Social Justice
Environment, Featured, Green Agenda Quarterly Journal Summer 2021, Social Justice
Green Agenda Summer 2021: Into the Fire
As I sit in my study writing this piece, I look outside to the trees in our street and the clean Canberra air. It is a far cry from what it was like just over a year ago. From November 2019 to February 2020 our beautiful city was shrouded in smoke. With fires to our north, east and west, we... Read More
Democracy, Featured, Green Agenda Quarterly Journal Summer 2021, Social Justice
The fire front: Transformative politics in Queensland
Queensland bears a burden of being perceived as a deeply conservative state. One Nation emerged from the ashes in a small Queensland city called Ipswich, a coal town left in ruin once the mining moved further West. We carry the history of the Joh Bjelke-Petersen era, and a violent history of colonisation and policing. We’re also home to some of... Read More
Featured, Green Agenda Quarterly Journal Summer 2021, Peace, Social Justice
Beirut burning
Some of the worst wildfires ravaged through the mountains of Lebanon in 2019, caused by extended drought, wind and unusually dry weather. The government’s response to this crisis mirrored every government service in the country, at best inadequate, and mostly non-existent. In 2020 more than 100 wildfires spread again throughout the mountains in the southern Chouf and in the northern... Read More
Environment, Featured, Green Agenda Quarterly Journal Summer 2021, Peace, Social Justice
A fiery trifecta
We are in the midst of a fiery trifecta of crises: climate, covid, nuclear. They’re all connected, and all capable of great damage, and of great transformation. The climate crisis just keeps getting worse, as governments refuse to take the bold and necessary actions to limit global warming to 1.5%. This challenge has been sneaking up on us for more... Read More
Democracy, Featured, Green Agenda Quarterly Journal Summer 2021, Social Justice
Burning debate: Building consensus from the ashes
During the summer that preceded COVID, my family left me home alone and set off on the five-hour annual road trip to Nowa Nowa, not far from Lakes Entrance in East Gippsland. As flames spread across Victoria and New South Wales, my partner, daughter and son were evacuated the next day. When the area was declared safe, they returned home.... Read More
Democracy, Featured, Green Agenda Quarterly Journal Spring 2020, Social Justice
‘Now is the time for bold decision making’: Senator Siewert on the lessons of 2020
What a strange year 2020 has been. We entered it under a fog of smoke with parts of the country barely able to breathe, and growing community anger as fires burned. The links were being made stronger than ever, the fires were due to climate change – surely there would finally be decisive action taken, surely there was no choice... Read More
Economy, Featured, Green Agenda Quarterly Journal Spring 2020, Social Justice
The trash economy: employment in the post-Covid era
On a landfill site outside the village of Kafr Lusin in northwest Syria, teenagers sort through the mountain of toxic household waste, looking for reusable plastic that can be traded for a few coins. At the Ars Electronica Centre in Linz, school children visiting the Machine Learning Studio work with tech trainers to learn how robots are programmed. These might... Read More
Featured, Green Agenda Quarterly Journal Spring 2020, Social Justice
The state of welfare: reimagining support in the wake of Covid-19
For too long, the state has used welfare to control the poor. This crisis is our chance to imagine a new system that embraces freedom. Australia’s crash into recession has pushed our welfare state into the spotlight. Hundreds of thousands of Australians have lost their jobs and whole regions have been forced to a standstill. We emerged from a national... Read More
Featured, Green Agenda Quarterly Journal Spring 2020, Social Justice
Mobile phones in immigration detention: capturing lessons for post-pandemic transformation?
With the onset of COVID-19, the fault lines of the status quo are becoming more and more visible across Australia and the world. Globally, as People of Color are disproportionately dying from COVID-19, the effects of concealed structures of racism are made visible. This truth is immediately apparent in Australia’s carceral settings. The unequal incarceration levels of Aboriginal and Torres... Read More
Economy, Featured, Green Agenda Quarterly Journal Spring 2020, Social Justice
A casual reflection on academia: before and after the pandemic
COVID-19 has thrown Australia’s university sector into crisis. For the past two decades, the tertiary education industry has expanded on the back of rising international student enrolments. However, the coronavirus pandemic, and the resultant border closures, have disconnected universities from these enrolments, one of their most significant revenue streams. Universities have been hard hit: Job losses have already commenced as... Read More
