Category: Thought Leadership and Opinion

You Don’t Have to Be Angry to Be Brave

This blog is a follow up to an earlier blog “When Advocacy Turns Dangerous: The Moment You Can’t Stay Silent”

Are you like me, someone who wants to speak up when you see or hear something unjust, but sometimes hesitates because you don’t want to make things worse, or make someone feel small?

That hesitation comes from care. Most of us don’t want to hurt people; we want to make things better. But we were never taught how. We were taught to keep the peace, not to have hard conversations with grace.

I recently watched Sarah Crawford-Bohl’s TED Talk How to Speak Up — Even When You Don’t Want To.

 She shows that courage and kindness can live in the same sentence. You can hold your ground without pushing someone else off theirs.

The Four Phrases That Can Change Any Difficult Conversation

It doesn’t take a big speech. Sometimes it’s the smallest phrases that shift the whole tone of a conversation:

  • Instead of “With respect…”, try “I see it differently.”

  • Instead of “That’s wrong.”, try “Can we look at that another way?”

  • Instead of “You can’t say that.”, try “That might land differently for some people.”

  • Instead of silence, try “I’m not sure that sits right with me.”

These simple swaps are powerful. They keep people in the conversation rather than shutting it down.

Why Teaching Kids How to Speak Up Might Be the Most Important Lesson of All

Even after years of negotiation training, I still catch myself slipping into an overly forceful tone when something matters to me. It’s hard to unlearn. But that’s exactly why this work matters, because if we can teach young people how to use their voices with strength and empathy, maybe they won’t have to spend years unlearning the habits we did.

It’s the same truth behind that short film Justice,  the moment when a teacher unfairly dismisses a student and everyone stays silent

and the playful How to Start a Movement clip, where the brave first follower turns one person’s awkward dance into a movement.

In both, the real change begins when someone chooses courage over comfort.

Speaking up doesn’t have to make anyone feel small. Done with care, it can make everyone in the room a little braver.

#SpeakUpKindly #EverydayActivism #CivicCourage #RespectfulCommunication #LeadershipStartsHere #EmpathyInAction #TeachThemYoung #ChangeTheConversation #FirstFollower #KindnessIsStrength

Review: Our Souls at Night by Kent Haruf

Image Source

One of the quiet truths at the core of Our Souls at Night is that age doesn’t deliver the freedom people imagine. Addie and Louis reach out to each other with such courage, yet their lives are still shaped by the expectations, judgments and needs of the people around them. They want something tender and straightforward, but family dynamics, old wounds and social pressure still reach into their choices.

Haruf shows that the longing for companionship doesn’t vanish with age, and neither does the sense of responsibility. You can be in your seventies and still feel tugged by loyalty, guilt and the unspoken rules set by others. The book recognises that, even late in life, autonomy is fragile. Someone else’s disapproval, someone else’s fear, can still close doors.

That is why the story feels beautiful, and a little heartbreaking. It honours the courage involved in reaching for joy when the world has narrowed, and it acknowledges how complicated it is to claim that joy when family still holds emotional power over you.

The book understands that we never stop wanting connection and we never stop negotiating with the people who matter to us, even when we think we should finally be free.

#OurSoulsAtNight #KentHaruf #HoltColorado #LateLifeLove #QuietCourage #LiteraryFiction #HumanConnection #BooksThatStayWithYou #CharacterDrivenStories #ReadersOfAustralia

Are We All Living in a Socially Accepted Delusion?

 

We’ve normalised the idea that a stranger’s 30-second video can diagnose our personality, heal our trauma, or sell us peace of mind in a bottle. When enough people repeat it, it stops feeling ridiculous. It becomes a trend, which is just a delusion with good PR.

I’ve started noticing something interesting in a few novels lately: little acronyms like SAD and MAD popping up in unexpected ways. Not the usual meanings, of course. SAD becomes Socially Accepted Delusion. MAD turns into Mutually Accepted Delusion.

Writers love this device. Technically they’re acronyms, but when an author redefines them for a deeper or ironic purpose, it’s called a backronym, a phrase built around existing letters to create new meaning. It’s a small linguistic trick that can hold a big mirror up to society.

One of my favourite examples comes from The Detective by Matthew Reilly. His character muses that if a woman believes aliens live in her head, she’s sent to a mental institution, but if she believes Jesus lives in her head, she’s considered a person of deep faith. Both beliefs are invisible, yet one is sanctioned and the other condemned.

That’s the essence of a Socially Accepted Delusion: a belief that survives scrutiny because enough people share it.

Social norms can uplift, kindness as a default, recycling without being asked. But they can also disguise absurdities: buying things we don’t need to prove success, glorifying burnout as dedication, mistaking outrage for virtue. The line between belief and delusion isn’t always logic, it’s popularity.

We don’t have to look far to find new socially accepted delusions. Scroll through TikTok and you’ll see thousands of people declaring the latest miracle cure, wealth hack, or personality quiz that “changes everything.” We call it “content,” but it’s really crowdsourced conviction.

We’ve normalised the idea that a stranger’s 30-second video can diagnose our personality, heal our trauma, or sell us peace of mind in a bottle. When enough people repeat it, it stops feeling ridiculous. It becomes a trend, which is just a delusion with good PR.

Social media has turned SAD and MAD into a feedback loop: Socially Amplified Delusions and Massively Accelerated Denial. We don’t need facts, we need followers. And the algorithm happily feeds our favourite fantasies back to us. The more confident the lie, the faster it spreads.

The technology isn’t evil. The danger lies in what we stop questioning once something feels familiar, popular, or profitable.

Maybe the real test of sanity in the 21st century isn’t what we believe. It’s how often we pause to ask why.

#SociallyAcceptedDelusion #MatthewReilly #TheDetective #SocialNorms #TikTokCulture #MassDelusion #DigitalLife #CriticalThinking #ModernBeliefs #CulturalCommentary

When Your Wallet Gets Ozempic-ed

Reading the Sydney Morning Herald today, I discovered that our appetite for spending is about to be Ozempic-ed.

It’s official: Ozempic isn’t just a drug anymore — it’s a verb. 🗣️

The diabetes medication that’s become a global phenomenon has now slimmed its way into the language. Our wallets, it seems, are next in line for treatment.

And you have to hand it to the drug company — they must be clapping with delight. Few products make it this far. When your brand name becomes a verb, you’ve hit cultural gold.

But Ozempic isn’t the first to make the leap. We’ve been verb-ing brands for decades:

  • Google – to look something up.

  • Photoshop – to edit reality.

  • Hoover – to vacuum anything, anywhere.

  • Uber – to get home when you shouldn’t be driving.

  • Zoom – to talk to people you used to see in person.

Language, like fashion, gets carried away. One day it’s just a product name, the next it’s front and centre in a sentence. A bit like photo-bombing — a word that muscled its way in and never left.

So yes, our spending might soon be Ozempic-ed — slimmer, tighter, and slightly out of reach.


 #Ozempic #LanguageLovers #WordPlay #ModernSlang #PopCulture #SMH

 

From Piano to Powerhouse: Glenn Amer Brings Opera Magic Back to Jamberoo

Tickets are nearly sold out for the 27th annual Opera in the Valley, to be held on Saturday, November 1 at 8pm in the Jamberoo School of Arts, Allowrie Street. Tickets are $65, available from Elders Real Estate, Jamberoo. The evening begins with wine and cheese at interval and ends with the famous CWA supper, a tradition that keeps audiences coming back year after year.

Opera in the Valley began in 1997 when Val Cummings and her daughter, soprano Karen Cummings, gathered a group of singers to perform in the Jamberoo School of Arts. Their vision to bring opera to the village has since blossomed into one of the South Coast’s most loved cultural events.

Two years later, pianist Glenn Amer joined the company. At first, he simply played the piano, but over time his artistry and leadership shaped the event’s distinctive identity. Today, Opera in the Valley and Glenn Amer are inseparable.

Now in its 27th year, Glenn is once again lifting the bar. The first half of this year’s program features Mozart’s comic opera Lo Sposo Deluso (The Deluded Bridegroom), performed in English for the first time in Jamberoo. The second half brings the signature blend audiences adore, a joyful mix of operatic favourites and classic musical numbers performed by the full cast.

What makes Opera in the Valley so special is its intimacy. The hall fills to capacity every year, and performers often join the audience for supper after the show. “It’s seeing the joy on everybody’s faces at the end of the concert,” says Glenn. “That’s what makes it all worthwhile.”

From the creative spark of Val and Karen Cummings to the enduring magic of Glenn Amer’s direction, Opera in the Valley has become much more than a concert. It is a Jamberoo tradition, blending world-class music with the warmth of country hospitality.

🎟️Not many tickets left!

Jamberoo’s much-loved Opera in the Valley returns for its 27th performance on Saturday, November 1 at 8pm, featuring maestro Glenn Amer and an extraordinary cast of singers.

The first half of the night features Mozart’s comic opera Lo Sposo Deluso, performed in English for the first time in Jamberoo. The second half brings the signature mix audiences love, a joyful blend of favourite operatic pieces and musical theatre classics.

Enjoy wine and cheese at interval and the famous CWA supper after the performance, where singers and audience come together in true country style.

📍 Jamberoo School of Arts, Allowrie Street
🎟 Tickets $65 from Elders Real Estate, Jamberoo
⏰ Saturday, November 1, 8pm start

Don’t miss Jamberoo’s musical event of the year. Tickets are almost gone!

#GlennAmer #OperaInTheValley #Jamberoo #CWANSW #Mozart #LoSposoDeluso #SouthCoastEvents #RegionalArts #CommunityCulture #AustralianOpera #LiveMusicAustralia #JamberooEvents #ClassicalMusicAustralia #GrassrootsOpera #CreativeCommunities

How Australia Faced HIV With Courage and Compassion, and What We Can Learn Today

Some moments in history remind us who we can be at our best.

I’ve been reading Val McDermid’s novel  1989, and it sent me down a rabbit hole of memory and research. The book touches on the AIDS epidemic, that terrifying, uncertain time when a diagnosis felt like a death sentence, and I found myself remembering what it was like to be a pharmacist back then.

I can still see the face of the first person who came in with a script for one of the new HIV drugs. We had to order it through a special clinic, and everyone in the pharmacy treated that person with quiet respect. There was fear, yes, but there was also deep compassion. We knew we were standing in the middle of something history-making, even if we didn’t yet understand it.

Courage and compassion can change the course of a crisis.

Reading 1989 inspired me to dig deeper, and what I found filled me with pride. Australia’s response to HIV and AIDS was extraordinary. We didn’t look away. We listened to the science, worked with the people most affected, and refused to let stigma drive the response.

Australia listened, cared, and led — and the world noticed.

Under Bob Hawke’s Labor government, with Health Minister Neal Blewett at the helm, we built partnerships between government, doctors, and community groups like ACON.

When politics steps aside, progress steps forward.

We introduced needle exchange programs, ran bold public health campaigns, and made treatment and testing accessible to all. It wasn’t perfect, but it saved thousands of lives and became known worldwide as the Australian model.

Science mattered, but so did empathy.

I feel very strongly about the stigma that still surrounds gay relationships. The irony is that the same community that was hardest hit also became one of the strongest forces in fighting the epidemic, organising care, demanding research, and shaping prevention campaigns that ended up saving lives far beyond their own circle.

The people most affected became the ones who saved us all.

It struck me how different that felt to today. When COVID hit, we started strong, with the National Cabinet bringing everyone to the same table, but it didn’t take long for cooperation to crumble. The spirit that carried us through the HIV crisis, that sense of unity and shared purpose, feels much harder to find now.

Wouldn’t it be wonderful to see that kind of bipartisan leadership again? To see our political parties stop fighting each other long enough to work for the good of the country and its people. We’ve done it before, with courage, compassion, and respect, and 1989 reminded me we could do it again.

We’ve done it before. We can do it again

#Australia #HIVAIDS #PublicHealth #BobHawke #NealBlewett #ValMcDermid #1989 #LGBTQHistory #HealthLeadership #Compassion #BipartisanSupport #CommunityStrength #PharmacistLife

 

 

 

When you feel the need to share your journal entries

What these two books taught me about living my own life

Lately I have been reading two very different books, Our Souls at Night by Kent Haruf and The Seeker and the Sage by Brigid Delaney, and they have landed in the same place for me. Both of them ask the question, what is mine to carry and what have I taken on that was never mine in the first place?

Haruf’s story of Addie and Louis shows how complicated life can remain, even in your seventies. They reach for companionship and connection yet family demands and old loyalties still shape what they can do. Their courage is quiet, and their freedom is always conditional. It reminded me that age does not cut the ties of obligation. It only changes them.

Reading that alongside The Seeker and the Sage made something else caught my attention. My life is my own. I don’t have responsibility for anyone except my garden, my cat and my chooks. I can choose how I spend my energy. I can choose what I carry.

I also know myself well enough to understand the part that needs some refining. I am a fixer. I see what needs mending and I step in with everything I have. My intentions are good, but sometimes I go too far. I pour in energy, time, clarity and effort, and when the response does not match the investment I can feel undervalued. That is where bitterness creeps in, and I am not interested in giving bitterness any space in my life.

What these two books have shown me is that this is not a flaw in my character. It is a calibration problem. I can still be a truth teller, still be someone who cares deeply about justice and fairness, without exhausting myself. I can match my effort to the invitation. I can offer support without taking on the whole load. I can say the wise thing and then step back, knowing the outcome belongs to the person who asked for help, not to me.

Both books reminded me that freedom is not only about independence. It is also about boundaries, about choosing where my energy goes, and about protecting the parts of myself that make me generous and steady.

I felt the need to put this journal entry into the world because these books held up a mirror and I recognised myself clearly for the first time in a long while. There is something grounding about naming a pattern out loud, something steadying about saying this is who I am and this is what I am working on. I think I shared it because many people my age feel the same tension between caring deeply and carrying too much, between wanting to help and feeling worn down by the weight of it. Putting it into words makes it real, and offering it publicly feels like an invitation for others to breathe out and say yes, that is me too.

#JournalReflections #OurSoulsAtNight #TheSeekerAndTheSage #LifeLessons #LateLifeClarity #EmotionalBoundaries #TruthTelling #FixerRecovery #ChoosingYourEnergy #CharacterDrivenLife

Walking Through History: How Our Gait Tells the Story of Where We’ve Come From

I have always noticed the way people walk. Maybe it is because I was born with club feet. My parents were relieved when, after twelve months in plaster, the specialists announced my legs were fixed and I could walk straight.

Growing up on a farm, you were taught to look closely at legs. When Dad was buying horses or cattle, he studied the way they stood and moved. Sound legs meant sound stock. He would point out faults as people walked by. “Lady-toed,” ( the medical term is “Out-toeing) he would say, or “bow-legged.” It was never said unkindly. It was a way of teaching me what to look for, and I think a quiet reminder of how lucky we were that medicine could fix mine.

Now, travelling in Europe, I have noticed something curious. So many people seem to be lady-toed or bow-legged, far more than I ever see in Australia. It made me wonder why.

The Science Behind the Way We Walk

How we walk, our gait, is shaped by a mix of biology, lifestyle, and environment. Orthopaedic specialists and physiologists agree that posture and leg alignment are not random. They reflect the forces our bones and muscles have adapted to since childhood.

Genetics and early development
Our bone structure is partly inherited. Some families naturally have a degree of varus (bow-legged) or valgus (knock-kneed) alignment. In babies and toddlers, these angles are normal stages of growth. Legs usually straighten by around age seven. If nutrition or muscle development is interrupted, those angles can persist into adulthood.

Vitamin D and bone health
Historically, bow-legs were common in northern Europe because of rickets, a condition caused by lack of sunlight and therefore vitamin D. Without enough vitamin D, bones do not harden properly and bend under the body’s weight. Australia’s abundant sunshine almost eliminated rickets early in the 20th century, whereas in cloudier climates it lingered longer, possibly contributing to more curved leg alignment in older generations.

Footwear and walking surfaces
Podiatrists point out that shoes influence how we use our feet. In cities with cobblestones or uneven streets, people walk differently: shorter steps, feet turned slightly outward for balance, what farmers once called being lady-toed, or what doctors now call out-toeing. In Australia, soft surfaces like grass and sand encourage a longer, straighter stride and stronger foot muscles.

Exercise and body mechanics
Regular movement, especially barefoot play and outdoor activity in childhood, strengthens the small stabilising muscles in the feet and lower legs. Where children spend more time indoors, sitting, or wearing rigid shoes, those muscles can remain weaker, subtly changing gait and posture over time.

Cultural posture habits
Anthropologists note that regional postures, such as how people sit, rest, or carry weight, also shape leg alignment. Years of cycling, hill walking, or sitting cross-legged can influence muscle balance around the knees and hips.

The lady-toed, pigeon-toed  or bow-legged look is not simply genetic. It is a visible record of how our bones, muscles, shoes, sunlight, and habits have worked together since childhood. The way we walk, quite literally, tells the story of where we have come from.

And for me, each step is a quiet reminder of how fortunate I am to have been straightened out, to walk without pain, and to keep walking all these years.

#WalkingThroughHistory #GaitScience #EveryStepTellsAStory #HumanMovement #ObservationAndMemory

Clover Hill Dairies Time Capsule

Back in 2010, our family dairy farm had just been named National Primary Producer of the Year, and we were invited to put in a Banksia Award application.

I’ve just rediscovered that application, both in print and tucked away in Dropbox, and it’s a monster. Almost 200 pages long. The actual award entry? Seven pages. The rest? Ten appendices that somehow stretched to 192 pages.

As someone who now judges awards, I can say with confidence this is the last thing a judge wants to see.

But I’m delighted I still have it. Flicking through, it’s the most extraordinary time capsule of that chapter in our farm’s history ,  the productivity gains, the conservation work, the community projects, even the early stirrings of what would become national agri-education programs.

What at the time felt like an exercise in paperwork overload now feels like a gift. A thick, overstuffed reminder of what we were doing, why we were doing it, and how much of it still matters.

#BanksiaAwards #DairyFarming #TimeCapsule #FarmingHistory #CloverHillDairies #SustainableAg #FromPaddockToPlate #AgriEducation #Landcare #PrimaryProducer

When Rupert Gets Nervous. We See Last-Minute Smears in Kiama

If you have followed politics for a while, you know how it works. In the final days before an election, when most voters have made up their minds and time is too short to explain the full story, opponents throw mud. It doesn’t have to be accurate. It just has to plant doubt.

That is exactly what has happened in Kiama this week.

Headlines in the Daily Telegraph ,  a Rupert Murdoch-owned tabloid well known for sensationalism,  have suggested that Kate Dezarnaulds praised disgraced former MP Gareth Ward, even as he begins serving his sentence. What those headlines left out was the context  and the truth.

What Kate actually said

Kate has always been clear about her views on Gareth Ward. Back in 2023, when he was re-elected while facing serious charges, she said she was ashamed Kiama had returned him to parliament. She was threatened with legal action over that comment, but she stood by it.

More recently, in conversation with voters and journalists, she acknowledged something many in Kiama have said themselves: that Ward had a reputation for being responsive and available when people contacted his office. In Kate’s own words, “both things can be true at the same time”  that someone can be diligent in parts of their professional role while also losing all trust because of their personal conduct and criminal conviction.

That is not praise, it is honesty. It reflects what people in Kiama have told her as she has knocked on doors and held conversations across the community. Pretending otherwise is misleading.

Why the story is surfacing now

The timing says everything. This controversy has been dredged up in the final days before the by-election because Kate’s conservative opponents are worried. They know her campaign has momentum, and that voters are tired of party politics and are open to electing a strong independent voice.

When political operatives are nervous, they fall back on the oldest tactic in the book: take comments out of context, make them sound worse than they are, and amplify them through friendly media outlets. The Daily Telegraph is owned by Rupert Murdoch and he is no stranger to running last-minute attack stories when independents or community-backed candidates are gaining ground.

What matters most

The real story here is not about Gareth Ward. It is about Kiama’s future.

Kate Dezarnaulds has:

  • spoken up with courage when others stayed silent, even when she was threatened legally for criticising Ward’s re-election,

  • spent months listening to locals about what matters most to them,

  • and built strong connections with sitting independents in parliament, who are already delivering results for their communities.

This by-election is not about defending the past. It is about who we trust to represent Kiama now and into the future.

A distraction, nothing more

When you see a headline like this in the final hours of a campaign, remember: it is a tactic. It is designed to distract from the real issues, to muddy the waters, and to make voters second-guess themselves.

The truth is simple. Kate Dezarnaulds has been consistent: she was ashamed of Kiama’s re-election of Ward, she acknowledges the reality of what locals have said about his work ethic, and she has always been clear that his actions have disqualified him from trust and public service.

What her opponents are really afraid of is not her words about the past. It is her commitment to the future.

#KiamaVotes #MurdochMedia #Independents #CommunityFirst #MediaPower #DoingPoliticsDifferently #PeopleBeforePolitics