If you spend your professional life planning the best ways to protect the community, how heartbreaking would it be when you can't protect the ones you love most. Andrew Fletcher is a unit commander for the NSW SES. During last year’s bushfires, while he worked on the NSW mid north coast coordinating relief efforts in the region, his own son lost his home to bushfire on the south coast. Andrew has served in the armed forces, fought fires, floods, been on the scene at horrific road accidents on...

When it comes to sex work, people have a lot of assumptions. And more often than not they are of a pretty negative or judgemental nature. But, when you take a closer look at the industry you can see that escorts are care givers in the same way that nurses or occupational therapists are. But they’re working within a field that has long been associated with shame and seen as something to keep behind closed doors. CREDITS Host: Madeleine West Guests: Ellie & Tash ExecutiveProducer: Elise...

Although many of us may not notice, modern life relies heavily on forest products. Did you recently receive a package in the post? Was it in a cardboard box?  Is there a printed label on the cans of veggies in your pantry?  Yet, when most people hear the word ‘logging’ they’d probably immediately think of deforestation and environment destruction. Ross Hampton and Dean Kearney are two men whose job it is to make sure that the trees in this country that are cut down for everyday products,...

What does a Private Investigator actually do? What sort of person hires a PI? In this episode of Invisible Heroes I am speaking with Ken Gamble -  a professional cybercrime investigator and surveillance specialist with 30 years experience in the private sector.   Most recently Ken has also been consulting with the family of missing Belgian backpacker Theo Hayez. Theo disappeared 18 months ago in far northern NSW in the Byron Bay region. The then 18 year old vanished after leaving a Byron Bay...

What are you doing to save the planet? Would you quit your big time job in the city and take up planting rainforests? That sounds like a fantasy, but it’s one that Michael Martin made his reality. Along with Maximo Bottaro the duo founded Reforest Now, an organisation whose mission is to grow and plant trees that will reforest cleared land in subtropical Australia and stand for generations to come.  Their vision is to see this region as Australia's largest expanse of subtropical rainforest...

How comfortable are you with your sexuality? What about consent, role-playing, the power of your own body and it’s desires? Kink and fetish play are taboo topics usually spoken about behind closed doors. So in this episode we’re opening that door to talk about it. Roger Butler is someone who has worked in the sexual empowerment space for years, facilitating Curious Creatures sexuality workshops and helping people to become comfortable in their own skin, and with their own desires. They're...

The Australian koala population is in serious decline - suffering from the effects of habitat destruction, domestic dog attacks, bushfires and road accidents. The Australian Koala Foundation estimates that there are less than 100,000 Koalas left in the wild, possibly as few as 43,000.  Linda Sparrow is the founder of Bangalow Koalas and spends her days planting trees and creating environments that can best give our beloved koalas a fighting chance. CREDITS Host: Madeleine West...

This episode contains discussions of assault, murder and sexual abuse. Listener discretion is advised. Please contact Lifeline if this raises any issues for you on 13 11 14 or lifeline.org.au  Gary Jubelin is a former detective chief inspector who has led some of the most high profile homicide and missing persons cases in Australia’s recent history. William Tyrell, Evelyn Greenup, Colleen Walker, Clinton Speedy-Duroux; These are the names of four of the many, many people that Gary has...

What does the word “homeless” mean to you? Tonight in Australia one in 200 people will find themselves sleeping without a roof over their head. Leseera Kai is a woman who has faced immense tragedy in her life. As a 20 year veteran working in community welfare, she has seen it all. Fires, floods, domestic violence, homelessness. And in the last 18 months she has lost both her son and daughter and cares for her grandchildren. Through it all she still finds time to help the homeless, those at...

Trevor Russell started out his career wanting to be an economist. So how did he end up investigating forced child marriages for the Australian Federal Police? Find out in part two of this exploration of Australia’s victim based crimes.

Content Warning: this episode contains discussions of self-harm and suicide. If this raises any issues for you please contact Lifeline on 13 11 14 or at lifeline.org.au Since arriving on our shores 11 years ago, fleeing persecution in Pakistan, Abdul and his wife Lubna have faced inconceivable obstacles and personal tragedy in their efforts to become Australian citizens. With no home, income, means to support themselves or access to medical care, even in the face of breast cancer, Abdul and...

Have you ever thought – what is the purpose of my life? Am I really in touch with myself? How does one even “get in touch with themselves”? Samart is a shamaness, a spiritual leader. She dedicates her life to finding peace and contentment within herself, and teaching others how to do the same. She does this through a combination of ritual practices and herbal medicines, including one called Kambo – an Amazonian herbal medicine that comes from a poisonous tree frog. Everything about Samart...

Kon Karapanagiotidis is a lawyer, teacher, OAM, activist, and founder of Australia’s largest independent human rights organisation; the Asylum Seeker Resource Centre. Over 19 years Kon has turned the ‘suitcase of hope’ he began with the ASRC into a formidable force of good. Every day he strives to help refugees and those seeking asylum to find hope. Yet beneath the formidable mind and rabble rousing provocateur exterior is the Greek kid from a small country town, dubbed ‘alphabet’, who still...

Tony Albert of the Kuku Yalanji people is one of the most lauded and prolific Australian artists you’ve probably never heard of. His work has attracted enormous attention and a slew of major art prizes for his extensive body of work centred on ‘Aboriginalia’; his self-coined descriptor for kitsch, divisive representations of Indigenous culture and characters popular in the 50s and 60s. Tony charges these naive objects and their implied stereotypes with highly political sentiments exploring...

A senior member of the federal police domestic violence task force, Det Supt Crossling identifies an area of significant focus and deep concern currently attracting little to no attention from the wider public: human trafficking in the form of child brides still increasing in Australia’s suburban fringes. We investigate how and why this practise continues unabated and how our forces are striving to stymy it without tearing delicate cultural fabric or sensibilities. CREDITS Guest: Detective...

What would you do if one day you were hit by a bus. Not a metaphorical bus, a literal bus. For actress Madeleine West, in the middle of her soapy drama career acting on TV soap ‘Neighbours’ she found herself laid out on a hospital bed after a freak accident saw her hit in the head by a bus on a busy Sydney street. What followed was a diagnosis of an acquired brain injury, years of therapy, and a long road to recovery. The invisible hero of this episode is a woman Madeleine will probably never...

What makes a hero? Join actress and story-teller Madeleine West as she speaks to extraordinarily ordinary Australians who are making the world a better place.   See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.