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

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

Yes. matched

In case anyone's a bit confused with how it happened, so the email was sent out and cc'd were all of the people who had signed up to get notifications about the inquiry. matched

It was meant to be bcc'd? matched

And it was meant to be bcc'd. matched

So that is how this accident happened. matched

Elliot sent us the email that he was talking about in that clip where they apologised and they realised the seriousness of the mistake that they had made. matched

And, yeah, a question from you. matched

So something that Elliot said there that I really want to highlight is that survivors largely were happy with this report. matched

They felt like it addressed their concerns. matched

It really spoke to the level of harm that cults are causing. matched

And that key recommendation that we talked about of it recommending to the Victorian government to criminalise the group matched

That is what they wanted. matched

And Elliot spoke to Claire Heath McIver, who is a survivor advocate and the co-founder of the Australian Cult Survivors Network. matched

And she told Elliot that she was thrilled with the report's recommendations. matched

And she said there was a lot of happy tears from survivors who finally felt seen. matched

But then once she got this email that Elliot is speaking about, she said that she was devastated as were so many survivors. matched

And she said to Elliot, I can't imagine a cult leader getting that email and not combing through to see who had ratted on them. matched

And that is the exact concern of these survivors, that a cult leader could have signed up to those emails and then would have gone through the list of people who were signed up and who had been part of this inquiry. matched

Elliot spoke to Jasmine Ewan, who is from the Australian Christian Lobby, and she told TDA that they are in support of protecting people from genuine abuse, but they are opposed to new laws targeting cults because they believe that Victoria's existing criminal laws are enough to crack down on that serious behaviour. matched

And that if you added new laws, you could potentially be infringing on religious freedom. matched

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