2: to access that counseling safe in the knowledge that it
[33:16] Speaker 2: genuinely is confidential, and that they can park their feelings,
[33:20] Speaker 2: their fears, their impact, the impact, they can talk about
[33:23] Speaker 2: the impacts of trauma without their offender ever being able
[33:27] Speaker 2: to read that. And I think you know, I've spoken
[33:30] Speaker 2: to one person who when she reported to the police,
[33:33] Speaker 2: the police said to her, don't get counseling until after
[33:38] Speaker 2: the criminal trial is over, which might be two to
[33:40] Speaker 2: three years. But don't get counseling before then, because if
[33:43] Speaker 2: you do, we can't guarantee it will be safe.
[33:46] Speaker 1: What's the point of that.
[33:48] Speaker 2: Oh yeah, I need it earlier, you need it during
[33:50] Speaker 2: Absolutely And if people are then delaying access to counseling
[33:54] Speaker 2: for two to three years, or they're being forced to
[33:56] Speaker 2: choose between your access to justice or your access to
[33:59] Speaker 2: confidential count that's a binarized choice that survivors should never
[34:03] Speaker 2: be put in. And you're exactly right. People need that
[34:05] Speaker 2: counselor the earlier you get counseling, the better the outcomes.
[34:09] Speaker 2: And particularly when you're going through something as traumatic as
[34:12] Speaker 2: a trial or an investigation. Having that additional support is
[34:16] Speaker 2: really really important. We launched the campaign last month and
[34:20] Speaker 2: already a lot of services and others have joined it
[34:24] Speaker 2: and have so because this doesn't only affect the sexual
[34:27] Speaker 2: assult survivors, it also affects the counselors as well. When
[34:31] Speaker 2: their notes are subpoenaed and they feel powerless to stop it,
[34:35] Speaker 2: or you know, it's going to cost them an arm
[34:37] Speaker 2: and a leg to hire a barrister for the day
[34:39] Speaker 2: to try and challenge that subpoena or the notes. There
[34:43] Speaker 2: is no way for them to block it, and the
[34:45] Speaker 2: notes are just handed over. They will often feel very
[34:47] Speaker 2: violated themselves, or they might feel like they let their
[34:49] Speaker 2: client down because you know, I've had one counselor say
[34:52] Speaker 2: to me, I lie in better wake at night thinking
[34:55] Speaker 2: maybe she never came to me, she'd be better off. Yeah.
[34:58] Speaker 2: So we we want this law reformed and we want
[35:03] Speaker 2: people to get behind it.
[35:04] Speaker 1: Well, we'll definitely be putting that petition in our show notes.
[35:07] Speaker 1: I feel like I could talk to you for hours,
[35:08] Speaker 1: you know, but lastly I just wanted to ask you,
[35:11] Speaker 1: is this the only way we make reform? Bit by
[35:15] Speaker 1: bit when we find these big but little issues in
[35:21] Speaker 1: a complex system that really needs a huge overhaul, like, yeah,
[35:26] Speaker 1: how do we change it?
[35:28] Speaker 2: Yeah?
[35:29] Speaker 1: On a bigger scale.
[35:30] Speaker 2: This is like one of those age old things that
[35:31] Speaker 2: I often wrestle with. Am I just rearranging deck chairs
[35:34] Speaker 2: on the Titanic?
[35:35] Speaker 1: Like, well, you're making meaningful change, but how to?
[35:37] Speaker 2: But the system itself is flawed? Yeah, and the origins
[35:41] Speaker 2: of the system itself is flawed, which I agree. I
[35:45] Speaker 2: agree with that too. I also am pragmatic and realistic,
[35:50] Speaker 2: and it is the system we have, and incremental change
[35:53] Speaker 2: is still still has value. I think though, in the
[35:58] Speaker 2: same way that I said at the beginning, justice comes
[36:01] Speaker 2: in all different shapes and sizes, and traditional justice is
[36:04] Speaker 2: just one idea of justice. You know, some people get
[36:07] Speaker 2: justice by sharing their stories. Some people get justice, you know,
[36:10] Speaker 2: through that. There's a myriad ways in which we can
[36:13] Speaker 2: think about what that looks like for an individual. I
[36:15] Speaker 2: also think change comes in all different shapes and sizes,
[36:18] Speaker 2: and what people do. You know. My form of activism
[36:20] Speaker 2: or advocacy and change is using the media as a
[36:24] Speaker 2: vehicle to spark law reform or to generate try to
[36:30] Speaker 2: generate systemic reform that's one type. But there's all kinds
[36:33] Speaker 2: of change that people are already doing within their own communities,
[36:36] Speaker 2: changing attitudes within their own families, changing attitudes within their schools,
[36:40] Speaker 2: doing education, doing you know, community based work. You know,
[36:45] Speaker 2: a whole lot of social work is about change. Like
[36:47] Speaker 2: there's all different types of reform. This is just my
[36:50] Speaker 2: little piece of the puzzle.
[36:51] Speaker 1: I guess it's a pretty big piece of the puzzle.
[36:53] Speaker 1: I think you've also really changed the way the media
[36:57] Speaker 1: in Australia talks about victim survivors. I think you model
[37:03] Speaker 1: the behavior that I hope a lot of other places
[37:06] Speaker 1: are starting to adopt.
[37:07] Speaker 2: I think it's more that the survivors that I have profiled,
[37:12] Speaker 2: Like when I was doing let Her Speak campaign, there
[37:14] Speaker 2: was this great moment where I was working with one
[37:17] Speaker 2: of the survivors in Tasmania. Sur name's Janelle O'Connor, and
[37:20] Speaker 2: at the time we had not got her court audio
[37:22] Speaker 2: yet and so we couldn't identify her real name and
[37:25] Speaker 2: face yet, and so she had chosen pseudonym for herself
[37:29] Speaker 2: and we had to take a photograph where she wasn't
[37:31] Speaker 2: her face wasn't visible. The photographer had the brief went
[37:34] Speaker 2: out took a photo of her, and it was her
[37:36] Speaker 2: head in her hands, sort of crouched down, very fatal position.
[37:42] Speaker 2: It almost looked like she was crying in her hands.
[37:43] Speaker 2: It was so disempowering. It was the typical kind of
[37:47] Speaker 2: old school way in which victim survivors stories have presented,
[37:50] Speaker 2: you know, very sort of you know, fatal position, almost
[37:53] Speaker 2: like you know, rocking in the corner, often in shadowy
[37:56] Speaker 2: sort of. I looked at it. I hated it. I
[38:00] Speaker 2: showed it to Janelle. She hated it as well, and
[38:04] Speaker 2: we were like, this photographer has not understood the brief.
[38:06] Speaker 2: You know, this is a strong, empowered woman who wants
[38:08] Speaker 2: to say her name and who is demanding law reform,
[38:12] Speaker 2: having experienced child sexual abuse. How dare we present her
[38:17] Speaker 2: in that, you know, in that light of being you know,
[38:25] Speaker 2: feeble and almost broken. So I said to the editor, no,
[38:30] Speaker 2: we're not using that photo. Janelle's fourteen year old son
[38:34] Speaker 2: picked up a camera, took her hand and because he
[38:37] Speaker 2: saw it to and he was like, nah's bullshit, and
[38:40] Speaker 2: wrote the words let us speak on her hand.
[38:43] Speaker 1: That's how it came about.
[38:44] Speaker 2: She put her hand then in front of her face
[38:47] Speaker 2: to kind so that she couldn't be identified. He took
[38:50] Speaker 2: the photo of her hand but covering her face so
[38:53] Speaker 2: that we could still use it legally, and it was
[38:57] Speaker 2: the most and it was a really strong photo because
[39:00] Speaker 2: it was her hand down the borrowl of the camera
[39:03] Speaker 2: saying let us speak. And that not only became not
[39:07] Speaker 2: only did we use that photo in print in the
[39:10] Speaker 2: newspaper the next day, but that became the iconic image
[39:13] Speaker 2: of the entire campaign, and we recreated that image over
[39:16] Speaker 2: and over and over again. Now that didn't come from me.
[39:19] Speaker 2: That came from a fourteen year old boy who knew
[39:21] Speaker 2: his mom was about us and who was refusing to
[39:25] Speaker 2: see her portrayed. And she and I were also in
[39:28] Speaker 2: full agreement that she should not be portrayed in the
[39:31] Speaker 2: stereotypical way that victim survivors are portrayed. And I think
[39:34] Speaker 2: like one of the things that I'm really proud of
[39:36] Speaker 2: with the let Her Speak, Let Us Speak campaign was
[39:39] Speaker 2: that we really did, at every point, you know, want
[39:43] Speaker 2: to reposition and revisit how we portray victim survivors. The
[39:49] Speaker 2: victim survivors. You know, so often in the media, victim
[39:53] Speaker 2: survivors historically have been positioned as broken down, trodden, to
[39:58] Speaker 2: be pitied, to be sympathized, and that's not empowering at all.
[40:04] Speaker 2: Whereas I think one of the things that was successful
[40:06] Speaker 2: about the campaign, you know, I often reflect on when
[40:08] Speaker 2: we do a campaigns, we reflect on the things that
[40:10] Speaker 2: maybe didn't work so well and also the things that
[40:12] Speaker 2: did work well so that we learned for next time.
[40:14] Speaker 2: And one of the things that I think did work
[40:15] Speaker 2: well in that campaign was obviously, you know, we got
[40:18] Speaker 2: the law reform, which was the major goal, but the
[40:19] Speaker 2: other thing was like, we really actually reimagined how we
[40:23] Speaker 2: do photography in this in this campaign. And I think
[40:26] Speaker 2: the other thing that for me was the win of
[40:27] Speaker 2: that campaign was that generally when we report stories about
[40:33] Speaker 2: sexual violence, the audience tends to skew very heavily female. Suddenly,
[40:39] Speaker 2: when I was doing the let Her Speak, let Us
[40:40] Speaker 2: Speak campaign, we had huge numbers of men reading and
[40:44] Speaker 2: we didn't know why initially. Then we realized it was
[40:47] Speaker 2: because we were hooking it on freedom of speech. Turns
[40:51] Speaker 2: out men really care about that, really, particularly like conservative
[40:56] Speaker 2: old white men. Yeah, so suddenly we had this, We
[40:59] Speaker 2: had this captive audience of men and don't generally click
[41:02] Speaker 2: on those stories, but who we are now engaged and listening.
[41:05] Speaker 2: So my editor and I were like, all right, well,
[41:07] Speaker 2: now we've got them, why don't we use this as
[41:09] Speaker 2: like a bit of a trojan horse to get some
[41:11] Speaker 2: feminist vegetables into them and to educate them about things
[41:15] Speaker 2: like victim blaming and rate myths, which is what we did.
[41:18] Speaker 2: So yeah, I'm really I'm proud of that campaign and
[41:21] Speaker 2: the reforms that it has achieved, but I'm also proud
[41:24] Speaker 2: of some of the conversations that it started in some
[41:27] Speaker 2: unexpected places.
[41:29] Speaker 1: You definitely should be thank you, Thank you so much
[41:32] Speaker 1: for being you, Nina.
[41:33] Speaker 2: Well, thank you for having me today.
[41:36] Speaker 1: Thank you to Nina for sharing her story and the
[41:38] Speaker 1: multiple stories of other victim survivors with us. You can
[41:42] Speaker 1: find out more about her work and her most recent
[41:45] Speaker 1: campaign in our show notes. If you're experiencing sexual violence,
[41:49] Speaker 1: please head to our show notes force some numbers to contact.
[41:52] Speaker 1: If you want to see visuals from this episode, head
[41:55] Speaker 1: over to our Instagram page at True Crime Conversations and
[41:58] Speaker 1: for in depth case explain follow us on TikTok under
[42:02] Speaker 1: the same name. True Crime Conversations is hosted by me
[42:05] Speaker 1: Jemma Bath, our senior producer is Tarlie Blackman, the group
[42:09] Speaker 1: executive producer is Alaria Brophy, and there's been audio designed
[42:12] Speaker 1: by Jacob Brown and video editing by Julian Rosario. Thanks
[42:17] Speaker 1: so much for listening. I'll be back next week with
[42:19] Speaker 1: another true crime conversation

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