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Transcript

When Being Recorded Is the ‘Real Crime’. · The Slippery Slope

• 0:00
  The case involving the Bankstown hospital nurses just keeps
• 0:04
  getting more ridiculous. The first, the drug charges.
• 0:09
  Drug possession charges against Ahmad Rashad Nadir.
• 0:15
  If that's how you pronounce his name, I hope so.
• 0:18
  These drug possession charges have been dismissed.
• 0:21
  Now the judge has ruled that the video evidence showing anti
• 0:26
  Semitic behaviour, the very footage that sparked the entire
• 0:30
  investigation, cannot be used in court.
• 0:33
  Not because the behaviour didn't happen, not because the video is
• 0:36
  faking, not because the evidence is unreliable, but because they
• 0:41
  didn't know they were being recorded.
• 0:44
  Go figure. I'm Jay Fallon.
• 0:46
  This is the Slippery slope podcast.
• 0:58
  OK, so let's start with the drug charges.
• 1:01
  So according to the article, Nadir's drug possession charge
• 1:05
  was dismissed because the magistrate found no reasonable
• 1:09
  prospect of conviction. So not because the drugs didn't
• 1:13
  exist, not because the police fabricated evidence, not because
• 1:16
  the situation was misunderstood, just no reasonable prospect of
• 1:20
  conviction. So translation, in my opinion,
• 1:25
  is a technicality, A procedural weakness, a loophole.
• 1:30
  This is becoming a pattern here in Australia, not because not
• 1:34
  just in this case, but across the justice system we're we're
• 1:39
  not dealing with innocence, we're dealing with charges
• 1:44
  evaporating because the system can't be bothered to pursue them
• 1:49
  properly. But the real circus begins with
• 1:53
  the video evidence when it comes to the Bankstown nurses.
• 1:58
  In this, the judges said, I'll quote what the judge said.
• 2:02
  I've come to the firm view that the video evidence must be
• 2:06
  excluded from each of the trials of the applicants.
• 2:10
  Again, not because the footage is unclear, not because the
• 2:13
  behaviour didn't occur. Not because the video is
• 2:18
  doctored. No, because the nurses were
• 2:21
  recorded without their consent. The lawyers argued successfully
• 2:26
  that being filmed in a hospital while on duty, remember that
• 2:31
  that's important while on duty. They were filmed in hospital
• 2:35
  while on duty, amounted to an illegal invasion of privacy.
• 2:41
  So let me get this straight. You can behave in a way that is
• 2:45
  offensive, discriminatory, completely inappropriate for a
• 2:51
  healthcare professional, completely inappropriate for a
• 2:54
  workplace in a government funded hospital.
• 2:58
  You can record yourself doing it, you can share it, you can be
• 3:02
  caught red handed. But the problem, the real
• 3:05
  problem, the real injustice is that you didn't know someone,
• 3:09
  someone else was recording you. This is the legal equivalent of
• 3:14
  saying, yeah, I stole the car, but the CCTV footage shouldn't
• 3:20
  be allowed because I didn't know the camera was there.
• 3:24
  Yeah, yeah, I stole that item, but I didn't realise those
• 3:27
  cameras in the corner of the shop were there recording me.
• 3:30
  Yeah, I assaulted someone, but the security guard or the police
• 3:33
  officer who arrested me shouldn't have filmed it without
• 3:36
  my permission. Yeah, yeah, I committed this
• 3:39
  crime. But it's unfair that you caught
• 3:41
  me, that's all. This isn't justice.
• 3:47
  This is absurdity. This privacy argument is a
• 3:54
  smokescreen. These nurses weren't filmed in
• 3:58
  their home. These nurses, they weren't
• 4:03
  filmed in, you know, the privacy of their bedroom.
• 4:06
  They weren't filmed in a bathroom.
• 4:09
  They were filmed in a hospital while on duty in a public
• 4:13
  workplace, surrounded by patients representing NSW
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  Health, representing the public. A hospital is one of the most
• 4:24
  monitored environments in society.
• 4:27
  You've got cameras everywhere, security everywhere,
• 4:31
  accountability supposedly everywhere.
• 4:34
  If you want privacy, you don't work in a hospital.
• 4:40
  You, you don't film yourself making offensive comments and
• 4:44
  you definitely don't share it. But now we're supposed to
• 4:49
  believe they're victims of an illegal, an illegal invasion of
• 4:54
  privacy? No, they're victims of their own
• 4:58
  behaviour. They're victims of their own
• 5:01
  stupidity. They're victims.
• 5:04
  Victims of their own disgusting, disgusting behaviour, Their own
• 5:13
  hubris. The justice system is bending
• 5:17
  over backward, trying to protect people like this from
• 5:23
  consequences, trying to protect these two clowns from
• 5:27
  consequences. The truth is, these nurses
• 5:31
  aren't upset because they were wrongly accused.
• 5:34
  They're upset because they got caught.
• 5:37
  They're upset because people can see them for who they really
• 5:41
  are. People who are filled with hate.
• 5:45
  People who hate for no real reason.
• 5:50
  People who spread anti semitic trope and go along with this
• 5:56
  narrative. Not because they really
• 5:58
  understand it, because that's just what they believe.
• 6:01
  They don't really love this country.
• 6:03
  They don't really want peace. They don't stand for peace.
• 6:07
  They don't want harmony. They are filled with hatred.
• 6:11
  They're upset because they got caught and people can see them
• 6:15
  as being people who are just hate filled hate mongers.
• 6:22
  They're not arguing innocence, they're arguing privacy.
• 6:27
  They're not saying the behaviour didn't happen, they're saying
• 6:30
  the evidence shouldn't be allowed.
• 6:32
  This is not justice. This it's it's not.
• 6:35
  It's not fairness, it's not due process.
• 6:39
  This is the justice system in Australia these days, the
• 6:43
  justice system protecting people from the consequences of their
• 6:46
  own behaviour, their own actions.
• 6:50
  We are the ultimate nanny state. It sends a very clear message if
• 6:56
  you behave badly, if you behave stupidly, just make sure you
• 7:02
  didn't know you're being recorded.
• 7:04
  It's a loophole. It's a shield.
• 7:07
  It's this technicality masquerading as a moral
• 7:10
  principle. You this is the slippery slope.
• 7:19
  You get people behaving badly, they get caught on video.
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  They claim privacy. Courts exclude the evidence.
• 7:29
  Charges disappear. Institutions avoid
• 7:33
  accountability and the public loses trust in the justice
• 7:37
  system, which I have said numerous times, this is what's
• 7:40
  happening. The public is losing trust,
• 7:43
  losing faith in the justice system and in the political
• 7:47
  system. We're watching the erosion of
• 7:51
  accountability in real time in Australia and it's happening
• 7:56
  because the system is more concerned with protecting
• 8:00
  offenders from embarrassment than it is with protecting the
• 8:06
  public from misconduct, from abhorrent behaviour and from
• 8:13
  just what's actual stupidity. The video evidence shows what it
• 8:20
  shows, the BA the behaviour happened, the consequences
• 8:24
  should follow. But instead, the justice system,
• 8:27
  our justice system, has decided that being caught red handed is
• 8:32
  unfair because the offenders didn't know they were being
• 8:36
  recorded. This isn't justice.
• 8:39
  This is a loophole. This is a shield.
• 8:42
  This is a system bending to protect the guilty.
• 8:45
  Instead of confronting the truth because no one wants to know
• 8:51
  what is truth, we would all rather bury our head in the sand
• 8:57
  and pretend that everything is all right in this once great
• 9:01
  nation. This is exactly why we need
• 9:06
  across our political stratosphere, across our our
• 9:13
  publicly funded bureaucratic systems.
• 9:18
  This is why we need transparency, we need greater
• 9:22
  accountability, and we need moral courage.
• 9:26
  Because without without those things, without these things,
• 9:30
  our institutions will continue sliding down the slippery slope.
• 9:34
  Of course, this is all just my opinion.
• 9:36
  OK, I'm still Jay Fallon and this is the Slippery Slope
• 9:41
  podcast and thank you for listening They.