Protecting your child from a life-changing event: Brent Sanders Pt. 2

Most sexual assaults aren't committed by strangers. They're committed by someone in the victim-survivor's own social group. Former cop turned safety educator Brent Sanders sits down with Gary Jubelin to go deeper on prevention, how consent actually works under the law when alcohol is involved, why bystander intervention matters, and what workplaces still get wrong about harassment. Drawing on 30 years teaching students across Australia, Brent breaks down his Year 9 to Year 12 approach in plain language: choice and consequence, phones and sexting laws, the legal test for when a drunk person can't consent, and the story of the Year 12 boy who stopped an assault at a party without throwing a punch. In this episode: Why it's almost always someone in the social group, not a stranger The legal test for consent and alcohol — explained like RSA at a pub What happens when both people are drunk, and who the law looks at How to step in as a bystander without making it a fight Romeo and Juliet law, sexting, AI images and what Year 10s need to know From schools to workplaces: harassment, positive duty and Christmas parties. You can watch I Catch Killers on Youtube here. https://www.youtube.com/@ICatchKillers-Podcast Follow I Catch Killers: Instagram:@icatchkillers https://www.instagram.com/icatchkillers/?hl=enTiktok:@icatchkillerspodcast https://www.tiktok.com/@icatchkillerspodcastFacebook:@icatchkillers https://www.facebook.com/icatchkillers/ 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 01

  Welcome back to part two of my conversation with Brent Sanders, where he continues to share his extensive knowledge of consent and sexual assault. In part one, we focus on how Brent speaks to young women about these issues. In this episode, we turn to how he engages young men, encouraging them to reflect not only on their own actions, but also on the behaviour of their male peers. We also unpack the terminology around consent, clarifying what it actually means from a legal perspective, and how that already complex picture becomes even harder for teenagers to navigate once alcohol and drugs are added into the mix. Brent Sanders, welcome back to part two of I Catch Killers.

• 1:29Speaker 00

  Thanks, Gary.

• 1:30Speaker 01

  Well, I found our part one very informative on the type of messaging you're getting across to. Primarily, we were talking about young women in schools, about sexual assault and different things. We didn't really delve into young men, the messaging you're getting across to young men, because that's a completely... Well, when I say completely different, it's not completely different, because I think you need to know both sides. But the messaging to men, I would imagine, or young men, is different to the messaging you're giving to young women just by the nature of the offences and who are the predominant offenders, the profile. How do you differ the lectures or the education that you give to young women

• 2:14Speaker 01

  as distinct from when you go into a boys' school?

• 2:16Speaker 00

  A lot of schools now, like when I do university talks, they bring them all in together. But when I talk just specifically to boys and say we've got a... Typically, it could be, say, a three-hour timeframe. I sort of break that talk with the boys up into two parts. And the first part, for sort of want of a title, is talking to those young guys about that whole principle around choice and consequence and what sits behind the poor choices that we make. And I talk to them about some of the guys that in my early time, the police their age, that I arrested and charged, and the impacts that that can have on them. So the year nine boys, it's that one-hour talk about choice,

• 3:00Speaker 00

  about consequence, about peer pressure. The year 10 talk, we get up into discussing that principle around misuse of phones, sexting, imaging, AI images, deep fake, and all that type of thing, and all the laws that are around that. Year 11, I talk to them about fatal car accidents. And it's the most confronting talk that I do to boys. I do it to girls as well, but just using that example. And I talk about being a first responder and what that's like and how that feels and the impact that these decisions have on families and loved ones. And I, again, you know, I relate it back to experiences I had as a young copper.

• 3:43Speaker 00

  I policed in New Zealand where you got your driver's licence when you're 15.

• 3:48Speaker 01

  And it's young, isn't it?

• 3:49Speaker 00

  It's unbelievable. So that's year nine. There's no L plates, no P plates. That was walking into the equivalent of the RTA on your 15th birthday and getting a full licence. I was in three serious car accidents in year 10, one that I created and two others I was a passenger. And that was just, that wasn't out of the ordinary. So I talk to the boys about, you know, as a young 19-year-old copper, attending these fatals. And I think, you know, you'd agree, Gary. When I say to the boys, if you lined up 100 police, you know, behind me, where they've been in the job five, 10, 20, 30 years, I reckon nearly all of them would tell you the worst job you can ever do in the police is death notices. Walking up that driveway at midnight.

• 4:31Speaker 00

  You know, if a porch light's on for a young bloke that's in the mortuary because you just dragged him out of a car, and you knock on that door and you've got to tell the parents.

• 4:39Speaker 01

  And you know you're going to destroy someone's life.

• 4:41Speaker 00

  You destroy the lives and the kids coming out. You know, we've been there. And then you get mum and dad the car to the mortuary to do the ID. And then you've got to... And I go through that with the boys. And I say, in different parts of that talk, I say, boys, this is all the result of a heartbeat decision made by a young man in the car. As simple as coming towards a corner, where if he's in the car on his own, he hits the brakes and goes around the corner. If he's in the car with his mates, he's thinking, oh, I better not hit the brakes. I'll hit the accelerator. I'll give it a go.

• 5:13Speaker 01

  And get a laugh from...

• 5:14Speaker 00

  Sometimes you get around it. And I say, sometimes you don't. And when you don't, let me explain to you. So it's a heavy talk, but it's the same theme all the way through. And then with those year 12 boys, that's when I get into discussion. I'll do this with younger boys in other schools, but because they do it tiered like this, that's when I talk to those boys about that same principle with regard to choices that you're making with intimate exchanges, with other people, you know, around consent and around alcohol with consent and how all that works. Now, there's, of course, there's a plethora of other things that can be spoken about. You know, I go into boys' schools where I'll walk in on the back of someone who goes in to talk about the impacts of the manosphere

• 5:57Speaker 00

  and, you know, pornography and all that type of thing. And that's fantastic. I don't touch on that, nor do they touch on the stuff that I do. So most schools now, and some that get the most criticism, do the most work in this space. They are constantly presenting to boys at all different age groups, different levels, different messages. So I'm just sort of a small part on that. But I feel that if I can do my job properly in front of young men, the young men, I'm hoping their reaction they have when they walk away is not that they have some blokes coming and hitting them over the head with a big stick. Because we need to be very careful, I think, in society at some of the blanket labelling that gets applied to young men.

• 6:41Speaker 00

  Because some young men do terrible or bad things. There's a tendency to label then all young men under that. And that then leaves room for natural pushback for, you know, human beings, pigs of human beings, like the Andrew Tates and stuff of this world, to get into the ears of those guys and say, hey, listen to this message. You know, so you get that other extreme. And so I never, I never stand up in front of a group of young men assuming that they're all going to run around and do the stuff that I talk about.

• 7:15Speaker 01

  Peer group pressure.

• 7:16Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 7:17Speaker 01

  I think that's a big thing as a young male. But you do stupid things because your mates are egging you on.

• 7:23Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 7:24Speaker 01

  Invariably, I think these, if we're relating to sexual assaults in those teenage years, and I think you identified in part one that the likelihood of a female being a victim is in those late teenage years or the teenage years.

• 7:40Speaker 00

  That's correct.

• 7:41Speaker 01

  And also, there's a strong likelihood it'll be a young male at the same time.

• 7:45Speaker 00

  Almost without exception, it's someone in their social group. So, you know, I know we spoke about the psychology of those strange offenders and things. As you and I know, that's a very rare occurrence statistically, very rare. Overwhelmingly, sexual crimes committed at that high school age are committed between young people of similar age within the same social group.

• 8:08Speaker 01

  Yeah. And often, there's alcohol. There's that little bit of freedom that comes when you become a teenager and you're allowed out at night and alcohol involved. Consent, to me, seems to be the most confusing issue for everyone around that time. What, let's break it down for the message for young males.

• 8:26Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 8:27Speaker 01

  What consent actually means.

• 8:28Speaker 00

  Yeah. So when I talk to young men, and young women, but young men about consent, I just break it down into three legal components. We look at age of consent. Now, age of consent is 16, and they all know that. But a lot of my audiences are 15 and 16, year 10 and year 11. So when you've got a group of, say, 150 year 10 boys, I get a show of hands. I'll say, boys, what's age of consent? And they'll say 16. I said, okay, well, we know what that means, don't we? I said, put your hand up if you've turned 16. Usually, this time of year, probably about half, three quarters. Put your hand up if you're still 15. Put your hand up if you're going to turn 16 before the end of the year. Now, what about the stragglers, you know, year 11? So they're all either 16, about to turn 16, you know.

• 9:10Speaker 00

  So suddenly, this whole age of consent thing lands differently for them than just this glib statement, oh, age of consent is 16. So I say, now, boys, you know, once you turn 16, the law deems that you're now a sexual adult. Ironically, the day before, you were still a sexual child. It's a strange concept, but you are now legally entitled to engage intimately with other sexual adults as long as you have their consent. And they're all nodding. They all know this. I said, and boys, would it be fair to say an adult can't engage sexually with a child? They go, no, absolutely not. Can a child give consent? No. Now, that's all, they know that. But then, because of the age group, you can say, okay,

• 9:53Speaker 00

  what about if we've got, say, using some age, and then what about if we've got a young girl who's 15 and she's going out with a bloke who's 16 or 17? So we, and they, the girl's house, and they choose to have an intimate chat. We run through that. So they've told me the law. Then you run it through something which is very familiar for them.

• 10:12Speaker 00

  And then what you realise is they know the statute, but they don't know the common law application of Romeo.

• 10:19Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 10:19Speaker 00

  Romeo and Juliet. So there is no more important age to talk about that than to students.

• 10:25Speaker 01

  That that that.

• 10:26Speaker 00

  That applies to, you know. But I tell you, I've had, I've had people sitting on the outsides of my seminars who aren't students.

• 10:33Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 10:33Speaker 00

  Say to me, um, I was totally um against you telling these students about Romeo and Juliet.

• 10:39Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 10:40Speaker 00

  So why? It's the law. It's the law. And now, if you don't like the law, okay, change it. It's like saying, I didn't like you telling the students what the speed limit was outside the front of the school.

• 10:51Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 10:51Speaker 00

  Change it. But while it's still there, so, you know, Romeo and Juliet is an important component of consent law when you're talking to students that age. Now Romeo and Juliet has slightly different applications, different states in Australia. But, you know, generally, most Western countries, all Western countries have age of consent, and they pretty much all have that Romeo and Juliet, that common law.

• 11:10Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 11:10Speaker 00

  So for the listeners, what that really means is statute states age of consent, New South Wales sixteen. Common law, and they label it Romeo and Juliet, allows a bit of flexibility around the edges. So if two young people in New South Wales engage intimately and one is just under sixteen and one is just over.

• 11:29Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 11:29Speaker 00

  If police are called, they'll apply Romeo and Juliet. How does that apply? Well, there are two checkpoints. We look at their ages, are they within two years of each other's age? So Romeo and Juliet works pretty much down to age fourteen.

• 11:41Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 11:41Speaker 00

  So you could have a fourteen year old and a sixteen year old, but they're within two years. Okay, you could have fifteen and sixteen, you could have fifteen and seventeen. Those situations, the law would say, if they're within two years of each other's age, the next test is, and it's practical application, is police would just separate the two young folks in the house, have a chat to them, to satisfy, confirm that they were both willing participants.

• 12:05Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 12:05Speaker 00

  To the intimacy. So we don't use the word consent because it can't be applied to a child that's sixteen, all that.

• 12:12Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 12:12Speaker 00

  So you tell the students that and you say, now, this is not society saying we encourage people underage to run it. This is society saying the spirit behind age of consent is to protect children from adults, to protect children from sexual predators. So the application of that law is always going to be different when those ages are within two years. So Romeo and Juliet is within two years and willing participants. The police would then step back and say, this is a parental matter, it's not a, it's not a policing matter. And this gets a whole lot of questions from these kids. Now, um, yeah, we can then have the moral ethical discussion.

• 12:52Speaker 01

  I'm sure it gets a whole lot of questions because the kids that would, uh, there'd be a lot of people caught up in that.

• 12:58Speaker 00

  For sure. And, and they're entitled to know what the law is. So, you know, we get, so then that's that. Next area that I talk about a consent is the effects of alcohol and drugs. And this is quite a big one, you know, particularly when those students are, yeah, year eleven and twelve.

• 13:11Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 13:12Speaker 00

  There was a, there was a, um, I think it might have been Sydney Uni punched out a study a year or so back. They estimated at a social function this weekend in Sydney, attended by, say, senior high school students, year eleven and year twelveish. If a sexual offence is committed, up to ninety percent of the time, it'll be committed against somebody who's incapable of consent due to the effects of alcohol and drugs.

• 13:33Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 13:34Speaker 00

  So from year ten up, students know the mantra, a drunk person can't consent.

• 13:40Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 13:40Speaker 00

  And I, and I'll present it to them like that, even with year tens, I'll say, if you're at a party this weekend, they're with your friends, and you look across the lounge room and you can see someone there is really drunk, can they consent? And they'll all in chorus go, no, absolutely not, drunk person can't consent. It's when you take the next step, you find that there's a lack of knowledge and you get real inconsistency. And the next thing I'll ask is, okay, if a drunk person can't consent, what is the legal test to determine that? It's crickets. The most common um answer I get right up until university age, when you ask what's the test is, oh, it's the breathalyzer test.

• 14:14Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 14:14Speaker 00

  You know, and I mean, you and I would laugh at that, not, not to be flippant, but it's like, who's, who's packing a breathalyzer at a party? And even if you did breathalyze someone, there's, there's no actual breathalyzer number that correlates to consent typically. So it's quite interesting to hear all the different versions. You know, I've, I've had students say to me, oh, um, if eleven people agree that someone's drunk, then they're too drunk to consent. Um, I had a chap recently say, um, oh, I, um, if, if I have an intimate exchange at a party with someone, that's fine, just so long as they haven't had more than two standard drinks than what I've had. So get all this. Now, I'm not having a go at them. They're getting that from somewhere, they're getting it off the internet, they're getting it, you know, somewhere with their mates.

• 14:56Speaker 00

  But that's where you, you realise the value of saying, well, let me tell you what the actual test is. So I tell them, and it's a very simple test that under law, and it's the same, pretty much the same in all states, to consent, the law says a person must be sober. The law basically says a person is no longer sober enough to consent once they've consumed enough alcohol or drugs, that they are clearly showing substantial effects of drugs or alcohol. And those effects could be observed by a reasonable person. So, you know, that, that reasonable person test is the cornerstone to legal interpretation. So it's an observational test and substantial effects of alcohol or drugs.

• 15:37Speaker 00

  If you look at it in, say, a courtroom type environment, can be stuff, you know, physical impairment, verbal cognitive. All that, all that stuff. So, so you tell the kids that and they're going, oh, okay, so it's not the breathalyzer test. It's not that they've had five drinks, seven drinks. No, how do you know how many drinks a person's had? I said, so you can apply this test. If you're at a party, look across the room at, say, midnight, and let's say there's ten people, apply this test. Of those ten people, who's failed it? So let's say of those ten people, they've all been drinking, but to varying degrees, and eight of them haven't consumed enough alcohol or drugs. And the test for alcohol and drugs is the same because it's an observational test. Eight of them haven't consumed enough alcohol or drugs for it to be affecting them so that, you know, you can't see it.

• 16:23Speaker 00

  Well, they haven't failed the test yet, but let's say two out of the ten, you can look at them and you can see they're weaving around and anyone who's weaving around, balance is not good, go and have a chat to them.

• 16:33Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 16:33Speaker 00

  They'll be slurring speech, they're cognitively gone. Every courtroom in Australia, a judge will advise a jury. If that has been proven to you beyond reasonable doubt.

• 16:43Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 16:44Speaker 00

  Well, you must conclude that this person was incapable of consent. So what that does, it takes the kids from the statement, a drunk person can't consent and having no idea what it means, to having the actual test in their back pocket so that they can apply it on Saturday night.

• 17:03Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 17:04Speaker 00

  And then I'd say to them, I'd, I'd tell my son and my daughter this. I'd say to my son and his mates, you know, when you're driving them in year eleven, year twelve to a party, just remember, boys, you know, if you wanna have an interaction with someone tonight, that's totally fine. If you wanna initiate, that's none of my business, but just remember, the later it is at night, you know, you, you, but you get to this party at eight o'clock and you're there and there's girls there and there's people there that started drinking prees at six o'clock. And you're having a chat to one of those girls, say, out the back at midnight. She may well have been drinking pretty solidly for six hours.

• 17:35Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 17:36Speaker 00

  Now, if someone's been drinking pretty solidly for six hours, your size and mine, they're probably gonna fail that legal test.

• 17:42Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 17:43Speaker 00

  So how could a young woman who weighs fifty kilos pass it?

• 17:47Speaker 01

  And drinking for possibly first time and.

• 17:49Speaker 00

  Gotta be careful. We've just got to be careful. Um, just another aspect of this with the older students, um, and, you know, if, if I'm doing sort of like um orientation talks coming into unis, I'll, I'll peel that onion one more layer and I'll compare it to the, the RSA, the responsible service of alcohol test, because it's identical.

• 18:07Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 18:08Speaker 00

  It's exactly the same.

• 18:09Speaker 01

  Very similar, isn't it?

• 18:10Speaker 00

  And it's a very tangible thing then. Um, I remember chatting to, I was doing a lecture up at UNE up in Armidale and, and a bloke came in and sat down, came up, had a bit of a yarn at me afterwards. He was head of the sex crimes unit for, for New England, a big geographic. And he was saying, mate, it's so good to hear someone putting that into context for these kids. He said, because sadly, every year I have to send detectives up here to the university to investigate allegations of sexual crime. He said, almost without exception, they involve high levels of alcohol, drugs. He said, the last thing these young detectives are here when they walk them out, out of my office. Remember, if the victim of this offence fails the RSA, they can't consent.

• 18:50Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 18:50Speaker 00

  So they are, so you say to kids, if you rock up to a pub um in Sydney this weekend, you, you know, there's two legal tests you have to pass. You've got to show that you're eighteen, whether you are or not, you've got to have ID, show the bloke on the, the big unit on the door.

• 19:04Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 19:04Speaker 00

  He'll have a look at it, give it back to you. I said, but you're not in the pub yet. I said, what happens then? Because the guy, the, he just starts chatting to you. I said, yeah, well, that's called the responsible service of alcohol test.

• 19:14Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 19:14Speaker 00

  There's a legal requirement that he has to make sure that you pass that before you're allowed to go in. And so he'll say to you, where have you been tonight? Have you been drinking? How many drinks have you had? I said, you know how you fail the RSA? You fail the RSA if through the observation of that person, you are clearly showing substantial effects of alcohol or drugs.

• 19:35Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 19:35Speaker 00

  I said, it is exactly the same as the test applied by detectives in the sex crimes unit who are called to a party at midnight because friends have lost track of a, I, I, I say a girl. They find her in a room, she's really drunk, guy's doing stuff to her, he does a run, uh, police are called, that's where it starts.

• 19:51Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 19:52Speaker 00

  So it gives that whole thing a real tangible thing for the kids. Once you can see someone's drunk.

• 19:58Speaker 01

  I, I like using the analogy of, because they, they'll know the situation in licensed premises and, and getting in there if they're, yeah, when they're being turned away.

• 20:09Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 20:09Speaker 01

  Or not allowed into the club. I, I suppose giving them that something that they can process in their mind, they're not getting caught up in the definition of, uh, what was it, point oh two or point oh five?

• 20:20Speaker 00

  Exactly, exactly. So you've got to keep it simple. And there's a question that then comes up too, which is a very valid one. I was over in Bathurst recently and a young fellow in year twelve said, he said, if, say, there's a guy at a party, he's had a couple of beers. And he targets a girl that is so drunk, everyone can see, so he isolates her and, you know, a crime is committed. He said, how does this same offence or crime work if he said two people at a party?

• 20:45Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 20:46Speaker 00

  Both really drunk to the same degree.

• 20:48Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's a valid question.

• 20:49Speaker 00

  Question. And they do stuff intimately.

• 20:53Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 20:53Speaker 00

  And each person's initiating stuff against the other and everything else. So there's this equality going through. He said, what if one of those two people goes to the police the following day and says, hey, look, I was at this party, got really drunk, somebody had an intimate exchange with me, I want them charged. I said, well, that's, that's a valid question. I said, I'll be as honest as I can when I answer it. If you're in a position to investigate something like that, and that's the evidence that you're working with, I said, the first step in a police investigation is to ask, can we clearly identify an offender and a victim? So in your earlier example, guys had two or three drinks, targets a girl who everyone at the party can see is drunk off her face, isolates. I said, we can see that, can't we, offender victim?

• 21:35Speaker 00

  I said, when two people are drunk or drug affected to the same degree, and they're interacting with each other, initiating, having, I said, can you see it is almost impossible in that, given that, to identify offender victim? I said, so it would be extremely unlikely under those circumstances for an investigation to be able to proceed. I said, it's, it's a little bit like if two people are fighting in a pub. Is that just two people fighting in a pub? Or did one assault and the other one's defending themselves in the absence of being able to, well, we can't charge both, you know, it's a little bit like that.

• 22:12Speaker 01

  They bumped into each other.

• 22:13Speaker 00

  All that. It's, I said, it's, the law is not perfect. It's far from it. And, and yes, there are, there are ingredients that when you put them into the context, make what is a very high level investigation with many, many steps to it. If you can't take the first step, who's the offender? Who's the victim? Very difficult to take the others.

• 22:29Speaker 01

  You, you're breaking it down from a, a legalistic point of view and the, and understanding the, the issues that come in the, yeah, we'll call them the teenage party, which we, we've all been there, done that, when we, we know potentially what, what can happen. Is there any part of what you're telling the young men, and does this fly with them? If you, if you do, call them on about doing the right thing?

• 22:53Speaker 00

  Yeah, a hundred percent.

• 22:54Speaker 01

  Do you push that aspect of it?

• 22:56Speaker 00

  I do. And I really, and I really, often it focuses around that whole party thing with drinks. And I say, fellas, here's the analogy that I'll use.

• 23:03Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 23:04Speaker 00

  I say, boys, I'm not saying that I think you're going to go out and, and target girls who are drunk.

• 23:09Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 23:10Speaker 00

  I can't recall a sexual offence, given these ingredients being committed, where it's not male or female.

• 23:15Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 23:16Speaker 00

  And I said, you know, when university studies tell us up to 90% of sex crimes committed at parties, you know, in this age group, are committed against people who are clearly affected by alcohol or drugs. I said, what those studies are actually presenting to you is the selection process of the offender. You could have 50 people at a party, and 49 of them could look at a girl who's drunk, and it never, ever enters their mind that I'm going to do something to her. But you only need one.

• 23:40Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 23:41Speaker 00

  And I said, you know, that guy is the guy walking around at midnight, looking around, sees that girl, she's clearly drunk, she's staggering around. If his intention is to do what we're talking about, in my experience, he will be drawn to that girl like a moth to a light bulb.

• 23:55Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's true.

• 23:56Speaker 00

  So he'll keep an eye on her. Now, the next stage of the process is he has to isolate that girl, either from friends or wait till she isolates herself. I said, because if we break these type of crimes down, they are committed at parties, but they're not committed at a populated location within the party. So these crimes are committed in rooms off the hallway, upstairs, down the back of a garden, in a garage, when the kids are older and cars out the front. I said, boys, I don't think you have to be a frigging detective in the sex crimes unit to look at that and know it's got spiders all over it.

• 24:30Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 24:31Speaker 00

  I said, you, you, we can see where that's heading. I said, so what I would expect of my son is what I would expect of you.

• 24:39Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 24:40Speaker 00

  You, you get in touch with your better self. You put your drink down, you walk over there and you get him to pull his head in. I said, that intervention is fairly low level. Just even just walking up, go, mate, mate, mate, come here, come here, she's shitfaced, mate, come over here, I've got a, I've got a beer, whatever, whatever.

• 24:55Speaker 01

  Doesn't have to be confrontational.

• 24:56Speaker 00

  Doesn't have to be confrontational.

• 24:58Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 24:59Speaker 00

  Bring him over. I said, you have potentially saved that young girl going through a horrendous sexual confrontation that will be with her for the rest of your, her life. I had a young guy, mate, he came up to me at the end of year 12 tour, just quietly, he said, mate, he said, I always remembered you spoke about that stuff at parties and things. He said, I was at a party earlier in the year, and he said, I saw this really drunk girl walk through the lounge room, and she was sort of bumping into people and stuff, and she walked up a hallway to go to a bathroom. He said, I saw her go up, he said, didn't pay too much attention, and he said, I knew her, but not that well. And then he said, I saw a bloke from the other side of the room, put his drink down, make his way through and follow up the hallway, sort of looking over his shoulder like this. And he said, he was a big unit, big footy boy.

• 25:44Speaker 00

  He said, I'm not, he was a little fella. And he said, I, I, I won't lie to you, he said, I was a bit scared. He said, but I couldn't stand there and not do anything. He said, so I put my drink down. He said, I walked up, he said, I didn't confront the guy at all. I actually walked around him and I put my arm around the girl, and I said to the guy, mate, thanks so much for looking out for her. She's, she's a matesister. I was trying to find her, she's really drunk. Uh, mate, you're a good man, thanks so much. The guy was so like, bloke, was like, oh, okay, mate, yeah, what? He said, mate, I had it back in the lounge room. He said, my heart's going like this. He said, because that bloke could have broken me in two.

• 26:20Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 26:21Speaker 00

  He said, I didn't confront him, but I did step in. And he said, I'm not, I'm not wanting any medals or anything for it. He said, but I just wanted to tell you I did it and it worked.

• 26:29Speaker 01

  So that, I, I think that's gold, that little things like that.

• 26:33Speaker 00

  And that's all it takes, mate, isn't it?

• 26:34Speaker 01

  Because you're so ignorant at that age and, and what you're going through with all, all the testosterone, everything happening, you throw the alcohol drugs in, into the mix.

• 26:44Speaker 00

  It's a hell of a mix. You've just got to, just stop, just take a breath, just look, just think, okay, what can I do here?

• 26:49Speaker 01

  And the scenarios you're painting perhaps catch it, or, or would appear in virtually every teenager's party.

• 26:55Speaker 00

  At some point.

• 26:56Speaker 01

  That type of situation, situation going on. So that messaging that comes across to, to the, the young men, um, you think it's sinking in?

• 27:04Speaker 00

  You'd like to think so, mate. I mean, you know, uh, we, we, we're constantly hearing about, um, you know, in the media, uh, just in the last month or so, we've had the allegations against the young boys at Scott's, the allegations against the slightly older, but still young boys at Gregory's. We've got the Sydney Swan stuff rolling around. So nobody can sit in my position and say, oh, look at me, I'm a knight in shining, I'm a, I've eliminated everything.

• 27:26Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 27:27Speaker 00

  And people say to me, well, if what you do so great, why is it still happening? And, and the only, the only somewhat glib response I can give is, well, imagine how much worse it would be if people like me hadn't spent the last 30 years, you know what I mean?

• 27:39Speaker 01

  Exactly. That, that's not a reason not to, not to try.

• 27:41Speaker 00

  You've got to keep doing it. And, and, um, even if it, even if you, the evidence I get back is of these occasional things of people telling me through something they heard and that, well, there's one that we've avoided.

• 27:53Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 27:54Speaker 00

  There's one that didn't happen. Now, you know, I've put a million students through, they've all got the same information. You'd like to think as they go out and impart that to others, you're having some sort of positive influence over these choices, these outcomes, but yeah.

• 28:07Speaker 01

  Just finishing up on the young, young adults, the consequences of their actions too. Do you, do you explain that?

• 28:14Speaker 00

  I do.

• 28:15Speaker 01

  Because when you look at the, uh, the penalties for these offences.

• 28:17Speaker 00

  Yeah. I can't remember a seminar I've presented to young women in over 30 years on sexual crime where I don't get disclosures. I can't remember one. And in behind all of those stories are the actions of generally young men of similar age. So it's a constant, it's like a bushfire, you're just trying to contain it, trying to contain it, you know? And the boys, I say to the guys, I say, as men, we need to take ownership of this. You know, when we hear allegations, and that's all they are at this stage, of the highest level of sexual crime you can commit under New South Wales Crimes Act, being levelled against two 14-year-olds and a 13-year-old.

• 28:56Speaker 00

  I said, as males, we need to stop, we need to pause, and we need to thank goodness. How, what, what role do we play in this? The comments that we make, the, the, the, the, the examples that we set as older men? And, and what small part can that play? And, yeah, that, that, you know, because then on top of that, we get the, the allegations from the boys at St Gregory's, and here we are again. It's like, and I then say to boys, boys, we've got to hear about this, we've got to confront this, and we've got to take ownership of this. We're not responsible for the actions of those individuals, or those alleged actions.

• 29:39Speaker 00

  But we're part of that group, we're part of that team. And so for me, in my role, I try to represent males, two males, and say, guys, we've got to have this discussion, we've got to talk about this. Because this stuff, those, those high level things, that doesn't start there. Nothing starts up there.

• 29:59Speaker 01

  And these things happen when, yeah, men, with the responsibility we have, we've got to stand up to other men.

• 30:06Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 30:07Speaker 01

  That are committing these type of offences and, and make sure that it's not dismissed or, or ignored, and we take a stand. I, I also like what your little mate said that at the party, he went down and put his arm around the girl to get him, uh, get her away from the.

• 30:24Speaker 00

  From the bloke.

• 30:25Speaker 01

  The, the bloke.

• 30:26Speaker 00

  He said the bloke twice his size.

• 30:27Speaker 01

  Those, those type of things, I, they, uh, I, I think they're good messages to get it.

• 30:31Speaker 00

  Most men are good, most young blokes are good young fellows.

• 30:33Speaker 01

  One hundred percent, one hundred percent. And we know, yeah, it, it can have the opposite effect by criticizing or, or bucketing all men in the same group.

• 30:42Speaker 00

  Big, big, awareness of consequence is really important.

• 30:45Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 30:46Speaker 00

  Um, because, um, one, one really good area to discuss that, well, you know, I talk about, um, sexual assault, what it is, and, and what the penalty is. So they've got no other penalty.

• 30:54Speaker 01

  I, I think that's another thing, that the, the message comes out. The penalties are very high, the courts look at it, and you're sentenced accordingly on, uh, if you are convicted of these crimes. But you will do time, and when you do time, you're not very well received in prison as a sex offender.

• 31:10Speaker 00

  A hundred percent. And, and with older boys.

• 31:12Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 31:13Speaker 00

  That's a message. I say, you know, boys, you know, if you choose to cross this line.

• 31:17Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 31:18Speaker 00

  That's your choice. There are consequences, and you have no idea, no idea of how grave those consequences are.

• 31:27Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 31:28Speaker 00

  You know, um, and, and, and, you know, I go into some, I go into the toughest schools in the state, I go into the top private schools, I go to Catholic schools, I go to, I can do the whole lot, mate.

• 31:36Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 31:37Speaker 00

  And if you've got a bit of a tough old audience, you know, and they're having a bit of a go.

• 31:41Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 31:42Speaker 00

  It's like, fellas, you, you might think you're a bit of a hard man, you knock a few blokes over playing under 15's footy in the weekend, you strut round school.

• 31:50Speaker 00

  You you cross this line, you'll go to prison. And you will get an imprisonment term that will have you transported to an adult prison. When you turn eighteen.

• 32:00Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 32:00Speaker 00

  And and if you think this is being melodramatic, it's not these, this is called consequence.

• 32:05Speaker 01

  That's the reality of it.

• 32:06Speaker 00

  Every choice has consequence.

• 32:09Speaker 01

  Yeah, let's uh let's talk just briefly about date rape and uh on the basis that uh there's a perception that, you know, most sexual assaults occur from people that the victim doesn't know, but that's not not the case.

• 32:23Speaker 00

  No, that's a that's a

• 32:24Speaker 01

  I think statistically, yeah. Yeah, and what what's your what's your take on it like the the danger? We were all educated about stranger danger as children.

• 32:33Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 32:33Speaker 01

  And that's a good message to get out, but the reality of it is most times people are sexually assaulted. It's by people that they know.

• 32:40Speaker 00

  Oh, look, one hundred percent, you know, from your policing background, Gary, that's the case, I think. Um, the the most the the most at risk age for folks to be subjected to um stranger danger.

• 32:54Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 32:54Speaker 00

  Is when they're at primary school, right? And that's why we get the primary school message, and I'm not having to go at the message at all. But if you actually look at the statistical breakdown of how many, let's say, sexual crimes committed against primary school aged kids are committed against them by strangers.

• 33:07Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 33:08Speaker 00

  Mate, I I'd be surprised if it's even two percent.

• 33:10Speaker 01

  Yeah, I I'd

• 33:11Speaker 00

  I'd be surprised.

• 33:12Speaker 01

  I would think it would be at that level.

• 33:14Speaker 00

  So let's be generous, let's say it's five percent.

• 33:16Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 33:17Speaker 00

  Okay, so five percent of sexual offenses committed against kids at primary school who who are indoctrinated into the stranger danger message. Five percent of those offenses are committed against them by the people they're being informed about in the stranger danger program.

• 33:32Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 33:33Speaker 00

  So then we're entitled to ask, okay, who's committing the other ninety five percent? That's uh parents, family members, extended family, adults in positions of care and control, adults who the kids think they can trust. So, you know, when we educate kids at primary school in stranger danger, then those kids get a bit older and they turn on TV, Netflix, Stan, Prime, Paramount, and ninety nine percent of depictions of sex offenders have them as strangers.

• 34:01Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 34:02Speaker 00

  It's no wonder that society thinks sexual crime is committed by this shadowy figure with a balaclava on who jumps out of a white van.

• 34:10Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 34:11Speaker 00

  Made us exceedingly rare. Now, strangers can commit sex crimes, no argument, they can, they do. You know, I wrote a book twenty five years ago that looks into the psychology of that particular form of sexual crime. The age group that I present to, it is exceedingly rare for me to get disclosures from high school students that relating to recent, you know, if we're talking about historical stuff, yeah, it can be stranger. If it's a recent event that's happened within the last twelve months, my hardly ever is the offender a stranger.

• 34:41Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 34:42Speaker 00

  Um, and that's a that's a tough pill to swallow because I think it's easier as a society to think that sexual crime is committed by people who we don't sort of know, connect with. It's these

• 34:55Speaker 01

  Evil rapists.

• 34:56Speaker 00

  Evil sort of characters that I'd never meet there, you know, head to toe, covered in tattoos and all. No, it doesn't, it doesn't work like that.

• 35:03Speaker 01

  So I I think it's an important message to get and and when we fall into uh past children, uh even uh yeah, adults that quite often the sex offender is someone you know, and then then we fall into that category of uh date rape and and all that. So you're vulnerable in that situation too.

• 35:20Speaker 00

  Certainly, yeah, and yeah, one of the things I um, one of the reasons when I'm talking to students that I start by giving that sort of gender risk profile thing is to say to them that this, I I want you to hear this so you've you've got a foundation and a platform to what we're gonna go on and talk about.

• 35:36Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 35:37Speaker 00

  I I you're entitled to hear this because a lot of conditioning is exactly as you said. Oh, the stuff that this guy's coming in to talk about is stuff that strangers do. No, the stuff I'm talking about is done in social environments. Now, I've never stopped when my son, my daughter were going through high, I never stopped my son, my daughter going to parties, going out. They went to uni, the, you know, they went to schoolies and they did the whole thing. It's not a question of stopping kids doing it. It's like when kids are very little, we don't just let them cross the road on their own because they have no concept of the danger. So we go with them, we teach them, you know, look left, you know, we do all that. It's this, I take that same principle that I do, there's risk in everything that we do.

• 36:19Speaker 00

  You know, getting in the car, driving for me out, well, there's a risk attached, but how do you reduce the risk? Well, you drive responsibly, that doesn't guarantee that you're not gonna have somebody that drive up your ass in the car. But you reduce the risk as much as you can. Young people going to parties, is there a risk attached? Yeah, but if you know what the risk is, if you understand it, if you're educated around it, you can reduce it.

• 36:42Speaker 01

  Uh, sexual harassment, you you do a lot of training in regards to that. You you take on se- sexual harassment, what are we talking about? How how would you define it?

• 36:51Speaker 00

  Yeah, good question.

• 36:52Speaker 01

  How do we deal with it?

• 36:53Speaker 00

  So to peel it back, sexual harassment is a policy in place in every employer in Australia. It's it's linked in essence, I guess, to two pieces of legislation. So workplace harassment is basically behaviour in a workplace that's uninvited, unwelcome, unreciprocated, and it leaves someone feeling intimidated, offended or humiliated. And there's one other step in that process for that behaviour to be classified as harassment. That offence has to sort of impede upon a protected attribute. So it's comments that are racist, sexist, homophobic. So then alongside that, we have bullying, yeah, which dropped into the workplace um policies two thousand and fourteen.

• 37:36Speaker 00

  And it's really just a legislative filler between where harassment definition finishes and with them we're criminal, because technically harassment is harassment because it impedes upon anti discrimination legislation. So then it's like, well, okay, what do we call stuff that doesn't? What do we call behaviour in a workplace where I'm yelling and screaming, being abusive, using foul language? Well, that's that's what we call bullying. Then we have this third component of sexual harassment. Sexual harassment's generally now most workplaces um displayed as a standalone uh policy, which is fine, I'm fine with that. Technically, i- i- it comes under workplace harassment definition. It's it's uninvited, unwelcome behaviour of a sexual nature that intimidates, offends, humiliates.

• 38:22Speaker 00

  And it's generally offends on the basis of gender, so it meets all that criteria. Sexual harassment also impedes upon um sex discrimination legislation.

• 38:31Speaker 01

  Right.

• 38:31Speaker 00

  So when we look at its definition, it really refers to in a workplace setting, and universities and schools, of course, still apply, but basically in a workplace setting, any behaviour of a sexual nature, verbal stuff, physical stuff, comment, yeah, anything.

• 38:46Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 38:47Speaker 00

  That to the recipient is uninvited and unwelcome, uh and that causes some degree of offence and what have you. Um, interestingly around this, mate, I I my first step into the corporate environment came after I wrote that book, right, which is about twenty five years ago.

• 39:05Speaker 01

  Talking about um how dangerous men think.

• 39:08Speaker 00

  And one of the talks I did was for a group called Women in Finance in Macquarie Street, Wheatmunks and that's all these big hitters from all the big banks. So I'm up there banging on about my book and stuff and there was a woman at that talk from Commorth Bank.

• 39:21Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 39:22Speaker 00

  She read my book, she was head of HR, contacted me afterwards, said, look, I know this is a bit out of sync with your book, she said, but I'd love for you to come in and have a chat to you about maybe doing some programs around sexual harassment for the bank.

• 39:33Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 39:33Speaker 00

  So that was my first corporate client, nineteen ninety nine. And what's interesting is if you'd sat in that first talk that I did as an employer, Commorth Bank, you'd have been in Martin Place in the city. If you'd said to me, nineteen ninety nine, what's the number one most common form of inappropriate workplace conduct that's raises its head in Australia?

• 39:52Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 39:52Speaker 00

  Every study nineteen ninety nine, sexual harassment.

• 39:55Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 39:55Speaker 00

  If if you ask me the same question today.

• 39:57Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 39:58Speaker 00

  Same answer.

• 39:59Speaker 01

  Right.

• 39:59Speaker 00

  Still number one. Now, there's not as much of it now as there was, and I I I think that's pretty much indisputable. The level of inappropriate behaviour in in the modern workplace today is far less than what it used to be.

• 40:11Speaker 01

  Back in ninety nine, uh nineteen ninety nine, we hardly had a word for it, like it's

• 40:16Speaker 00

  Mate, exactly.

• 40:17Speaker 01

  Now, every everyone's aware.

• 40:19Speaker 00

  There's a greater awareness, there's there's greater consequence, there's a greater expectation as young people come through. So the the pile is less, but sitting at the top of the pile in ninety nine was sexually based stuff, same same as today. So the way I look at it is is I as I say that, uh uh just one other interesting thing. Sexual harassment behaviour of a sexual nature, which is, you know, upsetting, offensive, it doesn't have to be male or female.

• 40:46Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 40:47Speaker 00

  There's no mention of gender in in workplace policies, but the most common form of sexual harassment, according to all studies, it is usually, but not exclusively, it's male to female conduct.

• 41:00Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 41:00Speaker 00

  So the the most common ingredient in male to female sexual harassment, according to all research, is it is most likely to be at um males in their forties and fifties making unwanted, you know, uninvited sexual comments and advances towards female colleagues who will most likely be under the age of thirty. So if, you know, if we let that sort of sink in, that's pretty ordinary.

• 41:24Speaker 01

  Oh, very ordinary.

• 41:26Speaker 00

  It's not great, and and and as recently as yesterday, I said, so the human face of the most common form of sexual harassment, which is still the most common form of inappropriate workplace, is blokes of my age, of my vintage, of my experience in the workplace, targeting young women for sexual advances, sexual comments, who will most likely be about the age of my daughter who's twenty eight.

• 41:50Speaker 01

  Yeah, well, it it's creepy.

• 41:52Speaker 00

  It's pretty dodgy. Now, the other thing here, the other connection I make um is I'm talking to a hundred and fifty year eleven girls at a girl's school after this chat here today.

• 42:04Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 42:05Speaker 00

  Twenty five percent of them, according to all independent studies, between fifteen and twenty one will experience some form of sexual crime. So these girls I talked to today, this time next year, they'll be in their last one or two weeks of school before they finish do the H S C and then they off. They're off to university, off to TAFE, into the workplace.

• 42:25Speaker 00

  All of those young women, when they work into the Australian workplace, when they walk in, twenty five percent of them have had some type of sexual offence committed against them. Because Australia has amongst the highest statistics of sexual crime of any surveyed country in the Western world. The number one most common form of inappropriate workplace behaviour that awaits them is blokes our age having a go at them sexually in the workplace. And, and the, the, the reason I bring that together is these two things aren't siloed. It's, it's not a coincidence that a country with a comparatively high sexual crime rate is a country that for close to thirty years of me doing this work, also sexually based conduct is the most common form of inappropriate behaviour in the work.

• 43:08Speaker 00

  It's, it's a cultural thing. It's a, it's a, call it what you like. It's just you can't separate the two.

• 43:13Speaker 01

  It is a cultural thing and I, I think it's, yeah, it's disgraceful. It's, if you're a police officer, I was a police officer, I saw the misogynistic world in which I operated.

• 43:25Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 43:26Speaker 01

  In, that they're starting to wake up to it, but yeah, female police officers had a hell of a time.

• 43:32Speaker 00

  Oh man, it's, it's, it's unbelievable, like, yeah, what it used to be like.

• 43:35Speaker 01

  Yeah, and that's, yeah, I'd like to say it's no longer the occurring, but.

• 43:40Speaker 00

  It's better than it was.

• 43:41Speaker 01

  Better than it was, but it's still is occurring.

• 43:43Speaker 00

  A point that I make about that too, Gary, and it's, it's, you're so right. I, I don't think anyone who has, you know, you're in the job for a long time. It's, it's a lot better, you know, like when I went through the job, they had a cap for every hundred that went through the academy, it was capped at two females.

• 43:59Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 43:59Speaker 00

  So it's two percent. Um, so those girls, they were girls, they were nineteen. I mean, they had to live in a police academy with, with ninety eight nineteen year old blokes.

• 44:08Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 44:09Speaker 00

  You know, then they're sent out on section, they're always the only women on section.

• 44:14Speaker 01

  Well, I, I, when I, I came in into the police, that was, I, I think it was the first time they started introducing the affirmative action with the number of police women. I think it was a third in each academy, academy class round, round that time. And really we landed in an environment that people just did not know how to behave or, or deal with.

• 44:34Speaker 00

  No, it's better now than it was.

• 44:35Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 44:36Speaker 00

  But here's, here's one thing I take from that also, and, and I mentioned this yesterday, I said, there is no argument that sexual harassment in the Australian workplace is less prevalent today than it once was. But what we can't lose sight of is if a young woman, the age of my daughter, let's say, in a workplace in Sydney today is subjected to that appalling type of conduct and behaviour from a bloke who's the age of a dad. The impact that that has on that young woman is no less today than it was happening thirty years ago, simply because it doesn't happen so often.

• 45:11Speaker 01

  How would you advise, or what are the appropriate practices? Cause I, I think back during my, my career, that if I saw that type of thing going on, I'd get the bloke and pull his nose. And, and, and pull him in the line, it's, it's not on. Whether that, that was the best way of dealing with it, I, I don't know, but that's the way I dealt with it. What structures are in place now for?

• 45:32Speaker 00

  Yeah, that's a very good question. And you know, one of the things that workplaces are really focused on now, you know, there's this term that sort of dropped into the workplace lexicon over the last few years of positive duty. Positive duty, which is sort of like saying, let's not just focus on how we respond to inappropriate workplace conduct. Let's also focus on what reasonable steps are we taking to reduce it from happening in the first place.

• 45:57Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 45:57Speaker 00

  And that has actually become a legal test. So if hypothetically something happened in a place of employment in Australia today, it ended up going outside of the workplace, Fair Work Commission come and they step in. One of the questions they're going to ask is what has this employer, this place of employment done to reasonably take steps to reduce this stuff from happening? So there's that application at the top and all the way down. Now, when we start talking about staff and things like that, one area, it's not the only part, but one area that I think we can get some work done is a lot of people may not know the definition of things like harassment or bullying, or even sexual harassment. Even the thing we call the workplace, a lot of people think, oh, it's just the four walls on which you work.

• 46:40Speaker 01

  Quite often in big organisations, it's part of the mandatory training that you get, yeah, a PowerPoint presentation or an online training. It doesn't really sink in.

• 46:49Speaker 00

  And mate, I tell you what, it, if they're doing that to try and protect themselves for something down the track, or they're, they're kidding themselves. There, there is no online training on workplace harassment that would stand up to any scrutiny in a courtroom environment. This doesn't happen. And I, I can say that mate, because I used to put those together for corporations. I used to go and do it. Um, now the legal basis is now that's all you've done, you haven't done enough.

• 47:11Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 47:11Speaker 00

  It has to be some form of communicated, you know, presentation where there's a, a list of, you know, what has gone through, who attended and all the rest of it. So, yeah, it's, it's, it's, it's, I think there's also for mine. If you've got to start by, by informing people of these terms and what they mean. And then empowering them to call it out if it happens to them or whether they see it. Because this whole positive duty thing is saying, we want to hear about this stuff at the lowest possible level. We don't want to hear about it when it's a nine out of ten, because every nine out of ten starts out as a one.

• 47:47Speaker 01

  You, you make a valid point there because quite often that's when it could be stopped, at, at the early stages. But just, hey, this is not appropriate.

• 47:54Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. Now, that doesn't mean the person has to do that themselves, but it means that they then can say, well, okay, the way that I'm feeling about what's been said or done, I'm not comfortable with that. That's in line with what I heard in that training or whatever it was. I'm going to have a chat to my boss.

• 48:10Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 48:11Speaker 00

  So I come, so I come to you, you're my manager now. As a manager, you have a moral, ethical, legal obligation under corporate law to take action to address that. And we want to hear about this stuff as early as we can. What's interesting too, mate, is, is, you know, we do a bit of a deep dive on this, is even things like the workplace. A whole, quite a high percentage of, of inappropriate workplace conduct, sexual harassment and other things, happen in an environment that people don't actually even classify as a workplace. That's when they're socialising, it's after hours. So the, the definition of the workplace extends to anywhere you are with those who.

• 48:43Speaker 01

  That's an important message.

• 48:44Speaker 00

  It's a really important message. Um, all the big organisations I work in still to this day get a spike of complaints of inappropriate workplace conduct, early November, mid-December. Why? It's Christmas parties, you know, and, and mate, you know, you and I have been around the block a few times. There's quite a few corporations that use me in different roles. One of the roles

• 49:02Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 49:03Speaker 00

  is to come in when someone has been alleged of inappropriate conduct. It's been investigated and substantiated, they're on a first and final warning. And they want to bring someone like me in, because I work for that company, to sit down and really read the riot act a bit to them. And, um, I can tell you, what's twenty seven years, every one of those I've done, pretty much, is blokes about our age.

• 49:25Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 49:25Speaker 00

  Their behaviour is always sexually based behaviour, usually alcohol fuelled, and the targets are usually women in their twenties.

• 49:31Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 49:32Speaker 00

  And, and I still, to this day, think, why the, why are we still having to have this discussion?

• 49:37Speaker 01

  Well.

• 49:38Speaker 00

  You know, it's, and, and it's like.

• 49:40Speaker 01

  I, I say it like it's almost a cultural thing where people condone it or just.

• 49:45Speaker 00

  Yeah, in some places it's more condoned than others. Of course, some places are better at dealing with it than others.

• 49:49Speaker 01

  Sadly, the, the people that you're describing as the perpetrators tend to be the people that are in power in the organisations.

• 49:57Speaker 00

  They can be, they can be, yeah.

• 49:58Speaker 01

  So it's self-serving that they don't, don't blow it up.

• 50:01Speaker 00

  And I, I think generally, you know, you've got kids, so have I, and I, I think generally the younger folks coming through are the ones that are less tolerant, more demanding of, you know, it's, it's like, you know, my daughter's age group, using her as an example. She's a corporate lawyer.

• 50:16Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 50:17Speaker 00

  I mean, the, the, you know, law as a, as a industry had a pretty ordinary reputation to how they treated women for a long, long time. Things have changed. They're not perfect, not yet, but it's, it's a whole lot better. So the world that the young women like my daughter going into, the, the workplace is a better place now than it was, say, for my wife's generation.

• 50:37Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 50:38Speaker 00

  But it doesn't mean we take our eye off the ball, that we can still keep improving that, you know.

• 50:42Speaker 01

  Well, I, I, I think in my humble opinion, if you take the eye, open your eye off the ball, we just slip back into old practices. And, and that's, it, it will be, it'll be occurring. So we've got to be proactive about it.

• 50:55Speaker 00

  It's so true. That's such a valid comment. You know, I, um, some years ago, I, I used to, a lot of the talks I did in the corporate environment was based around sexual harassment.

• 51:03Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 51:03Speaker 00

  You know, and then a lot of those folks, and it was just indicative of the time, a lot of the decision makers around that came to me and said, look, we've sort of done this whole sexual harassment thing to death a bit, everyone's aware of it. So can we start to change the content of your presentations a little bit more around bullying? Yeah, sure, I'll do whatever, they're, they're the client. So I say. So we went from talking about it quite a lot to suddenly pulling back and here we are today. It's still the most common.

• 51:30Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 51:31Speaker 00

  So, um, yeah, I, I do talk about it in my talks. I, I, I unapologetically align it with the work that I do in schools and things like that. And I say to those in the room, we've got to have a zero tolerance for this.

• 51:43Speaker 01

  I, I think so, cause I, I, I saw how hard policing was and that's from a male's point of view. And I saw the policewoman coming, coming through and we had a, had a reunion from our, uh, original class, uh, a year or so ago.

• 51:57Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 51:58Speaker 01

  And I was speaking to some of the girls that we went through the class with and we were talking about the podcast.

• 52:02Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 52:03Speaker 01

  But saying you had no idea what we were confronted with when we graduated and went out into the, in the, cause you're spread out into all different stations.

• 52:11Speaker 00

  Yes, yes.

• 52:11Speaker 01

  And some of the stories and some of the things we had to put up with, and these are, these are hard, tough, capable ladies. They spent, you know, over three decades in, in the police.

• 52:20Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 52:21Speaker 01

  And they're, they're still saying you'd be horrified by what we had to, had to put up with.

• 52:24Speaker 00

  And no, no avenue for them to raise it. You know, they, they put their hand up to raise that. Well, they're gone. They're at the door.

• 52:29Speaker 01

  Well, that, exactly. That's, uh, so I, I'm glad you, you're getting that message.

• 52:33Speaker 00

  And you know what, mate, as ex-coppers, I, I, I live overseas and suburbs there and, and I still to this day, if I'm out, out and about and I see a, you know, Icaro go past and there's two young policewomen and it brings a smile to my face.

• 52:45Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 52:46Speaker 00

  It's cause that would never happen in my day. You know, New Zealand police, when I was policing in the eighties through the nineties, probably the highest rank, um, officer I've ever met who was female is probably a senior sergeant.

• 52:57Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 52:57Speaker 00

  That would have been about it because two out of every hundred, most of them left.

• 53:03Speaker 01

  It's, it's a hard job, as I said.

• 53:05Speaker 00

  It's tough for blokes.

• 53:06Speaker 01

  Yeah, when there's that harassment or discrimi- discrimination, but I certainly thought within policing, I, especially like from criminal investigation side of things.

• 53:17Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 53:17Speaker 01

  I always look for having a balance, a balanced team because I think they can bring in different perspectives.

• 53:23Speaker 00

  Oh, totally. Yeah.

• 53:24Speaker 01

  And a different, a different, different energy into the team, but they, they should be protected. So I think, yeah, sexual harassment is something that, uh, needs to be out there and talked about.

• 53:33Speaker 00

  And you know, most corporations, you know, probably thirty, thirty-five groups that I work with get me in every couple of years and they're all right behind this. And you know, the days of companies sort of sweeping this on the carpet, that, that's probably a rarity. It's an exception now where it once was the rule.

• 53:48Speaker 01

  I, I, I think.

• 53:49Speaker 00

  Can still happen, but not to the same degree.

• 53:51Speaker 01

  Everywhere. You can't just, well, it was just a Christmas party. We'll behave next year and that's gone by the way.

• 53:56Speaker 00

  So, and, and we talk about consequence, don't we? And, and sadly, it's probably due to the fact that the consequence of not dealing with stuff.

• 54:07Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 54:07Speaker 00

  Fiscally.

• 54:08Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 54:09Speaker 00

  Is more damaging than if you deal with it.

• 54:11Speaker 01

  Yeah, well, we, we are trying to get better, I think, and I'm, I'm saying that in a, in a general sense, but, uh, there's always, always room for improvement.

• 54:18Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 54:19Speaker 01

  I, I hope the, the conversations that we've, we've had, especially about, uh, young adults, um, resonate with, uh, whether it's parents or young adults themselves. I think it's some, uh, important messaging and, uh, I, uh, I had your book, How Dangerous Men Think.

• 54:35Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 54:35Speaker 01

  And how to say, uh, uh, how to stay safe for life.

• 54:38Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 54:39Speaker 01

  It's an old book, but there's still a lot in there that, uh, resonate.

• 54:42Speaker 00

  And it's now, um, it's so old, mate, that it's no, we, we, I think you get about five or six rotations of print in a book. And that was published around, oh, two thousand and one, I think, but it's accessible online. It's on Amazon. You can download it as a, as an ebook for I think ten, ten, eleven dollars.

• 54:58Speaker 01

  I, I found it as an ebook and, uh, interesting, interesting read. Lots of, lots of things to learn from there.

• 55:03Speaker 00

  A little bit a few years ago, when it transitioned from being sort of in print across to, um, uh, across to an ebook, if you like. I went through it, uh, to say, well, okay, what changed? And I did make some, but what was interesting is, you know, we've said this before, the stuff that we're talking about, that the guts of it hasn't changed all that much. Now, look, of course, now we could include in all of that, the online stuff and there's a whole book just in that. But as I went through all of that, I thought, well, you know, there's probably not a lot that needs changing here. The laws are pretty much the same, a few tweaks. So it seems to be the book is as well received today as it was when it sort of, when it first came out many years ago.

• 55:40Speaker 00

  And I think it was one of those times where it was the first book that put a lot of that, um, profiling and, uh, you know, psychology behind crime. And it put it into sort of a package that people could.

• 55:54Speaker 01

  What, what, what I liked about it, Brent, was the fact that a lot of stuff that you were saying or said in the book, I understood and, and knew it. But didn't have the research in support of it. It was my instinct, my experiences going, yeah, that makes sense. But you, you brought in a lot of the, the research that, uh.

• 56:12Speaker 00

  Yeah, well, that gives, that gives, like you said before, uh, Gary, that, that gives some depth to, it's not just an opinion.

• 56:18Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 56:19Speaker 00

  It's, I'm saying this because of this, this and this. And you, you may have a different view and that's totally fine. And if your different view can be backed up with more research, well, then you stick to it.

• 56:28Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 56:29Speaker 00

  But I'm comfortable telling you this because I can, I can back it up with.

• 56:32Speaker 01

  Well, I, I reckon the fact that you've been, uh, talking about this for so long in the schools and, uh, for, uh, over thirty years, uh, says something about the messaging you're delivering. So I want to thank you for coming on the podcast. Thanks for your time as a cop. I know that has, it has its ups and downs, the highs and lows in, in policing. But, uh, more importantly, the messaging you're getting across. I think, I think it's important because, yeah, young people, life's hard enough. And, uh, if we can give them a head start, they'll point them in the right direction, give them a sound advice. I think, uh, you're doing some good stuff. So I hope you, uh, keep up the energy and keep doing it.

• 57:07Speaker 00

  Thanks, mate. It's been an absolute pleasure to chat to you and, uh, you know, folks listening in can take something out of this and well, then that's, it's all worthwhile.

• 57:15Speaker 01

  Excellent.

• 57:15Speaker 00

  Cheers, sir.