Category: Community Advocacy and Governance

My morning news routine, strong espresso and friends who make me think

Are you short on time, or feeling a little overwhelmed by the news?

You are not alone. The modern news cycle can feel relentless. The world appears on our screens each morning with fresh evidence that humanity has been busy overnight.

Staying connected still matters.

Understanding the bigger picture helps us make sense of the conversations around us and the decisions that shape our communities and our democracies.

The good news is that it does not require hours of reading or watching the news.

Here are five easy ways to stay across the world in ten minutes a day.

The Daily Aus
Posts that explain Australian news in simple language designed for younger audiences.

Suggest checking out their Good News Newsletter 

ABC News In-depth
Short explainers, interviews and quick context pieces.

The Juice Media
Their “Honest Government Ads” are widely shared and often act as an entry point for younger viewers into policy debates.

The Squiz
A short daily newsletter summarising the biggest stories in a few minutes.

ABC News Daily
A 10–15 minute podcast that explains one major story each day.

The Conversation daily briefing
Articles written by academics that explain the context behind major news issues.

Google News daily summary
A personalised summary of major stories gathered from multiple news outlets.

BTW After a quick tour through these offerings, I can understand why some young people prefer to talk to their friends instead.

Why this post now…….

A few days ago I was talking with a 26 year old friend.

Bright, curious, engaged with people around her. The sort of person who brings energy into a room. She works hard, values her friendships and carries a good sense of humour about life.

During our conversation I mentioned a news story about several Iranian women footballers seeking asylum.

She looked puzzled.

She had not heard the story.
She did not know where Iran was.

I spend a lot of time working with young people through community programs and conversations like this come up more often than many people realise.

The young adults I meet care deeply about the people around them. Many volunteer, support friends through difficult moments and think seriously about the kind of world they want to live in.

They are also part of a generation that has grown up with a relentless news cycle.

Bushfires, floods and droughts, a global pandemic, wars filling social media feeds, constant warnings about climate change and economic instability.

Which is understandable. The modern news cycle sometimes feels less like information and more like standing under a fire hose.

Researchers at the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism been tracking this trend in their global Digital News Report. Younger adults are increasingly selective about how much news they consume, often because the constant stream of crisis stories feels overwhelming.

The report was published in 2024. The world has been busy adding updates since then, with wars continuing in Ukraine and Gaza, the United States and Israel bombing Iran and a terrorist attack in Sydney reminding Australians that global tensions do not always stay overseas.

Information also arrives differently now.

I like to think I keep a reasonable eye on the world.

The morning routine helps. First the The Sydney Morning Herald, then The Conversation. Between the two of them you get a fairly solid overview of humanity’s latest achievements and a mindfield of face palm spectacular lapses in judgement.

With Donald Trump and his friend Benjamin Netanyahu dominating the headlines, the news feed does tend to lean heavily toward the latter. On some mornings it feels as if about three quarters of the front page involves Trump in one form or another.

After that I strongly recommend a conversation with a kind, compassionate human being. Preferably over a very good espresso. It helps when the headlines are stronger

My Facebook feed is curated with similar care. Over the years I have gathered a tribe of people who read widely, argue politely and challenge my thinking about something I thought I had already figured out.

They add to my knowledge. They challenge my biases. They point out things I missed while making my morning coffee.

It beats arguing with strangers on the internet.

They are the kind of friends I hope young people find. People who help each other think more clearly about the world rather than simply shouting about it.

Democracy does not arrive on the wings of fighter jets

The phrase “real men solve problems with bombs” is not strength. It is a recruitment slogan for other people’s funerals.

The news from the Gold Coast carried a familiar tone of celebration. Five Iranian women footballers, including captain Zahra Ghanbari, escaping their government minders and being granted humanitarian visas in Australia. There were photos, cheers, and, as the Home Affairs Minister cheerfully reported, a spontaneous chant of “Aussie, Aussie, Aussie”.

For many Australians it felt like a simple story. Brave women rescued. Freedom offered. A good ending.

Stories like this have a powerful pull. They tap into an old idea that runs deep through Western political culture. The idea that someone will ride in on a white horse and save the day.

The white knight.

Across history the script has repeated itself. Strong men, often described as decisive or tough, step forward declaring that they will fix another country’s problems. The language shifts between defence, liberation, stability or democracy. The outcome rarely matches the promise.

Think  Vietnam. Iraq. Afghanistan. Libya.

Each began with claims that intervention would deliver freedom. Each left societies fractured, institutions weakened and millions of ordinary people carrying the cost for generations.

What is missing from the white knight story is the people who actually live in those countries.

Iranians are not waiting for outsiders to rescue them. They have been debating the future of their country for decades. Students, women, writers, workers, clerics, reformers and conservatives all argue fiercely about what Iran should become. The struggle inside the country is real, complex and deeply Iranian.

History shows something else as well. Lasting change almost always grows from inside a society, not from outside armies.

South Africa dismantled apartheid through internal resistance and negotiation.
Indonesia moved away from dictatorship after mass civil pressure.
Eastern European countries rebuilt themselves after the collapse of the Soviet bloc through internal political movements and public demand for change.

External pressure can sometimes open space. It can support civil society. It can amplify voices that governments try to silence.

War does the opposite. It crushes the very people who might build a different future.

The phrase “real men solve problems with bombs” is not strength. It is a recruitment slogan for other people’s funerals.

Strength measured in explosions is a very old idea. It has left a trail of ruined cities and broken societies.

The Iranian footballers who escaped in Australia remind us of something far more hopeful. People everywhere want the same thing. The chance to live safely, to speak freely and to shape the future of their own country.

That future will not arrive on a white horse.

It will be built by Iranians themselves.

Don and Ben – the hero, the villain and the rest of us.


Today’s thoughts on the latest mess the bullies have delivered ……

Initial media coverage followed a trope as old as time.

Iran cast as the villain.
The United States and Israel riding in as the heroes.
The rest of us cast as the people who need saving.

Every culture tells this story.

The villain threatens the village.
The villagers wait to be rescued.
The hero arrives on the white horse.

War reporting regularly slips into this pattern. The roles feel familiar. We all recognise them.

Every story like this skips the same question.

What outcome is the operation meant to deliver?

The SMH’s Peter Hartcher has already warned where this road can lead, an early military success drifting into what he called a “politico-military muddle”.

Military strategist Mick Ryan points to Iraq and Afghanistan. The bombing opens the story. The political outcome writes the ending.

Remove a leader and the next questions arrive immediately.

Who governs Iran?
What stabilises the region?
What outcome marks success?

Each time Donald Trump speaks about the objective the explanation shifts. Prevention. Regime change. Deterrence.

Strategy begins with a destination.

Without one, events take control.

History contains plenty of examples.

Most end exactly where Peter Hartcher suggested. A politico-military muddle.

Will Australia show courage or sleepwalk past it

Courage isn’t surviving a paper straw. Courage is leadership that refuses another war.
Canada has stepped up and said what we are all thinking.
There comes a point where caution stops being wisdom and starts looking like fear.
Canada has shown some courage.
Australia now has the same opportunity.
The question is whether our leaders recognise the moment
or sleepwalk past it.
Read this excellent article in The Conversation here

Australian values belong to the people who live them not to politicians who weaponise them

 

Source https://tinyurl.com/ycxnp6rk

When Pauline Hanson claims “Australian values”, I cringe.

When Angus Taylor mirrors it, I cringe again.

These are leaders who trade in suspicion. Who elevate culture as a test. Who talk about countries that supposedly fail us. Who tighten the definition of belonging and call it strength.

Then they reach for “Australian values”.

The Australia I know runs on a fair go. Equal treatment under the law. Decent schools. Decent healthcare. Work hard and get ahead. Once you are here, you stand in the same queue.

Researchers writing in The Conversation asked Australians what a fair go means. Strong support for equal opportunity. Strong support for access to education and healthcare. More than half gave the highest possible agreement to recent migrants having the same opportunity as everyone else to get ahead.

That feels familiar.

When I shared the article, my Facebook tribe responded in minutes. Fairness. Decency. Treat people properly. Play by the rules. Give newcomers a chance. It read like the country I recognise.

So when “Australian values” is used to narrow the circle, I recoil. The phrase belongs to all of us. It does not belong to the loudest voice in the room.

Read the article in The Conversation here 

Thank you one of my Facebook tribe for this wonderful sentiment image

Ht to Bill Piggott who shared this with me on Facebook

“Australian values are visible when kindness, care, collaboration, compassion and reciprocity are recognised, encouraged, embraced and rewarded.”

Kiama and the art of the almost plan

Kiama’s principal public car park has been sold and the gates are now closed. The alternatives referenced in council papers are long-standing proposals, discussed and deferred over many years. Identification has never been the problem. Implementation has been.

If that feels familiar, it’s because it is.

Kiama hesitated over a town water supply in the 1890s, and the hesitation was framed as prudence. Debate ran not only through the township but across the municipality, particularly in Jamberoo and Gerringong Wards, where ratepayers questioned why they should fund projects centred on Terralong Street ( Kiama’s main street) from which they would see little direct benefit. Debt was feared. Overreach was feared. Spending on prevention felt optional.

Sanitary reports described open drains and contaminated tanks, and typhoid brought urgency to the discussion, though years still passed before execution followed debate. Pipes were laid along Terralong Street, but they were not connected to a dam, a reservoir or a pumping system. They were infrastructure in appearance only, awaiting a network that did not yet exist.

Then the fires came.

In October 1899 a blaze that began in Wood Brothers’ premises tore through the commercial heart of town, taking the Royal Hotel and a string of businesses as high winds carried flames from roof to roof. In December, before recovery was complete, another fire destroyed six more shops. Across the two events, twenty-two businesses were lost and families were displaced in a matter of hours.

The pipes were still not connected.

The cost of hesitation was ash, unemployment and reconstruction. A fire brigade without an adequate water supply can only do so much, and buckets have limits. Kiama did eventually build its water scheme, and in 1900 Fountaindale Dam was constructed as a declaration that the town had absorbed the lesson of fire. Fifty years later Jerrara Dam was added, another declaration of security and permanence.

Today, Kiama buys its water from elsewhere while both dams remain on the books, requiring maintenance even though they no longer perform the function for which they were built. There is something instructive about that, somewhere between heritage and hydraulics.

Before the dams there was the tramway, constructed at public expense on a gauge that prevented integration with the coming railway. Jamberoo and Gerringong Wards helped finance it, even though its benefit sat squarely in Kiama township. The locomotive could not properly negotiate the line, and within two years it was sold. The rails were lifted soon after. It was ambitious, and it was brief.

None of these decisions were taken lightly. They were made in good faith and under pressure, often in the belief that acting boldly demonstrated leadership.

We build for permanence, and we fund the consequences when permanence proves temporary.

Perhaps we are not poor at building. Perhaps we are optimistic about timing.

When you look at the decision before us now, what pattern do you see? Are we sequencing properly before we divest what currently works? Are we modelling the full life cycle of what we build and what we sell? Or are we confident that the future will accommodate the present?

History rarely repeats itself in identical form. It does, however, submit variations on a theme.

Source of Historical Information Kiama Library – Kiama Independent (1890 to 1909)

If this is renewal, Angus Taylor needs a new speechwriter

Every new leader gets a first moment.

When Angus Taylor stepped up to lead the Liberal Party of Australia, this was the pivotal moment. Fresh page. Fresh language. A chance to widen the tent.

He could have said this:

Australia is strong.
We are entering a decade defined by productivity, housing supply, energy transition and technological change.
Our task is to grow the economy, lift wages through innovation and manage migration with discipline so infrastructure keeps pace.
We are the party of aspiration. We back small business, we back home ownership, we back families who work hard and want opportunity for their children.
We will listen, we will modernise, and we will build a serious alternative government.

That would have framed the future.

Instead, here is what he said.

“I’m particularly conscious that we got some big calls wrong – especially on personal income tax. And it won’t happen again.”

“If an election was held today, our party may not exist by the end of it.”

“We’re in this position because we didn’t stay true to our core values – because we stopped listening to Australians, because we were attracted to the politics of convenience rather than focusing on the politics of conviction.”

And in a time that calls for social cohesion, here is the immigration frame he chose.

“In this country, our borders have been open to people who hate our way of life, people who don’t want to embrace Australia, and who want Australia to change for them.”

He could have said this

Control of our borders is a fundamental responsibility of government.
Migration must serve Australia’s national interest, support economic growth and maintain social cohesion.
We will ensure that every intake strengthens the country and reflects the standards Australians expect.

One version expands the horizon.
One version narrows it.

One version invites aspiration.
One version centres anxiety.

Politics is not only about policy. It is about tone and imagination. A first speech as leader is about defining tomorrow.

Australia is confident. Voters respond to leaders who sound that way.

The difference between these two speeches is altitude.

And altitude is everything.

If there were a masterclass in how to shrink a moment, yesterday’s speech from Angus Taylor would be the case study.

The cloud leaves tracks on the ground.

This playful AI avatar trend feels light, instant, almost weightless. A few seconds in the cloud and out pops something clever and personal.

Behind it sita data centres that drink electricity and water at scale. Physical infrastructure, physical limits, physical footprints.

Worth holding both ideas at once. Delight in the tool. Curiosity about the cost.

The cloud leaves tracks on the ground. Read my post on Substack here and do read  The Conversation article that inspired it. Wow the graphics alone are worth the visit

When corporate failure scrambles trust in science

I am confused.

A commenter on my Facebook post about vaccines is someone I respect. They are a committed climate action advocate. They run an effective sustainability initiative. They speak clearly about evidence, consensus, and corporate responsibility. Then they recommend a book arguing vaccines are unnecessary or harmful.

Those positions collide.

Climate science and vaccine science rest on the same foundations. Large bodies of evidence. Decades of data. Overwhelming expert agreement. Around 97 percent of climate scientists accept climate change as real and human driven. Around 97 to 99 percent of doctors and medical scientists support vaccination.

So what changes in people’s thinking?

Corporate behaviour sits front and centre.

Fossil fuel companies funded doubt and delayed action. Pharmaceutical companies overcharge, lobby aggressively, minimise tax, and protect shareholders. People see this pattern and draw a straight line. If corporations distort truth in one arena, they must be doing it everywhere.

That reaction sends attention in the wrong direction.

Vaccines sit across countries, health systems, and decades. Their impact shows up in fewer outbreaks, fewer children living with preventable disability, hospitals that cope during crises. Those outcomes appear regardless of which company supplied the product.

Here’s the problem.

When regulation weakens and transparency thins, trust drains away. Science takes the hit. Evidence gets treated as suspect. Risk shifts onto children and vulnerable people who never agreed to carry it.

What does being concrete about what to do next look like.

Regulate pharmaceutical power as seriously as carbon emissions.
Demand transparency in trials, reporting, and regulation.
Reject the idea that corporate misconduct cancels public health evidence.
Call out misinformation dressed up as justice.
Distrust unchecked power and protect evidence-based public health at the same time.

If you care about climate action, apply the same discipline here. Follow the evidence. Target the power structures causing harm. Protect the people who carry the consequences when trust collapses.

This is the choice in front of us.

This is about asbestos. It is also about memory, power, and who gets protected.

Toxic City: Asbestos, Amnesia, and the Collapse of Care lays out a story many in Shoalhaven already recognise. Swift action when risk sits inside council walls. Silence when that same risk sits in a small village, under roads, near creeks, beside homes.

This is collaborative community advocacy at its best, from Spark Shoalhaven in Politics. It opens with a preface by Cat Holloway and centres the long, sustained work of Peter Allison. His work is seminal. It shows what happens when ordinary people keep records, keep asking questions, and keep going long after institutions move on.

This is about asbestos. It is also about memory, power, and who gets protected.

How many versions of this reckoning do we need before we all stand up, in some way, no matter how small.

First they came for a small place.
Then they came for people without power.
Then they came for something they should never have ignored.

If you live in Shoalhaven, read it.
If you care about how councils work, read it.
If you wonder how systems drift away from accountability, read it.

And if you are part of a group somewhere else, watching something similar unfold, this is an invitation. We are learning that shared stories, shared evidence, and shared pressure travel further together.