Communities In Control

"Phoebe Wynn-Pope, the daughter of Australia's 22nd Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser, responds to David Manne's apology to refugees."

"The year is 2030. On behalf of the Australian people the Prime Minister apologises to refugees, now resettled in Australia and elsewhere, for the conditions they were forced to endure in offshore detention camps. As Australians, we reflect. How could we allow this to happen? What could we have done to stop it?"

"What does a just society look like? Many of us could probably give our own answer to that question. But how do we go about creating one? Here is where things get a bit more difficult. Father Rod Bower discusses the barriers preventing us from achieving an inclusive and respectful community, and offers insight on how these can be overcome."

"Sometimes it's a question of momentum: how can an organisation hold onto all the best elements of its culture in the midst of rapid growth? Other times, it's a question of direction: how can we pivot our enterprise culture so that it's more aligned with our strategy? If you want your people to be on board as the champions of your organisational culture, then they need to understand the science behind what drives collective behaviour."

"Who builds stronger communities? The community! Sometimes the best advice you can get is from your peers: someone who's been there, done that, and knows what works. In this session you'll hear from a hand-picked selection of innovative community leaders who will showcase their lessons in building stronger communities."

"People with the most privilege often don't admit or aren't even aware they have it. But the inability to recognise personal privilege has serious consequences, acting as a roadblock to diversity. Is there a solution that will make people recognise their privilege and level the playing field?"

"How can we improve as a society if we avoid taboo topics of discussion? How can we improve as a society if our default is denial and disbelief? The wicked issues of our time will never go away until we as a society face them head on and pledge to address them. It's time to make some noise."

"Strengths are more than just something that you are good at. Strengths have three elements: high performance, high energy and high use. Strengths are something you do well, do often and do with energy. Professor Lea Waters' presentation will help you identify and amplify your true strengths so that you can use them to maximise your abilities and improve your community."

“Most of us want to act ethically, but it's not always that simple, amiright? We start with the best of intentions but then we bang up against the realities of what the boss wants, the clients are shouting at us, the kids need us to get home ("stat!"), we have to sort out an issue with the plumbing, and we haven't had a proper holiday in a thousand years. American leadership guru Mary Gentile knows all about it. She's pioneered a leadership development approach, Giving Voice to Values, that starts from the assumption that most can take to lea over, around or through the barriers that inevitable arise along the way between our ethical intentions and our actions."

“Sometimes, those who try to change the world for the better are forced to deal with criticism from those who would much rather things stayed the same. Professor Gillian Triggs' five-year stint at the helm of Australia's human rights watchdog exemplifies this: her relentless pursuit of justice, particularly in relation to children in detention, was met with political pressure to fall back. We all need to ignore the critics if we are to lead change."

“Weighing the strengths and weaknesses of contemporary Australian society, Hugh Mackay calls for a renewed commitment to equality in all its forms. He believes the health of the nation depends on the health of our local neighbourhoods and communities, and he suggests we need to add a missing ingredient - compassion - to the national conversation about Australia's future."

“Jax's work explores the intersection between LGBTIQ issues and disability rights, and highlights the inequalities that hold people back from reaching their full and effective participation on an equal basis with others."

“It's been ten years since Kevin Rudd apologised in Parliament for the profound grief, suffering and loss inflicted on this country's Aboriginal and Islander people by laws and policies of successive parliaments and governments. Ten years on, we are still waiting for the healing and change Rudd envisioned."

“Kathy Kelly lost two sons to tragedy, then strove to change a broken system. Her story reveals how bad things can happen to the best of us. If your life was changed by tragic yet entirely preventable events, what would it take for you to focus on finding solutions so nobody else need suffer the same grief?"

“What kind of future do we want to live in? What kind of world do we want to leave for our children, our grandchildren, and all of those who come after? The time has come to stop asking questions, and get on with ending the inequalities that are holding our communities back. Paul Higgins explains why the future won't change itself and it's time to act now."

“As we're increasingly realising, social connectedness and a shared political discourse which honours the common good are all fundamental to a functioning society and economy. Yet there's pervasive foreboding that these things are falling away in our society. Faith in our major institutions, including our democracy continues its steady decline both here and in other Western Democracies. This talk will explore the ways in which inequality is more than a simple material phenomenon. It will argue that politics as currently practices is losing its capacity to address these concerns, and explore an alternative from which our political system could borrow - in which people are represented by citizens juries or councils - selected by lot as they were in ancient Athens. It will also explore the ways in which such a system might be more hospitable to solving our social problems."

In 1997, law professor Martin Krygier delivered his Boyer lectures, Between Fear and Hope: Hybrid Thoughts on Public Values. Then Professor of Law at UNSW, he finished his sixth lecture with a call for his listeners to enroll in the Conservative-Liberal-Republican-Communitarian-SocialDemocratic International Party (Sydney branch) – a tolerant multi-ideological party that he believed could cope with a turbulent multicultural Australia. Twenty years later membership of that party still hovers around one, but the problems Professor Krygier foresaw then – national narcissism, doctrinal rigidity, populist despotism, ethnic exclusiveness, willed blindness to injustice and humiliation – have indeed come to pass. Chancers and confidence tricksters still hawk simplified and inadequate answers to wicked problems. His remedies – civility, communalism, institutionalised values – are ever and always under threat. Professor Krygier could see back in 1997 where Australia was pointing, and he’s had 20 years to think it over

“Everyone is entitled to a healthy death!" However good our public health care, however careful we are of our diet, however low the road toll falls, the all-causes death rate is, eventually, 100%. However far off the horizon looks for you now, we’ll all have to go through that vanishing point, and we should all take an interest in the boundary conditions. Andrew Denton wants Australians to be informed consumers at the end of life – empowered participants in a national conversation. We die as we live: in society, bound by rules, enmeshed in politics. Let’s talk it all through. It’s the biggest social justice issue of your life.

Testosterone Rex is that familiar story that tells us that risk-taking, competitive, promiscuous masculinity evolved in males to increase their reproductive success, and is therefore built into the male brain and fuelled by testosterone. This belief that "boys will be boys" can (subtly or otherwise) encourage, excuse or exculpate behaviour and patterns that impede progress to healthier communities. But Testosterone Rex is based on outdated science, Cordelia Fine argues. As The Guardian put it, this "is a debunking rumble that ought to inspire a roar.

"When nonsense is repeated often enough – especially by well-paid lobbyists, commentators and businesspeople – it can start to seem as though everyone believes that black is white, or up is down," Richard Denniss writes. "After enough exposure to econobabble, you might even come to think that the best way to help poor people is to give tax cuts to the rich." Richard's having none of it. His mission in life is to bust the myths peddled by people using mangled economic language to conceal the truth. There's never been a better time to learn how to speak econobabble. Richard Denniss has the phrasebook.