Latest / 360 with Katie Woolf / Music NT's Shauna Upton says they'll be using a grant from the Government to create safer spaces for violence prevention

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Music NT's Shauna Upton says they'll be using a grant from the Government to create safer spaces for violence prevention · 360 with Katie Woolf

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  Speaker 1: But late yesterday it was announced that the Northern Territory
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  Speaker 1: Government have announced the recipients of their Safe, Respected and
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  Speaker 1: Free from Violence primary Prevention grants. Now the latest single
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  Speaker 1: grants investment for violence prevention in the Northern Territory is
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  Speaker 1: what they are. Five point one million dollars is going
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  Speaker 1: to be invested across three years in services to be
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  Speaker 1: delivered by ten successful grant applicants. Now they promote protection
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  Speaker 1: and safety from domestic, family and sexual violence and one
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  Speaker 1: of the recipients of those grants is Music NT to
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  Speaker 1: support it's all good project and here to talk to
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  Speaker 1: us a little bit more about this funding is well
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  Speaker 1: from Music NT Shawna Upton. Good morning to you, Shauna.
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  Speaker 2: Good morning Katie Shawna.
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  Speaker 1: Thanks so much for your time. I think some some
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  Speaker 1: they'd be looking at Music NTA and thinking that they
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  Speaker 1: wouldn't stand out as the most obvious partnership to receive
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  Speaker 1: funding under the banner of violence prevents. Tell us a
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  Speaker 1: little bit about you know what the organization is doing
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  Speaker 1: and how you receive this grant from the Northern Territory Government.
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  Speaker 2: Oh, look, certainly you're not the first person who has
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  Speaker 2: said that, so it's quite a stretch for music and tea.
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  Speaker 2: But I mean in essence, we're trying to create the
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  Speaker 2: safer live music spaces for all so and the safer
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  Speaker 2: our spaces are and the more inclusive our live music
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  Speaker 2: spaces are, the stronger our industry is. So it ties
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  Speaker 2: in intrinsically to what we do as music and teas
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  Speaker 2: the peak body for original music. But what the All
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  Speaker 2: Good Projects does is well at present, it's been going
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  Speaker 2: for about eighteen months. We did receive eighteen months work
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  Speaker 2: of funding and this is an additional three years that
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  Speaker 2: has just been announced. And what we've been doing in
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  Speaker 2: that time is working with live music venues in four
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  Speaker 2: different locations, so Darwin, Alice, Springs, Catherine and Tennant Creek.
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  Speaker 2: And there was a lot of you know, a lot
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  Speaker 2: of research done, a lot of talking on the ground
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  Speaker 2: to musicians, to staff members, to pay trends in the
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  Speaker 2: development process of this, and I've basically created a three
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  Speaker 2: hour workshop where then you stuff will come in and
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  Speaker 2: attend this workshop and we'll give them took all the
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  Speaker 2: information that you feel like they should know, but it's
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  Speaker 2: not covered in RSA at all. So we talk about
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  Speaker 2: things like unconscious bias, what discriminations laws are in the
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  Speaker 2: Northern Territory, the different ways you can step in if
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  Speaker 2: you see something happening, how to respond correctly to sexual violence.
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  Speaker 2: So all of those things that are really important that
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  Speaker 2: staff at license venues are dealing with on quite a
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  Speaker 2: regular basis, but without any kind of prior knowledge of
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  Speaker 2: how to respond correctly. We've also developed a bunch of
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  Speaker 2: promotional material that kind of backs up the changes in
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  Speaker 2: staff actions and sort of puts a bit of onus
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  Speaker 2: back on the patroons as well to a educate them
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  Speaker 2: on what acceptable behaviors sands are and be to sort
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  Speaker 2: of be able to reprimand them if they're not adhering
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  Speaker 2: to that.
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  Speaker 1: Get right, And so Seanna, I suppose you know, to
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  Speaker 1: put it in real lifeman's terms. If you know, if
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  Speaker 1: somebody goes into a venue, you know, and and there
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  Speaker 1: is there is something going on that shouldn't be going on,
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  Speaker 1: or if somebody approaches a staff member who's maybe afraid
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  Speaker 1: that you know, they're suffering from some kind of a
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  Speaker 1: violent situation, is it about educating the staff that are
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  Speaker 1: there to try and help them to deal with that situation.
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  Speaker 2: Exactly right, So it's about educating the staff to kind
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  Speaker 2: of treat everything seriously. So the number one we've got
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  Speaker 2: a very dense policy document for the venues that are
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  Speaker 2: a part of this is the number one thing that
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  Speaker 2: I reiterate staff is absolutely zero tolerance for any form
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  Speaker 2: of harassment or violence. Because essentially what happens if it
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  Speaker 2: can start off with just I mean, I'm sure we've
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  Speaker 2: all seen this, you know, I'm going to really generalize here,
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  Speaker 2: like two blokes for the bar getting it to their
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  Speaker 2: a little bit of grief, and then all of a
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  Speaker 2: sudden that can switch really quickly and become far bigger
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  Speaker 2: deal that it needs to be. Or you know, for
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  Speaker 2: staff members themselves, sometimes seemingly little comments, you know, quite
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  Speaker 2: a few or quite often we get, you know, racist comments.
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  Speaker 2: We have a lot of people from overseas working in
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  Speaker 2: hospitality in the Northern territories, and these seemingly little, sort
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  Speaker 2: of somewhat insignificant comments really start to add up and build,
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  Speaker 2: and so it's about encouraging them to call out any
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  Speaker 2: behavior that doesn't adhere to the guidelines that we've set out,
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  Speaker 2: because that's when we actually start to change culture. Yeah,
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  Speaker 2: if we start to go, look, no, this is like
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  Speaker 2: it's not okay, you can't do them here and to
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  Speaker 2: educate people on why. So essentially, each venue that has
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  Speaker 2: signed up for the All Good Project will have a
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  Speaker 2: decal or sticker that sort of marks them as an
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  Speaker 2: official venue at entry. It's also listed online as well
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  Speaker 2: as that people can kind of check and make an
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  Speaker 2: educated decision about where they want to go. But you
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  Speaker 2: kind of go into those venues knowing that the staff
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  Speaker 2: have received that training and that if you do broach
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  Speaker 2: them with an issue, they will take it seriously and
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  Speaker 2: respond correctly. And on a similar note, as a staff
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  Speaker 2: member working in there, you know that you've got kind
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  Speaker 2: of got the backing of this awareness and this policy
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  Speaker 2: to call out behavior, whether it come from performers or
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  Speaker 2: patrons that doesn't adhere to those standards.
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  Speaker 1: And Seanna, is this a brand new project for music
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  Speaker 1: in Tea or is it something that you've sort of,
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  Speaker 1: I guess loosely been doing already.
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  Speaker 2: Look, we certainly it's brand new. It's brand new from
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  Speaker 2: so you know, eighteen months ago when we received the
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  Speaker 2: first round of funding. But we often would and this
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  Speaker 2: is sort of what what kind of made us think
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  Speaker 2: along these lines, because we would often field a lot
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  Speaker 2: of complaints, mainly from performers obviously with the space we occupy,
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  Speaker 2: about bad behavior towards them and some sometimes a lack
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  Speaker 2: of supports and venues when they did call that out.
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  Speaker 2: And I mean, as a female agentifying person myself, I
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  Speaker 2: know that there's been plenty of times and I have
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  Speaker 2: been harassed in you know, in licensed live music spaces,
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  Speaker 2: and I would like to think and I know most
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  Speaker 2: of my friends, most of my female identifying friends have too,
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  Speaker 2: And you know, i'd like to think that eventually we
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  Speaker 2: get to this point where everyone can go out and
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  Speaker 2: enjoy live music without having to worry about the crowd
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  Speaker 2: and people grabbing them or what they're wearing and all
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  Speaker 2: that kind of stuff, because realistically, music brings people together,
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  Speaker 2: and it's absolutely nonsense that certain groups of people are
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  Speaker 2: made to feel more unsafe in enjoying music.
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  Speaker 1: Sure, how is music and tea going to you know,
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  Speaker 1: going to gauge the success of the program or just
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  Speaker 1: how well it does or doesn't work well.
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  Speaker 2: I mean, there's a couple of different ways. Obviously, awareness
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  Speaker 2: of the program is a big one. It's a lot
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  Speaker 2: about education and the thing with the subjects we're dealing
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  Speaker 2: with even you know, even researchers from universities have trouble gauging,
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  Speaker 2: you know, exact data around things to do with sexual
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  Speaker 2: violence specifically because it is so underreported. So as a
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  Speaker 2: matter of fact, it's a difficult one because it's actually
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  Speaker 2: going to be able to prove we're doing well if
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  Speaker 2: we get more report. Yeah, because people don't report. So
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  Speaker 2: we want people to actually be calling out this behavior
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  Speaker 2: and speaking ideally. We don't want to like they can
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  Speaker 2: come to music and Team let us know. And certainly
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  Speaker 2: there is some guidelines around that if a venue has
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  Speaker 2: says they're an all good venue and they haven't done
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  Speaker 2: the right thing. But we actually want to get to
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  Speaker 2: the point by the end of this three funding period
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  Speaker 2: where we're not having to be that middleman where people
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  Speaker 2: feel empowered to actually go to the venue management and
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  Speaker 2: know that will be handled correctly. And we also are
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  Speaker 2: asking participating venues to submit just sort of a monthly
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  Speaker 2: stats around how many issues they have had. We can
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  Speaker 2: see trends, we can see, you know, we notice different
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  Speaker 2: trends and drive season this is top and specific drive
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  Speaker 2: season and wet season and things like that. But also
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  Speaker 2: act as a bit of a conduit to share that
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  Speaker 2: information amongst venues because there isn't really one specific body.
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  Speaker 2: You've got hospitality and t but not every venue is
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  Speaker 2: signed up to that. They don't have to be that's
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  Speaker 2: that's something that they pay and choose to do. And
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  Speaker 2: what we've found, like in the past is, you know,
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  Speaker 2: you get a group of travelers coming through and then
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  Speaker 2: all of a sudden, we have you know, specific drugs
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  Speaker 2: being used a little bit more or whatever it might be,
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  Speaker 2: and the venue. Some venues know that this is happening,
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  Speaker 2: other venues don't, and it's really powerful for everyone to
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  Speaker 2: be able to share that information and it benefits the
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  Speaker 2: industry as a whole. So that's some of the ways
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  Speaker 2: it's hard to kind of get specific stats. Yeah about yep,
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  Speaker 2: we know that we want to reduce it by these
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  Speaker 2: much percent because realistically, if the program is working, we
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  Speaker 2: will actually see a spike in reporting because people will
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  Speaker 2: feel more empowered to be able to call out that
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  Speaker 2: behavior and speak about that. But eventually, after you know,
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  Speaker 2: the first eighteen months, we kind of want to see
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  Speaker 2: that spike, and then we hope that kind of panders
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  Speaker 2: out a little bit as people's behavior begins to change.
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  Speaker 2: We are looking at cultural change here, so it's not
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  Speaker 2: going to happen overnight. Yeah.
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  Speaker 1: Well, Sewna, we really appreciate your time this morning. Like
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  Speaker 1: I said in that intro, you know, when i'd first
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  Speaker 1: sort of heard that the Northern Territory government had announced
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  Speaker 1: the recipients of the grants, I was surprised when it
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  Speaker 1: was music into But now that when you've explained it
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  Speaker 1: to us, you go, oh, yeah, that actually makes sense.
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  Speaker 1: But yeah, it's really interesting and I think that, Yeah,
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  Speaker 1: I do hope that we wind up in a situation
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  Speaker 1: where if people are feeling unsafe, where they do feel
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  Speaker 1: you know, safe enough to be able to make sure
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  Speaker 1: that they are reporting it and you know, reporting it
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  Speaker 1: to you guys as well. But with this all good project,
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  Speaker 1: it does sound like it's sort of make things a
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  Speaker 1: bit easier hopefully.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah. Well, also, you know, it provides it empowers staff
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  Speaker 2: to be able to handle situations correctly, and it also
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  Speaker 2: empowers patrons and performers to speak up. That's what we're
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  Speaker 2: trying to do here, and I'm very determined to do
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  Speaker 2: that over the next three years.
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  Speaker 1: Shauna, thanks so much for having a chat to us today.
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  Speaker 1: I really appreciate
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  Speaker 2: It, no worries, thank thank you,