The Commons is a beautiful, ancient and radical idea of how to be in the world. But in today’s world, where politics and economics are seen almost entirely through the prisms of individualism and self-interest, it’s an idea which we struggle to understand – or see as possible. Because we…
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Looking at politics around the world today, it’s not a pretty sight, is it? From poker machine companies buying the Tasmanian election to coal companies preventing climate action; from global treaties being negotiated by, with and for transnational corporations to civil society groups being denied the right to campaign and…
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The campaign to keep Canberra Ad Free, in response to Chief Minister Andrew Barr’s proposal to open up the city to more billboard advertising, got a huge boost today with Green Institute commissioned polling showing that 90% of Canberrans want either the same amount or even less advertising. Remarkably, 48%…
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The Australian Senate has established a Select Committee to inquire into the enormous topic of “The Future of Work and Workers”. Doubtless they will receive an extraordinary array of widely differing views about both what is happening and what to do about it. The Green Institute was pleased to be…
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Bertolt Brecht, the brilliant, impatient playwright and political activist, once reputedly said “art is not a mirror to reflect reality, but a hammer with which to shape it.” Ursula Le Guin, the extraordinary writer who has died aged 88, showed through her beautiful work that the greatest art can, of…
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Everything really is connected, isn’t it? Including how putting on a huge conference is connected to exhaustion and getting behind on other work, with a direct consequence of not uploading content from the conference for almost six weeks. Clear connection there! After such an amazing two days discussion big green…
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This article first appeared in The Guardian, Nov 17, 2017 Events on opposite sides of the globe in recent days should give us real hope that coal’s deadly stranglehold on our health, our planetary home, and on our democracy, is finally slipping. At the UN climate meeting…
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This article was first published in the Canberra Times, Nov 17, 2017 All of a sudden, it seems terribly obvious that Australia’s 120 year old Constitution is past its ‘best by’ date. From the exclusion of First Nations people to 19th century dual citizenship rules to the…
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EMPTY SEATS: We are left with an increasingly deep democratic deficit. Photo Credit: JJ Harrison The disqualification of Hollie Hughes from serving in the Senate raises some very troubling questions that we, as a country, have to grapple with urgently. Coming on top of the dual citizenship kerfuffle,…
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This brilliant panel deeply engaged with questions of inequality, the future of work, Universal Basic Income and more. Panel members were: L-R: Ben Spies-Butcher, Chris Twomey, Elise Klein Eva Cox (by video link) Eva Cox is a public commentator, community change agent, well known feminist, on a postage stamp, Boyer Lecturer…
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