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

by Piper Bly

As a key accountability mechanism for exposing public and private sector wrongdoing, it is time we recognise the role of whistleblowers in the pursuit of climate integrity.

But without fixing Australia’s broken whistleblowing laws, the risks for whistleblowers to speak up about climate and environmental wrongdoing will remain too high.

This interview is also available on podcast platforms and Rumble.

A truly representative and honest voice for the working class—one that takes part in the struggle, resists cozying up to the centers of power, makes tangible, material commitments rather than settling for empty rhetoric—is hard to find in the United States. Kshama Sawant, the socialist and former Seattle City Council member who won the battle for a $15 minimum wage, introduced the Amazon tax and championed unprecedented renter’s rights joins host Chris Hedges on this episode of The Chris Hedges Report to discuss the 2024 election.

Sawant frames the election as an opportunity to build a worker-led movement, explaining her support for Jill Stein’s campaign and introducing Workers Strike Back, a nationwide organization she co-founded to advance the cause for working people.

On a bright October morning, our London Organiser Maeve joined members of Brent London Renters Union, and their families and friends, outside Wembley Park station. Home to the Quintain development and Brent Civic Centre, Wembley is the epicentre of power and inequality within the borough and, as a local resident told Maeve, many can no […]

The post “They’re profiting off our problems” – Inequality in Brent appeared first on Equality Trust.

Introduction

This article, What Makes Narrative Change so Hard?, by Brett Davidson featured in Stanford Social Innovation Review. It discusses the challenges of narrative change in social issues, particularly in access to medicines. It highlights how entrenched systems can undermine efforts to reform policies and perceptions, pointing to the importance of re-framing narratives about medicines as public goods.

On this special crossover episode of After America and Presidency Pending, Associate Professor Zim Nwokora and Associate Professor Clare Corbould from Deakin University join Dr Emma Shortis to discuss whether reproductive rights will mobilise enough voters for Kamala Harris in key states and the role of Biden in the campaign.

This discussion was recorded on Wednesday 30 October 2024 and things may have changed since recording.

Guest: Zim Nwokora, Associate Professor, Deakin University

Guest: Clare Corbould, Associate Head of School, Research Faculty of Arts and Education/School of Humanities and Social Sciences, Deakin University // @clarecorbould

Host: Emma Shortis, Director of International & Security Affairs, the Australia Institute // @EmmaShortis

Theme music: Blue Dot Sessions

Subscribe for regular updates from the Australia Institute.

Three years on, there is still no compelling argument, strategic or otherwise, for Australia’s acquiring eight Virginia class nuclear-propelled submarines (SSNs).

Nor is there any compelling calculation of the large lick of funding – $368 billion and more – that the program will soak up. Only Defence seems able to command such stupendous outlays when childcare, aged care, Medicare rebates, the National Disability Insurance Scheme, education and social housing fight it out for every cent they can get. The opportunity costs outweigh the value of the opportunity.

The two official documents released so far – one a self-proclaimed “strategic review” and the other a national defence strategy thinner than the paper on which it is printed – are strong on assertion and weak on analysis. They are all we have to justify this extraordinary indulgence in national hubris.

The policy imperative that substantiates Royal Australian Navy (RAN) submarine deployment to the tropic of Cancer, China’s front door, is unknown. The force structure consequences of this unconstrained ambition are unevaluated. The implications for naval capability and the associated personnel requirements await assessment. The industrial and technological demands on the manufacturing sector are unstated, unplanned and unfunded. AUKUS is the triumph of ambition over achievability.

This article was originally published, in slightly different form, on Strong Towns member Will Gardner’s Substack, StrongHaven. It is shared here with permission. Images were provided by the writer unless otherwise indicated.

On the 50th episode of Dollars & Sense, Greg and Elinor discuss nuclear power furphies, the latest inflation data and how much the big four banks are profiting from home loans.

Greg Jericho is Chief Economist at the Australia Institute and the Centre for Future Work and popular columnist of Grogonomics with Guardian Australia. Each week on Dollars & Sense, Greg dives into the latest economic figures to explain what they can tell us about what’s happening in the economy, how it will impact you and where things are headed.

Host: Greg Jericho, Chief Economist, the Australia Institute and Centre for Future Work // @GrogsGamut

Host: Elinor Johnston-Leek, Senior Content Producer, the Australia Institute // @ElinorJ_L

Show notes:

‘Labor’s actions to lower inflation have worked – so why is the RBA unlikely to cut interest rates next week?’ by Greg Jericho, Guardian Australia (October 2024)

Profit in home lending, the Australia Institute (October 2024)

To succeed, it must have the confidence of the Australian public.

Several of its actions and decisions – including the current mess relating to whether or not it will investigate six people referred to it by the Robodebt Royal Commission – risk eroding public confidence.

Now, just 16 months after it was established, the powers and governance of the NACC need to be reviewed to ensure it lives up to the trust placed in it.

The Australia Institute, which campaigned for a decade to introduce a federal integrity commission, recommends five changes to make the NACC more effective and rebuild public confidence.

Key recommendations:

• Bring forward the statutory review of the NACC
  • A statutory review is scheduled to take place in three years. This review should be brought forward and initiated now.
• Allow public hearings whenever it is in the public interest to do so.
• Implement a Whistleblower Protection Authority.
• Ensure the Parliamentary Committee which oversees the NACC is not controlled by the government of the day.
• Broaden the powers of the NACC Inspector.

“When the National Anti-Corruption Commission (NACC) was created in 2022, Australians had high expectations, given a string of high-profile integrity issues in government had been identified,” said Bill Browne, Director, Democracy & Accountability Program at the Australia Institute.

Apologies to those who were on my old newsletter for getting this twice. But it's extra exciting news!

When I announced my intention to join Microsoft Research in 2008, my friends set up a betting pool over how long I would "last" there. No one thought that I'd be at MSR more than 7 years. And here we are, almost 16 years later. I still love MSR. I love my colleagues. I am forever grateful for the opportunities I've had to learn and grow and have impact. And yet, there's been this itch that has been growing for years. When I started my PhD, I didn't know if I would want to teach. But every time I've stepped into a classroom in recent years, I feel like I'm able to make a kind of difference that I can't make just as a researcher. And every time I get a chance to work with students, I leave glowing like a proud mama bear. Over the last few years, I've started to wonder if, when, and where becoming a full-time professor might make sense.

A notable trend in Australian politics has been the decline of the share of the vote won by both major parties at federal elections. One effect of this is that there are no longer any safe seats in Australian politics: minor parties and independents win more “safe” seats than they do “marginal” ones.

The declining major party vote

Fewer Australians give their first preference to a major party. The 2007 federal election is the last at which both Labor and the Liberal-National Coalition won more than 40% of the national vote; the 2022 election was the first time that neither cracked 40%.

The share of Australians voting outside of the major parties has increased from single digits in the 1970s to 31% at the most recent election in 2022, almost as many as the 36% who voted for the Coalition and 33% who voted for Labor. Not since the Great Depression has the combined vote for the two largest parties been so low.

The effect of a lower primary vote for major parties is that minor parties and independents have a better chance of winning seats.

The reality of the situation is that this budget wasn’t enough to meet the demands of any of the crises we face. It could have challenged our unequal system and properly funded public services, allowed people and communities to thrive, and built the greener, more equal future that we all want to see. It didn’t. […]

The post October Budget Report Card 2024 appeared first on Equality Trust.

Australia’s “broken” superannuation and pension systems are condemning a growing number of retirees to financial misery in their sunset years.

More than one in five Australians live in poverty when they retire. And that number is growing.

With housing affordability at an all-time low, many Australians now face the brutal double whammy of going through their entire working life unable to afford a home and ending up in poverty when they retire.

But there’s a simple change the government could make to slash the nation’s embarrassingly high rate of retirement poverty. It could reduce or remove the massive concessions to those retiring with millions of dollars and use that money to increase to the Age Pension.

It could also allow older Australians to earn income to supplement the Age Pension.

New research by the Australia Institute has found that Australia spends almost as much giving tax breaks to wealthy retirees as it does providing a safety net, the Age Pension, to those with little or no retirement savings.

The research compares Australia’s superannuation scheme and Age Pension program to the equivalent systems in Sweden and Norway, nations with comparable GDP’s to Australia.

Last week, Odessa’s city council passed an ordinance barring trans people from the correct bathrooms and allowing anybody to sue suspected violators of this ban. This is, shockingly, a really terrible idea!

Introduction

Learn about political organising in electoral campaigns from the Leading Change Network’s Political Organizing Series (monthly online learning sessions held from July to October in 2024).

Kick-off: People, Power, Politics

This is a year of elections around the world, and practicing democracy is now more critical than it has ever been before. In this series of learning sessions, we explored with over 200 participants what is often called political organizing, electoral organizing, or field organizing, which is organizing in political campaigns or campaigns to shape what our democracies look like.

We discussed how organizing can build effective campaigns, strengthen our democracies, and win elections, while also being in community with people who share values and interests.

Lacey opened the series with her story about how she learned about organizing during her journey as a political organizer.

Introduction

A report by Fandom Forward about Fan Activism which is the practice of organizing fans of pop culture for social change.

FANDOM is a human instinct. For as long as people have been telling stories, we’ve been driven to share those stories with one another: through retelling, reimagining, and remixing. Fandom happens when media is consumed in community.

On this episode of Follow the Money, Australia Institute Executive Director Richard Denniss joins Ebony Bennett to discuss the fake fight between the new Queensland Premier and Peter Dutton over nuclear power and the fallout from the state election.

This discussion was recorded on Tuesday 29 October 2024 and things may have changed since recording.

Guest: Richard Denniss, Executive Director, the Australia Institute // @RDNS_TAI

Host: Ebony Bennett, Deputy Director, the Australia Institute // @ebony_bennett

Show notes:

Queensland election: A clear message to Federal Labor, the Australia Institute (October 2024)

‘Federal Labor’s lesson from Qld defeat: bold progressive policies provide a pathway to a second term’ by Stephen Long, the Australia Institute (October 2024)

Theme music: Pulse and Thrum; additional music by Blue Dot Sessions

Comedian and co-host of Planet America on ABC TV, Chas Licciardello, joins Dr Emma Shortis to discuss why the campaigns are spending time in states they’re unlikely to win and what their advertising reveals about the campaigns’ strategies.

Guest: Chas Licciardello, comedian and co-host of Planet America and PEP // @chaslicc

Host: Emma Shortis, Director of International & Security Affairs, the Australia Institute // @EmmaShortis

Show notes:

PEP with Chas and Dr Dave

Planet America, ABC iview

Theme music: Blue Dot Sessions

Subscribe for regular updates from the Australia Institute.

This interview is also available on podcast platforms and Rumble.

“The crime of all crimes.” That is how the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda declared genocide in the final judgment of Prosecutor v. Akayesu, the case against the mayor of Taba, Rwanda for crimes against humanity. Today, that crime repeats itself as UN Special Rapporteur on the Occupied Palestinian Territories Francesca Albanese painfully details in her latest report.

Albanese joins host Chris Hedges on this episode of The Chris Hedges Report to break down her report and present the indisputable evidence that Israel is actively committing a genocide of the Palestinian people.

Since the “social media is bad for teens” myth will not die, I keep having intense conversations with colleagues, journalists, and friends over what the research says and what it doesn’t. (Alice Marwick et. al put together a great little primer in light of the legislative moves.) Along the way, I’ve also started to recognize how slipperiness between two terms creates confusion — and political openings — and so I wanted to call them out in case this is helpful for others thinking about these issues.

In short, “Does social media harm teenagers?” is not the same question as “Can social media be risky for teenagers?”

Addressing polarization and hate through social networks

Many people see the roots of polarization and hate in the information ecosystem in which we are embedded. This leads us to conversations about disinformation, platform power, and the politics of speech. I see the roots differently. In my mind, polarization and hate are expressions of a fractured social graph, of people not being connected to one another in meaningful and deep ways. Divisions in social networks (connections between people, not technologies) have serious consequences.

The social graph of society is civic infrastructure, but too few people really understand how this needs to be nurtured and maintained. Plenty of people do this by feel. You can see this in the military and in higher education. You can see this when organizations build mentorship programs and when social workers build plans to help people leave “the life.” But you can also see how people manipulate the social graph in order to aid and abet a range of political, ideological, and economic agendas. There is nothing “neutral” about the social fabric of society. Ignoring it doesn’t mean that it will be healthy, but it does create a vulnerability that can be abused.

Last week, 30 of the nation’s top marine scientists urged Ms Plibersek to intervene to save the skate, an ancient ray-like species found only in a remote corner of western Tasmania.

There is a mountain of scientific evidence proving that expanded salmon farming operations in Macquarie Harbour – home to the world’s only Maugean sake population – are almost certain to have a “catastrophic” impact on the skate.

The Minister has had that evidence for more than a year, with scientists urging her to overturn a 2012 decision which allowed toxic, industrial-scale salmon farming in Macquarie Harbour.

Now, the Minister has put off making yet another key decision on the future of the skate. She’s delayed changing the skate’s official threatened species status from “endangered” to “critically endangered” by a year, to October 30, 2025 – after the federal election.

Introduction

This resource, Un cambio narrativo para ampliar la conversación política: Aportes desde el periodismo feminista del Sur, is available in Spanish only.

Is it possible to change narratives in a world in crisis? Can changing the way we talk about how bad the world is make it better?

On the path to building bridges, forming virtual hives and coming together with colleagues from different movements, territories, organizations and roles, we have created a new station where we can stop and join forces with this workbook – A Narrative Shift to Broaden the Political Conversation: Contributions from Feminist Journalism in the South.

A few years ago, pressed by increasingly regressive situations in terms of rights and increasingly polarized societies, we tried to find the right questions that would move us to change the ways in which we communicate to LatFem audiences and the general public our view of the world, its powers and its multiple crises.

How do we respond to polarization, violence, and misinformation? How do we get beyond our followers and supporters? How do we make people fall in love again? How do we make feminism great again?

Introduction

This guide aims to support progressive community groups and organisations to make a statement to their supporters to counter the influence of the far-right, particularly in pivotal moments of far-right momentum like the 2024 US election.

By coming together to make strong public statements, we aim to ignite broader discussions on countering far-right narratives and affirm the importance of solidarity and community organising in our justice movements.

Please note: This guide has been written by people in Australia for the Australian context. You may like to adapt this for the context in your country or community. 

For further resources, updates and community events on countering the far-right you can sign up for email updates. (Note: Your email would be collected by Will Potter for this purpose only and will never be shared. All resources developed will be for the Australian context).

Introduction

A list of key resources collated by the International Resource for Impact and Storytelling IRIS exploring narrative change, popular culture, cultural organizing and cultural strategy.

Resources

Cultural Strategy: An Introduction & Primer

Nayantara Sen, Art/Work Practice and Power California, 2019