Cheng Lei on her fight for freedom
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The less you have, the more you can make what you have fight. Whereas I think in freedom, we can squander a lot of our treasures. Hello and welcome back to a podcast of one's own. My guest today is a journalist who was riding high in a successful career as a news anchor in China when her life changed in an instant.

You may have heard of her story through the media already and she has a book out, A Memoir of Freedom. The journalist, of course, is Chung Lay, who is a Chinese-born Australian citizen and a mother of two.

She'd been working in China for nearly 20 years when she was detained, accused of illegally supplying state secrets. It was the beginning of an ordeal that lasted more than three years and changed her and her family's lives forever. In this remarkable interview, I was struck by Lei's wisdom, by her calmness, by the sheer depth of her soul.

And in telling us her story, she is giving us all life lessons of huge resonance. I hope you enjoy it.

Lay, thank you so much for joining me. Now, a lot of our listeners will know something of your story. You've been on a publicity round and you've given us a wonderful book, A Memoir of Freedom. But I feel that your story is so intriguing that there is always more to dig into. So I'm going to do what I usually do on the podcast and start at the very beginning because it is a very good place to start. And I'm going to tell you a little bit about yourself.

and ask you about your early childhood in China before you moved to Melbourne in 1985 when you were 10. So can you tell us about those formative years in China? What was life like, your family, what were you doing? Well, in the mid-70s, China was a very different place to what it is now. It was very undeveloped.

Most people had suffered years of poverty and even famine, especially during the early 60s. And there were no letters from the outside world, unless you wanted to be labeled counter-revolutionary and be thrown into some sort of reform camp. And any ties to the outside world was actually a big negative thing.

which all reversed when China started reforms and opening up. So my birth was on the cusp of those great changes.

And my mum was a teacher when I was born. My dad was an engineer. They met at the Yueyang Machine Tool Factory. Both were kind of beaten down because they came from bad families, meaning either educated or had something, some affiliation to the Nationalist Party, which then went to Taiwan. And

Life was just very, very simple. But for a child, it didn't really matter as long as there were other kids to play with. There used to be a game that you played sort of like skipping, but with rubber bands, but we didn't have rubber bands. So we went to a factory nearby and tried to nick some. I love that. To make this skipping toy.

So anything fun, you really had to make it up yourself. And back then when you were a child in China playing, we would say, elastics, I know about that from my childhood. Yeah, when you were a child, did you think to yourself girls and boys were treated differently or the same? Was that on your mind at all? Well, my mum is the ultimate feminist. She actually said she would stop having kids if she had a daughter.

unlike the other mindsets of other mothers. So she had me and that was it. That's why I'm an only child, even though in 75, when I was born, the policy, the one child policy wasn't really enforced. And she said if she had had, you know, sons, she would have kept going. So the reverse of what everybody else was doing, they kept going to get a son. Your mom wanted the daughter, she wanted you. Exactly.

So I wasn't treated any differently. And in fact, I didn't really notice, I guess, the discrimination, gender discrimination is more pronounced in the north as well, and also in the countryside. And I was lucky to have been spared that.

As a kid growing up, my parents thought that I was smart and cute. That was good enough. And then you came to Melbourne when you were 10. Can you talk to me about what that transition was like? It must have been a fair old culture shock. Material wise, it was a huge step up.

I wrote in my book, I had chicken maybe once or twice a year. And even then it was something that the whole family shared and you didn't hold the drumstick or anything. It was given to someone who was sick or much older. And then suddenly to come into a country where chicken wings were 99 cents a kilo. So...

I put on weight very quickly. You know, the 99 cent chicken wings followed by the $1.99 per, you know, four or three litre tub of Neapolitan ice cream. But I missed my friends terribly. And I felt I had been a good student in China. And suddenly I didn't.

In fact, later kids told me that there was an English teacher who would say, "Why do we have to have this idiot in the class?"

But then my ESL teacher, Mrs. Stevenson, was so lovely. She ran my hands under the tap to teach me hot and cold. And she'd put a bit of mud on my hand and say, that's mud. Great, yeah, they were great teachers and not so great ones. And kids teased me. Of course, that's what kids do. But...

In fact, being so isolated and having to, the only way I could make friends or have any fun or understand TV was to learn.

And so, yes, you had to learn English, a whole new environment, and then, you know, would have gone through your teenage years, which for any child is a time of enormous change and stress and strain. When you were going through those years, what were you thinking then about gender roles in Australia? Did you think about it differently than you did in China or was it still largely the same in your family? Your mother was saying basically, you know, you go for it.

My mum doesn't really set gender roles or say, oh, girls can't do that. Girls should do something else. Girls should talk quietly or not make dirty jokes. And that's great. In fact, I think for a certain amount of time in China's history, China was actually more

gender forward, gender equal than countries like Australia because where I was, everyone worked. Mums and dads both worked. Everyone cooked and cleaned. And when I came to Australia and saw that there were all these stay-at-home wives and mums, in a way it was learning about gender difference and

in a way that wasn't so clear to me in China. Yeah, it's interesting. It's one of the things that Russia and China prided themselves on in international relations in that time, that they were more gender equal societies, the philosophy of, you know, all workers under the sun kind of philosophy rather than gender roles. It's an interesting interplay. Yes. And I think it's...

their right to be proud to a certain extent, but then they did that by almost neutering everyone. So you didn't have any gender difference and beauty was outlawed for both genders and a number of other sins. So it's not like they're, you know, anyone you want to emulate, right?

No, no. It wasn't like they were giving people choices. Absolutely. Exactly. Now, out of these formative experiences, you first, when you began your working career, began...

began in finance, but you moved into journalism and TV presenting. And you talk in your book about the fact your dad tried to talk you out of journalism. So you must have been very motivated to be a journalist, you know, with a much respected parent going, Oh, I don't know about that. What was the drive? Why journalism? I had always, always enjoyed expressing and especially writing.

But my parents of that era in China have a very tech slash sciences bent. Mum being a physics teacher, dad being a scientist. So they had always tried to push me in the science and technology direction. But I knew that wasn't me. And I had won a few public speaking competitions at school.

But I had skipped a grade. So in retrospect, I wasn't emotionally mature enough to push back against my very domineering dad and say, can I make my own choice and I can figure it out later? So instead, I wasted five years being very bored and not very competent accountant. I'm sorry, Gabri Shweb. Sorry, ExxonMobil.

I think they've done all right anyway. I wouldn't worry too much. So tell me about the initial move into journalism then when you finally decided, look, finance, this isn't me. I'm going to make the move. There's a Scott Adams book called Pretend Work, the guy who created the Dilbert character cartoons, and I always felt that was me. So I wanted to move out of that rut and I thought...

How am I going to get my passion for something? And that is to use my bilingual advantage. So I saw a FinReview ad for a business analyst in eastern China for a Sino-Australian joint venture, got the job and moved over. And that was the start of my exciting transition to another life and another country and another profession.

And it strikes me that you were exactly the right person at exactly the right time, because in this era, as China was continuing to rise economically onto the global stage, I mean, the story of the age in many ways was China's rise and the world needed to know about it and to have, you know, reporters who could

translate all of that very deeply and thoughtfully for the world. And you were just so well positioned to do that. And it's not surprising as a result that your career really took off. And you were reporting from China, you went to Singapore for a while. But mostly, you were reporting from China. I mean, did it feel to you in the middle of that,

that, wow, my moment's come, I am exactly the right person at exactly the right era of humanity? I felt extremely lucky. I used to do talks to prospective uni students or uni students themselves, and I would say I took a 90% pay cut from business analyst, expat, to local university

And I think he was the best decision I ever made. And I always said, if you love something, the money will come. And, you know, you can put brackets in front of that. Some money will come. Yeah.

But that was true for you. So you were in China, you were an on-air presenter. Were you at that, the sort of, you know, height of this career that you'd built, were

Were you aware of the lines, you know, of how a journalist, a reporter needs to conduct themselves in China? Obviously, you know, not a democracy, a state that is known to engage in very strong censorship, even before we get to the stage in your story where you are detained at work in 2020.

How were you managing those tensions of trying to bring the truth, bring the story to the public, but knowing you were working in this environment? So ironically, I used to do talks or masterclasses to PR companies, to other media organisations about China's censorship.

And I knew the three Ts, the F and the X, them being Tiananmen, Tibet, Taiwan, the three Ts, then F, Falun Gong, X being Xinjiang. They're the five kind of really sensitive areas for China. And I used to tell them there's a hierarchy of censorship because China's

China's current leaders rose out of the have-nots. They are most afraid of what they call the barefoot peasant rebel. And therefore, people who understand English, people who are educated, people who have overseas connections,

That sort of the media that caters to them is least censored. Whereas mass media that any Joe Blow can understand, like Chinese, as in Chinese language television, that is the most tightly censored. So your English magazines, your China Daily and where I was working, the English channel of the Chinese Central Television Station, that

they were all allowed to get away with much more, as well as some of the pretty, you don't even call them elite magazines like Caijin and Caixin. And plus being in business, I always felt there's no real spin you can put on GDP numbers or the economy slowing or a bank going bankrupt. It is what it is. And so,

For many years, I thought, aside from a few things like when I was interviewing the chief of a top brokerage in China, I asked about the government directing them or the Communist Party directing them to manipulate the market. And I got a very strong response. They confiscated our cameras, wouldn't let us go. And then we had to maneuver and

negotiate. This was when I was at CNBC working as their China correspondent. And also sometimes muscle for property developers would come and shove us out of the way if we were trying to shoot footage of property that they've demolished to make way for new apartments. But nothing that...

Made me think, wow, my life is in danger or I'm going to be locked up. Maybe that was just naivety on my part as well. And yet, unfortunately, that fateful day did come, didn't it, in August 2020 when you were detained at work. Can you talk to me about that day? What happened? How you felt? I...

Don't know of any other one, any other ex-China detainee who was lured that way. And I often wonder why they made up this ruse of calling me at home to say, come to work. And in order to get me to come to work, they said the channel boss is really interested in your new show idea and just laid this trap for me.

Whereas with other people, they just went and picked them up. Maybe they gave me too much credit. Maybe they thought I would try to run if they didn't make a trap.

And so this was the Ministry of State Security basically weaving a web to get you to step into it, to come to work thinking you were pitching a new show. And also working with my now former employer, CGTN, to set this trap, which feels pretty horrible. Mm-hmm.

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I thought it would be a one-on-one meeting, but it turned out to be at least 20 people around this huge table and looking at me very seriously and then saying, or a man held up a badge and said, I'm investigating you on suspicion of supplying state secrets overseas. My phone and bag were taken. I was escorted from then on at all times by police.

offices and then we went to the car park drove to my apartment they met the building manager so they had set this out well beforehand and they must have been watching me or maybe they had cameras in my house who knows but

But there are clues that they certainly knew about my apartment and how it's laid out before they came for me. And after taking all of my electronics and some paperwork, then we went to the detention facility, which I only found out later it was the detention facility. And that was the start of the nightmare.

And the sense of, you know, shock and dislocation must have been extreme, but there must have also just been a sense of confusion, like, you know, what are you talking about? You know, what's this allegation? What am I supposed to have done? Did you have any sense from these words about, you know, state secrets and all the rest of it? Did you have any sense about what you were really being accused of?

I thought it must be a huge mistake and that they would apologize to me afterwards and I would be out very quickly. And that's why I wanted them to take as much stuff as possible because it would prove my absolute innocence. How wrong was I? Yes. Not about innocence. Yes.

And so there's that initial phase where, you know, you're thinking, you know, this is all really, really weird and disconcerting, but presumably I can work my way through it because it's all nonsense and sooner or later everybody will realise it's nonsense. Can you tell us about how it then spiralled into the next stage? I didn't fully realise how bad...

It could be until maybe two weeks to a month later, because at first they said, they just kept telling me about the charges and about what it meant. But I confidently thought I could see a lawyer. I could ask the embassy for consular assistance, that I could somehow talk to somebody who can help me.

So stupid. There is no way you can contact anyone and get any help of significance. The first day I sat there waiting for, because I said I have a neck injury and I have numbness down one side all the time. Can I please get bail? Bail! Bail. For mystery of state security case. Are you joking? No.

And of course, that was quickly rejected. And I didn't know that even if I got a lawyer, even if the world's best lawyers, one, they wouldn't be able to see me or talk to me about my case. Two, how would they stack up against the state? Again, are you joking? In this period, you know, when you've been gone, for example, a month in detention, you

What were your family thinking? What were your colleagues thinking? Friends? Where did they think you were? What did they think had happened? So I recently got back into my Facebook account, which had been locked because I had used my old phone, China phone, to register it.

And it's quite haunting to read the slew of messages left by my friends and colleagues and old interviewees from when they'd heard about it. They were very concerned. And so August, September of 2020, all these people were saying into a void, where are you? Are you okay? We're thinking about you. And it's quite haunting.

heartbreaking to read that I was, you know, in this hole and not knowing at all what was going on and having no way of contacting anyone. And then this outpouring of support everywhere and they don't meet in the middle. It's not love. No, so much love and support but you couldn't feel it. No, and my family was...

Of course, very, very worried and shocked. But my mum had to comfort the kids and say, it'll be fine. My dad lost his temper and feared for my life. And can you tell us a bit about your family at this time and where they were and what they knew?

My mum lives in Melbourne and my kids at the time were living with her because they came to Melbourne in February of 2020 for what was supposed to be a short stay. But in March, their flights back to Beijing were cancelled as China closed its borders. So I had been trying desperately to get them back to Beijing with me when I was taken. So what was already an unbearable separation of six months turned into almost four years.

And so what would have been a COVID separation became this huge detention separation. And what age were your kids at that point in 2020? Eight and ten. Yeah, so very hard to explain what's happened to mum. Yeah. And my daughter was actually quite angry. She said, she wasn't supposed to leave us here. Why is she gone? Why has she done this to us?

And the months roll by and the months roll into years. Can you tell us about how that was for you, what it was like to be so endlessly detained and what were the circumstances like? Well, the first six months were the worst. They're what I call the abattoir of the State Security Ministry sausage factory. It's a form of torture called RSDL, which is...

quite detailed, explained in detail in the documentary about my ordeal made by Sky News. And it's quite different from other forms of solitary confinement in that two guards are watching me at all times at very close proximity at all times, going to the toilet, sleeping, and they take turns every four hours

always in groups of two. So that is intended to make you feel even more helpless and drive you to the edge of insanity and feel like you have nothing to hide and you have to come clean. When that was over, the next part, which is what I call the cold room of the judicial sausage factory, detention felt like

freedom paradise because I had a few cellmates and even though there were problems associated with such no respite close proximity living the comfort of human company and conversation more than made up for that and I had hit bottom in RSDL but it was realizing that

I could still look forward to breakfast the next day that assured me I'm going to get through this and not just get through but be calm in the mind, be still quite serene in the heart and be strong in the body. So what

started as small routines ended up by the time I'd left detention to be very organized and involved, you know, exercise regimen that included yoga, a little bit of cardio because there were no bras and no shoes except for these cloth shoes. Actually, we wore slippers most of the time and a lot of strength training.

strength exercises, just doing push-ups against the wooden bed or on the concrete floor and learning a lot, reading 300 books, trying to make the embassy staff laugh at the next visit, teaching my cellmates 60 English songs and teaching them English, making up dialogue, making up stories for my kids. And of course I had the help of the embassy staff

consular officers who came to visit me when they could monthly and my former partner Nick Coyle who so loved

both strategically and relentlessly campaigned for my freedom, like my former colleagues like Annalise Nielsen. All the things that they did, while I didn't know the full extent, even that was enough to basically blast this dreary cell with Australian sunshine. And I had my kids write funny letters to me

as well. And it's the less you have, the more you can make what you have, I find. Whereas I think in freedom, we can squander a lot of our treasures. They're very wise words. And it is a remarkable story. And at what point in your detention did you first get to see someone from the embassy? That must have been quite the moment.

It was two weeks later, but to see them would be overstating the facts. Even though they came to the detention facility, even though they were in the room next door, we had to do the visit by video link. That is classic State Security Ministry gratuitous cruelty. And not only that, I was flanked by several officers, video cameras, cameras,

photographing me because they were afraid that I would say something to alert the outside about my case. And my English comments were always translated into Chinese for the supervising officer. And I was warned repeatedly if I mentioned one word about my case, I would lose all visits. So it's not like

"Hello, Graham!" You know, the ambassador and then have a chit chat. It's more like, "Oh my god, I don't want to say anything wrong or I don't want to say anything that would jeopardize my future visits because 30 minutes per month, this is the only time I get to be known by my name that I can actually talk to someone who is not interrogating me for punishment."

It is just so hard, I think, for us to imagine being in that moment. But your resilience is unbelievable, just unbelievable. And you talk about...

you know, managing your mind, managing your heart, managing your body. But there must have been moments where even with that iron will and discipline, you must have been in extreme distress, never knowing if you were going to get out, if this was it for forever. I had an idea of the sentence length from one of the officers and

And it was after I got to detention from RSDL. So about six months after my arrest. And I remember that night, I was super happy because he said, probably six years. And that is how warped your expectations become in there. That anything better than... Because you don't know. So you think the worst. And then even when it's six years,

Six years out of your life, you're thankful, you're happy. And that wasn't even an official guarantee. No, it wasn't. It was just a guess, speculation. You've talked to us about how you were spending your time reading books, letters, teaching people to sing songs. Making moonshine.

Sorry? Making moonshine. Oh, you better tell us about the making moonshine. And given this is a podcast in which we discuss books, what role did books and reading play for you in this period? You sound like you were devouring everything you could get. Absolutely. Absolutely.

it is really the best place for reading. You have focus, you have time and how else are you going to make conversation with your cellmates? So like you said,

Every book was just, I even read the back, the credits and, you know, like just devoured it absolutely, skin and bones and all. And I'm very pleased that you told me that one of the books you read during this period was Not Now, Not Ever. That's warmed my heart. And being female detainees in a detention centre that had about,

Three female cells and nine male cells. Again, I was reminded of the gender inequality because I guess not enough women are in, I wouldn't say important, but get themselves into circumstances in which to be, in which the Ministry of State Security is interested in.

I think we're glad less women are in detention, but you're right, it's a reflection of who holds power and who's viewed as a threat, isn't it? Yes.

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You needed to do some pre-trial plea bargaining and you've referred to that beautifully in the book as haggling at the garage sale of my life. Can you tell me about that haggling? I was always going to garage sales and it was haggling, but this time the seller was quite firm. He actually used the exact words rock bottom price five years and he

This was the prosecutor and this was way before my trial and way before my sentencing. So everything stitched up beforehand. And when I got to sign that plea bargain document, everyone was kind of congratulating me and saying how lucky I was and how foreigners never get this privilege. But I

What I thought was signing this would expedite the process, and that turned out to be not the case. But in retrospect, if that left more room for diplomacy, then I am luckier because of it. Can you talk about the post the haggling and post what you obviously hoped would be a moment leading to release? What happened next?

After signing that document, I had to wait for another six months to go to trial. After that 90-minute show trial, I had to wait for another year and a half to be sentenced. And it was at the sentencing that I found out I would be going home. I would be freed in just a little over two weeks. And...

September 27, 2023 was the happiest day of my life. I just floated out of the court and all of my usual calm zen was gone. But I was also very anxious because they said the Supreme Court needed to ratify that sentence.

because he was so short and they made it sound like I still might not be freed. So I was trying to be on my best behavior. It was also very lonely because they put me in a solo cell and I had all this excitement and anxiety and all these questions in my head, but nobody to talk to.

And tell me about the moment when it actually happens. You're actually on your way, you're out. Well, the thing is, it is actually a long walk to freedom, to quote Mandela's book, because it didn't happen when my sentence ended, right?

there still needed to be that ratification by the Supreme Court. So I was taken to a halfway house. It didn't happen in the halfway house because I was guarded by about a dozen officers, including a female officer who slept in my room every night. But already there were all these signs of freedom. For example, I could use a remote control for a TV. I could use chopsticks. I could be known by my name.

I didn't have to squat to do anything because there was a bathroom. I could hang up washing instead of laying it flat on the bed to dry. So I was constantly cataloging all the little things that mark freedom. I could use a properly sized toothbrush as opposed to one that's about two inches long. Everything's for safety. They're just paranoid, next level paranoia. And...

Three days after that, I was, everything was quite tense. I felt like I was starring in a thriller, even though I have no, you know, Tom Cruise-esque skills or Jackie Chan martial arts skills. But everyone treated this like the most important thing. And, you know, everyone was worried about something going wrong because then their heads would roll.

And there were so many officers and so many warnings to me. And then literally sitting in a minivan on the tarmac for everyone to get on the plane before I was escorted onto it. And it was only as I was about to step onto the plane that the case officer gave me my

little carry-on, which the embassy had prepared for me, and my passport. And with that step onto the plane, then I was free. And I saw former Ambassador Graham Fletcher's friendly face and I could finally see

Go give him a hug. Because all this time, even in 23, when we started getting a few face-to-face visits, there was always the three meter distance. And we all had to wear N90 masks at all times. And if someone stood up, like someone from the embassy, to show me a photo, the officers would say, it is forbidden.

And then you're in the plane and the plane takes off, which must have been a remarkable feeling because until it was up in the air and indeed out of Chinese airspace, you probably still had a little doubt in your mind about whether something could go wrong. Tell me about that plane landing and what happened next. Well, I didn't sleep that night and I hadn't slept well at all for the past two weeks to like nerves and...

a lot of worries. I knew that the kids would be there, but I thought, what if they've forgotten me? What if they don't love mummy anymore? What if everything goes wrong and freedom's not what it cracked out to be? Yeah, there were some of those worries, but overall it was just nerves, nerves, nerves on tenterhooks all that time.

when I was met by, I think his name's Ian Gerard from DFAT. And he later said that was the happiest moment of his job to meet me at the plane. And he walked me to the room where my family was. And it seemed like I didn't even know physically how I got there, but the door was opened and suddenly my kids were in my arms and I...

How can you describe that? It's, yeah. I guess the look on my face in that photo of me hugging the kids says it all. There's just, I think I have this sort of, it's between pleasure and pain, between laughter and tears kind of look.

Absolutely. And what is life like for you now? You know, with your family, you know, there's this incredible tale, this emotional, hard to describe because of the depth of the emotions, reunion, but then life's life and life's got lots of ordinary bits and dishes to wash and, you know, stuff.

socks to sort out into pairs and all of that kind of stuff. How have you done that transition from this emotional roller coaster into everyday living now with your family, with your children? I've always been pretty good at adapting ever since. I mean, I've moved 25 times in my 50 year lifetime and quite a few different schools and countries. And I think I...

do that fairly quickly. And I love being there for my kids and my mum the most. Just the thought that

He wouldn't have been able to go trick-or-treating last year, but now he can because I'm taking him and I can see all the boys in their funny outfits and I know they're going to get too high from the sugar, but who cares? Or things like, I'm going to try something I haven't done before because I'm out. Nobody's saying I can't do anything, so I'm going to do everything. Yeah.

And I do overdo things, but who can blame me, right? And it's definitely given you a new sense of that, that life is precious, possibilities are to be grabbed. Is that how you approach it now? I live with urgency, yes, because if you leave it, things will change and you'll never regret the travel you've done or the things you've learned or the dreams that you pursued.

But things like material things don't matter. I love that. Live with urgency. You seem remarkably without bitterness or anger. And I'm not implying that you don't have a sense of...

what was wrong, right and wrong in terms of your treatment, but you don't seem to be carrying the bitterness, the anger with you. Have you thought about that? Did you deliberately say to yourself,

I need to find a way to leave that behind, to embrace this life which is now full of warmth and family and possibilities. How have you managed your demeanour over that? I've always thought that carrying around anger and hate and bitterness only erodes the best part of me.

And the best way to fight back is to go do things and live a better life because nobody's going to care if I'm bitter or sad, but I can make a difference whether it's being helpful to other detainees or writing a book and telling people what happened or

or just cooking something new for my family. All of that is what life's about. I think life is about love and beauty, and that's the way to fight back against cruelty and lies. I mean, my friends would tell me that when I read some comments of extraordinary violence and vitriol about me in the Chinese internet...

I was upset and I reached out to all of them and all of their kindness, the cups of tea and carrot cake and whatnot, all of it helps me. And that's much better than sitting there crying or doing bad things to myself. Yes, it is. And they are great words of wisdom and

Thank you so much for this conversation. It's been such a meaningful one. And for those of us who live with, you know, everybody has pressures in their lives. Everybody has, you know, scars from things that may have happened to them. You know, I look back on my political career. Other people will look back on different periods in their lives. But your words, I think, are

resonate for everyone and that you've been able to show such courage and such an embrace of life and beauty and friendship and love despite these extraordinary circumstances is really a lesson to all of us. So thank you so much for talking to me today. I'm so honoured to speak to you and I love what you do to

to be a model for women. That's very generous of you. Thank you so much. Thank you. It's a pleasure.

Thank you.

Research and production for this podcast is by Becca Shepard, Alice Higgins and Alina Ecott, with editing by Liz Kean from Headline Productions. If you have feedback or ideas, please email us at giwl at anu.edu.au.

To stay up to date with the Institute's work, go to giwl.anu.edu.au and sign up to our updates or follow us on social media at Jewel ANU. You can also find a podcast of one's own on Instagram.

The team at A Podcast of One's Own acknowledges the traditional custodians of country throughout Australia and their connections to land, sea and community. We pay our respect to their elders, past and present, and extend that respect to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples listening today. Thanks for listening, and we hope you'll join us next time. Music

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