Social Justice
Culture, Democracy, Featured, Social Justice
The radical potential of Brisbane City Council
It’s no accident that so many Brisbanites think local government is mostly just about fixing potholes and building playgrounds. Power-holders find it convenient to perpetuate the narrative that councils are merely local service providers with limited political relevance, because it helps justify anti-democratic moves to take more power away from local communities, while reducing public scrutiny of the many big,... Read More
Culture, Economy, Environment, Featured, Green Agenda Journal 2022: Volume Three, Social Justice, Theory
The ends of work
Country, place, grassroots organising, anti-work, First Law, biodiversity, degrowth, post-capitalism, nature, community, art, basic income and Indigenous sovereignty. Taken together these terms point to the shifting ecology of work as we rethink the ways in which work may sustain life in flourishing ways – as we situate work within the web of life. For this issue of Green Agenda we... Read More
Democracy, Economy, Featured, Green Agenda Journal 2022: Volume Three, Social Justice, Theory
The work of grassroots organising
The browner your skin, the dirtier the work. Chicken factories across Australia are all virtually the same. Lit by fluorescent white lights, smelling of cleaning detergent and death, and socially stratified. Afghan or African workers in the kill rooms, South Asians defeathering. Vietnamese workers in the boning room slicing cuts off carcasses. White folks in the packing room. [...]
Culture, Featured, Green Agenda Journal 2022: Volume Three, Social Justice, Theory
Theory of the Lanyard Class
Within the cracks of a broken system, care grows out of necessity. Nonetheless, the privileging of professionalised forms of care brings with it a disregard for the way people care for one another on a day to day basis. [...]
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Culture, Featured, Green Agenda Journal 2022: Volume Three, Social Justice, Theory
Hope against hope
On the window of the café at my current place of work there is a taped A4 printed page that read “permanently closed”. There is a small injustice here, I feel distressed for the operators of an isolated hospitality business. Is this history from below? [...]
... Read MoreCulture, Democracy, Economy, Environment, Featured, Green Agenda Journal 2022: Volume Two, Social Justice, Theory
Green Agenda Journal 2022, Volume 2: On the Ground after the Election
For this issue of Green Agenda we welcome new critical and creative voices, writing from places where left political and ecological commitments are already making a difference. As a decade of liberal-conservative hegemony in government finally breaks, and as we shift to this new post-electoral moment, we also bring together several pieces that reflect on the federal election and the... Read More
Democracy, Featured, Green Agenda Journal 2022: Volume Two, Social Justice
Political ‘experts’ know a lot less than they think they do, and doorknocking works
The recent federal election result was the best in the Greens’ history, delivering an increased national vote share, four federal MPs, and twelve senators. In particular, the result in Queensland – which saw an additional senator elected and the federal lower house seats of Griffith, Ryan, and Brisbane claimed by the Greens – took many by surprise. Queensland has long... Read More
Democracy, Featured, Green Agenda Journal 2022: Volume Two, Social Justice
Election Diary – Never say never
Sunday, 15 May Just under a week until the election and, I have to say, it’s interesting how many people are currently asking me how I am going. Truth is, I am doing well. I have been a preselected candidate now for over a year. That’s been a long, arduous year so only having a week to go feels like... Read More
Democracy, Featured, Green Agenda Quarterly Journal Winter 2021, Social Justice
Green Agenda Winter 2021: On Dissent
I will never forget the first protest I attended. It was 2002 and George Bush, Tony Blair and John Howard were gearing up to go to war in Iraq. So was the movement of people around the world to oppose the invasion. I was still in high school, but a few friends and I organised to get leave from school... Read More
Culture, Democracy, Featured, Green Agenda Quarterly Journal Winter 2021, Social Justice
Show up and make noise: We must reject all attacks on our right to dissent
I’ve relayed this story many times over the years: the first rally I remember going to was in May 1988 when I was ten years old. At that time, my family lived in Canberra. My family attended the rally under the guise of attending something else – the day marked the official opening of the “new Parliament House” and government-planned... Read More
