Ben Roberts-Smith Arrest: Law Expert Reveals What’s Really Going On

James Glissan is a criminal defence lawyer who has stood on both sides of the courtroom as a former police officer and prosecutor, giving him unique insight into how Australia's justice system actually works. In this conversation, we examine the controversial Ben Roberts-Smith case and what it reveals about prosecutorial decisions, media influence, and the fundamental challenges facing our legal system. Glissan breaks down the critical differences between civil and criminal standards of proof, the complexities of war crimes prosecution, and why this case represents a significant test for Australia's justice system. We also explore broader issues around democratic participation, government transparency, and why so many Australians feel disconnected from the systems meant to serve them. You can subscribe to the free Mentored newsletter here: https://lnkd.in/e7C8akgj https://the-mentored-platform-pty-ltd.myklpages.com/l/WWJGc5. Join my exclusive Mentored+ community: https://mentored.com.au/become-a-member/ https://mentored.com.au/become-a-member/ See omnystudio.com/listener https://omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

• 0:00Speaker 00

  James Glissan, welcome to Straight Talk, mate.

• 0:02Speaker 01

  Thank you.

• 0:03Speaker 00

  And as a, like, I really appreciate you coming on. I mean, you're a practice manager of Glisten and Associates as lawyers. You've got two offices here in Sydney. You've spent time, I think, as a police prosecutor for a while.

• 0:15Speaker 01

  Yeah, and a police officer as well.

• 0:17Speaker 00

  A police officer as well. Just give us a quick rundown of what your experience has been, both as a cop, police prosecutor, you know, what your law firm does, the sort of work you do, and why, and we're going to talk about Ben Roberts Smith in a moment.

• 0:29Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 0:29Speaker 00

  But where's the relevance between what you have learned, what you have seen, what you do, relative to what we might be talking about in relation to Ben Roberts Smith?

• 0:37Speaker 01

  So it's interesting, like, the police still have that, where you go and be a prosecutor, but you have to spend time on the beat first.

• 0:43Speaker 00

  It's still the same.

• 0:44Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's still the same. So it's called the Accelerated Prosecuting Recruitment Programme. And when I joined, they didn't have it. It wasn't operating. It is now. And with that programme, you spend like one year on the street, whereas when I joined, because it didn't exist, it was three. So I went through, and I went through the academy. I did that while I was finishing my law degree, which was a terrible decision. It was a lot of work in a very short amount of time. And then I prosecuted after I'd finished all my, my beat policing, my street policing in the city. So it was really interesting having that background, because, especially in a criminal context, because it's no longer theoretical or academic,

• 1:24Speaker 01

  right? Because I've exercised the powers to arrest people and I've seen the alleged victims of crime prior to a conviction, because it's all, it's all alleged. They're all complainants. They're not yet victims until it's proven. But I've also seen how it affects people who are arrested and who are charged with things. And it's never, ever black and white. It's never clean cut. And then that compounded when I went to prosecuting, because as a prosecutor, you represent, yes, the state and the police, but you're also there to get the evidence from the complainants. Sometimes they really don't want to come because they don't want to relive whatever happened to them. And that has its own challenges. But you also see people who are self-represented for, in comparison, very minor things like traffic offences.

• 2:08Speaker 01

  And they believe very strongly in their position, but they don't really know how to articulate it. Because there isn't a huge amount of education in this country at, at any level, unless you go through a law degree at university to understand how it works and how court works. And it's very brave to do that. And I have a lot of respect for people who do self-represent. And then, of course, coming to the defence side of things, you see it again and a different side of it once more of how it's affecting them personally while they're waiting for a hearing or a trial date, what the risks are, how somebody who has lived a fantastic life and been a very valuable member of the community for a long time can either make one mistake or a relapse in judgment and then their entire life can change forever with a criminal record.

• 2:54Speaker 00

  And I can see how that sort of encourages people like you to stay in that career. But one of the things most people don't understand, and you will, and you've been on both sides of the ledger now, you've been on the prosecution and the defence side, these days on the defence side, but maybe it would be great for you to explain that it's not the police who decide to take the case, that it's the in state, at a state level, at the police level, or if you're at a federal level, which is the Commonwealth level, if it's a Commonwealth crime, it's the, in the case of New South Wales, it's the Director of Public Prosecutions in the federal, at the federal level, it's probably the Attorney General or someone like that, isn't it, right?

• 3:36Speaker 00

  And those people are influenced by politicians too.

• 3:40Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 3:41Speaker 00

  The bureaucracy that sits above the DPP, the Director of Public Prosecutions, and or the Attorney General at a Commonwealth level, they have an input, because what happens is the cops arrest them, as I understand it, and tell me if I'm wrong, because it could have changed, but the cops arrest them, you know, state crime might build up some resources around the evidence, gets handed over to the Director of Public Prosecutions, they look at it and go, well, we think we've got a winner here, or it's not worth spending the money on it, you know, it's so minor, we're not going to bother about it, or it's important, politically important, or, you know, a minister might even get involved because it might be about, I don't know, importation of cigarettes or.

• 4:18Speaker 01

  A policy reason.

• 4:19Speaker 00

  Policy reasons, yeah. Therefore, a politician gets involved, because this has some relevance, I think, to the Ben Roberts Smith case.

• 4:27Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 4:29Speaker 00

  But you might explain how the decision for you as a prosecutor, police prosecutor, to take the case, because you don't make the call.

• 4:40Speaker 00

  A cost benefit analysis is made and sent up to the DPP.

• 4:43Speaker 01

  Yeah, so it's very, it's very much driven by policy. I mean, at the beginning of the Crimes Act, whether that's the domestic violence one or the General State Act, it sets out the objectives and they're the guiding policy aspects, right? So when you're talking about offences that end up in the lower court, so the local court, and that's a lot of offences, it can even be quite serious because we've moved a lot of really serious offences down a level so that they can be dealt there.

• 5:07Speaker 00

  Quickly.

• 5:08Speaker 01

  That decision is dealt with by really the particular PAC or the particular police station in charge of it, and they inform themselves by way of policy. When you talk about the DPP or the matters that go to the higher courts, it's even more pronounced because there's definitely a policy aspect. And when you're talking about the decision to prosecute something, there's an overarching principle, which is whether or not it's in the public interest to run the prosecution. And it's a very, very broad test.

• 5:36Speaker 00

  How do police make that decision?

• 5:38Speaker 01

  Well, police generally don't.

• 5:39Speaker 00

  Then who does?

• 5:40Speaker 01

  For that, it would be like in the state, it would be the DPP. And in federal crimes, it would usually be the Attorney General, but I'm sure there's lots of advice being given there.

• 5:50Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 5:50Speaker 01

  And that decision is, you know, you've got to remember this is meant to be a very transparent system, but it's very difficult to get a clear answer on some of these things, which kind of hurts the transparency aspect. So when you talk about Ben Robert Smith, I mean, there's no doubt there's been a lot of division in, in this country everywhere in relation to how people feel about it. So you've got to really weigh that up as a factor when it comes to the public interest.

• 6:13Speaker 00

  It's interesting because media gets behind it and they start to make the politicians feel a bit nervous, a bit uneasy.

• 6:19Speaker 01

  Hmm. I mean, especially, you know, it's unfortunate and I don't mean to jump on the Ben Robert Smith bandwagon, but it's such a magnificent spotlight in terms of the issues surrounding media.

• 6:31Speaker 00

  And the process for me.

• 6:32Speaker 01

  And.

• 6:32Speaker 00

  The overall process, I don't mean just the prosecution, the decision to prosecute, but the media's role in this stuff and public opinion role and stuff and the decision is what's in the public interest. If you step back, how do you think people make that call about public interest? Do they look at what public opinion is and make and say, oh, well, it looks like a lot of people are against this, a lot of people are in favour of it?

• 6:53Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think when it comes to this particular case, there's a big argument that can be made where you talk about our obligations when we sign up to treaties as a country. So when it comes to things like the International Criminal Court and all the treaties surrounding war and the way in which we can conduct ourselves. So on the one side, the argument may be that we have an obligation to show the world that we take this seriously and it's not just lip service.

• 7:18Speaker 00

  We're the politicians.

• 7:20Speaker 01

  We're the politicians, that's exactly. And when I say we, generally speaking, that's what I'll be meaning. I certainly wouldn't speak for most Australians. But then on the flip side, you've got to look at not just how our reputation works internationally, but also how that affects us domestically as a country. Because as you said, it's caused a lot of division. It's become almost like a political chess piece.

• 7:41Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 7:41Speaker 01

  Everybody has a say on it. Everybody wants to show their position on it.

• 7:44Speaker 00

  Well, here we are today, even doing it like it's, and I wouldn't ordinarily have this sort of conversation, but yeah, exactly. I mean, I've got a view on it like, but it's so it because that's, I didn't think of the international aspect of it, um, which is, I'm glad you raised that, um, and how we look internationally, because we have those sorts of policies here, right? Now, the Paris Agreement, for example, the Paris, um, uh, Environment Agreement, that was signed under a different government, by the way, but still, the original signing of that or signing up to that was how do we look globally in terms of our contribution to the global environment? Um, and these are big, big policy decisions, which you and I, as voters, we never have a chance to have any say in.

• 8:28Speaker 01

  Not properly.

• 8:29Speaker 00

  Because it gets built and then there are iterations once the election's over and those iterations change.

• 8:35Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 8:36Speaker 00

  Can change the overall thing over time, they just get slightly chip away at it. So on an international basis, at a Commonwealth level, um, the Commonwealth Crimes Act, which is talking about, um, uh, war crimes.

• 8:47Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 8:47Speaker 00

  Um, which is what Ben Robert Smith has been charged with. He hasn't been charged with murder, he's been charged with a war crime, is that correct?

• 8:53Speaker 01

  Yeah, I had a look. Look at it last night, but there are five sequences. So there are five charges and some of them indicate direct involvement in an unlawful killing in a war environment. But what's interesting to me when I read through them is others refer to his sort of satellite involvement. So not directly being involved, but being around it when it happened. Now typically, when you see offenses like that, there's more than one defendant. Because to make that out, you have to show that it occurred in the first.

• 9:19Speaker 00

  Sort of like a conspiracy or raiding, a betting or something like that.

• 9:22Speaker 01

  Very much like that. Yeah. So it's interesting to see those charges appear where nobody else has been arrested and is is about to be put on trial.

• 9:31Speaker 00

  That's interesting because, by the way, a lot of the military who are now coming out and who are who are against the arrest or against the trial are actually saying that like, where are the other people who were involved, like particularly above Ben Roberts Smith in terms of, you know, like, generals or

• 9:51Speaker 01

  Train of command.

• 9:51Speaker 00

  The chain of command above him. Like someone's obviously told him to go to what some may have known about it, they didn't know about it or acquiesced in it or whatever the case may be. And because it took a long time.

• 10:01Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 10:02Speaker 00

  Like, what is this, 10 years ago or something?

• 10:03Speaker 01

  Long time.

• 10:04Speaker 00

  It's actually longer than 10, it's 20 years, I think. Yeah.

• 10:06Speaker 01

  Very long.

• 10:06Speaker 00

  So is it called a war crime, actually called a war crime in the Commonwealth Crimes Act?

• 10:12Speaker 01

  Yeah. So it's under the the heading. It's under the subsection of war crimes.

• 10:16Speaker 00

  Oh, really? There's a heading?

• 10:17Speaker 01

  And there's heaps of them. So they they list them and they seem to go on forever.

• 10:21Speaker 00

  Right.

• 10:22Speaker 01

  But the way that it's been able to be brought is through something that a lot of people aren't aware of, which is what's called extraterritorial jurisdiction or jurisdiction that applies in other countries, but can be prosecuted here.

• 10:34Speaker 00

  Because if I murdered someone in, I don't know, South America when I was over there, the New South Wales government wouldn't be bringing a charge of murder against me here in Australia. Is that right?

• 10:46Speaker 01

  No, they wouldn't.

• 10:47Speaker 00

  Because it happened somewhere else.

• 10:48Speaker 01

  That's right.

• 10:49Speaker 00

  In terms of this Commonwealth crime under war crimes. They have this extraterritorial jurisdiction.

• 10:56Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 10:57Speaker 00

  Cause this happened in Afghanistan.

• 10:59Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 10:59Speaker 00

  So he wouldn't be able to get prosecuted by the New South Wales prosecutor for this crime.

• 11:04Speaker 01

  Well, it wouldn't, it wouldn't be the appropriate jurisdiction because like you said, it's a Commonwealth. It's a federal offence.

• 11:09Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 11:09Speaker 01

  It really belongs in the federal sphere as opposed to the state sphere.

• 11:13Speaker 00

  And I don't know if anyone else has ever been prosecuted in one of these things before under the Commonwealth Crimes Act. War time crime.

• 11:19Speaker 01

  I don't, I don't know for war crimes, but.

• 11:21Speaker 00

  Break them around was.

• 11:22Speaker 01

  Yeah. Okay. Good point.

• 11:23Speaker 00

  But like the crime was committed in the eighteen, late eighteen nineties.

• 11:28Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 11:28Speaker 00

  In the Boer War. So this stuff's been around a long time.

• 11:31Speaker 01

  Yeah, in different, different iterations and frameworks, but it's not a new concept. And it doesn't just apply to war crimes, for example. So you look at the recent hate speech laws, which is the easiest way to describe them, even though they're far more reaching than just speech. And some of those offences, when it comes to, you know, what is hate speech, how it's tested. They also have extraterritorial jurisdiction. So if you do it overseas and it affects a group in Australia, then when you come back, you can still be charged.

• 12:00Speaker 00

  Wow.

• 12:01Speaker 01

  So, and it's, it's not new. Obviously child sex offences is a big one.

• 12:04Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah.

• 12:05Speaker 01

  Um, so there are clear instances where it's, it's in the public interest. Cause I think the public as a whole can get around prosecuting people who are accused of child sex offences. But when you're looking at some of these other offences and this power gets included, you know, hate speech or with the Ben Roberts Smith case in particular. That starts to become a little bit more muddy because people aren't really sure. The public isn't even really sure as to whether or not this is in the public interest.

• 12:31Speaker 00

  Well, most of us wouldn't even understand it well enough to know whether it's in my, I don't know about the public interest, but if I look at it, is it in my interest?

• 12:39Speaker 01

  Right.

• 12:39Speaker 00

  Is it in the interest of Mark Bouris?

• 12:41Speaker 01

  Right.

• 12:42Speaker 00

  The case against Ben Roberts Smith, we haven't seen something like this brought under the war crimes part of the Commonwealth Crimes Act for a long, long, long time that I, that I've ever. Certainly nothing is popular.

• 12:53Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 12:53Speaker 00

  Um, and the decision to make it would have been, would have come via, would have been a policy decision. To some extent based on how we look to our. Global allies or whatever, in terms of what, how we conduct ourselves in war?

• 13:09Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 13:09Speaker 00

  Or how we allow people in our military to conduct themselves in war?

• 13:13Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 13:14Speaker 00

  Um, that would have had, had some impact in, you know, on the decision making to actually proceed with this.

• 13:20Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 13:20Speaker 00

  I'm trying to give them excuses why it's taken 20 years.

• 13:24Speaker 01

  Well, one of the big issues, of course, and, and it's very difficult to speak about this without speaking to the evidence, which for example, I'm not allowed to do. I can't comment on anything that might. And we'll understand the irony in a little bit here, but I can't comment about anything that might prejudice his case.

• 13:39Speaker 00

  And you should explain because you're an officer of the court.

• 13:41Speaker 01

  Right. Uh, but when you're looking at war crimes and they've happened, you know, we've got the time aspect over 20 years. We've got the distance aspect, how far away it was, difficulties in attending the scene of the alleged crime, difficulties in obtaining witness statements and evidence. It starts to really become a weighing up of yes, justice needs to be seen to be done. So it needs to be something that is perhaps tried irrespective of the outcome. But if it falls over terribly, and I'm not saying that it will, but if it falls over terribly because there simply isn't enough rock hard evidence to support the allegations. That's not in the public interest because that's not really going to put a lot of faith in the system at all.

• 14:25Speaker 01

  And then people who are skeptical that this was a political move will be, you know, I guess in some ways validated by it. And they say, well, look, they didn't even have enough evidence in the first place.

• 14:35Speaker 00

  It's very interesting because that's risky.

• 14:37Speaker 01

  Very risky.

• 14:38Speaker 00

  So who ultimately is bearing this risk though? I mean, like, who's the person? Someone must be have sat there and said, okay, all those things you, someone's come and said, look, uh, minister or look, uh, head of the AFP or whoever you are, look.

• 14:55Speaker 00

  On one hand, justice must be seen to be done.

• 14:58Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 14:59Speaker 00

  Our international allies or people who fight us in war or fight with us in war

• 15:06Speaker 00

  want to know what type of country we are in terms of the military we send, in terms of the values and morals of those individuals. Do we fit within the conventions of how we conduct ourselves in war?

• 15:16Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 15:16Speaker 00

  And they're conventions we've signed up to.

• 15:18Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 15:18Speaker 00

  On one hand, but on the other hand, the gathering of evidence is going to be compromised to a large extent. Therefore, we could lose.

• 15:27Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 15:27Speaker 00

  Which will make it look like it was a witch hunt.

• 15:30Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 15:30Speaker 00

  In which case, we've got a lot to lose. So someone has to sit there and go, well, on one hand this and on the other hand that. I mean, you've been involved at a state level.

• 15:39Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 15:40Speaker 00

  Which is, as I said earlier, is, you know, could be the police minister or could be the DPP, but what do you think of some of the things that they were looking at in terms of this weighing up to decide to go with it as opposed to, no, let's just not do it?

• 15:52Speaker 01

  So when I was prosecuting, I always tried very hard to make sure that my job was simple, which was not to secure a conviction and it was not to get a particular kind of punishment. It was just to put the, all of the evidence that should be admitted, the judge should see, should see. And keep the stuff that shouldn't be out and then make submissions. So if you sort of use that as the guiding principle of a prosecution, the decision that should have been made, the basis that really should have underpinned this entire decision when it comes to Ben Robert Smith, is, is there enough evidence that we are comfortable, almost certain, that can be admitted to bring the prosecution?

• 16:31Speaker 00

  Which would be otherwise known as a prima facie case.

• 16:33Speaker 01

  That's exactly what it would be known as. Yeah.

• 16:35Speaker 00

  Um, but in your world, um, yeah, but like, uh, which is a lot of times is, you know, what happens in, in the state, at a state level that gets looked at by a judge early on and, you know, they decide whether they're going to proceed or not going to proceed with the case. Does, i- is that something that happens at the Commonwealth level? Is that a, a thing? At Commonwealth Crimes Act, I mean, does it get looked at by some lower court or whatever to make that decision?

• 17:00Speaker 01

  Well, often these things, they almost always start in the lower court. So even Ben's case at the moment is technically going to start in the local court.

• 17:07Speaker 00

  Right.

• 17:07Speaker 01

  The New South Wales local court when it comes to bail.

• 17:10Speaker 00

  Right.

• 17:10Speaker 01

  And there are a number of really technical and generally confusing ways in which the courts share jurisdiction for a little bit before it gets palmed off to one or the other.

• 17:19Speaker 00

  Right.

• 17:19Speaker 01

  Right. But when we're looking at how this is looked at and who looks at it, there is a real issue here, which is, and I don't think that this is going to be controversial. We're talking about the SASR, right? We're talking about a very serious organisation with very serious jobs. And a lot of that material, how they operate, who they are, things that were done, records, they're not going to be released to the public because.

• 17:43Speaker 00

  Could you explain that? I mean, apart from the public not getting those things admissible or in the court? I mean, is there laws around that says, no, we're not, we, the military, we're not going to give you that information?

• 17:57Speaker 01

  Well, if they're compelled to, they don't have a choice.

• 17:59Speaker 00

  They have to be, they can be compelled to.

• 18:01Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 18:01Speaker 00

  Okay. So they're not going to say that this is like Secret Service stuff, you know, you can't have this shit.

• 18:06Speaker 01

  No, it may be the case, for example, that Ben's defence team subpoenas it and they may resist the subpoena, meaning they don't want to produce it. But ultimately, it's up to the prosecution to make sure they have enough evidence. They're the ones who have the responsibility. And if they say, no, you're going to give us the documents, they'll be given the documents.

• 18:24Speaker 00

  Right.

• 18:25Speaker 01

  But that doesn't mean that the public is going to see the documents.

• 18:27Speaker 00

  So there'll be gag order on.

• 18:30Speaker 01

  That's right.

• 18:30Speaker 00

  So to speak.

• 18:31Speaker 01

  Yeah, non-publication orders. And then there will be periods of time, I'm willing to bet, where there's a closed court. So the jury will still hear it, but it won't be able to be reported on.

• 18:40Speaker 00

  So the obtaining of evidence is clearly going to be an issue just by virtue of distance and time. Let's just talk about the burden proof. And so it's not a gimme that because he lost in the court system in the civil case, that is where he was trying to sue someone for defamation, and the defamation claim is, you said that I committed a war crime and I didn't, he lost that case, okay? And that went all the way up.

• 19:07Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 19:08Speaker 00

  But that's based on the balance of probabilities. So basically, they said, well, the evidence that you've presented to us.

• 19:16Speaker 00

  The judge says on balance indicates to us that you probably did commit the crime.

• 19:21Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 19:22Speaker 00

  Therefore, you haven't been defamed.

• 19:23Speaker 01

  Yeah, of course. And this is a really common point of confusion and something I've been asked a lot. When you're looking at the civil case, especially because it's a defamation case, which are notoriously risky to run because the defense is that people were telling the truth.

• 19:36Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 19:36Speaker 01

  So it's, it's always a, it's a gamble as to whether or not it's worth it. In Ben's case, it wasn't. And now we've got this compounding issue. So in the civil case, it's balance of probabilities.

• 19:46Speaker 00

  But what does that mean? Is it like 51%? I mean.

• 19:49Speaker 01

  No, it's just, it's, it's more vague than that. So it's, it's not a mathematical equation. It's just to the fact finder, so to the judge, is it more likely than not that the allegation was true?

• 20:03Speaker 00

  Right. So it's about truth.

• 20:04Speaker 01

  Yeah. And I think you can even expand it a little bit further, which might help understand what this really means, which is each fact. So each allegation is put forward on its own and then the court has to do the same balancing exercise for each fact. But that's very different to what we're dealing with now.

• 20:21Speaker 00

  How's it look now?

• 20:22Speaker 01

  Yeah. So it's almost the opposite of the first trial, if you want to look at it that way. So now the burden of proof, the, the people who have to prove something are the prosecution.

• 20:33Speaker 00

  Yep.

• 20:34Speaker 01

  And the prosecution alone.

• 20:35Speaker 00

  And that's the police. Well, that's the AFP.

• 20:37Speaker 01

  That's right. So, so Ben doesn't have to prove anything.

• 20:40Speaker 00

  Hmm.

• 20:41Speaker 01

  The police have to prove it.

• 20:42Speaker 00

  Hmm.

• 20:42Speaker 01

  And then when you're looking at the standard, so in.

• 20:44Speaker 00

  The standard proof is a burden of proof.

• 20:46Speaker 01

  And, and in, I know.

• 20:47Speaker 00

  No, no, I forgot the words. I shouldn't remember, but I forgot.

• 20:50Speaker 01

  The, the standard of proof in the civil matters, we said, is like a balancing act.

• 20:54Speaker 00

  Yep.

• 20:55Speaker 01

  This is not a balancing act.

• 20:56Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 20:56Speaker 01

  This has to be beyond a reasonable doubt. And the courts have been very careful to not read too much into what that phrase means. Now, it's the highest test that we have in our system in terms of what you're required to do to prove something. But if you break the words down, it, it kind of brings light to it by itself. If there is a reasonable doubt, then you can't find them guilty.

• 21:18Speaker 00

  So in other words, I'm, I'm in the jury or I'm a judge.

• 21:21Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 21:21Speaker 00

  I'm in the jury. It's reasonable that I doubt the evidence as to the crime.

• 21:26Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 21:26Speaker 00

  That the prosecution has been presented. Therefore, I can't convict him.

• 21:31Speaker 01

  Yep. Must acquit.

• 21:32Speaker 00

  I must acquit, not guilty.

• 21:34Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 21:34Speaker 00

  So. What is reasonable doubt?

• 21:38Speaker 01

  Hmm, I knew you were gonna ask that question.

• 21:41Speaker 00

  I mean, what are the guidelines around it?

• 21:44Speaker 01

  The guidelines.

• 21:44Speaker 00

  What would a judge be saying to the jury?

• 21:47Speaker 01

  Yeah, okay, so that's a, that's a great question. So when we're talking about these things, it's not necessarily left up to the jury to interpret it themselves.

• 21:54Speaker 00

  No.

• 21:54Speaker 01

  The, the judge will give them directions as to whether or not, um, or rather how to apply the test when it comes to issues of law. It's up to the jury to decide what happened and what didn't happen, but it's up to the judge to make sure the law's being complied with, really.

• 22:08Speaker 00

  Yep.

• 22:08Speaker 01

  So when you're looking at a reasonable doubt, the, the simplest, most easy way to understand it is if you have a thought in your mind, just the tiny.

• 22:17Speaker 00

  You're the juror?

• 22:18Speaker 01

  You're the juror. If you have the tiniest little doubt in your mind, and it's possible that that doubt is true, then you must find them not guilty.

• 22:27Speaker 00

  Wow.

• 22:27Speaker 01

  And, and that extends. So without going into a full legal lecture, which I promised I wouldn't do. When you have somebody who then brings their own case, because remember, Ben doesn't have to say anything. If he does, if he puts his own evidence on, it doesn't even come down to whether or not the jury believes what he says. So they might not believe what he says, but think it might be true, at which point they must acquit.

• 22:49Speaker 00

  They may not believe him, they may believe it, either way, somewhere in between.

• 22:52Speaker 01

  Yep. And if they don't believe him at all, and they don't think that what he's saying is even remotely possible.

• 22:57Speaker 00

  So the judge will say?

• 22:58Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 22:58Speaker 00

  You must?

• 22:59Speaker 01

  Then, well, in this particular case where, let's say Ben puts on his own evidence and the jury says, well, we don't believe you at all. What the judge will tell the jury is, if you don't believe him, it doesn't matter because the prosecution still must prove everything. Even if you don't agree with what Ben said.

• 23:15Speaker 00

  So in other words, you've got to believe what the prosecution's doing.

• 23:18Speaker 01

  That's exactly right.

• 23:19Speaker 00

  Forget about what Ben said?

• 23:20Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 23:20Speaker 00

  Well, not forget about it, but you, there's a greater, um, standard required that the prosecution still must convince you, Mr. Juror.

• 23:29Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 23:30Speaker 00

  That the prosecution's case is correct and that he did have the intention of doing whatever the crimes that he's supposed to have done and we'll go back to that in a second.

• 23:38Speaker 01

  And not even in a big sense, every particular aspect of that must be to the same standard.

• 23:44Speaker 00

  Right.

• 23:44Speaker 01

  So it's a very steep climb, very steep.

• 23:47Speaker 00

  So in the civil cases, it was before a judge. In a Commonwealth case, it's before a jury.

• 23:53Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 23:54Speaker 00

  Maybe you can explain that deal.

• 23:56Speaker 01

  Yes. So that's one of the few rights that where Australians actually have.

• 24:01Speaker 00

  Yep.

• 24:01Speaker 01

  And they are few. And that is the right that you are entitled to a jury trial, to be judged by members of your peers.

• 24:09Speaker 00

  How many members in the jury is? And how would his defence team make sure that those individuals haven't been tainted by the media?

• 24:20Speaker 01

  That's the trick. I mean, if if you're talking about this case in particular, I don't know if you can, because it's been so heavily publicised and it's been spoken about so much. Um, and and the first defamation trial was in the headlines forever, it felt like. So everybody's aware of it and everybody knows that a court did, in a manner of speaking, find that he did something. So it's really, really important that people understand and and they will be told probably forever during the case of the trial by the judge, that whatever was said in that first case does not find its way into this one. It has to start fresh. Um, now, they've done several studies with jurors, uh, and there's limitations on what you can and can't talk about.

• 25:05Speaker 01

  You can't actually ask them why they made a decision or how they made it. But you can ask how they felt about the process. And the overarching theme is that people take it really seriously, really, really seriously. And I I think.

• 25:18Speaker 00

  Being a jury, you mean?

• 25:19Speaker 01

  Yeah, being a jury. Yeah, it's a huge deal. Even in even in less controversial cases, it's a huge deal. Because the fate of somebody's life is in your hands.

• 25:26Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 25:27Speaker 01

  And that's a weight that really carries. Uh, now, in the U S, there are all sorts of fun, exciting, dramatic. I think their legal system is far more fun and dramatic. I don't know if that makes it better, probably not. But there are ways that you can impanel juries and you can sort of cull lots of potential jurors.

• 25:44Speaker 00

  You can challenge, you can challenge.

• 25:46Speaker 01

  Right. But here, it's far more restricted, far more restricted.

• 25:49Speaker 00

  So there'll be twelve members of the jury eventually appointed. Maybe you can explain the process of.

• 25:59Speaker 00

  The final decision as to who the twelve jurors would be, how's that gonna work?

• 26:03Speaker 01

  Generally, it will come down to what the defence and the prosecution are willing to agree to when it comes to jurors and who they're going to use their veto on. It's one of those situations where it's really up to whoever is running the case to just trust their gut and their experience and make the right call.

• 26:25Speaker 00

  Do they get to see your details? Do you get to see your profile on them?

• 26:30Speaker 01

  I mean, there are questions that can be asked. I think generally speaking, we try to be very careful in revealing private information like that, but it's one of those situations where people will be very honest. For the most part, people will be very honest when they're asked questions and they'll answer them fairly.

• 26:46Speaker 00

  So there's an opportunity to ask questions?

• 26:47Speaker 01

  There is an opportunity to ask questions.

• 26:49Speaker 00

  And those jurors for a Commonwealth case, is it the same as like in a state case? You know, you live in New South Wales, you're on a list, you know, you've never paid for a case, you just automatically somehow get this notice that you're required to turn up.

• 27:01Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 27:02Speaker 00

  And unless you've got a good excuse, you know, you're gonna get fined or something.

• 27:05Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 27:06Speaker 00

  You're compelled.

• 27:06Speaker 01

  And you won't know. So even when you get called up for jury duty, you won't know what it's about, who it's for, anything like that until you turn up.

• 27:14Speaker 00

  Right.

• 27:14Speaker 01

  So it's.

• 27:15Speaker 00

  And there'll be people hoping they get on this case for sure.

• 27:18Speaker 01

  I bet there are.

• 27:19Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 27:20Speaker 01

  But and therein lies the problem, right? Because it's become such a controversial issue.

• 27:23Speaker 00

  It's a circus.

• 27:24Speaker 01

  Big deal. People wanna be involved and people have, I mean, maybe not prejudged, but they've certainly come to their own moral conclusion about whether or not it's right. And and that's a real risk. It's a real problem and I don't know if you can get around it.

• 27:36Speaker 00

  James, do you think it's better that he is gonna get tried by a jury as opposed to a single judge or more than a single judge? Or is it better that he go just have a single judge, which is probably what would happen if he was in New South Wales? So it has a different set of rules.

• 27:50Speaker 01

  It does. With the with the absolute greatest of respect when I say this, I have more faith in twelve independent minds deciding what happened and the facts of a case than one.

• 28:02Speaker 00

  Right.

• 28:03Speaker 01

  Even though judges are very experienced, I think it is fairer as a system to have twelve people come to the conclusion.

• 28:11Speaker 00

  Maybe not necessarily fairer, but mathematically. Probably more likely you get a chance of getting one person that has some reasonable doubt.

• 28:18Speaker 01

  Well, I think I think it might be fair. And the reason I say that is if it's beyond a reasonable doubt, then that that's really high.

• 28:25Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 28:25Speaker 01

  And if you have one or two people, certainly more, who think, well, no, I do have a reasonable doubt, you haven't met the standard, you haven't met what is required as the prosecution.

• 28:35Speaker 00

  It has to be beyond the reasonable doubt.

• 28:37Speaker 01

  That's right.

• 28:37Speaker 00

  Like, and and they don't say how far beyond is.

• 28:40Speaker 01

  No.

• 28:40Speaker 00

  I don't know, but like if reasonable doubt's here, they don't say beyond's like just a little bit above. They don't say it's right out here somewhere. Beyond just could be anywhere. It could be just literally a millimeter above.

• 28:51Speaker 01

  Yep, it could be one step over or three miles further.

• 28:54Speaker 00

  But maybe if we just look at the law itself, the legislation itself, is legislation flawed in that it says we're going to judge this guy based by a jury of people probably never really experienced in the stuff that, you know, soldiers have experienced twenty years post the event or however long it was.

• 29:13Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 29:13Speaker 00

  Is there a flaw in the legislation? I mean, like, because if he went to a court martial, which he can't do because he's no longer in the army, but if he went to a court martial, he'd be getting judged by a panel of

• 29:26Speaker 00

  judges who have probably all been at war or at least know what's going on.

• 29:29Speaker 01

  Right, have experience.

• 29:31Speaker 00

  Yeah, have experience in the mindset.

• 29:33Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 29:34Speaker 00

  How, what is a reconciliation or how do does one reconcile being tried twenty years later by people who may well have never experienced what I've experienced. Um, and they're now going to make a decision about what I did on that day, at that moment, at that minute.

• 29:50Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 29:50Speaker 00

  Um, based on all the things that were happening to around me and also based on the orders I had, maybe I had.

• 29:56Speaker 01

  Yep. And that is, it's a very reasonable question. So when you're looking at that though, there there are two different processes occurring and it's really important to to draw a distinction between them. The first is a lot of that assumes that it happened, right? And then it's whether or not it was reasonable in the circumstances. But that's really a matter more for sentence where you determine, you know, are there factors that reduce the sentence? Or is it really extreme? What the fact finders in this particular case need to do, what their job is, is to determine whether or not it happened at all.

• 30:28Speaker 00

  Right.

• 30:28Speaker 01

  Binary.

• 30:29Speaker 00

  Right.

• 30:30Speaker 01

  So in the US, it can be quite different. And the reason I draw a lot of distinctions between us in the US is because we share a very similar foundation for the system, but we've grown in very different ways. So in the US, the jury may have more of an influence in terms of penalty. It certainly does when it comes to civil matters. Here, it's got nothing to do with the jury. They're just there to determine the facts, the truth of what happened. And in some ways, it may even be more beneficial to have people who have no experience in the military, because they can't have their judgment clouded, where they say, oh, well, I've seen that done before, so maybe it did happen. They really have to bring an impartial mind to it. I mean, like, it's such a unique context. It's such unique circumstances that it's near impossible to do.

• 31:15Speaker 01

  And there are real practical difficulties with that. So when you're talking about the court martial aspect, that it's predominantly for disciplinary issues, for current serving ADF, but when you're talking about this, and even though it doesn't seem right, because sometimes the law is not all that logical, you have a situation where the offence is outside of the military jurisdiction. And so people who are drawn to the jury are outside the military jurisdiction. So if you wanted to look at it as perhaps, or if you wanted to frame it as a break or an issue with the way that laws work, it would be how the jurisdiction is handled. So if people wanted that change, people have a great degree of influence over how the law works. I know people don't think they do. Often it's because they don't understand what they can do to influence it.

• 32:00Speaker 01

  But that can change, and it can be pushed back into the military jurisdiction, if it's allowed to.

• 32:06Speaker 00

  How could it get put back in the military jurisdiction?

• 32:09Speaker 01

  For the criminal offence aspect of things? Well, there are ways that we could sort of bridge the gap between military jurisdiction and federal jurisdiction. Now, it gets a bit tricky with offences.

• 32:20Speaker 00

  Right.

• 32:20Speaker 01

  Because often when you come to criminal offences, you need what's called a chapter three court, which is a constitutionally approved court. And that does have issues, but because we are a system where parliament can. Write all kinds of laws, so long as they're not unconstitutional and they can make sweeping changes. And we've seen that over the last six months, a lot of changes have been occurring. There are ways that the public may be able to influence that, not for this case, but in the future, as to how things are put together.

• 32:48Speaker 00

  Through the public opinion process. What's likely to happen to him if he gets convicted? We're talking about terms of penalties because usually Commonwealth crimes have pretty horrendous penalties sitting around them.

• 32:59Speaker 01

  Yeah, they do, especially when you're talking about offences where they can occur overseas but be charged here. That's already a very high bar. So these offences all carry life imprisonment.

• 33:08Speaker 00

  Life?

• 33:09Speaker 01

  Life.

• 33:09Speaker 00

  And life means actually life?

• 33:11Speaker 01

  Well, there's.

• 33:13Speaker 00

  The rest of your life or?

• 33:14Speaker 01

  Twenty five years.

• 33:15Speaker 00

  Twenty five years.

• 33:16Speaker 01

  But it'll, it'll depend on how that's applied because just because that's the maximum doesn't mean that's what people get. And just because there are a number of offences that carry the same penalty doesn't mean that they.

• 33:27Speaker 00

  They all get added up.

• 33:28Speaker 01

  On top of each other.

• 33:28Speaker 00

  They can conserve it all at the same time.

• 33:30Speaker 01

  That's right.

• 33:30Speaker 00

  Yeah, contemporaneously. And we talk about the prosecution's difficulty, but let's talk about the defence. How difficult is it going to be?

• 33:38Speaker 01

  It's impossible to know until you see the evidence. I think the real, what I can say is that the difficulty the defence is going to find is when it comes to whether or not the juries have already made up their minds and how they can make sure, as hard as they can through their advocacy and their submissions, that the jury brings an impartial mind to this. That's going to be an inherent difficulty.

• 33:58Speaker 00

  In other words, they come with a preconceived idea.

• 34:00Speaker 01

  Yeah. And it's, it's going to be difficult because, you know, this story isn't going anywhere. It's continuing to be a massive topic because people are finally understanding how parts of this system work and it doesn't seem fair. So that's going to be really hard to manage. When it comes to the actual evidence itself, we'll only know when we start seeing it.

• 34:19Speaker 00

  His first bail application was refused. But I think he's got another hearing for bail coming up sometime, not too far off.

• 34:26Speaker 01

  Pretty soon, I think.

• 34:27Speaker 00

  Do you think he'll get bail? I mean, is he a flight risk or is he a risk of any type?

• 34:33Speaker 01

  Oh, look, I don't know. I don't imagine. So there doesn't seem to be anything that would indicate that.

• 34:37Speaker 00

  No.

• 34:37Speaker 01

  Um, but what I will say is bail. So it wasn't, it was refused, but it also wasn't applied for.

• 34:43Speaker 00

  Oh, you didn't apply for it?

• 34:44Speaker 01

  No. So there are a number of reasons that can happen. Now, one of the issues, and this is something people won't know about unless they've had reason to look it up.

• 34:52Speaker 00

  Hmm.

• 34:52Speaker 01

  Uh, in the local court, which is where the bail application is going to be determined, he can get bail, he can get bail from, from the magistrate, from the judge. And then the prosecution can hand up something that's called a section forty bail stay. And practically what that means is it overrides the court's decision. So the court can give him bail and if they hand up that certificate, he can still stay inside until it makes another application, which would have to go higher, like the Supreme Court. So that may have been something that factored in. Uh, it may not have, but I'm, I'm very interested to see what happens when he applies for bail.

• 35:26Speaker 00

  Do you mind to give, just give me a comment? I mean, if you don't mind, I mean, you may prefer not to as an officer of the court, but just the, the way he was arrested. I mean, do you think there was, I mean, do you think that, I don't quite understand the point to that. Um.

• 35:40Speaker 01

  No.

• 35:40Speaker 00

  And I've talked to a lot of mates of mine who are high ranking people in the police. And they said they would never do that. I mean, unless it was ordered, they were, they were sort of giving, giving, given, they were told to do it by, let's say that the, people rank above them, which ends up in the political sphere. Um, like getting arrested on a plane and being paraded in front of the media.

• 36:02Speaker 01

  And his children.

• 36:03Speaker 00

  And his children, when he'd already offered to hand himself in if they wanted to charge him.

• 36:11Speaker 00

  I don't know, but what's the point of that?

• 36:13Speaker 01

  Where's the public interest? I don't think.

• 36:15Speaker 00

  Well, is that in the pub? So they might say, well, it is in the public interest to say, we want to show the public that we're doing our job. Do you think, is that, is that the thinking or?

• 36:24Speaker 01

  Look, okay, well, I promise this will be the last distinction I draw between the US and here. But in the US, when you do something like this, it's a massive media event.

• 36:32Speaker 00

  Yes, in the US.

• 36:33Speaker 01

  Designed and it's designed and intended to be a media event with the arrest. That is not allowed. They have case law on that, which means they have judge law saying that it's unconstitutional and infringes rights. The only purpose is to humiliate somebody. Um. Here, we don't have anything like that. Now, the major problem that I have with this, and I know a lot of people have, is it was unnecessary. And it looks very heavy handed. And I've I've spoken about this before. But where you have such heavy media presence for the arrest. The rest of the country knows about the arrest before it ever becomes a court, before a court. And before it becomes a matter in which he has legal representation. And there's a real issue. And the reason the US found that it wasn't lawful.

• 37:18Speaker 01

  Is that there's a real issue. It it impedes somebody's right to a fair trial. Because they've just seen him arrested. They've seen him in cuffs. So therefore he must have done it. So that's the theory. And that's why they don't allow it over there. But for some reason, we do allow it here.

• 37:31Speaker 00

  I've seen it happen before. And I just wonder whether it's. Actually, whether it is or is not in the public interest for this, for that to happen at all in those circumstances. I mean, I don't see what the point of it is. And I think it actually is mentally, potentially quite detrimental. To getting a a proper, fair outcome. That is.

• 37:53Speaker 00

  Every person. Whether it's federal or state crime. Has the presumption of innocence. That's our system of advocacy.

• 38:02Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 38:02Speaker 00

  That's how we operate.

• 38:03Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 38:03Speaker 00

  In this country. And we've, sure, we've received that law from somewhere else, but it doesn't matter.

• 38:08Speaker 01

  No.

• 38:08Speaker 00

  That's what we've adopted. That's what we all signed up to. That's what we're doing. And I just think that that process, particularly given the power of the media today. Yeah, I mean, I'd have heard about this twenty times before I even saw the the evening news. Just gets into my my neuronal system is just getting hit up with this.

• 38:25Speaker 01

  Again and again, it's repeating.

• 38:26Speaker 00

  And and it's just, it's settling. Like, I'll remember that.

• 38:29Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 38:30Speaker 00

  More than I'm trying to remember something else I'm trying to learn.

• 38:32Speaker 01

  The other thing is, and this is really important, is it changes what can be said in court. So often, if somebody's told that they're wanted and that they need to hand themselves in. What defence will do is they will say, well, look, he handed himself in. You know, the jury can infer what they want from that. But flight, for example, is evidence of guilt, can be evidence of guilt. And they didn't do that, even though we said that he would hand himself in. Instead, now what the jury is looking at is somebody who's trying to board a plane when he's arrested. And that is a very different starting position, a very different starting position. And it was.

• 39:07Speaker 00

  Looks like he's trying to escape.

• 39:08Speaker 01

  Yeah, and it was.

• 39:09Speaker 00

  That's what, that's what I thought of. So where was he going to? Well, he was trying to get out of the country.

• 39:12Speaker 01

  That's because they, they don't explain that. They don't explain that, you know, this could have been organised or that he was open to coming in, whatever. All they do is you see a picture, you see him in handcuffs and you see he's at the airport trying to board a plane. I mean, the natural inference is right there.

• 39:27Speaker 00

  Yeah, he's trying to escape. He's trying to get, get out of the jurisdiction.

• 39:30Speaker 01

  I, I disagree with it. I don't think it's particularly sporting. I don't think it's very fair.

• 39:35Speaker 00

  No, I don't think it's fair at all. Can I, do you mind if I, you just, because you have been talking a lot about lots of different things. I mean, particularly in around policy, how do you think the government has handled the current fuel crisis?

• 39:47Speaker 01

  Well, I think every government over the last twenty years handled it poorly.

• 39:52Speaker 00

  Not just this government.

• 39:53Speaker 01

  Not just this government, just government generally over the last two decades has handled it particularly poorly. There have been a series of decisions that were intentionally made that have landed us where we are now. And, and now unfortunately, as a result, we as a country are suffering from.

• 40:06Speaker 00

  But what I always say about that, James, is those governments have been voted out.

• 40:09Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 40:09Speaker 00

  And these guys got voted in.

• 40:11Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 40:12Speaker 00

  So this is their baby.

• 40:13Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 40:14Speaker 00

  I mean, they don't, I don't want them to tell me what happened in the past because, you know, okay.

• 40:18Speaker 01

  No, I.

• 40:19Speaker 00

  Australia voted for you.

• 40:20Speaker 01

  There's a lot of that.

• 40:21Speaker 00

  You're back in. You got your second term. You're back in. Um, so whatever they did therefore, by, by definition, if you, if you won the two election, uh, two elections ago, you won the election that we didn't, we voted them out because of all this stuff. So you're back in, you're in charge.

• 40:35Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 40:36Speaker 00

  How do you think they're handling it? I mean, they're just spending twenty million dollars at the moment, telling us to take the roof racks off our cars.

• 40:42Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's probably not the best use of funds, given what's happening.

• 40:45Speaker 00

  On my hand, they're saying everything's okay. It's cool. But on the other hand, they're telling us to stop, take the roof racks and, uh, and put more air in the tyres.

• 40:53Speaker 01

  Yeah. And the same message you get, you know, don't worry, we have fuel, it's fine, but also maybe please stop buying so much fuel.

• 40:59Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 40:59Speaker 01

  But don't worry about it.

• 41:00Speaker 00

  Yeah, it's, if anything is confusing.

• 41:03Speaker 01

  Very confusing.

• 41:03Speaker 00

  I mean, do you feel like the train is like idiots?

• 41:06Speaker 01

  I think that there has been a trend over, certainly over my lifetime, certainly since I started studying law and working in it from policing all the way through. That this has become more of a top down approach and it's become quite.

• 41:22Speaker 00

  Poll driven.

• 41:23Speaker 01

  You paternal, you know, you don't really know what you want.

• 41:26Speaker 00

  I know better.

• 41:27Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 41:27Speaker 00

  Well, we, we the government know better.

• 41:29Speaker 01

  It's just not right. It's just not true. I mean, like, I look through, I probably shouldn't, but I look through all the comments on my YouTube videos. And they're really insightful.

• 41:39Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 41:39Speaker 01

  Some, some of them are just rude, but a lot of them are really insightful.

• 41:42Speaker 00

  Yeah, totally.

• 41:43Speaker 01

  Really clever questions.

• 41:44Speaker 00

  Yeah, smart.

• 41:45Speaker 01

  People are switched on and they care. They care so much more than they let on.

• 41:49Speaker 00

  I'm glad you raised that, James, because, you know, and I, I think this is the sort of thing which, which makes stuff like you, what you're saying on YouTube go viral. People actually do care and we are underestimated about how much we care.

• 42:01Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 42:01Speaker 00

  And I, I just think that's a massive mistake by, by governments. They care, but also, or we care, but also do we not only care about all these issues? Ben Roberts, you know, NDIS, uh, you know, the fuel crisis, we care about all this stuff. But we're also pretty smart.

• 42:19Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 42:20Speaker 00

  And, uh, we do understand more than you think.

• 42:23Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 42:24Speaker 00

  And, uh, you, the government, when I voted you in, which was, you know, last year in March, in twenty twenty five, these weren't things on the table.

• 42:34Speaker 01

  Mm hmm.

• 42:35Speaker 00

  That you're asking me to vote for.

• 42:37Speaker 01

  Mm hmm.

• 42:37Speaker 00

  This is only recent.

• 42:39Speaker 01

  Mm hmm.

• 42:40Speaker 00

  So I didn't actually give you, um, my vote in favor of what you're doing now. Just because you're in doesn't necessarily follow that I agree with what you're doing right now. Now, but that would say, yeah, okay, Mark, the next election, you can vote me out for what I did.

• 42:54Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 42:55Speaker 00

  But, uh, but that's backwards looking.

• 42:57Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 42:58Speaker 00

  I, I wonder what your thoughts on, uh, um, you know, like, when should governments, instead of polling and making decisions on polling, when the governments, when do you think it's right to say that, um, the voting population is much more sophisticated today than they were twenty years ago, thirty, forty years ago?

• 43:19Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 43:20Speaker 00

  People care much more today than they ever did in the past, or a greater number of people care much more than they did in the, in the past. And those who do care, care more, I think. Um, and, um, and therefore governments should actually start to be much more consultative.

• 43:33Speaker 01

  Oh, much more, much more.

• 43:35Speaker 00

  Not just a poll.

• 43:36Speaker 01

  No.

• 43:36Speaker 00

  But, but.

• 43:37Speaker 01

  Well, that doesn't really do anything.

• 43:38Speaker 00

  But consultative, look, what, what do you think?

• 43:40Speaker 01

  Look, there should, there should be much greater involvement. And the issue isn't with people not wanting to be involved. The issue is people don't know how to be involved and there's been no real. Olive branch extended, whether it be from state parliament, federal parliament, the legislature, anywhere, to invite people in to be involved. Instead, what ends up happening is you get, like you say, you get given polls, but they produce a binary result. Do you agree or do you not agree?

• 44:07Speaker 00

  Yeah, and it depends how you write the poll too.

• 44:08Speaker 01

  That's exactly right.

• 44:09Speaker 00

  How you write the questions.

• 44:10Speaker 01

  But it doesn't, that is one thing. How it's actually implemented is the important thing. And that's what people care about. So the more that people get involved, the better the system will be because people care and they have their own unique perspective they can bring. You know, somebody who's a bricklayer in Mount Druitt will have a unique perspective to bring as to what we do with the fuel crisis and how it's managed.

• 44:35Speaker 00

  And how it affects him.

• 44:36Speaker 01

  And how it affects him. And that's going to be representative of a whole range of people. Instead of just people who've, and without disrespect, people who've gone through high school, university, ended up in a federal job and are like, well, no, this is how it's going to affect him in Mount Druitt.

• 44:49Speaker 00

  It's not going to affect me that that person, because that person might catch the the training to work two days a week.

• 44:56Speaker 01

  Right.

• 44:56Speaker 00

  Whereas the brick, he's got to go to work six days a week. He's got to turn up. He can't do it from home.

• 45:00Speaker 01

  No. And then the, and the risk might be much higher, you know, like he might have his own business, looking after his kids, trying to get across the mortgage, the cost of living is increasing.

• 45:09Speaker 00

  He might have just started to expand, might have borrowed some money.

• 45:11Speaker 01

  All sorts of things.

• 45:12Speaker 00

  And all of a sudden, the interest rate goes up and he's trying to give more jobs to more people.

• 45:17Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 45:17Speaker 00

  And by doing that, he's trying to be entrepreneurial, takes on, takes on more jobs than he normally would take on. All of a sudden, it's costing him much more to get to everywhere.

• 45:25Speaker 01

  Yep. And his opinion matters a lot. There's a lot to be learned from it.

• 45:29Speaker 00

  I mean, it's nearly like we need to have a live website for decisions that were never voted upon, but let's call it material decisions or significant decisions is going to affect a significant amount of the population where everybody can get involved live and say what they think.

• 45:50Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 45:51Speaker 00

  They're like nearly vote.

• 45:52Speaker 01

  Yeah, more of an old school democracy where everybody was.

• 45:54Speaker 00

  And that's what I want to talk to you about. I'm glad you said that. So we, we, we pride ourselves, and so does many of the Western nations, but we pride ourselves as being democratic. But the democratic process only happens once every, in this country, once every three years, when you get an opportunity to vote.

• 46:13Speaker 00

  But. But the real version of democracy, you know, which is originally sort of evolved from the days of Aristotle, et cetera.

• 46:22Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 46:22Speaker 00

  Was that every day they were debating the issues.

• 46:25Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 46:26Speaker 00

  And it was debated, not just in parliament, but but where it was all closed off to everybody. But it was debated in the square.

• 46:33Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 46:35Speaker 00

  Where everybody got their say.

• 46:36Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 46:37Speaker 00

  And that's proper democracy.

• 46:38Speaker 01

  Good system.

• 46:38Speaker 00

  Yeah, good system, because at least the people who are making the final call get to hear about what the masses are thinking.

• 46:45Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 46:45Speaker 00

  We don't have that anymore. I actually don't think we have a proper democracy anymore because more issues come up between elections than have ever have come up in the past.

• 46:53Speaker 01

  Yeah, and we don't get a say in how they're dealt with.

• 46:54Speaker 00

  Like Covid, a good example.

• 46:56Speaker 01

  Great example. I mean, the hate speech law, hate speech laws.

• 46:58Speaker 00

  Another good example.

• 46:59Speaker 01

  Forty eight hours for people to put on submissions for the biggest sweeping reform for speech laws in this country ever. That's unacceptable. It's not enough time for people to get their say.

• 47:08Speaker 00

  It was only forty eight hours, was it?

• 47:10Speaker 01

  It was such a small window of time.

• 47:12Speaker 00

  And where and how did people even find out about this so called forty eight hours?

• 47:15Speaker 01

  Well, this is the thing, you don't, unless you're involved in the system, you don't know where to look. So they put out a call for submissions, people that can then put their submissions on. But you've got to remember, like, even with the groups that did write submissions and get them on, it's a very small amount of time. For, let's say it's a big company, or let's say it's a union or or any group of people that represents the interests of that group. It's hard in forty eight hours to really look at it, understand how that's going to affect everyone in your group. Then write really good submissions that are clear.

• 47:45Speaker 00

  Craft something.

• 47:46Speaker 01

  Craft something and submit it.

• 47:48Speaker 00

  And get approved by your your colleagues.

• 47:50Speaker 01

  Uh.

• 47:51Speaker 00

  Everyone's gonna have a like.

• 47:52Speaker 01

  It's impossible.

• 47:52Speaker 00

  It's like, and everyone's got a view and a comment and and you change a hundred times over and like, and you've got to get it out within forty hours. That's a very interesting thing. It was only properly established, structured, funded, interest groups.

• 48:05Speaker 01

  Mm hmm.

• 48:06Speaker 00

  Respond to those things.

• 48:07Speaker 01

  Yes, which is not necessarily representative of the.

• 48:10Speaker 00

  They're they're interest groups. And it might be, it might be polar opposites.

• 48:14Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 48:14Speaker 00

  And, you know, maybe that sort of works, but but individuals, us as individuals, again, it's one of those situations where they're not really interested in, well, it seems like they're not, the politician's not really interested, it's not the politicians, it's not, it's probably the public servants, but not really interested in the process at arriving of at what the the democratic system. Believes in.

• 48:37Speaker 01

  No, it's more efficient outcomes, it seems.

• 48:39Speaker 00

  Yeah, or or maybe James, the others, just so we can say we gave a consultation.

• 48:45Speaker 01

  A lip service, you mean, yeah.

• 48:47Speaker 00

  We'll run it for forty hours because this is what we really want to happen.

• 48:49Speaker 01

  Yeah, well, we've already drafted it. I'm not saying that they did, but that's that's the impression that you get.

• 48:54Speaker 00

  By the way, it came out so fast, like in terms of drafting, you know how long legal drafting takes normally.

• 49:01Speaker 01

  Should take.

• 49:02Speaker 00

  Should take. For example, um, uh, the terms of reference for the Royal Commission.

• 49:08Speaker 01

  I'm so glad you brought that up, yeah.

• 49:10Speaker 00

  Like, that came out, wasn't happening, wasn't happening, wasn't happening. Out, done.

• 49:15Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 49:16Speaker 00

  It's like it'd been drafted six months before to me.

• 49:19Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 49:20Speaker 00

  That's how it looked.

• 49:21Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 49:21Speaker 00

  I mean, for someone who's done a lot of drafting in his day, like when I was younger, but I just know how hard it is and how long it takes and how many reviews you've got to go through.

• 49:30Speaker 01

  You have to be.

• 49:31Speaker 00

  Particularly in a parliamentary level.

• 49:32Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 49:33Speaker 00

  Um, uh, and and, you know, having the inputs you've got to get.

• 49:37Speaker 01

  Mm hmm.

• 49:37Speaker 00

  It doesn't happen over a couple of days, never.

• 49:40Speaker 01

  No, I hope not. I mean, it's very serious.

• 49:42Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 49:43Speaker 01

  The terms of a Royal Commission, the terms of reference are very serious because, as you know, they they're the rules. They're the guideposts.

• 49:50Speaker 00

  For the commissioner.

• 49:51Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 49:51Speaker 00

  And, you know, I always like to see more than one commissioner, but anyway.

• 49:54Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 49:55Speaker 00

  Um, two or three commissioners is usually better.

• 49:58Speaker 01

  More minds are always better.

• 49:59Speaker 00

  Much better. But one commissioner always tells me something. I mean, I did see this in the Royal Commission into um, banks.

• 50:07Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 50:07Speaker 00

  They appointed one commissioner and I admittedly thought to myself, this is not, and it was Hain and I always, I admittedly, and he's a judge, a former judge.

• 50:15Speaker 01

  Mm hmm.

• 50:15Speaker 00

  And I thought to myself, they should have an economist in there, they should have, you know, uh, one or two other types of people to have, so the commissioner can be fuller in terms of experience and understanding.

• 50:27Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 50:27Speaker 00

  Um, and because if you just have a judge, you might just end up getting a judge's view.

• 50:32Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 50:32Speaker 00

  Like, I don't mean from a technical legal point of view, type of view.

• 50:38Speaker 01

  Yeah, I I know, I know.

• 50:39Speaker 00

  You know what I mean, not not a broad based economics view or what's what works in terms of models around the world, et cetera. Um, not not, and no academic, maybe not enough academic in there. And the Royal Commission has also got one judge in the current, the current Royal Commission.

• 50:54Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 50:55Speaker 00

  It's got one judge.

• 50:56Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 50:56Speaker 00

  Um, and.

• 50:59Speaker 00

  Sometimes it makes me think that the outcome is already preconceived.

• 51:05Speaker 00

  Well, in terms of confidence, I'm not saying that she will do that because I don't know, right? And for all accounts, it reads well, she reads well, but but she, as you say, she is restricted to the terms of reference that she'd been given to by the government.

• 51:17Speaker 01

  That's right. And that's what a lot of people don't understand. So I did a short video which got a fair amount of traction, given how dry the content was on how royal commissions work, what they can actually do and what they can't. And almost every response was either appalled because they didn't realise how it actually worked, or appalled that the Royal Commission didn't have more teeth when it came to actually implementing change. So with the terms of reference, just for anybody who doesn't know, that is what.

• 51:42Speaker 00

  This is a royal commission into the Bondi and Drumm.

• 51:45Speaker 01

  Any, any, just the process generally.

• 51:47Speaker 00

  Yep.

• 51:48Speaker 01

  So the terms of reference confine what can be looked at and investigated to whatever the government says can be.

• 51:54Speaker 00

  And beyond that?

• 51:55Speaker 01

  Nothing, not allowed in.

• 51:56Speaker 00

  Then all that?

• 51:57Speaker 01

  No. And parties will fight tooth and nail and they will, they will get injunctions and they will say, which is an order preventing the court from doing something. Or in this case, the commission from doing something. And they'll say, sorry, outside the terms of reference, can't be brought up. And, and that's what will happen. And then when it comes to the end, another thing that a lot of people don't know is their recommendations. So it doesn't actually change the law, they're just recommendations. And then the government will look at the recommendations and they'll pick the ones that they want to put in place. And they will shelve the rest.

• 52:27Speaker 00

  Sometimes, sometimes they do, normally they do go with a recommendation.

• 52:31Speaker 01

  No, for, for the most part, they do.

• 52:33Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah, they normally do.

• 52:34Speaker 01

  But it's, it's not mandatory.

• 52:36Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 52:36Speaker 01

  And I think that's where a lot of people get tripped up.

• 52:38Speaker 00

  Yeah, whatever the Royal Commission says is going to happen, that's not the case.

• 52:41Speaker 01

  Not at all.

• 52:41Speaker 00

  So the government, so, I mean, there's that old saying, you know, like you're running a royal commission, you determine the outcome before you, you, you, you have the royal commission by, by putting it in the, by, by managing the terms of reference.

• 52:52Speaker 01

  Yeah, of course. If you can manage the scope of the investigation, I mean, it doesn't seem like that much of a stretch to say that you can manage the outcome.

• 53:00Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 53:00Speaker 01

  What can be looked at.

• 53:01Speaker 00

  And the judge, or sorry, the commissioner, no matter what their background and their ability and their sense of acting properly.

• 53:10Speaker 00

  Is is or is restrained or constricted restricted from what they can cover off.

• 53:16Speaker 01

  Yeah, and it's not their fault.

• 53:17Speaker 00

  It's definitely not their fault.

• 53:19Speaker 01

  To work with.

• 53:19Speaker 00

  That and in fact, they're compelled to work that way.

• 53:21Speaker 01

  That's exactly right.

• 53:22Speaker 00

  That and and someone can get an injunction and say, no, you cannot go beyond that point.

• 53:26Speaker 01

  And that's that.

• 53:27Speaker 00

  Yeah, end of story and they get a court order and they have to go back to where they started from. And and whilst we're on controversial stuff, um. One of the things that definitely fascinated me with this whole Desi Freeman case down in Victoria. Um, what do you, what do you make of that stuff?

• 53:45Speaker 01

  I think it's it's symptomatic of a bigger issue, really. I mean, what happened was appalling, really terrible. I mean, both ends of it.

• 53:52Speaker 00

  Yeah, that is shot the police.

• 53:53Speaker 01

  Being killed and that it ended the way that it did.

• 53:55Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 53:55Speaker 01

  Because now there's not going to be any investigative, well, there's not going to be any public trial or explanation of what occurred.

• 54:01Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 54:01Speaker 01

  There'll still be an investigation and a coronial.

• 54:03Speaker 00

  And that's a good example of public interest, the public deserves to know.

• 54:05Speaker 01

  Great example. The public do deserve to know it was a huge thing that happened, a really big.

• 54:10Speaker 00

  Especially this business about, um, you know, being part of some group that, um.

• 54:14Speaker 01

  Sovereign citizens.

• 54:14Speaker 00

  So, yeah, sovereign citizens, yeah. I mean, what does that all mean? Do they exist?

• 54:18Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 54:19Speaker 00

  How much influence do they have on these actions?

• 54:21Speaker 01

  They definitely exist. Uh, the the ideology definitely exists that was imported from the U S here. And it has no basis here. It has no basis in the U S either. But I saw this a lot when I was prosecuting because I would obviously I'd be in court five, six, seven hours a day running cases. And you don't really get a chance to look at what the actual case is often. So you'll just meet these people as you go and you'll run the case. And sovereign citizens almost always represent themselves.

• 54:48Speaker 00

  And they say you've got no jurisdiction, have you?

• 54:50Speaker 01

  Yeah, they do. They say things like that, but but what's sad is it's not people who are nuts or crazy or violent. They're people who are so unbelievably disenfranchised with the legal system. And people who find, who can find no connection and no bridge across. That they then turn to something that gives them an easy answer, which is the sovereign citizen ideology.

• 55:12Speaker 00

  And otherwise I got my own laws on it, yours doesn't apply to me.

• 55:14Speaker 01

  It's a very attractive proposition when you feel like such an outsider and that there's no way back. And I think it gets compounded. And this is why I'm I'm not overly harsh on sovereign citizens at all. Because I can understand how they got to where they got to. And I find that people often want to write them off. They want to have a laugh at them at their expense. It doesn't help. It's just pushing them further along the garden path. And what we need to do is find a way. Cause there's clearly an issue where people feel so disconnected from the legal system that they're meant to be involved in. To bring them back and make them feel involved so that they can make changes. I mean, it's a really depressing issue because it's a, it shows a real systemic failure for us as a country.

• 55:55Speaker 01

  That people are so removed from this system that they feel that that is a more sensible route to go down.

• 56:02Speaker 00

  And the Desi Freeman is an extreme example of the final outcome. Of what can happen when something goes fucking badly wrong, like really bad.

• 56:13Speaker 01

  Terrible.

• 56:14Speaker 00

  And, and two people are dead. He's dead as well.

• 56:17Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 56:18Speaker 00

  But on top of that, we, there's a, there's now a chasm. We do not know why.

• 56:22Speaker 01

  Mm hmm. And, and unfortunately there is now a flag that people with that ideology can point to and say, see? I told you so.

• 56:30Speaker 00

  They killed him.

• 56:31Speaker 01

  Yeah. And I think, you know, you say, where does it come from? I think it's really a twofold issue at, at its absolute basic level. One is, most Australians don't understand our system or our rights at all. There's, and they're not taught them. So they can't understand them. You know, you wouldn't criticize a 12 year old for not knowing something they weren't taught. Well, we were all that 12 year old and we were never taught it. So then what happens is they get into adult life and the law expects them to know the law.

• 56:57Speaker 00

  There's a presumption.

• 56:58Speaker 01

  There is a presumption, but it's just a little bit removed from reality at this point. So when people come into contact with the law. The system they thought they had doesn't exist. So in their mind, it's not legitimate because that's what they see as a legitimate system. And that's the problem. And, you know, you, you brought it up before, this idea of a proper representative democracy where people can actually have influence of things. Between election cycles, that would be a really nice bridge.

• 57:23Speaker 00

  Hmm.

• 57:24Speaker 01

  To try and bring people back into the fold and feel included and like they're a part of building the country moving forward.

• 57:30Speaker 00

  I actually think people would love that. Australians are actually, um, as opposed to Americans.

• 57:37Speaker 01

  Mm hmm.

• 57:37Speaker 00

  Much more interested.

• 57:40Speaker 00

  In what's being decided for us.

• 57:42Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think we play it off like we're not all that interested, but not even that deep down, people are very interested and there's an awful lot to be interested in. I mean, even things like the privatization of roads and resources, people really should have a say in that because they started off as ours, as a, as a country, as a sovereign capability, for example, the refineries, and then with very little regard to what the public thought was in there.

• 58:07Speaker 00

  There was no vote on that.

• 58:08Speaker 01

  No, and they just start shutting them down. And now we're in the situation we're in. And, and this is the point, I think, because there is so much happening in such a short period of time where Australians have said, actually, you know what, I really do care about this.

• 58:19Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 58:19Speaker 01

  And what's your answer? Because I wasn't involved in the decision-making process here. So how did you get to the decision and how do we fix it?

• 58:27Speaker 00

  By the way, you know, if you're the government, you should do that because not, not because it's the right, not only because it's the right thing to do, but because you then can say down the track, well, you knew about it.

• 58:38Speaker 01

  Mm hmm.

• 58:39Speaker 00

  You either didn't say something or you said it was okay.

• 58:42Speaker 01

  Mm hmm.

• 58:42Speaker 00

  We, or we did ask everybody and on the balance of probabilities, on the balance, we had to make a call.

• 58:48Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 58:49Speaker 00

  Cause you know, ultimately it's going to be captain's call. That's the government. We've got to admit, I get, I, I accept that.

• 58:54Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 58:55Speaker 00

  But equally, they should be consulting with us or allowing us the opportunity to consult with them.

• 58:59Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 59:00Speaker 00

  And, and that's modern democracy.

• 59:02Speaker 01

  It is. You know, people refer to this idea of a social contract, which is that we give up a lot of our own personal powers and freedoms for the government to look after the country as a whole and deal with it. And that's the focus, but it's a contract. So there's another part of that because we need to benefit in some other way, which is that we still are involved in what it is we must follow. You know, there's the presumption that everybody knows the law. I think there's a presumption before that, which is that we had a say in what the law was.

• 59:28Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 59:28Speaker 01

  So it's reasonable that you would have known it. And it's just not happening at the moment.

• 59:32Speaker 00

  Yeah. And I don't think, um, I mean, to some extent it's our fault. Cause to some extent we've abrogated all our rights up to the government. Like it's a bit of a.

• 59:44Speaker 00

  But I also, a bit of a problem for Australians, but at the same time, I don't think we realised the outcome or the potential for those outcomes, because everything was going along swimmingly. You know, our economy was good, you know, like we didn't have any mass shootings, we had, we were at Port Arthur, but basically we had nothing else other than that. Um, but we're in pretty good shape up until Covid.

• 1:00:05Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:00:06Speaker 00

  And then, but Covid has revealed a lot to us and everything that's happened since, there's been a lot of events since Covid.

• 1:00:12Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:00:12Speaker 00

  And, and, and, uh, and, you know, the, the whole change in immigration, the complexion of our immigration to Australia, everything's changed a lot since Covid.

• 1:00:22Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 1:00:23Speaker 00

  Um, it, it's just probably in every aspect. And I think that, you know, a modern government, I mean, maybe that, you know, the opposition parties, all the new parties are trying to get up. You know, if they could start to talk about these sorts of policies, I reckon the first party that comes out and says, listen, we're a new party and what we're going to do is we're going to say, we're going to make sure that we introduce some website and we can all vote for you in your local area and you, everyone gets a number.

• 1:00:44Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:00:44Speaker 00

  And we're not going to record the number with your photograph or something like that to make sure people aren't being pegged. But at the same time, you know, you can vote anonymously.

• 1:00:53Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 1:00:54Speaker 00

  Like you do it when you go to the, when you go to the voting.

• 1:00:56Speaker 01

  Yeah, people don't know what you've said.

• 1:00:57Speaker 00

  You don't know who it is. So you, you know, you don't feel targeted.

• 1:01:00Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 1:01:00Speaker 00

  Or that you're going to get targeted.

• 1:01:01Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 1:01:02Speaker 00

  Um, I, I reckon that would be whoever does that, because that's proper transparency. They, they could win the election.

• 1:01:09Speaker 01

  I, I think so too. I think everybody could probably get behind that, you know, and you speak about Covid. The reason I think that Covid was such a huge deal, apart from the fact that it changed the way we live our lives and it still has, is, as you say, we've ceded a lot of our rights to the government. It's never really flexed its muscles.

• 1:01:25Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:01:25Speaker 01

  And Covid was the first time the government really flexed the power that it has. And now it's almost like we've been bitten by a pet dog and we're like, well, hang on, if you're capable of that, like,

• 1:01:35Speaker 00

  What else are you going to do?

• 1:01:36Speaker 01

  Exactly. Like what else is on the cards? And we see that now with this current deal that's before the federal parliament with the expansion of the ASIO powers.

• 1:01:45Speaker 00

  Hmm.

• 1:01:45Speaker 01

  Which is way more powerful and people didn't even know those powers existed.

• 1:01:49Speaker 00

  Well, most wouldn't even know what ASIO is.

• 1:01:50Speaker 01

  No, I mean, it's, it's a real concern and it's not because people aren't interested. People are interested, but they're just not being given the opportunity to have a voice in it. And I think that's more destructive than anything else.

• 1:02:03Speaker 00

  The Labour Party prosecuted the voice for our First Nations, um, family and friends.

• 1:02:09Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 1:02:10Speaker 00

  But. What's interesting about that is we should have a voice for everybody.

• 1:02:14Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think, I think.

• 1:02:15Speaker 00

  As well as them.

• 1:02:16Speaker 01

  Yeah, I look, we all need more of a voice than what we currently have.

• 1:02:19Speaker 00

  Yeah, a proper voice.

• 1:02:21Speaker 01

  Absolutely.

• 1:02:21Speaker 00

  And none of us would care with us online or however, we don't really care.

• 1:02:25Speaker 01

  No, we just wanna feel heard and listened to, you know, proof that we've been listened to. Not just as we said earlier, you know, well, we've given them forty eight hours to put on their submissions. I'm not gonna rate them, it doesn't matter.

• 1:02:35Speaker 00

  Yeah, that's a, that's.

• 1:02:36Speaker 01

  And that's the impression. I think Australians, because I lived in the US for a number of years. Australians are really, really good at detecting bullshit.

• 1:02:44Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:02:44Speaker 01

  Like, they can smell it from a mile away.

• 1:02:46Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:02:47Speaker 01

  Um, and that applies when it comes to politics more than anything, because the moment you hear something, you're like, all right, where's the double speak?

• 1:02:53Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:02:53Speaker 01

  And then three seconds later, of course, they'll say, you know, like the, what we're saying with fuel. There's no issue with fuel. And you're like, wait for it. Then they say, but also don't buy it unless you need it. It's like, okay, come on.

• 1:03:03Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:03:03Speaker 01

  So there just needs to be more honesty and more transparency and more of a voice for us to be able to be heard.

• 1:03:09Speaker 00

  Less bullshit. I love it.

• 1:03:11Speaker 01

  Enough.

• 1:03:12Speaker 00

  James, thanks very much, mate. That's pretty bloody good. I mean, to finish you on that, less bullshit. I'm very happy with that.

• 1:03:19Speaker 01

  Thank you.

• 1:03:19Speaker 00

  Go on, mate. Thank you.

• 1:03:20Speaker 01

  Thank you, mate.

• 1:03:21Speaker 00

  Appreciate it.