When Zohran Mamdani voted in the New York Mayoral election last week he told the press that he followed the Working Families Party ticket. Who is the Working FamiliesParty?

This episode is one we recorded earlier with the national leader of the Working Families Party - Maurice Mitchell. This episode was recorded in the wake of the Movement for Black Lives protests, but he also explains the origins of Working Families and their urban origins in community organising movements like ACORN in the US.

There is a long story behind one of the many strands emerging in resistance politics in the US.

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We have a chat with Radio Nation's Saturday Extra Host Nick Bryant about all things America - and the long story behind the intractable conflicts in the US. This episode was recorded in December 2024 - after President Trump's election but before he took office so it doesn't focus on what has happened in 2025. Instead it casts a long history that sheds light on the fissures and conflicts, the trend towards authoritarianism and the racism that is not new in American politics.

It is also a lovely background to the indefatigable host of Australia's number one (or at least our number one) current affairs radio show!

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In Australia, since 2012 there has been an explosive growth in community independents who have been challenging the two-party system and bringing new voices in the parliament. But there is a much bigger story than just the arrival of many new faces in parliament. Behind the new elected representatives is a massive movement of people - the "Voices of" movement - that started in Indi and has spread out across the country. That national movement is called Voices for Australia.

Denis was a founding member of the Indi movement and has played a leadership role in supporting and sharing these ideas nationally. In this chat we find out about his long history in rural community activism and then we unpack some of the features of the Voices of movement that has led to its success so far ....

You can also read more about Voices for Indi in their book available here:

https://scribepublications.com.au/books/the-indi-way

Or read this shorter piece in Arena by Denis and Lesley Howard about the Community Independents movement:

https://arena.org.au/a-positive-politics-community-independents-and-the-new-wave-of-political-engagement/

For more on ChangeMakers check us out:

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Blue Sky Social - changemakerspod.bsky.aocial & amandatattersall.bsky.social

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When millions of fish died overnight in Menindee in western NSW, the community came together to mourn, interpret and respond to what had happened through a series of powerful arts events. What happened was supported by the use of a socially-engaged arts practice that brought people together across difference to create a space where communities could lead a response.

This chat is with Vic McEwan, an internationally recognised artist and researcher, founder of the Cad Factory and now resident of Narrandera in Western NSW. He has led a well recognised program of amazing art produced with communities. In this episode he shares some of his journey into this work from the nightlife of Marrickville and working on the 000 hotline, and tells us about some of the emerging principles and practices he has learnt from his practice.

Vic is currently a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Sydney. You can read about his other work here.

• For more on the Cad Factory - https://www.cadfactory.com.au.
• Here is a story on ABC RN Big Ideas show about the Fish Kills projects.
• More on his work at Sydney Uni

For more on ChangeMakers check us out:

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Senator Fatima Payman was the first hijab wearing member of parliament representing the Australian Labor Party and in 2024 she was removed from the ALP caucus in response to her campaigning (and crossing the floor of parliament) calling for the ALP to recognise the genocide in Gaza and the need for a Palestinian State. As it turns out, her leadership was ahead of its time, with much of the world now finally recognising that more must be done to end Israeli aggression and support the right of Gaza to exist.

In this conversation she shares the long history of her rise as young Senator from Western Australia. The guiding strength, voice and resilience she learnt from her parents, and how determined she was to bring all of herself - her faith, her gender and her voice - into the Parliament when she was elected. And yes - we talk about what happened when she crossed the floor and what she it has taught her about politics, political parties and making change.

For more about Senator Fatima Payman go to https://www.fatimapayman.com.au/

For more on ChangeMakers check us out:

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There is a lot of talk about co-design and community engagement in research and public policy - but in practice a lot of that talk ends up looking like window dressing rather than real community partnership.

We talk to one of the world's leading co-design, community engaged researchers in nursing - Professor Brendan McCormak Head of the Nursing School at the University of Sydney - to find out strategies for how he involves patients and nurses in the creation of research. The result is not only an amazing story about a career of co-created knowledge, but a series of powerful insights and strategies for anyone interested in the art of working WITH others in building solutions and knowledge.

You can find out more about Brendan here.

For more on ChangeMakers check us out:

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Blue Sky Social - changemakerspod.bsky.aocial & amandatattersall.bsky.social

On X/Twitter - @changemakers99 or @amandatatts

On LinkedIn - Amanda.Tattersall

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The second Trump Administration has brought with it an unprecedented attack on migrants, led by the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) focused on people who are living in the United States without formal documentation. In this conversation we talk with Alexandra Pineros Shields - a long term community organiser, immigrant rights campaigner and researcher about how communities are fighting back to defend the rights of migrants and change how policing is done.

This conversation explores Alexandra's history of organising and building strategy to make change, as well as the kinds of innovative tactics being used by communities to combat ICE. She runs through techniques like power analysis and shows how a practical understanding of different dimensions of power can help build effective strategy. She talks about the power of communities using prefigurative action - where they model what the state should be doing - as a way to tell a story to make change more compelling.

This episode is a deep dive into what you might have seen on the news - it is a reassuring and inspiring reminder that even in the face of repression and abusive of power, there is also power in community to respond and make change.

In the podcast a few different organisations are mentioned, here is where you can find out more:

John Gaventa - When Alexandra teaches she asks students read chapter 4 from The Miner’s Canary. We also have links of a diagram that Alexandra uses with organisers on our website.

‘Midwife for Power’: Towards a Mujerista/Womanist Model of Community Organizing - https://epress.lib.uts.edu.au/journals/index.php/ijcre/article/view/7771/7855

Ayni Institute - https://ayni.institute/

The Right Question Institute (Cambridge, Massachusetts) – Question Formulation Technique - https://rightquestion.org/what-is-the-qft/

City of Boston – City of Belonging Campaign

For more on ChangeMakers check us out:

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Climate change has led the Northern Rivers has been inundated by flood and flood threats, but it has also shown Australia - and the world - what it looks like to lead a community response to climate change. In this episode we talk with Rebecca McNaught, a community researcher on disaster response who shares with us how the community did respond to the extreme floods in 2022, and what all communities can learn from what they did.

Bec has decades of experience in community-led climate work, having worked across the Pacific and the world before focusing on researching best practice in community strategies. She was undertaking field work when the 2022 floods began, and she helped lead emergency support with others in her neighbourhood before she finished her PhD documenting best practice.

In this conversation she argues that big concepts like "climate change adaptation" and creating climate infrastructure are at their heart about building strong social bonds between people who can be there for each other when dialling 000 no longer works.

For more on the Northern Rivers Community Resilience Alliance see here.

For information on the University of Sydney's University Centre for Rural Health see here.

For more on ChangeMakers check us out:

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On the Winter Solstice in 2025 Amanda spoke at an event in Albury held to raise awareness about Mental Illness and Suicide. She shared about her story of living with bipolar and some of the lessons it has generated about how we make a difference.

In this podcast we replay that speech.

Thanks to Survivors of Suicide and Friends for creating this event. For more on their work and previous events, visit their website https://survivorsofsuicide.org.au/

For more on ChangeMakers check us out:

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Blue Sky Social - changemakerspod.bsky.aocial & amandatattersall.bsky.social

On X/Twitter - @changemakers99 or @amandatatts

On LinkedIn - Amanda.Tattersall

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In light of the release of Victoria's landmark truth telling inquiry, we are re-releasing this important ChangeMaker Chat with Terri Janke, one of Australia's leading advocates for the recognition of Indigenous cultural and intellectual property.

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Terri Janke is an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Lawyer who uses the law to protect and advance Indigenous Cultural and Intellectual Property. As a Meriam and Wuthathi woman who grew up in Cairns in northern Queensland, for over 20 years she has crafted a set of legal instruments that allow for the protection of Indigenous Culture. From an Indigenous perspective, Culture is the embodiment of life, and it can be represented in anything from art to dance, from bones to research. She is well recognised across Australia for her work in protecting Indigenous Culture using a series of True Track protocols that enable Indigenous Culture to be recognised as intellectual property. 

Here she explains her journey and how she found the law. She explores her ICIP principles and then applies them to the process of research, and in particular Country-based ‘placed-based’ research. This is a powerful conversation for non-Indigenous listeners as Terri generously shares an Indigenous perspective on Culture that is very different to white understandings of culture.

For more about Terri’s work you can visit her website – https://www.terrijanke.com.au/. Or read her book True Tracks, available from UNSW Press.

For more on ChangeMakers check us out:

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Blue Sky Social - changemakerspod.bsky.aocial & amandatattersall.bsky.social

On X/Twitter - @changemakers99 or @amandatatts

On LinkedIn - Amanda.Tattersall

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