Julian Assange, Human Rights and the Rule of Law

**Meshel Laurie** (0:03)
This is Australian True Crime with Meshel Laurie.
Greg Barns' career has taken him from running Malcolm Turnbull's 1999 Republican referendum campaign to becoming a longtime advisor to Julian Assange and a prominent voice in criminal justice and human rights. Greg joins us to talk about his career, his work on some of Australia's biggest legal and political issues, and his new podcast with former Supreme Court Judge Lex Lasry, Law, the Podcast. This is Australian True Crime. We acknowledge the traditional owners of the land on which this podcast is created, the Wurundjeri Woi Wurrung people of the Kulin Nation. And a warning, this episode of the podcast contains graphic descriptions of violence.
What do you notice in offenders? You've been seeing offenders working with offenders of all kinds for decades. What are the common denominators that you see in offenders in Australia in terms of background?

**Greg Barns** (1:00)
Disadvantage.
I've acted, Meshel, over the years for kids from wealthy families or middle-class families, but it's rare. So social disadvantage often come from backgrounds where there's been violence. Often it's intergenerational crime. So mom or dad or uncle or brother is in the crime game. They tend to drop out of school early. They disengage.
Mental health issues. And so by the time they get into the jail system, which takes a bit of getting into in the sense that it might start off small offending and then it gets greater. There are very few support services. And the other big problem that I see is people coming back into the jail system because we don't have what you would call through care. So in other words, John Brosnan, who was the famous prison chaplain at Pentridge in Melbourne years ago, I think used to have this expression that said, what a prisoner needs is a house, a job and a friend. And a lot of, I chair the Prisoners' Legal Service in Tasmania, and what we see is people returning back into the community with unstable housing. They don't have a GP even. Yeah. In fact, I had a client who tats all over his face, went to a clinic in a wealthy area of Hobart and was told not to come back again. That's just shocking. Yeah. They've often got broken relationships. So they need strong support. People say, oh, well, who cares? What I say to people about it is that leave aside the human rights aspect, leave aside humanity. If you want a safer society, you got to look after people on the way out, because otherwise, where are they going to go? They're going to go back to their mates. And I see that a lot.
All they've done is in prison, that they haven't used drugs, but they come out because there's no support when you come out and use drugs. We've been supporting a guy who has committed three armed robberies. He's done quite a lot of time. He's now out. On this occasion, he is getting good support, but I spoke to him recently and he told me that he's got stable housing through one of the NGOs. But he told me how anxious he was for the first four or five weeks. Just chronic anxiety, even going to the shop, not knowing what to do in a house because he'd been imprisoned for so long. Now, we think he's out the other side because there's a stat.
I'm not sure if it's still around, but there was a stat that used to say it's the first two to three months that are key. If an ex-prisoner can get through the first two to three months and set up some stability in their life, chances of reoffending diminish markedly. It also diminishes. Most of the people I act for are in their 20s to 40s.
All the data says that people tend to, crime rates decline quite markedly.

**Meshel Laurie** (4:08)
We've got a lot of teen offenders. I don't know if that's-

**Greg Barns** (4:10)
Huge number of teen offenders.

**Meshel Laurie** (4:12)
More than we did. That's what the media tells us.

**Greg Barns** (4:14)
Well, the media says that. I was talking to my Magistrate about this the other night who said that, and I was a bit surprised because I thought the data showed that there'd been a decline, but what you had is particular cohorts.
But I've just been talking to a young guy who we hope to have on Law the Podcast probably early next year who spent time in youth detention. It's very interesting about the lack of supports there.

**Meshel Laurie** (4:36)
I know they're trying to keep kids out of youth detention. I think that's the motivation at the moment. They're strong. I know of a young boy who committed a pretty serious machete attack by himself. And this guy, his dad's in jail for rape. Mum took off years ago, probably his dad's an asshole.