May 16, 2024 • 15 mins
Louise Milligan, investigative journalist and author, talked about being at "In Conversation" with the Vision Australia Library for the Melbourne Writers Festival. Louise's book, "Pheasants Nest" is available through the Library. Go to http://www.visionaustralia.org/library
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S1 (00:15):
On Vision Australia radio. This is Vision Xtra with Peter Greco.
S2 (00:23):
One of the big events during the Melbourne Writers Festival
was the end Conversation with author and investigative journalist Louise Milligan,
and I'm delighted to welcome Louise to the program. Louise,
great to meet you and thanks so much for your time.
Thanks so much.
S3 (00:35):
For having me. Peter. What do you.
S2 (00:36):
Say investigative journalist and author or an author and investigative journalist?
How do you like to introduce yourself?
S3 (00:43):
Well, Four Corners is still my very much my day job.
And it's a job in three quarters. It's a big one.
So that's my primary, um, source of, you know, work
and income and so on. Um, so that that definitely
comes first. But I do love my work as an author. Um, so,
(01:05):
you know, it's it's a very close second.
S2 (01:07):
Uh, how did or how did writing start for you
was it? Well, I mean, obviously being a journalist, you're right.
But writing fiction was that, uh, kind of a bit
of a, uh, an escape from journalism or, you know, investigative.
S3 (01:19):
Yeah. I mean, I've, I had already published two nonfiction books,
but I actually started writing my novel before them back
in 2015, I had been covering the Jill Meagher story, the,
you know, the tragic murder of a young woman who
worked for the ABC. I didn't actually work with her
(01:40):
at that time. I was still at channel seven. But
when I did go to the ABC to 730, I
was the first, uh, journalist to interview her husband, Tom Meagher.
And the case had a really big impression on me.
And I was thinking, you know, I would like to
write a book from the perspective of someone who had
(02:02):
sort of survived something like that. I mean, my character,
Kate Delaney, is by no means Jill, but she is Irish,
Australian like me. And I was traveling up and down
the Hume Freeway a lot between Melbourne and Sydney, and
I'd always felt quite creeped out by that sort of
Southern Highlands stretch of road. You know, that's where Ivan
(02:25):
Milat abducted and killed, you know, the backpackers. It's, um,
there were two the Pheasant's Nest Bridge, which is the
setting of my novel Pheasant's nest, is where two boys
got stuck in the pylons of the bridge and and died.
A lot of people lost their lives by suicide from
the Pheasant's Nest bridge. And I had covered a coronial
(02:48):
inquest back in the early 2000, when I was a
newspaper journalist, about a young man who had thrown himself
from the Pheasant's Nest bridge, and the story was spiked
because I wanted to write about the impact of all
the suicides on the police, who had given evidence in
that inquest and who I'd spoken to. But back then,
(03:09):
we didn't really talk about suicide so much, because there
was this fear that, you know, there would be copycats. And, um,
so I'd always thought about those police. And every time
I went over that bridge, I thought about that inquest
and that poor young man and, you know, the police
with this terrible trauma burden that they had. And then
(03:30):
I went to seven, 30 many years later, and I
did a whole lot of stories about police with PTSD.
And so I thought it would be good to have
an investigating officer who was suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder
and who really needed a win, and to sort of
tie in the Pheasant's Nest bridge. And somehow, you know,
(03:51):
this woman who was kidnapped instead of killed as poor
Jill was somehow ended up in that region. So I
remember I was I was sort of driving all in
the passenger seat, you know, my nose kind of pressed
against the glass. And I started thinking about this novel
back in 2015 and writing it in my head. And
I went back home and I wrote three chapters, and
(04:11):
then my life just got very, very busy. Um, I
started covering the child abuse royal commission, and that led
to my first book, Cardinal The Rise and Fall of
George Pell. And then that led to my second book,
because I was a witness in his, um, criminal proceeding.
So my second book, witness, was about the experience of
complainants of sexual crimes in the criminal justice system. And,
(04:35):
you know, all of these years just went by and
eventually going through all of the secondary trauma that I
had experienced really began to weigh quite heavily upon me.
And I, I just felt like I needed an outlet.
And I decided, you know, I'd really like to write
(04:55):
a novel. And I had a few ideas for novels,
and I was like, I really must go back and
have a look at that pheasant's nest. I think it
was okay. And I showed it to my dear friend
and the publisher of my first two books, Louise Adler,
who is now running Adelaide Writers Week, and she really
loved it. And she said, you should keep going. And
(05:15):
so in the end of 2021, going in to 2022,
I really got cracking with it. And um, yeah, I
loved I loved doing it. It was just the most wonderful,
freeing process.
S2 (05:30):
Interesting perspective, isn't it? You talked about the PTSD that, uh,
police officers might have held, but, uh, you experienced some
of that yourself.
S3 (05:38):
Absolutely. Yeah. And I remember when I had finished Pheasant's
Nest and I was, you know, talking about doing things
like this. Now, I sort of was wondering, you know,
should I talk about that myself? But I, I do
think it is important to be open about these things,
if we can, to show that this is something that
(06:00):
affects all of us who work in this kind of work.
And for me, it was not just, I suppose, experiencing
secondary trauma through from hearing about so many terrible things
over so many years. It was also, you know, taking
on high profile, um, men who are accused of crimes,
(06:25):
who have powerful backers and powerful backers in the media,
as well as, you know, in the rest of the
community who somehow think that what you're doing is a
political exercise, when in fact it's about child protection or
it's about the protection of women from male violence. And
(06:46):
it's very carefully executed forensic investigative journalism that is, you know,
fact checked extremely carefully. And, yeah, isn't coming from a
political perspective. But that's the way that I guess some
of these ideologues who have columns in the media where
(07:06):
they think that because they think about things from a
polarized political perspective, that everyone else must, too. When I
think it's, um, you know, there is so much nuance
and complexity there. And I'm fascinated by nuance and complexity
so that, yeah, that side of things, you know, it
was just absolutely relentless. These people just didn't give it
(07:28):
up for years and years. And, you know, I sort
of found myself in the crosshairs of the culture wars.
And that became very wearying, too.
S2 (07:37):
And very much as relevant this minute as it is, uh,
almost in our history. You think?
S3 (07:41):
Yeah, absolutely. Yep. Absolutely. It's a big issue that I think,
you know, is partially a creature of social media. There's
a lack of nuance in, in public discussion at the moment. And,
you know, I feel quite sad about that. But also
there's this whole, you know, blood sport that seems to
(08:05):
go on in attacking the ABC because I guess it's
seen as being a competitor to, to some of these organisations. Um,
in a business sense, when I was a younger journalist, uh,
starting out, there was much more of a sense that
when someone had a big good story that everyone sort
(08:28):
of got on board, you know, but now it's become
a lot more competitive. Now, that's not to say that
there isn't a lot of very, very good work being
done and lots of great colleagues across the industry, but
it's much more tribal than it used to be. Um, and,
and I think that that's a shame.
S2 (08:51):
And that's maybe influencing what people are writing or saying.
S3 (08:54):
Oh, it absolutely is.
S2 (08:56):
Um, so, so so maybe you're not not you personally,
but as, uh, an industry or as a profession, you're
not being as objective as you probably could be.
S3 (09:05):
I think there are some parts of the media that aren't.
S2 (09:09):
Always dangerous to generalise.
S3 (09:11):
Well, it's not just that it's dangerous to generalize, generalize.
It's just not true. Like, it's not true that I
think there's another unfortunate strain which comes through in social
media of bashing journalists, when in fact there are lots
of journalists doing incredible, important work across the industry. And
(09:34):
that should be celebrated. And it's really interesting, you know,
in an era of clickbait and 24 over seven journalism
and whatever investigative long form journalism performs better. So, for instance,
our stories at Four Corners, when they come up, are
often the most read things on the ABC online um, site. Um,
(09:59):
because people are thirsting for solidity and serious. Jounalism. So yeah,
I think there are still so many things to be
celebrated in our industry, but there are just some pockets
where people, as I say, get into this very polarized,
(10:22):
tribal sort of mentality. And it's not a good thing. But, um,
it's been one of the lovely things about about writing
a novel because you're just using your imagination. And it
was a very joyful process for me.
S2 (10:40):
People can share in the joyful process of reading it,
because the book is available through the Vision Australia Library,
which is a great thing. I was going to ask
you who should be reading it. You probably would say everyone,
but can you kind of profile the maybe person who's
going to get the most out of something like this?
S4 (10:56):
Hmm.
S3 (10:58):
Um, that's a good question. I mean, I, I have
had responses from all sorts of different people. I would
like more men to read it. I'm not saying that
men aren't reading it. They are, because I'm getting lots
of responses from them. But I would like men to
read it, because Pheasant's nest is coming from the perspective
of a female survivor and and a strong female survivor
(11:23):
of a random act of male violence. And one of
the things that, you know, she's sort of frustrated about
is that there's not sort of some diabolical reason why
he's done what he's done. You know, I call him
the guy throughout the book. He doesn't get to have
a name because he's sort of forfeited his right to
(11:43):
have a name. He's just done it in a stupid
act of bruised ego, selfishness and, you know, stupidity. And
she knows. Kate knows as a journalist who's been covering
these crimes for many years, that that's often the way
these things go. I know it because I sat as
(12:03):
a court reporter over years and years watching people lose
their lives or have their lives destroyed for very banal reasons.
And it's a very depressing insight, you know, into our
society that that that does happen. And the bottom line
is that whoever are the victims of the crimes, 95%
(12:28):
of victims who who experience a violent crime have a
male perpetrator. And I think that's something that men really
need to think about. But the thing is, with Pheasant's nest,
it's not a hit you over the head, you know,
sort of lecturing you. It's very funny in lots of places.
And it's one of the things that people have most
(12:49):
commented on. It's it has a sense of light to
the shade, and no one's perfect and no one's apart
from the guy, you know, is is a villain. And
and also, you know, you sort of get to understand
him a little bit as well, but you get to
understand him a little bit, but he doesn't have an
(13:10):
excuse for his crime. And that's the point. I think
so often in the discussion, when a man does a
terrible thing, it's kind of like, oh, well, he's got
mental health problems. Oh, he's got this, he's got that,
he's got the other. It's like, well, women with mental
health problems aren't going out and committing these random acts
of violence, you know. So anyway, it's it's something that
(13:31):
I hope that a lot of men will reflect on
because it's exhausting for women, and it's exhausting for services
that deal with these issues to constantly have to do
the heavy lifting. And every single time a man responds
(13:51):
to this in a way that's not looking for excuses,
but is instead, how can I help? What can I do?
I want to be part of the conversation. I want
to listen. That is such a wonderful thing for women
to hear, because we're sick of being afraid of this stuff.
S2 (14:09):
We thanks for speaking to us.
S3 (14:11):
Thanks so much, Peter. I really appreciate it.
S2 (14:13):
That's, uh, author and investigative journalist or investigative journalist and author,
Louise Milligan.
S5 (14:20):
Thank you for listening to Vision Extra with Peter Greco.
You can find this interview on the Focal Point Podcast.
This show was produced in the Adelaide studios of Vision
Australia Radio.
On Vision Australia radio. This is Vision Xtra with Peter Greco.
S2 (00:23):
One of the big events during the Melbourne Writers Festival
was the end Conversation with author and investigative journalist Louise Milligan,
and I'm delighted to welcome Louise to the program. Louise,
great to meet you and thanks so much for your time.
Thanks so much.
S3 (00:35):
For having me. Peter. What do you.
S2 (00:36):
Say investigative journalist and author or an author and investigative journalist?
How do you like to introduce yourself?
S3 (00:43):
Well, Four Corners is still my very much my day job.
And it's a job in three quarters. It's a big one.
So that's my primary, um, source of, you know, work
and income and so on. Um, so that that definitely
comes first. But I do love my work as an author. Um, so,
(01:05):
you know, it's it's a very close second.
S2 (01:07):
Uh, how did or how did writing start for you
was it? Well, I mean, obviously being a journalist, you're right.
But writing fiction was that, uh, kind of a bit
of a, uh, an escape from journalism or, you know, investigative.
S3 (01:19):
Yeah. I mean, I've, I had already published two nonfiction books,
but I actually started writing my novel before them back
in 2015, I had been covering the Jill Meagher story, the,
you know, the tragic murder of a young woman who
worked for the ABC. I didn't actually work with her
(01:40):
at that time. I was still at channel seven. But
when I did go to the ABC to 730, I
was the first, uh, journalist to interview her husband, Tom Meagher.
And the case had a really big impression on me.
And I was thinking, you know, I would like to
write a book from the perspective of someone who had
(02:02):
sort of survived something like that. I mean, my character,
Kate Delaney, is by no means Jill, but she is Irish,
Australian like me. And I was traveling up and down
the Hume Freeway a lot between Melbourne and Sydney, and
I'd always felt quite creeped out by that sort of
Southern Highlands stretch of road. You know, that's where Ivan
(02:25):
Milat abducted and killed, you know, the backpackers. It's, um,
there were two the Pheasant's Nest Bridge, which is the
setting of my novel Pheasant's nest, is where two boys
got stuck in the pylons of the bridge and and died.
A lot of people lost their lives by suicide from
the Pheasant's Nest bridge. And I had covered a coronial
(02:48):
inquest back in the early 2000, when I was a
newspaper journalist, about a young man who had thrown himself
from the Pheasant's Nest bridge, and the story was spiked
because I wanted to write about the impact of all
the suicides on the police, who had given evidence in
that inquest and who I'd spoken to. But back then,
(03:09):
we didn't really talk about suicide so much, because there
was this fear that, you know, there would be copycats. And, um,
so I'd always thought about those police. And every time
I went over that bridge, I thought about that inquest
and that poor young man and, you know, the police
with this terrible trauma burden that they had. And then
(03:30):
I went to seven, 30 many years later, and I
did a whole lot of stories about police with PTSD.
And so I thought it would be good to have
an investigating officer who was suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder
and who really needed a win, and to sort of
tie in the Pheasant's Nest bridge. And somehow, you know,
(03:51):
this woman who was kidnapped instead of killed as poor
Jill was somehow ended up in that region. So I
remember I was I was sort of driving all in
the passenger seat, you know, my nose kind of pressed
against the glass. And I started thinking about this novel
back in 2015 and writing it in my head. And
I went back home and I wrote three chapters, and
(04:11):
then my life just got very, very busy. Um, I
started covering the child abuse royal commission, and that led
to my first book, Cardinal The Rise and Fall of
George Pell. And then that led to my second book,
because I was a witness in his, um, criminal proceeding.
So my second book, witness, was about the experience of
complainants of sexual crimes in the criminal justice system. And,
(04:35):
you know, all of these years just went by and
eventually going through all of the secondary trauma that I
had experienced really began to weigh quite heavily upon me.
And I, I just felt like I needed an outlet.
And I decided, you know, I'd really like to write
(04:55):
a novel. And I had a few ideas for novels,
and I was like, I really must go back and
have a look at that pheasant's nest. I think it
was okay. And I showed it to my dear friend
and the publisher of my first two books, Louise Adler,
who is now running Adelaide Writers Week, and she really
loved it. And she said, you should keep going. And
(05:15):
so in the end of 2021, going in to 2022,
I really got cracking with it. And um, yeah, I
loved I loved doing it. It was just the most wonderful,
freeing process.
S2 (05:30):
Interesting perspective, isn't it? You talked about the PTSD that, uh,
police officers might have held, but, uh, you experienced some
of that yourself.
S3 (05:38):
Absolutely. Yeah. And I remember when I had finished Pheasant's
Nest and I was, you know, talking about doing things
like this. Now, I sort of was wondering, you know,
should I talk about that myself? But I, I do
think it is important to be open about these things,
if we can, to show that this is something that
(06:00):
affects all of us who work in this kind of work.
And for me, it was not just, I suppose, experiencing
secondary trauma through from hearing about so many terrible things
over so many years. It was also, you know, taking
on high profile, um, men who are accused of crimes,
(06:25):
who have powerful backers and powerful backers in the media,
as well as, you know, in the rest of the
community who somehow think that what you're doing is a
political exercise, when in fact it's about child protection or
it's about the protection of women from male violence. And
(06:46):
it's very carefully executed forensic investigative journalism that is, you know,
fact checked extremely carefully. And, yeah, isn't coming from a
political perspective. But that's the way that I guess some
of these ideologues who have columns in the media where
(07:06):
they think that because they think about things from a
polarized political perspective, that everyone else must, too. When I
think it's, um, you know, there is so much nuance
and complexity there. And I'm fascinated by nuance and complexity
so that, yeah, that side of things, you know, it
was just absolutely relentless. These people just didn't give it
(07:28):
up for years and years. And, you know, I sort
of found myself in the crosshairs of the culture wars.
And that became very wearying, too.
S2 (07:37):
And very much as relevant this minute as it is, uh,
almost in our history. You think?
S3 (07:41):
Yeah, absolutely. Yep. Absolutely. It's a big issue that I think,
you know, is partially a creature of social media. There's
a lack of nuance in, in public discussion at the moment. And,
you know, I feel quite sad about that. But also
there's this whole, you know, blood sport that seems to
(08:05):
go on in attacking the ABC because I guess it's
seen as being a competitor to, to some of these organisations. Um,
in a business sense, when I was a younger journalist, uh,
starting out, there was much more of a sense that
when someone had a big good story that everyone sort
(08:28):
of got on board, you know, but now it's become
a lot more competitive. Now, that's not to say that
there isn't a lot of very, very good work being
done and lots of great colleagues across the industry, but
it's much more tribal than it used to be. Um, and,
and I think that that's a shame.
S2 (08:51):
And that's maybe influencing what people are writing or saying.
S3 (08:54):
Oh, it absolutely is.
S2 (08:56):
Um, so, so so maybe you're not not you personally,
but as, uh, an industry or as a profession, you're
not being as objective as you probably could be.
S3 (09:05):
I think there are some parts of the media that aren't.
S2 (09:09):
Always dangerous to generalise.
S3 (09:11):
Well, it's not just that it's dangerous to generalize, generalize.
It's just not true. Like, it's not true that I
think there's another unfortunate strain which comes through in social
media of bashing journalists, when in fact there are lots
of journalists doing incredible, important work across the industry. And
(09:34):
that should be celebrated. And it's really interesting, you know,
in an era of clickbait and 24 over seven journalism
and whatever investigative long form journalism performs better. So, for instance,
our stories at Four Corners, when they come up, are
often the most read things on the ABC online um, site. Um,
(09:59):
because people are thirsting for solidity and serious. Jounalism. So yeah,
I think there are still so many things to be
celebrated in our industry, but there are just some pockets
where people, as I say, get into this very polarized,
(10:22):
tribal sort of mentality. And it's not a good thing. But, um,
it's been one of the lovely things about about writing
a novel because you're just using your imagination. And it
was a very joyful process for me.
S2 (10:40):
People can share in the joyful process of reading it,
because the book is available through the Vision Australia Library,
which is a great thing. I was going to ask
you who should be reading it. You probably would say everyone,
but can you kind of profile the maybe person who's
going to get the most out of something like this?
S4 (10:56):
Hmm.
S3 (10:58):
Um, that's a good question. I mean, I, I have
had responses from all sorts of different people. I would
like more men to read it. I'm not saying that
men aren't reading it. They are, because I'm getting lots
of responses from them. But I would like men to
read it, because Pheasant's nest is coming from the perspective
of a female survivor and and a strong female survivor
(11:23):
of a random act of male violence. And one of
the things that, you know, she's sort of frustrated about
is that there's not sort of some diabolical reason why
he's done what he's done. You know, I call him
the guy throughout the book. He doesn't get to have
a name because he's sort of forfeited his right to
(11:43):
have a name. He's just done it in a stupid
act of bruised ego, selfishness and, you know, stupidity. And
she knows. Kate knows as a journalist who's been covering
these crimes for many years, that that's often the way
these things go. I know it because I sat as
(12:03):
a court reporter over years and years watching people lose
their lives or have their lives destroyed for very banal reasons.
And it's a very depressing insight, you know, into our
society that that that does happen. And the bottom line
is that whoever are the victims of the crimes, 95%
(12:28):
of victims who who experience a violent crime have a
male perpetrator. And I think that's something that men really
need to think about. But the thing is, with Pheasant's nest,
it's not a hit you over the head, you know,
sort of lecturing you. It's very funny in lots of places.
And it's one of the things that people have most
(12:49):
commented on. It's it has a sense of light to
the shade, and no one's perfect and no one's apart
from the guy, you know, is is a villain. And
and also, you know, you sort of get to understand
him a little bit as well, but you get to
understand him a little bit, but he doesn't have an
(13:10):
excuse for his crime. And that's the point. I think
so often in the discussion, when a man does a
terrible thing, it's kind of like, oh, well, he's got
mental health problems. Oh, he's got this, he's got that,
he's got the other. It's like, well, women with mental
health problems aren't going out and committing these random acts
of violence, you know. So anyway, it's it's something that
(13:31):
I hope that a lot of men will reflect on
because it's exhausting for women, and it's exhausting for services
that deal with these issues to constantly have to do
the heavy lifting. And every single time a man responds
(13:51):
to this in a way that's not looking for excuses,
but is instead, how can I help? What can I do?
I want to be part of the conversation. I want
to listen. That is such a wonderful thing for women
to hear, because we're sick of being afraid of this stuff.
S2 (14:09):
We thanks for speaking to us.
S3 (14:11):
Thanks so much, Peter. I really appreciate it.
S2 (14:13):
That's, uh, author and investigative journalist or investigative journalist and author,
Louise Milligan.
S5 (14:20):
Thank you for listening to Vision Extra with Peter Greco.
You can find this interview on the Focal Point Podcast.
This show was produced in the Adelaide studios of Vision
Australia Radio.
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