Are you an activist or slacktivist? Would you take to the streets for a cause you’re passionate about, or sign a petition? What actions make a real difference? In this episode of Seriously Social, Brisbane City Councillor Jonathan Sriranganathan, academic and activist Aidan Ricketts and sexual consent advocate Chanel Contos answer the question 'What is the point of a protest?', take a look at the ways protesting has changed over the years and highlight how governments and lawmakers are making it harder for protestors to exercise their rights.   

Useful Links

1800 RESPECT Phone 1800 737 732

Lifeline Phone 13 11 44

Kids Helpline Phone 1800 55 1800

Centre for Sex and Gender Equality The Australia Insititute

Teach Us Consent

Extinction Rebellion

The history of the Australian Environment Movement Australian Environmental Grant Network

Franklin Dam and the Greens National Museum Australia

Elizabeth Reid talks women, advocacy and change in Australia Seriously Social

Australians love sport. It’s healthy, fun and brings the community together for a common goal. Or so we’re told. But what happens when our national obsession with sport causes division in the community? And who is left out of the game altogether? In this episode of Seriously Social, Emeritus Professor David Rowe explains how involvement in sport can be so contentious it has started a war while author and host of The Outer Sanctum podcast, Nicole Hayes, discusses the benefits to the wider community that occur when marginalised voices enter the conversation about sport.

Useful Links

Honduras vs El Salvador: The football match that kicked off a war BBC News

The day Cathy Freeman flew the flag and flagged the future The Sydney Morning Herald

Australian Citizenship: Our common bond Department of Home Affairs

Kick It Out

Reclink

It’s our 50th episode and we are celebrating this milestone with an extra-special interview with the first women’s advisor to a head of government anywhere in the world. Elizabeth Reid AO, Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences in Australia and a former visiting Fellow at the Gender Relations Centre and Department of Human Geography at ANU, was appointed in 1973 to advise then Prime Minister Gough Whitlam on the changes in policy that the women of Australia were desperate to see implemented. From placards and protests to the halls of power, Elizabeth Reid takes us through the ways in which women have tried to make society sit up and listen, and the challenges of being a figurehead for a social movement for change.

Watch our extended interview with Elizabeth on our Seriously Social YouTube channel: https://youtu.be/SrPI3F2hCWs 

Fill in our podcast survey here: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/BX33W8K 

Useful Links

Elizabeth Reid: Transforming adversity into impact ANU Gender Institute

Women’s Liberation Movement

International Women’s Year

Milestones for Australian Women Since 1975 ABC News

March4Justice

Would you switch to greener super if it meant more money at retirement? But is the benefit worth the hassle? As climate change makes itself felt in our everyday lives, we explore how our choice of superannuation fund can cost us in the long run if we don’t pay attention to climate-friendly investment now. In this episode, Professor Jacqueline Peel, Director of Melbourne Climate Futures talks about how it's possible to prompt climate action by strategic superannuation investment. Professor Wai Fong Chua also reveals just what it will take for big businesses to disclose climate-related material risk.

Useful Links

“REST super fund commits to net zero emission investments after Brisbane man sues” ABC News

Melbourne Climate Futures University of Melbourne

The Paris Agreement United Nations Climate Change

Market Forces

When you think back to your childhood, who do you remember spent the most time doing the day-to-day care? The most common answer to that question historically, would be mum. But in 2022, is that beginning to change? In this episode, Professor of Gender and Employment Relations, Marian Baird, (University of Sydney), discusses Australia’s current Paid Parental Leave schemes including how they work, what needs to change and how can we learn from other schemes. 

Useful links:

Dad days: how more gender-equal parental leave would improve the lives of Australian families by Grattan Institute

Early Childhood Australia 

Gender equality and paid parental leave in Australia: A decade of giant leaps or baby steps? by Marian Baird, Myra Hamilton and Andreea Constantin 

PPL Evaluation Report by the Institute for Social Science Research, University of Queensland

Are you one of the 50% of Australians who have tried an illicit drug? Or do you believe all drugs should be illegal? The field of drug policy is in a state of flux. Whilst drugs are being legalised in some parts of the world, other countries are cracking down. In this episode, Professor Alison Ritter, Director of the UNSW Drug Policy Modelling Program, explores Australia's drug policies: who makes them, who influences them, and who is being left out of the discussion?

Useful Links

Drug Policy Modelling Program, University of Sydney

Australian Institute of Criminology

Feeling burned out? It’s not surprising: experts say we all have a 30% chance of experiencing it. (Sorry to doctors, teachers and others in caring professions: your chances are way higher.) In this episode, the founder of the Black Dog Institute, Professor Gordon Parker, explains what burnout is, why it’s often misdiagnosed, and which personalities are most at risk of experiencing this syndrome which can impact our relationships, personality, and brain function.

Useful links:

Burnout: A guide to identifying burnout and pathways to recovery by Gordon Parker, Gabriela Tavella and Kerrie Eyers

The Carers Club

Lifeline: 13 11 14

Did you know there have been more dictatorships than democracies? Ever wondered if all dictators are cut from the same cloth? With the help of author Professor Graeme Gill and journalist Matt Bevan from the ABC “If you’re listening” podcasts, we explore how dictatorships work and why democracy is a more unusual system of government than most of us realise. 

Useful Links

If You're Listening Podcast with Matt Bevan

Bridling Dictators: Rules and Authoritarian Politics by Graeme Gill

What makes a speech, especially a political speech impactful, memorable and stirring? And why does it always feel so long between those times when we hear a good one? In this episode of Seriously Social, political historian Professor Sean Scalmer joins us to discuss the origins of the stump speech, and what it takes to move hearts and minds with words.

Useful Links

On the Stump: Campaign Oratory and Democracy in the United States, Britain and Australia by Sean Scalmer

Julia Gillard's Misogyny Speech in Full (2012) ABC News

Lieutenant General David Morrison AO ICMI Speakers and Entertainment

Jacqui Lambie delivers emotional speech condemning uni fee rises ABC News

Winston Churchill Speech Before Commons (June 4, 1940) Hanover Education

Australian Election Speeches: Gough Whitlam 1972 Museum of Australian Democracy

Paul Keating speech on impact of European settlement on Indigenous Australia (1992) ABC Australia

Grace Tame and Brittany Higgins address the National Press Club of Australia National Press Club of Australia

The data is in: racism in Australia is on the rise. But in recent years has racism become more covert than it once was? We unpack the spectrum of racist behaviour as we look at racism in Australia today, and consider why, even as it goes undercover, it's getting worse.

Useful links:

Racism in Australia Today (2021) by Amanuel Elias, Fethi Mansouri and Yin Paradies

Lies, Damned Lies (2021) by Claire G. Coleman

The School That Tried To End Racism (2021, ABC) hosted by Marc Fennell

The impact of racism on the health and wellbeing of young Australians (2009) Fethi Mansouri, Louise Jenkins, Les Morgan, Mona Taouk

Couldn't be fairer documentary (1984)