Communities In Control

There’s more than one way to win a spat – and if you’re working to create change in your community, you need to be adept at all of them. Politics is a competition of ideas, and the community sector can’t shy away from that, it must be in the thick of it. In this session we’ll hear from weary veterans and charged-up crusaders on how to mobilise the grassroots and get them rallied and ready for the many battles ahead.

Dr Sandhya Ramrakha on the Dunedin Multidisciplinary Health and Development Study.

Once you get a notion in your mind, it can be remarkably hard to shift it. Chris Sarra has spent his career fighting the strongly held assumptions Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people hold about themselves, and those foisted upon them by others, in a bid to nullify their life, educational and health-limiting effects. His Stronger Smarter Institute puts into practice his belief that higher expectation relationships will create stronger, smarter classrooms – and healthier communities.

At a time when politics seems increasingly negative and our society hopelessly divided, Rebecca Huntley believes we’re more fortunate than we think, and have more in common than we know. While many of our politicians are becoming more conservative, both in their policies and their ambitions for the country, the Australian people – almost all of us – want to see real social change, she says. We are more generous and more progressive, and more alike, than we think we are – and we are better than our day-to-day political discourse would suggest.

"In a world where we regularly feel captured by a never-ending 'to do' list, expanding demands and depleted energies, leadership expert Amanda Sinclair has found a way to block out the noise. Amanda has brought together the latest neuro-scientific and leadership research with understandings of modern and traditional meditation and mindfulness to create a suite of practices designed to help us find time for the people and purposes that matter to us most. If you’re working to create stronger communities, there’s no time to waste.

Disability rights activist and lawyer Fiona Smith presented at the 2005 Communities in Control Conference

Eva Cox asked "What Future Do We Want? At the 2007 Communities in Control Conference.

Geraldine Doogue AO invites you to "Imagine Communities with Vibrant Hearts and Souls" from the 2005 Communities in Control Conference

Mick Dodson delivered the Community Leadership Oration at the 2009 Communities in Control Conference

Spoken word artist Abraham "Abe" Nouk shared his special talents at the 2016 Communities in Control Conference

"Sometime in the next decade, perhaps the next five years, Australia is going to have a party like no party before - our first night as a free-standing Republic. Who's in?" Peter FitzSimons AM was in fine form at the 2016 Communities in Control Conference

Waleed Aly delivered the Joan Kirner Social Justice Oration at the 2016 Communities in Control Conference

Australian legend of stage and screen, Magda Szubanki, gave a heartfelt account of her community work background, her childhood and of the important of social cohesion at the 2016 Communities in Control Conference

In modern Australia, productivity is all that matters, our leaders tell us - economic growth above all else. But is this really what we, the people want? Dr Dennis Glover outlined his position at the 2016 Communities in Control Conference

At the 2016 Communities in Control Conference, Celeste Liddle argued that the voices of Aboriginal women are continually obscured by politicians, policy makers, news media and, of course, a society which continually privileges the views of white men.

Prof. Ian Harper presented at the 2016 Communities in Control Conference

Gregory Phillips on "An Aboriginal Australian Republic" at Communities in Control 2015

Panel on "Think Differently - Disrupt Politics" at Communities in Control 2015 (hosted by Virginia Trioli)

Stephen Koukoulas on "Entitlement and Inequality - Why dumb economics is killing our Communities" at Communities in Control 2015

Jim Diers on "Whatever the Question, Community is the Answer" at Communities in Control 2015