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- [00:00]
Host (Australian True Crime Podcast)
Before we begin today's episode of Australian True Crime, I want to tell you about a new project we've been working on behind the scenes. It's called she Matters. It's a new podcast from award winning journalist and femicide researcher Sherrelle Moody. Each week, Sherrelle speaks with families of women and children killed in Australia, sharing who they were, the joy they brought, and the love they left behind. She Matters isn't a true crime podcast. It's about lives lived, lives loved, and lives lost. She Matters is produced by Dash Made Podcasts in association with bravecasting Media. She Matters is available wherever you get your podcasts.
- [00:39]
Ariel Bogle
There are plenty of criticisms about, you know, mainstream media that now we're seeing no new things pop up in independent media that are great. It was very reasonable to, like, question, you know, mainstream what people thought was the only truth or the only way to do things. But that also means that there is now more dissenting views and people who believe things that I personally don't think are real, who have audiences and abilities to reach people. That's why it's so complex. Anyone out there can now find someone or something that confirms what they want to believe. That's the kind of thing that we have to deal with when we're talking about conspiracy theories.
- [01:15]
Host (Australian True Crime Podcast)
Conspiracy Nation is a new book written by two of Australia's brightest young journalists, Walkley Award winner Ariel Bogle from the Guardian and Cam Wilson from Crikey. The book covers every nook and cranny of the conspiracy landscape as it pertains specifically to Australia. And it turns out there are many more nooks than I for one, realized. In fact, when I read the title, I must admit I was a bit insulted. I mean, I know we dabble, but surely they can't be referring to Australia as a conspiracy nation. This is Australian True crime. We acknowledge the traditional owners of the land on which this podcast is created, the Wurundjeri Woi Wurrung people of the Kulin Nation and a warning. This episode of the podcast contains graphic descriptions of violence.
- [02:11]
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- [02:42]
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- [03:59]
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- [04:33]
Ariel Bogle
As we dove into conspiracy theories in Australia for the book, the thing that it made it so obvious is that the conspiracy theories that take off here, the ones that are created here, it's not an accident. They reflect the things that we are really scared of. They reflect the things that we think are really important. The conspiracy theories, whether we like it or not, reflect something fundamentally about what we think and feel as Australians.
- [05:00]
Cam Wilson
The question of how many Australians really believe in conspiracy theories, it's a difficult one to measure. There's been some great research on beliefs in Australia, and one study we looked at was from 2019. They surveyed a bunch of Australians about whether they were aware of certain conspiracy theories and whether they endorse them, whether they believe them. And there were some, you know, like was Phallap poisoned by American Gangsters or was Harold Holt stolen away in a Chinese submarine? Like, these are ones people are probably pretty familiar with. But there were ones that implied, you know, a pretty negative belief about this country. You know, was poor Arthur, you know, a false flag, a plot to take guns away from Australians. There was this idea too that fluoride was put in the water to make us all docile, compliant. You know, if somebody did endorse these beliefs, it implied something pretty negative about their relationship with what this country is. And so these are the kinds of ideas we wanted to explain. It wasn't. We're not alleging that every Australian is conspiracy theorist by any means, but there certainly are conspiracy theories, conspiratorial ways of thinking that have become pretty influential in certain circles and even at the highest level of politics. And this is what we started to dig into in our reporting. And one of the most interesting examples for me in reporting was a chapter about what I'm calling pseudo law. But people might be more familiar with the term sovereign citizen. So people have probably seen these videos on Facebook. Know somebody at the traffic stop has this bizarre interaction with a cop where they say, I'm traveling, I'm not driving, thus you have no jurisdiction over me. Some version of this, like quite elaborate phrases and the cops are just completely bemused by the situation.
- [06:44]
Oh, so I don't use a driver's license.
- [06:46]
Ariel Bogle
Yeah, yeah. Who drove the car here?
- [06:49]
Cam Wilson
I didn't drive here, I traveled here. How did the car get here?
- [06:52]
Ariel Bogle
I moved it. Driving is a commercial term. If you do refer to the black floor dictionary, you can find the definition.
- [06:58]
Cam Wilson
And that's, that's the code of conduct.
- [06:59]
Ariel Bogle
That you work under.
- [07:00]
Cam Wilson
Look the nose to review. I'm going to give you is for driving and you can explain the magistrate.
- [07:05]
Ariel Bogle
You were traveling.
- [07:05]
Cam Wilson
I'll write them a letter. So a lot of people point to America and say, oh, these are ideas being imported into Australia from the US like on social media. But in fact there's a long history here of Australians both being receptive to these ideas kind of in more old school ways by a traveling salesman, guys that came over from the US and Canada and toured Australia essentially at RSL's community halls and undertook courses, I guess in these ideas. And you can see this in court records. Like there's plenty of examples where people have tried these pseudo law concepts dating all the way back to the, you know, 6780s. But we've also had a long history here that's entirely our own around micronations. You know, where People choose a plot of land and just suddenly declare the federal government no longer has any control over that land. They own it, they have complete control. So there's like a really strong history here which I think intertwines with many of the questions that perennially come up about Australia. You know, what's the effect of colonialization? What is ownership of the land? What does the law mean to us here? Because we have this strange relationship with the uk, you know, we still have our head of state over there, which a lot comes up, a lot in pseudo law, I have to say. A lot of people are trying to bring it back in, you know, the Privy Council into Australia via these kinds of ideas. And it just reflects, I think, our complex relationship with law and power. And that that really was true for a whole range of those key conspiracy theories which we found to be most prevalent here.
- [08:30]
Host (Australian True Crime Podcast)
I guess we are a convict nation. And even though the vast majority of Australians now actually don't come from convict stock, there is, I have always believed there's a convict sensibility still in Australia about the way we think about the law. The way we think the law is blurry. I mean, it could be said that politicians like Joe Bjocky Petersen, for example, have staked his claim on areas of Australia and said that federal law doesn't apply and all those sorts of things. It is a long standing tradition, isn't it?
- [08:58]
Ariel Bogle
Yeah. And the thing that I think that we see conspiracy theories like sprouting out of is these areas where people find them hard to understand and complex and like the law is one of those places that is very, very complex. People don't understand it fundamentally of course, like, you know, lawyers spend careers focusing on little bits of it. So no wonder most of us have no real idea. You know, occasionally I see a legal term and I look it up and I'm like, I don't know what that means, I don't know what that references. So to people who look at pseudo law, this sovereignty is an idea. You know, someone comes up to them and says, hey, I know you don't understand this bit of the law. And, and maybe you've kind of been given a speeding fine, maybe you've lost your license, maybe you've got a land tax payments that you just can't afford. Did you know there's actually a way out of this? And it, the way out of this is by doing this thing, whether it's, you know, saying something to the court, sending them a letter, maybe with a, you know, with a red fingerprint Supposed to show that you're a living person and that it's your blood. It's not always your blood, but sometimes it is, which is pretty gross. But hey, if you got it, if you're getting out of a fine, you know, maybe it's worth it.
- [10:05]
Host (Australian True Crime Podcast)
Well, that's what I'm thinking. How good? Like everything you're saying right now? Absolutely. I've been through patches where I've ended up owing a lot of parking fines or speeding fines. And if somebody said to me, that's actually all bullshit. All you have to do is go in there, say this, rattle this off, bit of blood from your thumb, and they actually can't do anything about it. It does sound pretty sweet. And I don't know about you guys. Well, I assume you guys being journalists, you would meet a lot of people, like I do, who feel terribly let down by our laws one way or another. So there's not a lot of faith, not a lot of interest in it.
- [10:38]
Cam Wilson
Yeah, absolutely. I think that's a key motivator. And we found this not just in the pseudo law context, but some of the other kind of areas we looked at. So anti vaccination sentiment or vaccine skepticism. This, like pseudo law, comes from, you know, a sort of innate feeling of overwhelm, I think, in the face of really complex questions, whether it be the medical system, whether it be the law, whether it be our relationship with power. And one of the academics I spoke to, Mark Pitcavage, he pointed this out, too. You know, pseudo law seems bizarre, pretty elaborate. Like the phrases people say, this living person, all that kind of verbiage seems very elaborate and strange. But, like, from the outside, the law is also pretty impermeable and strange. Like, if you ever tried to read legislation, it is just as hard to read, perhaps, as some of these ideas. I will say, though, like, there is that side of it. People do turn to these ideas. And one of the women I spoke to who has tried to use these ideas in court, she certainly came to it out of a desperation, you know, in a really bad financial situation and was looking for that way out.
- [11:44]
Host (Australian True Crime Podcast)
Definitely.
- [11:45]
Cam Wilson
This book is not an argument for, like, a thought police out there to, you know, delve into everyone's brain and so pull out the naughty ideas. You know, that's not our intention at all. But we do want to call out where people are exploiting this. There are plenty of gurus out there charging money for courses, whether it be on health pseudoscience, whether it is courses to get out of traffic fines or Council, land, tax kind of things. This is unfortunately an exploitable market, I think, in many ways. And that's not just at that lower level of, you know, like 200 bucks a month for a zoom course. That's also at the political level, like these frameworks. The idea of a conspiracy theory where there is a innocent victim, you know, being put upon by an evil secret force, that's a really convenient political narrative too. So there are instances where politicians like these frameworks too, and I think we need to call out when they start using the language of conspiracy too, because that is very dangerous.
- [12:44]
Host (Australian True Crime Podcast)
Now we should get into the sort of meat and potatoes of it, because it's not a crime actually to believe any of this stuff, to believe that Phar Lap was poisoned by Americans or whatever it is, or the kgb. But you know, there have been very serious crimes related to some of these groups, these off grid sovereign citizen groups. And the most well known example is of course the murders of three people in Weeambilla in Queensland.
- [13:08]
Cam Wilson
Good afternoon. We begin with the horror attack in Queensland that's taken the lives of six people, including two police officers in their 20s. A group of officers were called to a property in the Western Darling Downs, three hours west of Brisbane, to reports of a missing person. Late last night, Constable Rachel McCro, aged 29 and Constable Matthew Arnold, aged 26 were gunned down. A neighbour who went to the property to investigate was also killed. Identified as 58 year old Alan Dare. Special Operations Police shot dead three suspects, brothers Nathaniel and Gareth Train and a woman, Stacey Train.
- [13:47]
Host (Australian True Crime Podcast)
How do we describe Gareth and Nathaniel Train and Stacey Train, Gareth's wife. Were they sovereign citizens? Were they conspiracy theorists? How do we describe these three people who'd hold themselves up in a, in a house there?
- [14:00]
Ariel Bogle
Yeah, it's kind of hard because they had a whole range of beliefs and that is actually a symptom of what it feels like. Modern conspiracy theories alike, which is everything just kind of gets pulled into it. So you can call them anti government activists, you call them sovereign citizens, they were anti vaccine as well. That are all kinds of beliefs.
- [14:19]
Host (Australian True Crime Podcast)
Yeah, because when they used to protest in Melbourne Weekly, honestly, no two people had the same sign. Like no two people were protesting the same thing. So it is confusing.
- [14:31]
Ariel Bogle
Yeah. And you see there's this really strong sense of like grievance through all these movements like that. That's what brings them together. Despite the fact that sometimes even within, you know, the same movement, they might disagree on whether, you know, someone is incredibly powerful and in charge in pulling the Strings, or if someone's actually weak and someone else is pulling the strings, they're united by the fact that they all believe that someone somewhere is powerful and kind of rigging things against them in a secret plot. But in the case of William Biller, you know, there were these three individuals who were suffering from what was said at a inquiry that had happened into it from delusions. And they believed ultimately that the police were coming there to kill them. And so one day some police came out to check a missing persons warrant for one of them, the younger brother. And the three of them ambushed these police, killed two of them, injured others, and then also killed a neighbor who came to check out what was happening.
- [15:32]
Hey, buddy, what we got? He shot Rachel, I believe.
- [15:35]
Cam Wilson
Think she's dead now, mate.
- [15:38]
Ariel Bogle
Hang in there, have you. What about the other two? You got eyes on Keely and Matt?
- [15:41]
Cam Wilson
Matt's not moving.
- [15:42]
Ariel Bogle
Rachel's not moving now. You know, they were motivated by the fear that. Of. Of all kinds of things, that the government was surveilling them, that the pandemic was a new world order and everyone was taking over. And ultimately, you know, they live in this very secluded areas called the blocks in remote Queensland. And it's a complex picture. You never really understand it. And the more you actually, like, pull the strings of these things, the more you realize, like, it's very, very difficult from the outside to understand exactly what makes people do anything and why some people who believe crazy things might do something extreme and why others may not, but ultimately will kill themselves in the act by. By police.
- [16:19]
Host (Australian True Crime Podcast)
They did upload some videos. I wouldn't suggest there's a manifesto involved, is there? I mean, that's a word that's often used in these situations. But they certainly uploaded videos about what they were thinking and feeling.
- [16:31]
Ariel Bogle
Yeah, and so, like, I was actually the journalist who found them in the first place. And someone sent me this link, you know, like one of the nights afterwards, just. Just an anonymous researcher who was like, hey, this really looks like those guys. And so I opened up the link and it was honestly, like, chilling. You know, the first video that I saw, these two gaunt faces in the dark looking into the camera, saying that, you know, devils had crossed the boundary of their property and they'd killed them. You know, they. They pitched themselves as in this great battle of good versus evil. It was later described as a Christian terrorist attack. And they said that they believed in this idea of pre millenarianism, which basically means that they thought that the world was ending. And so, you know, they Were in their minds. What they thought happened when the police were coming to get them was that they thought they were defending themselves. They thought it was in self defense. Like I looked into the background of some of them and saw that, you know, they'd been on these kind of old school, like pre social media conspiracy websites and stuff. And these beliefs combined with the, the isolation they'd had and all kinds of other factors ultimately led them to commit one of the, you know, biggest acts of mass violence in Australia in recent history.
- [17:39]
Host (Australian True Crime Podcast)
And it's devastating because all three of their victims were trying to help them. Like it's, in a way, it's almost a parable for the times because not only were they not under attack, their neighbour Alan Dare was trying to help them, knew who they were and all that kind of stuff. And the two police members, Matthew Arnold and Rachel McCro, as you said, were there to perform a welfare check because Nathaniel Train had been reported missing and his family and people wanted to know if he was alive, if he was okay, if that's where he was. So how was this entire scenario received by the broader conspiracy community? Was it a wake up call to anyone?
- [18:22]
Ariel Bogle
Um, I mean, you probably can predict that no it wasn't. And you know, there's this common thing that happens in conspiracy theory communities where they're called self sealing, which means that every new piece of information, no matter what happens, somehow goes to prove their existing beliefs that the whole world is against them. So, you know, there were people saying that it was either a false flag, which is a term meaning that actually this didn't actually happen, you know, that it was faked in some ways. Other people saying that it was set up by the government to kind of get access to like gas fields around the area. Like all these kind of crazy theories that came out of it. It's such a sad situation. And but there's this also this sad irony that even in this situation, people who thought very similar things to the people who ultimately acted out and committed this violence, people very similar beliefs, ultimately didn't believe those people and thought that they were actually against them as well. In the final, like irony, you know, the conspiracy beliefs kind of end up consuming them.
- [19:16]
Host (Australian True Crime Podcast)
So fellow conspiracy theorists stop believing each other.
- [19:19]
Ariel Bogle
The fellow conspiracy theorists, they didn't either, they didn't believe that the event happened, that they thought it was faked as, you know, as a reason to, for example, enact more gun laws, or also that it was a kind of plot to acquire land so that the government could then, you know, tap into the gas fields. I guess what I'm trying to say is that, like, you know, there was no sense of community. It wasn't like we've lost one of our own. As soon as it happened, the people in the rest of these communities immediately said, you know, these aren't one of us. They're someone else. And turned their story into yet more proof that they were on the right side. And whatever happened was more proof of the evils that they believed all around the world.
- [19:54]
Host (Australian True Crime Podcast)
So a false flag is essentially what I would refer to as burning the Reichstag. Like, is that the belief that when they say something was a false flag, they're saying it was actually the government? For example, the Sandy Hook murders in America, where children were killed. And conspiracy theorists said it was all. They were all actors, the people who were their parents. It didn't really happen. They're trying to take our guns.
- [20:18]
Ariel Bogle
People just instinctively know that there's a lot of fraud going on. But it took me about a year with Sandy Hook to come to grips with the fact that the whole thing was fake. Yeah, I mean, the kind of best example of this in Australia that we wrote about was the Port Arthur massacre, which happened in 1996. We kind of make the argument that it was Australia's first online conspiracy theory because the. The event like happened in 1996, and that's really before most people had Internet. But a couple years later, these theories started bubbling up that, you know, I'd heard were in the community, but started to gather steam that actually, no, Martin Bryant, who killed dozens of people that day, didn't actually kill them. In this telling, it was actually set up by the government as a excuse to enact stricter gun laws that Australia actually did do to then, you know, kind of instit the gun buyback and all the other stuff around that the false flag is this idea that events aren't what they seem. You know, even something where you might be like, you know, like from the conspiracy community, you might be like, oh, someone I know or someone who has similar beliefs to me did something terrible, rather than believing that they actually do something where they say that it was. It's actually not the case. And actually this is more proof that, you know, there's these schemes against us. In this case, they said that it was either actors that mud Brian couldn't possibly have done it, or that he was, you know, himself, like set up in some way to do it or to kind of avoid this responsibility of actually what happened and to really understand it all.
- [21:47]
Host (Australian True Crime Podcast)
I can think about is Walter Mickac, the local chemist from the town whose wife and daughters were murdered, little girls. And Martin Bryan stood over his daughters and shot them in the face.
- [21:58]
Ariel Bogle
Trying to give meaning to, you know, 35 people dying by creating some gun laws that were going to mean that we, you know, we don't have semi automatic firearms, that we have sensible checks on people, that we have just all sensible, just sensible, logical things that you would, that you would do in a caring society.
- [22:20]
Host (Australian True Crime Podcast)
Walter has spent his life, you know, he created the foundation for the girls and all. So the idea that he's lying, he's an actor, or that he doesn't get it, it's revolting, isn't it?
- [22:33]
Cam Wilson
Yeah.
- [22:33]
Ariel Bogle
And look, I spoke to another survivor who was there that day, Anita, who was working in one of the cafes at Port Arthur, and she escaped totally unscathed. So she's fine, you know, physically, but has suffered mentally. You know, she has been public about having PTSD from it, but she was telling me, you know, she would travel around Australia in the early 2000s and she would come across people and she'd be like, you know, where are you from? And she'd say, port Arthur. And then of course, after Port Arthur, most people know it for having this awful massacre. And occasionally people would say, but that didn't really happen, did it? And she would be like, I'm a survivor. You know, I'm dealing with the kind of trauma of this already bad enough. At the same time, people have the audacity to tell me that this thing that I went through wasn't real, to kind of, you know, not only like deny it, but also to try and rob it of the fact that, you know, there was some kind of good that came out of it, that we did it get up these gun laws. It's an awful thing. Like, you know, and we in this book are very sympathetic to people who believe in these things because ultimately we think that, you know, people, they generally are going toward these extreme beliefs because, you know, they're trying to understand things in the world and, you know, often, like, they're in tough situations. But there's no denying that even still, you know, if you're someone who believes in these things, Conspiracy theories are often around very tragic events. And to believe them, to say this didn't happen, denies these people and is, is really, really cruel. People who are actually touched by him.
- [24:00]
Host (Australian True Crime Podcast)
Listen, this was what I don't understand though, Ariel, because these conspiracy theories are people trying to make sense of the world but going really A long way around the most likely scenario. You know, Occam's razor, the theory that the most obvious explanation is probably the right one. Yeah, it's such a long way further around things to think that the truth of these is something else. It requires for there to have been lots of people in on the conspiracy who've never spoken about it publicly. How does that work? How. How does someone find it easier to believe a crazier story?
- [24:36]
Cam Wilson
Yeah, it's a great question. It's one I like, honestly still wrestle with, you know, even after writing this book, because each person I spoke with, it felt different. You know, each one had a sort of tweak on the reasoning. You know, one thing we do talk about in the book is this idea of motivated reasoning. Like a lot of us would like to imagine that we're really rational scientific creatures who only make a decision about what we believe or do after carefully weighing all the evidence on all sides and then arriving at the belief. But in fact, we mostly go through the world with sort of a vibe based approach. Maybe we have a feeling that something's not quite right about say, wind farms, you know, a very perennial kind of debate in Australia, which has a lot of conspiratorial elements in some parts of the community that opposes them. We have a feeling that something's not quite right. We don't like how they look, we don't like how they sound, we don't like the idea, we don't like parts. That's how it represents the decimation of some industries in our town, for example. So we try and come up with a reasoning for why that might be the case. And so we sort of pick at the evidence and choose the evidence that best suits our narrative, our feeling. So that's one thing. Like I also think too that a lot of these conspiratorial ideas or conspiracy theories put the person that's into them at the center of like an epic tale. Like there's something quite appealing about it, perhaps if there might be other things growing in your life. But in this case, you're the truth seeker, you're the activist in this broader story. You see through life and you see the evil and there's quite like a appealing black and white to life if you're into this kind of stuff. So I think that that also plays.
- [26:15]
Host (Australian True Crime Podcast)
A role superiority too, isn't there? There's a whole world of those of us who are not into conspiracies, think those people who are, are dumb and they think that I am dumb. Because I don't get what's really happening. So in both cases, it's not helpful. I mean, I understand. It's like you were saying earlier, Cam, you know, you took the approach to try and be sympathetic to everybody's views, to be open minded and all that, and I guess read between the lines, not make anyone feel like you think they're dumb.
- [26:44]
Ariel Bogle
Yeah, I mean, they're not dumb at all. And many conspiracy theorists are quite smart. I actually think the difference between people who might believe in conspiracy theories and those who don't isn't, like, your iq. It isn't, you know, how well you did in the, you know, HSC or TR or whatever. Like, I think it comes down to often your, like, intellectual humility, which is a very wanky way of saying, like, can you just accept that you don't know things, that you don't necessarily understand, you know, the answers to everything, and can you maybe imagine that actually, like, maybe you could be wrong on things, or maybe, you know, things are more complicated than they seem.
- [27:22]
Host (Australian True Crime Podcast)
What about the refusing to believe what really educated experts say about stuff? That's where it loses me every time. It's like, when did we lose faith in scientists, in experts, in smart people? Because it feels like, you know, I mean, Covid, again, great example. You know, every leading scientist in the world signed a document to say, you know, vaccines are good, or whatever, it's important. This is how we're gonna save the world. But you still have people going, no, I know better. How's that working?
- [27:53]
Ariel Bogle
Yeah, I mean, I think the thing is. So you might have heard that phrase, do your own research, this idea that you could just like. Well, I know that all the world scientists have said this, but I've spent quite a lot of time on YouTube, and so I actually have a dissenting opinion. There is enough stuff out there for anyone to kind of back up any point of view. And when you kind of combine that with the fact that also, you know, this conspiratorial mindset, you know, the world today is very interconnected, and so you can kind of draw the lines between almost anything. And so if you bring those two things together, there's always some reason to maybe discount what someone says, and there's always some reason to believe something, even though that doesn't actually make sense. Like, there is enough stuff out there. And exactly what Ariel was talking about before, this motivated reasoning. We'd love to think that we are, like, perfectly rational. Of course, like this conversation excluded, but. But I think, like, you know, we love to think that we're all logical, but it is very easy. And everyone who would have felt this is like looking for the evidence that proves you right. It's kind of hard to accept that actually maybe you should be better about accepting that you could be wrong so that maybe you get to what is a more honest answer?
- [29:11]
Host (Australian True Crime Podcast)
If you'd like to talk to someone about abuse that's taken place in your life, no matter how long ago it happened, your GP is always a good place to start. If that's not going to work for you, you can contact 1-800-Respect on 1-800-737-732 or via their website, 1-800-Respect.org au. Or you can call Lifeline's 24 hour phone counselling service on 13, 11, 14.
- [29:44]
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- [29:48]
Ariel Bogle
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- [29:53]
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- [29:56]
Ariel Bogle
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- [29:57]
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- [30:03]
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- [30:46]
Ad Voice 2 (Adam Grant and others)
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- [31:24]
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- [31:26]
Ariel Bogle
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- [31:58]
Host (Australian True Crime Podcast)
What's the logic behind the idea that fluoride in the water makes us docile? I mean, how could anyone accuse Australians of being docile and we've had fluoride in the water for years.
- [32:08]
Cam Wilson
It's a great question, although a lot of people point out how compliant, largely Australians were to say COVID lockdown restrictions. On the one hand you might say, if you take a positive view of that, that we were responsible citizens. We trusted our government to be making the right decision at the right time, understanding that it was a fluid, you know, unknown situation with an unknown virus. But if you take a darker view of that, a more conspiratorial view, you might say we were too docile. You know, there was a lot of interesting narratives from the United States. A lot of far right podcasters said that Australia was being locked down and turned into some kind of network of concentration camps. Like that was one of the worst claims that we saw during that period. So you know, the same activity could have two very different perspectives, I think. But I think with Fluoro too, like one thing we do trace in the book, there's a chapter in there about the northern rivers is probably a quite a hotspot for conspiracy theories, especially for some forms of anti vaccine sentiment. We look at some real life incidences where vaccines have caused harm. You know, back in the early 20th century there was a spate of deaths from a vaccine because of like a lack of hygiene with the way the vaccine was put out. A couple of children died. It was a really tragic incident. The reverberations of that continued for decades because it did inspire, with good reason, distrust in the vaccine regime. And there had to be a pretty strong public health campaign to win back that trust and to, you know, assure parents that procedures have changed. But some historians have pointed to that Bundaberg incident and sort of traced how it has spread into the debate in Queensland, which is probably Australia's anti fluoride hotspot. It has a quite a distinct fluoride policy as compared to other states and how that might, you know, these sort of incidents in the public history, the public consciousness can flow into other debates when it comes time to take these big public health interventions. So nothing is kind of isolated. These things can all feed into each other and it can, you know, be very complex to unpick. And especially if you're a public health advocate or a government trying to enact these big health measures and get that public trust.
- [34:22]
Ariel Bogle
You know, one of the really big problems for governments or anyone trying to deal with this stuff is that it's very kind of hard to know who is out there, you know, on the other side of a screen talking big about hanging politicians or taking action and who's actually willing to do so. But we also saw that, you know, there was this real push to kind of get away from mainstream society we wrote about in this book. You know, there were literally hundreds of Australians who chipped in together to buy farmland across Australia, spending tens of millions of dollars so they could get away from the, you know, mainstream food system that they were convinced was, you know, filled with vaccines and mutated DNA and all this stuff. And we'll give you a little spoil. Like didn't go very well, you know, because to actually, you know, do something that like yourself requires, you know, a little bit of agricultural and dare I say, mainstream know how. But the sentiment was that these people willing to in many cases put their retirement savings into something like this because they just felt they needed to get away. They believed that mainstream society was so corrupted, they needed to do something else for themselves and their family. So there are communities out there, there are individuals out there. A lot of the time they don't end up kind of doing anything about this. And that's the real problem. We don't really know who out there is kind of speaking and thinking these extreme things and who's actually going to do something about it.
- [35:44]
Cam Wilson
It's again this like long line of belief. Like there are ideas we dabble in, we kind of half heartedly held. We sometimes chat about them with friends. Some of these ideas, and there's a long line before you are willing to take genuine action. Like, I'm not suggesting that buying a farm is anywhere near an act of violence, but I feel like even, you know, thinking that colds are caused by wet hair is like somewhere on this spectrum. I think we have to be sort of generous sometimes with people and their beliefs and acknowledge that they may not motivate action or behavioral change, but sometimes they do. And that is really the challenge for our government, for police and for our communities about how to identify when that's happening and to protect ourselves, because as we look at in this book, like, you can't just always rely on authorities to do this kind of protection. Like we saw in Australia too, a lot of anti LGBTQ plus activities in recent years. You know, the protests outside, drag queen story hours, really informed in some cases by conspiratorial narratives about so called grooming of children taking place in those, at those child events and things like that. And we also saw too, in Australia, if you remember, back in the mid-2000s, there was a debate about safe schools. This was a anti bullying program that started in Victoria, was going to be rolled out nationally. It was attempting to stop bullying of young LGBTQ students. And in that era, we saw a number of politicians in federal parliament states, parliaments as well, and some parts of the media start to use this accusation of cultural Marxism, that there was a plot to indoctrinate the Australian youth, you know, teaching them to bind their chests and become trans youth and all kinds of claims like this. And that was a conspiratorial framework in many ways too, because it argued without evidence that there was a plot against Australian children.
- [37:41]
Ariel Bogle
Call the member for Dawson. Well, thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. I rise as a voice for Thousands of parents have been shocked when they discover how the ironically named safe Schools program is indoctrinating their children. If parents knew that this type of material their children was being exposed to, they would probably not let them go to school. If someone proposed exposing a child to this material, the parents would probably call the police because it would sound a lot like grooming work that a sexual predator might undertake.
- [38:12]
Cam Wilson
So again, we see that sort of politically useful narrative framework being exploited against a vulnerable group. I think a lot of conspiracy theories do build around this fear for children. Like, that's a really convenient framework. A lot of people. Other writers on this topic have pointed out too, like, as soon as you label someone an enemy to children, they're an enemy to all. Like, it's a very convenient framework to identify the so called enemy, and that enemy might be one that you have other reasons for hating. You know, there are vulnerable groups that often get tarred with this brush, whether it is the LGBTQ community or immigrants or other sort of minority groups. So it's a convenient framework. We see it just come up again and again, whether it's QAnon, whether it's these grooming narratives, whether we see moral panics about other kind of societal changes when it comes to our children and their education.
- [39:03]
Host (Australian True Crime Podcast)
Can you tell us who are the bright lights of conspiracy at the moment.
- [39:07]
Ariel Bogle
So we had an opportunity to speak to some of them, and we paid a heap of attention to a lot of them. Not always great for our mental health, but it was great for the book. And, you know, for example, like, one of them, I had a chance to chat with Monica Smit, who was one of the main figures in the freedom movement during COVID and she still was kind of kicking around.
- [39:28]
Cam Wilson
Just a reminder, don't take health advice from the companies that profit from selling you their products. When they say, don't get too much sunshine and put on tons of sunscreen. Get tons of sunshine and don't put on too much sunscreen, because guess what? Vitamin D is free, my friends. No one is profiting from telling you this advice. And God gave it to us for a reason.
- [39:50]
Ariel Bogle
The funny thing is, is, like, in some ways, you know, you have to be someone who is kind of, you know, believes and, you know, like, really, really? Is it kind of like a holy warrior in some ways, but in other ways, you know, she was just. And I say this, like, let's be rude, but like, many of the people in the conspiracy theory movement are not very good at organizing things because it's quite a contrarian kind of individualistic community. Like, there's not a lot of, like, team players because as you could kind of imagine, a lot of people are kind of looking out for themselves and suspicious of others. And among it all, like, Monica was actually like, just a kind of good organizer. Like, you know, she was able to run an organization to hire people to kind of do stuff in a way that was more competent the others. And as a result, she ended up being like, one of the biggest leaders in the movement, despite, you know, I wouldn't call it the world's greatest orator, but just because she was kind of, you know, she had a shit together. And so you kind of see figures like that or, you know, you see figures like Pete Evans, who was obviously well known to most Australians on television, very charismatic, who then, you know, over time, kind of became more and more upfront about his pseudoscience and ultimately conspiratorial beliefs.
- [41:00]
Cam Wilson
Controversial chef Pete Evans has been served up fines of nearly $80,000 by the therapeutic Goods Administration. His company allegedly advertised unregistered goods, including a biocharger device, hyperbaric oxygen chambers, and two medicines. He's also been ordered to stop making various claims about therapeutic products.
- [41:20]
Ariel Bogle
It's on my website if anyone's interested. You can go to Pete Evans and then products. It's a pretty amazing tool It'll take you down some rabbit holes. So I won't take me an hour or two to explain it just briefly. It's programmed with about a thousand different recipes. There's a couple on there for Wuhan coronavirus, his both. His combination of his charisma, but also in the platform he was given by mainstream Australian media companies, meant that he was able to reach a lot of people with his messages, as they did, become more fringe and extreme.
- [41:51]
Cam Wilson
The role of the media in this, like, there's something in Australia we love building up a wellness guru or wellness influencer, and we let them. We let them get to extreme heights. You know, we've got the Evans example, but you've also got Bill Gibson. There are a variety of other examples. They get to great heights and a lot of people make a lot of money off them. Cookbooks, all kinds of deals, all kinds of TV appearances. But at the end they always seem to have some kind of fall. I think that's something interesting to reflect on for ourselves. Like, what does it say about us that we love that kind of narrative? We want that quick health fix, the secret that, you know, mainstream medicine isn't giving you something that's very appealing about that for Australians in general, I think.
- [42:32]
Host (Australian True Crime Podcast)
Do you have any stories of people who have been able to change their mind and no longer believe in a conspiracy?
- [42:39]
Cam Wilson
Robert Sudi is a man who lives up northern rivers and he maintains this website now called the Freeman Delusion, which is probably like the best record in Australia of pseudo law belief. So he gathers all the case law and decept all the ideas that people try in courts. But this project is the result of him actually having dabbled in this himself so many decades ago. Now. He had some traffic infringement issues, some fines and things went to the magistrates court to fight them, using pseudo law ideas that he'd found on the Internet. But the magistrate of the day, he was on deck, David Halpin, he just had some time, you know, some other cases had been canceled. So he had a bit more time to talk to Robert and sort of talk him through why his ideas weren't going to fly, point him in some good directions. And it basically just sort of raised a question, I guess, in Robert's mind, in his telling, he told me, sort of went home, started doing his own research, and he actually came across a really interesting case in Canada called Meads vs. Meads, Meads and Meads. It's a family law case and basically it's one of like the most complete side dissections of pseudo Law beliefs. The judge in that case went through, like, each element of the defendant, the husband's claims and all his different, you know, red thumbprint on the documents and all that jazz. And Robert Sudi here in Australia found that, like a really compelling document in a really interesting dissection. It kind of. It did start to change his mind and it was a journey. But now he maintains this website. It's probably like the best, best, most complete record of pseudo law thought in Australia. So people can. But they sort of. It's that combination of like a generous er and your own journey. You're an intellectual humility, like Tabitha said, you know, the willingness to concede you're wrong. And I think we can all probably learn something from Robert because there's all beliefs that we probably should have challenged them, not just conspiratorial ones. We have a whole chapter looking at different ways people are responding to conspiracy theories at both the highly personal level and the kind of broader community level. I also spoke to a psychologist who, during the pandemic started to have clients who would send him, you know, QAnon type videos and started to go down the rabbit hole themselves. And so these were people that had come to him with a different problem. But suddenly we're getting subsumed in this narrative. And I think that what he said really applies to some of these personal relationship issues as well, is that you're not really going to be able to talk someone out of it. Like, you can say to them, not, I don't believe what you believe, but I'm interested in why you think this is the case or why you feel this is the right answer for you. So trying to get to the root of why somebody's gone down this route. Is there something going on in their life that has turned them in this direction? But at the same time, you do need to draw boundaries. You know, if they. They're starting to talk about things that are uncomfortable for you. There is a lot of racism and racist undertones to some of these conspiracy theories. Like, that might be a red line for you.
- [45:33]
Host (Australian True Crime Podcast)
Certainly.
- [45:34]
Cam Wilson
I talked to families during the pandemic who were making a red line of vaccination. You know, you can't visit me in my house where my children are, if you're not vaccinated. That's just a health risk for me.
- [45:44]
Ariel Bogle
I think it's. It's funny, you know, you often find yourself in the situation where you'll be like, someone will say something that you're like, I know it's not right. And Then they'll say something, you know, they'll be like, but what about this and this? And you're like, well, I. I just, you know, I believe that man landed on the moon. And I'm sorry that I haven't, you know, dissected this myself, but I feel pretty confident about that. And so you get in this situation where actually sometimes it's like a weird, like, almost information imbalance. And I think that's why we feel like conspiracy theories are really present in modern society, because all the things that we kind of do and depend on are just so complex that it's really just hard for any individual to understand. I'm going to put my head up here and say, I'm a technology reporter. If you actually ask me how a computer works, like, inside, I couldn't tell you. And so ultimately, I guess I'm totally relying on, like, what someone else has said about this. And. But. But that's a kind of me being like, you know, I obviously seems to work for me. Other people seems to work. I trust that. So, you know, the conditions for people to believe things that aren't real are there, and they're often the conditions that are the same for us to believe things that are real. And I think that's another good reminder to be like, stay away from trying to get to the facts of it and trying to be like, you know, we know this. This isn't just about conspiracy theories. This is about all of, like, communication. People don't remember what you say. They remember how you make them feel. And it's so important to, you know, within boundaries to make people feel like, I am here for you. I'm not rejecting you if you can. Obviously, you know, it's not on any individual to pull another individual out, but we do know from the people. In the circumstances where people say, I change my mind, it's often because someone lent, like, an ear, like, they just listened and they understood and they maybe were just around enough to give them the help when the person actually wanted it. And I think that's, like, it's hard to do.
- [47:33]
Cam Wilson
It's very circumstantial. You know, you have to make those decisions for yourself about whether you are being put at risk by this person's behavior or if you're willing to maintain the relationship and not break that thread just yet. Because you never know, that thread might be the one that pulls them back.
- [47:53]
Host (Australian True Crime Podcast)
Thank you to our guests today, journalists and authors Ariel Bogle and Cam Wilson. If you need support after listening to this podcast, you can call Lifeline on 131114 or contact 1-800-Respect on 1-800-737-732 or 1-800-Respect. Org AU. Indigenous Australians can contact 13 YARN on 139276 or 13 yarn.org AU.
- [48:32]
Ad Voice 2 (Adam Grant and others)
The producers of this podcast recognise the.
- [48:36]
Ariel Bogle
Traditional owners of the land on which it's recorded.
- [48:41]
Ad Voice 2 (Adam Grant and others)
They pay respect to the Aboriginal elders.
- [48:44]
Ariel Bogle
Past, present and those emerging.
- [48:52]
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- [49:51]
Ariel Bogle
Par le tu francais hablas espanol?
- [49:54]
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- [50:31]
Ad Voice 2 (Adam Grant and others)
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