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Introduction

Explore resources collated by the Commons librarians from the FWD+Organise 2024 conference held in Naarm | Melbourne from the 5th – 6th of December.

The conference brought together community organisers and digital campaigners from across Australia and Aotearoa to share practical skills, learn innovative approaches to advocacy, and build lasting collaborations to win systemic change. The program included keynotes, workshops, masterclasses, and expert briefings.

It was hosted by Australian Progress, a national organisation dedicated to building the advocacy and campaigning capacity of Australian civil society to achieve systems change.

Thank you to the presenters who shared resources. If you presented at FWD+Organise 2024 and would like to add to this collection, please get in touch. Thanks to our volunteers for attending the conference and contributing articles alongside Commons Librarians.

Note: More conference resources are coming.

While the proposal for the enormous Adani coal mine had been around for a few years, it was in 2015 that the mine’s federal approval was overturned because of the little-known yakka skink.

The small reptile’s court victory, assisted by humans at the Mackay Conservation Group and the Environmental Defenders Office, not only propelled the skink into the headlines and political cartoons but also sent the Abbott government berserk, from the PM down.

The Australian government proceeded to not only work around the court loss but, in treasurer Joe Hockey’s words, to do “everything we can to help get the Adani mine open”. The mine produced its first coal in late 2021.

As 2024 drew to a close, the name Adani was back in Australian headlines, this time because authorities in the United States issued an arrest warrant for company founder Gautam Adani, accusing him of bribing Indian government officials with hundreds of millions of dollars. The US accusations come on the back of major allegations of fraud and stock market manipulation, not to mention a long history of environmental, human rights and tax scandals.

Over the past decade, successive governments swept Adani’s record of scandals under the carpet. But with the FBI now involved, it seems like a good time to look back at 10 years of powerful Australians doing favours for a company accused of some very serious offences.

Introduction

Quick tips to think about in the lead-up to an election from a panel of political experts at the FWD+Organise Conference in 2024 in Naarm/Melbourne held by Australian Progress.

These tips were gathered by the Commons librarians from a panel of political experts in a breakout session called ‘What to do in the first 100 days: Building A Post-Election Gameplan’. The session was held in the lead-up to the Australian election, but the tips are applicable to any election. A list of resources under each tip has been added for you to explore further.

The panel included:

Introduction

Stories are powerful. So how do we ensure Story Telling always centres the Story Holder throughout?

Transformational Ethical Story Telling (T.E.S.T.) creates safer spaces for Story Holders, empowering them to create, curate and control their Stories, on their own terms. T.E.S.T. is an anti-oppressive framework which aims to flip the Story Telling balance of power, where each person’s rights and needs – regardless of their race, ethnicity, language, age, gender, religion, sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, health, ability, economic status or background – must be respected.

Below are resources by Our Race including the TEST Framework, Story Holder Guide and Story Caretaker Guide.

The resources are continually updated. Please see the Our Race website for the latest versions.

Stories have power.
Your Stories are important.
Your Stories have value.
You are the expert.
Stories can be harmful.
Stories can trigger.
Stories can heal.
You and your Stories have the power to create change and reclaim power.

Introduction

Explore resources about Race Class Narrative including guides, examples and a checklist from We Make the Future in the United States.

Introduction

Cette boîte à outils comprend des conseils, des réflexions et des ressources pour ceux qui cherchent à prendre des mesures concrètes pour décoloniser leurs approches et soutenir de manière significative les mouvements autochtones. 

Décoloniser l’action climatique : Une trousse d’outils pour les ONGE du soi-disant Canada, a été élaborée par :

Des évaluateurs autochtones:

• Alexa Metallic, Première nation Listuguj Mi’gmaq.  
• Kahsennóktha, Première nation Kanehsatà:ke Kanien’kehà:ka.  
• Onagoshi Haymond, Première nation Kebaowek, Indigenous Climate Action.  
• Sakej Ward, Mi’kmaq, Première nation Esgenoopetitj.  
• Tori Cress, de la nation anishinaabe, Keepers of the Water, qui vit à G’Chimnissing, dans la baie Georgienne, sur le territoire du traité Williams. 

Rédacteurs et chefs de projet allochtones: 

• Jen Gobby, professeure adjointe affiliée, Université Concordia, coordinatrice et fondatrice de Research for the Front Lines.  
• Emily Lowan, responsable des campagnes sur l’approvisionnement en combustibles fossiles pour le Réseau Action Climat Canada et bénévole pour Research for the Front Lines. 

Graphiste et artiste:  

Today, Judge Juan Merchan continued his valiant effort to properly conduct a state criminal trial and post-trial proceedings in the face of Donald Trump’s complete disregard for rule of law and a U.S. Supreme Court that has shown its inclination to wholly protect Trump from federal criminal prosecution. He has ruled that sentencing of Trump for his 34 felony convictions for his violation of New York criminal law will go forward and before Inauguration Day. Judge Merchan’s opinion in support of his ruling is both a fine piece of judicial craft and yet another piece of evidence that the combination of the Roberts Court and Donald Trump distorts judicial practice in every jurisdiction.

Education in America has a political problem. At this point, even the Chronicle of Higher Education admits that conservatives have been winnowed out of academia, leaving a brittle coterie of narrow-minded extremists to staff faculties across the country. But the problem does not end with leftist indoctrination. Conservatives are increasingly divided about how to address the issue.

One form of counter-revolution is taking shape in Ron DeSantis’s Florida. There, government officials have used state power not only to overhaul the administration at New College of Florida, but also to impose curricular reforms across the state’s educational system. This approach, though, has drawn criticism from anti-woke liberals and moderates like David French and Jordan Peterson.

DeSantis, Chris Rufo, and their allies intend to wield state power for good while their enemies wield it for evil. For critics, this only shifts the problem across the aisle: where once the University of Toronto tried to force Peterson to use neo-pronouns, perhaps New College will mandate a traditional view of American civics. Dissenters would then be purged as Peterson was.

Another day, another trans athlete ban. Soon it’s going to be more expedient to list which sports and places trans people can play sports in.

This article is read by Eunice Wong, a Juilliard-trained actor, featured on Audible's list of Best Women Narrators. Her work is on the annual Best Audiobooks lists of the New York Times, Audible, AudioFile, & Library Journal. www.eunicewong.actor

Text originally published Dec. 30, 2024

Ever since news of President-elect Trump’s more unorthodox appointments was leaked, debates have raged over whether his nominees are “qualified” for the roles for which they’ve been selected.

When President Trump chose Pete Hegseth to serve as Secretary of Defense, protests immediately began that he is nothing more than a “Fox News Host” who should be dismissed as unserious. Matt Gaetz had to forego his nomination for Attorney General not just because of his controversial past but because he lacks experience directly practicing law.

When it comes to Tulsi Gabbard, RFK Jr., Kash Patel, and the rest, our august senators will surely provide their judicious advice and consent—setting aside all personal grievances and factional concerns. (I know, I know…but c’mon, give them a chance.)

The whole debate, though, rests on faulty premises. Before asking whether Trump’s picks are “serious” or “qualified,” we should consider that our governing class may have a warped view of what counts as “qualified” and what “serious” means.

A 2015 paper investigates what it is that motivates trans people to stay alive and keep going.

Resident evil Twitter hag JK Rowling has uninvented trans children.

This interview is also available on podcast platforms and Rumble.

The vast censorship and suppression campaign launched by American tech companies since October 7, 2023 has been both systemic and deliberate. Instagram, Facebook, X as well as other tech platforms and companies like Google, Microsoft and Apple have actively worked to stifle information regarding the genocide in Gaza. Dissent against policies or individuals who enable these decisions is often met with swift reprimand in the form of job loss.

Joining host Chris Hedges on this episode of The Chris Hedges Report are three courageous individuals who chose to put their careers on the line to fight against Big Tech suppression of voices fighting for Palestinian lives.

As legislation targeting the trans community increases, it is important to ground ourselves in the details of the laws that impact us.

Running for school board, a candidate is mysteriously endorsed by an anti-LGBTQ+ group.

A comic based on trans news stories from the month of December 2024.

by Piper Bly

Following my annual practice, I have listed here my “novel” reading for 2024. This is a way of documenting what I get through in a year’s worth of reading on the commute to work, in the evenings after work, and while travelling outside of my “normal” academic reading. My use of the term “novel” reading is loosely adopted, as you will see from the list to include fiction and then really important non-fiction work I get excited to read in my spare time. As you will see, my novel reading shifted away from novels to much more academic reading in my “free time” and then back again. But that approach has been richly rewarding. This year, though, there has been less novel reading compared to previous years. Why is that? Not sure. I was commuting less – due to study leave – but also tackled some big books that left me exhausted. Charles M. Doughty’s Travels in Arabia Deserta (two volumes) was one of those experiences. It was a journey that took me in my reading from one desert setting to another in the form of the Florida Mountains in New Mexico (represented in the set image for this blog post by John Fowler from Placitas, NM) and the mesas of Arizona and Sonora with their porphyry rock fibre, mesquite, lomas, and grease-wood plains. As John C. Van Dyke says, ‘the deserts are not worthless wastes . . . they are the breathing spaces of the west’.