#290 Moo Baulch – Transcript

Jess Brady
This week in Australia, we celebrated International Women’s Day. And the theme for International Women’s Day this year was break the bias. So I thought it was time for us inside financial services, to talk about something that hasn’t really got a lot of airtime. And that’s financial abuse, specifically gender based financial abuse. As you can imagine, some pretty heavy topic, but an important one, so please don’t shy away from listening. I obviously need to issue a bit of a trigger warning because we are discussing specifically gender based violence today and domestic violence in general. I am delighted though, that I got to interview the highly respected Moo Baulch. She is a social justice and gender equality leader in Australia and has a career long commitment to addressing and preventing violence against women and LGBT IQP of us people. She worked with the Commonwealth Bank to help develop the common banks, trauma informed community well being team and currently works as the director of primary prevention at the women and girls Emergency Center in Sydney. I think you’ll agree today is a big, but very important conversation and will help us understand how we as financial services professionals can help. Well hello, and welcome Moo, thank you so much for joining me today.

Moo Baulch
Absolute pleasure, Jess, lovely to be here.

Jess Brady
I want to say from the very beginning of today’s conversation that this is a really big, complicated and heavy topic. And so I probably need to issue a trigger warning that we are today talking about things like domestic violence and gender based violence. And so of course, if this brings up anything for you, please make sure that you reach out to a professional, but it is important conversation, especially off the back of International Women’s Day, I felt that it was really important to have a conversation that I feel isn’t happening nearly enough in the financial sphere. And I want to focus on domestic violence, specifically around financial abuse, gendered based financial abuse and how we, as the professional financial advice community of Australia, can learn more, can understand more can identify more, and of course, you know, see what we can do to help break this terrible cycle. There is no one better to talk about all of these complicated problems, I don’t think in Australia new moves. So to give everyone a bit more of an understanding, would you mind sharing a little bit more about you?

Moo Baulch
For sure. Yeah, look, I mean, I would say firstly, thank you so much for having me. I’m joining you from Gadigal land this morning and paying my respects to elder’s past and present at any Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander listeners that you have in your podcast. I’m so excited to be talking about this, I have worked in all sorts of parts of the domestic and family violence and violence prevention sector for more than a couple of decades now. And I think the energy and the enthusiasm and the will in the community to start to shift some of the horrific statistics that we see and hear about almost daily has never been stronger. So it’s a really exciting time to be talking about financial abuse. Specifically, it’s something that we haven’t talked about in Australia or up until probably five or six years ago. And yeah, I’m just delighted to be here. Thank you.

Jess Brady
So can we learn more about specifically what you do now? And then I’d actually love to. Sometimes I feel like we live in a very privileged prism in financial advice because frankly, the people that come to see us are the people that can afford financial advice, and that is a often a very small population of Australians. I’d love to learn more about what are you and your team seeing every day? The work that you do?

Moo Baulch
Yeah, absolutely. So I I’m very privileged also to have to wear a number of hats. So three days a week I come to women’s and girls Emergency Center which is based in Red Fern, that’s where I head offices we have A number of refuges and transitional accommodation. So the accommodation that women and kids go into, after they’ve kind of left that crisis space. And we also do a whole range of other things, women’s and girls or wage IQ, as we’re known. So we do a lot of community engagement. My role here is director of primary prevention. And what that means in laypersons language is really connecting to community having conversations with people like you just talking to people in, you know, the, the communities around in a city, Sydney and west of Sydney, but also having conversations with corporate small businesses. Any kind of community network, so we do a lot with local government, as well. And we talk about things like how we can all be better bystanders, how we can approach and have a conversation with somebody if we’re concerned about them, if we think something’s going on in their relationship, so teaching some of those really simple skills, to give people the confidence to be able to spot abuse, because it’s happening all around us in every across every demographic in every single postcode in Australia. So whilst you might be working, in your day to day as financial advisors with people in the kind of upper echelons of, you know, financial privilege, we know that women, generally women and some men as well, are often you know, they may have lots of lots of money on paper, they may have, you know, be living to all extents and purposes, a beautiful lifestyle, but actually, they might be living with absolutely no access to, you know, their joint bank accounts or their funds, they may be being financially abused in a whole range of ways. And it’s often much harder to talk about those sorts of coercive behaviors where somebody is being abused in quite subtle and hidden ways. And that’s the conversation that we’ve only really just started to have in the last few years in Australia.

Jess Brady
I think that that is such an important point, because we like to believe that domestic violence in Australia doesn’t happen. Firstly, I think that there is sort of, if you don’t believe in it day to day, you just assume that no one does. And yet all the stats tell us otherwise. And you do assume that people in a higher socio economic standard of living are not affected by it. But we know that that is simply not true, correct? Yeah, that’s

Moo Baulch
absolutely right. And it’s so timely that we’re doing, we’re recording this podcast today in late Feb, because I was really privileged, one of one of my other hats is providing advice to the Commonwealth Bank on their financial abuse responses and prevention. And so yesterday morning, we had a beautiful launch of a couple of things, actually one of which is another podcast done by future women, which I’d really encourage people to check out. They’re releasing an episode a week, and it’s centered around the voices of victims survivors. So the voices that often you don’t hear. But also, we launched a report by Deloitte. So this is the first time that anybody has tried to quantify the direct cost of financial abuse in Australia. And what they did was they took a, you know, some slices of research, and they have found that the direct cost of financial abuse in in 2020, so in a 12 month period, is a staggering $5.7 billion in Australia, with an estimated cost to the economy of 5.2 billion. So 600,000 People over 18 years old, in Australia last year was subjected to financial abuse. Sorry, in 2020.

Jess Brady
Just to pause on that, because I think we have to,

Moo Baulch
yeah, it’s a big number, right?

Jess Brady
It is, it is, and I feel that that needs its own sort of pause and reflection. 600,000 people in the 12 months prior to that report, sort of data being launched, was suffering actively from financial abuse. Absolutely.

Moo Baulch
We’ve never had that kind of number before, we’ve never really been able to quantify it in that way. Part of the problem, I think, in our spaces, you know, we have some we have some pretty shocking statistics, you know, we know that one in four women will experience physical or sexual violence in their lifetime. We know that one in 13 men will experience some form of intimate partner violence as well. You know, we’ve all heard the statistic of a woman a week dying, and that stuff makes headlines now, just you know, that’s my reflection as somebody who’s been around in the space for a while now is that those those sorts of numbers were not even available. A decade ago, however, We have to be careful to think that behind all of those numbers, you know, behind every single one of those 600,000 people is an incredibly complex story, often have extreme power and control. And so the financial abuse is often a part of all sorts of other types of abuse that are going on. Often not physical abuse, you know, many of these people will completely fly under the radar, there will be no, you know, calls to the police, because there’s no physical violence, there will be no, you know, reaching out to a service like way, Jack, for support, because, you know, many people don’t reach out to those to those services and supports for a whole range of reasons. So there’s a lot of hidden abuse going on, often that people don’t even recognize is happening because of the context in which we’re having this conversation,

Jess Brady
then we can only assume that that 600,000 is the minimum number of people that have been affected by financial abuse in Australia. And the number could be hopefully not, but it could be significantly worse. More I listen to you speak on another podcast and you said something that made me stop in my tracks. And I want to just talk about it’s a two part question. I think what my question wants to tell you the quote is why? And then the second part is, why do you think financial abuse as a category has been left out for so long? I’m very happy and delighted that we’re starting to talk about it. But I’m keen for your expert thoughts on why it hasn’t been a conversation to now but what you said, when you were being interviewed is violence is at the heart of Australian culture?

Moo Baulch
Well, that’s a massive question, we could probably talk for hours about that. I mean, I think when you when you consider where Australia has come from, in the sense of, as a modern country, certainly post colonial Australia or Australia since colonization, it’s been built on pretty, pretty rough and extreme circumstances for lots and lots of people, particularly Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, but also a whole range of other people. In Australia, and particularly women, I really firmly believe that we have a particular set of circumstances in Australia that support gender inequality and have done for a very long time. So while we’ve seen advances in other countries, and a real challenging of some of the conditions that sit around gender inequality, I think we’ve got a way to go here in Australia, having said that, we’ve also got some really smart people working on it here, which is exciting. And so things like our watch, which is the National Prevention Foundation have have sprung up in the last, you know, five or 10 years, we have a national plan to reduce violence against women and their children, which is ending this year. And there’s their negotiations. And there’s a draft, actually, that the Commonwealth is closing comments on today, in terms of setting the direction for the next 10 years and financial abuse is, is named in that, you know, it wasn’t a thing that existed as a concept in the in the plan in the current plan that’s been running for the last 12 years. So we’ve got some systems and structures to start challenging. Some of the really, you know, the underlying things that allow this inequality for for women to exist and be supported

Jess Brady
shot. And why do you think financial abuse has for so long not being part of the narrative when we talk about domestic violence or gender based violence in Australia?

Moo Baulch
A couple of reasons, I think, I think partly because for so long, domestic violence was just the business of women’s services. So women’s frontline, you know, feminist services, refuges, those sorts of things. And nobody wanted to listen to what was going on. Partly because it was considered a private, hidden family matter. And that has shifted significantly in the media, I think in Australia has played a really big part in that. Victim survivor advocates have also played a massive part in that as well. And it’s been actually a really beautiful partnership of journalists, usually female journalist saying, Actually, we’re going to tell the story differently. And we’re going to recognize that, you know, when another when another child is killed by their father as a revenge act to try and get back at mom or when a woman is killed by her ex partner. It’s not just a one off incident. It’s not just the thing that happens and terrible. It’s actually part of a much bigger social and cultural problem. And we have in Australia, a whole lot of attitudes that are widely held in the community that that support or excuse violence.

Jess Brady
The stats in Australia today are something like 80% of financial advisors. Men. I think the average age of a financial advisor is 55 to 58. And I don’t have the stats, but I’m going to make this up, I would say between 80 to 90% of financial advisors in Australia today are probably, what, heteronormative cisgendered men. And so this is a whole new, big conversation that they may not have ever, ever had to think about having before. But I, I think it’s important to say that you’ve had client, you if you’ve been giving advice for a long time, you have had clients that have been the victim of domestic violence, you have or have had clients more than likely, that have been a victim of financial violence. Can we talk about red flags, talk about things that we should be looking for, and what to do, if we suspect areas find domestic violence of any kind, in a client base or a client couple that we have?

Moo Baulch
Yeah, I mean, I guess some of the things we’re going to talk about now also apply to your broader life, right, because we know this is not just happening in people’s workplaces. And with clients, we also know it’s happening to people, siblings, to people’s parents, you know, now that we’ve kind of blown the lid on the size of this problem. And we’ve started talking about it in a much more sophisticated and nuanced way. We now know that actually, it’s everybody’s business to try and resolve this. So it’s no longer just the business of women’s services and the police, which was the way it was for a really long time. So some of the things that are probably, that may be red flags, some of the things that you may see or witness would be, if a person feels really, if they look as if they’re quite isolated. They may be cut off from friends and family. And that might be a long, slow process, which is really quite deliberate, so isolating somebody from their support networks, sometimes from you know, their religious or cultural connections that might be preventing them from going to church or going to the mosque, it might be stopping them from participating in things like Mardi Gras, for some people, if you see somebody who appears to be walking on eggshells, so there’s, there’s that fear, you know, coercive control is all about creating and then maintaining a level of fear. And so it might not ever be fear of, you know, physical violence. And this is one of the things that I think we need to, you know, keep chipping away at that the myth that domestic violence results in physical injuries and broken bones, for many, many victims, survivors of violence. You know, they say, there was never any actual physical violence, it was the threat, or it was the threat to, you know, take me to the family court and take away my children, it was those sorts of things that, that I knew that he would pursue to, you know, as, as far as he called, because he didn’t want to lose that grip of power and control that he had over me, it might be that she’s not allowed to do things or so it might be that she’s not allowed to participate in the workforce, or studies, to be able to have those kinds of connections to the outside. And also to be able to have financial independence as well, particularly where you have clients who might be, you know, pretty lucrative on paper, you know, there might be six or seven cars in the driveway, you know, multiple bedrooms, in their, in their house, they may have lovely country properties. But if she’s not allowed to make decisions about the joint finances, if she’s being potentially coerced into, you know, taking out loans or signing up for things which she has no control over, or no knowledge about what those impacts might be, that’s certainly a sign of a financial abuse, she might also look a bit overly anxious to please as well. And so I think there’s a real structural piece in here around, you know, women traditionally have not had access to the same type of information and education around financial things. And I, you know, I count myself as one of those people.

I don’t think I’m particularly fine, financially literate, but I’ve understood a lot more kind of, haven’t worked in this space, particularly over the last few years with banks, because I think there is some there is some structural stuff, that’s an extra care that we can take with people with clients where I mean, you know, whether when you’re talking to a client, whether they kind of get what you’re talking about or not. So making sure that they are walking into those joint decisions, really understanding what the implications might be, you know, down the track if if things do go wrong, and then I guess, in terms of knowing what to do next, so somebody may disclose to you or they may not disclose to you. If someone does disclose to you, you may be the first person that they’ve ever had that conversation. With so just making sure that you’re really careful around that. And there can be a whole range of reasons why they haven’t disclosed to, you know, somebody they know, it might be the only time that they’ve actually been in a, in a space one on one with another person, they may not be allowed to go out and do other things. So just really actively listening, telling, being as non judgmental as you as you can, reassuring them that you will try and find them some help and support, you know, respecting their decisions, because we know that for many victims survivors of violence, it takes a really long time to leave. And there are lots of complexities around why that happens. So, so not judging, when somebody says, I’m going back to that relationship, again, just understanding that there may be some really complex safety reasons around why that is why she’s why she’s going back to that, you know, often quite horrific abuse. And that can be really hard. If it’s a friend or a family member, if it’s somebody that you care about a lot. You know, letting them make the choices and really lead what that looks like, for them is a tough one. And And finally, also, just taking care of yourself a bit as well. So if you are a support person, either in a in a client relationship, or if you’re a support person, in that more personal sense, just making sure that you have things around you that a maintain your safety, and also your mental health and well being because it can be really hard to hear about some of this stuff. Whether you’re, you know, personally connected to that individual or not,

Jess Brady
when I was doing research on financial abuse, because one of the reasons that I wanted to talk about this was I don’t know a lot about financial abuse in Australia. And I’m shockingly embarrassed to say that as someone who cares deeply about financial advice and financial literacy for Australians, particularly women and identifying as a female, I wanted to learn more, which is why I wanted to have this conversation today. So when I, when I looked into it, one of the things that came out immediately as sort of a red flag, if you like around financial abuse was that the financial abuser will, and I’m using inverted commas here to take care of the finances. And that just resonated so deeply with me, because for so many of us who are financial advisors, there are so many situations where one person will be the dominant sort of relationship contact, or decision maker. And it just really reminded me that short, there might be a natural inclination to be more interested in the financial world. But I think we as financial advisors have a responsibility to make sure that in couples, both of them regularly and consistently turn up to meetings, postponing or cancelling meetings, or having separate meetings with that other person that wasn’t able to turn up potentially unexpectedly on the day. Because even if the person says, I’m going to go back and relay it, or we’ve talked about it, and I’m confident that this is the strategy, we’re potentially not identifying a red flag there, and or helping people learn more about financial literacy. And what we know in Australia is that and more take comfort, on average, when you look at it through a gendered lens, men feel more competent, managing the money, they feel more confident about managing the money. But actually, when you look at and there was industry research done on this a few years ago, women pale in comparison when it comes to the confidence piece, but they are just as competent. And so we’ve got so much mythbusting to do to say to women who might say I don’t, I don’t understand it, I don’t, I don’t really get it. And what they do is they create this self fulfilling prophecy where they lean further and further out, and then the men lean further and further in and then we do end up with situations where they do take more control. And that to me, is just the canary in the coal mine that is helping perpetuate these problems. It’s such

Moo Baulch
a good call. Yes. Because I think there’s there’s two parts to that. Right. So there’s the there’s a piece around prevention, which is, you know, kind of where it’s at now, right? We have spent sort of 4050 years building really strong women’s crisis service responses. But actually what we recognized here in Australia and other countries is, it’s no good just doing that constant crisis piece all of the time, we have to put an equal importance. And that’s, you know why I’m really privileged to have this role here at way Jake is on the prevention piece. And so that’s having conversations with your kids from the earliest ages, that are all about framing gender equality for them, because if you start breaking down those stereotypes from when they’re you know, and I can say this because I’ve got a an 18 month old and a five year old if you start having these conversations with them now. Then you are setting them up Much better to have that level of confidence to be able to ask the right questions or connect to the right places to get the information, which is what we’ve, you know, traditionally, historically, we’ve done that for boys always right. And that’s what that’s how the boys club kind of manages to perpetuate itself. So the there’s the prevention piece, there’s also the piece around, you know, you have unique opportunities to have to have conversations with with couples, and sometimes that will be you know, both people together, and sometimes that will be both people separately, but because financial abuse is something that is really not understood, and it’s not part of the kind of mainstream conversation around domestic violence, intimate partner violence, gender based violence, there’s also that kind of responsibility to go, where can we take that extra care? Where can we have those conversations in a different way that actually raise awareness for people who are potentially experiencing this and making sure that, you know, if somebody does disclose which they may, they, you know, it may be that you that you say something to them, and it suddenly triggers, you know, a thought pattern or a series of kind of inner revelations around what’s going on for them, and you may be the person that they reach out to, you know, it may be that, in the financial sense, that’s the easiest way that they can understand what’s going on in terms of that misuse of power and control. So just making sure that you’re equipped to be able to point them in the right direction, because we don’t need to make all of you domestic and family violence experts, you don’t need to be specialists as this stuff, it’s, it’s having a bit of empathy, it’s having a bit of understanding, it’s being able to use your professional skills to really guide people in the right direction to get that help where they need it.

Jess Brady
And that’s what we do every day with a financial lens on and we can absolutely adapt that to make sure that we can help them in another way as well. Know what if you suspect it? What if you suspect it, but they haven’t outwardly said anything?

Moo Baulch
It’s a really tough one, because you may be messing with somebody safety, fundamentally. So I think when it’s a friend or family member or a colleague, it’s probably it’s easy to make a judgment around those circumstances to say, look, I’m worried about you, your behaviors changed, she stopped turning up to family events, I’m concerned is everything okay? Or, you know, I heard the way that my brother in law was speaking to you, that’s not cool. You know, to have that kind of that more gentle conversation and recognize that they may or may not be ready to talk to you and have, you know, that kind of intimate level of conversation with you. If you see it in a workplace, certainly workplaces, I think have come a really long way in terms of starting to have quite strong responses and support structures for victims, survivors of violence, a number of workplaces now have paid domestic violence, leave, some have unlimited paid domestic violence leave, some have leave, that you can access to be able to support, you know, a family member or somebody really close to you who’s going through the process of extricating themselves from from domestic violence. So we see we’ve seen, well, we are seeing a real shift in that space in terms of the role of business and industry to be able to support their workforces and, and people within their workforces. If it’s a customer or client, I would say it’s very dependent on the relationship that you have with them. Probably being aware that most banks now most financial institutions have, you know, that extra care, team or role somewhere within them. So recognizing that, that might be the most appropriate place to kind of point them in the direction of if it’s looking, you know, purely financial. But also, also being aware, of course of one 800 Respect, which is the national sexual assault and domestic and family violence, counseling service, it’s 24/7. It’s confidential, anybody can bring that. So if you, for example, were to sit down with a one of your clients this afternoon, and you think there’s something going on and you’re not quite sure how to approach it. I would say to you just pick up the phone call one 800 Respect, talk it through with them, they can kind of workshop it with you, and work out what the safest way might be to intervene, depending on the circumstances, depending on your relationship with them. Because just naming it might be a dangerous thing to do. It may increase the risk for that person.

Jess Brady
Yeah. Wow. It’s um, it’s interesting because I have had a situation where I suspected something may not be 100%. And I called that person at a later time and said, Are you safe? Are you okay? Do you need help? And I didn’t quite know what to do thereafter. Because it’s a it’s a situation that we don’t get taught, really anything about and you have to do go and do your own research so that that number again, just so that isn’t one 800 resets,

Moo Baulch
one 800, respect 107 37732. And you can call it anytime from anywhere in Australia, it’s the national sexual assault and domestic and family violence counseling service. So you can also pass that number onto clients, if it’s safe to do so you can stick it on the bottom of your email header, you know, there’s a whole range of different places that, that that number is, you know, fairly widely known. Now, it sounds to me just as if you did absolutely the right thing. You know, a lot of the time, as I said, we’re not trying to set you up to be expert responders in this space, that’s not your job. And a lot of this is about being human, and having empathy and just assessing the situation, you know, if you, if you’re concerned about somebody, and you can have that conversation, separate from the partner, obviously, never ever have the name that kind of stuff, when both of them are in the, in the room together in front of you. But yeah, and sometimes, you know, the woman will say, yeah, actually, thank you, thank you for thank you for reaching out. Other times, you know, there may be complete denial, but knowing that you have done everything you can in that set of circumstances, and actually, that might be the trigger that gets her to go away and think about it and, and reach out to a, you know, a support service, like one 800 respect or, or elsewhere or, you know, a bank or a financial institution as well. So, yeah, there’s a, there’s a range of ways that we can all sort of be part of the solution.

Jess Brady
Yeah. And it’s been interesting, because to get you to talk to me today, I just been thinking about the lens of our clients or our members. But as you were talking, it’s so obvious that we need to think about this as humans who live with us and employers. So one of the things that we did at Fox in here recently is we added, I mean, I’m sure, you know, in this as funny thing as an employer, like it was in my brain and just never formalized. So we formalized domestic leave, in our employee handbook, can we made our staff aware of what domestic leave is, when you work at Fox and Herron, I hope that no one ever needs to use it. But I also want them to know that I absolutely want them to use it if they need to. But that’s a very simple thing that we as often small business owners in Australia running financial advice, businesses should take the effort to do to formalize it, to document it and actually to sit down with our staff members and explain what it is and what you should be using it and when you should be using it for.

Moo Baulch
Yeah, and that’s, that’s spot on. So it’s, you know, for many people, it will be a symbolic thing. So it’ll be you know, we are saying within this business, and recognizing that for small businesses, this, you know, building in those sorts of things can be, can be a challenge, but saying, actually, this is a priority for us, not because we think, you know, every staff member is going to need it on an annual basis. But it needs to be there for people that, you know, when they when they need to take it. And domestic violence leave, I think is something that is growing in popularity all over the world. Now, you know, there’s significant numbers of businesses of all types are starting to take this on. Of course, the piece that needs to sit around that is the awareness. And in larger businesses, for example, you know, and some of the banks is having making sure that you’ve got the right kind of structures and systems so that if a staff member does need to disclose anything to you know, their line manager that they’ve got safety and confidentiality around that. The other piece, I think that’s really interesting that that business is starting to take on is also how do we how do we deal with perpetrators? How do we deal with people who are using violence in workplaces, because, you know, just as we recognize that, you know, one in four women is impacted by this in her adult lifetime, we know that significant numbers of men are turning up to work every day, sometimes using workplace resources to actually further that abuse. And often you’ll see some of those sorts of behaviors that might might imply that they have those underlying attitudes about, about women about gender equality. Certainly some of the stuff we’ve seen in the sexual harassment place and Kate Jenkins respect at work report a couple of years ago, I think it all kind of ties in it ties in and as part of the conversation that we’re having now.

Jess Brady
And is that excuse my ignorance, is that just noticing language commentary off the cuff comments, you know, behaving in a way that is disrespectful to people and, and calling that out? Is that Is that correct? Yeah.

Moo Baulch
Absolutely. And recognizing that you know, if you walk into a into a meeting and there is an usually as a guy, let’s face it, a man who continually talks over women who to regurgitate her ideas and brands them as his own, who, you know, is constantly telling jokes are a bit off, they’re a bit sexist, racist, you know, those sorts of stereotypes, things, recognizing that the people in that room who don’t have the power are probably the least comfortable and the least equipped to be able to, to call that out. So, again, it comes back to that kind of bystander piece of, you know, how can those of us who are in the room and who have a bit more of a voice, how can we challenge that stuff and say, Actually, that’s not, you know, the behavior that we want, and to realize that you just spoke over her? You know, and most, I think most businesses and companies now have a reasonable set of structures and processes around around that in, you know, internally,

Jess Brady
this topic, I could talk to you for so long about this, because as you’re talking, I’m thinking about sort of all of the different intersecting components to this as financial advisors, as sometimes business owners, or employees or employers as parents, children, friends, siblings, you know, this stuff pervade every area of our life. And I really feel that whilst this is a complicated, challenging and difficult conversation, it cannot be something that we push to the side to deal with later, we have time, effort, energy and resources, because that just isn’t acceptable. And it’s so evident that the community and our expectations as members of the community has been shifting for a very long time. But the vocalization of that has definitely been louder and stronger, I think, in the last few years, particularly younger women, saying like, no more, and we’re not putting up with this. And you know, without wanting to be overly crass, like, I think financial advisors have to recognize that, even if your member base is all wealthy, white men, their children are going to inherit their money soon, and they will not want to work with people that don’t care about this stuff. And so the idea that this is someone else’s problem that I’ve got too many regulatory issues or, you know, business considerations, it just can’t happen. We have to hold space for thinking about what can we do not that we can be heroes and fix everything. And it’s great to hear that there’s some fantastic resources. But yeah, I just feel like the time is now to be having specifically financial abuse compensations, because, as I said, felt like for the longest time, this hadn’t been something that I had learnt very much about, and I do feel we are in a privileged position to educate Australians, that financial abuse is a thing that it is real, that it clearly impacts a lot of people and I look forward to reading that Deloitte Report, and that we can potentially help people learn the reds, the red flags as well.

Moo Baulch
And and to be part of that, that prevention piece of you know, like, let’s shift it for the next generation. Because I firmly believe that in a generation time, we now know, I mean, things like the Deloitte report that came out yesterday, we have such a sense of the the prevalence and the impacts of this violence, right. So a generation ago, we didn’t have all the information, we didn’t know how bad it was, who was being impacted what those impacts look like, over the course of a lifetime. You know, we didn’t know that the experiences of women were so much worse than men, or when we didn’t know it, we didn’t, we just didn’t talk about it was just accepted. We know now we know what that is this is doing to children and young people who are growing up in, in violence in households, we know what the impacts will be if they don’t get the right kind of support and, and responses on the other side of this. So I firmly believe that if, if we don’t fix it now, if we don’t, you know, use the information that we have now and the breadth of knowledge that we have now about the size of the problem or what we need to do to fix it, then in a generation time, they’ll be coming back to us saying you were negligent, you knew the size of the problem, and you chose to do nothing about it. Because it was an uncomfortable thing to talk about. Or, you know, it was difficult to challenge because it was something that was going on in your immediate family. Yeah, and I understand why young women are so angry about this. I understand why older feminists are so angry about this because they’ve been banging their heads up against the patriarchy for you know, 40 5060 7080 years and they haven’t seen enough change happen yet.

Jess Brady
Well, I’m delighted to have you to help us learn more about this uncomfortable but very real situation that is occurring. And I can’t thank you enough for spending time teaching us and helping us identify it today. Can I change complete tact because today has been quite heavy. But I do want to say thank you because I know that your time is very precious. And I’m delighted to have you but I would love to round out today’s conversations with a couple of rapid fire questions to you. If that’s okay, go for it, Jess. Yeah. Okay. I want to know, so my podcast is all about How do we live great lives. And so I think today’s conversation is about how we can help our clients live great lives. But this is sort of more holistic. So I want to know, what is one thing that you do to look after your mental health.

Moo Baulch
I have a bath every single morning for a start my day I was born in England, and I’m very firmly English in my bath nurse. It’s the thing that keeps me sane. So if I don’t get my bath, it’s not that my day falls apart, but there is definitely something missing.

Jess Brady
That is the most exciting thing. As someone who is an aspirational Botha and I get like one that one a week every morning just seems every morning and amazing

Moo Baulch
morning.

Jess Brady
Congrats to you.

Moo Baulch
I mean, don’t get me wrong. It’s not a long bath. I have two small kids. So it’s often like a kind of two minute soak. But it’s it’s my time.

Jess Brady
It totally counts. What would you say to younger move? What’s one piece of advice you would give younger man?

Moo Baulch
Oh, gosh, enjoy all the travel, enjoy all of the moments, even the ones that feel really dark and intense, and you’re not sure where you’re going next. It definitely takes you on the journey to where you are right now.

Jess Brady
One thing that is yet to be ticked off your bucket list?

Moo Baulch
Well, it’s not yet to be ticked off. But I want to get back into Europe again sometime soon. I miss Spain very much. So maybe living on a Spanish island. There you go. Oh, that would be

Jess Brady
amazing. I have a fake book club, which is just books that I read. And then I give my opinions to the world. Do you have a book for me to add to my fake?

Moo Baulch
Oh, I do if you have not read Chelsea water goes another day in the colony, get it and read it. I very very rarely get to read these days i i did a degree in Literature and Language English, way back in my late teens, early 20s. And so I used to read we used to have to read about 14 or 15 books a week for university. Now that I have two small kids, I have no time for reading. But this is the first book that I actually got to sit and I was just I read it like voraciously over a couple of days. It’s confronting its power powerful. It’s challenging and it’s it really explains how young Aboriginal feminists in Australia today fit within the whole you know, the the society that we’re living in here, but Black Lives Matter. It’s just it’s wonderful. Chelsea what to go Doctor Chelsea, what are they?

Jess Brady
Right now adding to the list. Thank you very, very much. Ah, that is all mu huge thank you again for your time today. Very, very much appreciated. And we want I will add the information about the new podcast and the Deloitte research into the show notes as well. So huge. Thank you.

Moo Baulch
Thank you. It was really lovely having a chat dress. Happy to come back anytime.

Jess Brady
Thank you. We might take you up on that. Thanks, Moo.

Moo Baulch
No worries. Take care.