ChangeMakers

In light of the release of Victoria's landmark truth telling inquiry, we are re-releasing this important ChangeMaker Chat with Terri Janke, one of Australia's leading advocates for the recognition of Indigenous cultural and intellectual property. -------- Terri Janke is an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Lawyer who uses the law to protect and advance Indigenous Cultural and Intellectual Prop...

On Saturday 21 June, ChangeMakers Host Amanda Tattersall is speaking at the Winter Solstice Event in Albury organised by the Survivors of Suicide & Friends. There she will share some of her experiences of living with bipolar and what reflecting on those experiences have brought to her work as a change maker. You can find out more and tune into the event online at survivorsofsuicide.org.au . Th...

This is a re-release of an important conversation with the remarkable UK organisation called Love and Power, that is seeking to respond to violence against women by building the leadership and capacity of women to lead the change. **** While we know that too many women live with the ever-present threat of violence our societies seem to struggle with what to do about it. While we have refuges servi...

With all the tumult in UK and global politics, and the new Labor victory in Australia, we are re-releasing an episode with UK Labour Party Cabinet Minister and former Opposition Leader Ed Miliband. The topic - big politics! This episode was recorded in 2021. When can political parties be real change makers and produce big change? Ed Miliband, former Opposition Leader for the UK Labour Party shares...

Too often, when we think of public servants we think of paper shufflers and number crunches. But nurses, teachers and care workers as well as officers working in government departments - aren't doing it for the money! These public servants - bureaucrats - are driven by a sense of service, commitment and care that is so vital to support all of our lives. Dan Honig, from UCL (UK) and Georgetown (US)...

With a Federal Election almost upon us - this is one we recorded earlier (#ICYMI) - a long form audio essay about the refugee politics of 20 years ago, and the many lingering challenges we face when it comes to big issues that divide us - like refugee policy and climate change. This episode is a personal memoir about setting up Labor for Refugees and the challenges we faced in changing the Austral...

Can lawyers really be change makers? We talk with Michael Bradley who has taken on Murdoch as well as defending the rights of refugees about what it takes to be a lawyer and a change maker at the same time. He shares his 20 year journey from conventional law to a different kind of lawyering that he has now practiced for 17 years at Marque Lawyers - and how he now centres his legal practice around...

This is a re-run episode recorded in 2024 - importantly - before the 2024 Presidential Election, but its insights and lessons about ChangeMaking are still deeply relevant! What are some of the skills or insights shared by some of America’s extraordinary change makers, people like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Alicia Garza or Loretta Ross? In particular, what can these people teach us about how to buil...

The Disability Movement famously argues ‘nothing about us without us.’ Wenn Lawson lives this creed as a world leading autistic advocate and researcher who has helped change how we understand autism and neurodivergence. He shares his journey, including how he shook the house of academia so it would listen to the lives of autistic people. He reflects on the power of co-produced research, identity a...

Can you make a difference by being funny? In this episode news satirist and stand up comedian Sami Shah takes us through the art of political satire and the journey that got him there. Sami grew up in Pakistan, studied in the United States and became a fully fledged journalist - and comedian in his home country before traveling to Australia. He moved to Australia in 2012 living in Western Australi...

In a world where everyone is worried about cost of living – what difference would it make to lift the wages of the lowest paid workers? Lyndy McIntyre has documented a campaign that did exactly that in Aotearoa New Zealand. Her book  Power to Win  documents that struggle and in this chat she explores some of the key strategies that made that campaign work. Power to Win  is available...

Welcome back to ChangeMakers Podcast for 2025! It certainly feels like this is a big year for thinking creatively and deeply about how to make the world better! Our first episode is a re-run of a chat with the brilliant and powerful Grace Tame. Grace took a powerful form of action at the Australian of the Year event a few weeks ago, wearing a provocative t-shirt that got the country (and world) ta...

The whole world has just witnessed President Trump getting re-elected, but what is the long story behind what happened. In this chat, our last for 2024, we talk to Nick Bryant, US foreign correspondent and author of several books that have sought to understand what is going on with politics in the US! In this conversation Nick shares a little about why he because a journalist focused on the US, th...

Dave Sweeney has spent much of his life campaigning against the use of nuclear materials. For his efforts working with a group of colleagues at ICAN - the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons - he won a Nobel Peace Price in 2017. This is a story of the work he has done. For those curious about the history and risks of nuclear and to better understand some of the debate that is going o...

In NSW Australia there is a Drug Summit underway. It is exploring better ways to respond to the experience and effects of substance use. This episode is a story about the Uniting Church who helped lead the establishment of the first Drug Summit two decades ago and is still leading the Fair Treatment campaign to fight for a better way for the community to respond to drug use. This episode is a Chan...

Its easy to think that the problems in our lives are all our fault. But some of the time - indeed much of the time - our problems also come from public life. That is Chrisann Jarrett's journey . When the UK's Home Office told her that she would not be treated as a UK citizen, even though she had lived there for most of her life - she felt like it was her problem. But as she talked with others she...

In this chat celebrated UK community leader Patrick Vernon shares a series of stories about how he has learnt to combined the strengths of putting pressure for change through grassroots activism, and negotiating for change through inside lobby and compromise. Patrick is known for his work in gaining recognition for Black migrants in the UK, particularly in campaigning for the recognition of Windru...

This episode is a tour de force in the art of change making and the Black history of housing activism in Cape Town. Nkosikhona Swaartbooi has been a leading activist in the Reclaim the City movement that has fought for working class housing in Cape Town's urban core. He is now featured in a documentary called Mother City (2024) that shows this remarkable urban struggle. In this episode he takes us...

Our governments play a role in providing care and support to families and kids - but we don't often think about how those services are provided and whether they actually deliver sufficient 'care.' In this conversations Jarrod Wheatley explores his experience in working in the out-of-home care space, and unpacks a distinct model of care that is based explicitly on relationships and connection. For...

In the wake of Vice President Kamala Harris's nomination at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, we bring you a another story of hope - about US how the people responded to President Trump's election in 2016. Indivisible began as a google doc and turned into the largest anti-Trump movement in the US in support of affordable healthcare and democracy! In this episode we bring you that stor...

Moz Azimitabar is one of Australia’s most celebrated emerging artists, having been a finalist in the Archibald Prize twice. But Moz is not like other artists, he found his art not at art school but in the barbarism of Australia’s offshore detention regime in Papua New Guinea’s Manus Island. Moz sought refuge in Australia because he was persecuted for fighting for human rights in Iran, and in seeki...

This week we get a little personal and our host shares some of her experiences about making change. How can we hold together big ambition for social change on issues like climate alongside the small work required to build powerful connections across our diversity and difference? This piece explores the tensions of scale between big and small, fast and slow through stories and reflections across a...

How do elections and new governments change how we make change? In the wake of the election of a new Labour Government in the UK, we talk with Matthew McGregor from 38 Degrees about what the new government might mean for progressive political strategy. We explore Matthew’s background and his time working with unions and the Obama campaign to learn more about 38 Degrees and its digital first strate...

There is a lot of talk about the need for diversity, but what does diversity actually mean?  In this conversation Rathana Chea shares how he has learnt how to value the power of difference and connection across his time in making social change, sharing insights from social movements while he was in school, to community organising, to working with Greenpeace International and now working to cr...

In this special UK national election episode we are joined by Marc Stears from UCL Policy Lab and Martha MacKenzie from Civic Power to talk about the 2025 national election from the perspective of participatory and everyday politics. Civic Power Fund and the UCL Policy Lab are sponsors of this podcast, and this episode was conducted in London in the middle of the election campaign. It explores the...