# Surviving the aftermath of his mum's murder: Ashton Kline Pt. 2

An episode of [I Catch Killers with Gary Jubelin](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1506667049), 19 Oct 2026, 1 h 10 min.

Audio: https://p.podderapp.com/2544644999/traffic.omny.fm/d/clips/2fb3740d-3436-44af-8cc0-a91900716aa5/5bc8c2ed-b718-4f44-beb3-ac2a005246cc/9c365018-2417-4f0e-a0fd-b4e8004650eb/audio.mp3?utm_source=Podcast&in_playlist=786928c3-10c1-4cef-a7bf-ac2a005246d0

After Ashton Kline's mother Viola was murdered by his dad after decades of abuse, he faced a choice "Do I let it destroy me?" In Part 2, Ashton sits down with Gary to share what came after, the unbreakable bond with his younger brother Grant, being taken into foster care with their belongings in a garbage bag, and going from family to family. Ashton talks about the red flags that were missed in the build-up, learning to carry trauma rather than be defined by it, building a toolkit for recovery, and why he and Grant chose not just to survive, but to thrive. For Ashton, it's about carrying his mum's memory forward, so her loss is not in vain, and using their story to help others understand the impact of domestic violence and homicide. Find out more about The Alannah & Madeline Foundation Buddy Bag program here. Find out more about What Ally Needs Now, a children's book created by Ashton and researchers at The University of Melbourne to help children navigate grief after fatal family violence here. If you or someone you know has experienced domestic, family or sexual violence, you can call 1800RESPECT on 1800 737 732, text 0458 737 732 or visit 1800respect.org.au for online chat and video call services. You can watch I Catch Killers on Youtube here. Follow I Catch Killers: Instagram: @icatchkillers Tiktok: @icatchkillerspodcast Facebook: @icatchkillers See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

## Transcript

[0:01] Speaker 1: The public has had a long-held fascination with detectives. Detectives
[0:05] Speaker 1: see a side of life the average person is never
[0:08] Speaker 1: exposed to. I spent 34 years as a cop. For
[0:12] Speaker 1: 25 of those years, I was catching killers. That's what
[0:14] Speaker 1: I did for a living. I was a homicide detective.
[0:17] Speaker 1: I'm no longer just interviewing bad guys. Instead, I'm taking
[0:21] Speaker 1: the public into the world in which I operated. The
[0:24] Speaker 1: guests I talk to each week have amazing stories from
[0:26] Speaker 1: all sides of the law. The interviews are raw and honest,
[0:29] Speaker 1: just like the people I talk to. Some of the
[0:31] Speaker 1: content and language might be confronting. That's because no one
[0:34] Speaker 1: who comes into contact with crime is left unchanged. Join
[0:38] Speaker 1: me now as I take you into this world. Welcome
[0:47] Speaker 1: back to my chat with Ashton Klein, a truly remarkable
[0:50] Speaker 1: human being. In part two, Ashton reveals how he carried
[0:53] Speaker 1: two terrible burdens at once, grieving his mother's murder at
[0:58] Speaker 1: his father's hands and also stepping up to protect his
[1:01] Speaker 1: chronically ill younger brother, Grant. He takes us inside the
[1:05] Speaker 1: foster care system and his fight to keep Grant by
[1:08] Speaker 1: his side. We talk about his inspiring path to not
[1:11] Speaker 1: only rebuild himself, but his life mission to break the
[1:15] Speaker 1: cycle of violence and help children who need it most.
[1:19] Speaker 1: It's a story that's both heartbreaking and inspiring. Take a listen.
[1:24] Speaker 1: Ashton Klein, welcome back. Part two of I Catch Killers. Thanks, Gary.
[1:30] Speaker 2: Appreciate it.
[1:30] Speaker 1: Yeah, look, I know the topic of conversation is such
[1:35] Speaker 1: a heavy conversation, but as we both talked about before
[1:40] Speaker 1: sitting down and doing the podcast, it's important messaging that
[1:43] Speaker 1: needs to get out. And so I appreciate you telling
[1:47] Speaker 1: the story. And yeah, I hope people are listening to it,
[1:52] Speaker 1: understanding the impact of domestic violence. And then at the extreme,
[1:56] Speaker 1: what happens when someone's life is taken. And it doesn't
[2:02] Speaker 1: just affect one person's life, there's a ripple effect. And yeah, sadly,
[2:06] Speaker 1: there's too many examples across the country of domestic related murders.
[2:13] Speaker 2: I think that's absolutely right. You've I think people, when
[2:19] Speaker 2: I talk to people about my life, people often think
[2:25] Speaker 2: that there was nothing and then there was this incident
[2:31] Speaker 2: that occurred and then life went back to normal, you know,
[2:35] Speaker 2: like as if there was this kind of, you know,
[2:39] Speaker 2: predominant kind of period of a couple of months where
[2:43] Speaker 2: you kind of grieve and then you don't carry it
[2:45] Speaker 2: anymore and life move forward, I guess. But one of
[2:50] Speaker 2: the things that I've learned is, and I was saying
[2:52] Speaker 2: in the previous episode, that you never get rid of
[2:56] Speaker 2: carrying that trauma and the impact of domestic violence, domestic homicide,
[3:03] Speaker 2: sexual assault and sexual assault. You never get rid of
[3:06] Speaker 2: those things. You carry them with you and you just
[3:08] Speaker 2: learn how to carry them a little easier, I think.
[3:13] Speaker 2: And I think you're right. It doesn't affect when someone
[3:17] Speaker 2: is murdered, particularly by an intimate partner. The ripple effect
[3:23] Speaker 2: is not just to them. It's the entire family. It's
[3:28] Speaker 2: the entire community. And, you know, The layers that exist
[3:34] Speaker 2: and that kind of culminate as a result of that
[3:38] Speaker 2: are so phenomenal and so far-reaching.
[3:44] Speaker 1: The fact that you haven't let it destroy you, and
[3:47] Speaker 1: there's a lot in a quote that I've picked up
[3:50] Speaker 1: that you've said. Can I read it out and then
[3:52] Speaker 1: we can discuss that?
[3:54] Speaker 2: I'm a bit worried here, but yeah.
[3:57] Speaker 1: Well, shall I put it in a quote?
[3:59] Speaker 2: No, no, I'm only joking.
[4:00] Speaker 1: A quote from a very wise person.
[4:03] Speaker 2: Thank you.
[4:05] Speaker 1: At some stage, I consciously said to myself, do I
[4:07] Speaker 1: want this to destroy me or do I want to
[4:10] Speaker 1: use this to fuel my journey? So I think the
[4:15] Speaker 1: deciphering between do I let it destroy myself or is
[4:19] Speaker 1: this going to point me in the direction of what
[4:22] Speaker 1: my life is going to be about?
[4:24] Speaker 2: Yeah, and I think, you know what, the moment for
[4:28] Speaker 2: me of that split decision was sitting in that room
[4:35] Speaker 2: after viewing my mother's 99% burnt body and going, okay,
[4:41] Speaker 2: I can either sit here for the next three weeks
[4:46] Speaker 2: and just do nothing because that's what I felt like.
[4:49] Speaker 2: And that would have absolutely, you know, the world would
[4:52] Speaker 2: have allowed me to do that. And I would have
[4:55] Speaker 2: had all the excuses in the world to be able
[4:58] Speaker 2: to do that. Or I can move forward knowing that
[5:05] Speaker 2: mum wouldn't have wanted me to do that. And also
[5:08] Speaker 2: that my brother needs me. And I think those are
[5:12] Speaker 2: the two factors that got me up out of that
[5:14] Speaker 2: chair in that small room that we're in at the
[5:16] Speaker 2: Alfred Hospital, is that I had one responsibility for my brother.
[5:22] Speaker 2: and I had made a promise over my mum's burnt
[5:24] Speaker 2: body that I would care for him always. So, you know,
[5:31] Speaker 2: in that moment, I don't know what it was that
[5:32] Speaker 2: made me kind of think like that or made me
[5:34] Speaker 2: make that split decision to kind of... But, you know,
[5:38] Speaker 2: as I've grown older and, dare I say, wiser, arguably so,
[5:44] Speaker 2: it's one of those things that I kind of go...
[5:49] Speaker 2: don't know what it was about that, but I just
[5:51] Speaker 2: made that decision and that was it. And I'm so
[5:53] Speaker 2: glad that I did. And it's allowed me to kind
[5:57] Speaker 2: of carry mum's memory, to allow her murder to not
[6:02] Speaker 2: be in vain and her death to not be in vain,
[6:04] Speaker 2: but also to teach people and to advocate for people,
[6:10] Speaker 2: to do things that I would never have imagined that
[6:12] Speaker 2: I would be doing right now. I work with a
[6:16] Speaker 2: university up in Queensland on a respect program, teaching young
[6:22] Speaker 2: people about respectful relationships, you know, using my lived experience
[6:28] Speaker 2: of domestic and family violence to fuel those conversations, to
[6:33] Speaker 2: highlight what you can do as a bystander, you know.
[6:37] Speaker 2: I don't I'm part of a research group, Homicide at Home,
[6:42] Speaker 2: with the University of Melbourne that has produced a children's
[6:45] Speaker 2: book called What Ali Needs Now. And the characters in
[6:48] Speaker 2: that book are based on Grant as a six-year-old and
[6:52] Speaker 2: me as a 15-year-old and the support that we needed.
[6:56] Speaker 2: I could never have imagined doing that stuff. I'm here
[6:59] Speaker 2: talking with you today.
[7:00] Speaker 3: I would never have imagined that I would even be
[7:04] Speaker 3: able to articulate the things that I've been through in
[7:09] Speaker 3: a way that is resourceful and educative for people and
[7:14] Speaker 3: that people can draw something from it.
[7:16] Speaker 2: People say I'm an inspiration. I don't kind of think
[7:20] Speaker 2: of it in that way. I think more, I've got
[7:22] Speaker 2: a duty. I've been through this and I have survived somehow.
[7:27] Speaker 2: I have survived. And my duty is now to help
[7:31] Speaker 2: other people survive and to thrive in a world that
[7:36] Speaker 2: doesn't want them to or doesn't provide for them as
[7:39] Speaker 2: much as it should, you know. So if I can
[7:42] Speaker 2: do that in sharing my story, sharing my journey and
[7:45] Speaker 2: some of the tricks of the, you know, the way
[7:49] Speaker 2: in which I've kind of learned to deal with things
[7:51] Speaker 2: and the tools that I've collected along the way, then,
[7:56] Speaker 2: you know, that's the least that I can do because,
[7:59] Speaker 2: you know, I think I'm trying to be now the
[8:03] Speaker 2: person that I needed when I was 15. for other
[8:07] Speaker 2: people and i think that's very important for me because
[8:11] Speaker 2: i didn't have a lot of people who were there
[8:13] Speaker 2: for me when i was 15 and were the people
[8:15] Speaker 2: that i needed um i had a number of people
[8:18] Speaker 2: who had massive impacts in my life um over that
[8:21] Speaker 2: period but i am trying to be and live out
[8:25] Speaker 2: the life of a person that can be there for
[8:29] Speaker 2: people um who go through this kind of stuff.
[8:31] Speaker 1: Yeah well that that lived experience, sadly, the lived experience
[8:35] Speaker 1: that you went through, but it has shaped the person
[8:37] Speaker 1: you are today. There's another layer to this horrific situation
[8:44] Speaker 1: that you've described, finding out that your mother's been killed
[8:49] Speaker 1: or has died. Then the realization that it wasn't an accident,
[8:54] Speaker 1: it was at the hands of your father. How and
[8:57] Speaker 1: when did that become apparent to you?
[9:00] Speaker 2: Immediately after we, we got back to Kyabra and we
[9:04] Speaker 2: had some arson squad detectives arrive, um, on our doorstep
[9:07] Speaker 2: the next, the next morning. So we got back to
[9:09] Speaker 2: Kyabra after being at the Alfred Hospital, must have been
[9:12] Speaker 2: about 1am, I reckon. Um, that drive home was, um,
[9:17] Speaker 2: like no other, um, one that I can remember vividly, but, um,
[9:21] Speaker 2: next morning, uh, bright and early, we have, um, something
[9:26] Speaker 2: about government cars that sits with me, you know, in
[9:28] Speaker 2: those days, the Ford Falcon and the Holden Commodore and
[9:32] Speaker 2: the red government plates that you'll be all too familiar with.
[9:38] Speaker 2: But they arrived. Marty Robinson was the investigating officer and
[9:44] Speaker 2: the detective leading the investigation. And he sat us down,
[9:49] Speaker 2: both Grant and I, and he said, look, I don't
[9:51] Speaker 2: know how to tell you this, but we believe, that
[9:54] Speaker 2: the incident that occurred yesterday leading to your mother's death
[9:58] Speaker 2: was no accident? And so we're now investigating the matter
[10:05] Speaker 2: and we'd like to, in your own time, kind of
[10:09] Speaker 2: ask you some questions around the events that led up
[10:11] Speaker 2: to that and so forth. And so I don't even
[10:14] Speaker 2: know how uh, in that moment, we kind of grappled with,
[10:18] Speaker 2: I don't think we did, to be honest, I don't
[10:20] Speaker 2: think we actually thought, okay, this, this has transpired in
[10:24] Speaker 2: a way that, you know, like my father has premeditated
[10:28] Speaker 2: my mother's murder. Um, she is now dead. He's in
[10:34] Speaker 2: hospital under police guard. And we are somehow living in
[10:41] Speaker 2: the family home, the two of us, uh, And we're
[10:46] Speaker 2: going to now answer some questions for the police. And
[10:51] Speaker 2: it wasn't until Marty started asking us questions that I
[10:58] Speaker 2: actually thought, fuck, this is a– I can't say that word. So,
[11:02] Speaker 2: you know, fuck, this has actually happened. Like, you know,
[11:06] Speaker 2: this is– Murder investigation. Yeah, this is a murder investigation.
[11:10] Speaker 2: Our father has doused our mother in petrol. set her
[11:14] Speaker 2: alight and killed her. Like, it's not until he started
[11:20] Speaker 2: probing into the events leading up to that and all
[11:24] Speaker 2: of the things that suddenly made sense, you know. So
[11:30] Speaker 2: from there, I understand he was arrested and Marty did what,
[11:38] Speaker 2: Marty does, but, you know, in such a great way
[11:41] Speaker 2: of supporting us as well. And, you know, I actually
[11:44] Speaker 2: reached out to Marty a few years ago and he
[11:47] Speaker 2: was absolutely blown away to hear from me. But it
[11:51] Speaker 2: was lovely to reconnect and chat with him. Yeah, absolutely.
[11:56] Speaker 2: But we, to be honest, I don't remember much of
[12:02] Speaker 2: the police investigation from that point forward. Once Marty asked
[12:05] Speaker 2: his questions, his initial questions, we were interviewed. We gave
[12:08] Speaker 2: our statements to police. What happened next for us is the...
[12:17] Speaker 2: Because for me, we were sitting in a home. We
[12:20] Speaker 2: had our belongings. We were sitting in our family home.
[12:24] Speaker 2: I was caring for Grant. And even though we'd been
[12:27] Speaker 2: through this traumatic experience and I looked over mum's burnt
[12:33] Speaker 2: body and for us, we were actually okay. We had
[12:38] Speaker 2: each other and we were actually okay. It's what came
[12:42] Speaker 2: next for us that really kind of reminded us or
[12:46] Speaker 2: drew the kind of the nail in the, you know,
[12:48] Speaker 2: in the coffin, so to speak, because we then had
[12:52] Speaker 2: another government car arrive. And I remember it's one of
[12:55] Speaker 2: those bloody maroon cars and I can never look at them.
[12:59] Speaker 2: And these two middle-aged women get out of this car
[13:02] Speaker 2: and I look out the window and I go, something's
[13:04] Speaker 2: not right here. Something's not right. And this is two
[13:07] Speaker 2: days after, sorry, three days after mum's murder. And these
[13:11] Speaker 2: middle-aged women come up to the door and they say, hi,
[13:14] Speaker 2: we're from Child Protection. And it was that point there
[13:19] Speaker 2: I just go, right, this is not going to go
[13:21] Speaker 2: well for us. You know, as much as they said,
[13:24] Speaker 2: you know, we're here to support you and all the
[13:26] Speaker 2: rest of it, I just went, no, don't like this.
[13:30] Speaker 2: And it's that point there that I became, that was
[13:34] Speaker 2: the moment that I became an adult, a child in
[13:38] Speaker 2: an adult's world, essentially, because we were then thrown into
[13:43] Speaker 2: a system of foster care, going from family to family.
[13:46] Speaker 2: We were thrown into the court system, going through magistrates'
[13:51] Speaker 2: courts so that they could get custody of us and
[13:53] Speaker 2: make decisions about our lives and all the rest of it.
[13:56] Speaker 2: And here I was as a 15-year-old saying, look, just
[13:59] Speaker 2: piss off, would you? I actually just want to. I
[14:02] Speaker 2: just want to care for my brother and be left alone.
[14:05] Speaker 2: yeah and and that's it um and so for us
[14:09] Speaker 2: that that was you know that was kind of the
[14:13] Speaker 2: um the thing that undone it all because you know
[14:15] Speaker 2: what happens in a in an intimate partner homicide is
[14:18] Speaker 2: you don't lose the person that's just as we said
[14:21] Speaker 2: before you don't just lose the person that's murdered you
[14:25] Speaker 2: lose the other side of that as well so we
[14:26] Speaker 2: lost both of our parents in one foul swoop you
[14:30] Speaker 2: know one we were almost glad to get rid of
[14:32] Speaker 2: but the you know the the the the fun the
[14:35] Speaker 2: side of it is that we lost all of our caregivers.
[14:38] Speaker 2: So we had no one to care for us. And that,
[14:41] Speaker 2: that meant that we were rewards of the state.
[14:43] Speaker 1: How long did you get kept in the, as a
[14:46] Speaker 1: ward of a state and kept in the foster system?
[14:48] Speaker 1: Did that go through to your 18?
[14:51] Speaker 2: Till I was 18. Yeah. So they, they refused, um,
[14:56] Speaker 2: much to my disgust and my, um, disapproval. Um, they
[15:00] Speaker 2: refused to allow me to care for grant independently. Um,
[15:05] Speaker 2: And in fact, attempted to separate us on a number
[15:09] Speaker 2: of occasions because of Grant's care needs. Yeah. So, you know,
[15:13] Speaker 2: at the heart of when we needed each other most,
[15:16] Speaker 2: we had the government basically saying to us, we need
[15:21] Speaker 2: to send Grant to Melbourne to be close to the
[15:23] Speaker 2: Royal Children's Hospital. And we don't really care about you
[15:26] Speaker 2: that much because you're nearly 16. And if you want
[15:30] Speaker 2: to live independently, you can at 16. So, look, we'll...
[15:35] Speaker 2: we'll take Grant and put him into foster care in
[15:37] Speaker 2: Melbourne and you can stay in Kiobram in a foster
[15:41] Speaker 2: family in Kiobram until you're 16 and then we'll support
[15:43] Speaker 2: you to get independent living. And I was like, well,
[15:46] Speaker 2: hell no, that's not happening. And it was only because
[15:50] Speaker 2: we came in contact with the Alana and Madeline Foundation
[15:54] Speaker 2: that we remained together. So that foundation stepped in and said,
[16:01] Speaker 2: Have we talked to these boys about what they need
[16:03] Speaker 2: and have we looked at what they actually need to
[16:06] Speaker 2: grieve through this traumatic experience? And what it is they
[16:10] Speaker 2: need is to be together.
[16:11] Speaker 1: Okay. So that's your connection with the foundation because I
[16:14] Speaker 1: want to talk about the work that they do. But
[16:18] Speaker 1: that's very significant. Huge. And good on you for that.
[16:24] Speaker 1: sticking with your brother and arguing the case and, yeah,
[16:28] Speaker 1: making life difficult for the people that just want to
[16:31] Speaker 1: separate you because I would imagine that's the last thing
[16:35] Speaker 1: you would have needed in the circumstances.
[16:37] Speaker 2: Oh, I wouldn't be the person I am today without.
[16:39] Speaker 2: If that had happened, I would be 100% in a
[16:45] Speaker 2: gutter shooting up drugs.
[16:46] Speaker 1: Bitter, twisted, angry.
[16:48] Speaker 2: You know, bitter, twisted, angry, all the rest of it.
[16:50] Speaker 2: I'm still bitter and twisted and angry about things, but
[16:54] Speaker 2: not as much.
[16:59] Speaker 1: It all goes into degrees, doesn't it?
[17:01] Speaker 2: That's right, it does.
[17:04] Speaker 1: Your father, he pleaded not guilty, went to court. You
[17:08] Speaker 1: had to go through all the trauma associated with that,
[17:11] Speaker 1: and trial is a trauma, the pressures of that. But
[17:15] Speaker 1: one thing that came out in the trial or in
[17:18] Speaker 1: the investigation that– Yeah, is quite frightening is the fact
[17:22] Speaker 1: that so many people, he had told so many people
[17:26] Speaker 1: basically his plans on what he was going to do
[17:29] Speaker 1: to your mother.
[17:30] Speaker 2: Oh, as I was seven, 16, 16 when the, by
[17:37] Speaker 2: the time it rolled around to the Supreme Court, almost 17.
[17:39] Speaker 2: And so he'd been held in remand and it went through,
[17:45] Speaker 2: the Supreme Court, and they held a session in Shepparton
[17:48] Speaker 2: because they wanted to show the jurors the site at
[17:52] Speaker 2: which it occurred. And listening, the hardest part about all
[17:58] Speaker 2: of this for me was the fact that two weeks
[18:03] Speaker 2: prior to mum's murder, my father had been telling people
[18:09] Speaker 2: exactly what he was going to do. He couldn't even
[18:13] Speaker 2: afford the petrol. To douse the caravan in petrol himself.
[18:17] Speaker 2: So he borrowed the petrol and he hounded someone for
[18:21] Speaker 2: the petrol to do it. And listening to those people
[18:27] Speaker 2: stand up in court and say, oh yeah, he was
[18:30] Speaker 2: at the pub, you know, three days before that. And
[18:34] Speaker 2: he said, I'm going to kill the bitch. And I'm
[18:38] Speaker 2: going to do it in the caravan at the back
[18:40] Speaker 2: of the house. And I'm going to set her on fire.
[18:45] Speaker 2: Listening to those people give evidence, I just thought to myself,
[18:50] Speaker 2: there's nothing quite like being, I know the language now,
[18:52] Speaker 2: I didn't know then, but there's nothing quite like being
[18:54] Speaker 2: a passive bystander, right? And just kind of, you know,
[18:57] Speaker 2: accepting that. But back then I thought, I can't understand
[19:02] Speaker 2: why you didn't do anything. And then they said in court,
[19:06] Speaker 2: you know, these witnesses who were all fabulous people, you know,
[19:10] Speaker 2: in the community and all the rest of it. Nothing
[19:13] Speaker 2: hard against him because, look, to be honest, my dad
[19:17] Speaker 2: was a nutter. But their rationale was, we just thought
[19:21] Speaker 2: he was off his rocker. You know, and he'd never,
[19:25] Speaker 2: he talked about a lot of stuff over the years.
[19:28] Speaker 2: You know, he'd come into the pub and he'd go
[19:30] Speaker 2: on about this and he was really fixated on this
[19:32] Speaker 2: and whatever else and And we just kind of got
[19:37] Speaker 2: used to kind of listening to all these ramblings of
[19:41] Speaker 2: this madman in the town. And we just thought, oh,
[19:43] Speaker 2: he's just off his rocker again, you know. We never
[19:47] Speaker 2: thought he'd follow through. But.
[19:51] Speaker 1: There's lessons to be learned from that isn't there absolutely
[19:55] Speaker 1: and we were talking multiple people you had 20 20
[20:00] Speaker 1: yeah i thought i just wanted to check with you
[20:02] Speaker 1: before i said it so 20 witnesses saying that and
[20:07] Speaker 1: This is where education, and this is a large part
[20:09] Speaker 1: of what you've been doing, but this is where education
[20:13] Speaker 1: plays an important role. Yeah, I understand someone, oh, he's
[20:17] Speaker 1: just a nutter. But these type of things, and you
[20:21] Speaker 1: can talk from your experience. I'll talk from my experience.
[20:24] Speaker 1: These are the type of things that need to be
[20:26] Speaker 1: brought to the attention of police. Let the police determine
[20:29] Speaker 1: if it's just a nutter.
[20:30] Speaker 2: That's right.
[20:31] Speaker 1: If someone's threatening to kill their wife down the pub,
[20:35] Speaker 1: I don't care how drunk they are. Even the more
[20:38] Speaker 1: drunk they are, maybe the more weight you can place
[20:41] Speaker 1: on it too, because the filters have gone.
[20:43] Speaker 2: Absolutely.
[20:44] Speaker 1: These passive bystanders, we've all got to, the police can't
[20:49] Speaker 1: turn around domestic violence on their own. They need everyone
[20:53] Speaker 1: working on it. And these are the type of things
[20:55] Speaker 1: that if you hear someone making a threat, oh, when
[20:58] Speaker 1: I get home, she's going to cop it. You hear
[21:00] Speaker 1: those type of comments, phone the police.
[21:02] Speaker 2: Absolutely. There's some very wise words that I kind of
[21:07] Speaker 2: I instill in people that I speak to now, and
[21:10] Speaker 2: that is... I'm going to hate the fact that I
[21:14] Speaker 2: can't remember the guy's name, but the general of the
[21:19] Speaker 2: Australian Army once said, the behaviour that you walk past
[21:24] Speaker 2: is the standard that you accept.
[21:26] Speaker 1: Yeah.
[21:27] Speaker 2: You know? And I think that rings true to the
[21:30] Speaker 2: passive bystander moment there because... If you're willing to stand
[21:34] Speaker 2: in a pub and have a beer with someone who's saying,
[21:36] Speaker 2: I'm going to kill the bitch, I'm going to set
[21:38] Speaker 2: her on fire, I'm going to douse the caravaning petrol
[21:43] Speaker 2: out the back of my yard and push her in
[21:44] Speaker 2: and stick a match in and set her alight. If
[21:47] Speaker 2: you're willing to accept that type of language about a woman,
[21:52] Speaker 2: about anyone, then you're accepting that as kind of okay
[21:57] Speaker 2: behavior and okay language. And I think that's the key
[22:00] Speaker 2: in all of this is, If you're willing to walk
[22:03] Speaker 2: past that, that's not okay, right? And that's what we
[22:07] Speaker 2: need to change is kind of that moment of, as
[22:10] Speaker 2: you said, if you hear that language, that should say
[22:13] Speaker 2: to you, actually, I need to do something about this.
[22:16] Speaker 2: I actually need to just do something because I'm a
[22:19] Speaker 2: decent human being and that's not decent human being behavior.
[22:22] Speaker 2: And I think that's where the problem lies is we
[22:28] Speaker 2: have a culture in the world where we don't pry
[22:33] Speaker 2: into other people's business. And domestic violence is one of
[22:36] Speaker 2: those things. Oh, you know, it's behind closed doors. I'm
[22:40] Speaker 2: not really sure how to get involved and all the
[22:41] Speaker 2: rest of it. Well, this man, my father, had attempted
[22:46] Speaker 2: to murder me in January of that year. And what
[22:51] Speaker 2: we know from the research is that people who perpetrate
[22:54] Speaker 2: violence are more likely to perpetrate a game. that they're
[22:59] Speaker 2: more likely to become more enraged or more infatuated with
[23:04] Speaker 2: that kind of sense of power that they get from
[23:06] Speaker 2: that as time goes by, and that the behavior escalates.
[23:11] Speaker 2: And that's exactly what happened in this case. And it's
[23:13] Speaker 2: more likely to happen when someone leaves the relationship. And
[23:19] Speaker 2: I think all the predictors were there, right? You've even
[23:24] Speaker 2: got the man standing there telling him exactly how he's
[23:26] Speaker 2: going to do it.
[23:28] Speaker 1: Well, it's been, and I reference times in homicide when
[23:34] Speaker 1: you look back and you can see all these red flags,
[23:37] Speaker 1: this crime, there was a buildup, all this, all the
[23:40] Speaker 1: warning signs that were missed for a variety of reasons
[23:43] Speaker 1: and then the end result is a murder. Laura Richards
[23:46] Speaker 1: is a, that's when we were having a chat the
[23:48] Speaker 1: other day, that's the woman I wanted to reference. I
[23:51] Speaker 1: had her on the podcast. criminologists and vastly experienced in
[23:56] Speaker 1: domestic violence. And the facts and figures, and she's UK-based,
[24:02] Speaker 1: facts and figures that she was describing in regards to
[24:07] Speaker 1: domestic-related murders, the risk factors is when the person is
[24:12] Speaker 1: trying to break away from the relationship. So that's why
[24:15] Speaker 1: so many people have just sort of stepped back. But again, education.
[24:20] Speaker 1: So we know that's when the victim is at the
[24:23] Speaker 1: highest risk when they're trying to break away from the relationship.
[24:27] Speaker 1: If someone, and the figures, I should have got the figures,
[24:33] Speaker 1: but I'll talk it in a general sense. If someone's
[24:36] Speaker 1: been in a domestic relationship that they're now separated, or
[24:40] Speaker 1: an intimate relationship is probably the better word, intimate relationship
[24:43] Speaker 1: in which they've now separated, and the person, the aggrieved partner,
[24:49] Speaker 1: makes threats to kill that person, the likelihood of that
[24:53] Speaker 1: occurring is astronomical.
[24:55] Speaker 2: Yeah, through the roof.
[24:57] Speaker 1: Absolutely. It's an intimate relationship, separated, and that person hasn't
[25:01] Speaker 1: let it go to the point they're making threats to
[25:04] Speaker 1: kill that person. The likelihood of that happening is extreme.
[25:09] Speaker 2: And in those circumstances, one woman dies every week in Australia,
[25:16] Speaker 2: in those circumstances. It's... It's phenomenal, you know, killed by
[25:21] Speaker 2: an intimate partner in those exact circumstances. So if nothing else,
[25:27] Speaker 2: you know, my journey, this whole sequence of events highlights
[25:36] Speaker 2: the importance of people stepping in and taking action, you know. And,
[25:41] Speaker 2: you know, action doesn't need to be, you know, wrestling
[25:44] Speaker 2: the guy to the ground or, you know, and restraining
[25:47] Speaker 2: him and saying, no, you're not going anywhere. You know,
[25:51] Speaker 2: it's a, you know, no one let my mum know. Yeah.
[25:55] Speaker 2: You know, that's the thing for me.
[25:57] Speaker 1: Well, that's the point.
[25:58] Speaker 2: Two weeks prior, he's going around the town, in a
[26:01] Speaker 2: town of 6,000. The whole town would have been talking
[26:04] Speaker 2: about this, you know. But two weeks prior, he's going
[26:08] Speaker 2: around telling this. Not one person said to my mum, hey,
[26:11] Speaker 2: I just want you to know, He's been saying some
[26:15] Speaker 2: things that are quite concerning. You might want to just
[26:18] Speaker 2: watch yourself, you know, around him at the moment, etc.
[26:22] Speaker 2: She went in to clean some toys out of a
[26:24] Speaker 2: caravan because he'd been calling for two weeks saying you
[26:28] Speaker 2: must come on the 27th of September.
[26:31] Speaker 1: Yeah.
[26:33] Speaker 2: Now, if someone had said to her a couple of
[26:36] Speaker 2: days before, hey, I was chatting to him, you know,
[26:39] Speaker 2: at the pub, but he said he's going to douse
[26:41] Speaker 2: you in petrol and set you alight in a caravan.
[26:44] Speaker 2: Do you reckon she might have said, oh, I might
[26:46] Speaker 2: not go to that caravan today? I don't know, but
[26:50] Speaker 2: who knows? Hindsight is a wonderful thing. But I just
[26:53] Speaker 2: think for me, if someone said that to me, there's
[26:56] Speaker 2: no way that I would go anywhere near a caravan
[26:58] Speaker 2: for someone who's.
[26:58] Speaker 1: Going to- Hindsight is a wonderful thing, but I think
[27:01] Speaker 1: that's a reasonable assumption. So that's where, if people take
[27:05] Speaker 1: nothing away from this podcast- Other than the fact that
[27:10] Speaker 1: you can't be a passive observer in these situations. If
[27:13] Speaker 1: you've got concerns, and it costs nothing to phone the
[27:16] Speaker 1: police and pass the information on. Now, that one piece
[27:19] Speaker 1: of information might seem insignificant, but when the police look
[27:23] Speaker 1: back at the history of the situation, they'll go, okay,
[27:27] Speaker 1: that's concerning.
[27:28] Speaker 2: Absolutely.
[27:29] Speaker 1: Encourage people to pass this on.
[27:32] Speaker 2: Yeah, Gary, I get really frustrated because, and I'm not
[27:34] Speaker 2: going to call out any particular cases or anything like that,
[27:37] Speaker 2: but But I get really frustrated when people go on
[27:40] Speaker 2: the news, they go on these kind of phenomenal TV
[27:45] Speaker 2: shows and say, we let the police know and they
[27:48] Speaker 2: didn't do anything and all the rest of it, because
[27:51] Speaker 2: that just deters people from making those calls. Now, we
[27:56] Speaker 2: don't know the circumstance of any of those cases that
[27:59] Speaker 2: are on there, and I'm not going to comment on
[28:00] Speaker 2: any of those, but all I can comment on is
[28:02] Speaker 2: this one, and all I can say is if one
[28:05] Speaker 2: person had have picked up the phone and called the
[28:08] Speaker 2: police and said, this is what this person is saying,
[28:11] Speaker 2: the police may have just even come around to our
[28:14] Speaker 2: house and said, look, this is what's been said. Is
[28:16] Speaker 2: there anything that you might be worried about? And I
[28:18] Speaker 2: could have said to the police, even as a 15-year-old, yeah,
[28:21] Speaker 2: he's been calling for the last two weeks and really
[28:24] Speaker 2: fixated on this date. And like you say, Gary, they
[28:28] Speaker 2: could have then said, right, we've got this factor left
[28:32] Speaker 2: nine months ago. There's a restraining order in place. There's
[28:35] Speaker 2: a history of violence and aggression. He's now telling people
[28:38] Speaker 2: he's going to perpetrate this and he's been calling to
[28:40] Speaker 2: get her around for this day. They may have then
[28:42] Speaker 2: just put the pieces together.
[28:44] Speaker 1: Yeah.
[28:45] Speaker 3: And look, you know, look.
[28:49] Speaker 1: We laugh at it because it's so ridiculous, so horrific.
[28:52] Speaker 2: Absolutely.
[28:53] Speaker 1: But so ridiculous. And I think one thing.
[28:56] Speaker 2: But also so straightforward.
[28:57] Speaker 1: Oh.
[28:58] Speaker 2: You know, like it's not rocket science.
[29:00] Speaker 1: No, it's not rocket science. One thing that the media
[29:04] Speaker 1: focus on, it can say sensational headlines and different things.
[29:10] Speaker 1: But I think what I know in policing, when the
[29:13] Speaker 1: pressure's on, like the amount of domestic related murders, it's
[29:17] Speaker 1: a lead story, it hits the news. I think by
[29:22] Speaker 1: reporting it, highlighting it is a good thing because then
[29:25] Speaker 1: that puts pressure on the police. So when we're saying,
[29:28] Speaker 1: you know, you use the analogy that the police didn't
[29:30] Speaker 1: follow up or do anything. I would hate to be
[29:32] Speaker 1: the police officer that took the phone call from someone,
[29:35] Speaker 1: warning someone, and then a murder. Because what I can say,
[29:39] Speaker 1: and I can say with confidence, when we start a
[29:41] Speaker 1: homicide investigation, we look back through the whole thing. So
[29:45] Speaker 1: for the police or the person that hasn't reported something,
[29:48] Speaker 1: it will come out. That's the type of information that
[29:51] Speaker 1: comes out. And don't be the person that could have
[29:53] Speaker 1: prevented a murder.
[29:55] Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely. And you carry it, I'm sure, right? Like,
[29:58] Speaker 2: I mean, from your perspective, you carry it. Because I
[30:01] Speaker 2: remember when the murder happened, small town, country policing, a
[30:07] Speaker 2: cop came to me after the murder and he said,
[30:10] Speaker 2: I'm so sorry, I didn't. Because he had been the
[30:14] Speaker 2: officer who had taken dad nine months ago after he
[30:18] Speaker 2: tried to commit murder to me. And he said, I'm
[30:21] Speaker 2: so sorry that I should have done more.
[30:23] Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah.
[30:24] Speaker 2: You know, so it just highlights that the police do
[30:27] Speaker 2: everything they possibly can, but they can only act on
[30:30] Speaker 2: the information that they have. And I think, you know,
[30:33] Speaker 2: as I say, if you've got one role, if listeners
[30:37] Speaker 2: have one role to play in this, take action, you know,
[30:40] Speaker 2: do something, pick up the phone.
[30:43] Speaker 1: Most definitely. Your father ended up getting, was it 15 years?
[30:48] Speaker 1: 20 years with a served period of, yeah.
[30:54] Speaker 2: He'd spent a couple of years in remand and had
[30:58] Speaker 2: a 15-year parole period. So, yeah.
[31:01] Speaker 1: Did you ever speak to him after the incident or
[31:03] Speaker 1: have any relationship with him after?
[31:05] Speaker 2: He tried to track us down a couple of times
[31:09] Speaker 2: through God knows what resources they... I don't know what
[31:13] Speaker 2: resources they give prisoners, to be honest, but God knows
[31:15] Speaker 2: how he found our address and phone number.
[31:18] Speaker 1: But.
[31:20] Speaker 2: Certainly, we had some interactions. We had calls from the
[31:24] Speaker 2: prison a couple of times. And, you know, that definitive
[31:28] Speaker 2: kind of, this is a call from HMAS. No, that's
[31:33] Speaker 2: the ship, sorry. HMS Port Phillip Prison. You know, do
[31:37] Speaker 2: you accept this call? And it's like, I don't want
[31:40] Speaker 2: a call from him, you know. I mean, it was
[31:43] Speaker 2: hard enough sitting through the Supreme Court trial with him
[31:45] Speaker 2: in the... in the defendant kind of space. Sorry, I
[31:50] Speaker 2: don't know the technical term for that. Dock. Dock, in
[31:52] Speaker 2: the dock, yeah. Hard enough sitting in the dock. But
[31:57] Speaker 2: he was very determined to donate a kidney to Grant.
[32:01] Speaker 2: So he wrote letters saying that he wanted to donate
[32:04] Speaker 2: to Grant. He tried to phone her saying that he
[32:06] Speaker 2: really wanted to donate to Grant. And it's like, mate,
[32:08] Speaker 2: your kidney's got cancer on it, you know? Yeah. And also,
[32:12] Speaker 2: do you really think that Grant, once a donor... a
[32:17] Speaker 2: kidney from a bloke who just took away his only
[32:19] Speaker 2: chance of living, you know? Yeah. I mean, you know,
[32:22] Speaker 2: but he was so hell-bent on that that he tried
[32:25] Speaker 2: to track us down with whatever resources he could. I
[32:29] Speaker 2: guess the kind of flip side of it is that
[32:34] Speaker 2: he must have had some rights to his children's whereabouts
[32:37] Speaker 2: or some, you know, I don't know. Yeah. You know,
[32:39] Speaker 2: they must have given him some information about... the guardianship
[32:44] Speaker 2: orders and all the rest of it as our kind of... Yeah.
[32:49] Speaker 1: And I'm not against prisoners' rights and different things, but
[32:54] Speaker 1: you forego the right in those circumstances as far.
[32:57] Speaker 2: As I'm concerned. I think so.
[32:59] Speaker 1: I agree. The primary responsibility would be protecting you and
[33:03] Speaker 1: Grant and not his feelings.
[33:06] Speaker 2: Anyway, we... One day we got a call from the
[33:09] Speaker 2: prison and I picked up the phone and I decided
[33:12] Speaker 2: to accept the call because it had been about probably
[33:18] Speaker 2: nine months or so. So it would have been 2003.
[33:23] Speaker 2: I would have been in year 12. And there was
[33:28] Speaker 2: a prison officer on the phone letting us know that
[33:31] Speaker 2: he'd passed away.
[33:33] Speaker 1: Right.
[33:35] Speaker 2: So... Then the next kind of component of this grief
[33:40] Speaker 2: then kind of kicked in, really, because how do you feel?
[33:45] Speaker 1: Well, you've stolen my question, but how do you feel?
[33:50] Speaker 1: How do you process that?
[33:53] Speaker 2: I remember sitting down. Grant was eight at the time,
[33:56] Speaker 2: and I said, look, Dad's passed away. And he said
[34:00] Speaker 2: to me, should I be crying?
[34:03] Speaker 1: Hmm.
[34:04] Speaker 2: He just looked at me and said, I don't know.
[34:08] Speaker 2: And I said, I don't know either. I genuinely don't know.
[34:12] Speaker 2: I said, maybe I'm a little– and Grant and I
[34:17] Speaker 2: have always had a very honest, raw kind of relationship. So,
[34:22] Speaker 2: you know, one of the most powerful things that I
[34:26] Speaker 2: decided to do with Grant is always tell him the truth.
[34:30] Speaker 2: You know, whatever I could model for him– and the
[34:34] Speaker 2: behaviours that I could model for him, I thought it's
[34:37] Speaker 2: best that he kind of learns how to live like
[34:40] Speaker 2: this because I don't want to keep anything from him
[34:43] Speaker 2: and stop him from being kind of the best version
[34:46] Speaker 2: of him that he can be. So I just said
[34:48] Speaker 2: to him, in a way, I'm glad, you know, because
[34:53] Speaker 2: he would be out, he would be out right now
[34:58] Speaker 2: and trying to contact us, trying to be a part
[35:00] Speaker 2: of our lives, you know. at the age of 70
[35:04] Speaker 2: or so. And I'm so grateful that that's not the case.
[35:09] Speaker 2: So grateful that that's not the case.
[35:11] Speaker 1: Yeah. No, he didn't need that layer. How did he
[35:15] Speaker 1: die in prison?
[35:16] Speaker 2: He had an abdominal aortic aneurysm. Right. Spontaneously rupture. So,
[35:24] Speaker 2: you know, some may say that in the end fate,
[35:29] Speaker 2: you know.
[35:30] Speaker 1: I was going to say karma can be a shit sometimes,
[35:33] Speaker 1: but yeah.
[35:34] Speaker 2: That's absolutely right.
[35:35] Speaker 1: Yeah.
[35:37] Speaker 2: But yeah. And look, I mean, did he have a
[35:42] Speaker 2: triple A? You know, prisons, all sorts of things happen
[35:45] Speaker 2: in prison, right? I don't know. But yeah, the whole
[35:50] Speaker 2: process from then on, I don't know. It almost became,
[35:55] Speaker 2: I don't want to use the term end. easy uh
[35:59] Speaker 2: easier a little less complicated um because we were going
[36:07] Speaker 2: from a point of okay we've we've got to um
[36:13] Speaker 2: go through this grief then in 15 years we've got
[36:17] Speaker 2: to deal with the man who murdered our mother coming
[36:20] Speaker 2: back into our life you know and and that for
[36:24] Speaker 2: us is almost worth worse or it was worse than
[36:28] Speaker 2: kind of dealing with the grief of the death so
[36:30] Speaker 2: you're just like well i've already grieved that we've lost
[36:33] Speaker 2: both parents it's it's now final.
[36:37] Speaker 1: Yeah i i can i can understand what you're saying
[36:40] Speaker 1: because that that would have just created more uh turmoil
[36:43] Speaker 1: and concern ease out you link to him whether you
[36:46] Speaker 1: like it or not he's your that's right your father
[36:49] Speaker 1: and then uh yeah have to deal with that so
[36:51] Speaker 1: maybe it's best that it worked out uh worked out
[36:54] Speaker 1: that way um Another thing that we talked about the
[36:57] Speaker 1: other day was the stigma surrounding women who stay in
[37:02] Speaker 1: violent relationships. There's a couple of quotes from you that
[37:08] Speaker 1: we can talk about. I'll just read that out. I
[37:11] Speaker 1: think there's an idea that they should have just left
[37:14] Speaker 1: the relationship and that by staying, it means they're weak.
[37:17] Speaker 1: And in regards to specifically your mother, my mother put
[37:21] Speaker 1: up with violence, aggression and assault for 19 years, all
[37:24] Speaker 1: for the sake of her children. She was a stay-at-home
[37:27] Speaker 1: mother who had no income and relied solely on my
[37:30] Speaker 1: father for financial support. And she bore the brunt of
[37:33] Speaker 1: that violence until it turned towards us children. I think
[37:37] Speaker 1: we need to have the discussion about that too because
[37:39] Speaker 1: there is this misconception, well, they're choosing to stay with him.
[37:43] Speaker 1: Let's take that narrative away because there's circumstances that people
[37:47] Speaker 1: don't fully appreciate that keep people in those relationships.
[37:52] Speaker 2: For some reason, people think that it's a choice. Well,
[38:01] Speaker 2: it's not a choice for someone who has been disempowered
[38:05] Speaker 2: their entire life and been worn down so much that
[38:10] Speaker 2: they've lost all sense of self-worth and all sense of
[38:14] Speaker 2: capacity in terms of empowerment. So they've got no power whatsoever.
[38:20] Speaker 2: Their lives have been controlled their entire life. And as
[38:24] Speaker 2: we spoke about in the previous episode, my mother had
[38:26] Speaker 2: also grown up in an environment like that. So it
[38:29] Speaker 2: was ingrained in her that she was disempowered, that she
[38:33] Speaker 2: had no sense of entitlement, she had no self-worth. And
[38:37] Speaker 2: then add to that, no income and two children that
[38:41] Speaker 2: she had to care for. So, what were her choices
[38:44] Speaker 2: in that? And a system that was not really supporting her, really. So,
[38:51] Speaker 2: her choices were to stay with the man and feel
[38:54] Speaker 2: as though she could control almost as much of the
[38:58] Speaker 2: narrative as she possibly could. but put food in the
[39:01] Speaker 2: mouths of her children, you know, and provide them with
[39:05] Speaker 2: some possible life, you know, and some kind of opportunities
[39:11] Speaker 2: to thrive in a world that was not a thriving
[39:16] Speaker 2: world for her. So, you know, the people who judge that,
[39:21] Speaker 2: all I can say is I highly recommend that you
[39:24] Speaker 2: walk a thousand miles in those shoes because you cannot
[39:29] Speaker 2: judge from the outside what someone is going through as
[39:34] Speaker 2: easily as that. It's very easy to. We all lean
[39:37] Speaker 2: into judgment as human beings. It's so easy to naturally
[39:41] Speaker 2: kind of fall into that, to say, oh, you know,
[39:43] Speaker 2: she stayed with him. That was the problem, etc., But
[39:47] Speaker 2: until you've actually been in that situation yourself, you have
[39:50] Speaker 2: no right, I don't think, to make that assertion. And
[39:54] Speaker 2: I think people do need to understand that there are
[39:58] Speaker 2: often mitigating factors and factors that you'll never know about
[40:01] Speaker 2: from the outside. And it's also very hard in that
[40:06] Speaker 2: situation to convince society that this person is doing all
[40:10] Speaker 2: these things as well. You know, this is the other
[40:12] Speaker 2: thing about my father is he was definitely a sociopath
[40:16] Speaker 2: of phenomenal expertise. He was the great guy at the
[40:23] Speaker 2: pub that shouted everyone a beer. You know, he was
[40:26] Speaker 2: the guy who was at the TAB having a chat
[40:28] Speaker 2: to everyone. He'd walk down the street and someone would say, G'day,
[40:31] Speaker 2: how are you? You know, that kind of, you know,
[40:34] Speaker 2: he was the good guy in the town. Sure, a
[40:37] Speaker 2: little bit of a strange kind of character, but really
[40:41] Speaker 2: an all-round kind of good bloke. Got along with everyone.
[40:46] Speaker 2: And so no way was he kind of bashing up
[40:48] Speaker 2: his kids and his wife and all the rest of it.
[40:51] Speaker 2: There's no way that he was perpetrating that. So the
[40:54] Speaker 2: other aspect of this is that from my mum's perspective,
[40:58] Speaker 2: wouldn't people actually believe her? He's done all this work
[41:03] Speaker 2: in creating credibility for himself. So how would she then
[41:08] Speaker 2: convince the police and society, the community, that he's then
[41:13] Speaker 2: raping her and bashing her?
[41:17] Speaker 1: The good bloke situation is so frustrating. I think so
[41:22] Speaker 1: many people hide behind it. It's almost like we're pedophiles.
[41:26] Speaker 1: Your father would come into that category too.
[41:29] Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah.
[41:31] Speaker 1: But they provide this persona that the kids are safe.
[41:35] Speaker 1: to hang out with Uncle Harry or whoever. No, he's good.
[41:39] Speaker 1: He's great with kids. It's always they set that up.
[41:42] Speaker 1: And the same with domestic violence. He's a good fella. Yeah,
[41:46] Speaker 1: he loses his temper occasionally. But do you see he's
[41:49] Speaker 1: always down cooking at the local football and the barbecue?
[41:53] Speaker 1: He's doing this. We're naive to it.
[41:56] Speaker 2: Yeah, he used to swan me around, I remember, as
[42:00] Speaker 2: a six-year-old to his... I think his next prey, let's
[42:05] Speaker 2: call them. He'd swan me around as a six-year-old child
[42:10] Speaker 2: and say, oh, here's my six-year-old boy, meet him. And
[42:13] Speaker 2: then he'd use me as leverage in their relationship to
[42:16] Speaker 2: try and get into this woman's life. And me being six,
[42:22] Speaker 2: I thought I'm just getting attention from my father. So
[42:24] Speaker 2: that's great for me. And so I'd kind of go
[42:28] Speaker 2: along for it. But It's only recently that I've started
[42:31] Speaker 2: to understand the complexities of all of that. But yeah,
[42:34] Speaker 2: he'd use me as leverage and he'd kind of take
[42:36] Speaker 2: me to these women's houses and I'd play with their
[42:39] Speaker 2: kids and he'd be off with their mum and whatever else.
[42:42] Speaker 2: And then they'd all say, oh, he's a great bloke,
[42:43] Speaker 2: you know?
[42:44] Speaker 1: Yeah. I'm sorry, he's a piece of shit. Oh, absolutely.
[42:50] Speaker 1: The people that do that, but yeah. Yeah, these are
[42:54] Speaker 1: all the type of things, like the shame that's attached.
[42:56] Speaker 1: That's why I'm glad coercive control is starting to come
[42:59] Speaker 1: in the legislation. We'll see how it plays out in
[43:02] Speaker 1: the courts and how police use it. But I think
[43:04] Speaker 1: it is a good tool to have when it's used properly.
[43:09] Speaker 1: The other thing that I go on about, and I'll
[43:12] Speaker 1: keep going on about until it's implemented everywhere, is that
[43:16] Speaker 1: with domestic violence situations, ankle bracelets, how we could use them,
[43:21] Speaker 1: tracking devices.
[43:22] Speaker 2: Yeah.
[43:23] Speaker 1: It just seems to me to be so simple. If
[43:26] Speaker 1: an AVO is taken out against a person not to
[43:29] Speaker 1: approach or assault, okay, let's see if they abide by
[43:32] Speaker 1: the AVO, that first option. I'm not suggesting the moment
[43:35] Speaker 1: someone makes an allegation, you get an ankle bracelet. But
[43:39] Speaker 1: if you breach that AVO, the one that people just
[43:42] Speaker 1: say is just a piece of paper, what can you do? Well,
[43:45] Speaker 1: you don't get a second chance. You get a tracking
[43:48] Speaker 1: device on you. So what does that achieve? it keeps
[43:51] Speaker 1: you away from the area. And if the person in
[43:55] Speaker 1: need of protection, it gives them some comfort too. Like
[43:59] Speaker 1: if your mother, she agreed to meet with him, but
[44:04] Speaker 1: if it had escalated to the point where I'm not
[44:07] Speaker 1: going anywhere near him, a monitor that she's got, if
[44:12] Speaker 1: he comes within a kilometre of your radius, you'll get notified,
[44:15] Speaker 1: the police will get notified.
[44:17] Speaker 2: Look, as I said, those nine months that they were separated,
[44:20] Speaker 2: he would I would open the window at three in
[44:23] Speaker 2: the morning because I heard a noise. He'd be staring
[44:25] Speaker 2: at me.
[44:26] Speaker 1: Yeah.
[44:27] Speaker 2: You know, like you just, and how many times did
[44:31] Speaker 2: he do that over that nine month period? You know,
[44:33] Speaker 2: even though there was a restraining order, the police would
[44:35] Speaker 2: then be called and he'd gone by that stage, you know,
[44:37] Speaker 2: so they'd go around there and they'd remind him of the,
[44:40] Speaker 2: you know, all the rest, all the things that they
[44:41] Speaker 2: would do. But you're right. Some sort of device like that.
[44:45] Speaker 2: It's like, well, that's what actually the tangible kind of, impact,
[44:50] Speaker 2: I guess, makes, you know?
[44:51] Speaker 1: Well, we're talking like starting states are considering it and
[44:56] Speaker 1: the implementation, but let's make it a national problem, domestic violence.
[45:01] Speaker 2: Well, it is. It is a national problem. I'm going
[45:03] Speaker 2: to say that. But approach it as a national problem.
[45:06] Speaker 1: I get it.
[45:07] Speaker 2: I get it. Yeah, absolutely.
[45:08] Speaker 1: And, you know, with politicians, forget the, you know, this
[45:11] Speaker 1: party wants this, this party... let's have a bipartisan approach
[45:16] Speaker 1: to the way that we deal with it.
[45:18] Speaker 2: That's right.
[45:18] Speaker 1: I just think in this day and age, we've AI
[45:22] Speaker 1: taking over the world, which is another story, but we'll
[45:24] Speaker 1: worry about that later if we're still here. That's right.
[45:28] Speaker 1: But with the technology that we've got, why not use it?
[45:33] Speaker 1: And to me, that then goes past. An AVO order
[45:37] Speaker 1: is now more than just a piece of paper. It's
[45:39] Speaker 1: written on. It is a way of preventing someone being
[45:43] Speaker 1: harmed by a person that they're at risk from.
[45:46] Speaker 2: And it prevents behaviours escalating. That's the key. And that's
[45:51] Speaker 2: what we know from all of the cases that are
[45:54] Speaker 2: out there. We know that behaviours escalate. And when it
[45:57] Speaker 2: gets to that point, these kind of things can protect
[46:00] Speaker 2: people and genuinely stop perpetrators from engaging in that behaviour.
[46:07] Speaker 1: And I'm sure your father was emboldened by the fact
[46:10] Speaker 1: that he could creep around there in the Oh, absolutely.
[46:14] Speaker 1: There's no action. And I'm gone. If I can hear
[46:17] Speaker 1: the police car coming, I'll just run off into the bushes.
[46:19] Speaker 2: That's right. You know, and that sense of, it's that
[46:23] Speaker 2: control factor, you know, like that almost gave him, I'm
[46:29] Speaker 2: sure he was probably getting off on the fact that,
[46:31] Speaker 2: you know, he could do that freely. And, you know,
[46:34] Speaker 2: it's kind of like, oh, yeah, this is just another
[46:37] Speaker 2: thing for me to kind of manipulate my way around
[46:40] Speaker 2: and work around. Um, it's, it's no real barrier. I
[46:44] Speaker 2: can get around it. Look at me, you know, uh, watch,
[46:47] Speaker 2: let them, let them try and catch me.
[46:48] Speaker 1: You know, the work that you're doing now, the associations
[46:52] Speaker 1: you're involved in the lecturing, you, you, the nurse, you're academic,
[46:57] Speaker 1: you're a whole range of things. Tell us about your life, uh,
[47:00] Speaker 1: posts or what we've talked about here, your, your life and, and, uh,
[47:04] Speaker 1: Grant's life, because you're entwined, whether you like it or not,
[47:08] Speaker 1: you guys are in this together.
[47:10] Speaker 2: Well, we're one in the same. We, um, we, we, uh, uh,
[47:14] Speaker 2: definitely a partnership. Um, sometimes the partnership has some tension
[47:18] Speaker 2: points and, and that's what makes us brothers. And, uh,
[47:21] Speaker 2: we're reminded of that most days, which was a, a
[47:24] Speaker 2: beautiful thing about kind of our brotherhood, I guess. Um, uh, but, uh, look,
[47:30] Speaker 2: I mean, I, I was a nurse. I, I, I
[47:32] Speaker 2: went into nursing. Uh, I decided at the age of
[47:35] Speaker 2: 15 that I wanted to be a police officer or
[47:37] Speaker 2: a nurse. Uh, and, uh, I got into both. I
[47:41] Speaker 2: got into the academy and I got into nursing at
[47:44] Speaker 2: Melbourne Uni and I decided that Melbourne Uni were going
[47:46] Speaker 2: to pay for me to study. So I would take
[47:48] Speaker 2: up that option. And you'll understand and appreciate that the
[47:52] Speaker 2: academy salary wasn't that great. So I decided on nursing.
[48:00] Speaker 2: But there's something for me in my career about having
[48:04] Speaker 2: an impact on others and informing others and educating others
[48:08] Speaker 2: that has kind of inspired my journey. So when I
[48:10] Speaker 2: became a nurse, it was about the impact that I
[48:13] Speaker 2: could have, a tangible impact on people's lives and their
[48:15] Speaker 2: most vulnerable, you know. And for me now, I've moved
[48:19] Speaker 2: into education. As you say, I'm a lecturer in nursing
[48:21] Speaker 2: and a nursing academic. And now I teach classes and
[48:26] Speaker 2: facilitate class on respectful relationships. I do work with the
[48:30] Speaker 2: Alana and Madeline Foundation and all of that. is really
[48:34] Speaker 2: about the impact that I can have on people moving
[48:39] Speaker 2: forward and the growth that I can give to people
[48:42] Speaker 2: from my journey. So what is it that I can
[48:45] Speaker 2: kind of give to people to help them thrive in
[48:48] Speaker 2: this world that wasn't given to me, you know, and
[48:50] Speaker 2: the opportunity that wasn't afforded to me? Because, you know,
[48:54] Speaker 2: I look back and I always think about whenever I'm
[48:56] Speaker 2: working in a workshop or whenever I'm even just doing
[48:58] Speaker 2: things like, you know, this podcast, I think, what is
[49:01] Speaker 2: it that I needed as a 15-year-old?
[49:03] Speaker 1: Yeah.
[49:04] Speaker 2: You know, and I needed a podcast like this to
[49:08] Speaker 2: listen to, to know that I wasn't alone, you know?
[49:11] Speaker 2: I'm doing some work at the moment with a research
[49:14] Speaker 2: group from the University of Melbourne called Homicide at Home.
[49:17] Speaker 2: And I think I mentioned earlier, we've we've got it
[49:19] Speaker 2: we created a children's book called what ellie needs now
[49:23] Speaker 2: the one great thing about that research group is it
[49:26] Speaker 2: for the first time at the age of 35 when
[49:29] Speaker 2: i first started working with that research group i met
[49:32] Speaker 2: my first ever fellow victim of domestic homicide apart from
[49:36] Speaker 2: my brother obviously yeah um The tangible impact that peer
[49:41] Speaker 2: support can make, you know, and the advocacy that that
[49:44] Speaker 2: brings and just the sense of relief that, oh, shit,
[49:48] Speaker 2: I'm not alone in this. You know, someone else has
[49:51] Speaker 2: been through this. And I mean, I got that a
[49:53] Speaker 2: lot from Grant and Grant gets that from me as well.
[49:56] Speaker 2: But someone external to us that has been through this
[50:00] Speaker 2: and can understand because one of the biggest things is
[50:06] Speaker 2: you carry the trauma with you for life and it
[50:08] Speaker 2: shows up in the most strangest of ways. Yeah. You know,
[50:13] Speaker 2: like I had a mate over the other day and
[50:16] Speaker 2: he said, oh, I notice you always back your car
[50:18] Speaker 2: in to the driveway. And I said, yeah, I can't
[50:23] Speaker 2: sleep if it's not backed in because I need to
[50:25] Speaker 2: be able to make a quick exit. You know?
[50:28] Speaker 1: Yeah.
[50:28] Speaker 3: Okay.
[50:29] Speaker 2: The weirdest things.
[50:30] Speaker 1: Yeah.
[50:31] Speaker 2: You know, like just the weirdest little bizarre behaviours, you know,
[50:36] Speaker 2: that kind of show up. And, I mean, I could talk,
[50:41] Speaker 2: you know, multiple things. This is funny talking to a
[50:44] Speaker 2: detective about this, but I hope you haven't still got
[50:47] Speaker 2: your cuffs on your face.
[50:50] Speaker 1: If I caution you, you'd know that you've probably gone
[50:53] Speaker 1: too far.
[50:55] Speaker 2: I started... This is just really interesting behavior to kind
[50:59] Speaker 2: of examine. I started, you know, those WH Smiths at
[51:02] Speaker 2: airports and stuff like, you know, when you're flying around
[51:04] Speaker 2: the country, there's a little shop that kind of has
[51:07] Speaker 2: this person standing in the middle. There's nuts and jerky
[51:10] Speaker 2: and all this kind of stuff in there and whatever
[51:12] Speaker 2: else you can buy that's overpriced and all the rest
[51:14] Speaker 2: of it. Anyway, I started going in there when I
[51:19] Speaker 2: started traveling a lot. And I kind of go, oh,
[51:21] Speaker 2: I really want these, you know, kind of these cashew
[51:23] Speaker 2: nuts or whatever it was. there's a person over there
[51:26] Speaker 2: who's on their phone and behind the register, not really
[51:30] Speaker 2: paying attention. I just swipe them. I can just swipe them. Yeah.
[51:34] Speaker 2: And I'll just do it in plain sight, right? And
[51:36] Speaker 2: I just started doing things like that. Anyway, I went
[51:39] Speaker 2: to my therapist and I said, be worried about this
[51:42] Speaker 2: behavior I've started exhibiting. I started stealing nuts and sometimes
[51:46] Speaker 2: I branch out into teriyaki beef jerky when I'm really
[51:49] Speaker 2: kind of feeling exotic.
[51:49] Speaker 1: That's going too far.
[51:50] Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, that's like too far. Too far, yeah. And
[51:54] Speaker 2: I said, I really don't want to be a thief, actually.
[51:58] Speaker 1: That frees me.
[51:59] Speaker 2: Because it's typically not good character building behavior.
[52:03] Speaker 1: What insight you have.
[52:05] Speaker 2: Yeah, what insight. Anyway, she said to me, what do
[52:07] Speaker 2: you feel like when you kind of pick up those
[52:11] Speaker 2: cashew nuts and you look at that cashew? And I said, well,
[52:13] Speaker 2: I always feel like I haven't been seen and heard,
[52:16] Speaker 2: you know. And she said, does that ever resonate with
[52:19] Speaker 2: you with anything else from your childhood? And I said,
[52:21] Speaker 2: you know what? I feel the same that I felt
[52:25] Speaker 2: when my father was raping my mother and he was
[52:29] Speaker 2: making me watch. Right. That I hadn't been seen and heard.
[52:33] Speaker 2: And so the fact that I can walk into a
[52:36] Speaker 2: WH Smith, you should up your security WH Smith, and
[52:40] Speaker 2: steal some cashew nuts and not get seen and heard
[52:43] Speaker 2: takes me back to that six-year-old child of my mother
[52:46] Speaker 2: being raped. Now, that work of understanding that and unpacking that, right,
[52:53] Speaker 2: So anyway, we got to that point. And then my
[52:56] Speaker 2: therapist said, have you ever tried doing anything else? And
[53:00] Speaker 2: I said, oh, maybe I could give something else a try.
[53:02] Speaker 2: So then I thought, all right, I'm not going to
[53:05] Speaker 2: steal nuts anymore or jerky. What I'm going to do
[53:08] Speaker 2: is I'm going to, so that that six-year-old gets seen
[53:11] Speaker 2: and heard, what I'm going to do is I'm going
[53:12] Speaker 2: to grab the cashew nuts. I'm going to go up
[53:14] Speaker 2: to the counter. I'm going to say to the person
[53:16] Speaker 2: behind the counter, my inner child really wanted to steal
[53:20] Speaker 2: these cashew nuts. But I've decided today that I'm going
[53:23] Speaker 2: to pay you for them.
[53:26] Speaker 1: How did that go?
[53:29] Speaker 2: You can imagine the reaction of the person behind the
[53:32] Speaker 2: counter like, what the fuck?
[53:35] Speaker 1: Yeah, all right, buddy.
[53:37] Speaker 2: Not really caring either. But for me, what it provided
[53:41] Speaker 2: is a real sense of being seen and heard. And
[53:44] Speaker 2: I realized that for my entire life and my entire childhood,
[53:47] Speaker 2: that's what I was missing. And so it came out
[53:49] Speaker 2: when I was like 36 years old. Right?
[53:52] Speaker 1: Like, crazy. I suppose that's– and you referenced and gave
[53:58] Speaker 1: it the kudos, the professional help that you've got. Because
[54:03] Speaker 1: to unpack that, you're not going to come to that
[54:05] Speaker 1: conclusion on your own.
[54:07] Speaker 2: There's a group of support. There's a peer network that
[54:11] Speaker 2: joke about this with– we joke about this with each
[54:13] Speaker 2: other that you don't come to conclusions like that with
[54:16] Speaker 2: your 10 free sessions provided by victims of crime.
[54:19] Speaker 1: Yes.
[54:20] Speaker 2: It takes years of work to get to that kind
[54:24] Speaker 2: of revelation.
[54:25] Speaker 1: And you've got to go in there with the right
[54:27] Speaker 1: attitude and really want to progress from it.
[54:31] Speaker 2: That's right.
[54:39] Speaker 1: With your nursing, and again, another quote from you, but
[54:44] Speaker 1: I just found it interesting because I think it's important.
[54:47] Speaker 1: And you might say nursing, I say policing is important
[54:50] Speaker 1: in this regard too. Students can learn to nurse solely
[54:54] Speaker 1: from a textbook. And I find they really enjoy the
[54:57] Speaker 1: empathetic and personalized approach I take drawing on my life
[55:01] Speaker 1: experience to challenge them and help them excel. So you're
[55:05] Speaker 1: bringing that into nursing and you don't want the nurse
[55:08] Speaker 1: when you walk into, if you're in a hospital, that's
[55:11] Speaker 1: where most people come into contact with nurses. You don't
[55:14] Speaker 1: want someone just going through the processes. You want someone
[55:17] Speaker 1: that really has a concern, is caring and got that empathy.
[55:23] Speaker 2: Yeah, and I think, I mean, often my students get
[55:26] Speaker 2: really frustrated with me because I give them a concept
[55:30] Speaker 2: and I then expand on it using kind of lived
[55:32] Speaker 2: experience and whatever else. And I'm sure you've done the
[55:35] Speaker 2: same over your career. Yeah. And they're kind of flicking
[55:38] Speaker 2: through their textbook going, where is this written? What page
[55:41] Speaker 2: number is this?
[55:42] Speaker 1: Yeah.
[55:45] Speaker 2: And there are just some things you cannot learn from textbooks.
[55:49] Speaker 2: And empathy... is one of them, right? You just cannot.
[55:54] Speaker 2: It's a learned thing through action and through being and
[55:59] Speaker 2: through bringing a very vulnerable version of yourself. And I
[56:02] Speaker 2: like to bring that into all of my interactions in
[56:04] Speaker 2: the classroom, in workshops or whatever it is. If I
[56:07] Speaker 2: can demonstrate vulnerability with someone, that leans into empathy with
[56:11] Speaker 2: them and it leans into connection more than anything else.
[56:14] Speaker 2: And I think that's the key with anyone is like,
[56:17] Speaker 2: When someone's in their most vulnerable space, whether they've been
[56:20] Speaker 2: through a domestic homicide, whether they've been through a car accident,
[56:25] Speaker 2: whether they're in with lung cancer, whatever it might be,
[56:28] Speaker 2: if you can lean into that vulnerable space in yourself
[56:31] Speaker 2: and give a little bit of yourself so that they
[56:33] Speaker 2: give a little bit of themselves back, then you've got
[56:36] Speaker 2: shared connection. And I think that's what we're all searching for, right? Again,
[56:40] Speaker 2: not rocket science, but we overcomplicate this life thing and
[56:44] Speaker 2: this kind of connection is all that we're looking for.
[56:47] Speaker 1: Yeah, I think that's a way of dealing with all
[56:52] Speaker 1: the traumas that you go through in life. If you've
[56:54] Speaker 1: got that connection that helps, you can share that pressure,
[56:57] Speaker 1: share those emotions. With the Alana Madeline Foundation, that started
[57:04] Speaker 1: on the back of the horrific situation that occurred down
[57:08] Speaker 1: in Tasmania with the Port Arthur massacre, and it came
[57:13] Speaker 1: from there. You explained how you became involved in the foundation.
[57:19] Speaker 1: What sort of stuff are the foundation doing these days
[57:21] Speaker 1: and what are the important things that we can take
[57:23] Speaker 1: away from it?
[57:25] Speaker 2: Yeah, so, I mean, Grant and I, as I said,
[57:28] Speaker 2: we were one of the first care recipients of what
[57:31] Speaker 2: is called the Children Ahead Program now. So Children Ahead
[57:35] Speaker 2: Program provides intensive therapy and support services for children and
[57:41] Speaker 2: case management for children who have experienced family violence, domestic homicide,
[57:46] Speaker 2: and so forth. So we do phenomenal work in the
[57:50] Speaker 2: space of supporting children to thrive in a situation that
[57:55] Speaker 2: they would otherwise, you know, kind of be in dire
[57:58] Speaker 2: straits and lean into or go down a path that
[58:03] Speaker 2: they might regret later. So we do a whole lot
[58:06] Speaker 2: of phenomenal work in that space. Look, one of the
[58:08] Speaker 2: programs that I really love to champion with the foundation
[58:12] Speaker 2: is the Buddy Bag program. Yep. So 11,000 children are
[58:17] Speaker 2: removed every year from a violent home in Australia. Each
[58:23] Speaker 2: of those 11,000 children have access to a backpack that,
[58:28] Speaker 2: and often these children are removed in the middle of
[58:30] Speaker 2: the night as well. So, you know, someone perpetrates something,
[58:33] Speaker 2: the police come in, they remove the children, they put
[58:36] Speaker 2: them into foster care or they put them into protective
[58:39] Speaker 2: custody with the mum, whatever. Those children have access to
[58:42] Speaker 2: a backpack that provides a tangible kind of resource for them.
[58:45] Speaker 2: So it has, you know, a teddy bear. It has pajamas.
[58:48] Speaker 2: It has toothpaste and a toothbrush. It gives them a
[58:52] Speaker 2: backpack to carry their things. You know, one of the
[58:54] Speaker 2: things that I, talking about trauma, I started collecting suitcases
[59:01] Speaker 2: a couple of years ago. And I thought to myself,
[59:05] Speaker 2: spending so much bloody money on suitcases, why? I had
[59:09] Speaker 2: a cupboard full of them. Marketplace was always great to
[59:11] Speaker 2: buy a suitcase off Ashton because I had so many
[59:14] Speaker 2: of them and I could never find the right one.
[59:16] Speaker 2: So I kept buying all these suitcases anyway. Through some
[59:20] Speaker 2: really good therapy, I've discovered that the suitcase issue for me,
[59:25] Speaker 2: finding the right one is because I didn't have a
[59:26] Speaker 2: backpack when I left home. So our belongings were shoved
[59:31] Speaker 2: into a garbage bag by the Department of Human Services, right?
[59:34] Speaker 2: And we were taken to foster care. Now, when I travel,
[59:39] Speaker 2: I want the right case, the right colour, the right height,
[59:42] Speaker 2: how it feels when I roll it, all of those
[59:44] Speaker 2: things that I never had the option. So the capacity
[59:47] Speaker 2: and the agency that that suitcase gives me is what
[59:50] Speaker 2: these backpacks give to the children that receive them now.
[59:53] Speaker 2: And that's what I love about the foundation is it
[59:56] Speaker 2: gives children agency and capacity to to build and support
[1:00:00] Speaker 2: them through life. And I think that's one of the
[1:00:03] Speaker 2: most empowering things you can do for someone in that situation.
[1:00:06] Speaker 1: What a great idea, because you can imagine how scared
[1:00:09] Speaker 1: and traumatic it is for children being removed from the
[1:00:13] Speaker 1: homes and having a little thing like that distracts them.
[1:00:16] Speaker 1: I've owned something, I've got something. What a great thing
[1:00:20] Speaker 1: to be promoting.
[1:00:22] Speaker 2: One of the fondest memories that I have is receiving...
[1:00:26] Speaker 2: some brand new bedding in our first foster home from
[1:00:29] Speaker 2: the foundation. Now, we left home, we didn't have our
[1:00:33] Speaker 2: own doonas, all the rest of it. Just having that
[1:00:35] Speaker 2: doona and that doona cover, pillowcase that was ours, it
[1:00:40] Speaker 2: was from the foundation, some people that we trusted, and
[1:00:43] Speaker 2: it was ours to take with us wherever we went.
[1:00:45] Speaker 2: That's one of the best memories that I have of
[1:00:47] Speaker 2: foster care.
[1:00:48] Speaker 1: If people want to support the foundation, how can they
[1:00:51] Speaker 1: get in contact or reach out?
[1:00:54] Speaker 2: Uh, amf.org.au, um, is the best way. Uh, a buddy
[1:00:58] Speaker 2: bag costs $ 58, um, to, to generate, um, and to create.
[1:01:03] Speaker 2: So 58 bucks is not a, not a huge ask.
[1:01:06] Speaker 2: And I don't, I don't come on this podcast to
[1:01:08] Speaker 2: ask for a tangible dollar amount, but just to, just
[1:01:11] Speaker 2: to make it tangible for people so that they can
[1:01:13] Speaker 2: understand that the impact that a small amount can have, um,
[1:01:17] Speaker 2: you know, 60 bucks these days is, is probably what you,
[1:01:20] Speaker 2: you spend on milk and bread, you know, The cost
[1:01:23] Speaker 2: of living process.
[1:01:24] Speaker 1: The difference you can make a life in. That's right. Okay,
[1:01:28] Speaker 1: we'll find out a little bit about you. You've got
[1:01:31] Speaker 1: your obsession with travel bags. I don't want to say
[1:01:35] Speaker 1: this on the podcast. So do I. I love travel bags.
[1:01:42] Speaker 1: It's like a candy store for me walking past and
[1:01:45] Speaker 1: I see a– travel bags, go in there and I've
[1:01:48] Speaker 1: got the ones for travel bags for every type of
[1:01:52] Speaker 1: place I could be going.
[1:01:53] Speaker 2: 100%, mate. Yeah, you've got to have, you know, I mean,
[1:01:57] Speaker 2: and it's now just, it's one of those things I laugh,
[1:01:59] Speaker 2: I have a little chuckle in my head every time
[1:02:00] Speaker 2: I buy something, you know. But I just think, oh,
[1:02:04] Speaker 2: when's this going to end up on Marketplace to replace
[1:02:07] Speaker 2: the next one?
[1:02:08] Speaker 1: Well, I keep them. You can put the smaller ones
[1:02:11] Speaker 1: in the bigger ones and you can keep quite a
[1:02:13] Speaker 1: lot of travel bags.
[1:02:14] Speaker 2: Just a little tip.
[1:02:15] Speaker 1: But anyway, we go off track. I'm interested in the
[1:02:19] Speaker 1: children's book you were talking about too. What does Ella need?
[1:02:22] Speaker 1: What was the title of it?
[1:02:24] Speaker 2: What Ellie Needs Now is our children's book that Homicide
[1:02:29] Speaker 2: at Home University of Melbourne project team have developed and
[1:02:33] Speaker 2: released this year. So it talks through intimate partner homicide
[1:02:40] Speaker 2: and the impact from a child's perspective. And it gives
[1:02:43] Speaker 2: people the language to use with children. So it's in
[1:02:48] Speaker 2: a format and a language that children as young as
[1:02:51] Speaker 2: kind of five, six years can understand. And, you know,
[1:02:55] Speaker 2: when we were creating this book, one of the things
[1:02:58] Speaker 2: that I really wanted to do was empower someone and
[1:03:02] Speaker 2: give back to someone or give someone the opportunity to
[1:03:04] Speaker 2: explain to someone like Grant, who was six at the time,
[1:03:10] Speaker 2: what had happened and what had transpired and where to
[1:03:13] Speaker 2: from here, you know? And what it talks about is
[1:03:17] Speaker 2: the beauty of kind of that you're not alone. It
[1:03:20] Speaker 2: uses the narrative as rhino beetles because rhino beetles are
[1:03:24] Speaker 2: the strongest beetle. They can carry, I think it's 2,000
[1:03:28] Speaker 2: times their body weight. And so someone who's been through
[1:03:32] Speaker 2: intimate partner violence is carrying the weight of 2,000 of themselves, essentially.
[1:03:39] Speaker 2: So we wanted to recognize that aspect. But we wanted
[1:03:43] Speaker 2: to give people a tangible kind of resource that they
[1:03:45] Speaker 2: can rely on in times when someone's been through intimate
[1:03:48] Speaker 2: partner homicide or there's been an intimate partner homicide in
[1:03:51] Speaker 2: the home. And there's another book by the Beatle Collective
[1:03:55] Speaker 2: called Life After Intimate Partner Homicide that goes along with
[1:03:58] Speaker 2: that resource and explains the stories that fueled the development
[1:04:03] Speaker 2: of what Ellie needs now and how to use the resource.
[1:04:06] Speaker 2: So that's available for download at the National Library. Free
[1:04:11] Speaker 2: resource available. You can download that from the National Library.
[1:04:15] Speaker 1: Is there any other stuff from the research you're doing
[1:04:19] Speaker 1: with this group that you find interesting or what are
[1:04:22] Speaker 1: some of the key points that you've discovered?
[1:04:25] Speaker 2: Huge amount, mate. I think one of the biggest thing
[1:04:29] Speaker 2: is the impact of connectedness and what it leads into. So,
[1:04:33] Speaker 2: you know, as I said, at 35, I met my
[1:04:36] Speaker 2: first other person, other human being who'd been through intimate
[1:04:41] Speaker 2: partner homicide as a child. And for me, that was
[1:04:46] Speaker 2: like light bulb moments. Like, you do this? Wait, I
[1:04:50] Speaker 2: do that too. To be able to have those kind
[1:04:54] Speaker 2: of conversations means so much to someone who's spent a
[1:04:58] Speaker 2: life kind of analysing their life and wondering why it
[1:05:02] Speaker 2: is they do these certain things and these behaviours. So
[1:05:04] Speaker 2: the connectedness, the development of resources for children, I mean,
[1:05:08] Speaker 2: as we said before, domestic violence is a national problem.
[1:05:12] Speaker 2: It's a national issue that we need to address. And
[1:05:16] Speaker 2: so we're hoping that this research will just provide some
[1:05:19] Speaker 2: insight for lawmakers and to influence government and policy around
[1:05:24] Speaker 2: infant partner homicide and some of the domestic violence laws
[1:05:27] Speaker 2: and so forth that are coming. But I think most
[1:05:30] Speaker 2: of all, it's strengthening community resources for people who experience
[1:05:37] Speaker 2: domestic and family violence. So, you know, bringing in awareness
[1:05:42] Speaker 2: to it, having really vulnerable conversations like this and having
[1:05:46] Speaker 2: open and honest conversations and sharing our research in a
[1:05:49] Speaker 2: way that give people the opportunity to have those conversations.
[1:05:53] Speaker 2: So what is trauma-informed and what does that mean for
[1:05:58] Speaker 2: someone who's experienced intimate partner violence or intimate partner homicide,
[1:06:01] Speaker 2: you know? Because all these words kind of float around
[1:06:05] Speaker 2: and and they don't have a great deal of meaning
[1:06:07] Speaker 2: unless you've got the knowledge or know-how of how to
[1:06:10] Speaker 2: use them so if one of the one of the
[1:06:13] Speaker 2: great articles uh that we published in in the age
[1:06:16] Speaker 2: actually i was published in the age um written by
[1:06:19] Speaker 2: a brilliant uh journalist called cassandra morgan was uh you
[1:06:24] Speaker 2: can't ask that yeah because uh you know a little
[1:06:27] Speaker 2: bit of a play on the sbs show that's uh
[1:06:29] Speaker 2: you can't you can't ask that but because we want
[1:06:32] Speaker 2: you to ask, you know, that curiosity lens opens up
[1:06:36] Speaker 2: kind of connectedness. And it's really important for us to
[1:06:41] Speaker 2: kind of drive that message home. So a lot of
[1:06:44] Speaker 2: work to come. It's often painful. And it's often really
[1:06:50] Speaker 2: hard to get to the kind of nuances and the
[1:06:55] Speaker 2: crux of all the things that are happening. And there's
[1:06:58] Speaker 2: a whole lot of emotion involved as well, right? Because
[1:07:00] Speaker 2: we're dealing with people who have experienced domestic violence. Plus,
[1:07:04] Speaker 2: you're carrying it yourself. So then to make that into
[1:07:08] Speaker 2: a tangible impact for other people is a whole other layer.
[1:07:12] Speaker 2: And it takes a whole lot of work. So, you know,
[1:07:15] Speaker 2: that's really important work that we're doing. And I'm so
[1:07:20] Speaker 2: privileged to be a part of that work.
[1:07:22] Speaker 1: Well, yeah, full credit to you. What do you think
[1:07:26] Speaker 1: your mum, looking at the man you've become now, and
[1:07:29] Speaker 1: Grant would be looking at you, what would she think
[1:07:33] Speaker 1: of what you've made of your life?
[1:07:38] Speaker 2: Look, I don't even know how to answer that question,
[1:07:41] Speaker 2: to be honest. There are some days I kind of think, geez,
[1:07:45] Speaker 2: I hope she's not looking now.
[1:07:48] Speaker 1: We all do. We all do stupid shit.
[1:07:50] Speaker 2: That's right.
[1:07:51] Speaker 1: Yeah.
[1:07:52] Speaker 2: But I do think mum would be very proud that
[1:07:56] Speaker 2: she hasn't been forgotten and that she lives on within
[1:07:58] Speaker 2: both Grant and I every single day. I think she'd
[1:08:03] Speaker 2: be quietly surprised, to be honest, that we have turned
[1:08:07] Speaker 2: into the flourishing human beings that she could have only
[1:08:13] Speaker 2: aspired us to be as children. But I would like
[1:08:19] Speaker 2: to say, She would be very surprised at that, but
[1:08:23] Speaker 2: she shouldn't be because of the person that she was.
[1:08:26] Speaker 2: And I think that's what's underlined or the underlying kind
[1:08:31] Speaker 2: of factors of this is that she lives on in
[1:08:34] Speaker 2: us and that's what is giving us all this strength
[1:08:37] Speaker 2: and capacity is her being.
[1:08:40] Speaker 1: Most definitely. I'd suggest she'd be extremely proud. I think
[1:08:45] Speaker 1: it shows that She's done her role as a parent
[1:08:48] Speaker 1: in the short time that she had, because I think
[1:08:50] Speaker 1: the most important role a parent can do is set
[1:08:52] Speaker 1: their children up to live a good, productive life and
[1:08:56] Speaker 1: point them in the right direction. And your mum's done that.
[1:09:00] Speaker 2: That.
[1:09:00] Speaker 1: And you speaking about it is a testament to the
[1:09:04] Speaker 1: way she raised you and the person you've become.
[1:09:06] Speaker 2: Yeah, I think one of the things that always comes
[1:09:10] Speaker 2: up around Mother's Day for me, always a challenging time, obviously,
[1:09:14] Speaker 2: but one of the things that I'm reminded on Mother's
[1:09:17] Speaker 2: Day is that I had 15 years... of someone who
[1:09:20] Speaker 2: genuinely loved me and cared for me. Yeah. Some children
[1:09:24] Speaker 2: are not as lucky as that, you know? Um, and
[1:09:27] Speaker 2: I'm blessed that I had a mum for 15 years
[1:09:30] Speaker 2: who gave everything, um, ultimately a life for us. So, yeah.
[1:09:35] Speaker 1: Well, look, we'll wrap it up here, but thank you
[1:09:38] Speaker 1: so much for telling your story. You've, yeah. Inspirational is
[1:09:42] Speaker 1: a word that, uh, yeah, should be used when we're
[1:09:44] Speaker 1: talking about, uh, the way that you've told your story
[1:09:47] Speaker 1: and what you've done with your life. And I hope
[1:09:49] Speaker 1: you can accept that without sort of patting it away.
[1:09:52] Speaker 1: It's quite amazing. You should be very proud of what
[1:09:56] Speaker 1: you've done and how you've done it. It just sort
[1:09:58] Speaker 1: of blows me away. And I mean that with all sincerity.
[1:10:02] Speaker 2: Thanks, Gary. I actually really enjoyed our chat today. So
[1:10:05] Speaker 2: it's been a lovely conversation. I really appreciate you inviting
[1:10:09] Speaker 2: me on.
[1:10:09] Speaker 1: Yeah. Well, you keep up the good work and let's
[1:10:12] Speaker 1: stay in touch.
[1:10:13] Speaker 2: Thanks, Gary. Appreciate it.
[1:10:14] Speaker 1: Cheers.
[1:10:14] Speaker 2: Cheers. Thank you.

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