2:00

I've learned so much from the book and today

2:02

we're very fortunate to have Dave in the studio

2:04

to share his knowledge Dave

2:06

Gault, it's good to see you. Gary, it's been a

2:08

while. How have you been? I've been okay The

2:12

world has changed somewhat, but yeah, I'm enjoying

2:14

what I'm doing and there is as we

2:16

were talking the other day There is life

2:18

outside the cops, isn't it? Yeah, it's look

2:20

it's it's an interesting position You

2:23

spend 30-35 years of your life Dedicated

2:25

to a career path and then when it

2:27

ends it ends in a hurry Yeah, you've

2:30

got to find where where do you sit?

2:32

Who's your new identity? So it's been an

2:34

interesting journey Yeah, well, we're sort of part

2:36

of a tribe and you lose that identity

2:38

and that was your identity. Yeah, Dave Gault

2:40

Oh, he's a cop Gary Jublin. He's a

2:42

cop and you step away from that But

2:45

I'm happy to say and that as you you'll found

2:47

out there is a world outside the police and you

2:49

realize it is fairly Small and and

2:51

narrow in the world that we operated. Yeah,

2:53

and look when you're in when you're in

2:56

the game It's all about policing

2:58

and our colleagues are still in the game. That's what

3:00

they do. They chase they live and breathe it But

3:03

rest assured when you get out there is a larger

3:05

world And there's a lot

3:08

more fulfillment and satisfaction in other aspects outside

3:10

of policing that I didn't think would actually

3:12

occur But it's there and you

3:15

had a double-headed household with policing because your

3:17

your wife Fiona my good wife Which you've

3:19

had the opportunity to work with and and

3:21

she's still like she's still in the police

3:23

So whilst I'm out I'm still within the

3:26

police family so to speak sort of as

3:28

a defacto in law So

3:30

I still sort of get my my little

3:33

Dose of policing every now and again. She doesn't tell

3:36

you you just don't understand Yeah,

3:38

it can be quite challenging now. There's

3:40

conversations because I've changed perspective a little

3:42

bit which Can

3:45

be the source of amusement in the

3:47

household well you look relaxed I've been and

3:49

people used to describe yourself as pretty intense

3:51

in police You know I know I cop

3:53

that label as well as intense But you

3:55

always you had the cranky face on the

3:57

fair bit you look a little bit more

3:59

relaxed Yeah, look, it's you

4:02

take stock, you know,

4:04

you reflect and look

4:06

we're both pretty we're both pretty driven

4:08

individuals. I know that, you know, you're

4:10

well regarded in your field. And

4:14

in my field, you know, there's a lot of there's

4:16

a lot of expectation. And

4:18

that burden. Yeah, yeah, you're pretty switched

4:20

on most of the time. Well, I look at it

4:22

this way. Sometimes you just haven't got

4:24

time for the niceties or the hello or how

4:26

you're going. Sometimes it's we need this done. We

4:28

need this done now. And that that was

4:31

policing at the sharp end, isn't it? Yeah,

4:33

and and look, your hope throughout your career

4:35

that you didn't burn too many bridges and

4:37

that your colleagues realize that you weren't being

4:40

you were being blunt, you weren't being rude.

4:43

You were just time poor and you were under the pump. But

4:46

now that we're away from that and we can

4:48

step back and look back in, it's it's nice

4:51

to look back in and actually take a breath

4:54

and enjoy enjoy the ride, so to

4:56

speak, smell the flowers, enjoy the day

4:58

and actually take some time to

5:00

take stock of what's occurred. Yeah, very much so.

5:02

So your your book, congratulations on it.

5:04

I read it over the weekend and

5:07

I think I'm very much more enlightened

5:09

about the world of counterterrorism investigation. What

5:11

prompted the prompted the idea of writing a

5:13

book after you left? Well, so when I

5:15

left the police, I didn't leave on my

5:18

terms. You know,

5:20

that's unusual. It's unusual term. So

5:23

I had to. So when I

5:25

left, you know, I feel

5:27

a little bit unfulfilled and I had I'd

5:29

spent 20 years of research,

5:33

policy writing, developing training,

5:35

operational engagements, and there was a great deal

5:37

of knowledge. And when I left

5:40

the police, I thought at some point someone will

5:42

come and want to download what I knew so

5:44

that it can be used for the next generation

5:46

and we can build on the information that we've

5:49

already got. But after a

5:51

couple of months, I realized that no one was coming. And

5:54

there was a lot of information that I thought actually

5:57

it does help and it helps

5:59

the process. we spent a lot of

6:01

time researching it, so I didn't want to

6:03

lose it. So when I

6:05

looked around the marketplace of books, and

6:07

I looked particularly at the private sector,

6:10

who are now partners in the CT

6:12

journey, the counterterrorism journey, and

6:15

there's no books for them. There's no reference

6:17

books. There was no guides. There was nothing

6:19

to give them support and instruction on how

6:21

they should do business. So

6:23

that kind of motivated me to get my thoughts down and

6:25

to put something that can

6:27

be used for the wider communities,

6:30

you know, to attention. Well, we're

6:32

going to dissect the book and the

6:34

book so people are aware of it,

6:36

the principles of the counterterrorism process, a

6:38

guide for new guard of counterterrorism

6:40

professionals. And I've got to say, if you

6:42

want to upskill or have an understanding of

6:45

what the counterterrorism is about, it's very much

6:47

in that book. And I can see the

6:49

effort that's gone into it too, Dave. So

6:51

congratulations, it's not an easy book to write.

6:53

You're not just sitting there rattling off old

6:55

war stories. It's very deep. Yeah, so there's

6:57

a lot of research in that, a

6:59

lot of academic research that, you

7:01

know, with and the beauty about

7:04

being in the police, is that

7:06

there is a lot of academic research in the

7:08

wider world of academia about

7:10

terrorism. But being in the police, being

7:12

close to the coal face, we've got

7:14

the best sorts, sources of data, we've

7:17

got the real data. So our research

7:19

was more accurate. And it's that accurate

7:21

research that I wanted then to communicate

7:23

with everyone so that we can move

7:25

forward, as opposed to basing research on

7:27

assumed facts or research

7:30

based on information gaps. So I've tried to

7:32

get it down as best we could. Okay,

7:34

well, we've got a little bit ahead of

7:36

ourselves. We've got to wind it back a

7:38

little bit. So you didn't just wake up

7:40

one day and decide you're a counterterrorism expert.

7:42

You joined the police. What prompted you to

7:45

join the police? So join

7:47

the police. So before I joined the police, I'm

7:49

not a tall man. And back in the day

7:52

when I wanted to join the police, there was

7:54

a height restriction. There's a height and weight restriction

7:56

and you had certain chest expansions. And

7:58

I didn't meet those criteria. was never going

8:00

to. So I went and

8:02

joined the bank. I started studying a council

8:04

and was doing a management program

8:08

within Westpac and

8:10

then one lunchtime I'm sitting down reading the

8:12

paper in my lunch break and the then

8:14

Commissioner Jack

8:17

Avery removed

8:19

the height restrictions and weight restrictions. So

8:22

I wandered down to Marylands police station and the

8:24

old desk sergeant was there and I said excuse

8:27

me sergeant can I have an application? He

8:30

grunted at me, threw the application at me

8:32

and I walked out. Nothing like customer service.

8:34

Customer service was fantastic and then

8:36

three months later I'm down at the Academy.

8:38

Okay what year was that? Oh 87. Okay

8:40

although I

8:43

was there just a little little bit beforehand. So

8:45

your career in uniform first up? Yeah so

8:49

you know this is the day

8:51

back where we did three months straight. We

8:53

were trainees in the police academy

8:55

so you employed as a police employer

8:58

employee and so we

9:00

did three months in tents then we

9:03

did 12 months probation before you got

9:05

confirmed. My probation and period

9:07

in uniform was at Flemington or the

9:10

old 32 division which was Flemington, Auburn,

9:12

Lincoln you know again

9:14

it's a typical uniformed

9:16

career. We're working at the

9:18

markets, traffic, domestics and domestics

9:21

is clearly a current

9:23

issue and they were a current issue back

9:25

then so times haven't changed. Yeah it's sad

9:27

seeing things haven't haven't changed. So look and

9:29

then I joined the police and

9:31

I was under the I suppose my

9:33

plan was to do a couple years in uniform study

9:37

law have a go at

9:39

going to through the prosecutors and pursuing that path.

9:43

But in our part of our training program

9:46

is that you've got to do two weeks in each

9:48

of the units be that highway licensing

9:50

all those things and I got to

9:52

spend two weeks in the detectives office

9:55

and my mentor there was a detective sergeant

9:57

my name is Henry Kornacki. a

10:00

fantastic detective. And I was

10:03

there and as soon as I walked in the office my

10:05

feet didn't hit the ground. In two weeks I think

10:07

we had four murders. We

10:10

were chasing a group of kids, street

10:12

kids for grievous

10:14

bodily harm attack

10:16

that they they they

10:19

inflicted on another street

10:21

kid with a sledgehammer in a squad

10:23

house in Flemington. So we

10:25

spent three days chasing these kids Bronson

10:28

Blessington, Jamison and that

10:30

crew. We then chasing

10:33

them all throughout Sydney trying to find them. And

10:36

then we get a call one night, Henry

10:38

rings me up and says that they've got our crooks at Penrith.

10:41

So we drive out there on the way out to

10:43

the driver discussing what the interview process will be and

10:45

what we'll interview them. We

10:48

get to Penrith police station and Henry speaks to

10:50

his brother Dick Kornacki. They have

10:52

a rather animated conversation. He turns

10:54

around his heel and comes back and

10:57

says we're out here. They're they've just fessed up

10:59

to murdering a young girl in a paddock. We

11:03

won't get access to them for a while.

11:05

So we left and that unfortunate young girl

11:07

was Janine Balding. So it was a terrible

11:09

crime. But it just showed I actually

11:12

got to see how the process worked. Fell

11:14

in love with criminal investigation, fell in love

11:16

with being a detective and decided to make

11:18

that my career. I understand it

11:21

the way you described it and just thinking

11:23

through it. And I don't

11:25

like to say it's a thrill of the chase

11:27

because it sounds like a game and we very

11:29

much know it's not a game, but that hunting

11:32

you are actually out there hunting the bad

11:34

guys. Yeah, we were hunting them. We were

11:36

trying to get them. And the reason to

11:38

get them was to stop them because they

11:40

were on a crime spree. We can incarcerate

11:42

them, let things cool down, stop

11:44

crime occurring. And you could see

11:46

that practically occur. The

11:48

more you got into investigations, you saw

11:51

that the majority of crime was always

11:53

being committed by the majority of criminals.

11:55

If you got rid of that minority,

11:57

you reduce crime. And that's a very...

12:00

very simple equation and it stayed pretty

12:02

constant throughout. So I saw that equation,

12:04

that correlation. What you could achieve. What

12:06

you could achieve. And you

12:08

actually could reduce crime significantly by taking

12:10

players out. Okay, so it sounds like

12:12

it was a glove that fitted very

12:15

well in plain clothes. So I

12:17

did my training, Flemington Detectives, and at

12:20

the time, we were New South Wales

12:22

Police in the wake of the Woodrow

12:24

Commission was regionalised and

12:26

Flemington was the home of the South West

12:28

Major Crime Squad. So I got to interact a

12:30

lot with the guys from South West and

12:33

they would involve us on jobs, giving us

12:35

greater experience in exposure. I

12:38

did my training there with Flemington and

12:40

what I had done, I continued my

12:43

accountancy studies. So I

12:45

just finished my accountancy course and

12:48

an opportunity came for me to go to the

12:50

Fraud Squad. So I went to the Fraud Squad

12:52

for a couple of years and worked there with

12:54

some very, very good operators, Terry Jamison, Rowan Martin,

12:57

Georgie McTaggart, Arthur Katianas,

13:00

you know, Arthur who went on to

13:02

becoming one of the commanders at State Crime. And

13:05

after a couple of years there, an opportunity

13:07

arose at North West Major Crime. And that's

13:09

where our paths started to join. Yeah, well,

13:11

that's when we crossed paths in the Crime

13:13

Squads, but also the Tactical Police in when

13:15

we're in the State Protection Support Unit, which

13:18

is Tactical Police. Talk us through that. Yeah,

13:20

so in the day, so I went to

13:22

North West and did a range of the

13:24

squads there, the Kitty Squad, which is a

13:26

child protection squad, property squad. And

13:28

then I moved into the Stick Ups, our armed holdup. One

13:31

of the requirements there, because of the nature of the

13:33

beast, we're dealing with dangerous criminals, armed

13:36

offenders, you know, on

13:38

a daily basis. It was a real

13:40

clever strategy to get those

13:42

operators trained in Tactical Policing, the,

13:44

you know, the Tactical Support Team

13:46

or the State, you know, Protection

13:48

Support Unit. And it's through that

13:50

training that you become proficient at weapons, your

13:53

tactical knowledge of things,

13:56

what is a danger and what isn't. You get a

13:58

really good understanding of, of... how

14:00

to do things a lot more

14:03

safely and efficiently. I felt

14:05

it helped us as detectives, even though our

14:07

role as detectives was investigation, it wasn't tactical.

14:09

But when we had the tactical skills, you

14:12

could help plan an effect and the rest

14:14

or be involved in the arrested high-risk offenders.

14:16

And that's probably what a lot of listeners

14:18

don't understand, that as the

14:20

detective, you prepare all the

14:23

documents. So you're doing the planning documents, you're

14:25

doing all the appreciations. So you've got to

14:27

have an understanding of what their capabilities are,

14:29

whether that be a surveillance team, a

14:32

team of techs that's going to put devices in,

14:35

or a tactical team. You need to know

14:37

what their capabilities are, what their limitations are,

14:39

how they like to work. If they're a

14:41

happy team, they get you good results. So

14:43

again, it's great exposure, I think, for us

14:45

both. And it was a lot of fun

14:47

too. Some of those training days were very

14:49

intense, but they were fun and on the

14:51

firing range. Yeah, look, you know, a lot

14:53

of shenanigans, a lot of fun, but a

14:55

lot of team development, team bonding, and building

14:57

that team, you know, that team camaraderie. And

15:00

look, you know, 20, 30 years

15:02

later, we're still talking about it, and there's a smile

15:04

on your face, a smile on mine. It works. It

15:06

was fun. And look, let's shout out

15:08

to the tactical police, because often they were

15:11

misconstrued as, you know, the knuckle draggers or

15:13

whatever, the tough guys in the black overalls.

15:15

But the amount of training, the

15:18

pressure was on when you had a job,

15:20

wasn't it? And aren't they, when you get

15:22

down, you speak with them, and they talk

15:24

through their plans, aren't they articulate and incredibly

15:26

detailed and professional? They know they're going. Dave,

15:28

I'm glad you say that, because people often

15:30

think detectives are briefing. The best briefings I've

15:32

been to are the ones that tactical police

15:34

are running, and it's succinct, because you can't

15:36

make a mistake. If you make a mistake,

15:38

someone literally might die. And it was good

15:40

fun when you got a call, when we'd

15:42

get called out. I thought it was best

15:44

time in policing, because you had the excitement

15:46

of criminal investigation, but then you get a

15:48

phone call and some bad guy, bad guy's

15:50

got to be arrested and you jump out

15:53

the back of a van. And to what

15:55

the beauty of, you know, as a detective,

15:57

you've got left to clean up the mess.

15:59

Yes. a tactical operator,

16:01

you walked away and you didn't have to do

16:03

the brief. So it was the best of both

16:05

ways. I don't know about you, but when my

16:07

phone would ring, I'd be thinking, I hope it's

16:10

not a homicide. I hope it's tactical. Tactical, you

16:12

go out, the adrenaline rush, do your job and

16:14

walk away and no paperwork. Fantastic. Great

16:16

day. Great day out there. It

16:19

was good. Okay. So what

16:21

other squads did you work in in Major Crime? So

16:23

I did the Kitty's property and

16:26

we worked with, you know, in the wake.

16:28

This is prior to the, well, this is

16:31

as the Royal Commission was going and it

16:33

was bad times and Northwest was decimated as

16:36

a result of the Royal Commission. Then

16:38

I went to the stick ups. Then close

16:40

small did something interesting that he

16:42

amalgamated the regions again. So

16:45

we went from four regions to crime agencies. And

16:48

I was part of the serious and violent

16:51

offenders unit. And there

16:53

I stuck with stick ups and went to Bag

16:55

Nara. And Bag Nara was the operation that looked

16:58

at the time counter jumpers. This is where he

17:00

had a lot of young offenders. Bank

17:02

robberies were still the rage. And

17:05

before they had screens, putting up the

17:07

crooks would enter the banks en masse,

17:09

jump the counter, overwhelm the staff, take

17:11

the money and run. Incredibly

17:14

busy days, busy times. And

17:18

interesting dynamic working with, you know, that

17:20

cohort, which was a completely different mindset

17:23

to the traditional stick up guys we

17:25

were used to working with. Yeah. No,

17:28

it was interesting times. And when we were

17:30

brought together as crime agencies, I liken it

17:32

to imagine four high schools that are all

17:34

brought together because it was a bit of

17:36

barge barge wasn't it? I was from Northridge

17:38

and you were from Southridge. Even today I

17:40

refer to you as North. You're North, I

17:42

was Northwest, there's Southwest, there's South. Yeah, somewhere

17:44

we didn't meet in the middle. It was

17:46

the Clicks. Yeah. Look,

17:49

how Clive was able to bring that, Clive's a very brilliant man. And

17:52

the way he could bring that together, given the

17:54

environment that we've just walked out of that New

17:56

South Wales at that time was considered one of

17:58

the most corrupt services in the country. The

44:00

aim of a proactive investigation

44:03

is to eliminate

44:05

the threat before it occurs.

44:08

What we do is we look at the

44:10

indicators, we then, because of necessity, Western societies

44:12

have changed the legislation so that we can

44:15

move a lot earlier in criminal offences under

44:17

the terrorism banner than we can under traditional

44:19

crimes. The

44:23

tests for us to get above

44:25

or get over are a lot less. The

44:28

whole idea is to preempt the threat

44:31

by arresting the person before they

44:33

can commit their terrorist acts of

44:35

criminality, they can go into custody

44:37

and then they can be subject

44:39

to treatment. Now this is probably,

44:41

as cops we're not used to

44:43

this, but we need

44:45

to treat these people

44:49

so that when they come out they are no longer a

44:51

threat to us. And that's a

44:53

really complex process. You say in truth

44:55

if they're in custody or police custody

44:58

or custodial sentence, when do you think

45:00

the treatment needs to come in? Well

45:02

look, I'll define it there, there's

45:05

counter radicalisation, so we're stopping

45:07

people becoming radicalised. So those

45:09

that are adhering to extreme

45:11

belief, extreme ideology, try

45:13

to interdict there to stop

45:15

them becoming radicalised. That's where we lean

45:17

on religious leaders. Community leaders,

45:20

quite often you hear them come out. Religious

45:23

psychologists support work. New

45:25

South Wales has programmes, the Commonwealth has

45:27

programmes, each jurisdiction Australia has programmes and

45:29

they've got programmes in WA under this

45:32

instance where they try to again

45:34

take them away from that path and

45:37

stop them going down that path of

45:39

radicalisation. Once a person

45:41

has been radicalised then by

45:43

definition they have to be de-radicalised so

45:46

that their beliefs or their intentions

45:48

are no longer to commit acts of

45:50

violence against the community. So they're two

45:53

different processes. Now counter will start clearly

45:55

before a person gets incarcerated. If a

45:57

person has been radicalised that means they're

45:59

adhering. direct threat, majority

46:02

of times they will be in custody. Now

46:04

when they're in custody, that gives us their

46:06

captive audience. And that's I think where we

46:08

can do a lot more work in that

46:10

space. And I like to think government can

46:12

invest more corrective services, the

46:15

community of the A's on multiculturalism in New

46:17

South Wales. They can all act and add

46:20

to that process. It makes sense to try

46:22

and deal with the situation that way because

46:24

if they finish their sentence and come out

46:26

and still have the same beliefs. So

46:30

to take that further, the biggest

46:32

risk globally from terrorist

46:34

now is a thing called enduring threat.

46:36

Now enduring threat are people that have

46:39

come to the attention of authorities in

46:41

a terrorism context but they've been

46:43

assessed not to constitute a threat at that

46:45

time and therefore have been cut loose for

46:47

one of the better word. That

46:50

cohort of people are the ones creating

46:52

the biggest threat to society globally. And

46:55

to counter that, both Commonwealth

46:57

and New South Wales have brought

47:00

in the process new legislation could

47:02

high risk terrorism offenders legislation which

47:04

is post sentence detention and

47:07

compliance regimes. So

47:09

we've invested, the state government and the

47:12

Commonwealth government invested in developing teams that

47:14

manage those people that are in custody

47:16

for terrorism offences or become radicalised in

47:18

prison that pose an unacceptable risk to

47:21

society on their release. We've

47:23

got teams now that just look at that and focus on

47:25

that to try and mitigate that risk

47:28

factor that we've got. And a lot of resourcing

47:30

goes into this Dave too. Do you think we've

47:32

come to terms with this as a way that

47:34

we've got to approach crime? The

47:36

resources that we apply to this because

47:39

it's not an easy fix to change

47:41

people's views and. So

47:43

practically as detectives, we've got detectives

47:46

working in the post

47:48

sentence detention world that are investigating threat

47:50

and risk not criminal offences. So this

47:52

is a dynamic change. So we're changing

47:54

the way criminal investigators

47:56

work and analysts work. So

47:59

it's. And

56:00

he saw solace in his belief and

56:02

then started to adopt an extreme interpretation

56:04

of that belief. Now some

56:06

of his indicators were that he would walk past

56:08

shops and if he saw women

56:11

scantily dressed in an advertising

56:13

situation, he would

56:15

put covers up to cover the modesty of the

56:18

woman. He would then

56:20

walk around the street and start expousing his

56:22

ideology to the neighbours. Now all that got

56:24

slipped. No one saw that. It wasn't until

56:26

after that those indicators came out and that

56:28

we could have made a better picture. OK.

56:31

And they're the little things that can slip

56:33

through if you don't have people switched on

56:35

to what's occurring. We might

56:37

take a break now. There is so much to

56:39

dissect in the world of counterterrorism and

56:41

we'll do that when we

56:44

get back. But you're giving us a really interesting insight

56:46

into a world that it affects

56:48

us all, doesn't it? We can't ignore it.

56:50

So the interesting part, we

56:53

identified terrorism in the first terrorist plot

56:55

in Australia was in 1800. It's

56:59

been with us ever since. What was

57:01

that in relation to? So Australia's first

57:03

terrorists were religiously motivated.

57:07

They were a minority. The predominant religion

57:09

in Australia at the time was Protestant.

57:12

And the minority was a

57:14

group of convicts of Catholic

57:16

Irish descent. And

57:18

they were referred to as radical

57:20

Catholic convicts. Now,

57:26

in September, nineteen eighteen

57:28

hundred, Governor Hunter

57:32

received human or information

57:34

that the Catholic

57:36

convicts, through instruction from

57:38

their religious leaders, were

57:41

going to attack the colony, steal

57:44

a ship and head

57:46

back to head home. So

57:49

they interdicted and arrested the

57:51

Irish Catholic convicts. And

57:54

interestingly, where I pointed the investigation

57:56

to a person called Reverend Samuel

57:58

Marsden.