Progressive Ideas Worth Sharing

Barbara Norman is the Foundation Chair of Urban and Regional Planning, and Director of Canberra Urban & Regional Futures (CURF), at the University of Canberra. She has extensive experience in the public sector at all levels of government. Her research interests include coastal planning, sustainable cities, urban and regional planning, climate change adaptation, and coastal and urban governance. Barbara's new book 'Sustainable Pathways for our Cities and Regions' looks at the ways in which current planning approaches need to be adapted to embrace concepts such as green growth, planetary boundaries, healthy cities and long-term sustainability. This is the first event of Victorian Fabians' Spring Series for 2018, and will feature talks by Professor Barbara Norman and Frank McGuire MP, with a special introduction by Fabian Luminary and National Treasure Barry Jones. Our familiar urban and suburban areas are at the forefront of much of the economic, social and environmental change sweeping Australia. Challenges arise in an arc of suburbs around Melbourne and other major cities. They are the result of the closure of old industries and changes in employment. Furthermore, the rise of inequality between suburbs contributes to the challenges, where some may become waiting rooms of permanent unemployment and a marginalised existence, with little expectation of the better future that spurred on former generations. Challenges to planning are also waiting in the wings from the social and physical effects of climate change, whether from increased numbers of people harmed or displaced by drought and flood, or from the struggle to adapt our cities to new land-use, energy and transport imperatives, as food and energy are stretched and the natural environment put under even more pressure. How can we address these issues so that people can have confidence in the future of the communities in which they live?

Dr Bruce Lindsay (Environmental Justice Australia, Member of Australian Panel of Experts on Environmental Law) Bruce works as a law reform and project officer at Environmental Justice Australia - a public-interest community legal centre specialising in environmental and planning law. Bruce has written on biodiversity law, water law, access to justice issues, and planning law for EJA. He has previously worked with Trust for Nature, undertaking leading research on law in private land conservation and environmental markets. He has had a long association with local environmental groups and issues in Geelong, Victoria. This is the third event of Victorian Fabians' Spring Series for 2018, co-hosted by the Labor Environment Action Network (LEAN), at which we'll discuss environmental sustainability and equality, with talks by Dr Bruce Lindsay and Ged Kearney MP. The 2018 IPCC report on climate change says we have about 12 years to act to keep climate change to 1.5 degrees. The action required to prevent increasing CO2 will be both rapid and dislocating but not anywhere near as dislocating as the effects of higher than 1.5 degrees of warming. Many of the impacts from climate risks and remedies will disproportionately affect the more disadvantaged in our society. This represents a threat to our progressive social democracy. How do we act on climate change and sustain a thriving diverse environment, human well-being and equality all at the same time?

This is Event 3 of Victorian Fabians' Autumn Series on 'What do we mean by Equality?' The first two events of our Autumn series explored the effects and degree of economic inequality, as well as the renewed concept of 'class' as revealed through social and cultural inequality in Australia. Our next event will look at how to address the consequences of inequality, now and in future. What will be the developments in society that might lead to increased or diminished future social and economic inequality? What societal and policy changes, both to the nature of work and the provision of social services such as education, health and welfare, are needed to redress the inequality imbalance? Are our institutional responses up to the task? What sort of governing institutions and policies are needed to promote equality? Jim Stanford Jim Stanford is an economist and the Director of the Centre for Future Work, based at the Australia Institute. He is a Canadian who has relocated to Australia, much to our benefit! In Canada, he served for over 20 years as an economist and Director of Policy with Unifor, Canada’s largest private-sector trade union (formerly Canadian Auto Workers). In Australia he has pursued interests in precarious and insecure work, the effects of automation on work, the strategic importance of public sector work, and how governments could support better wages and working conditions for all.

This is Event 3 of Victorian Fabians' Autumn Series on 'What do we mean by Equality?' The first two events of our Autumn series explored the effects and degree of economic inequality, as well as the renewed concept of 'class' as revealed through social and cultural inequality in Australia. Our next event will look at how to address the consequences of inequality, now and in future. What will be the developments in society that might lead to increased or diminished future social and economic inequality? What societal and policy changes, both to the nature of work and the provision of social services such as education, health and welfare, are needed to redress the inequality imbalance? Are our institutional responses up to the task? What sort of governing institutions and policies are needed to promote equality? Shelley Mallett is Professorial Fellow in Social Policy in the School of Social and Political Sciences at the University of Melbourne, and General Manager for Research and Policy at the Brotherhood of St Laurence. Shelley's research interests include homelessness, youth transitions in out-of-home care and similar settings, and gender and health inequities. Shelley has also written on how a Universal Basic income may be utilised in such a way as to support youth transitions in the precarious years of early adulthood.

Since Brexit and the election of Donald Trump, there is more interest about the extent to which the internet, digital platforms and big data is being used by sectional interests to gain political power. Manipulative techniques are being applied to democracy, voting behaviours and public political sentiment. There has also been unprecidented foreign intervention in elections. Who are the new power brokers? How is your vote affected? How is Australia affected? Vanessa Teague is Senior Lecturer in the Department of Computing and Information Systems at at the University of Melbourne. A legitimate hacker, she has demonstrated that virtually no encrypted system is secure. At the same time she has a passionate commitment to people’s ownership of their own data and to democracy. Vanessa has been invited to appear before several parliamentary inquiries into elections at the state and federal level, to answer questions on electronic voting.

The first event in the Victorian Fabians Spring series on the future of work, "What is happening to work and will there even be any in future?" set the scene for the rest of the series, as well as setting out the problem of work and inequality. Dr Julia Thornton is the Victorian Fabians Acting Chair and a key architect of this series. She has studied the intersection between society and technology in both her Masters' degree and her PhD, and has recently attended two conferences on the future of work. She spoke on the conditions leading to substantial changes in the amount and kind of work we can expect to see in future. She suggested that the bulk of the commentary on changes to work focus on the people who can expect to benefit from it, professionals and entrepreneurs. The trends that are usually credited with producing changes to work and almost inevitably, a loss of jobs include globalisation, increased longevity, climate change and most prominently advances in technology, particularly artificial intelligence and the speed of technological change. Jobs that cannot be automated are at the top and bottom of the income and status range. Those that are most in danger of being lost are based on routine manual work, such as manufacturing, and more surprisingly, routine cognitive work, especially in education, legal services and financial advice. These jobs are overwhelmingly the jobs in the social middle. She argued that we need to think carefully about unintended consequences of blindly granting such trends the force of inevitability. We need instead to think carefully about how to understand what we are collectively creating in terms of inequality.

Special Event with Terri Butler MP and Andrew Giles MP How might a new approach to tax achieve greater equality? Have you read Terri Butler and Andrew Giles' essay for Australian Fabians on how tax measures can be used to achieve greater equality? If not, access your copy here. Now is your chance to hear them discuss their ideas... At this event Terri Butler and Andrew Giles will outline the ideas put forward in their essay, followed by an exploration of its implications with Alison McClelland AM (former Productivity Commissioner) and questions from you! In their essay they argue: "Today, Australians are experiencing record levels of inequality. We are on course for a future which promises a new Gilded Age for a lucky few, at the expense of confined and insecure lives for the many. To reverse this trend to inequality we need more than a set of policies: we need a consistent argument for the changes needed to deliver growth that is inclusive and sustainable. This has to be anchored by a new approach to tax." Andrew Giles is the Federal Member for Scullin; Terri Butler is the Federal Member for Griffith.

Having a job is the traditional entry point into adult social life. What you do so frequently defines who you are that they are hard to separate. Work and a meaningful life are almost inextricably bound together in most people's thinking. Yet if work is diminishing and the work that remains for the majority becomes meaningless, low status and simply that which machines cannot do, where can we find a meaningful attachment to wider society? If the options for almost any kind of employment are reduced by technology and globalisation, how can people retain their dignity and place in society? Possibilities include a new twist on co-operatives, voluntary work enhancing civil society or the introduction of a universal basic income. This event discusses some of the alternative options for a meaningful work life, decoupled perhaps from the traditional job market, or perhaps from the economic necessity of work. Emma Kerin, National Union of Workers Media Communications Organiser, speaks on Co-operative work and worker co-operatives, another alternative to work as it is currently understood.