Acting Up!

 These gasfields: If they were viable industry would already have developed themLast Tuesday Scott Morrison announced the Federal Government's plan for a gas-led recovery from the coronavirus recession. Described by Katharine Murphy in The Guardian as A gas-fuelled calamity, the plan has been widely criticised for not being financially viable, a boondoggle to the fossil fuel industry and ignoring...

Predators, prey and moonlight singing: how phases of the Moon affect Australian wildlifeLast week Alice Gorman, an Associate Professor in Archeology and Space Studies at Flinders University, told us about the need to conserve the Moon's environment and protect it from potential exploitation by mining interests. This week we hear from three early career researchers, Ashton Dickerson, University of...

Photo by Jorge Gardner, Unsplash Responses to AGL's Environmental Effects Statement reveal the risks of a floating gas terminal in Westernport BayVictor Komarovsky is a community organiser for Environment Victoria working to stop the floating gas terminal project proposed by AGL for Cribb Point in Westernport Bay.  On July 2nd AGL's Environmental Effects Statement (EES) was made availabe for publi...

  Creating dialogue through photography and advocacy Joshua Sim is an emerging artist and a Philosophy and Anthropology student. His way of seeing the world is grounded in his experiences growing up in Australia, and his love for his Chinese Peranakan and Indian heritage. Through his art Josh hopes to create dialogue about shared experiences of belonging, loneliness, disconnection and mental healt...

 Creating dialogue through photography and advocacy Joshua Sim is a professional photographer, an emerging artist and a Philosophy and Anthropology student. His way of seeing the world is grounded in his experiences growing up in Australia, and his love for his Chinese Peranakan and Indian heritage. Through his art Josh hopes to create dialogue about shared experiences of belonging, loneliness, di...

Stringray Sisters documentary poster, photo courtesy Katrina Channells 'We don't need anything more from gas'Peter Newman is a Professor of Sustainability at Curtin University and founding director of the Curtin University Sustainability Policy Institute. He is the Coordinating Lead Author for Transport with the IPCC, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. His most recent book, published i...

The Royal Commission into Aged Care Quality and Safety continues to hear damning reports about how the sector has been mismanaged. Professor Joseph Ibrahim is Head of the Health Law and Aging Research Unit in the Department of Forensic Medicine at Monash's Victoria Institute of Forensic Medicine, and a practicing consultant physician in geriatric medicine. His paper publised in The Conversation  i...

A long-nosed Potoroo caught on a Reconyx HC600 camera during a nightly forage for truffles Photo courtesy of Vivianna Miritis As we've seen from recent reports Australia's environment is in decline due to the inadequacy of current laws and the Federal government's failure to administer the laws adequately and resource data collection. Rob Fowler is an Adjunct Professor in Environmental Law from th...

Photo: Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park Courtesy Unsplash fezbot2000 #RaiseTheAgeIn 2019, the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child recommended 14 years as the minimum age of criminal responsibility, but in Australia it's still 10 years old. Aboriginal organisations, human rights groups, youth advocates, doctors and lawyers have been urging the Council of Attorneys-General (CAG) to rais...

Photo: Cover of Independent review of the EPBC Act Interim Report Melbourne's hard lockdown created unique challenges for people who use alcohol and other drugs. Adjunct Professor Nicole Lee from the National Drug Research Institute at Curtin University discusses how the Victorian government responded and what we can all to manage our alcohol use and stay safe during Covid-19. This month saw the a...

Energy company AGL has plans to establish a floating gas import terminal in Victoria's Western Port Bay. The Save Westernport campaign has been working for the past two years to prevent this from happening. Julia Stockigt from the Save Westernport Campaign spoke with me about why the community is so concerned and the difficulties of organising during the Covid-19 shutdown.  And if you click on the...

The Coronavirus pandemic presents additional challenges for people living on the streets and those who work with them. Greg Denham is an outreach worker in the Yarra area and a member of LEAP (Law Enforcement Action Partnerships) a former police officer and a long time advocate of drug policy reform. He tells us about the impact of Covid-19 on his outreach work and on the lives of the people he's...

Last year when Professor Jo Lindsay and her colleagues from Monash looked into Victorians’ attitudes to avoiding plastic, their findings were encouraging. The majority of people were already avoiding plastic use and intended to do better.  The Covid-19 pandemic has thrown up challenges but Jo encourages us to maintain the momentum and discusses how we can do that. Shane Cuckow is the spokesperson...

 Public pressure is growing for a royal commission into the controversial Robodebt scheme. There are too many unanswered questions and too many people have suffered unnecssarily. Darren O'Donovan, Senior lecturer and researcher in administrative law at La Trobe University, argues that only a royal commission can bring real change at Centrelink and ensure that every unlawful debt is accounted for a...

In episode 7 Carly speaks with Anna Carlson who is a cofounder and organiser of the Brisbane Free University, co-host of 4zzz's Radio Reversal and a freelance radio producer, illustrator, writer and community (dis)organiser. She is mid way through her PhD, supervised by Dr. Alissa Macoun, Associate Professor Chelsea Bond, Dr. Liz Strakosh, and Dr. David Singh. Her research examines the relationshi...

In episode 6 Carly speaks with Lauren Caufield. Lauren works at the intersection of interpersonal and state-sanctioned gender violence, and is involved in training, organising work and community-based interventions to violence. She also co-ordinates the “Policing Family Violence: Changing the Story” project, which is a collaborative, integrated community legal and survivor support project that res...

Image description: Nawa is in front of a citrus tree, holding their right arm above their head and the back of their left hand is turned towards the camera.  In Episode 5, Carly speaks with Nawa Nightshade. Nawa is a herbalist, somatic coach and community organiser. Their healing practice is centred on anti-oppressive praxis that works to address systemic harm, informed by decolonial activism on t...

Image Description: Vincent Silk is wearing a white t-shirt and smiling into the camera.  In episode 4, Carly speaks with Vincent Silk. Vincent is a writer, poet and community organiser. His work has been published in the UTS Writers' Anthology, Voiceworks, Going Down Swinging, Archer and Seizure, among other places. In this conversation Vincent reflects on his first novel, Sisters of No Mercy, spe...

Photo credit: Anne-lise Ah-fat [Image Description: A woman is facing towards the camera and smiling. She is holding red,pink and yellow flowers with green leaves held together in shiny yellow paper.]In episode 3 Carly speaks with Anne-lise Ah-fat about collaborative dialogue, a tool used in behaviour change work. Anne-lise Ah-fat is a community organiser, mother of two, behaviour change facilitato...

Photo credit: Dương Ocean Đặng [Image description: woman wearing a floral jacket is facing the camera with her hand under her chin.] In Episode 2, Carly converses with Dương Ocean Đặng about pod mapping. Ocean is a Vietnamese settler, therapist, supervisor and facilitator living and working on Jagera and Turrbal country. Trained as a social worker and narrative therapist, and brought up through pr...

Photo credit: Lou Wheeler [Image description: A person is holding recording equipment to a police car and sitting in front of speakers]In Episode 1 Carly converses with Bridget Chappell about their current project To (Phase) Cancel the Cops which imagines a future without police. Bridget is the founder of Sound School, and they coordinate the synthesizer program. They perform solo as Hextape and a...

Celebrating 45 years of Friends of the Earth - FoE & 3CR. Today's program is the final one of this series, and looks at the bonds between Friends of the Earth and 3CR Community Radio. Presenters: Megan Williams and Em Gayfer. Guests: Mick Harris (a FoE volunteer from the late 70s and an early representative on 3CR's Community Radio Federation), Larissa MacFarlane (who in 1994 started Green Beat, a...

Celebrating 45 years of Friends of the Earth - Bands and Gigs. FoE is quite a musical place! Many musos have worked for the org and FoE is a manifestation of Melbourne's counter culture, which is closely connected to the grassroots music community. Presenters: Megan Williams and Em Gayfer. Guests: Leanne McLean, Beth Cameron, Anthony Amis.

Celebrating 45 years of Friends of the Earth - Climate action to climate justice. In the 80s, FoE campaigned around "global warming", carbon debt and had a focus on the emissions of wealthy countries. We worked with people in the Carteret Islands impacted by climate change and ran speaking tours for speakers from India and Latin America to speak on the impacts of climate change in their regions. F...

Celebrating 45 years of Friends of the Earth - The Barmah-Millewa Collective. The Barmah-Millewa Collective formed in late 2000 to put into action commitments FoE had made to the Yorta Yorta people after receiving a formal request to join them in a campaign to protect Barmah-Millewa and re-establish their rights to manage the forest. The campaign was first mooted in 1998 at the Dharnya Centre occu...