The Good Problem

Right now, in West Papua the long struggle for independence from Indonesian rule has reignited, triggering a brutal crackdown that involves chemical weapons, horrific killings, and mass displacement. All of this is occurring on Australia’s doorstep, yet we barely hear or see a thing about it in the news.

Rewind, just over twenty years ago to Timor Leste, when a similar situation was unfolding – a struggle for independence, accompanied by a brutal crackdown by Indonesian authorities. Again, despite this occurring less than 700 km from Australia’s coastline – we heard very little.

What little we do hear comes from journalists on the ground – people who are risking their own lives to ensure the stories of these atrocities make it out. I’ve always been fascinated by journalists working in conflict zones. The trauma of witnessing war combined with the burden of responsibility for documenting the horrors of war is a heavy load to carry.

I invited four time Walkely Award nominated investigative reporter and author, John Martinkus on to the podcast to talk through what’s happening in West Papua. John is the author of the book, A Dirty Little War – covering Timor Leste's struggle for independence – written after John’s experience of being the only foreign journalist in the country through this period. John has also recently released another book, The Road, covering the current uprising in West Papua.

Allyship has been on everyone’s lips this year – and the conversation is incredibly overdue.

But what does it mean to be an ally?

How do we move beyond tokenism to a place of genuine allyship?

What kind of self examination is required?

What are the barriers in place and how do we break them down?

To unpack these big questions, I invited Sarah Sheridan on to the podcast.

Sarah is the non-indigenous co-founder in the Aboriginal owned and led business, @clothingthegap. Sarah’s background is in health promotion and community engagement and she has a long history of working alongside the Victorian Aboriginal Community.

Sarah is reading: Say Nothing: A True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland by Patrick Radden Keefe, Kindred, by Kirli Saunders, and On All Fronts: The Education of a Journalist by Clarissa Ward.

Find out more at Clothing The Gap.

Doing good is tricky at the best of times. Even at an individual level, it’s difficult to get it right. When it comes to tackling the world’s biggest problems such as climate change, education, violence, gender inequality, immigration and living standards it’s even tougher.

Some countries are doing better than others at solving these problems within their own borders, and my guest today – Andrew Wear has put together a wonderful exploration of just how they are doing it in his book, Solved! Andrew is a senior Australian public servant with degrees in politics, law, economics and public policy, and is a graduate of the Harvard Kennedy School of Government. He is also a Fellow at the Institute of Public Administration, and a director of Ardoch – a children’s education charity. His work appears in peer-reviewed journals, as well as The Mandarin, The Guardian and others.

Follow Andrew on Twitter @AndrewWear

Andrew is reading: Pale Rider, by Laura Spinney, The Great Influenza, by John M. Barry, and The Pandemic Century, by Mark Honigsbaum

Andrew is listening to: America, if you're listening, by Matt Bevan at ABC, and Humans of Purpose with Mike Davis.

Access to quality education is a huge issue globally, and parents everywhere want the best for their children.

In Australia, where large areas of the country have been in a hard lockdown due to COVID-19, schools have been closed to students for a lengthy period of time, and parents have been forced to home school their children. Some children have thrived, and some have suffered – unable to effectively engage in home schooling and falling behind.

This, against the backdrop of scandal after scandal involving elite private schools and racist, sexist and homophobic behaviour from students has reignited the ongoing debate about the merit of federal government funding for private schools.

Season 4 kicks off with John Marsden, storyteller, renowned author and Principal of Candlebark, a P-7 school nestled in the foothills of the Macedon Ranges on 1100 acres of bushland. John and I chat through the merits of alternative education, access and equity and the public vs private debate.

There’s a common misconception in the doing good sector that the people working within it must be wholesome, values driven and above things like racism and sexual exploitation. But the reality is that the sector is driven by harmful structures that perpetuate the very things we are trying to ‘fix’ through our work.

I’ve always found the psychology behind wanting to be in the helping professions fascinating, and more recently have become deeply interested in the systems and structures that facilitate doing good. The international development sector is a fascinating expression of how the colonial structures that underpin the sector are the very same structures that caused, and continue to cause the damage that development interventions profess to be fixing.

The sector has been in the spotlight over the past few years, with repeated scandals including #metoo, #aidtoo, as well as the well publicised safeguarding crises within large charities. Racism in the sector has also come under the spotlight, withthe emergence of the Charity So White movement in the UK highlighting the systemic racism and power imbalances that permeate the development world.

To unpack these issues, I invited the Chief Executive of Oxfam Australia, Lyn Morgain on to the podcast. As a relative newcomer to the international development world, Lyn shares her experience of transitioning into the sector at a very challenging time, and proposes some ideas for change.

Lyn has spent her career advocating for the rights of disadvantaged peoples and is passionate about using strengths based approached that engender community ownership and control.

Lyn is reading Balcony Over Jerusalem: A Middle East Memoir by John Lyons

Lyn is listening to Dharma Talks

Follow Lyn on Twitter @MsLynM

Today's episode features Kelly Dent of World Animal Protection talking about ending the global wildlife trade.

The global trade in wildlife is worth hundreds of billions of dollars annually and includes both the legal and illegal trade in animals. While the Convention on International Trade in Endangered species of Wild Fauna and Flora boasts a membership of 183 countries, many argue it is insufficient, unsustainable and ineffective to protect vulnerable, endangered and critically endangered species. The system is full of loopholes which allow trade in wildlife to continue unchecked, with very little ability to differentiate between legal and illegal trade.

Calls to end the global wildlife trade have been growing through this pandemic, not only due to the likelihood that COVID-19 is a zoonotic pathogen, meaning it comes from animals, but also due to the sheer cost of the pandemic to human life and economy. As the population grows, pressure on wildlife and wild places also grows, meaning more interaction between both and more likelihood of animal / human conflict and disease transmission.

I invited Kelly Dent to chat about why we need a blanket ban on the trade in wildlife. Kelly is the Director of External Engagement with World Animal Protection and a lifelong activist and has 25 years experience lobbying and campaigning on climate change, poverty, corporate accountability, trade, labour and human rights around the world.

Kelly is reading 'Such a Fun Age' by Kiley Reid; 'Anna Karenina' by Leo Tolstoy; 'Why we love dogs, eat pigs and wear cows' by Melanie Joy; 'Me and White Supremacy' by Layla F Saad.

Kelly is listening to 7AM; 'Nice White Parents' New York Times; 'Debutante: Race, Resistance and Girl Power' by Nakkiah Lui & Miranda Tapsell; Rabbit Hole, New York Times.

Have you ever raised money for a cause online? Have you ever donated to a crowdfunding or fundraising platform? If so, you’ve participated in the online fundraising sector.

While online fundraising has undoubtedly been a huge benefit to charities, exposing their brand and their work to a global audience and raising enormous amounts of money in the process – it is a murky ethical area.

What responsibility do fundraising platforms hold when it comes to whether or not to host a charity, or a personal fundraiser? Is it enough for a charity to be legally registered, or do fundraising platforms have an obligation to take a position on the ethics of a cause? What about personal fundraisers? How do we regulate who can fundraise, what for, and where the money will go? What about Celeste Barber’s $51million bushfire campaign that ended up in court?

I invited Tania Burstin, the founder and managing director of mycause, Australia’s first online fundraising platform to chat with me about these issues. Tania started mycause after noticing a gap in the market for donation sponsorship. Mycause has now grown to have over 6500 charity partners and has raised more than $140 million for Australian community groups, charities and individuals.

Tania was named in the Female FinTech Founders project as a fintech entrepreneur in 2018 and a Monash University Global Fellow in 2019. She is a thought leader in the crowdfunding community and regularly commentates on charitable fundraising in Australia.

Tania is reading American Wife: A Novel by Curtis Sittenfeld

Joining me today is Associate Professor Tobias Denskus from Malmø University in Sweden, and we're talking about communication in the development sector.

Communicating well can be tricky at the best of times, but when it comes to communicating about development issues, it becomes even tricker. For a long time, the vast majority of charities communicated their work through fundraising campaigns, featuring stereotypical representations of the poor and vulnerable in order to elicit donations.Think about the ads featuring starving African children, with flyblown eyes and distended bellies. Growing up, this was the standard for charity advertising – and it seemed that charities were trying to one up each other in a race for scare donor funds - who can publish the most heartbreaking image?

What about media? What responsibility does media have to portray the poor and vulnerable in dignified and respectful ways, while also being careful to avoid perpetuating the white saviour complex?

Tobias teaches a Masters program in Communication for Development, and conducts research on how communication can lead to learning and challenge white saviorism, stereotypical campaigns and superficial influencers on Instagram. Tobias runs the excellent blog, Aidnography and a Twitter account of the same name.

Tobias is reading Understanding Libya Since Gaddafi by Ulf Laessing and People in Glass Houses by Shirley Hazzard

Tobias is listening to the ReThinking Development Podcast, UN Dispatch by Mark Goldberg, and The Missing Cryptoqueen by BBC

Art is something we consume, or participate in every day – whether we realise it or not. Every podcast we listen to, book we read, or tv show or movie is a piece of art. A lot of the time we don’t realise that we are participating in it at all.

I invited Jade Lillie, Head of Sector Development at the Australia Council for the Arts to chat with me about the role art plays in our everyday lives, how it can be used as an effective tool to address social issues, and the complexities surrounding the funding and delivery of arts project in Australia and overseas, particularly in an international development context.

Jade is known for her work as a leader, executive, facilitator and specialist in community engagement. She has been recognised for her thought leadership in receiving the Sidney Myer Creative Fellowship in 2018 – 19 following her role as Director and CEO, Footscray Community Arts Centre (2012 – 2017).

Whilst Jade has held a number of leadership roles across the sector, she is primarily known and respected for her skills and expertise in strategy, governance and her commitment to collaboration, cultural leadership and advocacy in championing diversity and access.

She has worked extensively in arts, cultural development, health, education, community and international development contexts in government and non-government settings, including non-profit management, local and state government.

She has lived and worked in regional, remote and metropolitan contexts across Australia and South East Asia.

Jade is also the Curator and Editor for The Relationship is the Project.

Jade is reading Glimpses of Utopia: Real Ideas for a Fairer World by Jess Scully

Jade is planning to listen to I Weigh with Jameela Jamil.

Today we have feminist, teacher and human trafficking survivor advocate Sophie Otiende talking 'freedom business'. The anti-trafficking sector is big business - with countless organisations trying to tackle the issue from wildly different perspectives. The 'raid and rescue' model, practiced by well known organisations and endorsed by celebrities has become well known amongst the general public.

As Sophie says, rescuing trafficked children is one small piece of the puzzle. Trafficking is complex, layered and requires a holistic approach that not only works on prevention and provides quality aftercare for survivors, but challenges the systems and structures that allow trafficking to proliferate.

Sophie Otiende describes herself as a feminist, poet, teacher, and survivor advocate for human trafficking. Sophie is a Program Consultant at HAART Kenya, where her main role involves coordination of services offered to victims of trafficking. She also developed curriculum and has co-authored three manuals on different issues in human trafficking. She is passionate about developing systems for grassroots organisations and has been working in development for more than ten years.

She is passionate about human trafficking because she is a survivor of child trafficking.

Sophie is reading 'Changing My Mind: Occasional Essays' by Zadie Smith The Penguin Press (2009)

Sophie is listening to 'Otherwise?' Podcast.