The fast money & dark nights that led to prison: Natascha Consigli Pt. 1

Raised nomadically across India, France, Italy and Spain, Natascha Consigli's childhood ended abruptly at age 10, when her mother was killed in a head-on collision with a truck. What followed was a life lived at the extremes — from air hostess to stripper to prison for her involvement in a multi million dollar drug operation. This is a raw, unflinching account of addiction, survival, and the long road to accountability. Natascha talks about quitting ice overnight, meeting her drug-dealing partner in rehab, why bikie clubhouses felt like the safest place to work as a stripper, and how prison forced her to confront her own privilege. In this episode: Losing her mum at 10 and raised across the world — how childhood shaped her choices From air hostess to stripping — money, power and danger in the clubs Ice addiction, rehab and the relationship that led to drug dealing Prison life, shame, privilege and taking full responsibility Redemption, advocacy and rebuilding after release See omnystudio.com/listener https://omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

• 0:01Speaker 00

  The public has had a long-held fascination with detectives. Detectives see a side of life the average person is never exposed to. I spent 34 years as a cop. For 25 of those years, I was catching killers. That's what I did for a living. I was a homicide detective. I'm no longer just interviewing bad guys. Instead, I'm taking the public into the world in which I operated. The guests I talk to each week have amazing stories from all sides of the law. The interviews are raw and honest, just like the people I talk to. Some of the content and language might be confronting. That's because no one who comes into contact with crime is left unchanged. Join me now as I take you into this world.

• 0:46Speaker 00

  Natasha Conceali has lived more life than most people could imagine. She's been a stripper, lingerie model, air hostess, convicted drug dealer, and eventually found herself in prison. It's been a wild ride, built on tragedy early in her life. She partied hard, made some mistakes that had big consequences. In this episode, she speaks with me about the highs and lows of her life, her regrets, and how she's turned her life around and is now giving back to society. There is a cautionary tale in the story that is worth listening to. Natasha Conceali, welcome to I Catch Killers.

• 1:25Speaker 01

  Thanks, Gary. Great to be here.

• 1:26Speaker 00

  I got speaking to you yesterday and reading some of the stuff that's online. You're in a good space now. Like, you feel like you're... I get the sense you've come like the full circle and you've found who you are now. A long road, but you've got there.

• 1:39Speaker 01

  Yeah, I definitely am. I've come home to myself. And I've spoken about it before. I always lacked a sense of belonging, even though it was always there. But I just didn't know what that meant and how that felt. And now I belong within myself and it's a beautiful space to be. I love the person I am today and I love how she shows up in the world. I don't berate myself for my past mistakes. I give myself some grace and I really love all those bits as well along the way, even though some of them, you know, you look back and you go, I don't really like what she did or the choices she made, but I still embrace her as well because she's part of me.

• 2:20Speaker 00

  Now, I've had a lot of people sit opposite here in the studio and talk about their life and accepting who you are. And yeah, we talk about forgiveness, but forgiving yourself is a big, big thing, isn't it?

• 2:33Speaker 01

  Absolutely. I think we are our own worst critic, all of us within ourselves, right? People judge us regardless. We can't do much about what other people think. But how we view ourselves is what is so important and it changes the way that you view the world. If you have some kindness towards yourself and some gratitude for the things that you do have, you know, you start to view the world in a different light and then you start interacting with it in a different way.

• 3:00Speaker 00

  Another thing, when I was talking to you the other day, you said when you went to jail, you realised how privileged you were.

• 3:06Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 3:07Speaker 00

  Which is like, yeah, what did jail mean to you? And that's not the answer I was expecting. But talk us through that, what you meant by that.

• 3:15Speaker 01

  I was almost embarrassed for the privileges and the choices that I'd had throughout my life. I've always had choice. I've had access to education, I've had access to travel, I've had access to people that love me and care for me from when I was a child all through my adulthood throughout my life. And the women that I met who were incarcerated, and this is the majority of them, were lacking either all of those things or even just one of them. There had never been opportunity, there had not been a loving family. Education was not something that was offered. If your home isn't safe, the last thing that you're going to do is turn up at school

• 3:58Speaker 01

  and get the things that you need to do to turn it around. And I just, I always thought that everybody had choice, even before I went to prison and I went to some pretty crazy places with some pretty crazy people and saw some things. But I never realised the disadvantage that some of us live in. And I always believed that even they had choices. But when it compounds and you have no other people around you, only the ones that are all doing that, living that life, that same system, how do you get out of it?

• 4:36Speaker 00

  And when it's opened my eyes up since I left the police and seeing some of the circumstances that people have grown up in and... Who are we to judge? Like, everyone's got their own story. Everyone's got the things that have impacted on their life. But it was interesting that your experience in prison and the thing that, yeah, one of the big takeaways was that how privileged you are and, you know, it shows a degree of empathy, which I think is a good thing, so...

• 5:04Speaker 01

  It is. We've got to have empathy and even if we don't understand, right? And we may not agree, but if we have empathy for each other, because at the end of the day, we're all human. And we all should have opportunity. And we should all have access to those simple things that I've just said, to opportunities to choose, to change, to a safe home to grow up in, to education, to employment. They're not privileges. I think every human being deserves access to that. And as much as maybe, you know, some people that have never experienced that there is a whole nother side and it is in our country. Look, I spent a lot of time in India as a child

• 5:49Speaker 01

  and I knew what poverty meant and no access. I understood that, but that was explained to me that it was a third world country and they were very poor. I didn't see Australia as being a third world country and I still don't.

• 6:02Speaker 00

  No, well, Australia doesn't see themselves as a third world country.

• 6:05Speaker 01

  But we have... We have the same poverty. We have homeless people everywhere. And people are so... This is my opinion, right? I'm not saying that it is right, but this is what I've learnt throughout my journey. We are taught that we have access and we have, and everybody does. So it's easy for us to sit here and go, oh, well, they did something and that's why they ended up there. It's their own fault. They could have chosen differently.

• 6:34Speaker 00

  We have got a lot to talk about. I'm going to talk about your upbringing because I think that's very interesting in what happened there. How you found yourself working as a lingerie model and stripper. We've all got stories to tell.

• 6:47Speaker 01

  It was a really fun time, Gary. It was wild. I wouldn't change that for the world.

• 6:52Speaker 00

  I would describe, and I think, you know, a wild life that you've had. But it's always an interest because that's what I wanted to start. How you are now, like, it's been a journey to get to this zen-like state that you're in now and happy with the world. Your drug use, you started off as rave parties and recreational drug use, then it becomes an addiction. And then you ended up dealing drugs and doing time in prison. Okay, this is a cycle, but there is a light at the end of the tunnel that we'll talk about. Since then and the experience leading up to jail and, you know, you're taking stock with your life, you've managed to turn your life around.

• 7:37Speaker 00

  You were very much focusing on advocacy and helping people and contributing back to society. So that's just summing up your life very quickly.

• 7:47Speaker 01

  That was a great sum up. I love it.

• 7:48Speaker 00

  Okay, well, now we'll see if it follows that script. Talk about your childhood because I think, spoiler alert, like travelling around with your hippie mum in India from the age of five to 10, I think is a pretty interesting start.

• 8:06Speaker 01

  Yeah, it was pretty wild. I think even looking back to that earlier ages in Adelaide, my parents had a beautiful home, I was close to my grandparents. So I had a really loving environment that I grew up in. I had a spirit, my mum's friends talk about it these days. And they just go, you were always defiant and you were really wild. And it was, you had this real kind of your way or no way from a really young age. So I'd like to say that my environment created me, but it didn't.

• 8:36Speaker 00

  You were going to find trouble somehow.

• 8:39Speaker 01

  I definitely was regardless of how my life was going. And I guess, you know, experiencing India at a really young age with my mum was, it was incredibly eye-opening. It was beautiful, it was scary. And it was, you know, we were surrounded by lots of artistic people. We went to Goa on stage.

• 9:03Speaker 00

  You were doing, or mum was on the full hippie trip around that time? And Goa was recognised for that?

• 9:11Speaker 01

  Yes, it was. And, you know, mum's friends would wear big shells on their head and everybody had things they were selling at the market there in Juneau. And it was, you know, the kids would just run wild. And parents would, you know, party all night and the kids would be at one person's place. And you kind of were just really free.

• 9:29Speaker 00

  A lot of freedom, yeah.

• 9:30Speaker 01

  A lot of freedom. And then I was lucky enough that my father was in Europe, so we'd go and visit him. They were no longer together, but we would go and visit him. And mum would just work in a jewellery studio somewhere, make some jewellery. We'd stay with dad wherever he was living and I'd just go to school wherever we were. So I kind of visited school in France, Italy, Germany, Spain, all different places throughout those years.

• 9:57Speaker 00

  Well, that has to shape you. You'd have to have a, be self-sufficient in looking after yourself, meeting new people, different languages, a whole range of things that would have kicked in.

• 10:08Speaker 01

  And I did it really well. And I think what I learnt there was to assimilate really well, which then later on in life became a little bit, I got lost in that. Rather than finding myself or being within how comfortable who I was, I would just assimilate to whatever environment that I was choosing. And I'm... Later on, when drugs and and mental health were really bad.

• 10:35Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 10:35Speaker 01

  That was kind of what was, I was really lost and I didn't have that belonging.

• 10:39Speaker 00

  Cause you you you came back, it was the teenage years, Newtown and going to the school Newtown. So that would have been the experience too. So going from Goa, travelling the world.

• 10:50Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 10:50Speaker 00

  Um, and then going there. But before we do, there was a signi-, before we talk about that, there was a significant thing. And and you you spoke spoke about it. I'm not sure if you're happy to talk about it.

• 11:01Speaker 01

  Absolutely, I am.

• 11:01Speaker 00

  Your mum died at the age of, when you were ten years old, in an accident in India, I believe.

• 11:07Speaker 01

  We were in Goa and we were there for the season and we were planning to go to Ibiza next and Bali and do the whole hippie trail. Um, and I was really sick that day and we had a lady who rented us the house that we were living in. And she stayed with me. Mum took longer than normal and I I remember this day like it was yesterday. I will never forget. Uh, and I was so unwell, I had fever and that kind of stuff, but I wouldn't go back to bed and I kept standing in the doorway and I was fretting.

• 11:36Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 11:36Speaker 01

  And then I think it was just before sunset that um two foreigners came walking up the beach. And one of them had mum's handbag and he was wearing white and he had blood all over his clothes. Mum had um been hit by a truck coming around a corner, blind corner, full frontal, no helmet on on a motorbike. So um she didn't die instantly, uh but would have had severe brain damage if she had have survived. Um, obviously, I, we had a big network of people that I could then be looked after. While the police, Indian police, reached out to my grandparents, cause they couldn't find dad.

• 12:15Speaker 01

  My grandparents then reached out to my father and he, um, cause they were all like, we'll take her if you can't. Cause they knew that he'd only just been settling back into Switzerland.

• 12:25Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 12:26Speaker 01

  Um, but he came and I think mum died the day before he got to India. And he had to tell his ten year old daughter, sorry, I get emotional around this, that her mum had died, so. And I remember he, to this day, uh, we've got a really great relationship, me and my dad, to this day, he goes, you know, Natasha, I was devastated. You were the one that hugged me and said, it's gonna be okay, dad, we can do this.

• 12:51Speaker 00

  Wow.

• 12:52Speaker 01

  As a little ten year old girl, so.

• 12:54Speaker 00

  Insight and to be able to step up in in circumstances like that. Look, I I'm I'm sorry that happened, that has to have an impact on you. At at the age of ten, like, there's no time as a child that that's good where someone close to you dies. But to lose your mum at ten and I I would imagine the lifestyle you were living, you would be, you would have been inseparable.

• 13:13Speaker 01

  Yes, we were.

• 13:14Speaker 00

  Yeah, so that that had to have a uh a significant impact on you. You spent time with your dad and and different uh different countries and then you came back over here. Who were you living with over here when you went to school at Newtown?

• 13:28Speaker 01

  Alright, so my mum's best friend, um, who had a daughter a similar age to me. Um, they had met in Adelaide and become really close. And they always promised each other that they would look after us girls if something ever happened to the other. Um, and Cory had kept that promise and continued to stay in touch with us in Switzerland. And then when I said to dad, I wanna go see my grandparents and Cory and Morgana and all that. So I stayed with them and they said, why don't you do a bigger trip and freshen your English and come back and do a bit of school here and all that. So I was, I think I was like fifteen, sixteen.

• 14:04Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 14:04Speaker 01

  And I was angry, right, by this stage, cause at that little girl that hugged her dad and said, everything's gonna be okay. Then went, okay, I've got to make everything okay.

• 14:15Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 14:16Speaker 01

  Right, so she then, there was no grieving, there was no, I'm, uh, everything was always, I'm fine. And I know that they encouraged me to see a child psychologist and all of that in Switzerland. But I just said, I'm fine, I don't need your help. And I I literally shut everyone down. And then my teens hit and we all know that they're really difficult for everybody, for girls and boys. Um, you are changing into something different and I couldn't manage my own emotions. I was mad.

• 14:49Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 14:50Speaker 01

  I was really angry with the world and so dad thought it might be really good for me to go home and have some time. I actually had a massive falling out with my grandparents while I was here at that age.

• 15:00Speaker 00

  That's rebellious.

• 15:01Speaker 01

  Yeah, cause I just was like, I'm going out, I'm partying. I was going to clubs and they had moved from Adelaide to the Gold Coast and I was out clubbing at fifteen.

• 15:11Speaker 01

  I looked like I was twenty, but you know, um.

• 15:14Speaker 00

  What could possibly go wrong?

• 15:16Speaker 01

  Oh, what could go wrong?

• 15:17Speaker 00

  What would your grandparents know, telling you that you're doing that?

• 15:20Speaker 01

  No, they were just trying to look out for me and and to make better choices, but I didn't wanna hear that at this stage. And I I think I was mad at them too, because they had, they had been there, they'd always gone, you know, we'd spoke on the phone and they've written me cards. But I was mad at everybody because everyone had kind of left me, cause I went to Switzerland with dad, but that, obviously that.

• 15:41Speaker 00

  Oh, your your anger could have been directed in all sorts of things and you probably didn't even know what the anger was about, but you're just angry. And I understand what you're saying, you've been the strong one, but not looking looking after yourself and, you know, supporting your dad at ten. So you had to grow up really, really quickly at that age, when you're you're gonna be the uh the strong person. So, yeah, it's all, you know, if we're marking it out, there, you can see, okay, something could go wrong here.

• 16:08Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 16:08Speaker 00

  You started to get into rave parties and the.

• 16:13Speaker 01

  That's when I got back to Switzerland.

• 16:14Speaker 00

  Right, yeah.

• 16:15Speaker 01

  So I kind of floated around, lost for a bit. I um started an apprenticeship as a tailor, but I didn't like sitting in a room sewing every day. So I said, dad, I don't really wanna do this, cause he's, cause I said to him when I got back, I said, I don't wanna live in Switzerland, I wanna go back to Australia.

• 16:31Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 16:31Speaker 01

  And his one condition was, cause I, like, with my stepmom and there'd been all these different troubles and I won't go into it. But at the end of the day, dad always supported me.

• 16:40Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 16:40Speaker 01

  But he had just certain things that he just went, I may not agree with what you're doing or I don't really like it. But this is the one condition I really will expect from you. You finished school, you didn't like it. I want you to get some kind of trade, something, an apprenticeship or something. So that was kind of what I was working towards. I had no idea what I wanted to do. I was under the impression that you had to choose a career and then do that for the rest of your life.

• 17:05Speaker 00

  Well, that was a, that was a time, wasn't it?

• 17:08Speaker 01

  Yeah, the case, like, we're talking late eighties, early nineties, around that time. Um, so I tried a lot of different things and then I kind of fell into catering with a group of girls. And um they'd do these great events and I loved the women that I was working with. And then I kind of went, I'm really good at this, I'm really organised and that kind of stuff. So I ended up doing an apprenticeship in a hotel.

• 17:34Speaker 00

  Hosp- hospitality.

• 17:35Speaker 01

  Hospitality, housekeeping side of things. And it's really well paid and it's really um great job in in Switzerland. And so that was two years. And in the meantime, I was going out, I was raving, I met people who owned clubs in Zurich. And just fell into that scene and I loved the wildness of it. I loved the creativity of of DJs and how they made music. And my boyfriend at the time was a DJ and he'd teach me a little bit and I was like, oh, maybe I'll be a DJ.

• 18:02Speaker 00

  Oh, you would have been rocking at that stage, wouldn't you?

• 18:05Speaker 01

  And and it was the days of, you know, they'd just started, so the party wasn't just on Saturday night. You had the after hour that started at six AM on Sunday and that was the club that my friends owned. So I kind of worked there as well on the weekends, partied all weekend and it was, if I think back now, right. And this is how my introduction to drugs was, you read a book about what the effects were gonna be, you informed yourself. And you took clean drugs where you knew where they came from.

• 18:34Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 18:35Speaker 01

  With a bunch of safe people. That's how I was introduced to drug taking. And it was something that you did recreationally, it's not something that you then relied on.

• 18:43Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 18:43Speaker 01

  So that was my whole impression around. I always thought that everybody that was taking drugs would do it safely, right?

• 18:49Speaker 00

  Environment and, yeah, we we talk drugs and there's a cautionary tale in this, how how people can fall into it. It doesn't look like it's a the dirty drug lab, it's, yeah, it's out with the cool people. You feel like you found the meaning of life here. This is, what are these straighties doing? Look what I've found. They have no idea how good life is. So you you can fall into that so so easily.

• 19:13Speaker 01

  And also my whole upbringing, right, Goa, hippies, pot, drugs, parties for days, it was all normal. It was never, I was never told, oh, drugs are bad.

• 19:23Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 19:23Speaker 01

  I was told, maybe be really smart in how you choose to take drugs and who you take them with and where they come from.

• 19:29Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 19:30Speaker 01

  Right, so those were maybe the cautionary tales that I was told around that stuff. And I was allowed to make my own decisions, whether people, like my dad, didn't agree with a lot of decisions that I made in life. But he said, look, Tash, I'll always be here for you. So I had that safe person, that even if I had of, you know, I'm gonna say. If I committed murder, I could have gone home and gone, dad, help me, you know, he wouldn't have turned me away.

• 19:56Speaker 00

  I I I think from a parenting point of view, that's probably the best you can do with that, because if he said, no, don't do that, that that would have been a falling out and, uh.

• 20:03Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 20:04Speaker 00

  Yeah, uh, would have lost the connection, so.

• 20:06Speaker 01

  Cause I would have done it anyway, which I did.

• 20:10Speaker 01

  I did everything that people told me maybe not to do.

• 20:13Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 20:13Speaker 01

  I was like, oh, just go and try that, that looks really bad and interesting, so, yeah.

• 20:17Speaker 00

  Yeah, so if if he took a harder line, you probably would have gone harder yourself and, okay, take it to the extreme. So that was, that was overseas, the rave party and that. When did you come back over here?

• 20:30Speaker 01

  So I finished my apprenticeship in nineteen ninety six. And I was like, okay, I'm moving back to Australia. See you later. Dumped my poor boyfriend who was, I think he thought we were gonna get married and raise a family, which was never.

• 20:44Speaker 00

  Do you feel bad about that now?

• 20:46Speaker 01

  Maybe just about how it happened. But not really, because he was actually a really nice guy.

• 20:52Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah.

• 20:52Speaker 01

  But I wasn't the best girlfriend in the world. I was just wild. So that was kind of a blessing in disguise for him.

• 20:59Speaker 00

  He dodged a bullet there.

• 21:00Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think he did. And then I was like, okay, well, I wanna travel first. So me and my girlfriend went and did a tour of Indonesia on my way over. Um, I was so, not even, I wouldn't call it hungover. I just hadn't slept for about three months before I left, right? So I was.

• 21:19Speaker 00

  From the rave scene.

• 21:20Speaker 01

  Yeah, from partying, because I knew I was leaving, so I was just, let's go, right? And I got to Indonesia and I was just like, meow. And then I got to Australia and life was really quiet. Because obviously I didn't know that many people. I had to re-establish where I was gonna be, where I fit in. My, um, Morgana, who I call my sister, Cory's daughter. I moved in with her and her partner in Alexandria and we, um, they were, you know, into the music scene. They both played in bands and so I'd go along to all of that, but it wasn't really my, my scene.

• 21:54Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 21:54Speaker 01

  Anyway, so one of the boys I met there, his sister was in Bad Girls Australia. It was one of those touring nationalist striptease shows. And he goes, have you thought about doing some lingerie waitress? He'd be amazing. I go, what the hell is lingerie waitressing, right? I'm like, what? I'm from Switzerland. I don't know what this is. And he goes, oh, you just put your knickers on and go walk around a pub and serve some beers.

• 22:15Speaker 00

  But very Australian tradition.

• 22:17Speaker 01

  And I'm like, yes, I found my calling. It was the best. I made more tips in one day in those pubs than I had a whole week's wage, right? And it was the nineties. It was pumping. It was everywhere.

• 22:32Speaker 00

  With the, the Bad Girls, were they all based in Sydney or were you touring or?

• 22:36Speaker 01

  No, I didn't join the Bad Girls. That was his sister. So that's why he had connections to the agencies. Yeah. So, um, that was all in Sydney at this point. And then I saw my first striptease show where, um, I'm still friends with this girl. And she just had legs up to here, right? And had this amazing costume on. The music was great. The show, the dancing was amazing. And I just went, oh my God, that's what I wanna do. So I just fell in love with it. And then I met, uh, the lady who ran Fever Productions, Jan, and she taught me how to dance. So, um, I had done, done dancing before when I was younger, but taught me the art, the art of striptease, right?

• 23:18Speaker 01

  And so then I toured with her quite all around Australia and just loved the freedom of it all. Um, the girls, the, um, friendships that I built, um.

• 23:30Speaker 00

  So just on, you, you were comfortable with it and now sort of, have I, you know, compromised myself or is there something that, that, yeah, this wasn't what I expected I'd be doing in life. But when you're talking about it, I see the smile on your face and you think, well, it was a good time.

• 23:45Speaker 01

  It was a really good time. I found myself a little bit in there. Um, it gave me some confidence back around my body and who I was as a woman. Uh, it also allowed me to have really, like, I, I always had really clear boundaries. But, you know, there was no touching involved. And there was, I'm not saying there's anything wrong with being a sex worker, but that wasn't where this was ever gonna go. So there was really clear, you know, rules around it. I would either have a driver with me or to at private parties or no one really effed with me anyway. I just kind of have.

• 24:20Speaker 00

  You got that. Don't, don't fuck with me.

• 24:22Speaker 01

  Yes, pretty much.

• 24:23Speaker 00

  Attitude. And I suppose the worldly upbringing that you had, you would know how to manage yourself around, uh, situations. With it did, um, uh, uh, cause I've, I've spoken to, uh, a, a number of people. I know girls that have, have worked in the industry and, yeah. The public perception is, but it's demeaning, it's, it's this and that. But then I've had girls say, it's quite empowering.

• 24:46Speaker 01

  It's extremely empowering. And it's, it's about accepting the fact that, um, you know, and I, I don't wanna sound sexist, in a way.

• 24:58Speaker 00

  Give it, give it to the, give it to the blokes.

• 25:00Speaker 01

  Give it to the blokes. I'm sorry, but if you're gonna pull out money to look at me taking my clothes off, I'm gonna take that money, right? That's, that's on you.

• 25:10Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 25:10Speaker 01

  And, and, you know, you know the rules. So if that's what, what makes you happy, that's great.

• 25:16Speaker 00

  I, I get it. Look, I, I think the blokes should be criticised and they'll probably go, I don't care. It's, yeah.

• 25:22Speaker 01

  And that's okay too.

• 25:23Speaker 00

  But, yeah, I, cause I, I think it's interesting discussing it with people that have just got a little bit of different perspective on it. It's not from the straights one eighty view of, no, this, this is wrong. It's morally wrong.

• 25:34Speaker 01

  Do you know what? To some people, it might be wrong. And that's okay. You're allowed to have that opinion. But to me, it gave me freedom. I earned a lot of money doing that.

• 25:43Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 25:43Speaker 01

  And I travelled regularly. It gave me the possibility to buy whatever I wanted to, to, to go to the place, to go back and see my dad in Switzerland, to have the freedom to leave the bad relationships that I chose. Because, you know, I, I wasn't, doing that job and having a relationship doesn't work either. Who wants their girlfriend to be oogled, uh, looked at every day by, uh, the men when they're naked, right? Fair enough, even if there is nothing else happening. I don't think that's fair either to expect that from somebody. But I choose really damaged relationships anyway. So if I didn't have that money that I earned from dancing, I would have been stuck there.

• 26:24Speaker 00

  Okay. So, uh, so empowered in that it's your choice. No one is forcing you to do it. And it gives you the independence to make life, life choices and, and live life on, on your terms. I suppose that, that's the way of putting it. So you didn't, uh, and we talked, just touched on it briefly. You didn't find yourself in any, um, yeah, difficult situations, like the occupational health and safety is not big in, in, in that environment.

• 26:49Speaker 01

  I did slip over on stage a couple of times.

• 26:53Speaker 01

  Maybe was a bit drunk or, yeah, a bit high, who knows? But yeah, a bit wet on the floor when you've been doing like a bath show or something. So yeah, stuff like that happened. But I never, I know that there were some women that found themselves in some really horrible situations. And I'm not saying that it was a safe profession at all. But like I said, for me, in general in life, I had thought about consequences, not until they happened.

• 27:15Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 27:16Speaker 01

  So for me, it wasn't about that. And I always felt safe. And when I didn't, I'd leave.

• 27:20Speaker 00

  Right, right. Like, it's, I would imagine some of the gigs would be bikie clubhouses, that, that type of thing or end of year football, bucks nights, that.

• 27:29Speaker 01

  Do, actually the bikie clubhouses were the safest place to go.

• 27:33Speaker 00

  Yeah, that's interesting.

• 27:34Speaker 01

  Yes, because you were looked after, right? And you were, you were a, a, a house guest and you performed. And they made sure that, that all their patrons and whatever respected you and treated you well and didn't. And they always encouraged you to stay back and have a drink. And they would just, you know, you were just really looked after. I've gotta be really honest about it. Yeah.

• 27:52Speaker 00

  Okay. No, that's again, an interesting, interesting take on it. And I, I, I understand what you're saying one, one hundred percent. Because they, if someone misbehaved, they, they'd get dropped on the spot.

• 28:03Speaker 01

  And this is my experience, right? I can't speak for anybody else's experiences. And I know some of them, that my girlfriends had total, totally different experiences. And some of them, you know, were sexually assaulted at different places. I'm not saying by clubs. I'm saying just at, at shows and things happened to them that were really horrific. And I'm, you know, I, again, I'm, feel really blessed around my life that the choices that I made and some of the situations, probably something should have happened because it wasn't safe that I put myself in. But it didn't. So I'm really, really, yeah, I look back and go, I'm grateful.

• 28:40Speaker 00

  Well, it's, yeah, different environments. And when you mix alcohol and, and, yeah, a, a group of idiot blokes together. I would imagine the suburban bucks parties would be a, a greater risk or even, yeah, the entitled, uh, accountants from the big end of the city with, uh, throwing, throwing money around. I, I would imagine that, uh, causes problems.

• 28:58Speaker 01

  And, you know, when I sit here now and I look at that girl and the profit I, I got from

• 29:05Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 29:05Speaker 01

  that kind of space and some of the behaviours that were presented by males there.

• 29:11Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 29:12Speaker 01

  I'd find them unacceptable today in any way, shape or form. Some of the things that I found acceptable that were said to me from blokes or other girls or whatever it was, today that stuff matters to me.

• 29:25Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 29:25Speaker 01

  You know, so I think it's all about where you're at.

• 29:29Speaker 00

  Because you've changed or society's changed or a combination of both.

• 29:33Speaker 01

  Because I have changed. Because before.

• 29:37Speaker 01

  I was friends with men that bashed their girlfriends, right? I was friends with with men that, you know, probably spoke to me in a way that was inappropriate. But there was other parts of them that I loved.

• 29:51Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 29:51Speaker 01

  Today I wouldn't accept that.

• 29:52Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 29:53Speaker 01

  And it was the same, and and today I also wouldn't accept to be in a relationship where someone would verbally or physically try and abuse me. That would be, you know, even before I got there, those red flags, I'd notice them. But back then, I guess things were a little bit different, but I don't think from a being safe and a woman's pers- perspective that it's ever been okay for men or women as well who execute that power that they have over somebody else.

• 30:24Speaker 00

  Well, you you you're talking in that line of work to the disrespect that could be thrown. And yeah, I I don't think anyone or anyone that I I respect would feel comfortable with regardless of the work.

• 30:36Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 30:37Speaker 00

  Yeah, you still need to treat people with with respect.

• 30:39Speaker 01

  Absolutely.

• 30:40Speaker 00

  And you're performing, you're doing this and that, but there is a line that should be, uh, should always be there. Society's changed a little bit too, too now. Like I, I, yeah, it was nothing to walk into a pub and the, you know, Thursday afternoon topless bar mates. And that, that, yeah, just a local, local hotel and that, that was the, uh, and you didn't bad an island.

• 31:00Speaker 01

  No, it was just normal and it was okay. And I guess, you know, um, I remember I kind of finished dan- finished up dancing around the time that mobile phones came in too.

• 31:13Speaker 00

  Yeah, that would have changed.

• 31:14Speaker 01

  So mobile phones changed everything. So next minute, before it was just cameras, right? So then they had to go and get developed and you'd end up in someone's bucks party photos. Who cares?

• 31:23Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 31:24Speaker 01

  But next minute, the girls were having to combat being all over social media.

• 31:28Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 31:29Speaker 01

  In in positions, you don't really, like, if you're doing a little twirl and then doing your legs spread, it's okay. But for having that forever on somebody's social media and then the comments that come from that, I think it changed everything. But it also, I think, the whole online, being able to do online striptease and all of that just changed and took that out of.

• 31:52Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 31:53Speaker 01

  And equality as well, I guess, in a way, like women don't wanna walk into a pub and see a girl walking around with her tits out.

• 31:59Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah.

• 32:00Speaker 01

  So that kind of, yeah, it's a bit of both.

• 32:02Speaker 00

  Okay, so I I hadn't even thought from the the mobile phones, but yeah, that would have changed it, uh, changed, changed it.

• 32:08Speaker 01

  I'm so glad that throughout all my teenage and twenties, there was no mobile phones.

• 32:14Speaker 00

  We'd all be stuffed, wouldn't we?

• 32:15Speaker 01

  Be absolutely stuffed. I would have gone to jail a lot earlier, I reckon.

• 32:21Speaker 00

  Um, okay, so how how long were you, uh, you stripping and, uh?

• 32:26Speaker 01

  I did about ten years.

• 32:27Speaker 00

  Yeah, okay. So that was, okay, so that was a a long career and you you made, uh, made money out of it?

• 32:33Speaker 01

  I did. I spent it all, don't get me wrong. Um, I've never really, back in the past, never really believed in tomorrow. Right? It was always today and that's it. And I think there was a part of me also that didn't really want tomorrow, like always that little girl that n- not that there was, I wanted to end my life or anything like that, but it was just that.

• 32:53Speaker 00

  Recklessness in in the way that you went about things.

• 32:56Speaker 01

  Yeah, absolutely. And, um, if it was wrong or somebody in society went, we don't like that, I'd go, oh, I like that.

• 33:05Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 33:05Speaker 01

  So it was that real, um, that rebel that continued to happen. And then I kinda just fell into, when you're living in that space, they're the people that you're around all the time. So you're not really exposed to other people. So that becomes normal, right? So.

• 33:21Speaker 00

  You you make a good point there because it's the environment that you're hanging out in. That's

• 33:25Speaker 01

  Absolutely.

• 33:25Speaker 00

  If if they're not judging you, well, these are my friends and so I did that. Well, no, I'm bats and eyelid.

• 33:30Speaker 01

  It didn't matter, right? Because everybody was kind of, all of us girls were in that industry and the ones that didn't, they didn't judge us. We would go out clubbing together, the red carpet got rolled out, you know, you were just, you were a bit of a superstar back then. And we were and we had, it it was great, you know?

• 33:47Speaker 00

  I I can, I can see, see the fun that you would, you would have had, uh, had been. When did, uh, drugs start to become a bigger part in in your life? When, did you ever get to the point with dependency on it? Like, and I know that can be a slow, slow, slow creep.

• 34:02Speaker 01

  Not until really much, much later in life. Throughout all of that, I think I always, um, so I've always had this thing that I do when things got hard, I'd run, right? So I'd just pack up and go somewhere else.

• 34:14Speaker 00

  That's a good one.

• 34:15Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. Go, oh, yeah, didn't like that or, oh, that was a bit. So I'd either go back to Switzerland or I'd move state, one or the other.

• 34:22Speaker 00

  Just on that, and I want to continue the the story, but where do you identify as Australian or are you, you look at the world as your, your home?

• 34:30Speaker 01

  Um, I'm a child of the world, but I, but I love Australians. I've always come back to Australia.

• 34:35Speaker 00

  You feel your roots are here in Australia.

• 34:37Speaker 01

  I mean, if we're going from a, um, like a passport point of view, I've got a Swiss and an Australian passport, so I'm half Swiss, half Australian, really.

• 34:45Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 34:45Speaker 01

  Um, but I feel like the world is is my home. I I don't see, we're all human beings on this planet. We may look a little bit different or live in a different area, but.

• 34:55Speaker 00

  Well, that's a good, uh, byproduct of your upbringing, I would suggest. It's a good, good attitude. Anyway.

• 35:01Speaker 01

  Took me a while to get there, though.

• 35:03Speaker 00

  You were talking about running or running away, so.

• 35:06Speaker 01

  Oh, yes. So things would get difficult and I'd just move. And I think when things got a little bit messy and I was maybe partying a bit too much.

• 35:15Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 35:16Speaker 01

  And then what happens when you party too much is things get out of, they're just not, reality's not right anymore, right? So things are out of context and you hang out with people that are either traumatised, partying too hard, n- not looking after themselves, all that kinda stuff, and things get a bit pear shaped. So I'd usually just pack up and I'd go, oh, I'm not doing well right now, or I'd go and see Cory and my, or my sister.

• 35:42Speaker 00

  They, they were your stable base.

• 35:43Speaker 01

  They were my stable base, or my grandparents. I'd go to Queensland and my mum's youngest brother, um, lived with my grandparents for a really long time. And he would, you know, he'd go, Tashi, you know?

• 35:56Speaker 00

  In the derailing.

• 35:57Speaker 01

  Pull it up.

• 35:57Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 35:58Speaker 01

  Or, are you okay? That was usually what would set me off. If somebody went, are you okay? And I'd go, if they're asking me, I'm probably not.

• 36:06Speaker 00

  That's very, that's very insightful.

• 36:08Speaker 01

  Oh, I, insight has never been a problem. It's been denial around, um, you know, looking outside of yourself and for what is wrong, the people, the drugs, the the environment, the, um, job you're doing, the whatever it is. And we like to do that, right? But the only, or the relationship that you don't have, or the bad relationships that you keep choosing. Um, and we look there for the solution to whatever is missing inside and that's just not where it is. And it's, it's almost like you, when you move so many times as I do and and have that many different environments, you wear different masks and you get so lost in all of them.

• 36:51Speaker 00

  There, there's, there's a freedom that if you do keep moving, like some people grow up in one area and that's their life. And like, they can't reinvent themselves because everyone knows who they are. But if you do move around a lot, you can reinvent yourself.

• 37:05Speaker 01

  Absolutely.

• 37:06Speaker 00

  Come in as a, a different, uh, different person.

• 37:08Speaker 01

  You can and you can assimilate to the people that you're hanging around.

• 37:11Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 37:11Speaker 01

  But you, when you run away, you go with you, right? So it only lasts for a short period of time. And I think with me.

• 37:19Speaker 00

  Show your real self.

• 37:20Speaker 01

  Yeah, or it's not even showing your real self. It's people get close. And that was always an issue for me. When people got too close, I'd run because I was fearful of losing them. Like, it makes no sense.

• 37:32Speaker 00

  Well, I, I'm not a psychologist, but I think losing your, your mother in the circumstances, you describe that sense of abandonment that might, uh, might play a part.

• 37:41Speaker 01

  Absolutely, it did.

• 37:42Speaker 00

  That, uh, I don't wanna love too much because I might lose it.

• 37:44Speaker 01

  Absolutely, it did. And I was really opinionated around things like that from a very young age. You go, well, I'm never gonna have children because what if something happens to me and they end up like me? Um, I'm never gonna love somebody completely or stay with them because what if they leave me, right? There was those, I taught myself that stuff. They didn't come from outside of me. And then I'd forgotten about it, but the girl that was trying to belong somewhere was always then acting when things got difficult

• 38:14Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 38:14Speaker 01

  from that space, from that fear. So, yeah.

• 38:18Speaker 00

  I'm, I'm out of here.

• 38:19Speaker 01

  Yeah, I'm out of here. And so my, my drug use would then stop, right? So I'd go wherever I went and wherever I was going, I'd stop for a while. I'd kind of, you know,

• 38:28Speaker 00

  Hmm.

• 38:29Speaker 01

  get my shit together and I'd find another job or do whatever it is that I was doing. Um, so no, drugs didn't become that massive, have that massive impact, not until much later.

• 38:41Speaker 00

  Okay, and if you were, uh, working as a stripper for ten years, drugs would have been readily available if you, if you needed it. So it wasn't sort of, you, you struggled, struggled to get it.

• 38:50Speaker 01

  And I always had them around me. It was the people that I chose to be around and it's not even consciously. It was almost like, this is, okay, they know what they're doing. That's where I'll be friends and, you know, so.

• 39:02Speaker 00

  I I see people with, uh, when I I talk to people who had real impact on their addiction to to drugs and all that. It appears to be at some point in time, you think, you got it in control, got it in control, I can step away. But then it dawns on you the realisation that it's, it's got me. I'm, I'm an addict. Did you get to that point?

• 39:24Speaker 01

  Not an addict. It was a choice to just take drugs and give up on everything else. It was. And I, and I, this is one of the times where I have to give myself a lot of grace and go, what were you thinking?

• 39:37Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 39:37Speaker 01

  Right? And I was in my forties when I did that. And I was mentally really unwell. And I, um, had ideas about why my life was so broken, was all outside of me. And I was taking no responsibility whatsoever. And so then I went, okay, well, I'm really good at taking drugs and I'm really good at selling drugs and doing all of that stuff that goes with it. So that's what I'm gonna do.

• 40:04Speaker 00

  When did you, you worked as an airline steward as well, when did that fit into?

• 40:09Speaker 01

  Okay, so um ten years dancing, ended up in Darwin.

• 40:13Speaker 00

  Yep.

• 40:14Speaker 01

  Had a little personal training business, bought a unit, had settled in up there, living a good life. Um and loved it up there.

• 40:22Speaker 00

  Darwin's a great place.

• 40:23Speaker 01

  It was so cool. It was, um, the first time I went to Darwin was nineteen ninety nine and it was just wild. And it just filled my little heart with so much joy. And I'm, I've still got lifelong friends that live there. Darwin was safe for me. I could be as crazy as I wanted to be.

• 40:41Speaker 00

  No one did notice in Darwin.

• 40:42Speaker 01

  No, but they'd also look after me. I knew everybody, the other clubs and all that, and the bounces and that hole and the Hell's Angels and all of that kind of stuff. So that town became my playground, which was in ways it just increased, uh, you know, in, um, increased my bad behaviour.

• 40:59Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 40:59Speaker 01

  But I then also turned my life around and went, okay, I'm gonna stop this. I'm gonna stop dancing, I'm gonna stop.

• 41:05Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 41:06Speaker 01

  Engaging in all of this and I'm gonna go and do something different. So I set up a personal training business. Um, I'd always like, I was, I've always trained all my life. So for me, um, that kind of worked really well. Uh, and then had bought a unit and settled in and then went, oh my God, I can't sustain my lifestyle with just this business and the unit and all that kind of stuff. So I went, I'm just gonna apply for Jetstar. So they moved up there. Uh, so I went through that application process, um, was successful. I had earlier on in life tried for Qantas.

• 41:41Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 41:42Speaker 01

  But I had no idea what I was doing and it wasn't successful. So it had always been something that I wanted to do.

• 41:46Speaker 00

  In the back of your mind.

• 41:47Speaker 01

  Yeah, love travelling. So I ended up, uh, cabin crew for twelve months, then cabin manager. And then things in Darwin, um, got really toxic for me with my ex and things were just messy. And I was being really self-destructive and it wasn't, I didn't like it and I could see the behaviour. So I was like, okay, what can I do? And a position on the Gold Coast with Jetstar came up, so I transferred.

• 42:13Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 42:13Speaker 01

  Um, applied for it, got the position as a cabin crew manager and, um, transferred. Moved in with my grandparents or my grandmother at this point, Pop had passed, and my uncle. And did really well for about twelve months and then moved in with an old dancing buddy.

• 42:31Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 42:31Speaker 01

  And things just spiraled. She had parties all the time, so I was just partying all the time.

• 42:36Speaker 00

  No, I, I shouldn't laugh, I'm just trying to process it. Okay, Darwin. Can imagine the, the lifestyle up there and the, it is the Wild West up there. I, I, I love it. It's just got a, a good vibe.

• 42:48Speaker 01

  It does.

• 42:48Speaker 00

  But I can imagine getting, getting out of control. You come down, you're working Jetstar, so you've got a regular, regular job. You're trying to settle down, move back with your grandmother. Like, if anyone's gonna keep you on track, it's your grandmother.

• 43:02Speaker 01

  Not at all.

• 43:04Speaker 00

  And then your, your, your friend turned up and, oh, I would have never seen that going bad again.

• 43:09Speaker 01

  No, not at all.

• 43:10Speaker 00

  With the men in your life, the bad boys, and I ask this of a lot of people who've been in your position and, and lived the lifestyle and the attraction to the bad boys. And I've had people sit here, not this similar background to, to yourself and go, it didn't work out. And I sit here going, oh, that's a surprise.

• 43:28Speaker 01

  Uh, well, for me, it's not a surprise, looking back. And, and even at the time, I didn't know what a relationship even was meant to look like. I had no, the, the only model that I had of it was my grandparents who were together all their life.

• 43:43Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 43:43Speaker 01

  And loved each other and, and were friends and, you know, had created a beautiful life together. But that didn't just happen through magic, right? But in my mind, it did. Like, I was, I was a fairy tale child. I had, I read books about fairy tales and, um, about, you know, love stories and all that kind of stuff. And somewhere inside of me, that's what I thought was just gonna happen one day.

• 44:05Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 44:05Speaker 01

  Um, so with going into that, into relationships, I couldn't communicate.

• 44:11Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 44:11Speaker 01

  At all. The words that I use today and the communication style that I have, I had to learn that. I was always good at communicating with people outside of, but when it came to emotions and vulnerability, I was a closed book. So going into a relationship with me was like, I have to guess what Natasha's thinking and feeling today cause she's not gonna tell me. But then she's gonna throw a tantrum over there because I haven't guessed, right? So, you know, it wasn't even just the bad boys. It was literally, I was not capable of showing up in a relationship.

• 44:42Speaker 00

  That's a, an enormous assessment of, of what was going wrong.

• 44:46Speaker 01

  And like, some of the men that I chose were really inappropriate. I, I don't think, I kind of was more friends with those really bad boys. They were my mates.

• 44:56Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 44:56Speaker 01

  And some, you know, the way that they treated their misses was not always appropriate. And like I said today, I wouldn't stand by and be friends with them. But because they were my mates back then, that's who I supported, right? I was the one that told the misses, oh, he's just, whatever.

• 45:12Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 45:12Speaker 01

  And I'm not proud of that at all. I think that's really inappropriate of, of allowing people to create bad behaviour, just because it's not your relationship that you're not saying.

• 45:23Speaker 00

  Well, I, I've been talking about that a lot lately with all the domestic violence and that. And I think we're, we're all guilty of just sort of turning a blind eye to it, not standing up and, and pulling someone and, hey, mate, that's not all, that, that type of thing. And I, I like to think society's sort of, uh, become more of aware of it that we all play a part.

• 45:45Speaker 01

  I hope so, because to me, and this is no excuse, but back then I didn't even know what domestic violence meant. I'd never heard that word before. It didn't sit in, you know, someone just got a bit handy or, you know, he just went, I just, you know, slapped her out of the way or something like that. And you just go, it's men being men, right? That horrible stuff that we hide behind or have for so long. Now I have words around it and even some of my relationships that were, it was full on.

• 46:16Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 46:16Speaker 01

  And it was not okay, but I took responsibility for that, full responsibility, which is not okay either, because.

• 46:23Speaker 00

  Yeah, well, that, there is a lot of, um, yeah, and I'm, I'm just talking the, the relationships where the females, oh, I shouldn't have upset him. Yeah, I know he gets cranky when he drinks and I, that, I cringe when I hear that, but that was almost, uh, yeah, that was the way people dealt with domestic violence and.

• 46:40Speaker 01

  And still do.

• 46:41Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 46:41Speaker 01

  Because they don't know any different. And when you've been in it for so long, it becomes normal.

• 46:47Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 46:47Speaker 01

  Right? And that thing, oh, why doesn't she just leave? That just, that really pisses me off.

• 46:54Speaker 00

  I think we're becoming more aware of the, the difficulties. And I, I think we'll, we'll be talking about that in, in more detail in part two of the, the advocacy work that you're doing and, uh, and women, uh, in prison. But, uh, we're gonna get you in the prison. So I'm sorry, but this is true crime. We're gonna, we're gonna get you in the prison.

• 47:14Speaker 01

  We're almost there.

• 47:16Speaker 00

  When, uh, yeah, with the, the drug dealing and, and that. And I, I spoke, spoke to the other day and, and you said you, you look back at it and, yeah, you're not proud of that, uh, chapter in your life and, uh.

• 47:29Speaker 01

  Look, it, it's always been there. I didn't just suddenly wake up one day and go, I'm gonna date a drug dealer, right? After getting clean and not using drugs anymore. So.

• 47:39Speaker 00

  Sorry, that's something I picked up too. You, you, the person that you were locked up with, with the, uh, drug dealing, you two met in the rehab.

• 47:47Speaker 01

  Yeah, well, not in rehab, in N A, not in Macau's anonymous, yeah. And so we both weren't using it at the time, which, which kind of, in, in a way, I kind of go, that's just ludicrous, all of it. But that, it was a business, it was an enterprise, right? It was about making money.

• 48:02Speaker 00

  Yeah. And, and you would have by that stage seen the damage that drugs can do and all that. Were you oblivious to the, the cause and effect when you were making money from it? Was?

• 48:12Speaker 01

  No.

• 48:12Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 48:13Speaker 01

  No. So, um, before and, yes, always.

• 48:17Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 48:17Speaker 01

  And probably didn't care, cause everybody I knew was taking drugs.

• 48:21Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 48:21Speaker 01

  Right? So it just becomes normal. And I may, I, I didn't see or chose not to see the disadvantage that it causes for children and, you know, when mums are on drugs and that kind of stuff. And probably there was some that was around me, but I never took note, cause it wasn't my problem.

• 48:38Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 48:39Speaker 01

  Right? So, but by the time I was offending with, um, my partner at the time, my mindset around how I viewed the world was changing. I was in that, in that, um, change process from going from, I almost killed myself, right, with drugs.

• 48:58Speaker 00

  Oh, okay.

• 48:59Speaker 01

  Yeah, I was gonna die from my using. Like, I was so self-destructive around it.

• 49:03Speaker 00

  What sort of drugs were you using?

• 49:04Speaker 01

  Um, ice, cocaine.

• 49:07Speaker 00

  Yeah, just it.

• 49:08Speaker 01

  Anything, just not heroin. It's the only thing that I haven't ever tried. But at the time, it was mainly ice though. And it went into this space where I, and it was not conscious at all that I had given up on life.

• 49:21Speaker 00

  Hmm.

• 49:22Speaker 01

  And it took a moment of clarity for me around how dare I do this to my father? My father's lost two wives in his lifetime, right?

• 49:34Speaker 00

  Right.

• 49:35Speaker 01

  Um, I cannot die for him. What am I doing here? I don't belong here. I have opportunity, I have life, I have, I have a world. Uh, why am I doing this to myself? And what got me here?

• 49:49Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 49:49Speaker 01

  And the person that I was dating at the time, um, as much as he was off the Richter scale and in his own thing.

• 49:56Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 49:57Speaker 01

  He was the one that kind of tapped me on the shoulder a couple of times and said, what are you doing?

• 50:01Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 50:02Speaker 01

  Right? If you stay here, you're gonna die. And at the time, I didn't believe him, but he like bitterly was freaking out. He's like, oh my God, I'm gonna wake up one day and she'll be dead.

• 50:10Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 50:11Speaker 01

  And I just went, something has to change.

• 50:14Speaker 00

  Hmm.

• 50:14Speaker 01

  And I can't not try, right? I've got to go and give life a go. Whatever has let me here, however I got here, I have to go and fix it. Maybe not for myself right now.

• 50:28Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 50:28Speaker 01

  But for my dad and for Corey and Morgana and my uncle, Nan's not here anymore. Just those three, those four people, right, came to mind. So I did, I just, from one day to another, just stopped using drugs.

• 50:40Speaker 00

  Yep.

• 50:41Speaker 01

  And that was it. And then in that space of, of.

• 50:47Speaker 01

  When you've done damage like I did.

• 50:49Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 50:50Speaker 01

  And, and with intent to do damage, the recovery is really slow. You may stop using, but just even things like how you thought process.

• 51:01Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 51:01Speaker 01

  Um, the relationship I was in then was really unhealthy. There was, you know, the belief system that I had built up around things like domestic and family violence.

• 51:13Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 51:13Speaker 01

  Was so unreasonable and of abuse and of being controlled and all those things. I had no idea that was actually happening to me. So when I was getting clean, all these things, I had to process them. And there was, you know, frameworks that you could wrap around those. And suddenly I had words that I could explain what I had gone through. And it made, and I just went, and other people were healing from those things too. And I went, oh my God, it's not just me. So that's the space I was in, but I was growing and it was becoming a different person. And I was trying to show up each day as a different person. So then I met my, um, co offender.

• 51:49Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 51:49Speaker 01

  Um, and just loved him, just thought he was the bee's knees.

• 51:54Speaker 00

  And he would have been projecting that he was trying to get off it too.

• 51:57Speaker 01

  Yeah. Uh, well, he was, he, but he'd only just been out of prison a year.

• 52:01Speaker 00

  Right.

• 52:01Speaker 01

  Uh, he's been in and out of prison all his life. Um, very different story to mine.

• 52:06Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 52:06Speaker 01

  But we just connected and there was, there was real love and care for each other. But again, I think that was more trauma bonding than anything else.

• 52:13Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 52:14Speaker 01

  And for me, there was also a part in it. I've always been quite strategic with, in my relationships of what I've wanted from it.

• 52:21Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 52:22Speaker 01

  Gone into it going, I want X, Y, Z.

• 52:24Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 52:24Speaker 01

  Right, even if it's unrealistic. And with him, he was safe, he was kind. And I, I was still wild. So he'd say something and I'd lose my nana, right? And in a toxic relationship, that other person's going to react to that.

• 52:43Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 52:43Speaker 01

  He just wouldn't, he'd just go, it's okay.

• 52:46Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 52:46Speaker 01

  So he gave me some space.

• 52:48Speaker 00

  Settle you down.

• 52:49Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 52:49Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 52:49Speaker 01

  He gave me some space to heal. So I think the, all of those things combined kept me feeling safe. So when he said, oh, you know, I still do X, Y, Z and move a bit of pot here and do a bit of that. I kind of went, I don't care.

• 53:03Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 53:04Speaker 01

  Um, and then he moved in and then he was like, oh, I want to make a million dollars.

• 53:09Speaker 00

  Yep.

• 53:10Speaker 01

  I said, yeah, cool. All right. But we do it my way.

• 53:14Speaker 01

  Cause you've been to prison, I never have.

• 53:16Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 53:16Speaker 01

  Do it my way. It all went pear shaped within a week or two. Like he was off doing his own way and I was, I had the shits.

• 53:22Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 53:23Speaker 01

  Um, but then it kind of was, it was in my home anyway. So, and I just went, all right, you do whatever you're doing. I don't care.

• 53:30Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 53:31Speaker 01

  And then it just became so unmanageable that I was just like, okay, cool. I'll just manage the money.

• 53:36Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 53:36Speaker 01

  So I was just counting cash and I'm like, should have rung my lawyer and gone, can I get in trouble for this? Might have been a good, like, just in case anybody's listening and thinking of.

• 53:45Speaker 00

  Yeah, well, uh, uh, again, again, a cautionary tale, like in, in your mind, I can, well.

• 53:52Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 53:52Speaker 00

  He's a drug dealer.

• 53:53Speaker 01

  Yeah, I'm not.

• 53:54Speaker 00

  I, I, I just love him. I'm, I'm living with him, but I'm not.

• 53:57Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 53:57Speaker 00

  Involved in it, but, uh, yeah.

• 53:59Speaker 01

  And I'm advising him on some things that he's either listening or not, right?

• 54:03Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 54:04Speaker 01

  That might keep him safe, but.

• 54:05Speaker 00

  I would imagine that the scale of, uh, what you're caught, there would have been, uh, yeah, telephone intercepts and.

• 54:12Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 54:12Speaker 00

  Different things. So you would, you would have been, uh, jammed up in terms of your knowledge or involvement. You, you couldn't go, uh, go away from, uh, having some active involvement in it and some benefits from it.

• 54:24Speaker 01

  Absolutely.

• 54:25Speaker 00

  But I, I had a look in, uh, what's, uh, reported publicly about, uh, about the offence. What year was it in? What, uh?

• 54:31Speaker 01

  We were arrested in twenty twenty one.

• 54:34Speaker 00

  Okay. Um, this is the, uh, judge's, uh, comments on sentencing. She stayed with him and she was aware of his business, helps him with deliveries. And then she's caught with full knowledge of the funds which are funding her lifestyle. So that, that was the judge's comment, but it was also reported. While she played some role in the management of the operation, it appeared it was always subordinate to her partner. So the way you've described it is pretty much what the, how the court saw it as.

• 55:06Speaker 01

  And I think turning up, being honest.

• 55:10Speaker 00

  Yep.

• 55:11Speaker 01

  Um, not giving a statement.

• 55:14Speaker 00

  Yep.

• 55:15Speaker 01

  Right, to police, don't, you just don't, you know, talk to police when you're arrested.

• 55:19Speaker 00

  Oh, you're buying a hard ass.

• 55:20Speaker 01

  Yeah, absolutely.

• 55:22Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 55:22Speaker 01

  And they appreciated that in the end. I, I've got to say, you know, I can't speak for anybody else, but my experience with the detectives that I dealt with was, you know, there was actually a bit of banter even around our conversation. Cause they were just like, oh my God, we normally, cause they put a lot of work into this.

• 55:39Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 55:40Speaker 01

  Right? Um, that for four months we were under investigation.

• 55:43Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 55:44Speaker 01

  And there was a joint task force because it was, um, a separate investigation of one of the people that my ex was selling to, or we were selling to, I should say, cause I'm involved in it. And he was already on investigation, then they found us through that.

• 55:58Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 55:59Speaker 01

  Um, put taps on everything, phone, cars, trackers. Four months is a long time, right?

• 56:05Speaker 00

  Gather a lot of evidence.

• 56:06Speaker 01

  Lot of evidence, um, and when they did arrest us, obviously they, I worked the whole time that. I had a job.

• 56:15Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 56:15Speaker 01

  Like for me, that wasn't that main, great, I'm going to get a bit of money. I'm going to be able to retire nicely. We can buy a house. You know, towards the end, before we got arrested, it was very clear that we were not going to buy anything together. Um, me and my ex, but that's, you know, we would have gone our separate ways, whether we were arrested or not. And when we were arrested, like I think they were hoping that I would give them more. Yeah, absolutely. Right. And, and I understand that that's the game that needs to be played. Because ultimately what they were looking for was the next connections, right? Not just.

• 56:50Speaker 00

  Yeah, you're, you're reading it right.

• 56:51Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. I know a bit, a little bit about the process, even though it's only one, been through it one time. But I was just like, no, no statement given. Here's my lawyer's.

• 57:01Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 57:02Speaker 01

  Name, please ring them and can you ring my mum? Or my Cory.

• 57:07Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah. Shame and regret when, uh, because I, the lifestyle that you live, and I'm surmising here, but okay, you're reckless, you're wild, I wasn't hurting anyone, I'm, I'm doing this. Then when you're at, come to that point, I've been arrested, yeah, it was, it was in the media. You've got to phone your mum, caught up in the drug.

• 57:29Speaker 01

  No shame.

• 57:30Speaker 00

  Yep.

• 57:30Speaker 01

  Right? I don't have shame around it. I think, and regret, I don't do regret. I look at things and learn from them.

• 57:36Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 57:37Speaker 01

  And then go, don't want to do that again.

• 57:39Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 57:39Speaker 01

  But I don't have that whole, oh my God, I wish I did, I didn't do things differently. I chose that at the time. I knew I was breaking the law.

• 57:48Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 57:49Speaker 01

  Like I said, I didn't just wake up one day and date one drug dealer. And it wasn't my first time involved in stuff like that before. I just didn't care. This time around, a couple of times I said, this needs to wrap up.

• 58:01Speaker 00

  Hmm.

• 58:01Speaker 01

  You've got your mill.

• 58:03Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 58:03Speaker 01

  Wrap it up, fuck it off. I don't want this in my life anymore. It's wrong. It doesn't sit well with who I'm becoming.

• 58:11Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 58:12Speaker 01

  And who I want to be as a person. We're still going to take the money from it, right? Don't get me wrong.

• 58:16Speaker 00

  No, I'm, I'm hearing you. I appreciate your honesty with it.

• 58:19Speaker 01

  A morality around it that I had never felt before.

• 58:23Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 58:23Speaker 01

  And then when I had to face, um, Cory and Morgana, who Morgana picked me up from the police station when I got bail.

• 58:32Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 58:32Speaker 01

  And she was so angry with me, right? And in the past, when people that I cared for and that cared for me.

• 58:39Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 58:39Speaker 01

  Were angry with me or put me, made me feel uncomfortable, I'd run.

• 58:43Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 58:43Speaker 01

  This time, I didn't want to run and I wanted to fix it. But there was only one way to help Morgana and Cory trust me again. Was to just show up each day and do the right thing, whatever that was.

• 58:59Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 58:59Speaker 01

  Right? Cause these people were not my blood. They'd shown up for me time and time again and have never, it's never been conditional. Because the world that I chose to live in, everything was conditional.

• 59:11Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 59:11Speaker 01

  Right? But these, my, my dad, it's my family, my uncle, Cory Morgana, nothing's ever been conditional. But this time it came with a condition that this is the last time that they're going to open the doors for me if I continue to fuck up.

• 59:26Speaker 00

  That's a bit of a, a wake up call.

• 59:28Speaker 01

  Absolutely. And it was then a choice that I had to make because I also was sitting in a space of, I can continue to live this life.

• 59:36Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 59:37Speaker 01

  Which I call dark.

• 59:39Speaker 00

  Hmm.

• 59:39Speaker 01

  Or I can choose to completely step into the light. And what am I so afraid of in the light? Why do I keep going back into this shady place where I can, where I used to hide?

• 59:51Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 59:52Speaker 01

  I can't hide anymore because I don't belong there. It doesn't sit with my values. It isn't who I want to be. Had no idea what I, who exactly I wanted to be yet, but that came with time. And I chose to, from that day forward, to always be honest with these people. To never leave them in the dark again, right? Cause I had, I hadn't told them about it. For me, that was safety for them, right? They don't need to know. And that.

• 1:00:22Speaker 01

  To create that change, I also had to really vet the people that I had allowed to step into my life.

• 1:00:28Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:00:29Speaker 01

  And when you do that, right, life becomes really kind of lonely, especially if you don't have the network that I had that are already in the line and that have this, if you don't have that, that space, that's what makes it so hard to create that change. And to choose differently. But I did, I chose differently. And I'm telling you, the whole process of arrest, being let go on bail, the conditions, trying to figure out what's gonna happen. When you get the brief that I was like that much of, but it was that big, because it was both the other two offenders. Trying to read through that, um, finding all this other stuff that I kind of half knew about, but didn't really.

• 1:01:10Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:01:10Speaker 01

  And so that world that I had banked on with him, that crumbling as well. It's a, it, you know, there's no, I'm not saying that it was unbearable, but it was pretty shitty. It was a shitty place to be, but the only person that put me in that place was myself.

• 1:01:31Speaker 00

  Well, uh, the, the, the fact that you can acknowledge that is so helpful to mo- move forward. Like if you're going, oh, but it was just in the wrong relationship, you, you had had choices and.

• 1:01:42Speaker 01

  Absolutely. They were all my choices. Every single one of those things. None of the offence, look, I, I later on spoke to my ex when, when we were first no, no contact.

• 1:01:53Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:01:53Speaker 01

  Once I went to prison, I actually wrote him a letter. And he was like, I thought you were gonna blame me. I said, why would I blame you? You made your choices. I made mine.

• 1:02:02Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:02:03Speaker 01

  You didn't make me do anything, right? And I, and that's not how it works when you're committing a crime.

• 1:02:09Speaker 00

  That could have been the easy path out for you because I'm sure the police offered you, well, you tell us what's going on and there'll be no charges. Or you'll be getting a letter of comfort and you won't be serving any time. So you would have had, uh.

• 1:02:20Speaker 01

  They didn't offer that as such, but I knew that that was on the table, right? They didn't have to tell me. I'm, I'm quite intelligent and I kind of knew that that was on the table and he knew that too at the time. That would have been the most horrendous time for him because he was shady, right?

• 1:02:35Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:02:36Speaker 01

  So he didn't, when you're shady, you think everybody else is too.

• 1:02:39Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:02:39Speaker 01

  But I would never, I made my choices. And when something happens and the consequences hit you, you've got to own them.

• 1:02:47Speaker 00

  Well, I, I think, and you've made some good choices, some bad choices, but I think that's probably the best choice you, you made in, in your life. Because if, if you were finding excuses, well, I just got caught up in it. I wasn't really to blame for it. You would have fallen back into that life.

• 1:03:01Speaker 01

  Absolutely.

• 1:03:01Speaker 00

  But, uh.

• 1:03:02Speaker 01

  I would have gone back there.

• 1:03:03Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah. But actually taking responsibility and, and, uh, accepting the consequences of

• 1:03:09Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:03:10Speaker 00

  the responsibility, um, is a big thing. So.

• 1:03:13Speaker 01

  Only way forward.

• 1:03:14Speaker 00

  All right. Well, we're gonna take a, take a break. We've, at least we've got your rest. It took me an hour to get you, get you arrested. Um, no, but your backstory was fascinating. I, I, I think that's, uh, yeah. I, on a long form chat podcast like this, it's interesting to put in the context how people got here. We, we, it's a crime podcast.

• 1:03:36Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:03:36Speaker 00

  But if we just start, I was dealing drugs, I got arrested, the backstory is the interesting, interesting thing. What we are gonna talk about in, uh, in part two is your experience in prison. And, uh, yeah, we highlighted that at the start of, uh, this episode, where you realised how privileged you were. What you learnt about yourself in prison, what you learnt about others and how it's sort of given yourself or given you life purpose after leaving prison on what, what you're doing. Which, yeah, we love stories of redemption here and, uh, yeah. So let's talk about that and all the issues that we discussed the other day. With, uh, where we could perhaps improve corrective services or, yeah, the prison system, make it a better society.

• 1:04:19Speaker 01

  Yes, and a safer one too.

• 1:04:21Speaker 00

  Yeah, definitely. Less, less crime, less victims. Okay?

• 1:04:24Speaker 01

  Absolutely. Sounds great.

• 1:04:25Speaker 00

  Back soon.

• 1:04:26Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 1:04:26Speaker 00

  Cheers.