Hi, everyone, Welcome to conversations. Now, let me set the background for this, because in November twenty twenty three, in the northern Indian state of Ultrakhan, they were building a tunnel through the mountains. It's in the Himalayas, and unfortunately there was a collapse in the tunnel and when it
trapped forty one Indian workers. There was a one hundred meters of the tunnel collapsed and they're having trouble reaching them until they reached out to our next guest, Arnold Dix's president of the Geneva based International Tunneling Underground Space Association. He's a polymath. He's got so many qualifications and so much talent. He's an engineer, he's a geologist, he's a lawyer, he's a farmer who grows flowers. He's even been a truck driver and he joins us now. Arnold Dix, thank
you so much your time. How are you.
I'm well, Thank you for having me on your show.
I'm sure you've got so many talents.
Oh, I just love it. Like I you talk about as talents. I'm easily distracted, and when I get distracted, I enjoy just immersing myself in different things. So yeah, great to be with you.
Your book is called The Promise How and everyday hero I made the impossible possible. Did you see yourself as an author? And I know you've written lots of papers, lots.
Of not an author. No, absolutely, not a book, Oh my God, like I know. Never, never in my wildest dreams had I thought I'd be an author like of a book. And I'm sure my English teacher also rest her soul jam Lions if any of her family are listening. No way she would have thought I'd ever write a book either. But there you go, I have.
We might come, but we might come to those early days because I'm always interested in the formative years. There's no doubt about that. You're in Slovenia in November twenty twenty three and you get a call, can you can you walk us through it? Please?
Yeah? Sure? So So because of the war in Ukraine with Russia, the world's looking for alternative roots to put energy and freight from the sort of the East to the West. So Slovenia is part of one of the roots for an alternative connection between the East and the West,
and that involves tunnel. So I was there talking sharing ideas and things in Slovenia and literally my phone rings, but in the modern sense it's a WhatsApp call and it's the Chief Engineer of India on the line and he says, look, got a problem, had a tunnel collapse. Things aren't going so well with the rescue. What do you reckon? And he shared with me some stuff and I told him what I thought, and then he just said to me, oh, can I just introduce you to someone?
And he spins the phone around. There's another guy in the room and it's the advisor of the Prime Minister of India and he says to me, why do you what you said? And I explained why, and they just said, oh, can you come and give us a hand?
What did you say to them? Oh?
I just said nothing too complicated. I just said to them, look, I think it's really really fragile, situation, really delicate. And if I was you, I'd go really really soft, and I'd go really really slow because I think from what you've shown me, the whole thing could come down. So I'd take it like like just just chill, like turn the volume right down and take it easy. And I think they're expecting me to say, you know, send in hercules and you know, do all of that. But but
it looked really bad. And and then they just said, could you come and give us a hand? I said, yeah, sure.
How's that? When they say come and give you a hand? Who who does the airline booking two pays? How does that work?
I just it's like, so again, it's a bit of a surprise. I think to people that in the real work world, it's just like your neighbor leaning across the fence guard. Hey, Graham, I got I got a problem with the with me radio over here. Can you give us a hand? And you go, yeah, no worries film, I'll be over in a tick. And so it's just like that on a global scale, because it's not about money, you know, it's not about I've got like I'm not big and tough, like it's not like I can lift
rocks that other people can't. I don't have any sort of patented machine that can do the job. But but yeah, they just so. And they didn't tell me there's no contract, there's no money. It's I organize my own tickets. Oh well I organized them as well. I had to go to Libyana is like the edge of the earth. So I had to go Libyana, do Bay Do Buy, Mumbai, Mumbai, Deli, Deli, Deridin. So I organized all of that and then from Deridin
up to the mountain, they got me a helicopter. So it was worth it, like so cool, Like there's this chopper and it's like really old one, like as old as me. And yeah, they packed me into that and flew me up to Himalayas.
Yeah, so what happened? So your land? And is it the au? Is there a reception party for you?
Na, it's not like a reception party. On the way, I was doing my research because I was trying to figure out what I was getting myself into. It's not it's not the first time I've been called like I do this. What's different is this becomes public. Normally everyone keeps a lid on it, and there's it's like stum, you know, Mum's the word. We don't talk about it.
But somehow other this had become public. So on the way, I was doing my research into what's going on, and I discovered that this was a special pilgrim tunnel, so it was going to one of the four most holy places for the Hindu people, and that the local priests believe the reason for the collapse was religious based, was they'd upset the gods by doing something up there. And so I realized I was getting myself into something quite
different to your average engineering collapse. There was this whole cultural religious dimension to an engineering collapse. So by the time I landed there, I was sort of getting quite tuned into this is something, this is a bit unusual, this particular collapse. So no, there was no big reception party. The guy who rung me Rajal, he was just sitting there and wow, you could call it a taxi, but it's not really. It's just like a car and sort of barely a car. And he just picked me up
and took me. He took me up to the tunnel and went had a look.
What was there?
Yeah, so not good. So the place that they put the tunnel through the mountain is what we call a sheers, So it's where the two two lots of rock sort of joined together and rubbed together a bit like a fault or something. And unfortunately the tunnel was running right along that and so when I put my head inside the tunnel was like oh dear, because you could see it was I think twenty one prior collapses between the beginning of the tunnel and where the collapse was this time.
So it just was awful. And it like if it was in Australia, you wouldn't be allowed in, like you just it' a bit have a big sign, you know, like keep out sort of thing. Like it was like it was just terrible. Yeah, so not good.
I've heard you say and read about you. How you talk to the mountain? Can you take can you walk us through that process? You talk? Yeah, you feel it?
Is that?
Is that spiritual? Is that? Is it a practicality to that?
Yeah, it's interesting. So that all talking to the mountain or touching the rocks or listening to the rocks. So I'm a scientist, engineer kind of guy, right, So I'm into the mass and science and all the tools and
things that go along with that. But in addition to that, and it was taught to me from when I was a kid of a gender mind from the old time snowy mountains guys, and reinforced during my mining placements at when I was doing geology or like mining geology at Monash, the people who actually survive and make old bones in this business, there's usually something more to them than just digging and the sort of the science and the engineering, and what they always say is trust your guts, like
trust your instinct, and in the case of rocks, that's that is actually touch them, feel them, taste them, smell them, put your back against them, just sense what's going on. And so I that's part of how I roll. I do all the tech stuff. But I also I'm not I'm not adverse to how do I feel about it?
And what did the mountain tell you when you are.
Unhappy to it? Was? It was in a bad mood, and I I it was obviously traumatized. And so if I use the analogy that the mountain is alive, and in a sense it is alive because it's at this collision point between the Indian plate and China, so the Himalayas are this big collision, and so it's moving and and does all of that sort of stuff. It told me that it was very much alive. It told me that was very much in distress. And when I touched it and listened to it, but I also felt that
we still had time. I know that sounds odd, but it didn't feel like it was about to collapse on me. It felt like it wasn't. It felt like it was going to collapse, which it did actually, but it just wasn't going to do it right then. But yeah, I did that on a daily basis. That's like taking its pulse all the time and you're listening and it's like you've got your spidery senses on high alert, like what's going on here?
Professor Arnold Dix is my guest, folks. He's a president of the Tunneling, Underground and Space Association. There's been a collapse in a tunnel in North India and he's been summoned to help rescue the forty one miners. I suppose you call or workers at a trap there and we'll find out how he did it after the break back shortly, welcome back to conversations. Arnold Dix is my guest. Arnold is an expert on everything. He's a geologist, an engineer,
a lawyer, farmer. But if you just tuned in, been called to India to help with the rescue of some forty one workers trapped in a tunnel collapse. As they're trying to bore a tunnel through the through the Himalayas. But as we're talking in the break, Arnold, you told me that your phone's going on now and there's there's actually, as we're speaking, another tunnel collapse in India.
Yeah. Absolutely, So I'm getting like, literally while we're talking, I'm getting messages. Got a collapse. I've got let's see this is I've just I mean, you can see it. But here's a message coming in a bit hard for radio. It's got I've got a great face for radio, and that's a great message for radio. But here's one of the rescue guys. He's saying, I've just reached Telangana a tunnel operation, Dudy, there's a collapse. He sent me through a picture of himself in when we were doing our collapse,
which is that's us together there we worked on. He's saying, you know, wish me luck. I've got videos coming in showing me the collapse. I've got the chief engineer again messaging me asking me. He's saying, what's he saying? I went inside presence Award muckinded. Further advanced collapse occurred over TBM. TBM is buried in Mark NDRF on their way. No signs of life. Right, that's that's now like in the break, Oh my gosh, So that's life another day in the life of Arnold.
So you've been there. Some of your comments have been fatalistic. You often say that you don't often have an opportunity to save lives and collapses like this, the outcome is generally tragic.
So this text, this collapse. If I was a betting man, I will say all dead, Oh my gosh.
Right, But in Ultra Khan, you've got forty one still alive, and they've tried to reach them using big machineries and big augers, but that's failed. So how did you approach a different strategy for them?
Yeah, So, by the time I got there, their promises that they're going to rescue the forty one at all not come true. And to be honest, feeling pretty sad because at the beginning of a rescue there's always this like, we're going to do it. You know, the hormones are running big, We've got a big machine. Big machine means we can do the job, blah blah blah. But by the time I got there, that hadn't happened. And so I got their. First thing I do is just immerse
myself in the situation. I might be many things, but what I'm not is a great, big, elder plus sized, white bearded barbarian who comes in bang and you do it highway or the highway. That's not me. Instead, what I do is I just disappear into the group. So I'm with everyone, talking to everyone, just trying to get an understanding of what's going on, find out what the
data is saying, find out what our like. We had things called light our data, so we're doing digital be twin modeling, looking for change data, just any any factual material I could get my hands on. And also how people are feeling, like, how's there one feeling?
Like?
What? What's the mood? So that's what I did when I got there, and pretty quickly I felt that they needed hope. That sounds really sounds really odd, you know, like I'm a technical person, but they needed hope. And it's this is really unusual because normally everyone's either dead or soon will be, but in this case, everyone's alive, and so we've got everything to lose.
And what contact did they have with them?
Oh, we had we there was a compressor. They were using some air compressor tools, and there was we had lots There were initially lots of pipes going down there because we're building a tunnel. But when it collapsed, it crushed everything, including air supply. Everything filled the whole tunnel up except for one little pipe that was for the
air tools. So what we could do is we could blow air down the pipe, and we could also yell, so you could go literally hollow flowing, and then you hear a little voice down the other end, so we knew, you know, so we kind of know that there's people there on the other end, but it's only a little pipe, and but that let us send, well send, which is good. So at least we know and they know that we know that they're alive, so that's okay. Some food And when I say food, I don't mean like food rations
or something. I mean like you get a handful of peanuts, you stick them in the pipe and then you blow it with air compressed air, and so presumably it's like a bazooka of peanuts going down at the other end, and you can blow a bit of water and stuff down there, like literally put a tap and then they catch the water at the other end, so we could get air and a bit of food and a bit
of water and a bit of communications. And that was fantastic because at least they knew that we knew that they were alive, and we could tell them that we're coming to get them.
And Dad used a big orger when you come in and say, look, this is the wrong strategy. I think we should go smaller and more slowly. How do they receive that advice?
Oh, well, so gee, you cut right to the that's you know, it's not even in the book, like You've gone straight to the point a bit. So look, there was a difference of opinion amongst the different experts, and certainly I was I'm only one of many who's there, and I was not. I was very uncomfortable with some of the things that were happening, and so we just
I think my presence just turned the volume down a bit. So, for example, there was a vertical drilling operation, which was one of the ways we're trying to do it, and the vertical drill had come down really well. We were going to put people in a little capsule and rescue them vertically, but we started to get more water coming in the tunnel, and so we were risking drowning the men. So my approach of hey, look we're going to rescue all the men and we're not going to get hurt.
They stopped. So the team agreed to stop. Now that's just a miracle when you've got a group of men who were trying to rescue people and they were in ten this is the vertical teamin ten meters and they agreed to stop. And then with the horizontal drill, they didn't agree to stop with that horizontal lger, but in the end it blew up anyway, and so then we had to go to people in the pipe with their bare hands.
And so that's I've read that. So you've got it. You've got to your progressing. They're in this pipe which is like a tunnel, and they're digging hand by hand. What what sort of tool are they using it as a spree?
Is it just hands? Really? And I mean hands? I think they might have had gloves on. Well. The reason is that the material that it collapsed, because we're in a sheer zone, is just little tiny bits of rock like it's all collapsed, and because it's so fragile, and because we understand that the whole thing can collapse. The softer and more gently we go, the more likely it is that we won't trigger a major collapse. Because the
data was showing us. We've got drones that are flying in and out and building like virtual models of the tunnel, and we've got survey data also showing us what's going on in the tunnel, and what we could see was that it was we call it converging or squashing, So the tunnel was squashing, and it was also squashing asymmetrically, which means that it it's like the worst of the worst because it's yeah, it's uneven, so the whole thing
could blow. So the trick was to do as gently as possible our progress so as to not upset the patient. Like if the analogy that the mountain is alive and I'm touching the mountain to feel its heartbeat, we don't want this patient to feel us just getting in there to get these men out. So, yeah, it's two men in a little pipe. It's about eight hundred mil pipe ten mil plate which we built on site. We do we weld these and yeah, we're on a little trolley.
We built a little trolley and we've got a trolley on a rope and we're just hand digging now and pulling out the mark.
I'm reminded of all those escape attempts from Stelle a seventeen, and you know where they where. They dug tunnels and they're doing it by hand and they're trying to get the dirt out and disperse it there. But what was your action reaction like when they finally broke through in this like an eight hundred mili tunnel, which is you can sort of crawl in, I suppose is it about
all you can do? Did you have any sense of what the reaction was like at the other end when they finally saw a rescuer appear.
Yeah, well, on all accounts, they were just well, I mean it's like for them, they have to believe they're going to be rescued, otherwise they can't stay alive. So that's the first thing. So the sort of mindset you have to be as an underground person have to stay positive. They were their mindset is, of course, we're going to be rescued. But in addition to water and food, we did send them medication. Just between you, me and your listeners,
the medication we were sending were antidepressants. So they were in a you know, like all things considered, they were pretty positive now that the plan was that each one of the forty one would be triaged and then we'd bring them out who was the most sick first and whatever you and it will take hours. But actually, and I remember being in a meeting saying, I don't think that's going to work. I think actually they're just going
to come bouncing out. And so sure enough, as soon as the pipe busted through, it was just like forty one little rabbits came scurrying out the pipe and the scene was amazing, like it was. There were obviously all the rescue people were cheering, and of course all the politicians were there right front, of course, but it was
interesting for me. I'm not in You won't find me in any of the vision for that when they come through the pipe, because I decided that I shouldn't be in that part of the rescue because actually this is a very personal thing for the country, like I'd done
my bit. So I sat behind the families. There was a spot just a little bit back, not far like maybe fifty meters maximum in the tunnel, just a little bit back from where they were coming out and where the ambulances were, and I just sat there and watched the reaction of the families and the rescue people were all cheering and clapping and all the rest of it, but the families, and I could never have guessed this. The families were like they were seeing the dead, Like
it was like they were seeing ghosts. They weren't clapping and cheering though, were just like blank faced looking.
When they cry. Sure they'd be crying.
It was crying, well, there was, there was, and maybe there was a bit of crying from me too. There's this wave of distrust of government around the world at the moment, and so even amongst these people, they believed perhaps that they're being lied to, that they're now their loved ones maybe weren't going to be able to be brought out. Maybe this rescue was just a big sort of public relations thing.
But it succeeded, acceeded, exceeded what I need to ask, what's the state of the tunnel now?
How funny you should ask. I was there literally two weeks ago and was taken in to have a look. In over a year, they've managed to only go forty five meters in like stabilizing the area that collapsed. They've the pipe still there, but they've gone forty five meters. It did fill up with water and it did collapse after we did the rescue, so all the things we're worried about happened. But they're now slowly rebuilding it.
And will it be completed do you think?
Yeah, the rate they're going, it'll take another couple of years, but yeah, it'll get completed. And I think with all the publicity, they'll do it right.
We need to take a break. Arnold, Professor Arnold Dix is my guest. He recalled this great adventure in a book called The Promise, How an everyday hero made the impossible possible. There's so much more to Arnold that I want to get to. I'm not We're going around a time that I'll do it as much as I can when we come back after the break back shortly, folks. Welcome back, folks. If you've just tuned into conversations, we're talking with Arnold Dix now Professor Arnold dis But he's
got so many different qualifications. He's a geologist, an engineer, he's a lawyer, he's a farmer, I'm not even sure we'll get a chance to talk about it. He drove trucks for a while there, so, but he achieved great acclaim as one of the rescuers of the forty one Indian workers are trapped in a collapse in a tunnel in the Himalayas. If you just tuned in, they've finally got them out. The forty one are out and they all we've seen in reasonable spirits and good health. So
what happens after that? Arnold, you become a renowned almost a national hero in India. I mean yeah, and our Prime minister mentions you in Parliament and you're in handside. I mean, how did you handle this newfound fame?
Well, firstly I wondered whether I'd had a mental breakdown or was having one of those mental health issues, because it wasn't just the Prime Minister, even our friend mister Dutton got up and said no, and I'm like, no, surely not. And at the time this is happening, I'm still up in the Himalayas, and so I'm getting reports and there are only broken reports because I don't have internet coverage. Well I'm not much internet coverage because I'm
in the Himalayas. I'm not even in a city, and I'm getting reports that our prime Minister's saying nice things about me in parliament and the leader of the opposition. Everything. I wondered whether I might have died or maybe it was maybe I was delusional, because the whole story is so ridiculous and so not like how it's always been for me over my years and years of dealing with bad things, that I thought maybe I was just I'd lost the plot and so a bit of slapping to
my own face about it all. And I'm actually serious because when I'm dealing with really difficult situations, I have to make sure I'm performing well because my judgment has to be good, and so I and then people in the streets, like everyone's a lot of people lying down on the ground and touching my feet.
Which is very Indian people.
Yeah, because because there was this huge spiritual dimension to the tunnel itself, and also the rescue, the messaging, and the way I engage with the mountain. Listening to the mountain, I prayed at their temple, I gave flowers to their local god every day, Like before I'd go in the tum I'd always give some flowers to the local mountain God. There was also this spiritual dimension to it, and so for many people they believed that God had somehow used me as a sort of a I don't know, a
vehicle to help the rescue. And that's really difficult for me to understand because that's not sort of the place I come from. And so I was faced with everyone recognizes me, I get mobbed, I had to have special escorts. I couldn't stay at a hotel like it was. I think it was widely reported that I was the only Australian that every Indian loved because we've just beaten them at the cricket and so this was and there were memes,
lots of memes. There was I think some videos of the rescue guys singing a song with me on a log and that got like nearly one hundred million hits, Like I was like a bit of a celebrity over there, not how it normally is normally. I'm completely unknown.
Back to reality though, the more practical things you've got to you've got to live, you've got to survive. Did you get paid for your time and for your effort? There's a financial reward I mean, can we discuss that practicality?
We can, we can discuss that practicality and it's very quick. No, no, yeah, but you don't do it for.
That, Like I know you don't do it for that, but you've got to someone has to pay for the affairs, and you've got a family you have to feed.
And yeah, I've got to say, if this was part of an incredible business plan, like a get rich program, that didn't work, And if anything, it's probably ruined a lot of my traditional business because I'm famous for not being famous. So you know, you get me in when you've got a problem, I help sort it out. I sort it out, and then I go and I don't tell anyone, and so I'm in the shadows. It's almost I'm the complete anti hero of the twenty twenty, twenty
first century. I don't play in that conventional space. I'm actually purposefully not in the public domain. But this one, I had no choice because I felt that in order to have the team come together, in order for us to achieve what would normally be impossible, somehow we had to be together and we had to believe that we could do this, and that meant me being a public figure.
What is the International Tunneling Underground Space Association. How big is it and who funds that?
Oh? So that's the peak United Nations advisory body on the underground. It's got about eighty member nations, several hundred thousand members. Most of them wear brown cardigans, of course, and we just love the underground and we're responsible for trying to promote the underground as as a way of delivering clean water, sewage, transport and energy to the world's people.
So whether it's underground metros in cities, or water supply clean water, or environmental protection with better drainage or whatever, we're into the underground and we're quite influential in terms of policy because we all love we're very nerdy bunch. We really love the underground.
Uh.
And it's a mixture of the industry, so there is an underground industry. So they they're involved with us, the consultants, the universities, the we're like the nerdy nerds.
Like we're building an underground corridor here in Adelaide. You have you been have you been consulted on it? Yep?
I have. In the early stages, I was consulted on it and in not a very detailed way. It was just just what do you think you think? Do you think we can do this in Adelaide? Do you know what?
Do you just general stuff? But I I know well, I mean, I know, well a whole lot of the team there, and I've worked with them over decades, so I know you've actually you've extracted somehow or other some of the top you know, the top people from around the country are they're in Adelaide at the moment trying to deliver it.
It's good to hear. Can I quote you? I've got two quotes, one from the book, but I like this one. I'm really proud of the inner nerd. I have nerdy books, I wear nerdy clothes, I drove a nerdy car. I proudly go where nerds go. I'm seriously nerdy, and it's a really nice place to be because we do good stuff. You're not You're not. You can't be a nerd anymore.
Though, with this new no, I think maybe I'm I'm like the new I don't know, I'm the nerd that the nerd came out into the sun or something. No. I think that there's a lot to be said for people of substance, and that's what I think the nerds are where people who do stuff like tangible things. There's we're actually really nice. Like if the world was run by nerds, we just sort stuff out because we're a practical bunch, and you know we wouldn't. We're not into
wars and we're not into hating on everybody. We're just like, you know, like we're just And so I don't mind being called a nerd, and I do. I drive a nerdy car. I was car well, I actually purchased and still have the very first Toyota Prius matter like actually sold in Australia and if you go back through the records, I did get a bit of press about that because people like, why on earth would you be buying the first Prius. I'm like, because it's the right thing to do, and that's what nerds do.
I wouldn't thought it was an Eddie car. It's still going. How old is it now?
Yeah, well it's twenty three years old.
Had to change the battery on it only recently.
I did the biggest issue that's actually the steering rack, but it was on when Toyota ran an ad recently for the multiple generations of Preus. Mine's the little green one, because mine, I think, is the only one left, and so I got the first. It's the alpha and Amega of Prius is in Australia, and I've still got it.
Oh, well done, so much to talk about, so little time left that we'll try and cover it quickly when we come back. Arnold Dix is my guess, folks. The book about the rescue is called The Promise, How an everyday hero made the impossible possible. But it goes through his life, and i'll quote after the break a paragraph that really interested me. Back shortly, Arnold Dix is my guest, folks. He's the president of the International Tunneling Undergrounds Based Association.
I didn't realize it was so influential. A geologist, an engineer, he's a lawyer. He's a farmer growth gross flowers, and was even a truck driver when he couldn't get work during COVID. Apparently, so I want to quote from the book. Okay, in another life, in a parallel universe where an Arnold who is fairly similar to me exists, I would probably have been relaxing in a gaudy mounsion in some posh Melbourne suburb with an Italian sports car parked snugly in
a four car garage. I almost certainly would have been wealthy. I'm certain I would have been hugely successful as a barrister, perhaps even working as a judge. But I'm absolutely sure that I would have been miserable. Now, he did work as a lawyer for a certain amount of time, And were you miserable?
Ah? Well, actually I still do. I'm still current, I'm still one of them, and I weave my law into what I do and I'm content, Like I really, I really like how I've been able to blend these various I don't know skills, I don't know whatever you call them, to blend them into something useful. And I have what
I think money can't buy. And i'd become and I think I've mentioned it in the book, like I was really high performing partner in megafirm, kind of level lawyer, Like I'm not did law by the way, like I mean, seriously do law, but I wanted something more and I've got it. And I think that the blending a good
dose of humanity into the practice of law. Where law is about enabling, it's about helping other people get on with what they're good at, as opposed to making people fear what they do is going to get them into try that enabling an aspect of law is just wonderful when it's mixed in right measure with humanity, technical competence, a vision omission and things like that. And that's what I was really trying to say, Like I could have been, not could have been, I imagine I could have been.
I was earning the absolute megabucks, and I walked away from it because for me personally, I wanted something more than that. I felt there was more and I've got it.
And I ask you, is that? I mean the found of a group called the ALARP Group, a la RP group from the beginning, a LARP which stands for as low as reasonably practicable focused on protection of life and property according to the four pillars of excellence, independence, professionalism, and ethical conduct. Now that sounds very philosophically positive, I mean, is it? Is it a bit airy fairy?
Yeah, it's a bit airy fairy, but but that's what I do. And so it's not for everybody. Like a lot of people want consultants or advisors just to reinforce whatever decision they've made, and to hide whatever mischief or whatever's gone wrong. Right, that's what they want, that's what that's why you get you. And I won't mention the acronyms of the various organizations in they don't really want
to reform. But there are some people who actually genuinely want help, and they're the ones I'm interested in, and they're the ones who ask me for help. And that's that's where I earn my living. And I don't earn my living saving people's lives. I think that's that's not right. I don't think you should earn money if it can possibly avoid it. It's not a money making spot. But yeah, where people want genuine.
Without naming that can you give that's an example of that.
Yeah. Sure. I recently got called to have a look at an underground something somewhere and I discovered that just literally quite quickly, that they'd forgotten the fundamental fire and life safety engineering components to make this whatever it might be safe. And the people I was dealing with at the lower level of the organization were a bit edgy about it. So I just marched into the CEO's office and I said, here's the deal, this is the situation, this is what I've seen. I've got no idea why
it hasn't been reported up to you. But what I know is if I was a judge and people were to die here tomorrow, I would send you to jail, as the CEO, and he was like and then so they held an immediate emergency meeting as to who and the hell it employed me and what was I talking about. They discovered that what I was saying was true. They immediately employed a new person to take control of the change, to bring the organization back into compliance, and they're sorting
it out and they thank me. That's what I do. That's the space I'm in. You know, it'll never appear in a book. I'll never disclose who it is. I will never but I helped make the world a better place for in that case. About I think it's two million people a year and they'll never know it was me, and it doesn't matter, and it's perfect. That's how. That's
how I like to earn my money. So when I open up my wallet, the money that's in there, albeit that it's not a lot, it's it's like it's nice money, right based.
On excellence, independence, professionalism, and ethical conduct. Your body of work is when you start to explore what you've done, the papers you've written. The paper it's enormous, it's an enormous volume of work over the years. I don't know how you found that. There was one that intrigued me, and I don't know whether I read it correctly or not. Did you have a role in the changing of the words of the national anthem?
Huh hm, yes, so he's on the late Peter Vickery championed the inclusive change to the national anthem. And I was, I'm I'm sort of like, yes, I was supportive of Peter and you know, just that word and just changing to be more inclusive in the national anthem was Yeah, I don't know how you even found that like that. I am impressed, like this, that's that's an example of just being decent, you know, decent.
How did that gow? How easy? Was it the constitutional issue here to change the words of a national anthem?
Yeah? That was and Peter, Peter really championed that and he was passionate about it. He had a very soft spot for in particularly for indigenous and other marginalized groups within Australia, and that meant that he instead of young and free, he wanted one and free and so and the idea being that as our country matures, and as we are so many people together, that we should celebrate what is collectively ours, the oneness, and not be so focused on what makes us different. And I just thought,
isn't that the future? You know? So I was happy to support to support with that. I'm just impressed you even found it out, like that's in my secret squirrel barrel. You know, no one normally knows it like and it highlights I don't I don't talk about what I do. I just quietly try and do the right thing.
Maybe he can get the national anthem change we love that, we love that you are we're all Australian, rather than when we have I think I think that would be better suited. Yeah, that's another that's another issue. Let's finish with the book. I got the promise how on every Day Hero made the impossible possible. There's an audio you actually narrate the audiobook the audiobook yourself for him.
I do.
That would have been a challenge.
It was I should have. Yeah, anyone who's going to do a book stand up, I started sitting down. It takes a long time to read a book sitting down, and it's kind of weird reading your own book because then you go, I want to change that, and then you've got a director saying you can't change it. You've got to read it exactly as it is. And I'm like, no, but I'm the author. I want to change it. They're like, no, you're not allowed.
And at the back of the book you got QR codes which take you to some of the audio visual stuff that you've done. And there's been plenty of that too, so that is an interesting inclusion.
Yeah, QR code is really important to me. I think the book talks a lot about stuff that seems completely unbelievable, and the QR code takes you to the real resources from the news channels, from wherever we're a reader can go, oh my goodness. Actually, if anything, the book is turned the volume down on this so much there, and that's just to help a reader if they're interested, just find out more.
And what a delight having a chat to you. So you do such great work. You do it almost anonymously, except when a hundred million people click on a link and good luck with the book. Maybe we're met one day.
Thank you Bye.
Unlottle Dix was my guest folks. The book is called The Promise. How on everyday hero made the impossible possible. It's a great story. Thank you for your times.