An altercation between lifeguards and beachgoers on Sydney’s popular Cronulla Beach is seen as the catalyst for more than 10 days of violence and unrest. Former NSW Police Minister Carl Scully and former Assistant Commissioner Mark Goodwin join Gary, sharing their insider experiences of the Cronulla Riots - and why it could have been far worse.
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The public has had a long held fascination with detectives. Detective see a side of life the average person is never exposed to. I spent thirty four years as a cop. For twenty five 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. Welcome back to part two of my chat. We've retired New South Wales Police Assistant Commissioner Mark Goodwin and former New South Wales Police Minister Carl Scully. Welcome back, guys, Thank you now. If you miss part one. The two men that we've got in the studio today, they were in their roles as police Minister and Assistant commission that we were in charge or overseeing what happened in the Crenulla Rights and the aftermath of the Cronulla Rights. In Part one we talked about the build up to the rights, specific incidents that had occurred, and that was on the eleventh of December two thousand and five. What the public don't know, and I think this is where we'll get into it a little bit in a little bit more depth, is what happened after the rights. Let's call them revenge attacks. A lot of it's been covered in the book that our two guests of co authored called The Cronulla Rights. Guys, can you tell me about the revenge attacks? We finished off in part one talking about Okay, on that particular night, people went home, people got tired, they went home. But that was just the start of what happened to happen in regards to law enforcement, to make sure the situation didn't escalate.
Probably best mark if you want to deal with Yeah.
Look, the six o'clock news hit that night after the incidents during the day at Crinella, which was primarily a protest, and as we've discussed in Part one that there was violent incidents occurred down there, but the media had strung them together in such quick succession with excited voiceover that it made it look like a five thousand strong Caucasian crowd had carried on like that all day long, which was not the case. Regardless, that was seen obviously wired and fired and justified the media beat.
Up and build up to the actual day.
So what occurred then is that's put broadcast into every lound room around certainly New South Wales, if not Australia and even internationally, and that enraged the young Lebanese Muslim youth that had seen people from their community being assaulted on the beach by these inebriated Caucasians. And what started from them almost instantly we started hearing and having information brought to my attention was things that started popping up at I think the first one was at Saint George Hospital and then at Brighton the Sands and incidents that were occurring which were of violent nature and.
Quite extreme.
And then we moved the command center then to the Sydney Police Center and opened up the large Police Operations Center, which had already been running in a support role to myself, but we activated in full mode then and I called back and luckily, in the planning for this, we had anticipated that this may occur. So we immediately called back in a large number of extra police to relieve the ones that had been on duty all day in the hot sun, and even they were kept on though anyway on overtime. But and I recalled an number of superintendent local commanders to specific areas around the cocker Rockdale, Brighton, Lessens and Uncliff area, the campsy La Kember Cannbury Bankstown area and also in the eastern suburbs.
And what occurred is that.
We had then closed down the bridges into the Sutherland Shire. We didn't even have the powers to do this, but we just anticipated what was coming because I had been a crome manager at Banksdown for five years and before that had detected for five years as well in the early eighties. But I knew what was coming and my experience told me that this is going to be bad.
And it was.
And what we started seeing was these marauding groups of up to fifty cars of young Lebanese Muslim men, very enraged, very angry, and they armed themselves with baseball bats, knives, guns, and we had entire suburbs attacked, such as Muruba, because they couldn't get into the Sutherland because the bridges were shut, even though we didn't have the power to do it. We just closed them off, anticipating and knowing what may happen. So that first night they didn't get in there, but they went to Ruber instead because what had occurred was in the lead up to it, most unehelpfully, there'd been an article run where the head of the Bra Boys had said in the front page of the Daily Telegraph that either reason they don't come here to Maruber is because of us the bra Boys.
Well they came to Ruber, all right. They came that.
Night waving the red flag.
Rave the red flag.
A very irresponsible article and it absolutely caused Maruba to be trushed. And what occurred over there was there was rated paging gangs of up to fifty cars. They got out with baseball bats, knives and they just went ballistic on the town and they smashed car windows, shop windows, People walking down the streets were baseball battered. We had stabbings. We had over that period. That night and the next following nights. This went on with more and more viciousness, and you know, there was churches, Christian churches burnt down in the West suburbs.
There was people stabbed. They got into the Shire.
The following night into the sutherland Shire, there was a young guy stabbed outside viciously and almost died outside Willowere Golf Club. And look, there was numerous baseball battings going on and assaults, people being punch kicked and stuff for no other reason that they were just Caucasians.
So that escalated to a point where.
We were having a lot of trouble responding to this because there was so mobile, they were so random. They were unlike popularist media have reported that they were all coming from a particular park in Punchbow, they were emanating from numerous areas in the western suburbs, all done by mobile phane and meet up points organized very quickly. And these mobile rampaging gangs very hard to police with. What traditionally we see of public order is the static police lines protests.
A one hundred right squad police up this OA. It don't turn up there.
In a particular area because you well know that's where the protest.
Is going to be. But this was random.
That was a lot night under the cover of darkness, and you know this way years later we see that and we say that there's just this media coverage of the daytime events at Cornella is all you see. If you google the Cronella RTEs, that's all you will see. Because the media couldn't keep up. They literally decided and they often act as a pack, and they decided at about five o'clock at Cronell it was all over and went in and they were out to dinner when the main event occurred, which was the revenge attacks. And there's no imagery, and these revenge attacks would have fed you've said, like the six o'clock news, and I remember anyone around at the time would remember how it was covered and how you described it as it was a right of large group of ossie males attacking anyone that came to the beach of Middle Eastern appearance. And from what we've learned in part one, that wasn't entirely as yeah, as straightforward as that, and that wasn't the numbers that were portrayed in the media. But I know, like I was speaking to in prep for the podcast, speaking to a Lebanese friend, and she said she was getting calls as you touched on from overseas, going are you guys all right over there?
What's happening? Because that was the type of thing, that's thing that was being portrayed, all the images that were being portrayed in the media. What happened in the follow up attacks didn't capture the media's attention because a little bit harder, as you started to explain. But from a policing point of view, and I ask you this, and I'd also defer to you, Carl, because I think there had to be changes in the legislation that got pushed through. The type of powers mark that you were seeking to quell that like stopping cars and pulling people over, we didn't have those powers readily available. There was a little, let's call it a gray area on what authority they could use.
Yeah, well, what we found was is that first off, this mass text messaging that was going on and that's how things were being organized, we didn't have powers to search phones and discover what had been said and where it was being said and where they were going to. So that was one issue. Another issue, we didn't have powers to actually lock down suburbs. And you know there was in those days, there was random breath testing legislation, so we use that, but we literally didn't have the We didn't have the power to lock down these bridges to keep them out of the Sutherland Shower or any other suburbs, Ruber or anywhere else.
But he just did it anyway.
And in discussions with the government with Carl Scully, who was a police minister, we said, we think we need these powers.
We need to be able.
To search these people, and we need to be able to stop search these marauding gangs of cars. We need to be able to confiscate their cars.
We need to be able to search.
Through their phones and if these messaging, seize those phones, because these are the weapons you're literally being used to organize and then also to shut licensed premises in case there was more an ebriot sort of action on the beach. And look, we went to the government and the response and Car can talk about this because he was the minister. But like the response week, I've never seen anything like it. Like, as I said before part one, the Parliament was in recess, so they finished for the year.
You've got holidays, Car, not quite holidays, but the parliament itself it was in recess, and you know, and the response that week, I wish I let Carl talk about now from our law enforcement perspective was phenomenal how the government reacted and able to car for what was actually done.
So I'll give an example.
Once we gave the power of entering public transport, inspect all cars, inspecting phones, and then arresting and confiscating, it went through like a bush telegraph. Suddenly these young men realized the cops are there. If I've got this on my phone, I can be put in prison. So that was very rapidly impacted upon this incitement, and certainly the out of lockdown suburbs and to seize cars and detain people was enormously important. But yes, Mark's right, we acted as quickly as we possibly could. Eleventh of December it occurred, and the fifteenth that became law. So we had a cabinet meeting a minute and the cabinet resolved very quickly. By the way, there was no twenty page cabinet minute with all this stuff. We met and the Cabinet secretary made some notes about what we decided, and those notes went to the Parliamentary Council and a bill was quickly drafted and Parliament recalled and it.
Was all very very quick.
Credit to you, because I've been involved in trying to get legislative changes on certain things, and I can assure you it doesn't go that quick.
It was pretty impressive to see, but it gave them what they needed. So, as I said, my job was to provide the powers, the personnel and resources and to nudge the commissioner around when he needed to be, to give the backing to someone like Mark Goodwin and his commanders. And I think the government did that well.
At what point you mentioned in part one early that you flagged the idea of bringing the military in At what stage in events was that when.
You straight after the main event? And I had the concerns historically from McQuary Fields, And perhaps if I could recount a quick story. The day after the mcquarie Fields first day, which you might call went for about four days or so, I had a meeting. I'd been minister for about four or five weeks and we met out at McQuary Fields and I said, all right, what are you doing this evening? Oh, I've got one hundred and fifty police said is that enough? Do you think that's enough? And on the way back to the office I rang the commissioner. I said, I'm just a lawyer who went into politics who ended up as police minister. But you guys have been doing this for decades.
He rang me back.
Five minutes later and said, well, actually, there's going to be six hundred and so when at the end of the same year I got oh, we're putting six hundred in, I thought, well, is that the magic number for law and order events? And I said this is a lot worse than mcquarie fields. Do I need to ask the premier to bring soldiers in? We'll need to put troops on the street. And he got the message very quickly. We changed the law, We gave the powers to the cops, and the commissioner authorized two thousand police officers. So he did what was expected of him, and I believe the government did what was expected of it. All we can do is empower the police with personnel, resources and powers, and there was up to them to do that work. But we knew he had plans in place. He already had those escalation plans in place, which he was already implementing from the previous evening.
Okay, mark those powers when they came in the play and the resourcing that we just talked about, then, how much did that assist in staying on top of the situation.
Look, I think the people of this South Wales have really got no idea what threat they were under. And I'll talk about the second the intelligence that we had, and then you know we needed those powers. We were acting and hoc really and just doing it because it was the right thing to do. Bit like Craig Campbell on the on the train. If people want to say that's a defensive weapon and he was using it offensively, well that's what was required at the time. We shut down bridges, we shut down suburbs and stuff because there'd be people dead otherwise and that's your job as policing.
Worry about it later.
But we did need these powers to give the police the assurance on the street of doing what I was asking them to do was lawful and that they needed that morale boost. And look, the government responses I've outlined already was was, I mean, it's a fantastic example of the system, the best I've ever seen to have legislation after I opened my mouth on the table four days and I'm using it four days later.
So we gave police a great morale boost.
We certainly then organized our plans around that and you know, the following week again we had to run an operation because of the amount of intelligence we had. We had to run an operation that extended from Woollongong in the south to Newcastle in the north, with two thousand police involved. And that was the largest public order operation ever run in Australia and still to this day is it was very, very complex in seven zones and shut We used this legislation and were shut down and lockdown areas based upon the intelligence we had, mostly beachside suburbs, but certainly inner western Sydney as well. And you know, people entering and leaving those had to give reasons they were there, They had to show identification, so they are lockdown with roadblocks like you know in COVID. People saw it in COVID, but this this happened in parts of as I said, right from Wollongong to Newcastle, Beach suburbs lockdown completely and you had to either live there or show identification as to why you were going in there, have a reason to go in there, and your car would be searched and you would be searched. And but look, the public were very cooperative because you know, I can't recall one single complaint that we had against any police officer during that period of time, which is just bizarre for the amount of this law enforcement that was done, and.
It was over the top.
But they were built in safeguards in this law enforcement activity too, because the use of these powers can only be authorized by an Assistant commissioner, which was me sign You had to sign off on it, a bit like I say, controlled operation type thing. It's not just an everyday power that exists normally, so it has to be extreme circumstances and this then gets signed off and it then becomes the fact that the police can use it. They can't use these powers on any other normal day, So they were these safeguards build into it. But it gave police enormous confidence and it was.
Used, and it was used heaps and making the difference. Let's talk about the intel that there's some that's referred to in the book and conversations I've had with you quite horrific the potential for what they'd been rumored to be about to occur.
Yeah, look, I'll give you a couple of examples, and we reveal this in the book. For the first time ever, we had intelligence, for instance, that there was going to be a drive by shooting with Uzi submachine guns at the Northey's Hotel at Cronulla, which is the local drinking whole of a Friday Saturday night. The following weekend there was going to be this drive by shooting.
There was also in.
That same incident going to be a hand grenade thrown into the front bier garden. We knew from existing task forces of the police that there was attempts being made to purchase a hand grenade on the black market. There was an undercover operation that the police ran that week and took a hand grenade off the street and purchased it and it was secured by the bomb squad and removed. There was search warrants also done to remove guns off the street and another potential source that we knew was another potential source of another hand grenade from intelligence that we'd been provided. And we also had intelligence for instance that Westfield's at Miranda and the Thursday night before Christmas, because all this was in the lead up to Christmas, there was going to be a raid done on the west Fields at moriunded by fifty car loads of young Lebanese Muslim men with baseball bats, knives and good nos what else. And we saw the result of one offender recently in Bondo and what rampaging through a shopping center that can do this was going to be fifty So we had a lot of conversations with Westfields about this and we locked down that whole precinct with enormous amounts of police and it didn't occur as thwarted. You know, the attack at Cernulla was thwarted and what was really going on behind the scenes, And you wonder why there was a special sitting of New South Wales Parliament because it was frightening Gary what the intelligence we were receiving. And we had intelligence in the abundance load because thankfully there was a lot of existing police task forces that were already working on some of the criminals that were acting in these revenge attacks. And we also have a lot of informants coming forward, a lot of also concerned parents from both sides that were giving police information.
So we had a lot of intelligence.
About authorities also feeding.
Yeah, I was approached by our federal counterparts and some agencies that I can't really mention approached me quite concerned and had the exact identical intelligence that we did.
It was sound, sound intelligence.
And for instance, like we one of the I don't want to name him here, but one of the people we interviewed saw a bootload of oozy submachine guns outside the mosque that was going to be used, and him and other senior Muslim leaders shut that down. And you know, you can't underestimate the work that was done over there at Campsy because you know, after Ruba was attacked, there was a it was actually a quite false rumor went around that in retribution for that, every surfy was going to turn up there and destroy the mosque, and so you know, that went round like wildfire in the Arabic Muslim community, and all of a sudden, thousands of people literally started turning up to the mosque and it was hostile.
And the police.
Commander over there, John Richard, did an absolutely fantastic, marvelous job with the local game because of fantastic existing relationships that they already had with the local Muslim leaders, and you know, they screamed themselves hoarse outside that mosque to close down what the potential was going.
To prevent their credit to prevent this. The role that law enforcement plays in it, but the community play such a big part, The community leaders play such a big part in its.
Absolutely, and they got there their unsung heroes and of all this because you know what was prevented by them, by John Richardson and also the and most particularly actually the I say John richards I mean police, his frontline police, and I'm talking about the superintendent, I mean the actual bodies on the ground, the frontline troops that we all know did a wonderful job, but the Muslim leaders themselves did an absolutely fantastic job there to calm the situation. It would have been way, way worse if it wasn't for their involve already existing liaisons with the police.
Actually, yeah, and I hope that type of stuff gets reported because we talk about the media, the sensational type stuff, but that doesn't carry it for the story as much doesible.
As goary, it didn't happen, So it didn't happen, Yeah, and we've tried to say, but it could have happened, and it didn't happen for all these reasons, primarily because of police, but there's also a great contribution from community. And one of the stories we try and tell is John Richardson his commander and his relationship.
With the commutingmunity, and that wasn't isolated.
The police did a good job, and I can tell you as police minister, I respected the efforts that these local area commanders put into building relationships with their stakeholders and community. But I'm disappointed people. It's almost like, well, it didn't happen, so it didn't.
Maybe that it almost did.
Maybe people can look at the consequences if just one of those incidents happened. I don't think our society be the same way we are today. I think it'll be game changing. It would just escalate. An assault on the beach at Cronulla escalated into the riots. Could you imagine if something more sinister occurred, or a larger magnitude.
So look, I think we would have had to have responded had it got out of hand. Potentially troops would have been brought in onto the streets with personnel carriers, we would have increased powers federally in state. We wouldn't have stood by and not responded aggressively. But to societally repress a whole chunk of our community is not something I got into politics for. I really didn't but having these thoughts in my head at the time, Yeah, some of which I probably didn't even share with Mark, but I remember considering them, at what level do we need to take this to to win the fight? And we would have gone to whatever level we needed to do to deal with it. Thankfully, these who went back to barracks, they got the message. They didn't like being arrested, they didn't like their phones and cars being taken off them. And when all these streets and beaches and suburbs were all being shut down, they thought, oh, there's a whole ton of men and women in blue.
No thanks.
They turned around and went home. But it was touch and go for a while.
It certainly sounds that it comes out out in the book. How long did this go on? For Mark? Like the when did you Because you have Australia Day coming up? I remember that was So that was a big day in itself, just because of what it represents. So we're talking over the whole summer period basically.
Yeah, Look, the most violent of the incidents certainly occurred in the first few nights, but you are right, it went on and we kept receiving intelligence of incidents that we had to shut down and we kept targeting and using these powers. They were extended and used over the entire summer. So incidents days I should say, such as Australia Day, even Christmas Day, Boxing Day, New Year's Eve, they were all extreme risk events that are not normally risk rated.
At that high level.
It's the highest level you can have because of the intelligence that we had about incidents that were being planned and were going to happen amongst crowd activity, particularly on say New Year's Eve and things like that. The intelligence, as I said, you know, we've revealed some of it in the book, but what we had overall was frightening. I've never seen anything like it my life in the police and as I said, I worked at Bankstown for quite a number of years and in the drugs world and in the homicide and I understand you so I've seen the.
Worst of the worst, but as you have.
But it was it was to a frightening level, even to as I said, the federal counterparts have come to me that we don't normally deal with state police forces, and we're very very concerned themselves. But one of the things I think is interesting to talk about that we instigated because these were such mobile random revenge attacks. We decided and it was a bit of an epiphany. Really we need to be able to respond in a similar mobile fashion, So none of this mobile right squads waiting for things, just that we locked down these suburbs. Sure, but we needed to attack these marauding gang's head on. So one thing we do know is that young young men like their driver's license and there's hided up sporty cars and they don't like having it taken from them. So we came up with the idea we put groups of ten v eight pursuit cars with pursuit drivers and three other right Squad police in each one of those cars in groups of ten cars, so thirty right police in ten higher Patrol cars. And there was numerous of these teams throughout Sydney, and a minute that we got any information about a group forming that were intent on rampaging around in these marauding.
Mobs, they were swarmed upon by these.
Police, very very good police, highly trained, highly trained Higher Patrol officers.
They all stuck.
Together these vehicle in convoy and there was there was a site to be seen. When they know it was head on into these gangs of marauding mobs going around and it actually got worldwide attention.
Of these in the in the book that came across there.
There So being a right on the move is not something that certainly we've ever experienced in Australia uh and even internationally in most jurisdictions haven't haven't had to deal with such a marauding groups in these high speed vehicles in convoys pulling up randomly just destroying complete such streets and suburbs. So it got the attention of overseas jurisdictions, and Carl will certainly talk about, Like I know William Bratton, who is his renowned police commissioner from both l A and an NYPD. He spoke to us and he was intrigued by the fact that we that we had used these rapid right response plus we call.
Them for one of a better word.
And also I think Carl was spacking to you by the French authorities about it as well.
I had a meeting with the French authorities who had their own riot three weeks before we did, and I was really intrigued how they learned from that what they did.
They just wanted to talk about.
Our mobile policing And one of my favorite stories was when I got called by the police commander responsible for Castle Hill. He said, Castle Hill Towers, a whole lot of mums and dads and kids had been turning up for Christmas shopping and there are about twenty of these youths harassing them at the entrance. I said, what have you done? And he said, don't worry. We ordered five highway patrol vehicles. Highway patrol right squat fifteen rights everyone. They got out and got their batons and shields and went in a short in a slow trot towards the entrance. I said, what happened? He said, they ran like the wind. That would have been I wish i'd seen the video of that, but yeah, got international coverage, and I think a mark and they had a highway patrol should have got innovative policing awards.
Well. That is, I liked the idea of thinking outside the square, and that's definitely thinking outside of the square when I read it. When I read it in the book, I'm thinking it makes sense, and I'm thinking, but why hadn't we thought of that before? But yeah, it's about being adaptable to the circumstances and the situations and reflecting on what happened there, the changes of the legislation, the changes in policing, I've got to say too. And I don't want to cry a poor with police because we sign up to it and that's what we do. But I still remember during that period of time the amount of leave that we had to cancel on police officers to come in and fill the fil and these are people and I'd be like a crime manager, well we need to give ten, but I've got my holiday book dom seem yea all that and it was all canceled. And full credit to the people that got in there and contributed that way, you.
Know, as I said, we had to put this look.
I was mentioned in Part one there was a thing called the Olympics in Sydney in two thousand and luckily we had a blueprint from how to release so many resources into this special operation. So we literally used that Olympic blueprint and we joined all the local area commands into bigger.
Areas and released all these troops.
But that part of that was and you know, the Justice Department a very good of deferring court matters. Leave was canceled for all police and then that freed up sufficient resources. You know, any proactivity, productive units and operations were all closed down over this period. They're all sent to Sydney to deal with this marauding groups of revenge attackers that was just growing exponentially. And you know it hats off to the police and im I was one of them myself, but to the front line police. They you know, they didn't they didn't get Christmas that year. They were working, you know, and they worked down hard and long hours. And you know, one of the things that I got praise for is that we brought in the police union very early in the piece.
That was good thinking to make sure that you.
Know that these police were looked after, and it wasn't you know that I don't want to deal with blues inside the police, so you know, things that were required in terms of their safety and their accommodation and their meals and just to make sure that things ran smoothly. We had the police union involved right from the start in the planning for it all.
And this was planning on their own.
This wasn't some terrorist operation that you knew was working on a group a cell that's been a six month investigation. This was thinking on their own, you know, and these things were escalating rather rapidly and quickly, and it was a very very changing, rapid environment that we had to resource it and respond to it. And the logistics people that I had working for me took up a whole room.
Oh logistical nightmare. I'm looking at the magnitude of it. And I probably should apologize to you Mark that when I was canceling people's holidays and blaming you, I'm sorry, I've said some beads that bloody Mark good, but yeah, don't blame me. I can't help, but these telling us look true. That's what you needed to do.
The troops were fabulous. I didn't get any complaints.
They all threw in, you know, they needed Coppers are like that, mate, you know when the when the chips are down, they know what's got to be done. And they did it, you know, and they did a sterling job. And I didn't hear any winges. And people literally had to cancel family holidays and paid stuff.
You know.
It was it was horrendous times and I felt very sorry for all those police and families and you know, apologies now, but it was absolutely necessary and you know, they knew what was going on, but the public just don't know how severe it was and how much risk they are under.
What about the arrests that followed on and the it was controversy I think with Dennis Spray was that strike force and Nogra, Yeah, and that was arrests that followed on, followed on on the back of the everything that occurred, basically team of detectives coming in and looking at locking up people that had committed the criminal offenses. Was that successful in the way that that was approached.
Yeah, Look, initially there was a great imbalance of the arrests that were made, and that's simply because during their daytime events at Cronulla, everything that occurred down there was videoed by professional cameraman from one hundred Angeles and that was all available to the police. And so I'm like that the revenge attacks that were occurring was a much harder investigation in that community. Amongst those types of people, there's not willing witnesses to come forward and identification becomes a big issue as well, and.
You know that, and these attacks were happening at night.
Revenge attacks were happening at night under the cover of darkness, and there was no journalists around. You know, the best that we had at nighttime was a couple of stringers as they call it, which are people that go and try and capture image and sell it to the news works. And they were around or not, but they didn't even know where these attacks were occurring.
They were so random. So there's no imagery much of it at all.
But there was CCTV footage in certain places of these attacks occurring, and the police had done a marvelous job in rounding that up and they had that imagery, but of course that wasn't released to the public at that point in time because they were working on a number of angles with that. One was it's grainy imagery and they were trying to get enhancements done and you know the issues with it takes time and with the imagery getting enhanced and so forth for suitable for court identifications most particularly, and then second to that, it's a strategic issue for police as to when to release that imagery because quite often if there's surveillance techniques put in place, you as a strategic time to release that imagery to sure that though that look and as certainly fane calls may get of your red top because I saw it on the news tonight. You know, ready Adida's track sit pants mate and so forth and everything, and then starts to formulate the actual evidence.
So that's what the police were doing.
But it was a massive imbalance in the amount of Caucasians arrested originally versus the other side of the Arabic youth arrested. And then the politics and the sniping started that Carl's level, he's best to explain what occurred there really.
So mostly the commissioner, of course, there was this absurd suggestion that as the Premier was the member for La Kemba, he was directing police not to arrest Middle Eastern males and ridiculous, I mean, imagine how that sort of conspiracy or Watergate type conversation could stay unleaked. Was just absurd, ridiculous, and it was and the Commissioner was then roundly criticized for not arresting the offending revenge attackers.
And I think I mentioned.
Earlier freestyle he announced in the middle of a press conference without I think giving a moment's thought, Oh that's because there's no footage.
Well, there was hours and hours and hours.
Of footage from businesses and then that those businesses got upset because they stayed mum.
They then released it.
The media had a field day, and then the commissioner's reaction was to sack Bray for not telling him about it when he hadn't been asked. And then the force, his detectives then threatened to strike.
So I remember they they stood up.
Then he got semi rean stated with Slasher Mackay coming down another one hundred detectives, but it didn't do the trick, and the Commissioner's back was against the wall. He was being roundly condemned for an own goal, making up stuff on the run, and his solution was to announce an inquiry into police performance and went on leave, and his staff insisted Mark Goodwin announced why he was now being investigated. Not a morsel of criticism to that point from anyone, nobody, both sides of politics, all the communities all lauded police performance. But as a media distraction device it was brilliant because soon the media came to the view, oh, there must be something wrong with police performance, otherwise the commissioner wouldn't announce it.
In quirt, How did that make you feel, Mark, because I and it's not. I won't put this book in saying that it's a self serving book. It's a book about the facts that you were presented with. I know the world, I know policing, and I know how hard you would have worked, and I look at it and think that was good policing. But then to be announced that there's an inquiry into how it was managed, how did it make you feel?
I was absolutely mortified, and I'd worked my absolute ass off, and the loyalty i'd change that organation was just off the Richter scale, to be honest with you, and I don't want cutest for that and never had asked for it. But I found out in a caravan park by someone waving a newspaper in the street to come up the road to me and said, do you know the Commission has announced an inquiry into you, into your performance and the cornell are rights, And I've gone, what give it to you?
Shame me?
And there it was front page.
You know it's been announced to the media. No one rang me.
I don't have a phone call and I only just you know, I missed. I missed Christmas, and I'd missed all of January holidays like everyone else, and I was down there on a day off and finally had a day off, and I was talking to my kids are around and stuff in a black as I said, black hat come up with a newspaper announced it, and I'd just been from a distance following this stuff with the Task Force and accusations flying around between politics and the media about who who'd been arrested and who hadn't, and well that Bras stood down and Braise reinstated and stuff had nothing.
To do with the criminal investigations are completely separate from the man of the incidence that you were involved in me and then got dragged into it.
And then all of a sudden at the same time that Braves reinstated, and there's a huge number of increase in Task Force members and all that sort of stuff and everything to appease the what had been going on in the media and the embarrassment that had been caused.
At the very same time, there's.
A strike force, not a debrief And as you know, we conduct and I already started the process for substantial debriefs, and they're open, honest, transparent, fair processes where everyone from a to the police dog has their say about what went well, what didn't work well, what we could improve, what can be what can we improve in police training, equipment, policies, procedures, and it's all very open and everyone.
Has their say.
This was a strike force launched into me and my commands commanders, which is normally reserved for criminal investigation. So I was absolutely mortified that this had occurred and I hadn't even been told about it and found out by person waving a newspaper in front of me in the caravan park. After what I had burned through in the last month and a loyalty and I'd shown that organization and the amount of hours I had done to find out I was now under investigation by a strike force and not even had a decency of a phone call was disgraceful.
And Mark Mark can't outline this what happened mccruary fields because he wasn't involved, didn't have the functions or roles around that, but I can tell you so. Deputy Commissioner Dave Madden was given the carriage by the Commissioner to conduct an internal review about police performance, what we could learn, how we could improve from the McQuary Fields right. I sat in four separate meetings with the two Deputy Comms, the Commissioner, head of the Ministry Police, and my own senior staff. Fast forward, there was criticism of the McQuary fields policing performance. There'd been none in relation to Cromala.
But look, it worked. It was a media strategy from the Commissioner and it worked.
Okay, So, and I want to talk more about the rights and lessons lessons learned from the rights and what in contemporary times you think this type of thing can happen again. But just why we're touched on the subject that basically cost you your career.
Well, yeah, because there was a report produced and released to the media that I was never shown. There was findings in it, findings that I'm still waiting to be spoken.
About at all. It's very frustrating.
And then then this report is released to the media before any person's had a right of reply. I mean fundamentally, if you go to the Police Integrity Commissioner Ikak or anything, you know there's a there's a fundamental procedural fairness that people are asked, or a coroner's hearing or anything. Really, when you look at like the Link Cafe siege, which police command, there was certainly under the microscope. But they're represented legally down there, and you know they read the coroner's report on that and their version of events and what they say legally represented is in the report. I'm still waiting to be interviewed about half the things that were in report. It was released to the public in a draft form that was put out there under a haze of media about accusations that the Minister was hiding this report and then unfortunately it contained issues that caused an absolute tsunami of negative media against me personally and other police commanders. And there are things that we dispute to this date and there's a number of those, and you know, I haven't got time to go into the now. But for instance, we talked about in part one the risk assessment being raised to higher risk and the reasons it was, and who was briefed and so forth, including the Police Minister of sitting right beside me now and the Premiere and the Commissioner.
Like the right call there.
But this report says that.
The risk assessment was left at medium and therefore planning was all poor. And these were headlined news that all over Australia that the police were dunderheads and how could they have left this risk assessment at medium and how could therefore planning?
Was there all the blame for this?
You know?
So the media that was instigated against me personally, I had, you know, I had my head put on television frozen like a mugshot, with these alleged like almost like criminal convictions being scrolled out underneath, with my head, with my children sitting there watching it, crying and my wife crying, you know, and totally unjustified. And I've never been I'd never been interviewed about them. I'd never been spoken to about these findings, and then here they are released to the media, and there's quite a number of issues that are are to this day in dispute in that. But the way it was released was was car will talk about which is what cost him his career?
No? Sorry, just before we go on there, Mark, and I understand the frustration that you went through it, and yeah, I honestly you shouldn't have to go through that. The year's service that you've given in the police, I think, yeah, for what it's worth, because I can say it's a path I've walked to a degree that just hold your head up, hi, you know what you did you know how this was stopped. And when it's all said and done, if people that you don't respect the criticize and you don't worry about the criticism. I know it's frustrating, but hold your head up because I understand the anks that can cause. For what it's worth.
Sorry, Carlin, You're challenge the challenges and Gary you I the three of us understand the question, at the end of an unfair and during experience, how do I get my reputation back?
And Mark I felt for him.
This nonsense that was written without with almost no consultation, and it's the official account of the New South Wales Police Force, untested, without an alternative view being put forward, and all that media tsunami.
That's Mark Goodwin.
I'm not the least bit surprised he was humiliated out of the New Southwest Police Force.
It's a sad story.
And the only way the two of us can get some of our reputation back is to write what really happened and hopefully that is seen as a better account of what happened. In my own case, I could have done nothing.
Gary. In fact, a number of political and parliamentary.
People said why don't you just step back and let the cops fight it out themselves. I said, I'm not going to see a commander get vaporized.
After what he did.
This guy returned peace to the streets of Sydney. I know what he did, and I know he hasn't been consulted, and I can smell why this process was set up. I had very little to do with criticisms of that laudable police performance. So I put a pause on it, and the Commissioner agreed there had been insufficient consultation. He designated it as a draft until that consultation had finished.
In the House.
I referred it to as a draft in parliament. In Parliament and that was considered misleading because there were leaks coming out and the author of it did a very unpleasant interview on the front page of the Herald referring to his report and my criticism of it requiring further consultation. Therefore, it was a report, wasn't a draft. I'd misled Parliament for which I should then resign. And it's absurd now on the range of things requiring a minister's resignation in the last fifty years, Gary, I know this is self serving. It is the least serious of any I've ever seen or read about. Yeah, was sacked because I referred to a report as a draft.
I was again to say, the floor Parliament, it's not just even warrant.
Well, the other issue was I did get asked had I spoken to ABCTV and I said no, and that was considered misleading. Well, I'd actually spoken to ABC Radio, not ABC TV, and in the scheme of things, that then got seen as the second misleading. And then the Premier said, oh, look all this media fanfait. But he never actually said I'm getting rid of you because of misleading the house, because I haven't.
He explained. It was the.
Media ferociousness to how I was being presented now. As Bob Carr, Paul Keating, Bob hawk All said to me at the time, my goodness, you'd hardly have a cabinet left if a minister got sacked for bad media. It was pretty traumatizing. As I said, I figured I had years to serve I'd done a good job, I'd supported the cops, We did what was asked for us. I didn't expect any thank yous, but nor did I expect a career ending event.
It's almost like dancing with the devil, delving into policing, isn't it. There's so many people that have Yeah.
And I was horrified at that. Why do you get involved? Why don't you just leave it out?
Yeah? I never was an injustice what was done to Mark Goodwin.
Again, here I am offering out advice to you now, and people might laugh because they hear how sometimes it's blatantly obvious. I haven't got over what happened to me. But the same with you, Carl. I'd prefer to go down fighting, and go down doing what you believe is right than cowering the cow towing.
The irony is I wrote a memoir, yeah, and a bit cathartic. But I also wrote about how I did transport for the Olympics and built roads and roads and rail lines and all that my history and my romance with my wife. And it was a good cathartic process. But I said to Mark the other day, the good thing out of this is we've written this account which only a small part of maybe fifteen to twenty percent is what happened to us personally, maybe eighty percent is the story what happened, what could have happened and why did it happen and why has it not come back? And that's through our own personal and professional trauma. That's a good thing.
Yeah, well, I think it's a good thing to get it out there because there is and I put my hand up, like the misconceptions I've had and I've called a lot of things, and you, Jacob becomes part of the Australian.
It must have happened because I saw it.
The way we communicate about the Cronulla riots or the Southern Cross tattoo and things like that. I want to focus and Mark, I think it was you before we started the podcast brought my attention to the back page of the book or the back cover of the book. Talk us through that, because I do like on we talk some heavy stuff on this podcast, but I do like stories that bring some joy to the world. Talk us through what the back cover of your book is about.
Yeah.
Sure, after the dust settled of the Cronella rights and revenge attacks, there was a lot of will in the community on both sides to form more relationships and open up. And as we've said in this podcast, there's the very small number of people from actually both sides of the events that were involved in not the slightest bit representative of their wider communities anyway. So then the Lebanese Muslim community leaders like Jim l Riffi, who we interview in the book here, and the Surf Life Saving New South Wales put on a program at the North Run at the North Coronol, the Surf Club and it was called on the Same Wave and what it did was to train young Muslim life savers and to come and share in the beach and open up the beach and to share in the experiences and the camaraderie that that is amongst life savers. And so they put on this program and I think we thought it was a very good fitting book. ND which is the rear of our book, is the photo of the actual graduation of these these young young guys and ladies.
And look, Lee Howell, who was.
A former police officer, was actually the one that ran the program. He's a long term member of the Surf club down there and did an absolute fantastic job.
But we've had a couple of laughs about.
The fact that when some of these kids turned up they could barely swim, you know, and the life savers had to save them and they're supposed to be becoming life savers, you know, and look, you know, to their absolute credit and their persistence, they showed those young kids they did a fantastic committed effort, and so did the life savers down there. And then they all got through. They had that they weren't at a lower the standards for them. There's a certain requirement that's the Surf Bronze Medallion required to become a Surf life Saver, and they all passed, and they all passed legitimately, and they put in a lot, a lot of effort. And on the book is the big beaming smiles and faces of these young guys and girls who were the first ever Muslim life savers on the beach in Australia. And the girl in the middle we actually interview in the book. Her name's Mecha Lala, fantastic young lady. And you'll see that she's wearing the first ever burkini that was manufactured and designed for her and that now is seen on beaches and his swimming pools and so forth all over the world.
And it went worldwide.
But it started and a bit of an unknown fact that actually started with the Cornella riots and this surf life saving program. After and we're interviewing Mecca and she says, Mark and Carl, I couldn't believe it. You know, one minute, I'm just a young girl doing the lifesaver program, and next minute I'm on billboards all over the world and I've got journalists from New York wanting to interview me and stuff.
So it was it was terrific. You know, it was a fantastic.
Who would have been the next story Cronala to become the fashion cap of the world.
What's important, Gary, The story of Cronulla begins and ends with lifeguards and the troubling events begins with our front cover and ends with the back.
I can see when you pointed out the front and this symbolic there's there's a journey through it, and that's where we've come to. And that's what you would like to think comes from a situation or a series of events. What happened there bring it to contemporary times, like the world is a crazy place at the moment. It's just I don't know, I get a sense like it's a powder powder keg.
At the moment.
Maybe I'm looking at it too negatively, but this type of thing. We don't want it ever occurring in our country if we can help it, and it occurs across the world in so many different places. How do you think the lessons that we've learned from what happened at Cranulla and where we can take it from there to prevent this type of thing?
Just this a bit, How what can we apply from this to more contemporary troubles. What I say is some of our more contemporary troubles in different parts of the world are exponentially worse, like one hundred times worse. But if people want to get a better understanding of tribalism and fractious group identity and what's really going on in people's minds, in the minds of a group, there's something we can provide. And I think it's about the hope of searching for what we have in common. And there are always differences. Sometimes it leads to awful violence and persistent, pervasive trouble between two groups. But I think the message we've given out of Cronulla is, let's hope for that search for what we have in common, what makes us the same, what makes us feel comfortable with each other, not what would not how we're different all, it's easy to find difference and discord and divisive. Let's look for what drives us commonality. That's probably a lesson out of the book for more contemporary problems here as people here interpret what's happening overseas.
Okay, that's a sound advice, Mark.
Look, I think it was a big wake up call Gary, and how people responded to it back then was some of the ones that responded to it on the beach and in the revenge attacks was disgraceful.
But it went away. Why did it go away? We look very carefully at that.
In the book, and in our view, is because that it wasn't driven we think by hardcore racism in Australia. And look, there's racism exists, and there was racism on display on the Dankronal and certainly in the revenge attax, but it.
Wasn't the causal factor for it.
The causal factor, as I explained in Part one, was the behavior. You know, there was groups coming to the beach and it was all about the behavior and the spatial domain and male preening and forth, But it wasn't about It wasn't a hard core thing about racism. But I think this really drew it to the attension.
It was a wake up call.
I think there's been a lot of discussion since, and certainly people want to put it behind them, and certainly now no intention of ours to raise the skeletons of the past through this book, but we felt that it was extremely important to set the record straight of a factual account because you know, not that I know of is that there's no actual participants in the actual events have been involved in any such writings or documentaries and so forth that have been done. And you know, from what we've seen, there's a very secwed recording and documentaries and academic research papers and stuff that are they're just not correct because they're not the full facts. So what we've done is provide a very factual account from where to go, all warts and all, and we certainly hope that this becomes the go to reference because as I said, it is done by firstly by tap participants. Lots of participants that were involved are also interviewed in it from both sides of the divide, and it is just a factual account. Some might like it, some will, but it is what it is and it needs to be recorded.
It's now historic reference.
That's an important thing. Gary. I often get asked, what would you do if your elbow on issue X?
What should Dutton do?
Well?
What should mens you? And I go?
I'm not I'm not there. I don't have the job. There was a time when I had the job. I made the calls. I made the decisions. This was a big one and I've explained them. Mark Goodwin had the job, made the calls. But we can't comment on other polleys, other police leaders.
Well, we count on this, we have.
I think the fact that you've done the book and you were so closely involved in it, and it's not in the Mote book, it's not driven by and I've seen in prep for this, I was watching all the documentaries, all the coverage of it, and reading the book, and there was a lot of emotion that was put into some of the telling of the story. I enjoyed the read. You know, it always takes me back into policing, which is a good thing and a bad thing in a way. But I enjoyed the read. And look, we'll wrap up now and I just want to thank both of you. I know you've paid putting everything aside with what's happened at what happened at Cronulla and the flow on effect the work that you did at the time at a crucial time. Both of you you stood up and did your job and served the community which you were both there to do. And so congratulations on what you did did at the time, because I look at it as an ex law enforcement officer and I know the potential that was a time bomb waiting to go off, and that could have gone a lot worse. So full credit to the work that you did did there, guys, Thank you, and I hope life's good for you and make it from me. Sometimes you get wrong and you've just got to keep on. And I see you're smiling. So I think that's the way that we got to approach life.
Wake up each morning and other day.
Yeah, here I am still standing. Thanks guys, Thank you.
It's still a Warman vertical.
I say, thank you.
Well, that's in a nutshell what the Cronulla Rights were about. I hope it gave you an understanding of what took place during those I call them shameful times in Australian history. I don't think it's anything that we can be proud of. But the two people we spoke to the day. They were the people responsible for ensuring law and order. But the message that I take away from it, I'd like to take some a good message away from it. What started out as a right ended up in people coming together and making a difference, as demonstrated by the back cover of their book, The Cronulla Rights Inside Story, where you've got a group of Middle Eastern Muslims that have joined the surf Club and learning to be surf life savers. I think if any good comes out of what occurred that Cronulla paps that Semach, we should hold on to h