Episode 5: Debbie Kilroy OAM

This episode has a language warning because things got a little bit colourful at times. In this podcast, we're taking a dive into the lives of dangerous women of Queensland. And we're not talking about serial killers here. We're talking about strong, fascinating women who forged their way through life with boldness, daring and courage and challenged the status quo to inspire change in Queensland. Women I would like to be more like myself. Dangerous women is a podcast by the State Library of Queensland, hosted by myself Holly Zwolf, produced by Snuggle Tooth Productions, and supported by the Queensland Library Foundation's crowd-giving fundraising campaign. Join us as we tell the stories of some of the greatest Queensland women you've never heard of. Our final dangerous woman in this series has made me rethink the way I introduced this podcast. Debbie Kielroy may not be a serial killer, but some of her best friends are murderers, and she's done time herself for drug trafficking. This day, she's a criminal lawyer with a twist. She doesn't believe in jails, and her life's fight is dedicated to bringing down the prison system and the industries that rely on it for profit. Be prepared to have your convictions shaken with this one. I fundamentally believe like I won't be free until all women are free. That's just the reality, and there's a lot of work to be done. I've never met a more hard-working woman than Debbie. She's the driving force behind sisters inside, a Queensland-based organisation that provides services and advocates for women in prison and their families. For nearly 30 years, she's campaigned relentlessly for the rights of women prisoners, alongside advocates such as renowned American civil rights activist Angela Davis. She's been awarded the Order of Australia, and most sensationalist of all, she's the first convicted criminal to be accepted by the Queensland Supreme Court as a solicitor, and she's deeply unimpressed by our criminal justice system. If you get a prison because you're poor, because you're homeless, because your country was invaded, your land was stolen, you've had so much violence perpetrated against you, and I do a little program, a COG skills program, and I still walk out, I still don't have my land, I still don't have a home, I still don't have money, I don't have my kids, you've taken them now. You know, like, hello, that's not my fault, but the state makes us feel so hyper-responsible that it's my fault that these things are happening to me. You know, they say pull yourself up by your boot straps. Well, if I got no fucking boots, how do I pull them up? Like, it's bullshit. Absolutely bullshit. I know I said I felt safe meeting her, but if I'm honest, I'm actually absolutely terrified. She's a five-year-old-hull woman and she's hard to impress. So I've asked Chris Olson, an old friend of Debbie's, who's sat on the Sisters Inside Management Committee for over 20 years, and who is also the author of Debbie's biography Killroy was here, if we can meet her first, so I can get some tips. Hello. Hi, Chris, it's Holly. Hey, Holly, come on in. Thank you. For the time being, sprawled on the couch and Chris's flat, surrounded by books stacked on every single surface, while the wind beats against the hanging plants on the veranda outside, I allow myself to feel reassured. Are we recording? Great. So the reason I wanted to do it here is because I'm absolutely terrified of Debbie. You don't need to be. That's her public face, absolutely. And it's got more and more terrifying by the year. So I kind of wanted to meet you first to get the lowdown. Now look, in these kinds of situations, she's, I was going to say normal, she's not that fierce person she's got to be in prison surroundings. She's just ordinary. Except she's got this fierce intelligence sitting behind everything she says. I asked Chris if she was nervous the first time she met Debbie back when she first got involved in sisters inside. I kind of feel like that's when I was born. That's when I actually emerged into the world. The scale to drop from my eyes. That's huge learning curve. It was just quite amazing. From the warm way Chris talks about sisters, I get the impression that it's more than just a workplace. Sisters inside is different to other organisations that support women in prison. For starters, it operates on a PLA basis. The steering committee meets behind bars and consists entirely of women who are currently in prison. And this really sets the tone of the organisation. And that was always Debbie's insistence, you know, as a management committee, we were there to listen and do what we were told. We're not the ones who know. We don't have the lived prison experience. Other people do. And they know what's needed. I'm going to play around with time for a moment here and fast forward to my interview with Debbie because the way she describes the ethos of sisters inside ties in nicely with what Chris is explaining to me. It's a very different way of doing things. It's a very different way of being and walking with truly with and alongside criminalised in prison women and girls and their children. There's no other organisation like sisters inside in the world. It's about our values and about how we drive them and about building up that community. For all women, it doesn't matter what they've done or what they haven't done. It's about the actual person, not the behaviour. We'll hear more from Debbie in just a tick. Back in Chris's lounge, I ask her whether she ever feels like a bit of a square working as such a tough bunch of women. She tells me about what happened when she attended her first steering committee meeting inside prison. I knew that being the new management person that had to size me up. I was terrified the first day when in to the meeting room. It was so funny and because Fred really did. She's one of my best friends now, but the time I was terrified, of course, is trustee. We know she's a big girl in every way, big personality. She literally walked around me and then they knew I'd been a journalist. Of course with Tracy, that's a big journalist of real life. I'm sort of swallowed. Anyway, she just sort of sat in listen for a while at the end of it. She said, "So, Clark Kent, you're all right." Tracy Wigington, or Fred to a closer friends, is known widely as the lesbian vampire killer for the murder of a man in Brisbane in 1989, an event which was greatly sensationalized by the media. Yes, so what was it like for you as someone who's never been inside going inside the first time? All I felt like a complete junior at first because I knew nothing. I didn't know the background to why women were in prison, who was in prison. I had the same cardboard cut out view that most people would have, I suppose. I pressed Chris further. I want to know what it feels like as a visitor, to hear that gate clang shut behind you. For bidding, it's for bidding, really. And even though, you know, you're dying to see the women, you can't wait to see them, you haven't seen them for a while, you're still thinking, "Okay, it won't be long, I'll be out the other side again." It's got that certainly that authoritarian feel of deus desquies, novels, and that really feeling, that feeling of darkness and the opposite of freedom, of course. Make sure to feel very lucky to be born in the way you were, grow up in the way you did without the terrible shackles that some of these women are born to, or disadvantaged, violent homes, violent partners. You know, they're, yeah, of course they're the ones who are pipeline, in because they're the ones who have to do extraordinary things to survive. I asked Chris how visiting prisoners has changed her. In a way, it was a dismantling of self. You know, that the old me who could look at a prison in one way and think of the people inside it one way, fell away, and yeah, almost like being burned in the fire, you know, coming out as another person, and coming out as fierce and pissed off and angry and just really disposed to work on it. How long do you think you're going to stay as this is inside? You don't leave. You don't, you know, they'll all be at my funeral. The sky grows dark outside and rain starts lashing the already battered trees. The moody weather gives me a false sense of confidentiality, despite the enormous ferry microphone looming near my mouth. I find myself admitting something I perhaps shouldn't. And Debbie sounds like, they know, for 20 years, she sounds like she was a pain in the ass when she was younger. Some people would say she still is. But this Chris, of course, means that Debbie never compromises her values and never lets up. She thinks breeds its 24/7 prison issues. That last big campaign, the free her campaign, is a really good example of that there. She was on a Sunday afternoon at home flicking through Instagram, I think it was, and something came up with an Aboriginal dancer. It was a male actually being pulled off a beach because he hadn't paid some historical fine. She got onto that straightaway bang within a week. There was just tens of thousands of dollars. The free her campaign has so far raised over a million dollars to pay women's bail costs in Western Australia, where women are routinely jailed for unpaid fines. You can find it on the GoFundMe page if you're interested. Not for her this Sunday afternoon, just lying in the sun, hanging out, going to a movie, movie. Oh, that's who she is. There's a strange synchronicity to interview and Chris in this final episode of Danger Swimming. Because although her name doesn't appear on it, she also goes straight to Kill and Mailman's order. biography The Power of Bones. Keelan was the subject of our first episode in this series. So either Chris has a knack for anything dangerous women, or we have a knack for pinching all of her brilliant and very helpful research. The first and the last are about people that you've written books about. - I'm not even dangerous myself. - It is funny, isn't it? When I set me the list of people I noticed, but yes, there was this funny coincidence as rainbow from first to last. They're both such extraordinary women, and both so warm and inclusive and clever, super intelligent both of them. - The rainbow metaphor is quite apt actually because it's absolutely bucketing down outside now. One thing I've loved about making this podcast is all the other dangerous women who have met along the way. So just before I go, I ask Chris if she'd describe herself as a dangerous woman. I know I certainly would. These days I'd probably would. And that's in no small part due to those other women who shared their predilection for the dangerous with me, I guess, and showed me what was to be gained by living in that way. I mean, I think sisters particularly has made me feel us. You can't really be in that organisation and see what you see and do what you do and be scared. Of course, it makes you look at your own privilege very carefully, but it also, for me anyway, it's made me feel us and it's really taught me to stand up to anyone, but especially to stand up to power. - And would she describe Debbie as dangerous? She's dangerous in all the right ways. - And on that note, it's time for me to toughen up and go meet the famous DK myself. On the drive from Chris's flat to the sisters inside office in West End, my producer Erin and I take a brief detour, pass the filthy student share house where we first met many years ago. - We're just driving down the Main Street in West End. I only awaited sisters inside to interview Debbie Curie and we're doing a quick detour because this is where Erin and I first met in this area and we're just gonna drive down the street to find our old share house that we lived in. God, there it is. There it is. Although actually now I'm looking at again, maybe it's not the same building as well. - Yeah, that looks a little bit fancy on the part we lived in. I've got the wrong house. (laughing) Oh, the house that we lived in has been locked down. I think it probably fell down. (laughing) It's such a mess. (laughing) This little trip down memory lane has been a pleasant distraction from the impending interviews. Outside sisters inside, I scoffed down a vegan meat pie before ringing the bell. Just trying to brush the pyre crumbs off my face. So I look presentable. Of course, never-y, who's the youth programs manager at Sisters and whoever arranged to interview after Debbie. Flings open the door at that very moment to find me loitering there. Looks at me like I'm mad and asks me if I'm gonna come in. Erin and I sit in reception like nervous girls outside the principal's office as we wait for Debbie to get off the phone with the courts. Eventually she bustles in and ushers us through a doorway. - Hello, come in, sorry. - We sit down at one end of a long meeting table and I get down to business. First up, I get Debbie to explain what exactly sisters inside does. At its core, the organization operates on a de-carceration strategy to get women out and keep them out of prison. They achieve this through service provision, community education training, advocacy and law reform, and also through Debbie's legal firm, which operates out of the same building as sisters. - So that's sort of in a nutshell. And how do you manage to house a nutshell inside you because that's a really big nutshell? I don't know, I just do. I've been doing it for so long. It's just, it is who I am. It's my passion. - One of the driving forces behind sisters inside is the damage in carceration does to families as well as the cycle of incarceration it encourages. And Debbie's family is no exception. While Debbie and her partner Joe were in prison on drug charges, the couple separated. The family was torn apart and the kids were split up and cared for in different places. More recently, her eldest child has spent time in prison herself for fraud. This cycle of incarceration is a recurring theme in families where a parent has been in prison and the evidence is clear. Prison harms entire families and the effects of far reaching. However, one surprising outcome of Debbie and Joe's time inside was that it forced them to reevaluate their relationship. - So we negotiated the relationship and the biggest thing was because of Joshua, by that time, Jodie had already taken off and been getting criminalized as a young woman. So but more for Joshua, we didn't want that for Joshua. So we've actually got to work this out for him. - Debbie met Joe Kilroy when she was in her early 20s. In his heyday as a famous football player with the Brisbane Broncos, he was known as Smokin' Joe Kilroy. Joe's a butchler man and traditional owner of Gary, otherwise known as Fraser Island. The couple have one child together and he's also raised Debbie's older daughter as his own. In the early years, their relationship was volatile and violent and the two got mixed up in some pretty bad business that led to them both being imprisoned. But surprisingly, the couples swear that prisons save their relationship by helping them to recognise the importance of family. - And the biggest rule was, there's no violence. If there's any violence, we're done. That's it. And so there never has been any violence ever since. - I say something to the effect that it's a beautiful love story, but Debbie isn't sentimental. - Well, you know, they're ups and downs and rounds and rounds. They're hard work, but you've got to do the work. It's about relationships, any type of relationship. And you know, and it's about being okay under my own skin, him being okay, and his skin and then us being okay together. - As she talks, Debbie flicks her hand around gesturing. It isn't immediately noticeable, but her ring finger is missing on her left hand. I've already read her book, so I know she lost it when her wedding ring got caught during a particularly big blue with Joe, but I ask her to tell me what it feels like when she looks at it now. - Not much, it's been there for like, I didn't want to get to that, I don't know, 32 years now. So, I don't know, it's just part of being now. - I try and press her for some kind of significant revelation that the gap in her hand represents, but in what I'm starting to recognize as typical Debbie fashion, she isn't coming to the party. - Yeah, but it wasn't the point that created any significant change for me, other than a physical change from a fingers gone. But I mean, you know, if there was a point that sort of shifted anything, was probably Debbie's murder and thinking, fuck, there's got to be something better than this shit, really. - We'll get to the murder in a minute. First, I asked Debbie to go back to her childhood, so I can try and understand how she ended up the person she is today. The tale begins with Debbie as a young kid who found it hard to concentrate in school. - Some of the teachers couldn't engage me because I'd be like, you know, bounced and I'm one of those kids that would be moving all the time, like, as you can tell, I still move around. (laughs) - It's true, she hasn't stopped fidgeting since we started the interview. But we've done our best to edit out all the chair creeks as she squirms around opposite me. - 'Cause you can't sit still, you get the trouble maker card or, you know, lacks concentration, all that sort of shit. It's like, no, you're just a bad teacher and doesn't know how to engage in other forms of learning, you know? So I'd be kicked out to the principal's office and have a desk there and I didn't wasn't gonna sit there, so then we'd take off and go down to the, you know, the Valley leisure center and play pool and listen to the Led Zeppelin and Black Sabbath. Debbie started getting into trouble for petty crime and her parents began to feel they were losing control of her. - So yeah, at that time, policing was expanding where they had the juvenile aid bureau and social workers, the so-called social workers. Oh, anyway, so they convinced her to sign me away to go into the youth prison for one month to get assessed by psychiatrist and 'cause, you know, it had teached me a lesson. It didn't teach me the lesson that the adults thought were gonna teach me, no doubt, was gonna violate me and try and hammer me down and dab in my spirit, but I just kicked harder. So after the four weeks, I was told I couldn't go home to my parents and I had to go to like this halfway house at Kelvin Grove. So things just went pear-shaped from there. Mum and dad hadn't done anything wrong. I was one of the kids that grew up at a home there where there wasn't any violence. I was really lucky compared to the majority of the women that I know and continue to know that, you know, the most horrendous things have happened under their roofs, but they didn't happen. The violation that happened to me was in that youth prison and then ongoing. So I was in and out, in and out, and in and out. And yeah, just on that slippery slope I've been criminalized over and over again. I asked Debbie what she thinks would have led it down a different path back then. If I was 13 and wasn't put in prison, what would have happened? And I think many things wouldn't have happened, but they did happen, so to survive. Well, I think to come out of the other side, you know, your life becomes a story of trauma that's, especially when you're criminalizing prison, that are layers of trauma. There's a common pattern when you look at the backgrounds of women in prison. There's a disproportionately high rate of prisoners with ADHD, but most significantly, most women have a history of sexual abuse or assault. We know that from our research, 89% of women who are in prison have been previously sexually assaulted or raped. and this Debbie says once they're done, they're done. women get to prison, the sexual assault continues under the guise of mandatory strip searching, which she argues is state-sanctioned sexual assault and is used as a form of social control. A lot of women say that they, you know, the violence ends because they go on a prison, and so they feel safe, but that's because they're not aware of the new violator. Then the sexual assault continues in the prison by the state in the form of strip searching. So that's where the state takes over the perpetrator's role of the individual that has sexually abused that woman. So through the process of strip searching where they say in the law, it's lawful. So it allows prison officers to action a sexual assault, but lawfully, and women describe it as being sexually assaulted again. It's not surprising that women who've had these kinds of experiences in life end up in prison, and it's even less surprising considering the way women are treated in prison, that over 40% of women in mates will be back behind bars within two years of release. Debbie was looking like she'd be yet another of these statistics when she was witnessed to the murder of her close friend Debbie Dick while serving time on drug charges. Debbie Kilroy was also stabbed and originally planned to murder in revenge. However, the event ended up being a major turning point in her life when she heard the inmate who'd murdered her friend screaming while locked up in solitary confinement. Oh yeah, because I remember being in solitary like her as a kid. That was like me being held up in that cell like she was being held up. It was like let her out. You've got to let her out. This is cruelty, yeah. This was a pivotal point for her. She started to make the connections between our own experiences in the system as a young woman and those of her friends murderer and realised they were both victims of the same oppressive system. Instead of seeking revenge on the woman who'd murdered her friend, after Debbie was released from prison she set up sisters inside. That was nearly 30 years ago now. She then went on to get a social work degree before taking on the big guns and getting herself admitted as a lawyer. I asked Debbie what drove her to do law. I was doing it to push the system out to make it accountable, make it honest because of the language that it uses, that it used. Obviously part of it was for me because I was told as a kid that I was stupid I never make anything of myself. I'm bad, you can't do it, and you certain people can be lawyers and doctors. And then I realised that is just the biggest load of shit. Absolute rubbish. That is such a white privilege secret that they market, that they think that they're the only ones that actually can get through law degrees or medical degrees. I started law myself back when I was living in that filthy share house with Erin and it turns out Debbie and I have something else in common too. We both failed contract law B. I hated contract law. However unlike Debbie I actually failed it three times and then got kicked out of uni. I ended up studying poetry instead. I asked her how it felt to be admitted to the bar. Oh it was good. It was whispered in my ear that two people weren't going to get admitted and they were worried that it might have been me and I was like, oh whatever, that'll just be another fight I don't care. Because that was the whole point. If I didn't get admitted it's like you just want to keep saying we get a prison to be rehabilitated. Well I want to know when I'm so called rehabilitate. You want to use that language at me then prove it. So that was the thing but it wasn't me. So yeah that was great. It was yeah it was awesome. I had a lot of support and done a lot of work you know like and been moving forward and it was time that the system actually opened its door to say well okay we keep saying rehabilitation we've actually got to walk out talking this small instance. I optimistically asked Debbie about rehabilitation. Surely I think this is where prisons are failing. Well I believe in rehabilitation. Right now I feel a little bit silly. I refuse to agree that making women girls hyper-responsible for how their lives are when the state is absolutely responsible you know the invasion of this country the stolen land not providing affordable housing or any other services that women need to survive in the free world and then if they are criminalised and imprisoned that then they become hyper-responsible to fix that up and if you can't fix it up then you're never going to fix it up so you're not that ongoing failure and take full responsibility of that and just it actually like is more layers at trauma because you can't get it done. No matter how hard you try because you don't have the resources because the state hasn't provided the resources. I ask what the solution is then. I'm expecting something about better rehabilitation programs in the jails but again I'm left feeling very naive. If you don't give back land to Aboriginal people if you don't have a house you know if we don't have all these things so your little pissy program that your little psych developed it don't mean nothing they can come they can go these programs they really don't matter. So the system doesn't work the system is broken. People say that I think the system works fucking brilliantly because the way that it's been established and maintained and propped up and it's not accountable and it's not transparent and they just can say the cops can say prison can say at any time we're going on strike unless you give us more money and the state responds and billions and billions of dollars are poured down the throat of all these policing and punishment models without any ounce of accountability or transparency. Toby here is describing the prison industrial complex the structures and systems that act to control, surveil, police and imprisoned people and as she warns the prison industrial complex is growing because corporations make good money out of people being criminalized and imprisoned. They investigate themselves black dissing custody anything that happens they investigate themselves well we know what the answer is going to be they done nothing wrong pat on the head and off you go. Now I'm not suggesting that people need to be held accountable and criminalized in prison because I'm a prison abolitionist but that's where it gets very blurry around a conversation about we want justice. So people once again because of the subconscious landscape thinking of prison all the time justice actually means prison where justice for me doesn't mean prison and so we've got to find other models of justice we keep saying we want justice we want justice we want justice it is a legal system is not a justice system if you want justice you do not enter the doors of the cop station or the courthouse. So what does justice mean to her? Justice for me looks like where we can actually have a community where we address violence in that community to reduce the violence and to be able to have conversations about that and how we deal with the violence that's in our community. I ask why there are such high rates of reoffending in released prisoners but immediately realise I've asked her the wrong question. Well people get re-criminalized I don't call it reoffending because that once again is taking on the prison's industrial complex's language about that we are responsible for our own criminalization we are criminalized because of the way that laws are enacted and why they're enacted so begging never used to be a crime it's a crime now you know being homeless being on the street colliding with police you get criminalized in prison but people say it's your fault like in prison you'll be given you know could be given ten phone numbers to ring and find accommodation if you can't find the accommodation eyes the individual feel just smashed because I'm hyper-responsible because I can't find myself at home and it's my fault where the reality is it's a state's fault they have not provided enough accommodation but it's about how it's flipped so when we say someone's released and what's the recidivist rate or they reoffend it's actually people come out of prison you know why didn't they do the programs in prison or if they did the programs quote in prison why haven't they rehabilitate themselves it seems pretty clear to me then the people are being set up to fail you know I use the analogy is that we all know that drinking eight glasses awarded a day is really good for us have you drank eight glasses of water today no one I think I've drunk a couple but I mean but we expect women to do backflips in their lives in a short period of time when we can't even stick to one rule of eight glasses of water a day you know so yeah go figure so stop blaming women at the crux of her argument Debbie doesn't believe in jails she spent a lot of time in them herself and she's seen firsthand the damage they do to families and also their ineffectiveness in either preventing crime or helping people's lives to move in different directions Debbie herself admits that prison abolition is not something she expects to see in her own lifetime though ironically during the first wave of the covid pandemic there was a brief decrease in incarceration rates when they avoided imprisoning women who were waiting for court hearings in an attempt to lower the risk of covid being brought into jails not that Debbie thinks covid is in any way positive of course it's being used to stigmatize again and bolster up again and stir up again the racism in this country against people of color you know black people African people poor people and now more recently black women young women thanks to covid this is actually our second attempt at an interview with Debbie a week earlier I'd come down with a cold the same day that my producer Errin had been informed that she'd visited a cafe that had had a confirmed case so it had to call it all off speaking of covid neta rewalks in at this point which is timely considering that she and Debbie was some of the earliest cases of covid in Queensland though I beat them in that race I was the 15th they contracted the virus after sharing a flight with pddotten the minister for affairs and we're not suggesting anything at all by that statement yeah that's our claim to say neta rewalks been with the organisation for 10 years now and is almost as busy as Debbie not to mention being mom to a gorgeous three-year-old straight up she talks about the success of the various program she runs, particularly the cultural healing program for young women. Every holiday we have a cultural healing camp and we invite girls to come and it's a very specific designed program to support the girls and to do healing work and to teach and to do all the things that are beneficial for self-esteem, cultural connection, healing and understanding generational trauma. And that's what it's based around is actually understanding what that is and unpacking that so they can learn why they ended up where they are and that it's not their fault at all. It's actually what's happened before them and around them and to them. There's cultural aspects of it where we do like traditional weaving, so many different things. Put together specifically and designed specifically for them to move through whatever it is that they need to and to learn and heal and every single girl that's been on those camps has not entered back into prison. That's a really impressive outcome. I'm feeling pretty in awe of Nutterie, so I'm delighted when she says she's nervous. This seems to be a recurring theme in this episode. However, I'm disappointed to learn that she's not nervous about my commandeering presence and my biting interview questions, but about an appointment she has with her dentist. Nutterie Marbo is an activist and artist and you guessed it is also the renowned Landrights activist Eddie Marbo's granddaughter. Seeing as she has to leave soon, I decide to launch straight into talking about race. Debbie and I are both white, but all of us are parents to black kids and particularly in light of the recent Black Lives Matter events, protecting our kids from racism and racial profiling from the police is paramount in all our thoughts. Yeah, it's difficult, I think, because of the racism and I think it's more difficult as being a white mother of Aboriginal children. So that's struggle that I've had with all my life having Aboriginal and South Seattle children and in regards to their safety because I've always had a position of privilege because I am white and they haven't. So seeing that struggle is really gut wrenching and heartbreaking. And I think even now again with Pipee, my granddaughter, Nutterie's daughter, you know, coming back from Kindie just up the road there the other day saying that she wanted to be grey and doesn't want to be black and she's three and so it started and that was one of the things that we wanted to protect her from. But I mean, we physically can't protect her or anyone else from the racism and the harm that that's going to bring and that's a sense of absolute powerlessness that I feel and, you know, Nutterie can't talk about how she feels but I mean I just get really angry, really disturbed, really traumatized and want to go on the attack but I'm trying to find other ways as well and what Black Lives Matter has, I suppose, given us as a springboard in a way, in a point of time of history that the agenda is fair and square there right before our faces. Nutterie is nodding so badly next to her. You think that you do all the right things that's going to protect your children. Before she was born I made sure that every book that was going to be on her shelves, we're going to have Black characters that were going to be centered around Black people and Black dolls, Black everything to make sure that she felt like that she was the centre of the universe. She was, you know, she was represented everywhere she could see. She was everything but, yeah, she's only three years old and that experience already is like happening and her not feeling, like not liking her eye colour because they're not blue and not and which is crazy because she's only three years old and she's already, we've already had to like talk about skin colour and get her to be proud of that even though she is surrounded by so many people that are pro-Black, you know, and supportive so it was really really hard and I was thinking, yeah, maybe I'm going to have to deal with it when she's like, it's to school but it already happened and I was so devastated and it was all around the Black Lives Matter movement too. Everything that was happening, it was like very traumatic. It was just hard. In our planning for this episode the State Library has noted the lack of Black Lives Matter content in their collection. So I'm glad this episode will at least make a start in addressing the need to fill that gap. Netarees feelings about the movement are mixed. It felt like we've been fighting for our lives forever for my whole life. Now people are talking about it. The March was great and everybody came to support but then then following it was like, oh no one cares again and that was really really disappointing and like traumatising as well because it was, well, it's only because it was a trend or because it was happening there in America that it's like something that people here are going to worry about and no one really cared that the day of and the day after those numbers had changed, how many Black deaths and custody there were. No one cared and it just, it's terrifying and sad to think that my daughter is going to grow in a world that's still going to be like this and no one, you know, if it's trending she's got a matter and that's it. Indigenous people are disproportionately represented in Australian prisons and sisters inside puts a large focus on this particularly through the programs they run with Indigenous inmates. I think it's pretty well known it's just under 35% of people in our prisons across the country are Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander and you know I think the general population of First Nations people is about 3% so we criminalise and imprison Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people at a much greater rate and that comes fundamentally from the invasion of this country and the ongoing genocide. Project of the state so we're Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people that pipeline into into many castles mechanisms and finally the last one being the prison system. The disproportionate amount of black people in custody is due at least in part to racial profiling which as Netta Rediscribes starts very young. Young women that raise support and you know walk with every single day and they talk about their experience not long ago one day they counted how many times that they were pulled up by the cops to do a street check it was over 10 times and they were just like hanging out in the city and doing nothing nothing wrong just what other kids their age would be doing. Shopping while black yeah being a public space while black and one of the girls were sleeping over the other girls and they had like some stuff in their bag and then they had to were asked to prove that that was their stuff like is this what my daughter's going to have to experience when she goes shopping it scares me. Speaking of scared, Netta Rediscri pops out briefly to take something to calm her down before the dentist. I sit nervously with Debbie quietly sipping my water. When she returns I ask her about when she first met Debbie. She was very scary and I first met her. What do you think of Deb now? She's like a second mother to me my chosen mum. Yeah she's not just my boss she's lots of things. I think I probably wouldn't be here obviously if it wasn't her but I mean like I don't think that I would life could have been a little bit different without her and without her saying come and work and do admin with me for a second. Netta Redis life has actually been pretty damn impressive so far as well as working as sisters she's got a degree is an acclaimed artist and she even designed the commemorative 50 cent piece for the 25th anniversary of the Marbo High Court decision. How cool is that? I ask her whether she described Debbie as a dangerous woman. Yeah of course absolutely. She makes lots of scary people cow in a good way but I think that's through her honesty and her transparency and her integrity and I think that not many people are like that and so I think that's what people fear the most and makes her dangerous. Netta Redis stands up to go to the dentist with a look of terror on her face so I quickly squeeze in asking Debbie whether she thinks Netta Redis a dangerous woman so she can hear the answer just before she leaves. Yeah I would describe Netta Redis a dangerous woman like she challenges and every day more and more challenges the status quo which is wonderful and with Netta Redis and her voice now and people are listening so in her role and coming into her own as a strong black woman people are listening and being challenged with what she's actually saying and can hear her so she's not a black woman that's been pushed to the margins like the power usually does to watch Netta Redi grow into that and own that to be a dangerous woman has been very powerful and beautiful to see and experience alongside her. On that happy note, Netta Redis skulks off to visit the dentist and Debbie and I are left alone other than Erin of course who's lurking in the corner eavesdropping on us through her giant headphones. I asked Debbie how she feels about being called a dangerous woman. I suppose what I was thinking is that I think there's lots of dangerous women I'm not the only one and so when all of us are dangerous women joined together the impact that we can make would be so powerful so no I'm happy to be a dangerous woman and I'll continue to be a dangerous woman in that context for sure and I ain't taking a step back. - Never. - Never. (laughing) Debbie's gonna get going herself in a minute to go pick up Nettoree's daughter. So just before she goes, I try one more time for a sentimental way she kind of comment to end this podcast on. I ask her what she's most proud of in her life. But in typical DK style, she doesn't give me what I want. - I don't know, I don't think in that way that I'm proud of something that I'm done 'cause that's very individualized for me. So I don't actually know what the answer is 'cause I don't think like that what I'm proud of. I do what I do for the women that I'm here for. So to think about am I proud of something, I don't even know how to answer that question, to be honest. - Debbie's life exhausts me. The ridiculously busy schedule, the tireless work, the constant never-ending struggle, and the amount of different balls she has up in the air at any one point. - I used to knit in a crotch and prison, I don't need to knit in a crotch right here. - But a life also inspires me. Not in the virtuous and slightly incippered way that you might expect, that you can achieve a lot from nothing and to never give up on yourself. Now, mostly Debbie inspires me to be less afraid, to be less deferential to power, to be bold enough to disagree, to push my point further when I feel it's not being heard, but most importantly, to speak to those who hold the power confidently, as they're equals. Not that I've quite managed that today. I've been a total imp, really. I tell Debbie how impressed I was, watching a video of her bowling up to a politician at a meeting great drinks event, enouring his ear off about prison reform. - Yeah, well, they invited these things, and make it that they're events to allow you to have access to talk. 'Cause like, well, I actually want to talk to you. So, I can talk, don't invite me here, if you think I'm just gonna sit here and drink your piss and not have a conversation. I'm not here for just to drink the piss. I'm here to actually have a conversation with you. - Talking with Debbie today has reminded me that we are all equals, or at least we should be, whether we're a doctor or whether we're a drug dealer, whether we're a white man and a wig, or a black woman with seven kids, whether we wear a suit or have bare feet, whether we're behind bars, or walking freely down the street. Debbie rushes off to pick up Pipey, because she views as her granddaughter. And I walk down the steps of sisters inside, feeling relieved at being back outside. I've survived interviewing the great Debbie Kilroy without being eaten alive. I've learned a lot from Debbie today, and although I generally think of myself as a pretty progressive thinker, at times she's made me feel damn right conservative. I don't know if I can quite envisage a world without prisons the way that Debbie does, but while she doesn't necessarily say she has all the answers, like a true dangerous woman, she definitely asks the right questions. This is our last interview for the Dangerous Women series, and I can't help but think that the last thing Debbie said to me before she raced out should be a rallying call, not just to myself, but to all women listening. Well, we've got to where we are now, because of a number of dangerous women. There's lots of dangerous women, not just one. The other four dangerous women you've got in this series comes at very different walks of life that have opened up many other areas for women for decades. But we need more dangerous women and to scare the shit out of patriarchy. The State Library of Queensland would like to acknowledge the traditional custodians of the many lands this series was recorded and produced on, including the nations of Yugara, Turribu, Yugambaya, Jinnibara, Bidjara, Yiddungi, Iracanjee, and The Gottable. This episode was recorded and produced by Aaron McVeane, sound designed by Patty Pries, and mixed by Simon Birkleman. 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