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Get Real: Talking mental health & disability
The real-life impacts of conspiracy theories with Ariel Bogle and Cam Wilson
We’re diving into the topic of conspiracy theories for this episode, particularly on the impacts these beliefs have on an individual and the ripple effect on others.
Our guests for this episode are Ariel Bogle and Cam Wilson who have written a book called CONSPIRACY NATION: Exposing the dangerous world of Australian Conspiracy Theories.
Ariel is an investigative journalist at the Guardian Australia who specialises on technology, extremism and internet policy.
Cam is an Associate Editor at Crikey and his reporting and investigations focus on the intersection between internet culture, extremism and politics.
Conspiracy Nation is published by Ultimo Press and available online and in bookstores now.
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Speaker 2:Knowledge and stories. Welcome to Get Real talking. Mental health and disability brought to you by the team at Urna365.
Speaker 1:Join our hosts, Emily Webb and Carenza Louis-Smith, as we have frank and fearless conversations with special guests about all things mental health and complexity with special guests about all things mental health and complexity.
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Speaker 4:Welcome to Get Real talking mental health and disability. I'm Emily Webb. We're diving into the topic of conspiracy theories for this episode, particularly on the impacts these beliefs have on an individual and the ripple effect on others. Our guests for this episode are Ariel Bogle and Cam Wilson, who have written a book called Conspiracy Nation exposing the dangerous world of Australian conspiracy theories. Ariel is an investigative journalist at the Guardian Australia who specialises in technology, extremism and internet policy. Cam is an associate editor at Crikey and his reporting and investigations focus on the intersection between internet culture, extremism and politics. Conspiracy Nation is a fascinating book and important for understanding how conspiratorial beliefs have moved beyond the fringe and, for want of a better word, have gone more mainstream in Australia, even among those in powerful positions of government and influence. Welcome, arielle and Cam. Thanks for having us.
Speaker 5:Good to be here.
Speaker 4:Now, conspiracy theories is a catch-all term and there are ones that are like a bit silly, a bit funny, but there are ones that we often hear about now that have significant real life impacts on health well-being even presidential election results Now off the top of my head. I'm thinking of things like vaccine scepticism, fluoride in water and, at the extreme, the kind of beliefs that the three people in William Bella, queensland, who in December 2022, murdered two police officers, matthew Arnold and Rachel McCrow, and their neighbour Alan Dare. So how do people get drawn into conspiracy theories? Are there people who are more likely to get sucked into them?
Speaker 6:Well, I think in the course of reporting this book, I started to really think of it as a spectrum. I think all of us, if we take each one of our beliefs and examine them, would have some beliefs that are not fully scientifically verified, beliefs that might verge on folklore-ish about our health, about other topics. We might even like dabble in conspiracy theories because, look, they can be kind of fun, you know, to imagine cabals of people with plots against all of us, against the common good, like these aren't always particularly fringe beliefs. These are things, you know, we can dabble with with friends face to face on the Internet. Really fringe beliefs, these are things we can dabble with friends face-to-face on the internet.
Speaker 6:But I think, as I began to talk to people that were truly dedicated to these ideas, whether they were trying to sell them as part of money-making schemes or had dedicated their lives to them in some way, or were trying to use these ideas in pretty fraught legal or financial situations, people turn to these ideas in moments of disruption.
Speaker 6:I think so when they're looking to impose an understanding or a narrative, a need to understand the world in a way that they're not currently able to, and probably the thing that most listeners will think of lately has been the COVID-19 pandemic. A lot of these ideas came to the forefront and I spoke to a lot of people during those years when reporting on, I guess, misinformation and disinformation around the pandemic. People's fathers, their mothers, their sisters, brothers, you know, had started dabbling in these ideas in the disruption of the pandemic, when they were locked down, when they were out of their normal social circles, when they had lost work. So you know these moments of profound disruption and upset for people. I think we do need to acknowledge too that they can also provide political cover, as you alluded to in the intro, for things that we do want to call out and condemn. You know that conspiracy theories can be used as cover for racism, for some of our worst instincts, so we need to be upfront about that as well.
Speaker 4:Cam, what about you?
Speaker 5:that as well, cam. What about you? Yeah, I mean, I think that conspiracy theories are a way to explain a complex world and particularly, we all have to deal with lots of uncertainty in day-to-day living. I will give the example of COVID-19.
Speaker 5:We were starting to find out things in the early part of the pandemic that we thought meant something.
Speaker 5:You know, experts trying to figure things out, everyone's trying to figure things out, and we and they start to kind of uncover things, but, like, with the amount of like kind of certainty and the strength and sure finest of that knowledge was still obviously not very much. Because, you know, this is all happening, everyone was doing in the fire, everyone was working from fire, and so that's kind of the place where we did see a lot of this kind of thinking arise, because in some cases I think that a lot of people struggle with this idea that people could say, well, we might think something, but we don't know for sure, whereas conspiracy theories typically offer a very simple understanding of the world. Not maybe it's this way, maybe it's that way. It's typically something like you are a force of good and there's forces of evil conspiring against you, and there's no nuance, there's no perspectives. We don't understand what the cabal is thinking. We don't really care because we know that they're ultimately evil. It's these kinds of conditions fast moving, complicated that create a fertile ground for conspiracy theories.
Speaker 4:Thanks for that. One of the chapters in Conspiracy Nation I was really grouped reading. It is called Left Behind and it tells the experience of a woman in Victoria called Danielle, whose wife went deep into conspiracy theories during the pandemic and it really struck me as very powerful, because the impact on loved ones when conspiracy theories really take hold of someone is really heartbreaking. I think we all know someone who you know has gone down the rabbit hole, went down the rabbit hole and it's pretty hectic and it does fracture relationships. Could you talk a bit about Danielle's story and also what you've both learned from speaking with and observing the collateral damage of conspiracy theory beliefs, because Danielle's lived experience certainly shows there is a ripple effect. Cam, could I start with you?
Speaker 5:Yeah for sure.
Speaker 5:Yeah, I was the one who spoke to Danielle. While her story was so unique in its own way, it's also one that is very common. We've spoken to so many people who've been through. While her story was so unique in its own way, it's also one that is very common. It's spoken to so many people who've been through very similar things. And so her story was about how, again during the pandemic, how her partner got into kind of conspiracy theory beliefs through a friend who kind of introduced her through the world of cryptocurrency and online finance stuff.
Speaker 5:And as the pandemic progressed as you know, they spent a lot of time in isolation the beliefs of Emily and these are all pseudonyms grew stronger and more strange and more fringe, and so you know she started being freaked out that. You know that the vaccines were actually going to kill everyone. They're going to kill like 70% of people. She started asking Danielle, her same-sex partner, to buy things for the house, like huge jugs of water, to get chickens, so that in the whatever coming apocalypse was nigh, they would be able to survive. Whatever coming apocalypse was nigh, they would be able to survive. And even I mean, this is the thing that I found, you know, so dispiriting was to hear about how we often see that, as Ariel alluded to, conspiracy theories kind of come in concert with more hateful beliefs, because you know, this is ultimately the idea that there are small groups conspiring against you and we often see that views against the less powerful, which is, people like marginalized groups.
Speaker 5:So, as I mentioned danielle, she was in the same sex, marriage or relationship with emily. You know they went on a trip together. They were going to travel across australia for danielle's birthday and they didn't have like phone reception all the time and so when they would stop, emily would just, like you know, go out and jump on top of the car, on top of like hills and stuff to try and get reception, to get plugged back into these conspiracy communities that she had like joined online to kind of get this ingestion of these ideas that both were keeping her so anxious and upset. But at the same time, in a weird way, she almost felt was like letting her know about the things that she feared, so then she could be anxious. In a weird way, she almost felt was like letting her know about the things that she feared, so then she could be anxious in a way that was preparing her for them.
Speaker 5:She also started to say things that were literally homophobic to her partner while she was in a relationship together. I mean, look, they ultimately split up and Danielle ended up moving out because she really could not continue to live in that relationship. And, believe it or not, her and her husband say you know, essentially you can't get back to land, you can't keep living like this, this is what I believe in. And so they split up. I mean, it's one of those stories where I wish there was a happy ending too, and I'm sure we'll get a chance to chat about later. Like, as much as we would love for there to be, there is no real happy ending for Daniel, but also separating from that.
Speaker 4:What about you, Arielle? What did you sort of learn or take away from the conversations you've had with people for the book?
Speaker 6:Yeah, with looking at people affected. During the pandemic too, I spoke to a lot of people that found it so incredibly discombobulating that people that spent so much time with suddenly they had lost like the common ground of reality or they they didn't see things the same way. You know, they could both look at the same object and one person could see something entirely banal and the other one could see something entirely evil. You know, it was just really disconcerting and hard to assess. I suppose, and I think people are making really difficult decisions about how to continue these relationships, what to preserve, how to come together with family and friends If you know that you're going to have this break between you, if you feel like you value the relationship to keep it going. Then some people were deciding that these relationships were too risky. So I did back then speak to a mother who was worried for their children because their relatives refused to get vaccinated. This is a decision of bodily safety that they were having to make really difficult decisions about. Later in the book we look at some of the people who are, I guess, coming up with solutions maybe the wrong word but trying to address the worst reverberations, the worst impacts of these ideas in the community, both at the individual and the group level.
Speaker 6:I did speak to a psychologist, Damien Stewart, who had to assess his relationships with his clients when they came to him with what he considered to be conspiratorial beliefs, attributing a lot of the problems in their lives to conspiracy theories. And he, you know, struggled with this. He talked me through how he worked through it, but he did establish, I guess, boundaries. He was like here's what we can talk about. We can acknowledge that we differ here, but we try and find the common ground. But he also said you know, I think he said that statement of your Libyans, where my liberty begins comes to fruition. You know, I think he said that statement of your Libyans, where my liberty begins comes to fruition. You know, I'm happy to see you, I'm happy to have a coffee with you, I'm happy to have a beer with you, but that topic, that's a boundary for me. So that was the kind of boundary setting he was talking about with his clients. But I guess it can really vary for a lot of different people and how deep and impactful these decisions may be.
Speaker 4:There's so much covered in this book it is such an excellent read and I wanted to talk about another chapter called Off the Grid.
Speaker 4:This is about communities and regions in Australia where conspiracy theories and distrust of government, while a lot of things, seem to thrive. This was of particular interest because, as I was reading it, I had a chat with a colleague, interstate, last week about a mental health program they deliver and the needs of the communities in that region and these communities have been quite impacted by floods and bushfires and she made a comment, knock off the cuff, about how a number of residents in that area had made a very conscious decision to live off grid, some newly, some for a very long time, and they had, she said, particular beliefs that made it really hard to connect them to support. So, basically saying, there was some quite complex mental health needs and barriers for these people. Could you tell us a bit about this chapter and how it came to be and what you discovered, I guess, about the communities that you looked at and how conspiracy beliefs are impacting them or changing them? Cam, can I start with you?
Speaker 5:Yeah. So this is something that I was doing a lot on, and the chapter is around kind of Byron Bay, which many people already kind of know. In fact it's kind of globally known. I remember there was a Bambi Fair piece about vehicles in Byron Bay that was very people already kind of know. In fact it's kind of globally known. I remember there was a Bandy Fair piece about vehicles at Byron Bay that was very viral a few years ago.
Speaker 5:This is kind of the other side of it and that's kind of also part of what this whole book is about, which is about understanding how parts of what it means to be Australian, the things that we share together, the ideas, the stories and myths that we tell about ourselves, in some ways um, you know make us vulnerable to certain types of conspiracy theories or influence, the ones that have kind of been created here, and so in this chapter I kind of focused on how byron bay in many ways has become the home for anti vaccine uh organizing and sentiment in australia and also anti-flu ride ideas as well, and you can probably tell that from both of these they're both kind of anti this idea of putting something in your body, and that kind of conflicts against this Australian idea where you know when we think of Byron, when we think of when other people think of Australia, they think of you know this natural environment where we're made healthy by nature. You know we swim in the ocean, it makes us fit, and that idea of embracing what it means to be natural. The flip side of that is this idea that you should reject things that are unnatural, and you know one way to conceive of vaccines, for example, is that they are unnatural, and so that's kind of how we've ended up with this idea and that's why it's kind of I think I know I was so fascinated to look at Byron Bay in particular because, like Byron Bay, in some ways, is the kind of Australia of Australia, if you know what I mean. It's that kind of ideal, but what we found was that there is so many individuals and people there who've been attracted or perhaps because they live there, have taken on board these kinds of beliefs in not trusting mainstream. It's very much Australia's counterculture capital as well. It's funny that you should mention some of the things that have happened there.
Speaker 5:This didn't go into the book, but some of my other reporting has done is in the aftermath of the 2022 Wismore floods. There was, for example, conspiracy figures, people who promoted anti-vaccine ideas who then started running charities as well, or organizations that were supposed to be doing charitable giving, and actually they got in trouble with the government because they said you can't trust red cross, you can't trust all these other charities, which you know have these onerous like transparency obligations, and trust us instead. And you know they made up lies about the red cross as well, and then they set up their own organization, which wasn't kind of registered and they promised full transparency, did end up being that transparent, but it was this whole idea of like, even in a disaster, even when you know there's the times that most people reach for that kind of the institutional help, you know we look, we look for government, we look for nonprofits to step in and help us out. They were trying to kind of set up an alternative to that, and one that did not go very well. And this is kind of a little bit outside the book because we don't really talk about cults at all, but I've also heard there's a very famous cult in that region and apparently psychologists. I spoke to one psychologist. He said that they just had a whole lot of patients who were being brought into this. And so what? The commonality like? Those two things are separate, but the commonalities.
Speaker 5:In times of great stress, of trauma, that's the kind of times when other people who come along with simple explanations and answers for everything and say believe this thing. That is honestly unbelievable and it'll help you feel better about yourself. You know, being like there's a reason that it's hard to get help from the government here. It's not because of bureaucracy, it's not because of all these other things, it's because they're actually evil. So, you know, in communities like Byron Bay and after they've had natural disasters, you do have to like, anecdotally, disasters you do have to like anecdotally. I don't have the actual, solid evidence to say this, but it does seem like those are the kind of conditions for these extreme and frigid beliefs to take hold it's so complex, right like on one side we have genuine public health failings or gaps that have been left.
Speaker 6:we need to acknowledge. You know, in lot of cases people are not vaccinating their children, for example, not necessarily because they're just like 100% anti-vaccine, but because they don't have access to vaccines. They may not have access to a regular GP. We all know how hard it is to get bulk billing. You know these factors all come in.
Speaker 6:How are people going to develop trusted, ongoing relationships with healthcare providers where they can ask them tough questions about things that are kind of scary?
Speaker 6:Like it is pretty intimidating to take a tiny child to get something injected into their arm, and it does come, you know, on the heels of a long history of medical neglect of women's health and, like you know, plenty of really important questions to ask about children's health.
Speaker 6:So this all plays into it too, and in rural and regional communities, access to healthcare remains a really significant struggle in Australia, and that's the kind of fertile conditions where these ideas can thrive. On the other hand, there are, as ever, people that are making money off spruiking these ideas. So you may see a lot of people talking about the evils of vaccines, but you will also probably see them selling some alternative options in tinctures, salves, whatever else it might be. So we have to acknowledge that too. There is a bit of a capitalist principle at play among some of the quote unquote leaders of movements that are spruiking these ideas. So both come into play. But we do talk about in the book those legitimate questions people can have about their health and their children's health and the way the government and communities and healthcare providers really need to step into the breach and reclaim some of the space here.
Speaker 4:Yeah, when you were talking about Byron Bay, I kept thinking of Val McPherson and I thought she ended up with like Andrew Wakefield for a while. He's like one of the biggest bloody anti-vaxxers in the world. But it's just a strange world Really. I just have a lot of things going through my mind and this is a particular bugbear of mine and I'm glad you covered some of it in the book. But I volunteered for my local yes group during the referendum. It's the first time I've ever done something like that. This was for the Voice to Parliament referendum in 2023.
Speaker 4:And I witnessed a real blending of some of the conspiracy theories and disinformation you've covered in the book play out in public. It was actually really disturbing, like I don't know how I got to this stage of my life without realising this, but I saw it with my own eyes. You know, a lot of stuff was driven by the no campaign and other groups for whom I guess the pushback against an Indigenous voice to Parliament suited their so-called causes, and I can't tell you how many times people would rock up to vote at pre-polls on election day and they'd be parroting things that have been disseminated like conspiracy theory stuff that I'd sort of been hearing, because I've been listening and following to things and you know it was stuff that you heard the no campaign say, but even disbeliefs about the Australian voting system. Like they'd go I've got my pen and then I knew immediately I was in trouble when I would speak to someone and they'd go you know governments aren't legal or something or they'd pull out a silver coin and show me.
Speaker 4:I'm like it's only because I've been listening to things about the freedom movement that I understood what was happening. It was pretty wild. The freedom movement that I understood what was happening. It was pretty wild. So, using the voice referendum as an example, how did we see conspiracy theories I mean lies, but disinformation, I guess, is the official word weaponized as a political tactic?
Speaker 6:And why is this happening? Yeah, cam and I go back and forth on these words but, like I think at this point, if you think it's a lie, you might as well call it a lie rather than the fancy disinformation word you know. But yeah, it's interesting. During the voice I think it was like the middle of the Venn diagram for a lot of overlapping, sort of conspiratorial movements. You had like what we in the book and a lot of academics call pseudo law. People more often, more often, refer to sovereign citizen ideas, but we think pseudo law is like a sort of more appropriate bucket for a lot of these things. So we saw that coming up that's what you're referencing there, I think around people saying, oh, the government itself is not legal.
Speaker 6:There are a lot of ideas that flow between Australia, the United States, canada, even the UK that claimed to be able to reveal something that's gone wrong in the formation of the country. You know, a piece of legislation, a seal that's not perfect, that sort of is the thread that can pull the entire government undone. That kind of stuff was coming up during the voice referendum, I think, because it was a constitutional change. You know, people were for the first time even thinking, probably, about what the constitution is. Probably after high school a lot of people don't even have to give our former government very much thought Then it also, I think, overlapped with a really long and poisonous history in Australia of First Nations rights and Indigenous rights being bound up with quote-unquote plots, so the land rights movements in the 70s and 80s.
Speaker 6:You know there was a pretty healthy contingent at the time who accused that movement of being a cover for a communist takeover of Australia and we saw some of those tropes being resurrected during the voice campaign as well and you know I covered it separate from the book and some of this appears in the book as well. But there was just so much misunderstanding of what the voice really was and I think you know in the post-mortem a lot of people have acknowledged that there were plenty of failings in the yes campaign and how this was presented to the Australian people. So it's not like a complete blame game of people that might have misunderstood what exactly they were voting yes or no on. But unfortunately it did sort of kind of like the pandemic again. It was this like big moment, a big political movement, something that a lot of people were engaging with, and it did bring to the surface yet again conspiracy theories which unfortunately really did target Indigenous Australians in really unfortunate and racist ways.
Speaker 4:Yeah, it was pretty nasty and I said it to a lot of people. It kind of changed me in a very deep way. I mean, yeah, I'm a white woman, I have not had any of the struggles that our First Nations people have, but I feel like something died in me a bit. I know that's dramatic, but just seeing the emboldened racism. But, cam, I want to hear your thoughts about it and what you've you know reported on and in the book. Thank you.
Speaker 5:Yeah, I mean just to add what Ariel said. I think that when it comes down to conspiracy theories are just beliefs like any other. And when you look into what beliefs actually are, how do we actually decide to believe something? Us, and probably many of our beliefs, don't actually come from like thinking through every option, evaluating the evidence, you know, um, very carefully, and then only after all, without making a really really balanced decision. Actually, kind of intuitively, many of us make a decision and then just kind of like, almost like, figure out the working afterwards. We kind of be like, you know, for whatever reason, whether it's the political party we like, whether it's the ideas that we were raised with.
Speaker 5:But I do know that a lot of the stemming from sensationalist readings of what was supposed to be the referendum, versus to the foreboding conspiracy theories, really were kind of essentially saying that anything good that was going to happen for Indigenous people, like giving some additional power, was ultimately the detriment of other people and that there were nefarious reasons that it really was actually not to help them and this population that had been so, you know, structurally disadvantaged but was actually something bigger or something greater to make your life worse. And you know, I just I honestly think the fact that for most people including you know, myself, like I don't have that much first-hand experience with Indigenous policy, but also just like constitutional law that it meant that when it came to people spreading lies and conspiracy theories about this, they didn't really have any other point of reference, and so it was kind of, if it was something that you're like, well, I don't really have any strong views on, particularly something I don't know that much about and also maybe I'm inclined to, particularly the way that some of the attacks on the yes campaign were kind of said that there was almost like they were coming for a place of um, you know, all people, all white people, should feel guilty, that kind of stuff. You know that was the emotional aspect to it as well. This all came as one package that I think kind of set up. You know for why a lot of people in the info don't know at all. You know again, you never really know how, but I mean just the lessons from that in terms of, like conspiracy theories.
Speaker 5:I think is just that in situations where people just don't understand things, you know those are the conditions to then believe something crazy, but it's because, um, they shouldn't really have any other points of reference and like we see this with self-sit stuff all the time. I personally feel very empathetic to people who believe in sovereign citizen ideas, because the legal system is really confusing and for most people they have no practical understanding about how it works in practice. So there's actually not that much difference for them between something like sovereign citizen idea which is like they put the wrong seal on some act years ago, which means all government is legitimate, and the real laws that are also kind of like impenetrable and hard to understand for the average person. It's easy to kind of be like well, that's crazy that they believe that, but for many people both options are just foreign to them.
Speaker 4:It's almost like they might as well choose something that gives them hope in some situations. Yeah, that's a good segue onto the next question. I actually was reading I can't remember I saw it, but there was some research coming out of South Australia about how pseudo-law people adherent people I don't know the term, but they're actually starting to impact the court system and actually have a significant impact on council time, court time and also a mental health impact on the workers. So do you think authorities have been on the back foot acknowledging the seriousness of the things that you cover in the book? And there are so many things. I know you couldn't have possibly covered everything, but you've covered it pretty well. You know the interconnections of various groups and players that have found each other stemming from the pandemic where people were out and about you know protesting lockdowns, covid, vax, but then you've got this group and this group and they're all blending Cam. What do you think about this? Do you think authorities have kind of been a bit lax with, or maybe just didn't get, it?
Speaker 5:I don't pretend to have all the answers and to know how exactly the exact ways some of our current situation could have been avoided, but again, it's pretty clear that people are more likely to believe in something that's far-fetched because they don't actually understand the truth. There's this really good quote actually that I saw come around after the book uh, was part I was sent to the publishers but I wish I could have been quoted, but I'll give it here which is that everything looks like a conspiracy theory if you don't understand it. So like, if you don't like actually take the effort and and understandably, you know many people are not going to sit down and and their way through the Crimes Act or whatever, but you do definitely see this kind of jump to assume in some situations that things are rigged against you, that people are evil and you're good when you just don't understand how something works. So yeah, I mean, look, I'm sure there's always more that can be done, kind of literally, around this stuff.
Speaker 5:One of the people that we spoke to for the book it was a magistrate who took the time actually to be like here is someone who's a pseudo or adherent who kind of came up with all this stuff and rather than being like this is bullshit, get out of court.
Speaker 5:I'm going to hold you in contempt, let's move on. I don't have time for this, for this, for a variety of reasons. This guy had the time to kind of go through it and then actually kind of educated someone on it and then took the time and patience and you actually saw quite a good outcome. So, like I mean, that's the best case. But practically speaking, you know, people don't always have time to explain, or even the patience or sometimes even feel like safe enough to engage with someone who believes something and might be quite upfront and full on about it. The cause of this go from the personal to the structural, but at its kind of, I think, most base level. You know, maybe the reason it's kind of happening is because someone sees something, believes it and then never really has people the right kind of intervention if possible and you never know if it's definitely going to be possible that could help guide them back away from some of these more bizarre beliefs.
Speaker 4:And Ariel. What about you? Because a lot of your investigative journalism specialises on policy. Internet, you know. I mean, it's the Wild West right, the internet, and now it's everyone's trying to control it, like by keeping kids off social media and stuff. But what about yourself? What do you think about? I guess you know authority's response, for want of a better word structural places.
Speaker 6:Well, it's complicated, right, like in my experience talking to people that have become caught up in these beliefs, whether they're closely held or just sort of dabbling in these ideas. They are often turning to them in a moment of disruption when they have an issue with money, security, health, discrimination, you know, a whole range of issues. And one academic who studied conspiracy theory belief, matthew Marks, at La Trobe University. He told us that he had observed, observed his research, that if these views are strongly held they certainly won't change on a whim. But if they are reflective of these other sort of bigger structural issues, then perhaps addressing these concerns can have an effect. So he said, what we saw, at least in some of our studies during the pandemic, is that people fall in and out of conspiracy theories over time. So when the social conditions in terms of uncertainty and security and powerlessness, these kinds of social conditions resolve, people's need for conspiracy theory probably goes with them as well.
Speaker 6:So I am sometimes hesitant.
Speaker 6:You're like we need more internet governance or we need da-da-da in terms of really sort of twiddling the knobs of media and social media, I guess, as opposed to taking on these big issues of transparency in government, you know it would be harder to believe all kinds of evil doing by government if we understood better how government worked.
Speaker 6:You know, as a journalist I can tell you that I find the government extremely untransparent in general. You know someone that struggled with the freedom of information system and that's just like the tip of the iceberg here. So you know, believing that something, a conspiracy theory, is not like entirely far-fetched. When you have to sort of confront the edifice and closed door decision-making that goes on in boardrooms, you know, in banks, in government, in the courts in Australia, it is hard to extract the kind of transparency I think that would be needed to unlock for people that are turning to these beliefs. In moment of crisis that kind of thing might help. But yeah, very, very difficult thing. I wouldn't want to be the government anti-conspiracy theory advisor. That's not a job for me.
Speaker 4:Yeah, no, yeah. What is the answer? I guess you both just previously mentioned a psychiatrist who was putting some boundaries in, and also a judge, a magistrate, who had a bit of time to sit down with someone and explain to them maybe counterpoints with their pseudo-law thing, tirade, submission, whatever you want to call it. But what other efforts are you seeing in pushing back on or countering these beliefs? You know whether it's in a I don't know, a more formal way or just like a way where people sit and listen, try to hold space for people. It could be from families, communities, researchers you know, there's a lot of trackers of extremist people and groups who I've learned a lot from, to be honest and then the mainstream media, so to speak. I don't want to sound like a conspiracy theorist saying that term, but then it's almost like they're following on with that. So, arielle, I'll start with you. What have you been seeing? That sort of is maybe a little bit heartening or showing that this is being treated seriously. Arielle, I'll start with you.
Speaker 6:Yeah, in the book we did want to look at how people are fighting back, I guess, against the worst excesses, the worst impacts of some of these ideas. You know sort of broad range of scenarios. I mean one man I spoke to, Robert Sudi. He used to believe in pseudo law concepts himself, but this is the interaction with the magistrate. He came back from those ideas and he now runs a website which is sort of dedicated to cataloguing pseudo-law in Australia and trying to debunk it. And he told me he really saw that project as one of information for people. He wanted to be a source so that when people go online and start Googling these ideas, there's at least one voice out there that will give them the right information. And it's not about saying the law is perfect and the government is perfect. It's more about helping people to understand that if they try and use these arguments in court, things will not go well for them and it may lead to really poor outcomes in so many different ways. So that was like one man's mission there.
Speaker 6:We also looked at community responses to some of the anti-LGBTQ plus sort of rhetoric and protests and movements that we've been seeing in the past few years. So there was a spate of protests against drag queen story hours at libraries across Australia and we've both reported and looked at some of the origins of these movements. A lot of this flows from anti-trans, anti-gay rhetoric in the United States, but we looked at, we went out to one of these protests and counter protests and talked to people there on both sides, but we did spend time with some of the people there that were there to support, you know, LGBTQ plus kids talked about their motivations for being there and wanting to create a protective, safe environment full of colour. You know, these are the sort of base level community movements that are there to push back against that kind of homophobic sentiment, I suppose. So, yeah, a range of things there that really I think place in individuals and communities of how we can all think about how we might address this where it shows up in our own lives.
Speaker 4:And what about you Cam?
Speaker 5:Yeah, I went to the inquest for the William Biller shootings which you mentioned at the start, where they were doing as is law and investigation into how it happened and what they could have done to stop it. And part of that involved looking into the lives of the three shooters, which was a couple and the husband's brother, also, confusingly, the ex-partner of the wife, so very complicated situation. But what they kind of found in that situation the inquest hasn't actually reported yet. But what kind of came out of hearing from the experts that were brought by the Crown, which was this idea that what had happened is one of the shooters, when he was younger, clearly had a variety of reasons that led to him having delusions. So you know, these beliefs and things that were backed by reality, rare social phenomenon. Those delusions were like socially transmitted, you know, essentially spread to the other people in in that house, which ultimately led to them attacking and ambushing the police and killing them. And I think, just like the decision to investigate these things and use experts to understand what's actually happening in a situation that could just be written off as, like to put it, like derogatory, like three crazies doing something crazy, but is very important and that the forensic psychologist who spoke, you know, part of his testimony was that, you know, one of the ways that this could have been stopped was a long time before gareth had received assistance like mental health assistance when he was younger.
Speaker 5:The fact that they took the time because this was such a very public act of violence to figure out what can we actually do as a society to stop these things from happening, and then having the experts who really dove in to understand that, you know, if you zoom out, it's very hard to understand why some portion of the population kind of always believes things that are hard to believe, or always say they believe them.
Speaker 5:But when you kind of look at them individually, it often becomes clear that it wasn't a moral failing that people ended up believing in something that led them to violence. But there are actually a lot of things along the way that, if they'd changed, maybe wouldn't have led there. So those are the kinds of things that you know it's very hard to say exactly how this incident itself could have been stopped. But you know, you kind of see, as Ariel alluded to before, there are these kind of situations, stresses that make these conspiracy theories take hold in people. What are we doing for people just generally, you know, as a society, to take care of ourselves? Obviously it has broader benefits, but one of the many benefits would be that it would mean that fewer people likely would be driven down to these rabbit holes and kind of end up taking pretty extreme actions.
Speaker 4:There's content in Conspiracy Nation that is distressing, and it deals with some really dark places, including shocking crimes committed by people with dangerous beliefs. You know it may not be their fault that they believe that there could be other things, but you know it may not be their fault that they believe that there could be other things, but you know it has real world consequences. So how do you both look after your own mental health and wellbeing with the work you do and writing this book, and we ask every one of our guests this question.
Speaker 6:Yeah, good question. It's sometimes hard to distinguish the you know, the impact of writing the book with the task of writing the book, you know, because it's quite an intense thing to write a book full stop on top of all your other life commitments. I find it helpful, I guess, as a baseline to really, you know, think about the work and try and tell people's stories in the most, you know, open, balanced way possible. And also it was really helpful having a co-author. I think a bit of like a sanity check there was helpful during the process. It would have been hard to do this kind of book alone as well.
Speaker 6:I do think having a sense of purpose when wading into this material is really important. So I have spoken to other people you friends and family that it might be really consuming a lot of conspiracy theory material or even, you know, really confronting imagery from conflicts you know whether it's in Gaza or Ukraine, these types of material because social media can really start serving this content up to you that I think consuming that kind of material without a purpose, without like, trying to bring it to public attention, whether it be by media or activism, can be really damaging Like I think you need to have sort of intention and purpose when wading into these spaces. But yeah, other than that, finding ways to turn your brain off, whether it be like with a trashy book or a podcast probably my number one recommendation.
Speaker 4:Cam, what about you? I read your reporting as well. I follow you both and there's some pretty wild places you go to. Yeah.
Speaker 5:Oh look, I mean Ariel Stolmein. I was going to say I have a great co-author so I guess I can't give her too much praise because that'll just get boring to the listeners. But having someone all excited about this, it's so nice and and if you're not writing a book with someone, even just being able to debrief, to talk with someone else who understands it, or sometimes someone who doesn't, and you just explain it, is, um, great. And I mean it's the kind of like boring stuff, like I mean I'll be honest, like I, I had a very intense year that we were kind of writing it.
Speaker 5:Between work, writing the book and other family commitments. I'm kind of I'm almost a bit disappointed, bit disappointed that it's all the basic things that everyone tells you, the things that really help. You know that, getting a bit of sunlight, spending time with family, all those things you know, much to my chagrin, because I mean that's boring to say we're actually so, so helpful and it was stressful to write the book but it really gave me such an like an appreciation for all those things as well in a new way. But I really, really got a lot of support to what I did in my life and I made a great deal for that.
Speaker 4:And as we wrap up and I could talk to you for hours, but we do not have hours to do this we may have to come back, but any final thoughts for listeners before we say bye.
Speaker 5:In some ways it's an intense book, but it's funny the more that we did it, the more that I realized all of this is actually bigger than conspiracy theories. It's about why do people believe things at all, why do people do things that are against their own kind of interest?
Speaker 5:And, as we kind of got towards the end, we're talking about things about where society to take care of people, like actually very often the solution to what we think are the things that could help with conspiracy theories are often the things that could help a lot of other problems in society as well. So I mean, in that way, it really was something that was ultimately just kind of revealing that, like, the more we got into it, the more we realized actually this is connected to everything else. And the other thing is, I think, you know, a big part of our book really was, ultimately, what do these bizarre things that people believe actually tell us about what it means to be Australian? And I think you know I actually discovered, I think, a lot about the people around me, not because they believe in conspiracy theories, but because it actually shed a lot of light on all the other things that we believe as well.
Speaker 5:So I guess I'm going to finish with the pitch, which is that you should check out the book. There. I'm going to finish with a pitch, which is that you should check out the book. There's a whole lot in there, and it is something that I think will really probably change the way you look at people, yes, in some like worrying ways, but also in some good ways as well, because I think there is some openness in there.
Speaker 4:Huge thank you to you both for joining us for Get Real Talking. Mental Health and Disability. The book Conspiracy Nation is published by Ultimo Press and available now in bookstores and to order online. And look for listeners. If you've been affected by anything discussed in this episode, you can call Lifeline on 13 11 14. And for any of our listeners who are First Nations, there is 13 Yarn on 13 92 76. And also we'll have the details for Q Life in our show notes, which we have for every episode. There's more details about Ariel and Cam's book as well as support organisations in those show notes, so head over there. So thank you so much, Ariel and Cam, and all the best with the book.
Speaker 2:You've been listening to Get Real talking mental health and disability, brought to you by the team at Irma365. Get Real is produced and presented by Emily Webb, with Corenza Louis-Smith and special guests. No-transcript.
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