Think Again

Lately the news has been full of women’s stories of sexual assault and harassment, and the dominant culture that normalises and promotes it. This follows 2020, the year of the Me Too movement, when thousands of women shared their stories of sexual harassment and abuse in shows of solidarity. So it was strange to read about the ‘not guilty’ verdict on the Craig McLachlan case in December, relating...

With the COVID supplement to JobSeeker set to finish at the end of March, the federal government announced it would increase the ongoing weekly payment by a measly $25 per week, leaving people to live on about $307 per week. Meanwhile more than 60 publicly listed businesses became wealthier during COVID while receiving JobKeeper and other government handouts. These handouts to the higher end of to...

 Jacques reflects on the double arrival of reports of two Royal Commissions, a federal one about 'aged care' and a Victorian one about 'mental health services'... What both clearly reveal is two 'systems' absolutely and disgracefully dysfunctional and – in reality – harming those who are supposed to be cared for. If we do need so many reviews and commissions about so many 'symptoms' of our society...

Continuing our investigations of the background to the production and distribution of the COVID-19 vaccines, Jacques has a conversation with Dr. Deborah Gleeson, Co-convenor of the Political Economy of Health Special Interest Group of the Public Health Association Australia. Deborah documents the extraordinary arrogance and selfishness of the wealthy countries pre-ordering the bulk of the billions...

Jennifer and Jacques talk about the big steal by pharmaceutical monopolies that are restricting access to the COVID vaccine for massive private profit - even after being gifted the research and development for the vaccines which has been paid for from the public purse. Jacques has recently translated an article about this from Dutch by Vincent Navarro, and he shares some of the insights from this....

Jennifer interviews David Hayward, emeritus professor of public policy at RMIT University, about the need to invest in caring work, the support sector and the common good. David describes the failure of privatisation in areas such as aged care and childcare, with many private companies using government revenue for property development rather than good quality support! In addition, investment of pu...

Jacques and Jennifer talk about cooperative housing and its shape and history. They aim to open up our thinking and imagination about better and alternative ways of living, together beside the usual private ownership or renting, or social and public housing. This also has implications for the organisation of our work, and the common need to sell the best of ourselves in the market place in exchang...

Jacques speaks about housing - public, social, community, cooperative -with Abigail Lewis from local Think Tank Per Capita. Abigail (and PerCapita) make a strong argument for the inclusion of a strong proportionof public housing in the 5 Billion Dollar injection in the 'social'housing sector by the Victorian Government, as it is the most effectiveway to combat homelessness. She also points at the...

Jacques and Jennifer talk about recent events in the US, especially with the storming of the Capitol. They argue that what happened is no aberration or surprise but the culmination of long term inequality and racism, as well as some pretty immoral strategising by Republicans – something for us all to take stock of…   

Jennifer interviews Donna Stolzenberg about The Kala Space, which is an Op Shop and social enterprise that employs homeless people. Donna explains how people become homeless through circumstances beyond their control. They may have been homeless since their teens, or increasingly with COVID, they may be newly homeless after losing their job and normal income. The Kala Space offers flexibility to e...

Jacques and Jennifer pull together themes from past programs and look at new evidence showing how our system is rigged in favour of the wealthy and the powerful. They suggest some of the paths we need to take together if we are to find our way out of this. Piketty, T. (2020) Capital and Ideology  Cambridge (MA): Belknap Press (Harvard Uni. Press_  

Jacques and Jennifer reflect on the year 2020 and how it was covered in the program, including COVID-19 and all of its effects and revelations. We certainly learnt a lot about ourselves as a society, and had pause to think about better ways of organising ourselves and caring for each other and all living things.   

Jacques and Jennifer revisit the theme of 'relationality' from their very first program i.e. the idea that we do not really exist as separate individuals, but as part of living networks of relationships with each other and nature. We need to rid ourselves of the western notion that people are the centre of creation, who can exploit nature with impunity. Instead, for our very survival, we need to n...

Jacques and Jennifer talk about the widespread crisis of violence against women – where it comes from and whom it serves. They look at how we can move to a world of co-caring, gender equality and respectful, violence-free relationships 

Jacques and Jennifer talk about the latest scandals around the 19 SAS soldiers in allegedly committing murders in Afghanistan - whether this can be put down to 'a few bad apples', or whether it is a natural extension of our military's ways of doing things...?    

Jacques and Jennifer look at the recent US election, and the dirty electioneering tricks that reached a new low under Trump. Can we learn anything about power and politics in general, and are there parallels with the situation in Australia? 

Jacques and Jennifer look at our PM’s faux horror that the recent head of Australia Post gave four Cartier watches worth 20,000 dollars to executives, and they contrast that with all the other ways that billions of dollars of our common wealth are funnelled up to the higher end of town and to corporate mates, not to mention blatant pork barrelling – much of this by the PM’s own government 

Jacques talks with two community services workers who have been involved in making sure that hundreds, if not thousands, of international students are getting the basics for their survival, housing, food, health...They and their families paid huge amounts of money to come and study here and then got stuck because of COVID-19.And there has not even been one attempt by the government to include them...

Jacques and Jennifer give a potted history of public housing in Victoria, including the trend to privatise public housing as discussed the previous week. As the 'Great Australian Dream' of home ownership becomes impossible for many, the presenters look at other forms of social and cooperative housing that are more prevalent in other countries. They suggest the time is ripe to consider and promote...

Jennifer interviews Kate Shaw from the School of Geography, University of Melbourne. Kate explains the difference between public housing and community housing, and she makes the case for more state-built public housing in Australia. Kate also explains why Australian governments, peak housing bodies, and research centres fail to champion public housing. Once more, the neoliberal trend toward privat...

Jacques and Jennifer dissect the recent Federal Budget, taking us beyond the spin and lies. They argue it is set to entrench long term inequality and disadvantage, and it fails to address the urgency of climate change. They finish with a call for resistance and to become more informed about what's really going on...

Jacques and Jennifer look at what we can learn from mistakes made in Victoria that led to COVID-19 spreading from hotel quarantine into communities. It seems that certain problems have been in play long before the pandemic. These include the outsourcing of essential public services, the loss of expertise in management of the area being managed (such as health), and the inability of bureaucracies t...

 Jacques talks with Bill Genat who is involved in movements to resist the plans of energy giant AGL to establish a massive Liquid Natural Gas import facility with Floating Storage and Regasification Unit at Crib Point and a gas pipeline to Packenham in Melbourne’s south-east. Apart from its gruesome size (300m long, 50 m wide, 50m high the size of the Ruby Princess cruise ship) is intrudes and end...

Jennifer interviews Mark Zirnsak from the Tax Justice Network Australia about the federal government's proposal to bring forward tax breaks for the wealthy in the time of the pandemic. Not only would these tax breaks go to the most well-off, according to the experts, they would not stimulate the economic recovery anyway. Moreover, these tax gifts to the high end of town would mean less funding for...

Jennifer interviews Pauline Galvin who is standing for election for Moreland Council. Pauline proposes a holistic approach to social, environmental and economic wellbeing. She advocates for a 'public health' model that is preventive and locally embedded. In addition she believes that communities should be truly involved in decision making on an ongoing basis.