March 8, 2025 • 50 mins
Nick Kaldas, former NSW Police deputy commissioner, spent his career working undercover infiltrating gangs and solving murders. He was also chosen by the United Nations to head up the investigation into the assassination of a former prime minister. Nick joins Gary Jubelin to share the highs and lows of his career.
Discover more about Nick Kaldas' book, Behind The Badge, here.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
The public has had a long held fascination with detectives.
Detective see aside of life the average persons 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
(00:23):
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. Today
(00:46):
I spoke to Nick Cawvios. Nick is one of the
country's most respected law enforcement officers who's a retired New
South Wales Police Deputy commissioner who's had an incredible international career,
having worked in homicide, gangs, counter terrorism, negotiators and undercover.
He's also worked for the UN, which saw him investigating
the assassination of a former Lebanese prime minister, investigating the
(01:09):
use of chemical weapons in Syria, rebuilding the Iraq Police Force,
and most recently chaired the Royal Commission into Defense and
Veteran Suicide. Today we found out who Nick is as
a person, talking about the highs and lowers of his
career and what makes him tick. You can also read
more about Nick and an exclusive extract from his book
(01:30):
Behind the Badge in the Saturday and Sunday Telegraph this weekend.
I always enjoy talking to Nick. He's been a good mate.
This is our conversation. Last time I had you on
the podcast, everyone kept talking about how good your voice is.
So stuff it up a little bit with you taking
him a job. Anyway, Nick, you speak Arabic, You're born
(01:55):
in Egypt, and you've got a certain look and swagger
about you. See why you're used in undercover work. You've
made reference to some undercover stuff in your book. Tell
us about your career and undercover.
Speaker 2 (02:08):
I think I really got my start initially, at least
simply because of my ethnic background and language abilities.
Speaker 1 (02:15):
And you did have that big, big mustache too.
Speaker 2 (02:17):
I did it was it was a beautiful thing. But
I understand my stuches are coming back to. By the way,
just say you so prepare yourself. But now I just
I felt that it was something that was certainly exciting
for a young detective. But more than that, I think
you could actually do a lot of good, you know,
getting drugs off the street or weapons off the street
(02:38):
and catching really bad people that you might struggle to
catch any other way. So I was happy, to very
happy to be to be to be involved in it.
And as I got more and more into it, I
think I got better at it obviously, as you do,
and the sort of targets I was going for you
rows quite a few levels.
Speaker 1 (02:56):
Yeah, so you think it was important to get that
expert pearance at the lower level of crime.
Speaker 2 (03:02):
Fortunately I started with a fairly big one, but after.
Speaker 1 (03:04):
That threw you in the deepen.
Speaker 2 (03:06):
It was Yeah, you have to understand in the eighties
there wasn't that much of a structure in terms of training, accreditation,
and the deployment practices were a bit at hoc. But
as we went along, and I say in the book
that one of my aims, I had some bad experiences
with people taking contracts on me and so on, and
(03:27):
I didn't feel I had a lot of support from workmates.
I did, but not from the organization, and I wanted
to contribute towards fixing that, and I did that. I've
got a scholarship and whatever seas how to look at
how others do things and brought back a bunch of
ideas and that was my sort of foot in the
door to recommend some fairly significant changes in terms of
welfare reassimilation and so on.
Speaker 1 (03:49):
Yeah. Well, without giving away the methodology of the way
that the people go undercover. I remember those days and
it was pretty rough and ready wasn't Oh that's good,
you've infiltrated the game, but we hadn't come up with
an extraction plan.
Speaker 2 (04:02):
Nah. Yeah, I've been I hope I've been careful. I
don't think there was any need for me to go
into methodology or give away any trade secrets. But people
know that this happens, and I think in some ways
I hope it said as a turrent for those doing
bad things, knowing that they can get caught if they're
doing bad shit.
Speaker 1 (04:22):
We recently had an ATO officer from the United States
that did a lot of undercover work. And it's a fascinating,
fascinating world, isn't it.
Speaker 2 (04:31):
Yeah. I mean, the American environment is quite different. It's
such a huge country, as we all know. But my
sense is that nearly every federal agency in the US
runs its own undercover program and its own tactical teams,
and everyone carries weapons. It's a different environment. I'm not
sure if how Australian Tax Office would want to carry
weapons and go under cover.
Speaker 1 (04:52):
Yeah, I'm not sure how it worked that way. So
You've had a long, a long career, and I know
when we were together in the cops, you always said
to me that, yeah, you think this is the focus
of the world in the cops, because it's how you police.
I policed, and we're very much looking in with into
(05:15):
the organization. You've been out of New South Wales polace
you're still involved in law enforcement and different aspects. You've
been out of the New South Wales Police for a
long time. Does it give you a different perspective on
the world.
Speaker 2 (05:27):
Yeah, I think so. And I think one of the
realizations that you come to when you leave the police,
as I'm sure you did, is that there is a
bigger world out there. I was fortunate and that while
I was still a police officer, I had two breaks.
One when I went to Iraq, for a year, and
then the second one when I went to the Special
Tribunal for Lebanon to investigate the murders in Lebanon. So
(05:49):
I had had a bit of a taste of the
outside world, if you like, and I think I was
probably reasonably comfortable making the transition after I left the police,
as some of our sort of mutual friends would probably
struggle a bit. They hadn't, and especially the guys that
joined as cadets, who had been there since I was sixteen,
hadn't really tasted the outside world. I think it's good
(06:11):
to have life experience before you join, and I think
it's certainly it's good to realize that there's a bigger
world out there. It's not the end of the world.
Speaker 1 (06:19):
Well, a wise man and a good friend I won't
name names, I'm looking at you that did pull me
aside when I got into trouble with the cops and said, look,
Dube's there is a big world out there. Don't panic.
You'll find purpose and you'll find direction. And it was
good advice at the time because I was a little
bit What am I going to do now? But let's
(06:40):
talk about your career. It's been a fascinating career and
I remember when you were in the New South Wales
place you'd often disappear. We'd say, where's Nick and he's
over working in the Middle East, or he's doing that
or doing this.
Speaker 2 (06:55):
For it only happened twice, actually, I think the other
times I was probably dragged into secret hearings Police Integrity Commission.
Speaker 1 (07:02):
We'll talk about that a little bit later. But you
had some amazing, amazing work that you did whilst you're
still in the New South Wales Police. Tell us a
little bit. And I know we've had you on the
podcast before, but that we only scraped the surface. Now
you did get I think three sessions. There was two
people that pipped you. Pam Young she got four. We'll
(07:25):
talk about that. I know that made you a bit
crank at Pam understandably, and the other one was Graham Henry,
but we probably won't say too much about that. But
just tell us a little bit when you were in
the New South Wales Police, some of the things that
you were doing outside of the New South Wales Police.
Speaker 2 (07:40):
Yep. Sure, and again I mean this is in the book,
but I did have to be a little bit careful.
You can't go into too much detail about some of
the issues. But in two thousand and four I was
requested by the federal government. There's a request through colleagues
on you and US law enforcement to join them in
Iraq as part of the Coalition Authority College and Provisional
(08:01):
Authority rebuilding the Iraqi National Police and other law enforcement
agencies there. I am fluent in Arabic and I'm reasonably
comfortable in the Middle East, have been in a few
conflex zams I lived through the Sixth Day War and
a few other things, so I was happy to do it.
I took a leave of absence and I was gone
for about nine nine ten months from New Southwest Police,
(08:23):
seconded to the Federal government and deployed under the auspicess
of IS. I think we did some good things rebuilding
the Iraqi Police. I'm not going to tell you it
was a total success, but certainly there were a lot
of good people there trying very hard. And then in
two thousand and nine, again I was selected by the
United Nations to head up the investigations into the assassination
of the former Prime Minister Hariri and a number of
(08:44):
other murders that were related. So again I took a
leave of absence. By those stage, I was deputy commissioner,
but I was fortunate the government and the organization said
they were happy for me to go. I was gone
for about fifteen months. I think all up and that
went well. I thought we indiced at five people. Ultimately
two died and three were convicted in absentia in their absence.
(09:08):
But I think, as I've often said, it's still worth
doing even if you haven't physically arrested those people, because
the assassination has actually stopped after twenty odd in four years.
There have been a couple in more recent times, but
certainly the trend has completely changed. Accountability and ending that
cult of impunity. I thought was quite historic, and I
(09:30):
was very happy to be a part of that.
Speaker 1 (09:32):
And did the skill set that you took from your
policing career, did that lend itself well into those environments.
Speaker 2 (09:38):
It's basically murder investigations. I know there was a lot
of politics in the motive and so on. But one
of the things I hope I did when I got
there is I asked the team in fact refocused the
investigation to some extent to focus on the basic building
blocks of a murder investigation, the crime scene, the forensic
(09:59):
and ballistic evin and witnesses statements, canvassing, forensic evidence generally
and so on, rather than racing towards a motive and
a political angle. You had to do that later on,
but it wasn't going to solve anything for us. It
wasn't going to be what seves the murder. We had
to prove it in a proper court with procedural fairness,
and we did that.
Speaker 1 (10:19):
That's a voice or reason that's often needed in a
homicide investigation, isn't it. And we were trained in the
same lineage Hofside. It's all all the white noise on
the outside, and you can get lost in that coming
up with theories, but that comes down to gathering the
evidence and just focusing and doing the basics.
Speaker 2 (10:37):
Is yeah, exactly. You know, you're absolutely right. It's like
a building block. If you don't get the basics right,
nothing else will work later on. But as you know, Gary,
there's a lot of would be experts out there that
haven't really done a lot of this stuff who talk
about it because they feel that they know the answers,
and more often than not, they don't.
Speaker 1 (10:56):
It's a little bit more complex, isn't it? For sure
you've actually seen it, But I think it's interesting and
I fully understand what you're saying that you go over
there and just wind it back a little bit. Let's
just focus on the important things and you build it that.
That's the why homicides are generally solved, just building on
(11:17):
the little pieces, putting it all together. Okay, the book
behind the Badge, congratulations.
Speaker 2 (11:24):
Thank you, thank you.
Speaker 1 (11:25):
I've read it cover the cover and I've got to
say I like it. I enjoyed it.
Speaker 2 (11:31):
Thank you, Matt.
Speaker 1 (11:32):
And I know we had discussions before you were writing
it and looking at it. How did you find it personally?
Writing it torturous?
Speaker 2 (11:41):
Tell me that. I mean, I need to say you
actually one of the people who inspired me. He said
to me, you can do this, you should do this.
It's been probably three years, I think with mind writer
Roger Joyce, who did you know. He's a great guy,
and I don't know. We used to do about two
to two and a half hourly sessions. We must have
done thirty over the three year period. And I was
(12:02):
chairing the Royal Commission at the time, so I could
only have to do it sort of at nights and
weekends and what have you. And Roger was great with
fitting in with me with all of that. The bottom
line is, I'd find it now quite daunting that the
book is out and you know everyone's going to read everything,
and I'm worried. You know, I hope I've got everything right.
I hope I didn't say anything that would offend people unnecessarily.
(12:25):
But it's been quite an experience. I don't know if
I told you go, but apart from yourself, and have
a couple of other friends who have written books who
have said to me, you know, you should do this
for your family and your kids and your legacy if
you like, rather than for yourself. There's a fellow called
Bob bear Ba who's a former Cyia agent who did
(12:46):
write his life story and dedicated his first book. He's
written many now, but he dedicated his first book to
his kids, and he said, I hope this guest some
way towards explaining where the hell I was. And I
actually discussed it with him many years a game and
he said to me, it was really about that legacy
for your family and your kids as well as yourself.
(13:06):
But I'm happy there's some sort of record now where
I've been and what I've done, and our journey from
Egypt to Sydney and so on. But it is daunting.
Speaker 1 (13:18):
But okay, there's a couple of things to unpack there.
But what you're saying too, and it makes me reflect
even when you say it in this environment, that all
the sacrifices you make it working in the sharp end
of police in law enforcement like you did, and where
you're not at the family Christmas party, you're not here
or you've been called out, you're distracted, it does take
(13:40):
a toll on the people around you. So a book
is I'd like to be able to sit down that
and read, Okay, that's where my father was or that's
where my mate was.
Speaker 2 (13:50):
Yeah, I mean I would hope also that my grandkids
and great grandkids might get to read it. It's a
bit of a legacy for us, I think for the
Egyptian community generally, the Arabic community and all that. That's
a part of it is that many people in the
various communities encourage me to do this because they feel
it's sort of a I won't say it's a good
news story, but I hope it's somewhat inspirational. I hope
(14:10):
I'm a little bit of a role model for some
of the migrant communities. You know, we got it in
nineteen sixty nine without much in our pocket. We had
big dreams in our eyes, and we've done reasonably well.
And if I can do it, one of the messages
is anyone can do it.
Speaker 1 (14:26):
You jump out of the pages in the book, which
I think is always a good read. I know you
well and reading the book, it certainly is the neck
that I know you don't pull any punches, but that's
pretty much the way you've gone about your career. You
knew where you stood, and that sort of comes out
in the book.
Speaker 2 (14:42):
Yeah, I hope. So. I mean, I didn't set out
to offend or upset anyone, but I said what I thought,
and I do talk about the amount of scrutiny and
that police today are under and the fact that those
who oversite them, often bodies, generally super judicial bodies, have
(15:03):
an enormous amount of power, and with that there should
come an enormous amount of accountability, but that's not always
the case.
Speaker 1 (15:12):
On the front page of the cover a little mantra
that I think sets it well. Do good work, Live
by your beliefs and fear no one that there are
three strong statements are on the front cover of your book.
Is that how you went about your career?
Speaker 2 (15:30):
I hope, I hope so, particularly the last one. I mean,
I would hope in all the commands I've been in,
and the people I've led and the people who have
worked with me, we've never bent over because someone tried
to stand over us, to go on a particular direction,
or to do something that we don't think was right.
I think you've been the same, and I'm really proud
of you for doing that. Gary. But I think if
you lose that, all is lost. And I used to
(15:52):
tell people kids who are graduating from a police academy,
nobody can take your integrity from you. You have to
give it up. It's really your call what you do
and how you act, and then you're accountable for what
you've done.
Speaker 1 (16:06):
Well, that's a good way and good advice. And I
also hope with a book like this it might inspire
people look at the life that you have lived. I'm
sure in your wildest days when you walked into the academy,
you didn't think you'd have the career that you've had.
Speaker 2 (16:21):
Absolutely not. I actually am not ambitious. I know I've
got the deputy commissioner, but I didn't sit and think, jeez,
I want to get promoted. I want to get promoted,
and you and I know people who have. But I
don't know. Things just happened. I was in the right
place at the right time often, or there was something
that I felt I was particularly suited to, and then
(16:41):
when it came up, I threw Manhatt in the ring
and was able to succeed.
Speaker 1 (16:45):
I think the system works when someone just can concentrate
on doing their work and get rewarded, you know, without
we know good cops, bad cops, all sorts of cops.
But I say publicly that where people are trying to
use the career in the police for their own personal gain,
I'm not talking corruption, although it's probably pretty close to
(17:07):
corruption where the main focus is how I can get
promoted rather than what you're there to do the work.
Speaker 2 (17:13):
Yeah, definitely. I mean I used to when I got
to the senior ranks and I had to sort of
sit in judgment on others and whether they get promoted
or not. I like seeing guys and girls who are
focused on the job. They've got and do it well
without thinking about the next step, as you say, rather
than those who get somewhere and they're already thinking about
the next step and not focused on what they've got
(17:34):
in front of them. You've got to make your mark
everywhere you've been. You know, three or four years I
think is good. And this is some extenuating circumstances. But
three or four years and the one spot is good.
You make your mark, do your best, and then you
can look around.
Speaker 1 (17:46):
How do you think your upbringing shaped you in the
way that you did? Police in there? Can you tell
listeners a little bit about your upbringing, because it's unique
in itself.
Speaker 2 (17:56):
Sure, I do go over it in the book. I
hope I that sort of put anyone to sleep. But
I was born and brought up. I'm Coptic Orthodox Egyptian
Christian Egyptian Christian Arab and we were from the south
far south, a place called us Jult, and they are
fairly traditional and conservative they're but we moved from there
to Cairo, and then from Cairo we migrated to Australia
(18:19):
when I was about twelve in nineteen sixty nine. I
think my upbringing has had a huge impact. Obviously, on
who I am, on what I've done, and I think
it probably applies to mass people. You're a product of
your environment. Our family's fairly reasonably religious. We're Christians, my brothers.
My brother was a medical doctor, but he gave up
(18:40):
medicine and went into the priesthood the Coptic Orthodox Church,
and he's still there. And I guess the core values
that I hope that I hold and adhere to in
fairness to others. I used to sell superintendents when people
got promoted to superintendent. I used to try and see
them before they got the paperwork. All I'll ask of
(19:01):
you is that you treat others the way you'd like
to be treated. So that really basic principle of fairness,
how you treat people how you'd like to be treated.
And I'd say to them that if I saw that
not happening, you'll hear from me. By and large, people
were good with that. But I think these sort of
values about doing good, working hard, being fair to others,
(19:25):
and not getting a big head about where you are
and what you've achieved and what rank or position you hold.
I think these are really important to me, and they
all come directly out of my childhood. My father, as
I mentioned in the book, was a weightlifter, and he
had massive, big arms and legs and what have you.
(19:46):
And he was a little bit shorter than me, but
he's certainly chunkier, and he just I think, his whole
life if he'd no man, And I hope I followed that.
He certainly didn't change his views or bend in some
really significant way just to please someone else, or was
because someone's intimidated him, because he forgive the language, but
(20:07):
he never took any shit from anyone.
Speaker 1 (20:09):
And you're going to get that in policing, aren't you,
Even from at any rank. You're going to have those
moral dilemmas and ethical dilemmas in policing and standing up
for what's right or wrong and what you believe. What's
the secret to that?
Speaker 2 (20:23):
Like, I guess I've been blessed in a number of ways,
but one of them is having the support of my
family and the not just the support, but the fact
that they validate I guess where I'm heading and what
I'm doing, And I think that's really important, having a
sort of support network around it. And the second thing
(20:44):
is with my friends and colleagues that I've had, including yourself,
over the years, who have basically validated again what I'm
doing and what I'm heading, and I count I've always
counted on those around me to say, hang on a minute,
you may have got this wrong. You want to look
at it again. I will always listen to that. And
I've had staff office as they call them, staff officer
or achieve your staff as someone who really runs your
(21:04):
office and is your right hand person man or woman.
And I had that in the police for many years,
and I had it overseas as well in the various
roles I've had. It's a really important role. But it's again,
it's someone who's a bit of a sounding board, who's
not you, and who can speak to you honestly behind
class doors about whether you've run off the rails, whether
you've done something it's not going well, and then you,
hopefully you listen and you fix it. I've always told
(21:27):
those who worked around me, is you need to give
it that't sugar cat, It just tell me what's really
going on. I've seen other leaders who pat it on
the back by their staff officers and staff when everybody
knows they're not going well. It's no who's hiding it.
You know, it's no use hiding the truth from them,
because sooner or later it leads you down a completely
wrong track.
Speaker 1 (21:48):
Well, it's that if the fable of the Emperor's new
Clothes and everyone understanding, oh, you look great in that,
and yeah, certainly, and yeah, I've been fortunate enough to
work under the commands. You're the commander at homicide and
other areas, and you always knew where you stood with
you and I did like the fact, like there's some
(22:09):
people would go in there and you know what the
decision is going to be, you would at least give
me your ear to hear what I've got to say.
You might agree or might not agree, but it's a
good way of leading.
Speaker 2 (22:20):
Yeah, I think so. I think so. I actually appreciate
that approach and other agencies as well. I do talk
a little bit in the book about the Director of
Public Prosecution. It's a really important office. Nick Cowdrey held
that position for many years. But here was someone if
he made a decision that we didn't agree with and
we sought an audience to explain our thoughts, he would
always make that happen. Not necessarily with him personally, but
(22:43):
he would always make sure that you've got a hearing
in writing or in person, or whatever you wanted to do.
I think it's just really important to be fair to people.
If they're disagreeing with you and they think they have
a point of view that you should hear before you
make a decision that affects them. In any walk of
life or any walk of life, it's important.
Speaker 1 (23:03):
Holds you in good stead. Let's I want to read
an extract out from the book, and it's just it's
you explain it because it's fascinating. I love the description
of it. I'll try to do it justice reading it out.
So this is an extract from your book, and I
want you to explain the situation. Smoke from the big,
expensive colhebe cigars curled in the air around us. I
(23:26):
sunk deep into a luxurious lounge, and the only thing
between me and one of the most feared men in
the Middle East was an elegant coffee table laden with
French cakes, tiny cups of Arab coffee, and a massive astre.
My companion was a man so powerful he could make
people disappear in the heartbeat, including me, if he felt
(23:46):
like it. And I was on his turf. You got
my attention, Nick, tell us what's what that is about.
That's an extract from the book Behind the Badge.
Speaker 2 (23:56):
Right, So, there's a probably a chapter or two in
the book about my role as the Director of Oversight
for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency. Essentially, I
was like the head of Internal Affairs. UNU is an
agency that handles all the issues to do with the
Palestine refugees, which is very topical at the moment. Thirty
thousand plus staff, a budget of two plus billion US
(24:19):
a year in five countries where the refugees are located,
five locations Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Gaza and the West Bank,
and we had offices and staff in all five areas.
I had four departments, Sorry to ramble a bit that
I had four departments, and Investigations being one of the
main ones, and then Audits evaluation. The un evaluates every
(24:40):
program to see if it's working or not. And then
the Ethics division. So wherever there were complaints about anything
in process or even promotions, for instance, within the agency,
we would investigate those. We had a whole lot of
work to be done. In the Syrian office in Damascus,
my investigators, in particular being refused visas to go into Syria. I,
(25:03):
as the leader, had to find a way to change
that so that we did get I managed to get.
I used to get my visas all the time. I
need to say we traveled on diplomatic passports with the
United Nations. Theoretically you shouldn't need a visa to go anywhere,
but the two countries that insisted on a visa were
Israel and Syria. They're the ones were affect that affected us.
(25:24):
So Syria, I had to find a way to reach
the Syrian government to allow my people to be able
to come in and out so they can carry out
these really important investigations. And those investigations are particularly important
to reassure donor countries. Hundreds of millions of dollars are involved.
They need to make sure that they need to be
assured that everything's on track, there's no corruption and so on,
(25:47):
which I think buy in large was the case. So
I tapped into an Egyptian fellow on you who was
a very senior person in the United Nations security apparatus.
I knew he had reach into the Syrian regime because
of time he had spent there. And we had dinner
in Amman and Jordan, where I was living at the time,
with this United Nations posting, and I asked if you
(26:09):
could introduce me to someone who can get this done.
And he nominated this fellow the rank of major general,
and he was essentially the head of a committee that
had all the intelligence agencies, including the secret police and
so on in the Assad regime in Syria. I took
a bit of a gamble. Some people in my office
said you shouldn't go. Others I didn't tell them because
(26:32):
I knew it was just going to cause problems even it.
Speaker 1 (26:35):
Shouldn't go for safety reasons.
Speaker 2 (26:36):
Shouldn't safety, Yeah, So we'd fly into a be route
and then get a car across and get picked up
by the UN car. It's about two and a half
hours to Damascus. You can't fly into Damascus in that
stage because there was a war, and the UN said
you can't be flying. He's not safe. So we'd drive
to Damascus and then have our meetings. They used to
(26:57):
go for four or five or a week, four or
five days or a week, and then come back to
beirutin and head back to Jordan where I was living,
where headquarters was and so I arranged to meet this
fellow through my contact and I got given the number
of his chief of staff, who was a major, and
that's who I dealt with to arrange the meeting. I
(27:17):
on the day in question, when I decided to go
and meet him, to ask you, very very nicely, if
you could make sure that all my stuff got visas.
I had one security person with me who was armed,
and I think a car may have been armored at
the time. It took us a while to find the compound.
The run as science is nothing and the description I
(27:38):
had simply wasn't the best. Eventually we found it and
then we went They were expecting us, and we went
through a number of checkpoints to get to these marble
stairs to get that goes into the building, and my
escort was told to stay in the car outside, and
I didn't expect him to come in with me, and
I wouldn't want him to coming with me. And then
I went inside and we went through some more checkpoints
(28:00):
and I met with the general and his chief of
staff and a couple of others. I think we're there,
and I explained what I was there for. Sorry, before
I talked to him about all of that. And this
is something for people to bear in mind when they're
dealing with Arabic community in particular. But I think human
beings generally, they should make a bit of an effort
to build some rap or discuss the weather, you know,
(28:22):
what you do on the weekend, whatever, just something, rather
than just launching straight into business. Certainly in the Arab world,
it's rude to come in and just launch into the
business at hand. So we did that for about fifteen
twenty minutes, and he was very interested in my background,
why I spoke Arabic. He picked my accents straight away.
I think he knew who I was and all that,
So that's why I was there. And we had a
(28:42):
really really animated, very positive discussion, and I think he
liked me. I think I won him over, and he
in some ways won me over as well. I mean,
knowing what he's been involved in with the Assid regime,
and I had conducted the investigation of the use of
chemical weapons and all these guys were ended up to
their ear holes. And yet it was impossible, as I
(29:03):
say in the book, it was impossible to dislike the
bloke when you met him up front. Up close, and
he said you'll have what you'll get what you want,
no problem, and he was true to his word. I
did make an effort to go and see him a
number of times after that, just to maintain a relationship.
He was actually very helpful to us. I think the
main thing I had to explain to him, and I
(29:23):
sat and thought about that before I went and saw him,
is we're not there investigating the Asset regime. It'syria. We're
like internal affairs. We're investigating United Nations staff who were
accused or suspected of doing the wrong thing. It's nothing
to do with the regime. I do say in the
book also that I wasn't sure if he really knew
who I was, because I had led the investigation into
(29:44):
the assassination of the Prime Minister and we charged Hesibela figures,
and then I did the investigation to chemicalre weapons and
we wrote the report that blamed the Asset regime. So
on those two counts he would have been cranky with me,
but I didn't see any sign of that. And in
the last time I went to see him to say, look,
I'm heading back to Australia, and you know he's took
(30:05):
someone with me to introduce him, to maintain the contact,
who was a Sudanese fellow who also spake Arabic. I
still wasn't sure if he knew what I had done
in the past, and I said something about a report
being written, and he just looked at me and he said,
and as people write reports about all sorts of things,
it doesn't things, it doesn't mean anything. And him and
his team just laughed, and he knew exactly who I was.
(30:27):
But it didn't stop him helping me. It didn't stop
him meeting with me. And certainly nothing bad happened to me,
and I didn't think it would, Otherwise I wouldn't have
gone in.
Speaker 1 (30:36):
I suppose the risk there, like UN been a member
of the UN would offer you some form of protection,
but it also make you a valuable asset. They wanted
to look who we've got, We've got Nick possibly.
Speaker 2 (30:49):
Yeah, but look, I mean, by and large, the regime
played fair with the United Nations. But look, it was
a bit of a risk. And after I did it,
I declared it to those above me, and they weren't
entirely comfortable with it. But we got the job done.
We got the visas and our staff was going in.
We're going in and out with no problem at all,
(31:10):
in and out of CREA.
Speaker 1 (31:12):
If you can do that, there's probably a couple of
things I should declare to you when you were my boss.
So I didn't declare at a time, but we got
a way over it.
Speaker 2 (31:19):
I'm going to need a list later too.
Speaker 1 (31:21):
I'll start in alphabetical order. It matters like that. But
it's interesting, isn't it that the skills that you have
as a police officer in New South Wales and state police,
you've taken them on the world stage and it's about communication.
It's about assessing people and building a rapport, which is
pretty much the way you've got through your career in
(31:41):
New South Wales.
Speaker 2 (31:42):
I hope so. Gary. The other thing is, I think
I don't think I'm that special. I think police generally,
but particularly detectives, are problem solves. We look at an
issue and how do you get around it, how do
you get the job done. It's what cops do every
day of the week. I simply applied that wherever I went,
and I was very lucky. We got everywhere I've been,
we've actually achieved the objectives. So I'm happy about that.
Speaker 1 (32:05):
Okay, Well, the book is a rollercoaster of highs and
lows and different things. Operation Mascot. Do you want to
talk about it?
Speaker 2 (32:16):
Not particularly because I think it is important.
Speaker 1 (32:20):
I think it defines you as a person, and I'll
let you tell the story. But the fact that you
dug your heels in and kept fighting for not just yourself,
for everyone because you didn't think it was ethical and
fair and whatso.
Speaker 2 (32:34):
There it was supposed to be an investigation in the
corrupt police, and there was a fellow known as M five,
his identity suppressed, and he for some reason turned if
you like, and offered or was forced to assist internal
affairs and the Police Integrity Commission and the new South
ask Grime Commission for quite some time, perhaps a couple
(32:55):
of years of wiring up, you know, wearing a bug
going around the state basically trying to talk to allegedly
corrupt police to entrap them. Basically I was a subject
of that. It was one of my complaints at the
time was that the legislation allowing entrapment agent provocateur if
(33:15):
you like, states that it can only be as a
result of a specific complaint, and you can only test
for that specific evense and you can only do it once.
I got about half a dozen visits from him. I
had someone else that had got fifteen visits from him,
So there were no rules at that stage. Four Internal
affairs and special crime.
Speaker 1 (33:35):
When did that happen? And how long you're.
Speaker 2 (33:37):
I mean, I don't know exactly when it started, but
it was certainly the late nineties and into the two thousands,
so I understand it wrapped up about two thousand and three.
Speaker 1 (33:44):
Perhaps, And would you have touched on in the book?
So yeah, I do.
Speaker 2 (33:48):
Yeah. When we began discussions about the book with the
publishers and the author and so on, I did make
the point that I didn't want this issue of that
I'm about to tell you about to be what defines me.
I hope It's not what definds me. I hope. I'm
a lot of other things as well. But it did
play a part obviously in my life. That took a
(34:08):
couple of years out of my life probably, So I
was the target of internal affairs for quite some time
and the Police Integrity Commission in unison. I was probably
a loud, annoying voice in the background. I did get
to be on the executive of the police union and
wearing that hat. I can think of one particular press
conference where I held the press conference and called them
out for what they weren't following processes. After the wood
(34:29):
Raw Commission, the oversight industry, if you like, was completely
out of control. They could do whatever they wanted and
justified by the fact that Wood had uncovered corruption, which
he clearly did. It's made out about that, So then
I became target one. Ironically, some of the people who
I now know were investigating me I had made formal
complaints about, so they had massive conflicts of interest. I
(34:51):
also now know that I was the subject of eighty
eight zero bugging warrants, which the Armbudsman at the time,
Bruce Barber, the in a parliamentary inquiry. So they established
a parliamentary inquiry. When the affidavits behind the warrants came
to light, and it showed that most of us were
not actually were not mentioned in the affidavits, so there
was no information placed before the judge for him or
(35:14):
her to sign the warrant to authorize us being buggd.
It was completely inappropriate and illegal. Now when that came
to light, there were many, many renewed complaints from one
hundred and fourteen of us, and so they get Premier
at the time, Barrier Farrell. He can't give it to
internal Affairs, they're accused, couldn't give it to the Police
Integrity Commission, they're accused, couldn't give it to the New
(35:36):
southmast Crime Commission. They're accused. They were all part of
this bugging operation Mascot, Operation Mascot Florida. So they gave
it to the Ombudsman's office. Somewhere along the line they
added the line in there that he should investigate who
revealed the wrongdoing. Now, most of us it had been
declared whistleblowers under the Public Interest Disclosures Legislation. I think
(35:59):
it's Section nineteen of the Public Interest Disclosures Act says
that if your problem is not solved within six months,
you're entitled to it specifies in the Act. In the
legislation you are entitled to talk to journalists and politicians,
which is what a lot of us did. Now, the
body that's meant to protect whistleblowers in New South Wales
is the Mbuzman's office, and yet that's who grilled all
(36:20):
of us about who revealed the wrongdoing. And to this
day I've not been asked one question about the bugging.
All of us have been asked about is who revealed
the wrongdoing? So we complained the Office of Bombusman does
not have an inspector, so he answered to Parliament. So
we went to Parliament and they held two inquiries into
what happened. And obviously they're not happy about the body
(36:41):
that was investigating the wrongdoing also investigating who revealed the wrongdoing.
You can't do that, and that's where it lays that
they handed down a report that no one with no
one agreed with. Certainly all the aggrieved individuals are very
unhappy because there's been no closure. They never got to
the bottom of the bugging, and no one's been held
to account.
Speaker 1 (36:59):
There's been no It was an ugly, ugly time and
there was a lot of us mentioned mentioned on the
warrant and.
Speaker 2 (37:06):
Not what were you on there?
Speaker 1 (37:07):
Yeah, I got to the point where I didn't realize
I was on there, But I was starting to get
concerned because there's so many what I considered good police
that were on there.
Speaker 2 (37:16):
A few people have said to me, what's wrong with me?
How come I didn't make the warrants.
Speaker 1 (37:20):
I think I deserved it. We joke about it. But
the police corruption, but you made an interesting point in
your in your book, and we know what happened with
the Wood Royal Commission and needed to stamp out corruption.
There's no argument there. Then we have Skia investigating police
and you made the point that, yeah, they got to
(37:42):
the police pre royal commission to talk of noble cause
corruption in that you know, the ends justify the means
and all that and not being accountable. And it's started
to evolve that the police, the people that were investigating
the corrupt police for corrupt behavior, we're think, yeah, not
with accordance to the rules, that.
Speaker 2 (38:01):
They were bending the rules too. There's not out about that. Yeah, look,
I just it was one of those things I had
to really sit and think about how much do I
want to say do I want to say anything about this?
And I didn't have it in me to leave it out,
but I didn't want it to dominate the book, and
I didn't want anyone to think this is a bit.
This book is a big winch I hope it's not
(38:22):
a win.
Speaker 1 (38:22):
Well, I put on record now because I read through
it and I wondered where you were going with it.
I didn't see it. There's a wine that was an observation,
and you paid homage to you're not talking everyone, You're
talking certain people and making things like there was something
that really resonated with me that people that were investigating
weren't working within the restrictions of that we have to
(38:44):
do as police officers. Even though they were police officers,
they weren't qualifying for their weapons.
Speaker 2 (38:48):
And all that stuff.
Speaker 1 (38:50):
All that stuff like that about unfairness. So I probably
zero in in light of what's happened to me, But
I think it was a balance view, and you were
very careful not to attack in the individuals on it.
Speaker 2 (39:03):
Yeah, and I really didn't want to set out to
have it, as we said, to be a big wings.
I have most of the book, and the tone of
the book is positive. It's about a happy story where
I achieved a great deal and started with nothing and
so on. But I also couldn't leave it out. It
was the same as actually making the complaints way back.
I had to make a decision do I sit silently
(39:24):
and let someone else do their heavy lifting. But I
mean I had got the deputy commissioner and I had
at least two friends who really suffered by what happened
with Operation Mascot in the en ones Month's office. They
were treated very badly. I didn't have it in me
to pretend I didn't see what was happening and to
let someone else do their heavy lifting, right up until
the day I walked into the parliamentary inquiry and unleashed
(39:49):
if you like. I found out later that the crime
squads had basically down tools that day and stayed glued
to the TV. A lot of them stayed glued to
the TV and the meal rims.
Speaker 1 (40:00):
We're interested, I'll admit to that.
Speaker 2 (40:03):
But the bottom line is, I think you just have
to make a decision. I didn't have it in me
to walk away and just forget, you know, so let
someone else do the heavy lift. Before I walked into
that parliamentary inquiry, my lawyer, who I trust with my life,
said to me, last chance, Is there any chance you
just let this go and let someone else take the
heavy lifting?
Speaker 1 (40:22):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (40:22):
And I just said, I just I really appreciate you're
worrying about me. I've made my mind up. I mean
a lot of politicians said to me, if you do this,
you might feely have done the right thing, but it
probably means you'll never be a commissioner. I thought about
it and I made a conscious decision to go ahead.
You know what, I regret nothing, absolutely nothing. I do
it all again tomorrow for I had to.
Speaker 1 (40:42):
Yeah, well, I think it's mark you as a man
and the officer that you respected for the type of person.
But what's a personal cost? So I know taking the stand.
I've taken the stand on different things, and I know
it comes to the cost. You get, okay, I'm going
to do this. You're sitting they're thinking do I really
want this? No? Fuck it? And you go in there
(41:04):
and you do it. But it takes a cost. What
sort of costs does it take on you?
Speaker 2 (41:08):
It certainly took the stuffing out of me for a
few years. I was dragged into hearings at the Police
Deegorty Commission and all that. I go into all that,
and on a personal level, I certainly didn't help my marriage.
And you know, when I went to the parliamentary inquiry
someone I had remarried my current wife and I don't
think she'd been through something like this before, but watching
(41:30):
her husband go through a really horrible time. There's a
lot of mudfrain in every direction. Thankfully, I don't think
anything stuck to me. My complaint was that I had
not been asked one question about what had gone wrong
with twenty one Supreme Court judges signing warrants where they're
authorizing the bugging of people even though they're not mentioned
(41:52):
in the affidavit and there is no information against us.
If that has happened, then I'm hoping it doesn't still continue.
Then you know, it's a huge miscarriage of justice. I
see that whole episode and the inquiry that followed it
as a dark day, a very dark day for justice
in the state of New South Wales. It hasn't been righted,
(42:14):
it's never been sorted. It still hangs like a cloud
over a whole lot of people, and there's no closure.
I mean, one of the reasons I took on the
Lebanon investigations was to try and give people closure. Out
of all those murders that had happened. You and I
have worked on homicide, and it's probably one of the
most satisfying things when you solve the murder and lock
up the murderer and you can go to the victim's
(42:35):
family sit down with them and say, this is what happened.
We now know the truth. At least it won't bring
them back the person that's been killed, but at least
you know what happened, and it gives you closure. I
mean that's a really extreme example, but certainly the bugging
saga there's been no closure.
Speaker 1 (42:50):
Well, I think the fact that you stand up. Sometimes
you don't get the exact result you're aiming for. Sometimes
that doesn't come out. But the fact that you stood
up and made peopleccountable because it was worrying that people know. Okay,
we're the major crime detectives. People make allegations against it,
the nature nature of our work, and then you have
the people sitting above the judicating on us. Well, they
(43:13):
should be working by the same rules we're working by.
Speaker 2 (43:17):
Yeah, procedural fairness should trump all.
Speaker 1 (43:21):
And you can't you can't argue, can't argue with that.
But I had a laugh, and that there is for
all the darkness, there's some humor. Then you became the
deputy commissioner after causing all this kerfuffle, and who do
you have to oversee the very body of the command
that you were complaining about tell me about that? How
(43:43):
that go? That would have been a nice meeting.
Speaker 2 (43:45):
First up, well, I think the Special Crime Unit, which
really had no reason to exist, it was a mini
CIB competing with the ouse version of the CIB, come
an investigation area in crime agencies. And then it becomes
that Crime Command was simply about individuals who felt this
was good for their career. That's my view now. I
(44:05):
think everyone felt that it wasn't working and it needed
to be disbanded. But I was briefed by the Australian
Federal Police about their secret investigation into a fellow called
Marke Standen, who was the Assistant Commissioner in the new
Southwest Crime Commission, a former Federal police officer and former
customs agent. I was told obviously it had to remain
(44:26):
a secret for a little bit longer. I think it
was six months or so after I was brief that
he was finally arrested. But he was sort of the
co leader or co commander really of the Special Crime
Investigations internal affairs. So when he was arrested and charged
and he's been convicted, he's done his time and he's out.
(44:47):
Now I understand he did twenty odd years. By the way,
when that happened, we then moved towards shutting down the
special crime function of Internal Affairs and got Internal Affairs
to go back to being internal affairs. We changed the
name to Professional Standards, which is a lot more than
just internal affairs. It's about doing things proactively and having
(45:09):
processes in place, sps, standard operating procedures in place and
so on. That helped the cop on the street to
give them an environment in which they can know what's
right and what's wrong, and have resources that help them
make decisions and so on. And I'm really proud Paul
Carey was the Assistant commission that we promoted to get
that job done. And he did say to me at
one stage that the word fairness did not appear in
(45:32):
any of the literature in the previous regime, and any
of the standard operating procedures. Fairness just didn't feature.
Speaker 1 (45:38):
It's all my like they were creating a pseudo major crime.
Speaker 2 (45:42):
It was yeah, so yeah, look, but to your point,
the day I made a decision, so I had been
promoted to Deputy commission, a specialist operation. I was among
the many commands I had. I was in charge became
in charge of internal affairs. I had to go down
and tell them that we're disbanding the unit and then
lead to go back into the mainstream and that will
help them in any way they can, which we did
(46:03):
and some of them did, and some of them simply
didn't want to do that. But it was a joke
at the time that they were. As I was coming
up in the lift, they were probably wiping my name
off the whiteboards as target one.
Speaker 1 (46:17):
Well you know what's it saying? You should be nicer
people on the way up different things? Yeah, I mean
I'd come back to hall.
Speaker 2 (46:25):
I didn't particularly take any joy from it. Some good
people there who had simply been let down by the
system allowing them to sit in that place for ten
or fifteen years. And I meant what I said on
the day. We did our best to try and have
them reintegrate into normal policing. So they were in a
secret area of internal affairs, working out of the new
South Wales Crime Commission, relying on its resources and its
(46:47):
secrecy provisions. They were removed from reality, from the reality
of policing for a decade.
Speaker 1 (46:53):
And yeah, look at Mark Stanton, what a blight on
the position he held and the stuff he was up to.
Speaker 2 (47:00):
Yeah, I mean it does throw light on super judicial bodies,
as I mentioned before, and it's in the book about
them having extraordinary power, perhaps often without the extraordinary checks
and balances that must go with it. I mean, we've
traded away the right to silence in many jurisdictions, and
I'm not sure that's a good thing.
Speaker 1 (47:22):
One. Just as you're telling the story, I'm thinking, and
you do have a skill, and it comes across in
the book that you can be critical of people, but
the way that you talk about people, you tend not
to make it personal. It's more okay, this is the factual.
I'm not happy with this, and I think that served
you well because you've pulled me down a couple of times.
(47:43):
But I've never taken offense. And I said, I still
think it's funny, and I'm still embarrassed and annoyed it myself.
I might have boiled up on the last podcast, but
those that didn't hear it when I forget which job
it was on, but I had the cranky hat on
on Speed Kingdom a staff on demanding staff. You weren't
giving me enough staff. You're in the Posta's chair in
(48:05):
the homicide Jason EVAs Luke Rank and you know the
crew I'm working with, and they will go in and
tell him, go in and fucking telling him. I said,
I will. I'm going in the telling him, I'm going
to demand we get more staff. We can't do this.
And I walk into your office. They've whipped me up
into a frenzy. I go in there, you go good
a Jube's okay? Well, and then I start talking and
then start talking and talking, and we spoke for about
(48:27):
fifteen minutes and I walk out, walk back to the
strike force, and they go, how'd that go? If we
get more staff? I said, no, it went good. Well
did you get anything? No? And then I've said to them,
but I think Nick, as I was walking out, I
still to this day and embarrassed by that. Nick, I
don't know. I don't know how you get it.
Speaker 2 (48:45):
I'm negotiator.
Speaker 1 (48:47):
Don't negotiate with my wife.
Speaker 2 (48:49):
Off and says to me, don't negotiate me.
Speaker 1 (48:50):
I know what you're doing one step ahead. But I'm
telling you I was going in there, going in there,
cranky at the cranky at the time. Now ask you
a tough question. You can't avoid this. It's one that
needs to be asked, and I expect an honest answer
for you before we wrap up part one. You supervise
myself and you also supervised Pam Young. Can you tell
(49:15):
me who you think is the best detective?
Speaker 2 (49:20):
Clearly it's Pam.
Speaker 1 (49:22):
I think you're a coward.
Speaker 2 (49:23):
You're a cowd I think you're both outstanding. I'm not
saying it because you know you're my mate or she's
my mate. You both are. But we had you know,
when I look back on it, Jews, I was the
commander of the homicide squad for probably four years or so,
and we had outstanding talented detectives there, including you and
Pam and many others. So I've been doing it for
(49:45):
a decade of fifteen years and so on. You know
all the people, you know. It's just I always feel
a sense of sadness when I see people move on
from homicide. But I know you've got to do it,
but for your career and otherwise, it is one of
the most important jobs that you can have in policing.
There is no more serious crime than murder than a
(50:05):
human being having their life taken, and you need the best. Hopefully,
to deal with that sort of crime and you're outstanding.
Speaker 1 (50:14):
Thanks.
Speaker 2 (50:15):
She was better.
Speaker 1 (50:17):
They were good times. I just clarify one thing. I
didn't move on from homicide for my career.
Speaker 2 (50:24):
I got charged.
Speaker 1 (50:25):
Anyway, we'll wrap up, wrap up part one. There's plenty
more to talk about because your books full of stuff.
So thank you. Have a short break.
Speaker 2 (50:33):
Thank you,
The public has had a long held fascination with detectives.
Detective see aside of life the average persons 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
(00:23):
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. Today
(00:46):
I spoke to Nick Cawvios. Nick is one of the
country's most respected law enforcement officers who's a retired New
South Wales Police Deputy commissioner who's had an incredible international career,
having worked in homicide, gangs, counter terrorism, negotiators and undercover.
He's also worked for the UN, which saw him investigating
the assassination of a former Lebanese prime minister, investigating the
(01:09):
use of chemical weapons in Syria, rebuilding the Iraq Police Force,
and most recently chaired the Royal Commission into Defense and
Veteran Suicide. Today we found out who Nick is as
a person, talking about the highs and lowers of his
career and what makes him tick. You can also read
more about Nick and an exclusive extract from his book
(01:30):
Behind the Badge in the Saturday and Sunday Telegraph this weekend.
I always enjoy talking to Nick. He's been a good mate.
This is our conversation. Last time I had you on
the podcast, everyone kept talking about how good your voice is.
So stuff it up a little bit with you taking
him a job. Anyway, Nick, you speak Arabic, You're born
(01:55):
in Egypt, and you've got a certain look and swagger
about you. See why you're used in undercover work. You've
made reference to some undercover stuff in your book. Tell
us about your career and undercover.
Speaker 2 (02:08):
I think I really got my start initially, at least
simply because of my ethnic background and language abilities.
Speaker 1 (02:15):
And you did have that big, big mustache too.
Speaker 2 (02:17):
I did it was it was a beautiful thing. But
I understand my stuches are coming back to. By the way,
just say you so prepare yourself. But now I just
I felt that it was something that was certainly exciting
for a young detective. But more than that, I think
you could actually do a lot of good, you know,
getting drugs off the street or weapons off the street
(02:38):
and catching really bad people that you might struggle to
catch any other way. So I was happy, to very
happy to be to be to be involved in it.
And as I got more and more into it, I
think I got better at it obviously, as you do,
and the sort of targets I was going for you
rows quite a few levels.
Speaker 1 (02:56):
Yeah, so you think it was important to get that
expert pearance at the lower level of crime.
Speaker 2 (03:02):
Fortunately I started with a fairly big one, but after.
Speaker 1 (03:04):
That threw you in the deepen.
Speaker 2 (03:06):
It was Yeah, you have to understand in the eighties
there wasn't that much of a structure in terms of training, accreditation,
and the deployment practices were a bit at hoc. But
as we went along, and I say in the book
that one of my aims, I had some bad experiences
with people taking contracts on me and so on, and
(03:27):
I didn't feel I had a lot of support from workmates.
I did, but not from the organization, and I wanted
to contribute towards fixing that, and I did that. I've
got a scholarship and whatever seas how to look at
how others do things and brought back a bunch of
ideas and that was my sort of foot in the
door to recommend some fairly significant changes in terms of
welfare reassimilation and so on.
Speaker 1 (03:49):
Yeah. Well, without giving away the methodology of the way
that the people go undercover. I remember those days and
it was pretty rough and ready wasn't Oh that's good,
you've infiltrated the game, but we hadn't come up with
an extraction plan.
Speaker 2 (04:02):
Nah. Yeah, I've been I hope I've been careful. I
don't think there was any need for me to go
into methodology or give away any trade secrets. But people
know that this happens, and I think in some ways
I hope it said as a turrent for those doing
bad things, knowing that they can get caught if they're
doing bad shit.
Speaker 1 (04:22):
We recently had an ATO officer from the United States
that did a lot of undercover work. And it's a fascinating,
fascinating world, isn't it.
Speaker 2 (04:31):
Yeah. I mean, the American environment is quite different. It's
such a huge country, as we all know. But my
sense is that nearly every federal agency in the US
runs its own undercover program and its own tactical teams,
and everyone carries weapons. It's a different environment. I'm not
sure if how Australian Tax Office would want to carry
weapons and go under cover.
Speaker 1 (04:52):
Yeah, I'm not sure how it worked that way. So
You've had a long, a long career, and I know
when we were together in the cops, you always said
to me that, yeah, you think this is the focus
of the world in the cops, because it's how you police.
I policed, and we're very much looking in with into
(05:15):
the organization. You've been out of New South Wales polace
you're still involved in law enforcement and different aspects. You've
been out of the New South Wales Police for a
long time. Does it give you a different perspective on
the world.
Speaker 2 (05:27):
Yeah, I think so. And I think one of the
realizations that you come to when you leave the police,
as I'm sure you did, is that there is a
bigger world out there. I was fortunate and that while
I was still a police officer, I had two breaks.
One when I went to Iraq, for a year, and
then the second one when I went to the Special
Tribunal for Lebanon to investigate the murders in Lebanon. So
(05:49):
I had had a bit of a taste of the
outside world, if you like, and I think I was
probably reasonably comfortable making the transition after I left the police,
as some of our sort of mutual friends would probably
struggle a bit. They hadn't, and especially the guys that
joined as cadets, who had been there since I was sixteen,
hadn't really tasted the outside world. I think it's good
(06:11):
to have life experience before you join, and I think
it's certainly it's good to realize that there's a bigger
world out there. It's not the end of the world.
Speaker 1 (06:19):
Well, a wise man and a good friend I won't
name names, I'm looking at you that did pull me
aside when I got into trouble with the cops and said, look,
Dube's there is a big world out there. Don't panic.
You'll find purpose and you'll find direction. And it was
good advice at the time because I was a little
bit What am I going to do now? But let's
(06:40):
talk about your career. It's been a fascinating career and
I remember when you were in the New South Wales
place you'd often disappear. We'd say, where's Nick and he's
over working in the Middle East, or he's doing that
or doing this.
Speaker 2 (06:55):
For it only happened twice, actually, I think the other
times I was probably dragged into secret hearings Police Integrity Commission.
Speaker 1 (07:02):
We'll talk about that a little bit later. But you
had some amazing, amazing work that you did whilst you're
still in the New South Wales Police. Tell us a
little bit. And I know we've had you on the
podcast before, but that we only scraped the surface. Now
you did get I think three sessions. There was two
people that pipped you. Pam Young she got four. We'll
(07:25):
talk about that. I know that made you a bit
crank at Pam understandably, and the other one was Graham Henry,
but we probably won't say too much about that. But
just tell us a little bit when you were in
the New South Wales Police, some of the things that
you were doing outside of the New South Wales Police.
Speaker 2 (07:40):
Yep. Sure, and again I mean this is in the book,
but I did have to be a little bit careful.
You can't go into too much detail about some of
the issues. But in two thousand and four I was
requested by the federal government. There's a request through colleagues
on you and US law enforcement to join them in
Iraq as part of the Coalition Authority College and Provisional
(08:01):
Authority rebuilding the Iraqi National Police and other law enforcement
agencies there. I am fluent in Arabic and I'm reasonably
comfortable in the Middle East, have been in a few
conflex zams I lived through the Sixth Day War and
a few other things, so I was happy to do it.
I took a leave of absence and I was gone
for about nine nine ten months from New Southwest Police,
(08:23):
seconded to the Federal government and deployed under the auspicess
of IS. I think we did some good things rebuilding
the Iraqi Police. I'm not going to tell you it
was a total success, but certainly there were a lot
of good people there trying very hard. And then in
two thousand and nine, again I was selected by the
United Nations to head up the investigations into the assassination
of the former Prime Minister Hariri and a number of
(08:44):
other murders that were related. So again I took a
leave of absence. By those stage, I was deputy commissioner,
but I was fortunate the government and the organization said
they were happy for me to go. I was gone
for about fifteen months. I think all up and that
went well. I thought we indiced at five people. Ultimately
two died and three were convicted in absentia in their absence.
(09:08):
But I think, as I've often said, it's still worth
doing even if you haven't physically arrested those people, because
the assassination has actually stopped after twenty odd in four years.
There have been a couple in more recent times, but
certainly the trend has completely changed. Accountability and ending that
cult of impunity. I thought was quite historic, and I
(09:30):
was very happy to be a part of that.
Speaker 1 (09:32):
And did the skill set that you took from your
policing career, did that lend itself well into those environments.
Speaker 2 (09:38):
It's basically murder investigations. I know there was a lot
of politics in the motive and so on. But one
of the things I hope I did when I got
there is I asked the team in fact refocused the
investigation to some extent to focus on the basic building
blocks of a murder investigation, the crime scene, the forensic
(09:59):
and ballistic evin and witnesses statements, canvassing, forensic evidence generally
and so on, rather than racing towards a motive and
a political angle. You had to do that later on,
but it wasn't going to solve anything for us. It
wasn't going to be what seves the murder. We had
to prove it in a proper court with procedural fairness,
and we did that.
Speaker 1 (10:19):
That's a voice or reason that's often needed in a
homicide investigation, isn't it. And we were trained in the
same lineage Hofside. It's all all the white noise on
the outside, and you can get lost in that coming
up with theories, but that comes down to gathering the
evidence and just focusing and doing the basics.
Speaker 2 (10:37):
Is yeah, exactly. You know, you're absolutely right. It's like
a building block. If you don't get the basics right,
nothing else will work later on. But as you know, Gary,
there's a lot of would be experts out there that
haven't really done a lot of this stuff who talk
about it because they feel that they know the answers,
and more often than not, they don't.
Speaker 1 (10:56):
It's a little bit more complex, isn't it? For sure
you've actually seen it, But I think it's interesting and
I fully understand what you're saying that you go over
there and just wind it back a little bit. Let's
just focus on the important things and you build it that.
That's the why homicides are generally solved, just building on
(11:17):
the little pieces, putting it all together. Okay, the book
behind the Badge, congratulations.
Speaker 2 (11:24):
Thank you, thank you.
Speaker 1 (11:25):
I've read it cover the cover and I've got to
say I like it. I enjoyed it.
Speaker 2 (11:31):
Thank you, Matt.
Speaker 1 (11:32):
And I know we had discussions before you were writing
it and looking at it. How did you find it personally?
Writing it torturous?
Speaker 2 (11:41):
Tell me that. I mean, I need to say you
actually one of the people who inspired me. He said
to me, you can do this, you should do this.
It's been probably three years, I think with mind writer
Roger Joyce, who did you know. He's a great guy,
and I don't know. We used to do about two
to two and a half hourly sessions. We must have
done thirty over the three year period. And I was
(12:02):
chairing the Royal Commission at the time, so I could
only have to do it sort of at nights and
weekends and what have you. And Roger was great with
fitting in with me with all of that. The bottom
line is, I'd find it now quite daunting that the
book is out and you know everyone's going to read everything,
and I'm worried. You know, I hope I've got everything right.
I hope I didn't say anything that would offend people unnecessarily.
(12:25):
But it's been quite an experience. I don't know if
I told you go, but apart from yourself, and have
a couple of other friends who have written books who
have said to me, you know, you should do this
for your family and your kids and your legacy if
you like, rather than for yourself. There's a fellow called
Bob bear Ba who's a former Cyia agent who did
(12:46):
write his life story and dedicated his first book. He's
written many now, but he dedicated his first book to
his kids, and he said, I hope this guest some
way towards explaining where the hell I was. And I
actually discussed it with him many years a game and
he said to me, it was really about that legacy
for your family and your kids as well as yourself.
(13:06):
But I'm happy there's some sort of record now where
I've been and what I've done, and our journey from
Egypt to Sydney and so on. But it is daunting.
Speaker 1 (13:18):
But okay, there's a couple of things to unpack there.
But what you're saying too, and it makes me reflect
even when you say it in this environment, that all
the sacrifices you make it working in the sharp end
of police in law enforcement like you did, and where
you're not at the family Christmas party, you're not here
or you've been called out, you're distracted, it does take
(13:40):
a toll on the people around you. So a book
is I'd like to be able to sit down that
and read, Okay, that's where my father was or that's
where my mate was.
Speaker 2 (13:50):
Yeah, I mean I would hope also that my grandkids
and great grandkids might get to read it. It's a
bit of a legacy for us, I think for the
Egyptian community generally, the Arabic community and all that. That's
a part of it is that many people in the
various communities encourage me to do this because they feel
it's sort of a I won't say it's a good
news story, but I hope it's somewhat inspirational. I hope
(14:10):
I'm a little bit of a role model for some
of the migrant communities. You know, we got it in
nineteen sixty nine without much in our pocket. We had
big dreams in our eyes, and we've done reasonably well.
And if I can do it, one of the messages
is anyone can do it.
Speaker 1 (14:26):
You jump out of the pages in the book, which
I think is always a good read. I know you
well and reading the book, it certainly is the neck
that I know you don't pull any punches, but that's
pretty much the way you've gone about your career. You
knew where you stood, and that sort of comes out
in the book.
Speaker 2 (14:42):
Yeah, I hope. So. I mean, I didn't set out
to offend or upset anyone, but I said what I thought,
and I do talk about the amount of scrutiny and
that police today are under and the fact that those
who oversite them, often bodies, generally super judicial bodies, have
(15:03):
an enormous amount of power, and with that there should
come an enormous amount of accountability, but that's not always
the case.
Speaker 1 (15:12):
On the front page of the cover a little mantra
that I think sets it well. Do good work, Live
by your beliefs and fear no one that there are
three strong statements are on the front cover of your book.
Is that how you went about your career?
Speaker 2 (15:30):
I hope, I hope so, particularly the last one. I mean,
I would hope in all the commands I've been in,
and the people I've led and the people who have
worked with me, we've never bent over because someone tried
to stand over us, to go on a particular direction,
or to do something that we don't think was right.
I think you've been the same, and I'm really proud
of you for doing that. Gary. But I think if
you lose that, all is lost. And I used to
(15:52):
tell people kids who are graduating from a police academy,
nobody can take your integrity from you. You have to
give it up. It's really your call what you do
and how you act, and then you're accountable for what
you've done.
Speaker 1 (16:06):
Well, that's a good way and good advice. And I
also hope with a book like this it might inspire
people look at the life that you have lived. I'm
sure in your wildest days when you walked into the academy,
you didn't think you'd have the career that you've had.
Speaker 2 (16:21):
Absolutely not. I actually am not ambitious. I know I've
got the deputy commissioner, but I didn't sit and think, jeez,
I want to get promoted. I want to get promoted,
and you and I know people who have. But I
don't know. Things just happened. I was in the right
place at the right time often, or there was something
that I felt I was particularly suited to, and then
(16:41):
when it came up, I threw Manhatt in the ring
and was able to succeed.
Speaker 1 (16:45):
I think the system works when someone just can concentrate
on doing their work and get rewarded, you know, without
we know good cops, bad cops, all sorts of cops.
But I say publicly that where people are trying to
use the career in the police for their own personal gain,
I'm not talking corruption, although it's probably pretty close to
(17:07):
corruption where the main focus is how I can get
promoted rather than what you're there to do the work.
Speaker 2 (17:13):
Yeah, definitely. I mean I used to when I got
to the senior ranks and I had to sort of
sit in judgment on others and whether they get promoted
or not. I like seeing guys and girls who are
focused on the job. They've got and do it well
without thinking about the next step, as you say, rather
than those who get somewhere and they're already thinking about
the next step and not focused on what they've got
(17:34):
in front of them. You've got to make your mark
everywhere you've been. You know, three or four years I
think is good. And this is some extenuating circumstances. But
three or four years and the one spot is good.
You make your mark, do your best, and then you
can look around.
Speaker 1 (17:46):
How do you think your upbringing shaped you in the
way that you did? Police in there? Can you tell
listeners a little bit about your upbringing, because it's unique
in itself.
Speaker 2 (17:56):
Sure, I do go over it in the book. I
hope I that sort of put anyone to sleep. But
I was born and brought up. I'm Coptic Orthodox Egyptian
Christian Egyptian Christian Arab and we were from the south
far south, a place called us Jult, and they are
fairly traditional and conservative they're but we moved from there
to Cairo, and then from Cairo we migrated to Australia
(18:19):
when I was about twelve in nineteen sixty nine. I
think my upbringing has had a huge impact. Obviously, on
who I am, on what I've done, and I think
it probably applies to mass people. You're a product of
your environment. Our family's fairly reasonably religious. We're Christians, my brothers.
My brother was a medical doctor, but he gave up
(18:40):
medicine and went into the priesthood the Coptic Orthodox Church,
and he's still there. And I guess the core values
that I hope that I hold and adhere to in
fairness to others. I used to sell superintendents when people
got promoted to superintendent. I used to try and see
them before they got the paperwork. All I'll ask of
(19:01):
you is that you treat others the way you'd like
to be treated. So that really basic principle of fairness,
how you treat people how you'd like to be treated.
And I'd say to them that if I saw that
not happening, you'll hear from me. By and large, people
were good with that. But I think these sort of
values about doing good, working hard, being fair to others,
(19:25):
and not getting a big head about where you are
and what you've achieved and what rank or position you hold.
I think these are really important to me, and they
all come directly out of my childhood. My father, as
I mentioned in the book, was a weightlifter, and he
had massive, big arms and legs and what have you.
(19:46):
And he was a little bit shorter than me, but
he's certainly chunkier, and he just I think, his whole
life if he'd no man, And I hope I followed that.
He certainly didn't change his views or bend in some
really significant way just to please someone else, or was
because someone's intimidated him, because he forgive the language, but
(20:07):
he never took any shit from anyone.
Speaker 1 (20:09):
And you're going to get that in policing, aren't you,
Even from at any rank. You're going to have those
moral dilemmas and ethical dilemmas in policing and standing up
for what's right or wrong and what you believe. What's
the secret to that?
Speaker 2 (20:23):
Like, I guess I've been blessed in a number of ways,
but one of them is having the support of my
family and the not just the support, but the fact
that they validate I guess where I'm heading and what
I'm doing, And I think that's really important, having a
sort of support network around it. And the second thing
(20:44):
is with my friends and colleagues that I've had, including yourself,
over the years, who have basically validated again what I'm
doing and what I'm heading, and I count I've always
counted on those around me to say, hang on a minute,
you may have got this wrong. You want to look
at it again. I will always listen to that. And
I've had staff office as they call them, staff officer
or achieve your staff as someone who really runs your
(21:04):
office and is your right hand person man or woman.
And I had that in the police for many years,
and I had it overseas as well in the various
roles I've had. It's a really important role. But it's again,
it's someone who's a bit of a sounding board, who's
not you, and who can speak to you honestly behind
class doors about whether you've run off the rails, whether
you've done something it's not going well, and then you,
hopefully you listen and you fix it. I've always told
(21:27):
those who worked around me, is you need to give
it that't sugar cat, It just tell me what's really
going on. I've seen other leaders who pat it on
the back by their staff officers and staff when everybody
knows they're not going well. It's no who's hiding it.
You know, it's no use hiding the truth from them,
because sooner or later it leads you down a completely
wrong track.
Speaker 1 (21:48):
Well, it's that if the fable of the Emperor's new
Clothes and everyone understanding, oh, you look great in that,
and yeah, certainly, and yeah, I've been fortunate enough to
work under the commands. You're the commander at homicide and
other areas, and you always knew where you stood with
you and I did like the fact, like there's some
(22:09):
people would go in there and you know what the
decision is going to be, you would at least give
me your ear to hear what I've got to say.
You might agree or might not agree, but it's a
good way of leading.
Speaker 2 (22:20):
Yeah, I think so. I think so. I actually appreciate
that approach and other agencies as well. I do talk
a little bit in the book about the Director of
Public Prosecution. It's a really important office. Nick Cowdrey held
that position for many years. But here was someone if
he made a decision that we didn't agree with and
we sought an audience to explain our thoughts, he would
always make that happen. Not necessarily with him personally, but
(22:43):
he would always make sure that you've got a hearing
in writing or in person, or whatever you wanted to do.
I think it's just really important to be fair to people.
If they're disagreeing with you and they think they have
a point of view that you should hear before you
make a decision that affects them. In any walk of
life or any walk of life, it's important.
Speaker 1 (23:03):
Holds you in good stead. Let's I want to read
an extract out from the book, and it's just it's
you explain it because it's fascinating. I love the description
of it. I'll try to do it justice reading it out.
So this is an extract from your book, and I
want you to explain the situation. Smoke from the big,
expensive colhebe cigars curled in the air around us. I
(23:26):
sunk deep into a luxurious lounge, and the only thing
between me and one of the most feared men in
the Middle East was an elegant coffee table laden with
French cakes, tiny cups of Arab coffee, and a massive astre.
My companion was a man so powerful he could make
people disappear in the heartbeat, including me, if he felt
(23:46):
like it. And I was on his turf. You got
my attention, Nick, tell us what's what that is about.
That's an extract from the book Behind the Badge.
Speaker 2 (23:56):
Right, So, there's a probably a chapter or two in
the book about my role as the Director of Oversight
for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency. Essentially, I
was like the head of Internal Affairs. UNU is an
agency that handles all the issues to do with the
Palestine refugees, which is very topical at the moment. Thirty
thousand plus staff, a budget of two plus billion US
(24:19):
a year in five countries where the refugees are located,
five locations Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Gaza and the West Bank,
and we had offices and staff in all five areas.
I had four departments, Sorry to ramble a bit that
I had four departments, and Investigations being one of the
main ones, and then Audits evaluation. The un evaluates every
(24:40):
program to see if it's working or not. And then
the Ethics division. So wherever there were complaints about anything
in process or even promotions, for instance, within the agency,
we would investigate those. We had a whole lot of
work to be done. In the Syrian office in Damascus,
my investigators, in particular being refused visas to go into Syria. I,
(25:03):
as the leader, had to find a way to change
that so that we did get I managed to get.
I used to get my visas all the time. I
need to say we traveled on diplomatic passports with the
United Nations. Theoretically you shouldn't need a visa to go anywhere,
but the two countries that insisted on a visa were
Israel and Syria. They're the ones were affect that affected us.
(25:24):
So Syria, I had to find a way to reach
the Syrian government to allow my people to be able
to come in and out so they can carry out
these really important investigations. And those investigations are particularly important
to reassure donor countries. Hundreds of millions of dollars are involved.
They need to make sure that they need to be
assured that everything's on track, there's no corruption and so on,
(25:47):
which I think buy in large was the case. So
I tapped into an Egyptian fellow on you who was
a very senior person in the United Nations security apparatus.
I knew he had reach into the Syrian regime because
of time he had spent there. And we had dinner
in Amman and Jordan, where I was living at the time,
with this United Nations posting, and I asked if you
(26:09):
could introduce me to someone who can get this done.
And he nominated this fellow the rank of major general,
and he was essentially the head of a committee that
had all the intelligence agencies, including the secret police and
so on in the Assad regime in Syria. I took
a bit of a gamble. Some people in my office
said you shouldn't go. Others I didn't tell them because
(26:32):
I knew it was just going to cause problems even it.
Speaker 1 (26:35):
Shouldn't go for safety reasons.
Speaker 2 (26:36):
Shouldn't safety, Yeah, So we'd fly into a be route
and then get a car across and get picked up
by the UN car. It's about two and a half
hours to Damascus. You can't fly into Damascus in that
stage because there was a war, and the UN said
you can't be flying. He's not safe. So we'd drive
to Damascus and then have our meetings. They used to
(26:57):
go for four or five or a week, four or
five days or a week, and then come back to
beirutin and head back to Jordan where I was living,
where headquarters was and so I arranged to meet this
fellow through my contact and I got given the number
of his chief of staff, who was a major, and
that's who I dealt with to arrange the meeting. I
(27:17):
on the day in question, when I decided to go
and meet him, to ask you, very very nicely, if
you could make sure that all my stuff got visas.
I had one security person with me who was armed,
and I think a car may have been armored at
the time. It took us a while to find the compound.
The run as science is nothing and the description I
(27:38):
had simply wasn't the best. Eventually we found it and
then we went They were expecting us, and we went
through a number of checkpoints to get to these marble
stairs to get that goes into the building, and my
escort was told to stay in the car outside, and
I didn't expect him to come in with me, and
I wouldn't want him to coming with me. And then
I went inside and we went through some more checkpoints
(28:00):
and I met with the general and his chief of
staff and a couple of others. I think we're there,
and I explained what I was there for. Sorry, before
I talked to him about all of that. And this
is something for people to bear in mind when they're
dealing with Arabic community in particular. But I think human
beings generally, they should make a bit of an effort
to build some rap or discuss the weather, you know,
(28:22):
what you do on the weekend, whatever, just something, rather
than just launching straight into business. Certainly in the Arab world,
it's rude to come in and just launch into the
business at hand. So we did that for about fifteen
twenty minutes, and he was very interested in my background,
why I spoke Arabic. He picked my accents straight away.
I think he knew who I was and all that,
So that's why I was there. And we had a
(28:42):
really really animated, very positive discussion, and I think he
liked me. I think I won him over, and he
in some ways won me over as well. I mean,
knowing what he's been involved in with the Assid regime,
and I had conducted the investigation of the use of
chemical weapons and all these guys were ended up to
their ear holes. And yet it was impossible, as I
(29:03):
say in the book, it was impossible to dislike the
bloke when you met him up front. Up close, and
he said you'll have what you'll get what you want,
no problem, and he was true to his word. I
did make an effort to go and see him a
number of times after that, just to maintain a relationship.
He was actually very helpful to us. I think the
main thing I had to explain to him, and I
(29:23):
sat and thought about that before I went and saw him,
is we're not there investigating the Asset regime. It'syria. We're
like internal affairs. We're investigating United Nations staff who were
accused or suspected of doing the wrong thing. It's nothing
to do with the regime. I do say in the
book also that I wasn't sure if he really knew
who I was, because I had led the investigation into
(29:44):
the assassination of the Prime Minister and we charged Hesibela figures,
and then I did the investigation to chemicalre weapons and
we wrote the report that blamed the Asset regime. So
on those two counts he would have been cranky with me,
but I didn't see any sign of that. And in
the last time I went to see him to say, look,
I'm heading back to Australia, and you know he's took
(30:05):
someone with me to introduce him, to maintain the contact,
who was a Sudanese fellow who also spake Arabic. I
still wasn't sure if he knew what I had done
in the past, and I said something about a report
being written, and he just looked at me and he said,
and as people write reports about all sorts of things,
it doesn't things, it doesn't mean anything. And him and
his team just laughed, and he knew exactly who I was.
(30:27):
But it didn't stop him helping me. It didn't stop
him meeting with me. And certainly nothing bad happened to me,
and I didn't think it would, Otherwise I wouldn't have
gone in.
Speaker 1 (30:36):
I suppose the risk there, like UN been a member
of the UN would offer you some form of protection,
but it also make you a valuable asset. They wanted
to look who we've got, We've got Nick possibly.
Speaker 2 (30:49):
Yeah, but look, I mean, by and large, the regime
played fair with the United Nations. But look, it was
a bit of a risk. And after I did it,
I declared it to those above me, and they weren't
entirely comfortable with it. But we got the job done.
We got the visas and our staff was going in.
We're going in and out with no problem at all,
(31:10):
in and out of CREA.
Speaker 1 (31:12):
If you can do that, there's probably a couple of
things I should declare to you when you were my boss.
So I didn't declare at a time, but we got
a way over it.
Speaker 2 (31:19):
I'm going to need a list later too.
Speaker 1 (31:21):
I'll start in alphabetical order. It matters like that. But
it's interesting, isn't it that the skills that you have
as a police officer in New South Wales and state police,
you've taken them on the world stage and it's about communication.
It's about assessing people and building a rapport, which is
pretty much the way you've got through your career in
(31:41):
New South Wales.
Speaker 2 (31:42):
I hope so. Gary. The other thing is, I think
I don't think I'm that special. I think police generally,
but particularly detectives, are problem solves. We look at an
issue and how do you get around it, how do
you get the job done. It's what cops do every
day of the week. I simply applied that wherever I went,
and I was very lucky. We got everywhere I've been,
we've actually achieved the objectives. So I'm happy about that.
Speaker 1 (32:05):
Okay, Well, the book is a rollercoaster of highs and
lows and different things. Operation Mascot. Do you want to
talk about it?
Speaker 2 (32:16):
Not particularly because I think it is important.
Speaker 1 (32:20):
I think it defines you as a person, and I'll
let you tell the story. But the fact that you
dug your heels in and kept fighting for not just yourself,
for everyone because you didn't think it was ethical and
fair and whatso.
Speaker 2 (32:34):
There it was supposed to be an investigation in the
corrupt police, and there was a fellow known as M five,
his identity suppressed, and he for some reason turned if
you like, and offered or was forced to assist internal
affairs and the Police Integrity Commission and the new South
ask Grime Commission for quite some time, perhaps a couple
(32:55):
of years of wiring up, you know, wearing a bug
going around the state basically trying to talk to allegedly
corrupt police to entrap them. Basically I was a subject
of that. It was one of my complaints at the
time was that the legislation allowing entrapment agent provocateur if
(33:15):
you like, states that it can only be as a
result of a specific complaint, and you can only test
for that specific evense and you can only do it once.
I got about half a dozen visits from him. I
had someone else that had got fifteen visits from him,
So there were no rules at that stage. Four Internal
affairs and special crime.
Speaker 1 (33:35):
When did that happen? And how long you're.
Speaker 2 (33:37):
I mean, I don't know exactly when it started, but
it was certainly the late nineties and into the two thousands,
so I understand it wrapped up about two thousand and three.
Speaker 1 (33:44):
Perhaps, And would you have touched on in the book?
So yeah, I do.
Speaker 2 (33:48):
Yeah. When we began discussions about the book with the
publishers and the author and so on, I did make
the point that I didn't want this issue of that
I'm about to tell you about to be what defines me.
I hope It's not what definds me. I hope. I'm
a lot of other things as well. But it did
play a part obviously in my life. That took a
(34:08):
couple of years out of my life probably, So I
was the target of internal affairs for quite some time
and the Police Integrity Commission in unison. I was probably
a loud, annoying voice in the background. I did get
to be on the executive of the police union and
wearing that hat. I can think of one particular press
conference where I held the press conference and called them
out for what they weren't following processes. After the wood
(34:29):
Raw Commission, the oversight industry, if you like, was completely
out of control. They could do whatever they wanted and
justified by the fact that Wood had uncovered corruption, which
he clearly did. It's made out about that, So then
I became target one. Ironically, some of the people who
I now know were investigating me I had made formal
complaints about, so they had massive conflicts of interest. I
(34:51):
also now know that I was the subject of eighty
eight zero bugging warrants, which the Armbudsman at the time,
Bruce Barber, the in a parliamentary inquiry. So they established
a parliamentary inquiry. When the affidavits behind the warrants came
to light, and it showed that most of us were
not actually were not mentioned in the affidavits, so there
was no information placed before the judge for him or
(35:14):
her to sign the warrant to authorize us being buggd.
It was completely inappropriate and illegal. Now when that came
to light, there were many, many renewed complaints from one
hundred and fourteen of us, and so they get Premier
at the time, Barrier Farrell. He can't give it to
internal Affairs, they're accused, couldn't give it to the Police
Integrity Commission, they're accused, couldn't give it to the New
(35:36):
southmast Crime Commission. They're accused. They were all part of
this bugging operation Mascot, Operation Mascot Florida. So they gave
it to the Ombudsman's office. Somewhere along the line they
added the line in there that he should investigate who
revealed the wrongdoing. Now, most of us it had been
declared whistleblowers under the Public Interest Disclosures Legislation. I think
(35:59):
it's Section nineteen of the Public Interest Disclosures Act says
that if your problem is not solved within six months,
you're entitled to it specifies in the Act. In the
legislation you are entitled to talk to journalists and politicians,
which is what a lot of us did. Now, the
body that's meant to protect whistleblowers in New South Wales
is the Mbuzman's office, and yet that's who grilled all
(36:20):
of us about who revealed the wrongdoing. And to this
day I've not been asked one question about the bugging.
All of us have been asked about is who revealed
the wrongdoing? So we complained the Office of Bombusman does
not have an inspector, so he answered to Parliament. So
we went to Parliament and they held two inquiries into
what happened. And obviously they're not happy about the body
(36:41):
that was investigating the wrongdoing also investigating who revealed the wrongdoing.
You can't do that, and that's where it lays that
they handed down a report that no one with no
one agreed with. Certainly all the aggrieved individuals are very
unhappy because there's been no closure. They never got to
the bottom of the bugging, and no one's been held
to account.
Speaker 1 (36:59):
There's been no It was an ugly, ugly time and
there was a lot of us mentioned mentioned on the
warrant and.
Speaker 2 (37:06):
Not what were you on there?
Speaker 1 (37:07):
Yeah, I got to the point where I didn't realize
I was on there, But I was starting to get
concerned because there's so many what I considered good police
that were on there.
Speaker 2 (37:16):
A few people have said to me, what's wrong with me?
How come I didn't make the warrants.
Speaker 1 (37:20):
I think I deserved it. We joke about it. But
the police corruption, but you made an interesting point in
your in your book, and we know what happened with
the Wood Royal Commission and needed to stamp out corruption.
There's no argument there. Then we have Skia investigating police
and you made the point that, yeah, they got to
(37:42):
the police pre royal commission to talk of noble cause
corruption in that you know, the ends justify the means
and all that and not being accountable. And it's started
to evolve that the police, the people that were investigating
the corrupt police for corrupt behavior, we're think, yeah, not
with accordance to the rules, that.
Speaker 2 (38:01):
They were bending the rules too. There's not out about that. Yeah, look,
I just it was one of those things I had
to really sit and think about how much do I
want to say do I want to say anything about this?
And I didn't have it in me to leave it out,
but I didn't want it to dominate the book, and
I didn't want anyone to think this is a bit.
This book is a big winch I hope it's not
(38:22):
a win.
Speaker 1 (38:22):
Well, I put on record now because I read through
it and I wondered where you were going with it.
I didn't see it. There's a wine that was an observation,
and you paid homage to you're not talking everyone, You're
talking certain people and making things like there was something
that really resonated with me that people that were investigating
weren't working within the restrictions of that we have to
(38:44):
do as police officers. Even though they were police officers,
they weren't qualifying for their weapons.
Speaker 2 (38:48):
And all that stuff.
Speaker 1 (38:50):
All that stuff like that about unfairness. So I probably
zero in in light of what's happened to me, But
I think it was a balance view, and you were
very careful not to attack in the individuals on it.
Speaker 2 (39:03):
Yeah, and I really didn't want to set out to
have it, as we said, to be a big wings.
I have most of the book, and the tone of
the book is positive. It's about a happy story where
I achieved a great deal and started with nothing and
so on. But I also couldn't leave it out. It
was the same as actually making the complaints way back.
I had to make a decision do I sit silently
(39:24):
and let someone else do their heavy lifting. But I
mean I had got the deputy commissioner and I had
at least two friends who really suffered by what happened
with Operation Mascot in the en ones Month's office. They
were treated very badly. I didn't have it in me
to pretend I didn't see what was happening and to
let someone else do their heavy lifting, right up until
the day I walked into the parliamentary inquiry and unleashed
(39:49):
if you like. I found out later that the crime
squads had basically down tools that day and stayed glued
to the TV. A lot of them stayed glued to
the TV and the meal rims.
Speaker 1 (40:00):
We're interested, I'll admit to that.
Speaker 2 (40:03):
But the bottom line is, I think you just have
to make a decision. I didn't have it in me
to walk away and just forget, you know, so let
someone else do the heavy lift. Before I walked into
that parliamentary inquiry, my lawyer, who I trust with my life,
said to me, last chance, Is there any chance you
just let this go and let someone else take the
heavy lifting?
Speaker 1 (40:22):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (40:22):
And I just said, I just I really appreciate you're
worrying about me. I've made my mind up. I mean
a lot of politicians said to me, if you do this,
you might feely have done the right thing, but it
probably means you'll never be a commissioner. I thought about
it and I made a conscious decision to go ahead.
You know what, I regret nothing, absolutely nothing. I do
it all again tomorrow for I had to.
Speaker 1 (40:42):
Yeah, well, I think it's mark you as a man
and the officer that you respected for the type of person.
But what's a personal cost? So I know taking the stand.
I've taken the stand on different things, and I know
it comes to the cost. You get, okay, I'm going
to do this. You're sitting they're thinking do I really
want this? No? Fuck it? And you go in there
(41:04):
and you do it. But it takes a cost. What
sort of costs does it take on you?
Speaker 2 (41:08):
It certainly took the stuffing out of me for a
few years. I was dragged into hearings at the Police
Deegorty Commission and all that. I go into all that,
and on a personal level, I certainly didn't help my marriage.
And you know, when I went to the parliamentary inquiry
someone I had remarried my current wife and I don't
think she'd been through something like this before, but watching
(41:30):
her husband go through a really horrible time. There's a
lot of mudfrain in every direction. Thankfully, I don't think
anything stuck to me. My complaint was that I had
not been asked one question about what had gone wrong
with twenty one Supreme Court judges signing warrants where they're
authorizing the bugging of people even though they're not mentioned
(41:52):
in the affidavit and there is no information against us.
If that has happened, then I'm hoping it doesn't still continue.
Then you know, it's a huge miscarriage of justice. I
see that whole episode and the inquiry that followed it
as a dark day, a very dark day for justice
in the state of New South Wales. It hasn't been righted,
(42:14):
it's never been sorted. It still hangs like a cloud
over a whole lot of people, and there's no closure.
I mean, one of the reasons I took on the
Lebanon investigations was to try and give people closure. Out
of all those murders that had happened. You and I
have worked on homicide, and it's probably one of the
most satisfying things when you solve the murder and lock
up the murderer and you can go to the victim's
(42:35):
family sit down with them and say, this is what happened.
We now know the truth. At least it won't bring
them back the person that's been killed, but at least
you know what happened, and it gives you closure. I
mean that's a really extreme example, but certainly the bugging
saga there's been no closure.
Speaker 1 (42:50):
Well, I think the fact that you stand up. Sometimes
you don't get the exact result you're aiming for. Sometimes
that doesn't come out. But the fact that you stood
up and made peopleccountable because it was worrying that people know. Okay,
we're the major crime detectives. People make allegations against it,
the nature nature of our work, and then you have
the people sitting above the judicating on us. Well, they
(43:13):
should be working by the same rules we're working by.
Speaker 2 (43:17):
Yeah, procedural fairness should trump all.
Speaker 1 (43:21):
And you can't you can't argue, can't argue with that.
But I had a laugh, and that there is for
all the darkness, there's some humor. Then you became the
deputy commissioner after causing all this kerfuffle, and who do
you have to oversee the very body of the command
that you were complaining about tell me about that? How
(43:43):
that go? That would have been a nice meeting.
Speaker 2 (43:45):
First up, well, I think the Special Crime Unit, which
really had no reason to exist, it was a mini
CIB competing with the ouse version of the CIB, come
an investigation area in crime agencies. And then it becomes
that Crime Command was simply about individuals who felt this
was good for their career. That's my view now. I
(44:05):
think everyone felt that it wasn't working and it needed
to be disbanded. But I was briefed by the Australian
Federal Police about their secret investigation into a fellow called
Marke Standen, who was the Assistant Commissioner in the new
Southwest Crime Commission, a former Federal police officer and former
customs agent. I was told obviously it had to remain
(44:26):
a secret for a little bit longer. I think it
was six months or so after I was brief that
he was finally arrested. But he was sort of the
co leader or co commander really of the Special Crime
Investigations internal affairs. So when he was arrested and charged
and he's been convicted, he's done his time and he's out.
(44:47):
Now I understand he did twenty odd years. By the way,
when that happened, we then moved towards shutting down the
special crime function of Internal Affairs and got Internal Affairs
to go back to being internal affairs. We changed the
name to Professional Standards, which is a lot more than
just internal affairs. It's about doing things proactively and having
(45:09):
processes in place, sps, standard operating procedures in place and
so on. That helped the cop on the street to
give them an environment in which they can know what's
right and what's wrong, and have resources that help them
make decisions and so on. And I'm really proud Paul
Carey was the Assistant commission that we promoted to get
that job done. And he did say to me at
one stage that the word fairness did not appear in
(45:32):
any of the literature in the previous regime, and any
of the standard operating procedures. Fairness just didn't feature.
Speaker 1 (45:38):
It's all my like they were creating a pseudo major crime.
Speaker 2 (45:42):
It was yeah, so yeah, look, but to your point,
the day I made a decision, so I had been
promoted to Deputy commission, a specialist operation. I was among
the many commands I had. I was in charge became
in charge of internal affairs. I had to go down
and tell them that we're disbanding the unit and then
lead to go back into the mainstream and that will
help them in any way they can, which we did
(46:03):
and some of them did, and some of them simply
didn't want to do that. But it was a joke
at the time that they were. As I was coming
up in the lift, they were probably wiping my name
off the whiteboards as target one.
Speaker 1 (46:17):
Well you know what's it saying? You should be nicer
people on the way up different things? Yeah, I mean
I'd come back to hall.
Speaker 2 (46:25):
I didn't particularly take any joy from it. Some good
people there who had simply been let down by the
system allowing them to sit in that place for ten
or fifteen years. And I meant what I said on
the day. We did our best to try and have
them reintegrate into normal policing. So they were in a
secret area of internal affairs, working out of the new
South Wales Crime Commission, relying on its resources and its
(46:47):
secrecy provisions. They were removed from reality, from the reality
of policing for a decade.
Speaker 1 (46:53):
And yeah, look at Mark Stanton, what a blight on
the position he held and the stuff he was up to.
Speaker 2 (47:00):
Yeah, I mean it does throw light on super judicial bodies,
as I mentioned before, and it's in the book about
them having extraordinary power, perhaps often without the extraordinary checks
and balances that must go with it. I mean, we've
traded away the right to silence in many jurisdictions, and
I'm not sure that's a good thing.
Speaker 1 (47:22):
One. Just as you're telling the story, I'm thinking, and
you do have a skill, and it comes across in
the book that you can be critical of people, but
the way that you talk about people, you tend not
to make it personal. It's more okay, this is the factual.
I'm not happy with this, and I think that served
you well because you've pulled me down a couple of times.
(47:43):
But I've never taken offense. And I said, I still
think it's funny, and I'm still embarrassed and annoyed it myself.
I might have boiled up on the last podcast, but
those that didn't hear it when I forget which job
it was on, but I had the cranky hat on
on Speed Kingdom a staff on demanding staff. You weren't
giving me enough staff. You're in the Posta's chair in
(48:05):
the homicide Jason EVAs Luke Rank and you know the
crew I'm working with, and they will go in and
tell him, go in and fucking telling him. I said,
I will. I'm going in the telling him, I'm going
to demand we get more staff. We can't do this.
And I walk into your office. They've whipped me up
into a frenzy. I go in there, you go good
a Jube's okay? Well, and then I start talking and
then start talking and talking, and we spoke for about
(48:27):
fifteen minutes and I walk out, walk back to the
strike force, and they go, how'd that go? If we
get more staff? I said, no, it went good. Well
did you get anything? No? And then I've said to them,
but I think Nick, as I was walking out, I
still to this day and embarrassed by that. Nick, I
don't know. I don't know how you get it.
Speaker 2 (48:45):
I'm negotiator.
Speaker 1 (48:47):
Don't negotiate with my wife.
Speaker 2 (48:49):
Off and says to me, don't negotiate me.
Speaker 1 (48:50):
I know what you're doing one step ahead. But I'm
telling you I was going in there, going in there,
cranky at the cranky at the time. Now ask you
a tough question. You can't avoid this. It's one that
needs to be asked, and I expect an honest answer
for you before we wrap up part one. You supervise
myself and you also supervised Pam Young. Can you tell
(49:15):
me who you think is the best detective?
Speaker 2 (49:20):
Clearly it's Pam.
Speaker 1 (49:22):
I think you're a coward.
Speaker 2 (49:23):
You're a cowd I think you're both outstanding. I'm not
saying it because you know you're my mate or she's
my mate. You both are. But we had you know,
when I look back on it, Jews, I was the
commander of the homicide squad for probably four years or so,
and we had outstanding talented detectives there, including you and
Pam and many others. So I've been doing it for
(49:45):
a decade of fifteen years and so on. You know
all the people, you know. It's just I always feel
a sense of sadness when I see people move on
from homicide. But I know you've got to do it,
but for your career and otherwise, it is one of
the most important jobs that you can have in policing.
There is no more serious crime than murder than a
(50:05):
human being having their life taken, and you need the best. Hopefully,
to deal with that sort of crime and you're outstanding.
Speaker 1 (50:14):
Thanks.
Speaker 2 (50:15):
She was better.
Speaker 1 (50:17):
They were good times. I just clarify one thing. I
didn't move on from homicide for my career.
Speaker 2 (50:24):
I got charged.
Speaker 1 (50:25):
Anyway, we'll wrap up, wrap up part one. There's plenty
more to talk about because your books full of stuff.
So thank you. Have a short break.
Speaker 2 (50:33):
Thank you,
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