Voices of Wentworth

This interview was recorded in June 2021

Kath Naish speaks with His Honour Anthony Whealy QC about the status of government plans for a National Integrity Commission. 

This was recorded as an interview in June 2021

Featuring: Cheryl Durrant, Former Director of Preparedness and Mobilisation at the Australian Department of Defence and current Member of the Climate Council. 

This was recorded live at a Town Hall Meeting in May 2021. 

Dr John Hewson has had several careers in academia, bureaucracy, business, politics, and the media. He is currently a Professor in the Crawford School of Public Policy at ANU, and an Adjunct Professor at Griffith University. He has worked for The Australian Treasury (Census and Statistics), the IMF, the Reserve Bank, the UN (UNESCAP), and the ADB, and often advises senior public servants. In Business, he was a Founder of Macquarie Bank, Chairman ABN Amro Australia, and Chair/Director of a host of public and private companies. He is Chair, Business Council for Sustainable Development Australia, BioEnergy Australia, and the Commission for the Human Future, and a Patron of the Smart Energy Council and the Ocean Nourishment Foundation. In Politics he has served as Advisor/Chief of Staff to two Federal Treasurers and Prime Minister, and as Leader of the Liberal Party, and of the Federal Coalition, in Opposition.

Judy Slatyer has spent the last 12 years of her life working with organisations which had climate change as their number one global priority. Firstly as the global COO of the World Wide Fund for Nature and more recently as the CEO of the Australian Red Cross where the humanitarian impact of climate change was evident everywhere - heatwaves, droughts, fires, flood, cyclones - here and across the world.  Judy’s focus is on how communities can and need to adapt given the currently forecast overshoot of 2 degrees of warming this century.  She is also focussed on the critical importance of decarbonising our economies and reducing existing carbon in the atmosphere.  Judy will talk to  climate risk in Australia and our region from extreme weather, our responsibility to our neighbouring countries in the Pacific and SouthEast Asia and the importance of Australia’s role in the upcoming COP in November.

Nicki Hutley is a highly experienced economist, with broad-based expertise in both macroeconomics and microeconomic policy, gained over more than three decades in financial and investment markets and in economic consulting. After many years in the corporate world, including most recently as a partner with Deloitte Access Economics, Nicki is now an independent economist and keynote speaker. She also consults with Social Outcomes, developing and supporting social impact programs. In 2020, Nicki was appointed as a Councillor for the Climate Council and admitted as an expert faculty member (economics) to SingularityU Australia. Nicki is a council member for the Economics Society of Australia (NSW) and the Australian Business Economists, and a Board member for One Million Women and the Financy Women’s Index. 

The MC on the night was  Osher Günsberg is one of Australia’s most recognisable media personalities and has been a guest in the living rooms of Australians for nearly 2 decades. From his work on Channel [V] in the early 2000’s to seven seasons on Australian Idol, Osher was the first Australian to host live network prime time TV in the USA on Live To Dance (CBS). Currently, Osher hosts The Bachelor Australia, The Bachelorette Australia and Bachelor in Paradise, and is the narrator of Bondi Rescue (all Network 10). 

Osher has written, produced and hosted several podcasts. His interview podcast Better than Yesterday has been published weekly since 2013 and has over 4.3 million downloads. The show now releases two episodes per week, was a finalist in the 2018 Australian Podcast Awards (Storytelling category) and selected episodes are available on Qantas Inflight Enter

 We hear from our expert panel on some of the power imbalances arising from high levels of media concentration in Australia and how that power is used by the biggest media players. For example, we discussed the use of influence to assert specific agendas in relation to climate change as well as other threats to healthy democratic debate. We also discussed the need for greater support for objective and factual news reporting and looked at potential ways to address media concentration such as more transparency around media ownership, an independent media authority and continuing to increase competition within the media market. We also heard that better policy outcomes to address media concentration and other issues may be achieved through increasing the numbers of smart, well-meaning independents in the balance of power positions in parliament because such representatives are likely to be less beholden to and less fearful of media backlash to sensible policy proposals.

With TV and Radio host James Mathison, Guardian Australia Editor Lenore Taylor, AAP Newswire CEO Emma Cowdroy and Associate Professor, University of Sydney Benedetta Brevini. 

 This was recorded as a virtual Town Hall on Monday 8 February 2021

 We were joined by Independent Federal MP for Indi Helen Haines, Chair of the Centre for Public Integrity the Honourable Anthony Whealy QC and CEO of Transparency International Serena Lillywhite. We looked at the Government’s proposed Commonwealth Integrity Commission legislation as well as Helen Haines’ alternative legislation and discussed the details followed by a Q&A session. Submissions on the Government’s legislation close on Friday 12 February 2021. 

This was recorded as a virtual Town Hall meeting in September 2020

 Monica  Richter  is an economist and social ecologist with extensive experience in environmental sustainability with an interest in the role of business in accelerating the uptake of low and zero carbon solutions. Monica’s recent career highlights include establishing the Business Renewables Centre-Australia, a Community of Practice for companies setting Science-Based long term emission reduction targets and recently collaborating with the NSW state government and Lendlease to launch reports on the need to tackle embodied carbon in the building and construction industry. Monica is a graduate of the Future Directors program, an Executive Member of the Australian Sustainable Built Environment Council, Chair of the Mercury Centre collaborative enterprise catalyst, and board member of Pingala community power.

Maria  Atkinson is a Director, Activist, Entrepreneur, Angel Investor, Consultant to name a few of her roles. Maria is internationally recognised for her work in sustainability and for her work on catalyzing change on the big issues that matter in society. Maria advises clients to help them articulate and then deliver sustainability outcomes for a project or their organisation. She is an impact investor and has over 15 years of experience on not-for-profit, international institution and government boards and committees. She is a global operator with a deep understanding of social and environmental markets and trends. 

The virtual Town Hall was recorded in October 2020

 We were joined by The Honourable Anthony Whealy QC, Chair of the Centre for Public Integrity and Saffron Zomer of the Australian Democracy Network to consider the health of democracy in Australia in 2020. 

We looked at the key elements of democracy and how they are being eroded in Australia, with a particular focus on the need to defend our public accountability institutions, establish a federal integrity commission and address undue influence (eg corporate capture) in political processes.