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We Keep Arguing About Grace Tame and Ignore the Real Question

I have watched the commentary around Grace Tame spiral into familiar territory. Some defend her. Some attack her. Some wait for any misstep. The arguments become about slogans, tone, delivery.

Meanwhile, the original political decision sits largely untouched.

Reading through the comments on a right-leaning news site, I came across a thoughtful defence of her right to speak. It reminded me that human rights advocacy does not vanish because someone disagrees with the politics of the moment. Courage is not conditional.

I would have preferred that a particular slogan not be used. It distracted from the substance. Yet focusing only on the slogan misses the larger question.

What was the judgement behind inviting the Israeli president at this time?

Leadership is not only about protocol. It is about reading the room. It is about understanding how divided the public mood already is. It is about recognising when symbolism inflames rather than steadies.

We can debate Grace Tame’s language for days. That is easy. The harder and more necessary question concerns political judgement at the top.

If we are serious about social cohesion, that is where attention belongs.

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.

Are you feeling swamped by the world’s biggest problems?

Do you feel overwhelmed by the biggest issues shaping everyday life climate disruption, housing pressure, food prices, insurance, government spending? I did too.

For a long time my response lived in my head. Reading more. Arguing better. Feeling frustrated that public debate kept sliding into blame. None of that helped. What shifted things was doing something much simpler. I joined groups. I went to workshops. I put myself in rooms with people who were already translating big problems into practical action.

I have written before about the victim triangle and how easy it is to slip into it when the world feels out of control. What I learned through participation is how people climb out of it. Not by pretending the problems are smaller, and not by blaming others, but by reconnecting with responsibility and control.

One of the clearest examples for me has been Farmers for Climate Action. What works in spaces like this is not ideology. It is community. You learn alongside others. You share uncertainty. You are shown where effort counts. No one is cast as a villain or a victim. People are treated as capable decision makers.

That pattern repeats across other community based organisations like Landcare. Workshops, peer networks, and practical forums all do the same capacity and capability building work. They replace overwhelm with participation. They turn big abstract issues into things you can act on with others.

This is the shift I wish we talked about more. When people feel powerless, blame becomes a coping mechanism. When people feel supported and capable, responsibility returns.

If public debate feels stuck, it may be because we keep asking people to care without showing them how to act. The way forward is not louder arguments. It is clearer pathways and communities that make engagement feel possible.

That was the circuit breaker for me.

HT to Maryvonne Norman whose excellent Fb post prompted this article

The Kath and Kim meme that turned into a sharp little lesson in public disagreements.

Image Source Facebook

I shared this Kath & Kim meme on Facebook as a reminder. It turned into a sharp little lesson in public disagreements.

It’s doing what satire does best. Pointing at a pattern and trusting people to recognise it. Old ideas come back. The language changes. The instincts don’t.

One response I received took it as a literal claim, as if I were saying these moments in history are the same thing. That reaction lingered longer than the disagreement itself.

Public disagreements often split at a deeper point than the issue being argued.

It made me think about how differently people respond when something presses on identity.

Some people can sit with that pressure. They adjust their view. They accept that history leaves fingerprints on the present. Connections don’t feel dangerous to them.

Others move quickly to shut it down. The first move is separation. These things have nothing to do with each other. End of discussion.

That explanation doesn’t fit what I’m seeing. What feels more relevant is how comfortable people are with revising a view.

Ideas don’t disappear. They travel through history, change names, and slowly get normalised.

If you’re able to admit error, patterns become visible. You expect ideas to repeat, to reappear with better branding, to sound more reasonable the second time around.

People who can revise a view tend to treat history as something you learn from.

If that admission feels too costly, history stays boxed up. Each event stands alone. Calling things “unrelated” keeps the present uncomplicated.

What this exchange clarified for me was that we weren’t arguing about the meme. We were talking past each other. One response was about continuity. The other was about containment.

The difference shows up clearly in conversations like this.

That realisation took the edge off.

It reminded me that people arrive at conversations with different limits, different stakes, and different reasons for holding the line where they do.

How do societies notice patterns early if they refuse to look at where ideas come from?

Often the most telling part is not what someone objects to, but what they refuse to connect.

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

This Threat Can Destroy a Nation – And It Starts in Your Head

Carl Jung once said:

“It is becoming more and more obvious that it is not starvation, not microbes, not cancer, but man himself who is mankind’s greatest danger, for the simple reason that there is no adequate protection against psychic epidemics, which are infinitely more devastating than the worst of natural catastrophes.”

What he meant is simple but unsettling: our biggest threat doesn’t come from outside forces like famine or disease, it comes from inside our own minds.

What’s a “psychic epidemic”?

Jung was talking about what happens when destructive ideas or emotions spread through a community or a nation. Think of it as mass hysteria, but on a much bigger scale. People start feeding off each other’s fear, anger, or prejudice until it snowballs into something far more dangerous than any one person could cause on their own.

History is full of examples: witch hunts, Nazi Germany, the Rwandan genocide. These didn’t happen because of earthquakes or floods, they happened because people’s minds got caught up in a destructive collective belief.

Why it’s worse than a natural disaster

If we face a flood, a fire, or a disease outbreak, we can often rebuild, treat, or protect against it. A psychic epidemic is different. There’s no vaccine. Once it takes hold, it can destroy trust, compassion, and reason. And unlike a virus, it can keep spreading long after the first outbreak.

The scars it leaves, mistrust, division, hatred, can last for generations.

The modern outbreak

Today, the tools that connect us can also spread dangerous ideas faster than ever. Social media algorithms push us toward outrage. Misinformation circulates in hours, not months. Conspiracy theories grow into movements.

We’ve built a world where ideas, good or bad, can go viral. And once they do, they can be hard to stop.

How we protect ourselves

We can’t put up a quarantine zone around human thought. But we can:

Slow down before we share or react.
Listen to different viewpoints, especially ones we don’t already agree with.
Teach and practise critical thinking.
Value respectful debate over point-scoring.

None of this is easy. But if Jung was right, then protecting ourselves from collective madness might be the most important public health measure we have.

Because the real danger isn’t just in the storms nature throws at us, it’s in what happens when our minds become the storm.

#DangerousIdeas #CollectiveThinking #MassPsychology #CarlJung #PsychicEpidemics #MindsMatter #CriticalThinking #TruthMatters #SocialAwareness #MindsetShift

When the Trolls Take Over the Thread

“People are watching. Values are showing.”

You’ve probably seen it before.

Someone posts something heartfelt. Maybe it’s about a humanitarian crisis or a fundraising appeal. Maybe it’s just a quiet call to care – about refugees, conflict zones, environmental devastation, or yes, children starving on the other side of the world.

Then in comes the comment.
Cold. Blunt. Designed not to inform, but to provoke.

“Nobody in Australia gives two hoots about people starving on the other side of the world.”

It’s the kind of line that doesn’t just shut down empathy – it throws it under a bus, reverses back over it, and then posts a meme to celebrate the ride.

And yet, as predictable as it is, it works.
It gets reactions.
It triggers outrage.
It attracts backup.
The poster’s “tribe” shows up. So do the people who want to push back.

And within a few hours, the post isn’t about the original issue at all.
It’s about that comment.

The comment that’s no longer about the suffering. It’s about the person who made it about themselves.
And the energy that could have been used to support or inform or take action is now being used to argue with someone who never came to learn, only to dominate the thread.

Eventually, the admin steps in.

“Hi all. Comments outside the group rules and obvious trolling are now reaching overload levels. We appear to be going down a Facebook rabbit hole. As such, we are locking comments. Thank you to those that engage respectfully.”

And just like that, the whole thing shuts down.

No discussion.
No momentum.
No outcome.

This is the world of the disruptor.

They don’t always fit the stereotype. Some are aggressive and obvious. Others are more subtle, smugly asking “reasonable” questions while spreading doubt or stirring division.

And then there are the strawman specialists. The people who twist what’s been said into something it never was, then argue fiercely against that distortion. They’ll take a comment about caring for people in crisis and turn it into, “So you’re saying we should ignore our own country?”

And sometimes, the derailment is even more calculated. The conversation begins with a plea for basic human compassion, food, safety, dignity and ends in a rabbit hole about geopolitics. Suddenly it’s all about Hamas. As if the actions of a regime justify the suffering of children. As if starvation is deserved because of who controls the border.

This isn’t nuance. It’s a tactic. A way to sidestep empathy by turning the victims into suspects. And once that happens, there’s no space left for humanity , just cold rationalisation and echo chambers clapping back in agreement.

And before you know it, the thread isn’t about the issue anymore, it’s about defending a point no one actually made. That’s the rabbit hole. And too often, we fall in.

What they have in common is intent. Their goal isn’t dialogue. It’s derailment.

And the more charged the topic, the more likely they’ll appear.

Strawman arguments don’t build dialogue – they burn it down.

We could say ignore them. But we know that’s easier said than done, especially when the issue feels personal or urgent.

We could block them. But often by then the damage is already done, the space has been flooded, and meaningful conversation has drowned under it.

Or, we could start recognising what’s happening for what it is.
Not just trolling. Not just bad behaviour.
But performance is often driven by ego, dressed up as bold truth-telling.

The people doing it rarely think they’re being watched. But they are.
Not just by their tribe – the loyal few who jump in to defend every outburst – but by everyone else who’s watching and thinking, “When you mock pain, you reveal more about your values than you realise and none of it is admirable.”

So what can we do?

We don’t need to match someone’s energy to show who we are.
We don’t need to follow them down every rabbit hole, or correct every misrepresentation.

When someone builds a strawman, twisting our words to make them easier to attack, the goal isn’t clarity. It’s control. And we don’t have to give it to them. See footnote

We just have to keep our focus.
Keep our integrity.
And keep speaking to the people who are still listening.

Because not everyone in the thread is arguing.
Some are watching.
Some are learning.
And some are waiting for a voice that sounds like reason.

Let that be you.

“Outrage is loud, but character lasts longer.”

Footnote:

How to Handle a Strawman Argument Without Losing the Thread

You don’t have to match their energy.
You don’t have to defend something you never said.

When someone responds to a post about human suffering by making it all about geopolitics or criminal groups, that’s not a real response. That’s a strawman. It’s meant to shift the focus, create doubt, and exhaust you.

Here’s how to bring the conversation back:

🔁 Refocus:
“This post is about civilian suffering. Can we stay with that?”
🧭 Clarify intent:
“That’s not what I said. I’m talking about people, not politics.”
🚫 Don’t follow the bait:
“We can debate governments another time. Right now, I’m talking about hunger. About dignity. About human lives.”
🧍‍♀️ Speak for yourself:
“You don’t have to agree with me. I won’t let compassion be dismissed as moral confusion.”

Not every comment needs a reply. But when you do respond, respond with purpose, not performance. Don’t argue for the algorithm. Speak for the people still listening, still learning, still trying to care.

That’s how we keep the thread intact.
That’s how we keep our voice.

#SocialMediaDisruptors #EgoAndOutrage #DigitalCivility #OnlineIntegrity #TribalThinking #PublicValues #WatchWhatYouAmplify #TrollingWithConsequences #RespectfulDialogue

Are we being gaslit by our own Council?

Moving On Without Looking Back Isn’t Leadership. It’s Evasion.

There’s a growing call within Kiama Council to “move forward” on developer contributions, to focus on new frameworks, technical capabilities, and future improvements. That instinct is understandable. For newly elected councillors, the pressure to defend decisions they didn’t make must be exhausting. No one expects them to carry that weight alone.

But the issue here isn’t the future. It’s the refusal to face the past.

The latest Council report into Section 7.11 and 7.12 developer contributions presents itself as a review. It’s not. It’s an administrative summary, a carefully curated narrative that avoids the most troubling questions.

It does not explain why Council allowed legally required contribution plans to lapse without replacement.
It does not acknowledge the nearly $1 million in lost infrastructure funding from developments like Golden Valley. See previous blog post: How Kiama lost $970,000 in developer contributions and no one explained why
It does not explain why staff continued applying 7.11 levies after the plans had expired, resulting in $1.5 million in overcharges.
And it certainly does not address why this information was omitted from the CEO’s public statements earlier this year.

Instead, we are told that everything is under control. That staff have the skills to prepare new plans. That forward planning is happening “across all departments.”

But if no one inside Council can admit what went wrong, how can we trust that the same systems and staff will get it right this time?

While the report confirms the repeal of the 7.11 plans and notes that overcharges have been refunded, it still fails to address the most critical issues:

Why the required five-year review process was ignored
Why Council allowed the plans to lapse without any replacement
Why the Golden Valley development, with its $1 million 7.11 condition, is excluded entirely from the analysis
Why the CEO’s earlier response omitted this development
What steps are being taken to prevent this kind of governance failure from happening again
Why the review ignored key issues raised by councillors and the community, including those I raised in good faith
It also fails to acknowledge the damage caused when a CEO publicly undermines the credibility of an elected councillor, then commissions a review that examines only what suits the executive agenda. This was not a full or independent review. It was a tightly controlled exercise in reputation management, not truth-telling.

The people responsible for these failures should not be allowed to rewrite history with a few carefully worded lines in a report.

If Council is serious about moving forward with the community, it must first confront what went wrong, tell the truth, and start rebuilding trust from there.

BTW If you’ve ever read a council report and found yourself more confused than when you started, don’t worry, it’s not you. It’s working as intended.

#KiamaCouncil #AccountabilityMatters #DeveloperContributions #GoldenValley #PlanningFail #Governance #LocalGovernment #TransparencyNow #CommunityDeservesBetter #InfrastructureFunding

Housing Strategies and Hollow Promises and Why Listening Isn’t Enough

It’s time to stop drafting strategies that sit on shelves. Let’s start building the courage to act.

If you’ve ever read a local government housing strategy, chances are it felt familiar, even if you were reading it for the first time. They tend to follow a pattern:
✔️ They acknowledge the issues.
✔️ They summarise the feedback.
✔️ They speak the language of care, equity, and inclusion.
But scratch the surface, and you’re often left asking: Where’s the action?

The latest Kiama Municipal Council Draft Housing Strategy in our region is no exception. To its credit, it captures what matters to people: housing that’s affordable, developments that respect the character of our towns, and planning that keeps pace with infrastructure. It admits where voices were missing, renters, younger people, Aboriginal residents, and it publishes community feedback clearly and transparently. That’s important.

But recognition is not reform. We don’t need another document that nods along with community concerns, only to drift into safe territory, generalities, delays, and vague promises of “sensitive growth” and “further consideration.” We need something braver.

Our housing problems aren’t unique, with communities across the country grappling with rising prices, stagnant wages, rental insecurity, and generational lockout.

And in many places, solutions are already being tried. Community land trusts. Build-to-rent models. Tiny home villages. Prefabricated homes built by social enterprise. Councils developing and retaining their own affordable housing stock. There are people doing incredible work, often outside the traditional planning system, because they’ve had no choice but to act.

So why isn’t that reflected in our local strategy?

There’s no commitment to identifying what’s working elsewhere. No plan to pilot innovation. No acknowledgement of the community-led efforts already happening here. And no tools, no inclusionary zoning, no local affordability targets, no plan for securing housing for workers or renters or older people wanting to downsize and stay close to family.

Instead, we get the usual safety net of “alignment with state frameworks” and “monitoring future needs.” It’s the language of delay.

Listening should be the starting point – not the end.

This is about ambition – not just process.

A genuinely community-driven strategy would do more than summarise feedback. It would:

Name and support local innovators already making change.
Seek out bold ideas from elsewhere and ask: could this work here?
Test small-scale pilots and learn from them.
Move beyond consultation and into co-creation, especially with those most affected by housing stress.

Transparent processes and pretty reports are not enough. People need homes, and they need leaders ready to do more than listen.

It’s time to stop drafting strategies that sit on shelves. Let’s start building the courage to act.

#HousingStrategy #AffordableHousing #CommunityLedPlanning #InclusiveGrowth #LocalVoices #BuildBetter #PlanningForPeople #HousingJustice #PolicyToAction

Three men, three egos, and a time bomb. Trying to stay human in a world on fire

Trying to stay human in a world on fire

I’ve been writing this blog for close to 15 years. Often, it has been my way of making sense of things – the news, the noise, the strange mess of modern life. It started as a habit, really. A way to capture the thoughts that came tumbling in after reading the morning papers.

Every day, the first thing I do is pour a coffee from my beloved espresso machine and open the Sydney Morning Herald. But lately, I find myself hesitating. I glance at the headlines – war, retaliation, destruction – and feel the heaviness settle in before I’ve even taken a sip. For the past few weeks, so much of the news has been about Israel, Gaza, Iran, and now the involvement of the United States.

The problem isn’t that I don’t want to know. I do. I just want to understand, not simply react. And that’s harder to come by than it should be.

Too often, the reporting feels breathless. Headlines provoke instead of explain. And somewhere along the way, the context gets lost. We’re left with snapshots of horror and very little help in putting the pieces together. Rarely do we get articles that step back from the emotion, offer both sides, and help us see the broader picture.

That’s why this morning I turned to The Conversation, and I’m so glad I did.
One article in particular helped me take a breath and make sense of it all. It didn’t try to spin a side. It didn’t try to make me feel something. It simply laid out what’s happened – and what might happen next.

The article explores three possible paths forward now that the US has bombed Iranian nuclear sites:

1. Iran strikes back
Iran may retaliate in a limited way but is unlikely to escalate. Its missile stockpiles are dwindling, and the regime’s top priority is survival.

2. Iran backs down
There may be a path to negotiation, but only if Israel stops its attacks. Netanyahu, however, has made it clear he does not want to stop. Any ceasefire would be a major climbdown for Iran’s leadership, and they are not known for backing down easily.

3. The US engagement is limited
Most Americans do not support this war. Trump may not want a long-term military campaign. But once the bombs drop, it is hard to define that as limited.

Reading that article didn’t make me feel better. But it helped me feel steadier. It helped me remember that it is still possible to seek understanding.

So I kept reading. And what stood out most to me this morning was not the missiles or the maps, but the people behind them. The leaders. The ones making these decisions.

Donald Trump, back in charge, is doing what he always does – acting for effect, claiming victory before anyone knows what the consequences will be.

Benjamin Netanyahu, Prime Minister of Israel, is continuing a long campaign not just against Hamas or Hezbollah, but against the very existence of Iran’s nuclear program – and maybe its regime.

And in Iran, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei holds all the power. Even with a new president, nothing moves without his approval. He has spent decades holding that grip and won’t let go easily.

Each man is rigid. Each man is proud. And none are showing signs of compromise.
It is not a triangle of diplomacy. It is a triangle of ego.

So where does that leave the rest of us?

Thousands of kilometres away.
Nowhere near the missiles, but still carrying the weight of it.

Because in this era of 24-hour news, you don’t need to live in a conflict zone to feel the tension in your chest. It arrives with the headlines. It sits with you at breakfast. It hums underneath your day.

Is it any wonder our birth rate is falling?
Who could blame someone for looking at the world and wondering if it is safe to bring a child into it?

It is easy to feel small in the face of all this. To feel like nothing we do matters. But that’s not true.

All we can do – and it is enough – is focus on what is in our control.

How we treat each other.
What we choose to read and share.
Where we put our energy.
What kind of community we help build.

A while ago, I wrote another blog post about this very idea. About how sometimes the most powerful thing we can do in the face of chaos is return to ourselves. To our values. To our centre.

Because that’s where resilience lives.
And that’s where hope begins again.

#MiddleEastConflict #TrumpNetanyahuKhamenei #NewsFatigue #HopeAndResilience #TheConversation #BlogReflection #GlobalLeadershipCrisis #WhatWeCanControl