Podcasts
#15 Saul Eslake
23 Aug 2024, 37 minutes
Independent economist Saul Eslake has completed his review into the Tasmanian government’s finances and has found an unsustainable fiscal position and outlook. In this podcast he summarises his findings and recommendations. These are also summarised in his 20-page slideshow as part of his review.
Saul Eslake website: https://www.sauleslake.info/
His review of government finances: https://www.sauleslake.info/independent-review-of-tasmanias-state-finances/
#14 Voices for Indi co-founder, Denis Ginnivan
16 Aug 2024, 35 minutes
Denis Ginnivan co-founded Voices for Indi after hearing about a public meeting being held near Wangaratta in rural Victoria in 2012. The group went on to help Cathy McGowan get elected in 2013 and 2016, and Helen Haines in 2019 and 2022. A safe, conservative rural seat became a stronghold of independent thought and democracy. Denis, via his Voices for Australia organisation, now helps other Voices groups get started anywhere in Australia.
E: denis.eventsthatmatter@gmail.com
M: 0412 503 498
X (twitter): @VoicesForAU
The Indi Way, Scribe, 2023
The People Are Interested in Politics, Laneway Press, 2022
Cathy Goes to Canberra, Monash Uni Publishing, 2020
#13 Independent MLC Meg Webb
27 Jun 2024, 36 minutes
Webb’s personal website: https://megwebb.com.au/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/megwebbindependent/
Parliamentary page: https://www.parliament.tas.gov.au/legislative-council/members/megan-webb
Launches TAI discussion paper on reform agenda:
https://australiainstitute.org.au/post/reform-agenda-launches-ahead-of-tasmanian-parliaments-return/
#12 Independent Senator Tammy Tyrrell
11 Jun 2024, 36 minutes
Senator Tammy Tyrrell is an independent senator for Tasmania. She was elected in 2022 as part of the Jacqui Lambie Network but parted ways with it in March 2024. Before politics she worked mostly in employment and training services before commencing work for Jacquie Lambie in 2014. Her senate term expires in 2028. The senator explains her split with the JLN and why she is passionate about working for the Tasmanian people.
Senator Tyrrell’s personal website: https://tammytyrrell.com/
The senator’s parliamentary page: https://www.aph.gov.au/Senators_and_Members/Parliamentarian?MPID=300639
How the senator votes: https://theyvoteforyou.org.au/people/senate/tasmania/tammy_tyrrell
#11 Dr Simon Michaux, critical minerals and available energy
5 Jun 2024, 36 minutes
Simon Michaux is an expert in mining and minerals, with a particular interest in the volumes and availability of critical minerals for the much-anticipated, but problematic, non-fossil-fuel energy transition. He is therefore interested in new energy sources in a time of overshoot, the climate emergency, scarcity and energy descent. He works in the tradition of Limits to Growth (1972) and has participated in movements like permaculture and transition towns. He has advised various governments, particularly in Europe, while his new collaboration is called The Venus Project, based in Florida, USA.
Michaux’s personal website: https://www.simonmichaux.com/
The Venus Project website: https://www.thevenusproject.com/
Tipping point: the story of Limits to Growth (podcast): https://tippingpoint-podcast.com/
#10 Prof Bruce Mountain and Marinus
19 May 2024, 35 minutes
Energy-policy expert Prof Bruce Mountain, from Victoria University, is a strong critic of the proposed Marinus Link – an undersea cable between Tasmania and Victoria, not unlike the controversial Basslink. He says it is not needed, will be very expensive, and average electricity customers will pay a heavy price for decades. It is a folly foisted on us by some ‘corporatised’ bureaucrats and politicians who are attracted to big ‘nation-building’ projects like Snowy 2.0. Prof Mountain says independent experts are against the project. Those pushing the project are not independent.
About Bruce Mountain: https://www.vu.edu.au/research/bruce-mountain
Mountain in RenewEconomy, 6 Sep 2023: https://reneweconomy.com.au/marinus-link-is-a-boondoggle-cutting-it-in-half-wont-change-that/
The ownership deal, 25 Mar 2024: https://www.dcceew.gov.au/about/news/new-ownership-deal-for-Tasmania-Victoria-clean-energy-link
Video: Mountain talks to Christine Milne, 13 Jul 2022: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Je3PUBXTtw
Independent MLC Ruth Forrest on energy policy and Marinus (Mar 2024): https://ruthforrest.com.au/opinion/1178-election-energy-policy-confusion
#9 Dr Philip Lawn and the growth problem: part 1
12 May 2024, 37 minutes
Steve Williams talks to heterodox economist Philip Lawn, based in Adelaide. Lawn is best known as an ecological economist following in the footsteps of the late Herman Daly. Lawn is an expert in the Genuine Progress Indicator, which is a superior metric of human welfare compared with GDP. In fact, increasing GDP beyond a critical point results in more bads than goods, resulting in uneconomic growth. Ecological economics is first and foremost about limiting the scale of the economy on a non-expanding planet to avoid overshoot and collapse. As Lawn says, we only have one Earth, not 1.8!
Philip Lawn at Modern Money Lab: https://modernmoneylab.org.au/people/
Lawn lecture (2018): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K7L63x4TBZI&t=193s
Lawn talks to Herman Daly (2020): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O0GWdtGhy4A
Lawn’s book on climate change (2016): https://www.amazon.com.au/Resolving-Climate-Change-Crisis-Ecological/dp/940177501X
Genuine progress indicator: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genuine_progress_indicator
Herman Daly’s economics (2015): https://greattransition.org/publication/economics-for-a-full-world
#8 Kate Chaney and the conscience vote
23 Apr 2024, 37 minutes
Kate Chaney, elected in 2022, is the federal independent member for Curtin in WA. In this podcast she discusses her journey into politics, what she cares about, and the fact that every vote that an independent member makes in parliament is a conscience vote.
Kate Chaney personal website: https://www.katechaney.com.au/
Kate Chaney parliamentary website: https://www.aph.gov.au/Senators_and_Members/Parliamentarian?MPID=300006
#7 Prof Steve Keen: the dangerous delusions of mainstream economics
22 Apr 2024, 38 minutes
Host Steve Williams is joined by the author of Debunking Economics, Prof Steve Keen. Keen explains how the mainstream (neoclassicals) are isolated from the real world, rely on quasi-mathematical models (garbage in = garbage out), ignore money and energy, are insensitive to criticism, pervert the IPCC process, and more. As Keen says, the writer of the dominant economics textbook, at any point in time, rules the world (to paraphrase textbook writer Paul Samuelson).
Debunking Economics (2nd ed) 2011: https://www.amazon.com/Debunking-Economics-Revised-Expanded-Dethroned/dp/1848139926
'When idiot savants do climate economics': https://theintercept.com/2023/10/29/william-nordhaus-climate-economics/
Steve Keen on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/ProfSteveKeen
Steve Keen on Substack: https://profstevekeen.substack.com/
X: @ProfSteveKeen
David Graeber on the history of money on the BBC (audio): https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b07mclw8
#6 Talking with Zali Steggall
9 Apr 2024, 36 minutes
Steve talks with the independent federal member for Warringah, NSW, who defeated then prime minister Tony Abbott in 2019 with a massive swing and who was re-elected in 2022 with an increased margin (now 11%). Zali is known for speaking out on climate change, gender equality, transparency, truth in political advertising, and similar issues. She gives some good advice on how to make change happen (i.e., don’t wait for someone else to do it).
Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zali_Steggall
Personal website: https://www.zalisteggall.com.au/
#5 Being independent with Andrew Wilkie
15 Mar 2024, 29 minutes
We talk to federal member for Clark, Andrew Wilkie, about all things independent and winning five consecutive elections. Wilkie is known for talking truth to power, whether it be about the Iraq war, the gambling industry, whistleblower protections or salmon farming.
#4 David Lindenmayer and The Forest Wars
6 Mar 2024, 28 minutes
Professor David Lindenmayer is an expert in forest ecology and management, amongst other things. He is based at the Fenner School of Environment and Society at the Australian National University. His 49th book is titled The Forest Wars (Allen and Unwin, 2024) in which he attempts to debunk the many myths that are propagated about forestry. Lindenmayer wants an end to native forest logging in Australia, with plantations and agroforestry providing jobs and timber.
Prof David Lindenmayer: https://researchers.anu.edu.au/researchers/lindenmayer-db
The Forest Wars (2024): https://www.allenandunwin.com/browse/book/David-Lindenmayer-Forest-Wars-9781761470752
Agroforesty (Rowan Reid): https://agroforestry.net.au/
'Why Tasmanian and Victoria dominate the list of Australia's largest trees'
#3 Eloise Carr on Tasmanian polling
16 Feb 2024, 26 minutes
The Australia Institute’s Tasmanian director, Eloise Carr, joins us to discuss the independent think tank’s polling on integrity issues and the marine environment.
Integrity
Bass and Lyons polling, Dec 2021:
https://australiainstitute.org.au/report/polling-bass-lyons-landslide-support-for-key-integrity-and-accountability-measures/
Statewide, Apr 2021:
https://australiainstitute.org.au/report/polling-good-government-in-tasmania/
Marine issues
Statewide, Apr 2023:
https://australiainstitute.org.au/post/tide-of-public-opinion-backs-the-science/
Salmon farming
Statewide, Apr 2021:
https://australiainstitute.org.au/report/polling-expansion-of-salmon-farms-in-tasmania/
#2 Sue Barrett and Voices of Goldstein
9 Feb 2024, 35 minutes
We are joined by Voices of Goldstein co-founder Sue Barrett, who went on to become campaign manager for Zoe Daniel for the 2022 election. Sue shares her tips on how to run successful Voices groups and election campaigns.
The best gift
Sue shares her personal philosophy.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BMf60-wwA6Y
Our quest for Goldstein
Sue writes about the 2022 election campaign for the Australian Women's History Network.
https://www.auswhn.com.au/blog/our-quest-for-goldstein/
Campaign management, strategy and tools
Sue shares what it takes to plan and execute a successful campaign from the awareness-raising stage, to direct voter engagement, to pre-poll and polling day.
About 70-80 people attended the screening of the documentary Finding the Money on 27 Feb 2024 at the Franklin Palais (hosted by Circular Economy Huon).
The doco explores the fierce debate within academia about some economic fundamentals, especially how much should governments spend and the effects of such spending. Our media is all-but silent on this important debate as it continues to serve the interests of wealth and power.
#1 MMT and ‘Finding the Money’
There’s another side to the national debt.
21 Jan 2024, 31mins
We're joined by documentary filmmaker Maren Poitras from the United States. She's just made her directorial debut with a film with the intriguing title Finding the Money.
The documentary aims to instigate a paradigm shift to change our understanding of the national debt and the nature of money itself.
Documentary website: https://findingmoneyfilm.com/
Modern Money Lab: https://modernmoneylab.org.au/
‘Explainer: what is MMT?’: https://theconversation.com/explainer-what-is-modern-monetary-theory-72095
Mark Diesendorf: the path to an ecologically just civilisation
10 Jan 2024, 74mins
10 Jan 2024, 74mins
Christian Reilley talks to Mark Diesendorf, a physicist and professor in the Environment & Society Group at the University of New South Wales, about the economics underpinning his latest book, The Path To a Sustainable Civilisation.
https://sustainablecivilisation.com
Greater transparency, integrity, accountability.