In this episode of Speaking of Social Justice, Dr Julie Macken explores the growing geopolitical tensions involving the United States, Israel, and Iran, and what they reveal about the risks of military alliances. As conflict escalates in the Middle East, Julie asks a difficult question: what happens to smaller countries that host military bases or align themselves closely with global powers?

Drawing on recent events in the Gulf states, she explains how countries that host U.S. military facilities can quickly become targets during conflict — even when they were not consulted about the decision to go to war.

This raises serious questions for Australia.

Through the AUKUS agreement, Australia is committing $368 billion in defence spending and allowing expanded U.S. military presence on Australian soil. But does this arrangement actually make Australia safer, or could it place the country on the front line of conflicts that are not our own?

At a moment of rising global tension, this episode calls for public scrutiny, democratic debate, and greater transparency about one of the largest defence decisions in Australian history.

Ahead of International Women’s Day, we gathered five influential women from diverse backgrounds for a powerful conversation about leadership, justice, and the ways power shapes our world.

Too often, the models of power we inherit are hierarchical, extractive, and patriarchal. But what if power could look different?

In Reimagining Power, our panelists drew on lived experience, leadership, and critical insight to explore how power can be rooted in justice, care, solidarity, and shared responsibility. Together, they challenge traditional assumptions and reflect on how power can be exercised collectively, in ways that strengthen women, communities, and movements rather than dominate them.

This episode captures the heart of that conversation: an invitation to question the systems we have inherited and to imagine new ways of leading, collaborating, and creating change.

For a better listening experience, we recommend wearing headphones.

In this episode of Speaking of Social Justice, host Dr Julie Macken turns her attention to International Women’s Day and to a deeper, more uncomfortable question: how do we exercise power?

Ahead of a special panel discussion, Julie reflects on the state of the world for women today. From persistent gender pay gaps to gender-based violence in Australia, and from global scandals of abuse to political leadership that simply replicates old models of dominance, it’s clear that putting women into positions of power hasn’t automatically transformed how power is used.

This conversation asks something more radical: is it possible to exercise power differently? Can leadership move beyond command-and-control, bullying, and exploitation, and toward models that are collaborative, creative, accountable, and life-giving?

Drawing on feminist critique, lived experience, and the wisdom of older cultures that organised differently, this episode invites listeners to imagine forms of power that don’t just change who is in charge, but change how leadership itself works.

If you’re interested in justice, gender equality, and rethinking leadership for a fractured world, this is a conversation you won’t want to miss.

Register here: https://events.humanitix.com/iwd-2026-reimagining-power

Dr Michael Walker steps into the host’s chair to unpack why capital gains tax has surged back into national debate and why it matters for every Australian feeling the pressure of the cost-of-living crisis.

At the centre of the discussion is the 50% capital gains tax discount, introduced in 1999, and how it has fuelled property speculation, inflated house prices, and pushed home ownership further out of reach. As house prices have soared far beyond wage growth, average earners are increasingly locked into lifelong renting, while rising mortgages and rents drive widespread housing stress.

Drawing on recent polling and research from groups including the Everybody’s Home Coalition, Dr Walker highlights the stark trade-offs households are making just to stay housed—skipping meals, avoiding medical care, and cutting basic utilities. With housing now the single biggest driver of cost-of-living stress, the stakes could not be higher.

The episode also grounds the debate in Catholic Social Teaching, referencing the Australian Bishops’ affirmation that housing is a basic human right and a cornerstone of the common good. Winding back the capital gains tax discount, Dr Walker argues, would not solve the crisis overnight, but it would be a crucial step toward a fairer, more just housing system.

This week on Speaking of Social Justice, Dr Julie Macken takes on one of the most overused — and often misunderstood — phrases in our public conversation: “social cohesion.”

What does it really mean to “hold together” as a society when people are hurting, divided, and afraid? And is cohesion even the right word, or does it risk glossing over pain, inequality, and real difference?

Julie reflects on how fragile we all remain, no matter how old we get. From playground cruelty to political provocation, from rising Islamophobia and antisemitism to collective grief in places like Bondi and Gaza, this episode asks a deeper question: What would it look like to meet our differences with care rather than cruelty?

This is not a call for slogans, silence, or “Velcro-style” unity. It’s a plea for lowering the temperature, recognising shared humanity, and treating one another gently, because the stakes are high, and hurt people really do hurt people.

Dr Julie Macken looks ahead at the major social justice issues shaping Australia, from offshore detention inquiries and national security investigations to rising political division and community strain.

But beyond the headlines, this is a deeper reflection on something more personal and urgent: our shared humanity.

Julie explores what happens when public debate turns into social fracture, why so many people are emotionally exhausted by the state of the nation, and why caring for one another is not optional work, it’s civic work. Drawing on moments of solidarity seen during past crises, she asks whether we can relearn how to disagree without dehumanising, and reconnect as a community.

Stay engaged and keep showing up for one another.

In the first episode of 2026, Dr Julie Macken returns with a heavy heart and a frank assessment of the year we’ve stepped into. From the December attack at Bondi to the political theatre that followed, Julie speaks to a nation struggling with grief, division, and identity.

With Australia Day around the corner, she asks uncomfortable but necessary questions: What does it mean to be Australian? Who are we when confronted by violence? What values do we actually share, and who gets to decide? Amid bans on language, rising political opportunism, and a world seemingly spiralling into absurdity, this episode calls for clarity, decency, and at the very least, kindness.

This isn’t a conversation about social justice so much as a lament for its erosion and an invitation to rebuild it.

In our final episode of 2025, Dr Julie Macken reflects on a year marked by secrecy in government, stalled human rights reform in Australia, and the devastating normalisation of genocide, war, and systemic abuse across the globe.

Julie unpacks:

• Why Australia still has no Human Rights Act
• How secrecy and disappearing communications undercut democracy
• How the genocide in Gaza is reshaping global norms
• What happens when abuse becomes “normal” — and how communities can push back
• Why our expectations of dignity, respect, and justice must be reclaimed

This is a sobering conversation but, also a reminder that we choose what becomes normalised. And choosing human rights is still possible.

Take a breath, take a break, and take this with you into the new year.

Next year marks 25 years since the Tampa crisis, a week that changed Australia forever. In this episode, Dr Julie Macken reflects on how one political decision reshaped the nation’s moral compass, turning compassion for those seeking refuge into cruelty and complacency.

From the shocking revelation that an outlaw motorcycle gang is being paid billions to run our offshore detention centres, to the government’s ongoing refusal to hold an inquiry into immigration detention, Julie exposes the deep moral and political failures we continue to fund...in silence.

This isn’t just a history lesson; it’s a mirror.

If silence is consent, what story are we agreeing to?

In this week’s episode of Speaking of Social Justice, Julie Macken challenges Australia’s narrow view of national security. While policymakers pour billions into defence and submarines, real security, climate resilience, housing, health, equality, and community wellbeing, remains dangerously neglected.

Julie asks the questions few in power dare to:

What would national security look like if it actually kept Australians safe from the threats we know are coming—climate catastrophe, pandemics, cyber warfare, and social inequality?

Why are we investing in weapons instead of in people, ecosystems, and the planet that sustains us?

It’s time to redefine security, not as militarisation, but as protection for our communities, our environment, and our shared future.