Think Again

If you've noticed people walking our streets and in public spaces, not looking where they're going while immersed on their mobile phones, it's not your imagination. It is happening everywhere! What is often referred to as 'distracted walking' has been well researched across the world, reducing people's safety and situational awareness, and leading to a variety of injuries and even death. Jacques a...

Whilst our official media and our government seem to have decided that all's now OK in Palestine, Gaza and the West Bank, and that Trump's so-called Gaza Peace Plan 'needs to be given time to work its way through', on the ground stories from the West Bank give a rather devastating account of what's happening behind the media silence... Reports of ongoing attacks by Israeli settlers/colonists on lo...

Tamar Hopkins from the Racial Profiling Data Monitoring Project talks about the latest data showing that Victoria Police target certain groups, with members much more likely to be searched than white people and have force used against them. These groups include people perceived by the police to be Aboriginal, African, Asian, Indian, Middle Eastern, Mediterranean and Pacific Islander. Tamar propose...

Jacques interviews Professor Clinton Fernandes about his latest book: Turbulence: Australian foreign policy in the Trump era (2025 Melbourne University Press).Clinton explains Australia's involvement as a 'sub-imperial power' assisting the US in its attempts to maintain and extend its hegemony and imperial power with three foci: Europe, the Middle East and China... And in all three 'frontlines' Au...

Sophie Ellis from Youthlaw talks about the Victorian government's proposal for children (14 years and over) committing certain crimes to be given adult jail sentences. The Bill is set to go to Parliament by the end of the year even though the legislation hasn't been drafted yet. As Sophie explains, the proposal doesn't address the reasons for children offending in the first place, and it doesn't o...

Phillip Ripper from No To Violence talks about the escalating problem of violence against women, while centring the responsibility of men in its prevention. It is evident that the previous National Plan to End Violence Against Women and Children hasn't worked, and Phillip discusses what needs to happen to bring in real change. This needs to include the wisdom and knowledge from the sector at a mea...

Jacques and Jennifer talk about the thieving incursions that artificial intelligence (AI) is making into our lives, and the increasing rule and dominance of big tech. They argue that human creating processes in the real world are important for both producers and audiences, and for the social back-and-forth that happens in our human world. This cannot be replaced by AI mimicry of 'end products'.Fur...

Jennifer speaks with Hanna Shomali and Alice Drury about an event they have organised to raise funds for and support people in Gaza.'Voices under fire: Stories from Gaza' will feature readings of poetry and first hand accounts of Palestinians who have been forced to flee, who have died, and who are still trying to survive in Gaza. The event will be held at Trades Hall in Carlton on Thursday 6th of...

Jennifer and Jacques discuss the latest 'ceasefire' deal and the intrinsic impossibility of lasting peace without putting first Palestinian rights to their stolen land and their self-determination. LinksEvent: Voices under fire - Stories from GazaWe teach Life Sir - Rafeef ZiadahAustralian Palestinian Advocacy Network (APAN)Free PalestineReferences'The Gaza ceasefire deal could be a "strangle cont...

Jewish author, Marilyn Garson, talks about her experience working with people in Gaza for four years from 2011 through to 2015, as documented in her book, Still Lives. This period included Israel's devastating 50 day bombardment of Gaza in 2014.  As told in Jewish Not Zionist, on returning home to Aotearoa/New Zealand she worked to build Jewish solidarity with the Palestinian people, but met ongoi...

Supriya Pattanayak is Vice Chancellor of Centurion University of Technology and Management in India. She explains its unique, progressive model of working closely with communities in innovative ways, to address their needs and aspirations. Real-life problems are addressed locally with practical applications of knowledge that create goods and services of value to communities especially the systemic...

Jennifer and Jacques talk about the 'performance' of the federal Labor government and how its rhetoric about how well it is doing doesn't quite match reality. Examples are responses to the genocide in Gaza, climate policy, the aged care system, and the treatment of refugees and asylum seekers. They highlight that the fragile trust of Australians should not be taken for granted.

Annika Reynolds, National Climate Policy Advisor with the Australian Conservation Foundation (ACF), talks about some important recent developments in Australia's climate policy. These include approval for Woodside to extend the life of its North West shelf gas project by 40 years, the release of the national Climate Risk Assessment report, and the setting of Australia's emissions reduction target...

Starting with the recent clashes on Melbourne's streets, Jacques and Jennifer look at some of the major converging fractures in our society and discuss what we can learn from Europe's Nazi past and from current events in the US.

Jennifer interviews Dr Bob Davidson, who is an honorary Research Fellow at Macquarie University, about the neoliberalism takeover of our human services over the last 40 years or so. The NDIS is discussed as an example. Bob highlights some of the fundamental failures of this neoliberal project, including too many service providers, bad actors, a range of scandals plaguing human service areas (inclu...

Jennifer and Jacques talk about the downward spiral of our universities over the last 40 years of neo-liberalism, with the decline accelerating during the COVID pandemic, and only getting worse since. Universities are said to be at breaking point with the corporatist, managerialist focus on cost cutting, exploitation of staff, and selling low quality courses to students. They end the program with...

Jennifer and Jacques discuss the federal government's recent Economic Reform Roundtable, commonly known as the 'productivity roundtable'.They discuss where it went wrong - though a good idea in principle, including assumptions that cutting costs for big business (e.g. via lower tax and regulation) will necessarily lead to higher productivity and not just bigger profits. The hosts unpick the notion...

Jennifer is joined by Belinda Curtis who is National Manager Dementia-Friendly Communities, with Dementia Australia. Belinda begins with an overview of dementia, and corrects a few misconceptions. Importantly, dementia happens within real life social and physical settings, reaching beyond individual medicalised notions. The creation of dementia-friendly communities enables people with dementia to...

Jennifer and Jacques talk about the urgent need to regulate Artificial Intelligence (AI). They are prompted by the Productivity Commission's hare-brained idea that we should not regulate it too much so as not to inhibit its development (and add $$$ to the coffers of big tech, they add).ReferencesHolten, Emma, (2025) Deficit: How Feminist Economics can change our world, London: WH Allen (Penguin Ra...

Jennifer is joined by guests Cecilia and Enny who talk about their work in communities in Timor Leste, supported and resourced by xpand Foundation. Their work with 'Foundation Rai Matak' and 'WithOneSeed Foundation', focuses on projects that rejuvenate local ecologies, return wealth to local economies, and resource and empower local people and communities. The work is described as creating hope in...

Jacques and Jennifer explore the possibilities of 'community development' for creating social change. They first look at what we mean when we use the word 'community', and the 'development' of community. Then they move to the idea of 'relationality' as probably more meaningful and useful than the over-used 'community' (as introduced in the very first episode of 'Think Again'). This may include gra...

After two previous programs about Iran dealing with its last 70 years of political transformations and its recent and present involvement in the Palestine, Israel and US conflagration, Jacques has a conversation with former journalist and writer Shokoofeh Azar now living in Victoria and involved in our Borderlands library. We learn about the present situation under autocratic Islam/Mullah governan...

Jacques and Jennifer look at the homogenous, so-called 'balanced' middle ground adopted by our two main parties and mainstream media - in particular, in relation to the illegal actions of Israel, and local efforts here to clamp down on pro-Palestine solidarity under the guise of a controversial definition of anti-semitism that includes criticism of the State of Israel. They also look at the compli...

A conversation with Taryn Lane, Manager of Hepburn Energy, the first community-owned renewable energy (wind now complemented with battery and solar) in Victoria. She has published a book Hopeful Action: A handbook for Community-led Climate Transitions offering a combination of practical and philosophical 'hints' to take along your community development journey trying to make our world and our pres...

Jacques and Jennifer continue discussion about the current conflict centred on Iran, to offer a fuller historical and geopolitical context than provided in dominant narratives and the mainstream media. What is clear is that much of the blame belongs to the interference of self-interested western powers, namely the US and Britain. Scott Burchill 24/06/2025 Regime change and blowback in Iran in Pear...