Billy Fitzsimons

speaker

650 appearances 14 recordings 3 series first heard Jun 2026 last heard 2 Aug

Billy Fitzsimons’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.

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recordings per month · last 12 months

Recordings per month over the last 12 months — 14 in all, peaking in Jul 2026 with 7.

Appearances

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The Daily Aus · The email that exposed cult survivors · 2 Aug 2026 podcast

Okay, so they were advocating for, they wanted this. matched

Yes, and they wanted to talk about the harm it had caused them so that other people didn't go through the same thing and also so that, again, there could be a law to further protect survivors and to prevent people from getting there in the first place. matched

Yes, the first parliamentary inquiry in Australia looking into the methods and recruitment methods and the impacts of cults in Australia. matched

Yes. matched

So it handed down the report on Wednesday. matched

Last week. matched

It had 98 findings and 39 recommendations. matched

And those recommendations are to the Victorian Government. matched

Yes. matched

Now, in terms of what it found, it found that there is serious harm, no surprises there, caused by cults. matched

Well, I know that in Victoria there have been high-profile allegations, particularly against a church called the Geelong Revival Centre, including in a podcast investigation by journalist Richard Baker. matched

So I think there have been high-profile cases in Victoria that has maybe meant that survivors thought it would be more possible there. matched

I'm not 100% sure. matched

So no surprises if found there is serious harm caused by cults and also that the current legal system does not adequately address the problem when it comes to cults or what it calls coercive high control groups. matched

Now, the main finding was to criminalize group based coercive control. matched

Now, over the past five years in Australia, the conversation around coercive control has really progressed. matched

And there have been a lot of states, a number of states in Australia that have criminalized coercive control for the first time. matched

Yes, 100%. matched

So it's in the context of intimate partners. matched

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