233. From the Frontlines: An Inside Look at the Cronulla Race Riots with Carl Scully and Mark Goodwin - Part 1

Join us as we commemorate the 19th anniversary of the Cronulla Riots with Carl Scully, former New South Wales Police Minister, and Mark Goodwin, former Deputy Chief Commissioner, who unravel the complexities and misinformation surrounding this historical event.

Why is Cronulla unfairly labeled the epicenter of racial tension in Australia, and should these events be called riots at all? Our guests offer a fresh perspective, challenging misconceptions and the media's sensational headlines, and providing insight into the societal and psychological factors at play.

Discover how media narratives and text messaging played a pivotal role in escalating tensions and shaping public perception of the riots. We scrutinise the media's penchant for focusing on racism and tribalism while glossing over the nuanced reality of these events.

Carl and Mark provide a comprehensive overview of the media’s responsibility and how its portrayal has both fueled and distorted public understanding of the Cronulla incidents. Our conversation sheds light on the broader context, urging listeners to consider the complexities of human behaviour and cultural dynamics.

Our journey with Carl and Mark also offers invaluable lessons in leadership and crisis management. Reflecting on their experiences during the riots, they share strategies for navigating challenges and guiding teams through turbulent times, emphasising the role of effective leadership in mitigating conflict.

As we conclude this first installment of our two-part series, we invite you to explore these insights and their impact, setting the stage for the next episode where the discussion on leadership and social media influence continues.

🌐 Connect with Carl:
• Website: CarlScully.com.au
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/hon-carl-scully
• Email: carl@carlscully.com.au

📚 You can purchase Carl and Mark’s book on his website: https://carlscully.com.au/book-the-cronulla-riots/

Don't miss the Melbourne launch of THE CRONULLA RIOTS with Carl Scully, Mark Goodwin, and Tony Thomas! 🎉
📅 Date: Tue 18 Feb 2025 6:00 PM - 8:00 PM AEDT
📍 Location: Il Gambero, 166 Lygon St,

Exploring Workplace Mental Health with Dr. Bill Howatt
Learn the why, what and how of fostering a mentally healthy workplace with Dr Bill Howatt

Chapters

• 0:02 The Cronulla Riots
• 14:31 Media and Misconceptions in Australia
• 18:19 Media Responsibility in Cronulla Beach
• 24:12 [Ad] Exploring Workplace Mental Health with Dr. Bill Howatt
• 25:02 (Cont.) Media Responsibility in Cronulla Beach
• 30:00 The Manipulation of Media Narratives
• 33:51 Tribalism and Antisocial Behavior
• 47:00 Leadership Lessons From Cronulla Beach

Transcript

Mick Spiers: 0:02

Have you ever seen a sensational event on the news and wondered what really happened behind the scenes? Have you considered the human behavior that drives public uprisings and insurrections, and what would you do if you were the leader on the ground during a crisis, one that had the potential to escalate into something much worse. Today, I'm joined by former New South Wales Police Minister Carl Scully and former Deputy Chief Commissioner Mark Goodwin. Carl and Mark were the leaders on the ground during the infamous Cronulla riots of 2005 and we're giving them the chance to clear the air about what really happened on that day. We'll explore the psychology behind the human behavior on display, as well as the leadership lessons they learned from this life changing event. Enjoy part one of this two part series. Hey everyone, and welcome back to The Leadership Project. I'm greatly honored today to be joined by two special guests, Carl Scully and Mark Goodwin. We're commemorating today. It's hard to find the right word, but we're commemorating today the 19th anniversary of an event that happened in Australia that was very much flamed in the media and talked about for many years afterwards, and it was called The Cronulla Race Riot. And we're going to hear from Carl and Mark, who were as close to the action as you possibly could about the inside story about what really happened on that day, and to celebrate their book, which has just been released, called The Cronulla Riots, the inside story, and it is an interesting story. Now, to put this in context, who is Carl and who is Mark? Well, Carl has had a celebrated political career in Australia, and at the time of the Cronulla riots, he was the Police Minister, and for Mark, he was the assistant police commissioner, but he was also the police officer in charge on the day at the event, leading all of those police officers into danger in terms of what was needed to happen to quell what was potentially going to be quite an uprising. Now there's quite a lot to this story, and for our international audience, you may not be aware of this, but have a listen to the words I used, Cronulla Race Riot. So this event happened on the 11th of December, 2005 and it started on Cronulla beach, and it started as a territorial battle between people from different suburbs and different ethnicities battling over, let's say, the occupation of one beach, the way it was then reported, then inflamed based around race or based around all kinds of things that were not necessarily what really happened, and that's what we're going to explore today. We're going to give Carl and Mark the opportunity to clear the air from the inside story about what really happened and whether it truly matches the way it was reported, not only on the day, but in the months and the years afterwards. So without any further ado, Karl and Mark, I'm going to come to you first here, Carl, I want to give you the opportunity to hit this first one right on the head. You talk about three misnomers associated with the way that this event is even labeled. Tell us about the misnomers.

Carl Scully: 3:37

So firstly, it's always named as having occurred at Cronulla, because in a sense, that's where it started, but with the revenge attacks they emanated from places like punch bowl and lakembra in southwestern Sydney, and in convoys of cars spread out and the riots that followed the initial event on Cronulla beach happened at Bright mass sands at uncliffed all aware Maroubra outside the mosque in Lakemba. So it was across Sydney, and the fear was right across Sydney. So we say it's a misnomer to call it Cronulla, a riot in Paris about three weeks before that happened in a suburb and spread across Paris is called the Paris riots of 2005 now the racism is there's no doubt. There were 1000s of text messages sent by both sides in this conflict, and they were both deeply racist in flavor. And so we say two essential things. If it was racist from pranala end, then it was also racist from lakembas end, because when you look at the young Lebanese men who sent 1000s of text messages out, they were just as unacceptably vile as those sent out by almost white supremacists. Pretending to be locals, and some were locals, so we challenged that, but we also challenged the notion that it was a racist event, because it went away, it never came back. And so a lot of the people we interviewed put the view, and there's sociological research to back this up, that it was racially badged to corral the tribes into a conflict that was caused and inspired by other things. And of course, then the whether or not it's right was another matter, but they're the essential ingredients what we're putting in the book.

Mick Spiers: 5:39

Yeah, really interesting, Carl. So I've got to say that stigma sticks today, that people still think of Cronulla and the Shire and sometimes, whether it's bra boys or other things come to people's mind. That is today.

Carl Scully: 5:57

Is the challenge, Mick. Anyone of your audience living anywhere in the world, whether they're Aussies or not, whether they've been to Australia or not, or if they remember this time or not, just Google the Cronulla riots, and the only video, graphic and photographic evidence anyone will get is 5000 people allegedly rampaging around Cronulla, looking for Arabic people to assault them. And what, in fact, happened was two or 300 misbehaved and did do some awful despicable things over about six or seven hours that editors have spliced together into a few minutes of TV coverage, and that's all you get. So we found social commentators and academics and students now wanting to know even people who might be more informed on this than you'd think it is overpowering in terms of presenting a truth to anyone wanting to learn about it. And when you look at the front page of our book, that was the only photograph of about half of hundreds of photographs of the day that actually showed what happened for 95% of the time, police looking at the crowd, looking at each other, and a number of people looking at some sprookers. And so we say, what's what was really going on here. It's not as it's been reported. There was much more going on in the revenge so Marx probably better placed because he was directly in the line of the intelligence and the activity, but the activities in the revenge attacks were, once again, two or 300 people committing quite violent acts. And so we say two or 300 out of 10s of 1000s of people living at Cronulla does not make a racist Creole. Two or 300 violent criminals in Lake EMBA doesn't make for a racist look. Ember, and so it's only a few 100 people. Mick, but it's got this video, graphic and photograph record that presents a truth of inebriated, organic white trash from the Sutherland Shire. And we wanted to out that it's simply not the truth. But if you Google it, you get presented a truth that's almost impossible to overwhelm with the evidence of what actually happened, and that's what Mark and I have tried to do, to leaven the record with the evidence and the facts of what actually occurred, and then to question it. It was only a few 100 people behaving despicably, then what was really going on and why has it never happened again? That's probably a good cue for for Mark to come in at that point think.

Mick Spiers: 8:48

Yeah, yeah. I'd like to hear your view on the same Mark. What's your perspective?

Mark Goodwin: 8:54

Look, I agree with Carl it. It is a it was an issue that was there was such a beat up by the media in the lead up to it, to be honest, it was actually it was, it started with the an assault on the lifeguards at Cronulla beach by some young Arabic Muslim men that were at the beach down there. That was the spark point for it. But of course, there'd been a lot of build up to that, and there'd been lots of reports of intimidation, the behavior down there that was very problematic. And the people of crenala had basically had it now, and there's always this issue where there's tribes and competing tribes when a flash point, if you like, occurs. So that's what did occur. But the media took that to the next level. To be honest with you, it was a nastiest, it was a common a sovereign beach, and then next minute, it was who'd stolen the sons of Anzacs. And then the life savers who saved you a life on the beach or summer have been assaulted by the Muslim Arabs. And I think at that time, you've got to remember that these were the era where there was the 911 attacks and Bali bombings. And that's. Sorts of things. So they're feeding off that in the back of that, the media had a build day in the lead up to Christmas, as the media often do, it's like, who's the Grinch that stole Christmas this year and that the massive media beat up to it then caused a hundreds of 1000s of text messages to be circulated calling for a reclaim the beach protest, and some of them quite nasty and inflammatory and racial, and the media fed off that the media broadcast those, and whole thing just got out of control as far as media coverage, and I've never seen anything like it, to be honest with you, in my entire police service. Then that led to an expectation on the day that that the media were going to have a story to tell. And every journalist, I think, in Sydney was there on the date, literally looking for something to record. And the looks on their faces, but half to two thirds to wait through the day was powerful, because they had nothing. And in actual fact, as Carl said, the photo on their front of our book is what the date mostly looked like it was the cops looking at the rubber neckers who were most of the crowd, and those rubber neckers looking at a few sprookers in the crowd, which were not from the Coronavirus area or the Sutherland shower at all. They were white supremacists. They turned up in great big jacked up Utes with Eureka Stockade flags in the windows and popped out, and they're wearing red, white and blue stars and striped bandanas on their heads, certainly not the beach wear that you would normally see at Cruella. And they're in the crowd and they're spooking, and they're chanting, and they're starting chants in the crowd, and of course, that then started the camera work. And as the day wore on and the alcohol wore on. Stupidly, a lot of young people got involved and sucked up into this nonsense. But I think I counted that over there, over a period of about a seven or eight hour day, I think there was nine scuffle incidents that occurred, and yes, look, some of them were nasty, but police were all over it. They were over in literally seconds or minutes is formed over by police, has stopped, so that then provided fantastic footage to be as Carlos already indicated, strung together in quick succession by editors, he's back at the newsroom. And then that then made it certainly look like with excited news reader voiceover, Matt, looked like that entire 5000 strong crowd carried on like that all day long, which is we talk about fake news from America, but as we watched the news that night, that was fake news, and it certainly real footage and real events that actually took place, but the way it was presented was quite misleading. And of course, then that was watched by the young Arabic Muslim community, who became so enraged with what they'd seen in a way to be presented, that we then experienced these revenge attacks right across Sydney, and they were went on for numerous nights, and in fact, it followed on for weeks, if not months, of intelligence that we had to deal with of possible incidents that were going to occur, and some of them we've revealed in the book, which are extreme risk intelligence events, which you'll probably talk about that bit later. But So and of course, but there's no footage whatsoever, because the media, as they often do hunting a pack, have decided about five o'clock in the afternoon on the actual day things were winding down. It's they decided it's all over. So pat ourselves on the back. We've got this footage. Off we go. Well, I can let rest assured. I can tell you now that the day had just begun for the New South Wales Police and certainly the Police Minister and the government, because the revenge attacks were 10 fold. And it's that's a light figure putting on it, worse than anything that occurred during the day, and we had literally gangs of up to 50 car loads of of young every Arabic Muslim men that were traveling throughout suburbs and literally destroying those suburbs from top to bottom, and rampaging through streets with baseball bats, knives, guns, breaking car windows, shock windows, baseball batting anyone that was a Caucasian just for the sake of being on the street. Churches were burnt down and so forth. Your Christian churches were burnt down across the suburbs three I think so. There was, like, lots of problematic issues arising on multiple fronts, but there's no footage of this, because the media are going home. We're literally out to dinner. And then what we see because of that, as Carl said, If you Google Derry and Google the Coronavirus, all you will see is these focused upfront, many angled footages of stupid, inebriated Caucasian young males during the daytime event in the complete exclusion of, firstly, the build up and some of the horrendous behavior that was occurring in the build up to the right, and, of course, complete exclusion of these revenge attacks. So academics and journalists and keyboard warriors over the years have put together their views and theories on it, which. Is extremely skewed and one sided, quite woke, and we're left with these reports, and there's literally dozens of them all over the internet and so forth, that the tyre Cronulla and Sutherland Shire white racist bargains, and it's the capital of white supremacy of Australia even now, even though it's a 19 year anniversary today, as we record this, even now, every time racism is brought up in Australia, they'll wheel out those footage, footage from the daytime events. Look at those white racists and so forth and and look there. As I said, the images are real, but it is in the complete exclusion of the overall event, though, sets out from where to go the actual facts will bequent to events of what occurred and and a certainly analysis of that, which paints a quite different

Mick Spiers: 15:53

Yeah, thanks Mark and Thanks Carl. It's really picture. good to have a much clearer and full picture. I can tell you the three themes that are emerging for me right away, and I want to unpack at least two of them. So the role of the media in this absolutely, I want to unpack that there's this element around extremism, and I'll share my view on this one right now, and that is, I'm a proud Australian. I'm absolutely not racist. And in fact, I despise any kind of racism or discrimination. I know Australians that are racist, openly racist, but there are very small percentage of the population. And I would put it, I'd coin it like, just because the Australians are good at Rugby, we have the Wallabies. That means that every single Australian must be a rugby player. That's what it's like to be. Yes, there are racist in Australia, but it doesn't mean that all of Australia is racist. Yes, there are racist people in other cultures. That doesn't mean that any other culture is blatantly and openly and pervasively racist. So I think the proportionality of what you're talking about is also really clear. And then the third one is the tribalism, and I want to come to the tribalism in a moment. So Carl, I'd like to double down a little bit on the role of the media here. I know this might be a little uncomfortable, and you as a politician, a seasoned politician for many years. I'm sure you've got a interesting relationship with the media. What I'm curious here, how do we get in this situation where I feel like the the reporters that are on the scene at the time that if they go home or go back to the studio without a story, they get fired or that it's they're looking for that sensational story.

Carl Scully: 17:40

This is an example. A key thing, I think, in understanding truth is to understand what it means. It's contextual, and it must rest upon a rock of evidence and facts. And so some would probably find our notion that Sutherland is not full of racist white Australians. Some even argue that only white people can be racist. We try and present the view, but it's tough against the barrage of media record and at the time, they were unhelpful, but the biggest medium or media was actually text messaging to 270,000 text messages. And folks don't start to protest and do awful things unless there's some reason for it. And what we bring to bear in our analysis is an explanation of deviant behavior, morally, politically, racially, people will react in a certain way that's otherwise unacceptable if they feel a threat. So just because the Daily Telegraph says, isn't it terrible to thump a lifeguard, doesn't mean people are going to start storming the barricades. And likewise, just because there's a few text messages suggesting people turn up and thump some Lebanese Muslims, there has to have been something more. And so the Daily Telegraph Alan Jones, they were unhelpful in a couple of instances, The Daily Telegraph where it published a threat through COVID aberton from the head of the bra boys that the Lebanese gangs were too scared to come to Maroubra, that directly resulted in maruba being smashed up. It was really irresponsible journalism. Alan Jones. We have a section about did Alan Jones cause the rights No, he didn't. Was he helpful? No, he wasn't. Was he found to have incited discontent? Yes, on a few occasions. But Mick, his audience, were not the audience at North granola beach. They were all like Statler and Waldorf in. In the Muffets. They're all in Sesame Street. They're all up in the bleachers, shaking their fist in agreement, and they went home or had a cup of tea. So Alan was unhelpful, and Jones is unhelpful. Daily Telegraph that one particular example, but no question in my mind, the videographic evidence of an evening, I think, provoked the revenge attacks. It was really irresponsible journalism. And remember the phrase, If it bleeds, it leads, and it was a great yarn spliced together, and it was shocking, because the trouble is, Mick, the footage is real. The footage is not fake. Those splice things are not unfactual. If that's a word, they are true. Those things happen, but joining them all together gave a very misleading picture of what was actually happening. As Mark said, most of the day was boring, and people were just drinking and got in the sun. A few 100 got carried away. So yes, the media souped it up in certain ways, and did contribute it. They didn't cause it. There's been simmering discontent between the two tribes for years and years, and we call it the towel versus the soccer ball. And it wasn't right or wrong. It was a different cultural approach to how you should use the beach. There was a lot of misogynistic language, some really vile conversations directed at young women, which I think if the surfers of Coronavirus had taken the train to lekemba and got out and said those things to young Muslim women, there would have had a riot on the spot. There wouldn't have been any simmering discontent. So the concern we have is that all this simmering discontent was souped up a bit and into a moral panic by the media. They're unhelpful, but the fuel, the kindling, was ready to be ignited, and just happened to be the lifeguards getting thumped, but it was already, there was already and these pervasive messages were telling a story people wanted to hear so the media has to share some burden, but there were reasons other than it being put in the telly or on talkback radio, folks were pretty angry, and they reacted. And then the Lebanese community was pretty angry about how they was perceived that a large crowd in Sydney were attacking them for no good reason. Then they didn't look Caucasian, and then they did the same thing. But there were other things than just you don't look like me, you don't go to the church I go to. That's and by the way, Mick Mark and I did extensive research, and we were looking for solace and sucker through the scholarship of serious academics. And we researched a lot of papers and a lot of work, and most of it is rubbish, because almost very few, close to none, actually did their own research. They just opine in otherwise peer reviewed journals, repeating the mantra of the white man is racist, and racism Central is North granulla beach. And so, as we said, We challenge that truth based not on our opinion, based on our own research, interviewing 12 people and looking at the facts and what happened. But the trouble is, in 10 years time, Mick, you and your listeners, I know you'll be on podcast 500 by then, anyone Googles it, it'll be the same story. It's just it's embedded in the DNA of history. Has a DNA, or a psyche, if you can personify history, the DNA of that person is almost immovable, despite the efforts of our book.

Mick Spiers: 24:53

Yeah. So it is a little bit of revisionist history, both in real time and after the fact, right? So it's we're seeing the world through the lens of what the media wanted us to see. And I'm worried about the lack of accountability for that. I worry about the if it bleeds, it leads. I also worry a little bit about human behavior, that we're also the ones that go home and turn on the TV and watch the news as well and like and would we watch a story that says, oh, there was a very peaceful process protest at Cronulla beach today. Or are we going to tune in to the sensational story like it actually reflects a little bit on us as consumers, as well as what the media then portrays, and I worry about the lack of accountability.

Carl Scully: 25:39

Give alittle. Anecdote. Mick, I was opening the $14 million upgrade Rockdale railway station where I was Minister for Transport, and this guy from Channel 10 came out and said, Oh, Minister, look, yeah, great, yeah, and ye hat's just not true. And he said, Oh, we're going to run with it, unless you give us something else. I said, this is not true. So I had to stand up saying, it's not true. And they gave that great run. I said, But you know, it's not true. And he said, Yeah, we've got a one hour program. You got to fill it with something. That's why we quote, I think, in the book, it's a good news day, which is a great song from the 60s, if it's noise, if it's negative, and sadly, it fits the more recent notion of academics being under pressure to take a certain view about Caucasian community, and that could be misunderstood, and we've made it clear that we do not intend in any way to fuel those who might want to misunderstand what we're saying. We're saying that you can't point the finger at one part of the equation. Both had small numbers behaving despicably. And when you look at the evidence that we put out, the text messages were vile and racist and sought violence upon the other but we asked a simple question, why were they talking like this? And the academics who we thought would give us answers didn't bother asking. They generally just said, Oh, what a horrible way one of them just said, this was like a pogrom. I mean, that's just so insulting to to those victims of pogroms and mass extermination, to suggest that this was some kind of Holocaust equivalent. And then others talk about mass historical violent violence from 505,000 me lording Kerala residents. It's just so it's very frustrating, and we got no solace from that research. And we have to do it ourselves, right, which was frustrating. Thought there'd be an easier path Mick and writing the book. We have to write that ourselves, really.

Mick Spiers: 28:02

And thank you for doing that, by the way. Let's unpack it a bit. Now, I think we've covered enough around the media, certainly not helping this. And the way I describe it, by the way, and having researched your work, to me, it's like a compounding series of disproportionate responses. So it started off as something, someone then defends something, and then the it just compounds from there, including the revenge attacks and then fueled by very myopic perspectives being presented by the media. But let's get into the mark again.

Carl Scully: 28:35

Mark's probably better places closer, even though I overall oversight, strategic control and supervision of it. Mark was the operational commander for the government and the community. But think if I summed it up in a slangy sort of way, it was a Biff that got out of hand and male preening on the beach, a bit of Bravo, bit of 50 cuffs that just kept escalating till it blew up, and then it subsided and went away. I see it as Yeah, probably now would look back embarrassed about it, using each other. And yes, it got all out of hand. Mark, different perspective on it.

Mick Spiers: 29:27

Yeah, I'd love to hear from you, Mark, about the kind of compounding disproportionate responses that I was talking about. And typically I wasn't talking about the police there. I was talking about against each other. I thought the police response was very clear that what's your respect to the to the bif, right?

Mark Goodwin: 29:43

I'll just be quick Mick, because I know you want to move on to other topics, but sorry I haven't been able to get a word in, but I'll give you a couple of real life examples from the day. So the next day, there was a front page article from one of the leading Sydney newspapers of a male person. He's a local identity at the Coronavirus area. I won't mention him by name here, but he's a quintessential big, solid, hairy, backed Australian male. He was a first grade footballer at one stage, and he was wearing his Aussie cap, and he was up on a milk crate with a loud hailer. And they snapped this photograph of him. Here it is front page of the next day. Well, what he was actually doing is milk crate. He was yelling out to the crowd, we're not here to fight the police today. They're all white men like us. We want to respect in this crowd. And he starts chance cop star tops, and he starts Three cheers for the cops here. Beret, it looks like he's yelling in. His megaphone, but that's the reality, what it actually was doing. But let's not that get in a way of a good story. So none of that gets reported, just the photograph of him looking like the insider of the riots. One example. Oh, one another, quick one, if I may, on the actual day down there, the North Coronavirus surf club CEO came and saw me because they pre organized a surf boat, which one of their new surf boats was being launched, and there was a parade, and there was nippers and all these sorts of things on the beach. He was very concerned about whether they should still run that event. So I said, Look, man, I don't think you'd get a more patriotic crowd, to be honest with you. So give it a go. You've got plenty of police here. We'll see what happens. Anyway, the source surf boat was launched, and the crowd cheered on, and it was having a white whale over time. None of it was reported. It's completely spliced out of anything from the whole day. So these are just examples of what I mean, of how the manipulation of it. So what is real footage of these inebriated young white males? So you carried on in the afternoon while strung third on by spruce what supremacist sprucers that had hijacked the day, but all the actual stuff like I just mentioned, the fellow up on his milk crate on his nigger phone, great, kick. But that's he's not. He's citing a ride. He's yelling out cops and cops and the surf boat launch and things like that, all spliced and all deleted from the footage and from the narrative because it didn't suit the agenda.

Mick Spiers: 31:59

That's definitely not going to be the headline mark. I can tell you that based on everything we've been saying about the way it gets reported. Let's get into the human behavior side. Now I've heard both of you say that you're frustrated that maybe there isn't a good explanation for why it went so let's have a go at myself, and I'll be opening myself here, Carl, right? So I I subscribe to William glasses view around what he calls choice theory and about five fundamental human needs that we have, the need for survival. And this is where things like fight, flight or freeze come, and where we might start making decisions in the moment that our root brain is kicked in. We're not thinking anymore. We're just in survival mode, the need for love and belonging to feel like we belong to something bigger than ourselves, that the tribalism that we talk about, the need for power, the need for fun and the need for freedom, are the things that he talks about. And when I was reading your accounts of this, and I'm thinking about, let's use the two tribes metaphor. We'll continue with that, I feel that this love and belonging and this survival is what's kicking in, and the want to belong then come becomes greater than the need to be, right? And I've heard you, Carl, and you said it just before, but I've heard you say it before that there's probably people that did things on that day that the next day, they probably scratch their head and go, did I really behave like that? But in the heat of the moment, whether it's survival instinct or it's the need for love and belonging being greater than the need to be, right, they get away on themselves. Is this what's happening here?

Carl Scully: 33:34

Look, tribalism is an interesting human phenomena, and we all need to be in groups, and most of us are in many groups. Could be a sporting a fan group, a religious organization, parents and friends at your school, where your kids are that, or a political party that most of us are in multiple tribes, and the vast majority of the time they're peaceful. They don't threaten anyone. They're just things you enjoy doing. But occasionally this need to belong, to be in a group, can conflict with another group. And I what we try to explain, we go current, go beyond, into the realm of being in a tribe can involve the pleasure of exclusion, that your group is special because you don't let some people in, and that can then lead to a defense of the group. And you're right. Sometimes people act in a way that may not even be in their interests, but it's in the interests of the group, and it can be quite Dev and so we try to explain it sociologically, as you start escalating from a book club to a group that wants to exclude and then gets violent that we explain it by arguing we draw on Professor Karen Stella's work on she called it the authoritarian dynamic, and she said, fundamentally, most people, most of the time when they behave aberrantly, it's when they Feel a threat to the interests of their group. Yeah, and not because they're racist or politically or morally deviant, but they might say and do things like you. How many times do you hear people that you know, if someone is not of their color or religion that serves them in a way that is not. Acceptable, and they'll say a racist thing, and people say, Are you're a racist? And you go, yeah, something more going on that's just at an individual level. What about at a whole group level? Does that mean the whole group is racist or deviant? Because it's reacted in a certain way? And she argued that it was intolerance to difference, not racism, that drove most reactions when people behave in a way that they probably wouldn't otherwise. Now that doesn't mean that the none of us have simmering under the surface and ability to behave that way. Many of us, actually, sadly, are quite capable of saying, relate, racist things, unacceptable things, when provoked, when threatened, and we analyze, what were the threats on the beach? And there are all sorts of things around disrespect and incivility. You're not in my group. You want to be here, and I want to be here, and my mates want to be here, and you should be there. And that's far more complicated than just saying, Oh, you're all racist. Probably Guess I'll get mark to add to that.

Mick Spiers: 36:55

Yeah, I'd love to hear your view Mark, and then I'm going to add to it. Then what happens is when the alcohol comes into the mix. So we got the, let's call it the survival instinct, the fear of being under attack, the fear of the unknown, the fear of the different. There's the love and belonging, the Exclude, exclusion versus defend my own, etc. And then we add alcohol into the mix. And Mark, I'm going to say, as a decorated police officer, this was not your first radio that involved alcohol. What role does alcohol play here?

Mark Goodwin: 37:28

Alcohol played a significant role in the day. Like I said, The morning was more like an Australia Day, and people are celebrating and seeing the national anthem, and we'll sing Matilda, and there was barbecues cooking, and it was all like a carnival atmosphere. And as I said, I emphasized the fact that it was hijacked by white supremacists had turned up down there, but it was really much of a, like, I said, a carnival type atmosphere. And then the alcohol kicked in. And we've spoken to lots of young people, certainly I have in the area, and I know a lot of them, and a lot of I know a lot of their parents who said I completely lost my way, and I look back at my behavior and I'm disgraced with myself exactly as you said, and I can't believe I acted the way I did. I was caught up in the atmosphere of it. I got caught up by these sprookers and chants that were occurring, and then I know I got filmed, and I'm embarrassed by it, but the alcohol did play a huge role, so much so that actually the local area commander, Rob Redfern, who on the day he was the operational commander for the event, and he had built up a quite strong relationship already with the licensed premises and his and licensees in the area through a liquor licensing accord that they had already had running. And luckily, through that good relationship, he requested them to close down liquor sales, and they did so. And interestingly, when the grog ran out and the sun was going down, the event was over, and because there was like no nothing more to drink and and we actually had a bit of a strategy on the side, we actually took a lot of the police off the street at that point, and then the thundering helicopter overhead, we took it back to a it landed in a nearby oval to make it actually look like the whole event was over. And it and it actually did work. And people thought, it's all over, it's time to go home. There's no more girl to drink, and it's the party's over. And they all that, including the media, but we've already talked about it, so alcohol did play a big event on the day, most definitely, because you're talking about tribes. Sorry, it's gonna mean about tribes. So interestingly, cars already touched on this, but we all belong to numerous tribes in our life, and that's whether that be sport, religion, politics. And I think if you go to any arena and there's a football match of an AFL match, and you everyone's wearing their club colors, and they all hate each other, because that's not the person wearing white club colors. If you stopped that and said, right now, I want you to all sit in your religious beliefs, and then next minute, they'd be sitting next to in cuddling the person wearing the opposite jersey, because they've got the same religious belief. And that's what we're talking about now. And it's like, Okay, now let's talk about politics, and those same people would let go of their cuddle and start punching you on again, you see, in life through part of various tribes, and on this occasion, it was certainly the surf culture tribe versus the gangster tribe of the western suburbs, you know, yeah. And that leads me to about behavior as well, because we look very carefully at what really caused this, and it's being labeled racist immediately over the years. And what we say is that the actual root cause, if you actually pull back the onion layers and have a deep look at what the causal factors were for this, it was about behavior, and if you go back to the. 60s and 70s and 80s, there was always been tension of problems at Cronulla Beach, because, firstly, it's the only beach in Sydney with a railway line. So it does attract a large number of people that arrived by train from the western suburbs of a week Eve, in groups and so forth. So there's always been, if you but back in those decades gone by, there was Westies, bankies, rockers, Sharpies and different groups over the decades that have turned up at Coronavirus. But it was the same sort of behavior. It was incivility. It was comments, misogynistic comments made to young girls. It was about leaving rubbish all over the beach at the end of the day, it's about strutting around and intimidating people and acting like gangsters. And it's like, well, that's what we do at the beach here. We actually act peacefully and calmly, and your behavior is not welcome here as part of our tribe and so and there was punch on some fights between those groups back then, but it was all Caucasians, one Caucasian group for fighting, the other Caucasian group. So fast forward to the 2000s and a new group emerged on the beach, which was the young Lebanese Muslims from the western suburbs. Same behavior, exactly the same behavior, but the minute the punch on started, it was racist Well, and that's what it's been that's been perpetuated over the years, in many papers that, oh, this was all about racism. Well, I think it's actually lazy to say and not and do your research and talk to the local people. I mean, I know for a fact that Carl and I have never been interviewed for any of these academic papers or journalistic writings, which is quite bizarre, really. And so say the same people, from most people that I've spoken to in the Cronulla area, that will tell you the same story, that it was all about the behavior down there that caused it, but we are now labeled all across the world as the racist oil club of Australia, and it's rubbish. So it was about the tribes fighting in the conflict between the tribes, and there's always tribalism and conflict, but it takes a spark event, which was the assault of the wife guards in this case, that then gave it a certain level of threat, that then people acted the way they did.

Mick Spiers: 42:54

Yeah, I understood. So, so what I'm hearing is the anti social behavior, then the reaction to that anti social behavior, and then everything just compounds from there, fueled by, let's say, media's perspectives, being one certain perspective, and then fueled also by alcohol. And what I was also hearing from you before mark is when the fuel was turned off, both the media and the alcohol, at least the events on the day calmed down. It was further fueled later on with the revenge attacks, and that was probably not helped by the media again, but yeah, I see what you mean as this is not a that's not a racial thing, that's a anti social behavior, a values, a sticking up for what's right, event that got out of hand and then got further out of hand when the two elements of fuel were added.

Mark Goodwin: 43:43

I look at like in the 60s and 70s, it was f off Westies, f off bankies, F off Sharpies, but the minute it became f off libs races, it's kind of the tag was labeled all over it, and it really interests a racist, racist wording, but it wasn't the real underlying issue, and as I quickly outlined, it was about the behavior that was going on. We've interview, I have certainly been spoken to hundreds, if not 1000s of locals over the years, and they will all tell you the same thing, that have all these academics that have written these papers spoken to them. I've not heard one person tell me they have been interviewed for any of those papers.

Mick Spiers: 44:24

All right, interesting. I'm gonna ask you a quite challenging question. Start with you on this one Carl, and it's a bit of a crystal ball. All of this happened on the cusp of what we now know to be social media. So you mentioned about text messages and how that started some of the group think and the tribalism and fueled some of that as well. What do you think would happen today with the prevalence of social media today, would it have been substantially worse? What would happen?

Carl Scully: 44:56

I think it would have been worse because it would have been more pervasive. So you need a persuasive message to be delivered pervasively with an underlying purpose. So the purpose is people are angry and they want to do something about it, and a message comes in a number of forms becomes more pervasive, more persuasive. So thank goodness it wasn't available. But one of the things I do so in March be better placed. The government set up and the police set up Task Force gain in the 90s, and we locked up about two. 20 very violent, nasty Lebanese Auslan criminals. Had they not been locked up, that would have made it a whole lot worse, because they would have been providing all sorts of horrible leadership they weren't available. Secondly, yes, I think it was a blessing that it was only text messages, but this was the first time text messages led to chain messaging. There was no example before where people were sending messages to groups of people and onto groups of people and one message was hitting 1000s of people. That was unusual, but I do think it would have been very unhelpful if all those other forums had been available. But once again, Mick, they have been available for 20 plus years, and it hasn't returned.

Mick Spiers: 46:28

Hasn't recurred, wasn't it? Yeah, one thing that does happen, though, colors the algorithmic bias, right? So, so that's there, but we haven't seen another day like the 11th of December 2005 that I can record. Yeah, interesting.

Carl Scully: 46:44

They've been events. There's always events. Yeah, yeah, but there hasn't been a Corona since.

Mick Spiers: 46:50

All right, so now I want to unpack your leadership on the day here for a moment, Carl and Mark and I'm going to say, first of all, congratulations on your leadership. This could have been a a whole heap worse. That draws us to a conclusion of part one of this compelling two part series with Carl Scully and Mark Goodwin. I hope this interview is giving you a clearer view as to what really happened on those days in the next episode, Karl and Mark are going to share with us the deep leadership lessons they learnt about crisis management and leading a team through these difficult times will unpack further the impact of social media and Mark and Carl will openly share with us the impact These events had on their careers and their families. Thank you for listening to The Leadership Project mickspiers.com a huge call out to Faris Sedek for his video editing of all of our video content and to all of the team at TLP. Joan Gozon, Gerald Calibo and my amazing wife Sei Spiers, I could not do this show without you. Don't forget to subscribe to The Leadership Project YouTube channel where we bring you interesting videos each and every week, and you can follow us on social, particularly on LinkedIn, Facebook and Instagram. Now, in the meantime, please do take care, look out for each other and join us on this journey as we learn together and lead together.