Latest Updates
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UBI, Work And “Labo(u)r” Parties
It was excellent to watch Richard Di Natale fully embrace and promote the idea of Universal Basic Income in his speech to the National Press Club this week. It’s clear the idea has made its way from the edges of Greens policy and politics into a central position, and that is great news for Australian…
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Exploring The Commons At Two Upcoming Events
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 see it as a vital…
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Can “Ecological Democracy” Be The Response To The Crisis Of Democracy?
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 advocate; from public space being…
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Keeping Canberra Ad Free – New Poll Massively Backs Campaign
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% of Canberrans say there is…
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What Is The “Future Of Work”? – Senate Inquiry Submission
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 invited to make a submission,…
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Farewell, Ursula Le Guin
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 course, be both mirror and…
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Looking Back On ‘Everything is Connected’ Conference
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 political ideas, with so many…
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Sun Setting On Coal, Rising On Democracy
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 in Bonn, 19 nations led by the UK…
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Our Constitution Is Past Its ‘Best By’ Date
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 mess of federation, our Constitution needs reconstituting. Isn’t…
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Parliament: No Entry To Foreigners And Public Servants?
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, Ms Hughes has been disqualified because she took a paid position for the government after the election. And now newly sworn…
