This article can also be found, in slightly different form, on the Strong Towns Langley Substack.It is shared here with permission. All images were provided by the author.
One week contestant of The Bachelorette, Josh Seiter, who faked his own death last year and came out as trans in May has revealed that his non-transition was a “social experiment,” in a stunning display of Hollow Skull Syndrome. But does this weirdly committed vitriolic act against trans people stem from a more intimate source… ?
Fruit pickers and meat workers who fill chronic labour shortages in Australia are being overtaxed and exploited, new research from The Australia Institute has found.
Workers holding Pacific Australia Labour Mobility (PALM) visas can be the difference between fruit being harvested or left to rot on the vine.
But, in return for the critical work they do to keep some sectors of our agriculture industry afloat, PALM visa holders pay more tax than Australians doing the same work and find it almost impossible to access their superannuation.
Australians like to think that we live in a very equal society – where because of Medicare, unlike in the USA, wherever you live you can expect the same level of healthcare. Unfortunately the data shows the lie to this belief.
Healthcare should be universal, but your postcode has a big impact on life expectancy. People who live in inner metropolitan electorates (the inner parts of Australia’s capital cities) live almost a year (0.8) longer than people in outer metropolitan electorates (the edges of Australia’s capital cities).
But life expectancy falls even more for people who live in electorates outside the capital cities. In electorates where the majority of people live in major regional cities life expectancy falls by more than a year (1.1) compared with outer metro electorates. In rural electorates the results are even worse. Almost half a year (0.4) lower than provincial electorates.
This means that those in inner metro electorates can expect to live on average 2.3 years longer than there fellow Australians in rural electorates.
But this is more than just about the distance from healthcare services. This is about rich and poor. In South Australia the relatively wealthy rural electorate of Mayo has an average life expectancy of 84.5 years, while the relatively poor outer metro electorate of Spence has a life expectancy 4 years lower than that at 80.5 years.
The Albanese Government has announced the broad strokes of its plans to introduce:
Donation caps (how much can be given to parties and candidates)
Expenditure caps (how much parties and candidates can spend)
Increase public funding (taxpayer money going to parties and candidates).
Changes to electoral law often have perverse outcomes:
Existing public funding models used in Australia already unfairly advantage sitting MPs and established parties over challengers and new entrants.
Donation caps fail to prevent cash-for-access payments to ministers and shadow ministers.
Spending caps allow major parties to concentrate their spending on target seats, in effect allowing them to outspend independent candidates in that seat.
Existing donation caps in Victoria have already concentrated power among a small group of people.
The Australia Institute has identified nine principles for fair political finance reform that should be satisfied before any changes are made.
Australia Institute polling research finds that three in five Australians oppose public funding for political parties and candidates, and seven in 10 oppose increased public funding, but there are alternative funding models.
“The integrity of Australian elections is too important for the Albanese government’s proposed changes to be rushed through without scrutiny, including a thorough parliamentary inquiry,” said Bill Browne, Director of the Australia Institut
On this episode of Dollars & Sense, Greg and Elinor discuss the latest wages data, the likely impact of Trump’s tariff policies on Australia, and why the Reserve Bank are running out of excuses not to cut interest rates.
This discussion was recorded on Thursday 14 November 2024 and things may have changed since recording.
On this episode of Follow the Money, Sandrine Dixson-Declève, Co-President of the Club of Rome, joins Ebony Bennett to discuss phasing out fossil fuels, the false narratives being peddled about the green transition, and why addressing inequality is fundamental to tackling the climate crisis.
This discussion was recorded on Thursday 24 October 2024 and things may have changed since recording.
A video released by President elect Donald Trump in which he cribs plans from the Heritage Foundation evil manifesto, Project 2025, to explain how he’d like to destroy the trans community has been shared again by conservatives on social media.
Reporting from Israel in the aftermath of October 7th demands guts and courage. Censorship, rouge military personnel and an entire state hellbent on their goals of national security and ethnic cleansing spells a nightmare for journalists seeking to expose the truth. This nightmare became a reality for Grayzone reporter Jeremy Loffredo, who was detained in Israel in solitary confinement for three days after reporting on the Iranian missile attacks on October 1.
Loffredo joins host Chris Hedges on this episode of The Chris Hedges Report to review his reporting covering Israel in the U.S., the Occupied Territories and Israel itself—as well as his frightening detainment by the occupying forces.
Following in the tradition of parentheses bill names, which attempt to frame how a bill is thought about by voters and therefore prevent closer looks, the Electoral (Accountability and Integrity) Amendment Bill 2024 seeks to amend the state’s donation laws.
The reforms are being billed as a way of removing political donations from election campaigns and ending political fundraising during state election campaigns. In place of those donations, the Australia Institute estimates between $15 million and $20 million in public funding will be shared among political parties and candidates for elections.
The government says it will “restructure the public funding model, increase administrative funding, introduce an advance payment scheme, amend party registration and nomination requirements” and insert new definitions into the legislation, including for the term, ‘donation’.
All of that sounds great. Attorney-general Kyam Maher says it will “help to ensure power is kept in the hands of voters and give both established and new voices an equal footing in state elections”.
What does it actually do?
Here is where we get to those pesky details. Director of the Democracy and Accountability Program at The Australia Institute, Bill Browne, has taken a pretty long look at the bill and found some small print the big headlines haven’t gone into.
We wouldn’t blame you if you’re feeling a little bit flat. While many people may have thought they were prepared for a Trump victory, thinking it and seeing it happen are two very different things. Moo Deng may have tried to warn us Trump was heading for a conclusive victory, but that doesn’t mean there weren’t still hopes America would choose differently.
And while there are concerns over how Trump will handle domestic concerns, particularly for immigrants, women and minorities, the result of this election doesn’t just change the United States – it has ramifications for the world.
The world order as we know it looks set to be turned on its head.
Trump hasn’t been shy in expressing his love of the fossil fuel industry, something which clearly resonated with Australia’s Gina Rinehart who was spotted at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago as one of the soon-to-be 47th president’s “special people”, which will make meeting the world’s climate goals even more difficult.
Rinehart believed she was on the winner’s ticket from the beginning – she met with the Trump campaign the first time round in 2016, after which she urged the Australian government to adopt his economic policies.
Fast forward eight years and Australia’s richest woman hasn’t changed her tune, telling the Australian newspaper early last week “the world would be better off with more leaders like Trump”.
Yet quality, affordable care remains inaccessible for many families. Since the last increase in government subsidies a year ago, fees have increased faster than inflation and wages.
But what if the government offered early childhood education in the same way it offered school education? Reforming Australia’s approach to early childhood education would increase the size of the economy by $168 billion and allow the government to collect an additional $48 billion in revenue.
Both sides of politics know the benefits of early childhood education: high-quality childcare improves educational outcomes for children, and low-cost or free high-quality childcare also increases labour force participation by providing parents the opportunity to return to work. Access to affordable and quality care is also integral to family violence prevention and response.
Despite the clear value for children, families and the broader community, early childhood education in Australia is often run by private, for-profit providers that drive up fees and have contributed to the creation of childcare deserts across the country. Early childhood education centres are also difficult to staff sustainably, with many workers underpaid and undervalued.
But the solutions being offered mainly focus on increasing childcare subsidies in the hope of reducing the cost for families even though this doesn’t work.
Workers holding Pacific Australia Labour Mobility (PALM) visas can be the difference between fruit being harvested or left to rot on the vine.
But, in return for the critical work they do to keep some sectors of our agriculture industry afloat, PALM visa holders pay more tax than Australians doing the same work and find it almost impossible to access their superannuation.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese consistently talks about being part of a “Pacific Family”, lauding the PALM program as a key component of that close regional relationship.
But this new report finds the PALM program is in urgent need of reform if Australia is to truly treat these workers like family.
Prosper Australia today released new research examining Australia’s resource royalties. Australian states could capture an additional $14.5 billion in revenue each year by moving to a more flexible royalty model with variable rates that adjust to market conditions.
Matteo Crosignani, Thomas Eisenbach, and Fulvia Fringuellotti
After a period of relative stability, a series of bank failures in 2023 renewed questions about the fragility of the banking system. As in previous years, we provide in this post an update of four analytical models aimed at capturing different aspects of the vulnerability of the U.S. banking system using data through 2024:Q2 and discuss how these measures have changed since last year.
Malcolm Turnbull, Australia’s 29th Prime Minister, joins Dr Emma Shortis to discuss why sucking up to Trump will get Australian leaders nowhere and how the AUKUS “shocker” is making Australia more dependent on the United States, right at the time America is becoming less dependable.
This discussion was recorded on Friday 8 November 2024 US time and things may have changed since recording.
Guest: Malcolm Turnbull, the 29th Prime Minister of Australia // @TurnbullMalcolm
Host: Emma Shortis, Director of International & Security Affairs, the Australia Institute // @EmmaShortis
Research shows us that how people talk about issues can change how others think and act. Deepening people’s understanding of issues means learning how to use narratives and frames to shift mindsets. This shift is necessary for changes that make the biggest difference to people’s lives and the planet’s health.
Framing — decisions we make about how to present an idea or issue — connects people to best knowledge and unlocks action or can prevent them from connecting to it.
The frames and narratives we choose help open the door to particular information or knowledge being considered and shut the door to other information. This means frames and narratives strongly influence the actions, solutions, policies, and political decisions people are willing to support.
There are many existing shared mindsets. The information context — for example, who has framing and narrative power — determines which shared mindsets are switched on and used most frequently.
We can use our narratives and collective power strategically to connect people to the best knowledge and evidence, building support for the solutions that will make the biggest difference.
In light of reports, they are seeking increases above 5%, it is worth remembering that private health insurance is a terrible way to deliver good health outcomes.
You can’t say public policy is always worse in America, but aside from how they conduct elections, the one policy the US does worse than anywhere else is healthcare.
Among OECD nations, the US spends the most on health and as a reward they have one of the worst life expectancies:
There are several reasons why they have this outcome – from structural racism to the serious lack of economic safety nets such as decent minimum wages – but the chief reason is their healthcare overly relies on private insurance in a manner unlike most other nations.
Although the introduction of the Affordable Care Act has shifted some private health insurance from voluntary to compulsory, the nation still massively relies on a system designed to profit from people’s ill heath:
My oma would read me Aesop’s fables as a child because she believed stories should always teach you something. And that something was always easier to learn through the lessons of someone else.
My favourite was The Wolf and the Lamb.
I would listen as she would tell me of the wolf looking to justify his actions by finding some blame in the lamb he wished to eat.
But the lamb did not feed from the wolf’s pasture, did not drink from his spring. The lamb had not lived long enough to insult the wolf. But still the wolf ate the lamb, citing his right to dinner.
The lesson; the tyrant will always find a pretext for his tyranny, and it is useless to appeal for justice from an unjust oppressor.
And so, how then, does one beat the wolf? After all, Aesop also told us of the shepherd who learnt once a wolf, always a wolf, after the one he trusted ate half his flock.
The answer, my oma would say, was to be brave.
Like the mice who lived in fear of the barn cat but could not find the bravery to hang a bell from its neck. Without bravery, things continue much as they always have.
The wolf will find the justification to eat the lamb no matter how unfair.
It wasn’t the tale itself that made it a favourite. It was that the answer in beating the wolf was so obvious.
Climate messaging has a distribution problem. We need new tools for a new era of climate communications. Always put the audience first. A lot of climate content is only reaching existing supporters. That’s because it doesn’t align with the values of audiences outside the progressive base, and because it’s delivered via news, which many audiences just aren’t consuming.
This interactive guide, How to Reach New Climate Audiences, by Harmony Labs (in partnership with Earth Alliance) dives deep into audiences based on what they value, the media they engage with, the voices that speak to them, how they relate to climate, and the storytelling approaches that resonate.
This research invites climate communicators to start with audience values (based on Schwartz’s Theory of Basic Human Values) and engage people where they are, organically and authentically, in addition to relying on traditional messaging strategy or approaches.
The techniques they use to think about reaching audiences are useful to any issue area.
This article shares the lessons learnt from organizing for narrative change based on the case study of the Yes on 15 Schools and Communities First – Prop 15 campaign in California.
This article was originally published by NPQ online, on May 24, 2022. It is used with permission.
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How can community groups shift narratives? A ballot initiative campaign from 2020 provides some important lessons. That year, community organizing groups and labor unions across California launched a campaign to take on the corporate loophole in Proposition 13 and reclaim billions of dollars for public schools and public services.
They knew they faced an uphill battle. Proposition 13, or Prop 13—the 1978 ballot initiative that capped property taxes in the state and set the stage for the presidency of Ronald Reagan two years later—has long been described as the “third rail” of California politics.
The Reframing Migration Narratives Toolkit is a set of resources by the International Center for Policy Advocacy ICPA for progressive campaigners working to put diversity and inclusion back on the public/policy agenda and counter populist narratives.
Prevention, not cure, may be a more effective way to combat misinformation.
As they start their careers, doctors swear to uphold the Hippocratic Oath. If people tackling misinformation were to establish an equivalent oath, we should make sure to borrow one of the original’s phrases: “Prevention is preferable to cure.”
As with medicine, so with misinformation: It is better to prevent misinformation from spreading at all than to try to debunk it once it’s spread.
Here’s why. Debunks don’t reach as many people as misinformation, and they don’t spread nearly as quickly. If they do reach us, they generally struggle to erase the misinformation from our debates or our brains. Even when we’ve been told that the misinformation is false, research suggests it continues to influence our thinking.
So it helps to take a page from medicine: Prevention, not cure, may be a more effective way to combat misinformation.
Understanding how prebunks work (and how they don’t) is essential for reporters, fact checkers, policy makers and platforms.
My oma would read me Aesop’s fables as a child because she believed stories should always teach you something. And that something was always easier to learn through the lessons of someone else.