December 1999 Volume 80 Number 12 "serving the protectors"
Developing Tomorrow’s Leaders
By John Ballantyne

Tour of Long Bay Gaol. Standing on wall are six police officers: Donna Richardson (Vic.),
Jodie Cole (SA), Darren Shelton (SA), Craig McPherson (NT), Joanne Davis (WA), and Adrian Panozzo (Vic.)

odie Cole of SAPOL’s Domestic Violence unit was one of a hundred young Australians selected to attend the 1999 Queen’s Trust National Forum for developing future leaders.

Participants in the week-long event, which was held in July at Sydney University, rubbed shoulders with high-profile public figures such as former prime minister Gough Whitlam, mining chief Hugh Morgan, Aboriginal activist Noel Pearson, and journalist and television presenter Maxine McKew.

The Queen’s Trust is a national philanthropic organisation, which was founded in 1977 to mark Queen Elizabeth II’s Silver Jubilee. Its stated aim is “to bring together young Australian adults who have been selected for their potential as leaders”.

Cole, a 27-year-old police officer and member of PASA’s Women’s Branch, was originally nominated for the Queen’s Trust forum by PASA president Peter Alexander, and was one of only 14 South Australians to be selected.

Delegates to the national forum were aged from 24 to 30. They came from all States and Territories, and from a wide spectrum of backgrounds and occupations. They included lawyers, social workers, farmers, scientists, environmentalists, and political advisers.

The National Forum was no holiday. The 100 participants were split into 10 focus groups, and in the course of an intense and exhausting week (with some sessions going as late as 2am), the delegates were expected to work out solutions to a whole range of public issues, such as the dole, young mothers, logging, indigenous affairs, government, globalisation, and education.

This was no easy task. The syndicate groups were deliberately organised so that their membership represented a maximum range of views - or, to put it another way, to guarantee the maximum potential for disagreement. A group could have militant environmentalists mixed in with farmers and foresters.

Remarkably, out of this diversity came some startling results. Barriers were broken down and misunderstandings were overcome. Delegates who had started out with very fixed views learned from others. In one group, a South Australian Aborigine by the end of the week was shaking hands with a Queensland stockman overseer, saying how much he had learnt. In another group was a “greenie” environmentalist who got up to confess publicly that she had not really thought about arguments opposed to her own; and that her eyes had really been opened by another person’s viewpoint.

By the end of the week, according to Cole, it was evident that the delegates had learnt a lot from each other and had established a new mutual respect. People who had been complete strangers became firm friends and were eagerly swapping phone numbers and addresses.

At the beginning of the week, Cole had felt a bit in awe of some of her highly qualified fellow-delegates. She recalled, “I felt naive that I didn’t have a degree. I would have been one of the only people in the place who didn’t have a degree - or four degrees!” Quite a few other people at the conference had gone straight from school to universities and to their doctorates. By contrast, Cole had gone straight from school to SAPOL, “so at the age 19, one day I was studying and going to exams; (the next) I was out on the street working night shift and seeing the most gruesome parts of human existence, whether it was dead bodies, car accidents, going to a domestic dispute, stabbings, shootings or car chases.”

Cole felt more confident as the week progressed: “In the end, I came out actually feeling that, in some ways, I was superior to a lot of these people who were doctors and lawyers.” One young woman in Cole’s group - a highly-qualified scientist in the process of finishing a doctorate - had so little experience of life that Cole’s descriptions of domestic violence came as news to her. “She was absolutely shocked,” said Cole,” that people actually treat other people like this!”

Ten members of the SA delegation (Jodie Cole is on right with folded hands)

Cole was constantly struck by the naivete of many highly-qualified professionals. “Protected existence” was the phrase which sprang to Cole’s mind, especially when the forum delegates were taken on a guided tour of Long Bay Gaol.

The tour, said Cole, “was just a total put-on”. Model prisoners were brought out to talk about rehabilitation. Nothing was said about the grim reality of prison life. Five other police officers attending the forum (including Cole’s fellow South Australian, Darren Shelton) were not so easily taken in by the glowing accounts of prison existence. At one point, Cole stopped and spoke to one of the correctional services officers who, on being questioned, admitted that Long Bay suffered severely from short-staffing.

A lawyer attending the conference was impressed by Jodie’s personal knowledge of victims, offenders and the workings of penal institutions. “I’ve never met any coppers,” he admitted. “I didn’t think police thought like that...” He has now invited Jodie to speak to members of the Law Society.

Speakers at the Trust Forum who impressed Cole the most were those who spoke about matters from experience. About Rev. Tim Costello, Cole said that she had never listened to anyone with whom she agreed so much: “He’s been there, he talks out of his experience. He doesn’t have to talk about (social issues) from out of a book or what one of his friends has done.” Another speaker who impressed Cole was Father Chris Riley, famous for developing Boystown and for his work with street kids. She was “deeply disappointed” that he was allocated only 10 minutes to address the forum.

Cole’s years with the SAPOL Domestic Violence unit certainly held her in good stead at the conference. She was able to describe her own professional experience - which included, on one occasion, being assaulted and having her jaw broken by an enraged offender in the Elizabeth court foyer.

When a speaker at the conference - a New South Wales woman survivor of domestic violence - gave an account of an unhappy experience with the police in her state, Cole was able to describe how SAPOL “is very much ahead of a lot of states in relation to our policies and procedures in domestic violence.”

Since then, Cole has been gratified that this same woman, who belongs to a domestic violence action group, has actually contacted her to learn more about SAPOL’s procedures and practices with a view to recommending that they be implemented in NSW.

Cole regarded the Trust forum as being an excellent model of how public affairs should be conducted. In contrast to political parties and business conferences, which are so often made up of like-minded people from similar backgrounds, the Queen’s Trust forum thrived on diversity. Throwing together a lot of passionate individuals to hammer out solutions made for much livelier and more meaningful discussion.

“We all took away such confidence and enthusiasm in ourselves,” Cole said. “You come back feeling like you can conquer the world, and it really hasn’t worn off to a degree.” The conference changed people’s perspectives, and even induced some of the delegates to change their careers. An Aboriginal woman from Ceduna, Bianca Potezny, is resigning from her job at ATSIC and is heading off to Japan with her fiancé to teach English for a year.

According to Cole, the South Australian delegation meets for dinner every two months and regularly keeps in touch with the other groups around Australia by e-mail.

A common experience among the delegates, on their return from the forum, was the reaction of their families, friends and spouses. Cole recalls: “People did not understand, when we came back, how we were all changed.”

Says Cole confidently of her week in Sydney: “I went away and met 99 potential prime ministers...

“So don’t worry about the future. It’s going to be great, if it’s anything to do with these people!”

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