Latest Updates
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Re-engaging
Well, I’m back! As you may recall, I stepped down as Executive Director of the Green Institute back in March in order to focus fully on my election campaign for the seat of Canberra. The board kindly kept my position vacant for the duration, while the wonderful Elissa Jenkins very ably held the fort, and…
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Everything Is Terrible. What A Time To Be Alive!
This opinion piece was first published in The Canberra Times on 15 August, 2021. “So, New Zealand looks like the best place to ride out the apocalypse. When are we moving?” If I had a tonne of coal in the ground for every time someone had said something like this, we’d be several steps back…
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Momentum Builds For Universal Basic Income
Anglicare Australia backing will shift the debate The Green Institute has warmly welcomed Anglicare Australia’s announcement this week of support for Universal Basic Income, making it the first major Australian charity to back the policy shift, and marking an important turning point in the conversation about poverty, universalism, and the right to a decent standard…
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Ecocide – Law As If The Earth Matters
Are we, around the world and here in Australia, slowly but surely making our way towards a legal system where the Earth actually matters? This fantastic conversation suggests that we are, and that we’re picking up speed. Dr Michelle Maloney, from The Australian Earth Laws Alliance, opened with a wonderful introduction to the ideas of…
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Replenishing The Oily Rag
So far this year, amidst the challenges we’re all facing, The Green Institute has brought you two fantastic quarterly editions of Green Agenda – Into The Fire and On (in)security, webinars on youth & democracy and climate grief and action, a bunch of blog posts, and a democratic budget reply featuring people living in poverty.…
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In Conversation with Danielle Celermajer and Scott Ludlam: From Grief To Possibility To Action
The devastating fires across eastern Australia as the 2020s began burnt a hard black line across history – before the fires and after. Former Greens Senator Scott Ludlam and Professor Danielle Celermajer both faced those fires from terrifyingly close up. And their remarkable new books, Full Circle and Summertime, take them as the starting point…
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Bookclub With Scott, Danielle And Tim This Thursday
“Does a story of survival and recovery offer us redemption? Or does it at least spare us the burden of feeling condemned for the crime of omnicide?” These words from towards the end of Professor Danielle Celermajer’s beautiful book, Summertime, ring in my mind as I ponder that difficult, tenuous, tantalising link between grief, possibility…
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#TheirBudget, Our Lives – A Democratic Budget Reply In Action!
If there’s anything better for the soul than a big group of people gathered together around a good meal, actively planning together how to build a better world, I’ve not experienced it. On the traditional Budget Reply night, Thursday of Budget week, The Green Institute partnered with The Australian Unemployed Workers Union (AUWU), the Antipoverty…
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From Grief To Possibility To Action: Join Our Virtual Book Club
For everyone who was living anywhere near the gargantuan, climate-change-fuelled fires of 2019-20, or had any connection to the country that was burning, they left an indelible mark on our psyche. Recently, as the autumn chill arrived in Canberra and the first hazard reduction burns took place in the nearby Brindabellas, I found myself struck…
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Budget, Books And Big Tech
I’m super excited to be bringing you three fantastic events covering diverse and important issues over the next six weeks. Please join us to discuss how we can resist austerity in a post-budget event with the Australian Unemployed Workers Union, how to move from climate grief to action in a virtual bookclub with Scott Ludlam and Danielle Celermajer,…
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Genocide, Ecocide, Omnicide – Talking The Holocaust And Climate Action
I was delighted recently to be invited to speak at the conference of the Australian Academy of Jewish Studies, where I gave a presentation about Ecology, Citizenship and Jewish Identity, drawing together the ideas of Emma Goldman, Hannah Arendt and Murray Bookchin. I talked about how the fragile sense of privilege, the uprootedness, and the…
