'Getting a Grip' with Julian Leeser MP

This episode explores how a young woman responded when a holiday of a lifetime ended in disaster when she was badly injured in the 2016 Nice terror attacks.

“I didn’t actually know what had happened until many, many hours after the fact but I had gone from this jovial exciting time to waking up lying on the ground. I could see some stars and I could also see a strangers face hovering over me."

When asked about how her life has changed:

“My life is quite different, but I am still the same person. I do have quite a different outlook on things now. The Adelaide before this terrorist attack, before facing death and surviving was probably a little shallow, a little caught up in the small stuff. I cared a lot about how I was perceived in the world, whereas now I have kind of realised it is really important to do what makes you happy rather than trying to fill the mould of what you think you should be doing.”

To hear what Adelaide Stratton has to say about overcoming significant trauma and personal challenges, listen to Julian Leeser MP’s podcast, Getting a Grip with Adelaide Stratton.

In this episode, James Fry talks about how he was enticed into a white supremacist group as a young man, and how he found his way out.

After experiencing a number of years of terrible bullying, James was searching for an identity and found himself putting his anger and confusion into drug use and being part of a sub-culture that nurtured white supremacist thinking.

His ideological standpoint started to shift when his mother found a white nationalist’s newspaper under his bed.

Fry explains, “I’d come downstairs one morning, and my Mum was holding up a white nationalist newspaper she had found under my bed … she said ‘this isn’t you. You used to stand up for the underdog. … I remember being lost for words.”

To hear what James Fry has to say about human resilience in overcoming significant social and personal disruption, listen to Julian Leeser MP’s podcast , Getting a Grip with James Fry.

Jean is my wife’s grandmother and she has an incredible story, having been separated from her family at the age of 14 after her mother was taken prisoner of war in Hong Kong.

“Come 1940, when the Japanese bombed Hawaii and the war was on the Pacific, they said ‘Out’… and I don’t think we really knew where we were going, we just knew we were going out and within 36 hours every woman and child had to go.”

Jean heard little from her mother during the war years, when her mother had been taken prisoner.

“All I knew is how it used to break my heart [receiving those letters] and I would ball my eyes out when I got them. They were a year or so old when I got them anyway, so I still didn’t know if they were ok.”

To hear what Jean Lindsay has to say about human resilience through significant personal challenges, listen to Julian Leeser MP’s podcast, Getting a Grip with Jean Lindsay.

Corporal Matt Williams OAM has served Australia in the military in Afghanistan but his greatest challenge came when he returned to Australia and on his 22nd birthday.

“Matt ‘Willy’ Williams made such an impact on Scott Morrison that the Prime Minister spoke about him in his ANZAC Day Dawn Service address,” said Julian Leeser. 

Matt Williams always knew he would end up in the defence force, from the moment he could walk and talk. “Mum has a photo of me going to kindergarten dressed up in camouflage.”

In 2014, Matt Williams was deployed to Afghanistan and served there for nine months. However, when he returned from his first deployment, he was diagnosed with brain cancer.

To hear what Matt Williams has to say about human resilience through significant personal challenges, listen to Julian Leeser MP’s podcast, Getting a Grip with Matt 'Willy' Williams.

Julian Gold was one of the leading epidemiologists who led Australia through our last major pandemic – the AIDS crisis.

“I remember seeing Dr Julian Gold nightly on the TV explaining the AIDS epidemic , like we now see Professor Brendan Murphy,” says Julian Leeser. 

“People who lived through the beginning of the AIDS epidemic remember a time of great fear and I wondered what we might learn from that time in Australia’s history which would help us get through Covid. I wanted to talk to Julian Gold who was one of the key figures from that time.”

Julian Gold has had a long career dealing with infectious diseases.

Gold was the first Australian to be recruited as an Epidemic Intelligence Service Officer in the USA. They were the “CIA of epidemic services,” he said. 

To hear what Julian Gold has to say about human resilience in times of crisis, listen to Julian Leeser MP’s podcast, Getting a Grip with Julian Gold.

This episode is a short introduction to Julian Leeser MP's new podcast series, 'Getting a Grip', inspiring stories of resilience and recovery.

The series explores the stories of people who have come through extraordinary situations: a terrorist attack, a cancer diagnosis, wartime separation from family, confronting the AIDS virus and escaping the clutches of a white supremacist group.

“I wanted to demonstrate that Australians are capable of confronting challenges like Covid 19 and overcoming them. I hope to inspire listeners and give them a sense of perspective by drawing on the stories of Australians who have overcomes their own challenges.” Leeser said.

"While the individual experiences of the people I am talking to are all different, the collective experience says something about the resilience of the human spirit."