Click on speakers' names or scroll down to view speaker abstracts and biographies.
Adam Connell
James Cook University
Finding value from waste: innovating for a circular economy
Abstract
James Cook University's TropEco program has been working to develop innovative solutions to waste management within JCU for over seven years. This presentation will share some of the successes and failures experienced over the years and provide ideas for other organisations to implement and encourage collaboration to work toward a circular economy for Townsville and the wider NQ region.
Biography
Adam Connell is the Manager, Environment at James Cook University and is responsible for establishing and running the award winning TropEco sustainability program. TropEco aims to engage students and staff at JCU in building a culture of sustainability through implementing programs that make a difference.
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Sara Cole and Chris Otto
Designing for sustainable communities in the tropics
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Tracey Cooper
The Valley Centre - rebuilding sustainable local communities
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We are working with over 20 First Nations communities supporting their sustainable community strategies. In this process there is enormous local economy building. DIY Eco Housing, food, water and energy technologies have made it easy to rebuild the oldest model in human history the "sustainable community model". For less than half the average annual income for Australians, each family can own a home and have free food, water and energy. These eco-tech systems also provide employment as the young people are trained to manage and maintain each section. Revenue streams re Renewable Energy and food also strengthen the local communities and their economy.These technology companies are also keen to enable the communities to warehouse and assemble the technologies enabling more jobs and revenue streams. This also enables transport to local areas rather than transporting from cities travelling thousands of kilometres. This process also involves extensive networking which builds confidence in communities ready to start their sustainable community strategies. The most important aspect of this journey is culture. The revitalisation of culture which happens concurrently is the real glue that enables everything else to fall into place
Frank Dallmeyer
A new lifestyle for a new economy in North Queensland
Abstract
Modern life in the tropics is full of challenges and opportunities. Over the last century we gained comfort and security but the costs for these gains are becoming visible now. Our environment, our institutions and most individuals are now struggling to accommodate the increasingly unsustainable nature of our current lifestyle. Change is needed - and wanted by many. But change is never easy and often resisted by others. This talk shall explore the opportunities that individuals have today to adjust their lifestyle towards greater independence from support systems to gradually achieve higher levels of sustainability as well as improved control and satisfaction in their lives. It will focus on becoming smart consumers who "vote with their wallet" when purchasing everyday goods and services, but it will also briefly discuss some of the strategic lifestyle decisions. It will show how empowered individuals can drive change and pave the way for a New Economy that supports local participation across the entire community. The presenter uses examples from his own family life in the tropics and of his journey from a corporate, capital city lifestyle to starting and later selling a renewable energy business in Townsville. Participants will be encouraged to identify opportunities in their own lifestyle and to define the first steps on their own journey towards sustainable living in the tropics.
Biography
Franks life started in Germany where he studied engineering and started a family. In his thirties Frank and his family moved to Malaysia and then Melbourne. In 2004 the family gave up the big city lifestyle and moved to North Queensland. Two small businesses were established and provided many opportunities to implement ideas and strategies that were close to their heart......and to learn what works and what doesn't. Frank constantly searches for better ways to live a comfortable, self-determined life in the tropics. He used his engineering skills to develop "Triple Zero Power Systems®" and operates these at several properties.
Christine Doan
Startup and Innovation Tablelands
Purpose in Business: Tap into your intuition to find your purpose
Abstract
Purpose finding has become a necessity for conscious businesses and for many conventional ones as well. However, most purpose finding is done exclusively with cognitive intelligence. This highly interactive workshop teaches a rich and unique way to incorporate intuition into purpose finding. The technique consists of teaching a way to access intuition with a method of direct verbal (internal or spoken) conversation. Preparation for learning the technique takes about half of the 50 minutes and consists of: (i) Ascertaining who in the audience already has assimilated a state-change technology (eg meditation, conscious breath, somatic or spiritual grounding exercises, etc); (ii) For those who do not already have one or more methods for quickly bringing brain waves to Alpha or deeper, I teach a short cut: forced yawning. (Generally ¾ of my audiences already have practiced state-change techniques.); (iii) Then we work through different perspectives and nomenclature first for intellect/ego and then for intuition. (iv) Each individual chooses their own label for their intuition---the technique is neutral in terms of value systems (eg a name for intuition could range from Allah to inner wisdom, from Great Aunt Mehitable to fairies in the garden); (v)Then I teach the conversational technique (drawn from Tim Kelley of the True Purpose Institute in California, USA) and the remainder of the time is devoted to practice and shares about the experience., (vi) My finding is that there is a broad range of reactions and experiences. Some of each audience will be drawn into such a striking insight that they have their purpose in their business immediately revealed in a super AHA moment. Others are inspired by their partial insights to continue with the technique, which they can take home and put to use immediately. This technique is suitable for many other elements of life and business than purpose.
Biography
Christine, hard to categorise due to an unusual “career” path full of eccentric successes/fails, was renowned for her equestrianism (Barcelona Olympics, 1992) and for dedicated and sustained environmental activism (rallies, court cases, sustainable forestry, holistic economic development) in the 20th century. The 21st century has seen her increasingly devoting her community advocacy and activism to sustainable, conscious business and the evolution of collaborative leadership. A recent example was co-founding Startup and Innovation Tablelands, dedicated to educating small business people about the lean methodology (including conscious business). where disruption in business is now the norm even in rural Australia.
Simon Foale
Head, Social Science, James Cook University
Re-embedding economy in society in North Queensland: what can we learn from other cultures about how to facilitate the social changes that must accompany a reduction in footprint?
Abstract
"Most Australian residents who have used an online ecological footprint calculator will be aware that it is difficult to achieve a footprint even close to a sustainable one. If everyone on earth were to live like even the most environmentally-conscious Aussies we would still need around three planets. We can ride a bike, recycle, compost and buy our coffee in a keep cup, but without massive changes to our economic system, a one-planet footprint remains elusive.
Here I wish to discuss the extent to which changing our economic behaviour is contingent on changing our social relationships. Back in 1944, anthropologist and economic historian Karl Polanyi pointed out that we cannot disembed economy from society. Green economic thinkers need to remember there many ways in which our social status is strongly linked to the patterns of consumption we need to change in order to live sustainably.
Most of us are, like it or not, ‘possessive individuals’. Material wealth begets status and acceptance in most of Australian settler society. But wealth also correlates strongly with footprint, thus setting up a fundamental tension. It is not this way in all cultures. In most Melanesian societies, people typically achieve status by giving away economic surpluses
(most commonly in the form of pigs and prestigious staple crops such as taro or yams), usually at feasts. Melanesian culture has been fundamentally shaped by this economic logic, meaning that generosity is highly valued, and even people with high status traditionally possessed little material wealth at any one time.
I want to use cross-cultural observations made over three decades of working in various western Pacific societies to help illuminate what sorts of social changes will be necessary for Australians to truly transform our economic behaviour and economic systems in order to achieve a truly sustainable ecological footprint"
Biography
Simon Foale is originally a marine scientist who became a born-again anthropologist, due to an enduring interest in the local ecological knowledge of Pacific Islands coastal fishers. He has spent a lot of time living in Pacific coastal villages, researching local knowledge and fishery management. He has also managed to get his hands dirty working for a mining company in PNG (Lihir Gold) but has partly atoned for this by working for several environmental NGOs and development donors, including WWF, TNC, IUCN and AusAID/DFAT. He is currently Head of Social Sciences at James Cook University and is a committed unionist.
Duane Fraser
Indigenous economics, a perspective
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Ben Gertz
Where to from here?
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Jane Gleeson-White
Author/Writer
Grassroots law and kangaroo economics
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The need for new ways of thinking economics is now widely accepted inside and outside the economics profession. I propose a 15-minute presentation which thinks with the emerging rights of nature movement and Aboriginal economics. I will suggest that these are two powerful ways of thinking through our current conceptual impasse. Both approaches are place-based and involve storytelling and grassroots action. ‘Rights of nature’ offers a more empowering and vital narrative for the inextricably enmeshed natural and human worlds than the ‘natural capital’ thinking favoured by business and government. The movement brings people together to fight for their ecological communities and tell their stories; it makes regional concerns central and has the potential to bring systemic, paradigm-shifting change at the national and international levels. Having begun in the USA in 2006, it’s now emerging in Australia. It seems to me to be a hugely important way of beginning to rethink our relationship with the Earth. This is grassroots law.There is as yet no analogous new model emerging in economics. Kate Raworth’s ‘doughnut economics’ redraws the visual language of mainstream economics with two concentric circles which mark out the limits of our human occupation of the planet. It’s a start. But I’m interested in economic narratives that begin with the natural world. I’ve found such narratives in two recent books: Bruce Pascoe’s Dark Emu, and Alexis Wright’s memoir of Aboriginal economist Bruce ‘Tracker’ Tilmouth. I will discuss why I think they are so important and helpful. Both Pascoe and Tilmouth refer to emus at key moments, so I’m calling this emu economics. My paper will draw together grassroots law and emu economics. I’m interested in stories and systems, especially place-based stories and local ecosystems in a context of our planetary economy.
Biography
Jane Gleeson-White is the author of the internationally acclaimed Double Entry (2011) and its sequel Six Capitals: The revolution capitalism has to have (2015). She’s a regular commentator on economics and sustainability, including for the Sundance Film Festival, United Nations and European Union. She has written for the Wall Street Journal, The Guardian, Bloomberg, Wired, The Age, Sydney Morning Herald and The Australian. Jane has a PhD in creative writing, which included work on ‘country’ in the novels of Alexis Wright and Kim Scott, and is currently working on a project about the emerging rights of nature movement in Australia.
Terrie Hamilton-Smith and Anna Cousins
Newport Organic Collective
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Helen Hill
Achacha Fruit Plantations
Journey from conventional to regenerative agriculture
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The Achacha plantation is located 45 km south of Townsville with 16,000 trees on 120 hectares. This is the first commercial plantation of this fruit in Australia and the world. Initially the trees were grown using conventional agriculture methods but Helen and Bruce have transitioned to organic using biodynamic methods. The plantation is now certified organic in transition. This is their journey.
Biography
Helen Hill, formerly a visual artist and Feldenkreis practitioner, is responsible for sustainability and marketing at Achacha. Bruce Hill, formerly involved in tertiary level executive teaching, is CEO. Together they made a complete tree change in 2012 and moved to Giru to learn about agriculture and to manage Achacha, which they had been involved in since its inception in 2003. With 16,000 mature trees, organic certified and using biodynamic methods, Palm Creek Plantation is the first and by far the largest Achacha operation in the world. Having spent 21 years living in Europe, North America, Africa and South America, it was almost natural for Helen and Bruce to supplement local sales with exports for the then unknown Achacha. In their presentation they will relate how the fruit’s export markets have developed, with examples of positive and negative experiences along the way.
SolReflection Transforming Economy with Coops
Abstract
Market disruption and transition are no longer going to deliver necessary change in a timely manner. We need to create complete transformation of the corporate profit taking industries unable and unwilling to transition to sustainable solutions quickly enough. This transformation must be driven by the community for the community. In doing so we are able to create some interesting and compelling "side effects" not the least of which is empowerment in creating social and community outcomes seemingly unrelated to the problem at hand. We are able to do this through "not for profit" community cooperatives giving each member an equal role and vote in what is important. When profit for the usually absent shareholders is removed as the primary purpose of doing business suddenly all sorts of amazing opportunities and possibilities open up. Lets go for an adventure through the story of SolReflection and how this could pan out in the energy industry and then play a game of creation to explore some of these other possibilities which present themselves.
Biography
Paul Jukes is the founder of a number of community organisations. Leaving a former life as an engineer in senior policy positions in the government he has committed his life to community. Paul has spent 15 years in international community empowerment, founding and volunteering (Aliamos.org) and living and working in remote regional communities all over the world. He facilitates appropriate solutions with these communities to any manner of change or "improvements" the communities want to create. Paul has now turned his skills and energy to creating the worlds first large scale community owned concentrated solar thermal despatchable (24hrs on demand) renewable power utility which is set to not only supply power to members below the current price they pay but also potentially mitigate local youth suicide, generate bulk hydrogen for sustainable transport of these future, and recycle plastic waste into 3d printer "ink" for cheap local remanufacturing. Truly transformational outcomes from what just started as a power price issue.
David Kault
One child families for sustainability
Abstract
The global human population increased about 10 fold with the advent of the industrial revolution. Australia’s population increased about 50 fold over the same time period. This population explosion was enabled by increased productivity from the use of fossil fuel. Reproduction increased numbers, as productivity to support more people became available. In the richer countries productivity outpaced reproduction in the 20th century and on average, human life improved. The massive increase in consumption as numbers have grown and wealth for some of us has increased, has necessitated extracting ever more from nature, so resulting in massive environmental deterioration. There has been hope of a demographic transition whereby greater wealth is associated with less reproduction and so less pressure of numbers on the environment. However, the “natural” demographic transition will clearly be insufficient to save our environment. It is opposed by the capitalist desire for growth and it is already too late. Fossil fuel and other non-renewable resources are in decline and renewable resources, especially water, are under pressure. Wealth, taking proper account of housing, is probably in decline. Life expectancy is now plateauing and perhaps declining globally. Whilst declines partly reflect rising inequality they also reflect population pressure and the decrease in natural resources available per capita. There is a particular problem in North Queensland. The population here has trebled in 40 years and the impact on this previously very biodiverse part of the world is becoming catastrophic. Part of the longer term solution must be to hasten the “natural” demographic transition by adopting a more utilitarian rather than libertarian approach to human reproduction so that encouragement or perhaps even enforcement of a one child policy becomes acceptable. Libertarianism provides a cover for the capitalist freedom to exploit and destroy the world. Our future demands restrictions to preserve it.
Biography
I am a semi-retired medical doctor and mathematician who has lived in North Queensland for most of the last 43 years. For the last 16 years I have been trying to establish a small exotic fruit orchard on land on the southern fringe of Townsville, with minimal bushland damage, limited use of fossil fuel and limited success. This has made me aware of the enormous amount of bushland destruction, water and fossil fuel usage required for food production even in relatively more fertile and better watered parts of Northern Australia.
Bill Laing
Qld Greens Party
The biggest threat to the renewables revolution: the same old capitalists fighting to retain the means of production
Abstract
The 21st century switch to renewable energy, at all scales of the community from mega power stations to single apartments in housing blocks, is a revolution. It is a revolution because (a) it is a fight over a profound change to the core means of production in our society - electricity (b) it is happening rapidly (c) it involves classic political argument between the capitalist and labour parties (d) it involves mass social activism, commonly with physical, though rarely fatal, violence.
The renewables revolution is framed within the classic Marxist paradigm: it pits a social group acting to gain some control over electricity production - the "renewables class" - against the capitalists ("big coal-oil-gas") who always owned the means of electricity production. Its outcomes will be revolutionary: a reversal of the historic centralisation of electricity production, into (i) decentralised, autonomous production units (renewable power stations, over the all-scale spectrum, from megastations to rooftop solar cells) which (ii) are owned over the same all-scale spectrum, by a "democratised" suite of owners: downwards from small capitalist companies, local communities owning a capitalist (stock-exchange-listed) company, local co-operatives, suburban "collectives" owning or controlling their suburb's power generation, and individual families.
This classic revolution is nevertheless fundamentally different from previous revolutions, It is driven partly by "small" capitalists, uniting with the "renewables class" for the same interest: building power stations which will make a profit (after the environment is monetised) for their owners. However these "local" capitalists - the old "petit bourgeois" - make a profit not from exploiting their workers, but from their workers buying the very product that they make.
What will the big capitalists do about this threat to their 250 year-old hegemony on electricity production? The answer awaits us, and it will dominate world geopolitics ifor the next decade or two. One thing's certain: they won't take it lying down. The coal-obsessives are not worried about coal - they are shit-scared they will lose control of the means of electricity production, the industrial platform of our materialist society.
This workshop invites discussion of, and answers to, this question.
Biography
Dr Bill Laing is a scientist and social analyst with a 48 year career in the mining industry inside a 50 year career in sociopolitical activism. Activism: in time sequence Vietnam, uranium, peace (two Gulf wars), reconciliation, anti-development (2 big projects), refugees, renewable energy. He has led many campaigns. Recently Greens membership of Policy development groups. He leads both from the heart and the head, and has devoted much personal energy over 50 years into getting the balance right! He writes stacks of essays, submissions, research topic designs, has stopped writing love letters to Rupert, and has trouble getting his messages published! Can Schwarz help?
Electric Vehicle Construction in North Queensland
Abstract
EVNORTH converts and rebuild existing vehicles to run on pure electric energy. We are in the process of moving our construction workshop to Garbutt and believe the future in transport can be in the use of these recycled vehicles. At present we are designing an advanced retrofit battery pack that will give an EV vehicle a range of 400km.
Biography
Michael Lunn is a mechanic, engineering teacher and was team leader for BCHS entry into the World Solar Challenge 2011
Michelle Maloney and James Lee
Australian Earth Laws Alliance
GreenPrints: how communities can create their own governance for ecologically healthy, economically prosperous bioregions
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Nick McGuigan
Associate Professor, Monash University
Thomas Kern
The Accountability Institute
Creative Accounting - Disrupting Business Norms through Artistic Intervention
Abstract
To produce responsible, authentic leaders, business schools need to develop more holistic management education models” – Professor Howard Thomas (Singapore Management University Accounting has and continues to develop approaches to the measurement of value, provide accountability for that created value and act as the means through which value is mediated. However, accounting is an industry under disruption (Susskind & Susskind, 2015). New technologies are set to transform the information available to accounting professionals. The willingness to experiment and be creative is crucial to creating and adding value in today’s world (Porter, Hills, Pfitzer, Patscheke, & Hawkins 2011). The professions of the future will require individuals to transcend traditional disciplinary boundaries, hold high degrees of resilence, agility, creativity, social intelligence and be able to think in novel, integrated and adapative ways (Davies, Fidler, & Gorbis, 2011). Remarkably different to the current model of business education.
To better equip individuals for the professions of the future an accounting curricula that provide meaningful opportunities for students to actively shape, discover and explore their own professional identities will be required. This workshop aims to explore how art can be used as a mechanism in which to ground the learning of accounting in the students lived experience. Therefore affording students an opportunity to form deeper connections to accounting and their own professional identity. Taking a humanistic approach in mainstream business education in order to develop more responsible, authentic leaders. Practical examples will explore how art and creative thought is used to place an emphasis on creativity, design and integration – key elements of social professions of the future. Illustrative examples will explore how artists can influence accounting educators (formal accounting artist-in-residence program within business schools; use of visual tools and metaphors workshops; shakespeare actor-led workshops that explore body, presence and awareness) and art pedagogical techniques and methodologies implemented in auditing, capstones, financial and management accounting courses, can be used to empower student-centered learning (structural modelling, photographic documentation and analysis, portfolio design, film and digital media, image collage construction). Interactive activity with participants will illustrate the social role accounting plays in society and how a rigid, analytical, siloed discipline is currently being disrupted for needed social change.
Biography
Associate Professor Nick McGuigan (Monash University).
Nick is directly involved in applied research, focusing on the enhancement of educational programs of accountants. His research interests include student conceptions of learning, learning technologies, integrated thinking and creativity, innovation, systems design and regenerative economics. Nick has led and/or taken key roles in competitive research funded projects equating to just over one million Australian dollars, including Federal State level grants in both Australia and Germany. He has published widely in international accounting and education journals, presented at numerous conferences and been invited to present at research centres and professional organisations in Europe, Australia and New Zealand. Nick has held visiting academic positions in Germany, England and New Zealand and been appointed to various American Accounting Association (AAA) committees. He is currently the Co-Chair of the Accounting and Finance Association of Australia and New Zealand (AFAANZ) Accounting Education Special Interest Group and is chartering an accounting futures project. Nick is an Associate Editor of Issues in Accounting Education, Accounting Education and Higher Education and Research (HERD) Journal.
Thomas Kern - Instigator of The Accountability Institute.
His work involves public speaking, facilitating formal and informal education, permaculture activist, and running community and public events. Thomas has co-founded The Accountability Institute to push forward the accounting education agenda in creative and dynamic ways. The Accountability Institute is a progressive platform that aims to foster collaborations between art, science, technology and economics, bringing these fields into conversation to create a new accounting language – a language of accountability. Prior to this, Thomas held positions in financial accounting across Australia, New Zealand and Germany and was Head of the IFRS (International Financial Reporting Standards) Competence Centre of an international commercial bank based in Hamburg, Germany, teaching at the Frankfurt School of Finance and Management.
Jane Njaramba
James Cook University
Migrant African Women Entrepreneurs (MAWEs) involved in small business, innovation and sustainability in North Queensland
Abstract
Entrepreneurship is fundamental to social integration, especially for migrants displaced from their home countries due to political, economic, and environmental disruptions. Women tend to bear much of the burden for re-establishing their families in a new country. The survival strategy of MAAWEs aims to avoid poverty and the discrimination that can be encountered in the mainstream labour market. Entrepreneurship benefits the individual, contributes to economic stability and builds sustainable communities that are accepting of migrants.
Migrant women are almost always responsible for child-care and home management, responsibilities that often lead to work and family conflict. The expectations regarding family responsibilities are underpinned by cultural norms which act as a significant barrier to venturing into their own business. Constraints associated with commitment to traditional family roles and responsibilities are pronounced among migrant women.
Migrant women are in need of sustainable and profitable employment if they are to successfully provide for themselves and their families. Economic necessity, social exclusion and lack of education and skills together with high levels of unemployment and language barriers, push an increasing number of migrants towards entrepreneurship. Women and children remain among the most vulnerable members of society. Participants in this study bring with them potentially valuable cultural, social and economic ties to the region. They are hard-working migrants with a diverse and rich cultural background that can contribute to growing Australia's strength and affluence.
MAAWEs, as minorities, face barriers concerning language, racism and prejudice that do not confront non-migrant entrepreneurs. This too is a barrier to achieving economic and social inclusion. In North Queensland, MAAWEs represent a growing proportion of the self-employed, and many are now opting for autonomy and the return on investment that business ownership promises. This paper discusses the importance of entrepreneurship in building sustainable communities and the challenges this marginalised group faces.
Biography
Jane Njaramba is a PhD candidate at Graduate Research School, College of Arts, Society and Education, Division of Tropical Environments and societies, James Cook University, Australia. Her research interest is in expanding knowledge of commercial education, management, tourism and services, with a particular focus on researching the experiences of migrant women entrepreneurs in small businesses. Jane’s current project is entitled: Understanding small business entrepreneurship among migrant African women in North Queensland: A feminist study of lived experience, motivation, and learning
Belinda Moore
FNQ Community Exchange
Abstract
Growing a New Economy in Practice: A community currency is an obvious and sensible tool for relocalisation and building a resilient community. Every person in each community has something to offer, and needs something in return. LETS (Local Energy Trading Systems), and sharing abundance, makes sense. Everyone trades - it is a necessity of living within a community. These grassroots networks have ebbed and flowed through 28 years in Australia. Learn about the history of the Community Exchange System and LETS in Australia, and discover the statistics, practical considerations, and real results of the most active and vibrant community currency operating in Australia.
Biography
Bel Moore has been contributing to alternative economies since 1992 when she joined Townsville LETS (Local Energy Trading System) as a university student. She is a mother, hobby farmer, business owner and educator, and is passionate about creating community connections.
Patricia Morgan
NENA Sydney
Transitioning from the old to the new economy: the inner dimensions of working for change
Abstract
The economy (old and new) is a social system comprised of “economic agents”, individuals and organisations, relating to each other through transactions. Despite the core of these social relations residing inside each of us, this foundational aspect of our inner ecologies, and ability to learn and transform, is mostly ignored. This presentation suggests why this might be the case and why paying attention to our inner worlds is essential if we want to transition from the Old to the New Economy. While new theory, policy, technology, and applications of this theory, policy and technology are a vital part of making change, the place where change starts is in our inner worlds. It happens when we gain awareness of the workings of body-mind-emotion-spirit-intersubjectivity, of memory, past experience and cultural norms, and their impacts on the way we treat ourselves, others and the environment. Further, bringing this heighted self-awareness to the collective, non-hierarchal and democratic processes integral to the New Economy will support the development of healthy interpersonal exchanges underpinning the healthy cultures required for a truly “new” economy. There is a growing awareness, in New Economy movements, of the need to address subjective or inner foundations of a healthy and equitable New Economy. To outline some of the central elements of including the inner world in the creation of a holistic New Economy, this presentation will introduce four of these initiatives: NENA’s “Inner dimensions of the New Economy” working group; “Inner Transition” from the Transition Movement; Christine Wamsler’s work on mindfulness in sustainability science, and Contemplative Commoning focused in distributive governance.
Biography
In her early work as a performance and video artist Patricia explored the ways her abstract trance videos could induce relaxation. This led to postgraduate research into the impacts of environment on health and then a community arts practice. Patricia worked in community art and development for six years in Australia, New Zealand and Papua New Guinea before conducting an interdisciplinary PhD in contemplative philosophy supported by an Australian Government fellowship. She now teaches and conducts research in social policy, academic skills, ICT and work life balance, contemplative education, transformative learning, contemplative ethics, law, mathematics and art.
Joel Orchard
Community supported Agriculture
Abstract
Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) is about taking responsibility for how our food is produced and how it gets to the table. It is a direct relationship between a farmer and the people who eat the food the farmer produces. As CSA farms are directly accountable to their consumer members they strive to provide fresh, high-quality food and typically use natural farming and regenerative methods. In this talk, we’ll give an overview of how CSA works in Australia, the newly created CSA Network Australia and New Zealand, and how this initiative is strengthening responses to the new economy.
Robin Rodd
Lecturer, James Cook University
Economic development and democratisation: The case for a North Queensland state
Abstract
Political questions are often be mislabeled as economic issues, insofar as reframing what is economically possible requires political negotiation or reform. Radical economic change is contingent on creating new institutional arrangements to allow for new economic systems, including production and distribution, to flourish. In this presentation I argue that North Qld’s development possibilities, and the capacity to plan for an ecologically sustainable and socially just future, are constrained by inadequate political representation at the state and federal levels. Queensland is the only state with cities closer to the capital of another country (PNG) than to its own capital (Brisbane), and the only state without a senate to provide legislative oversight. While Tasmania has twelve federal senators for a population of approximately half a million, North Queensland has two senators for a population of approximately one million. Distance from the capital, lack of representation, and a history of haphazard marginal seat funding, result in a recurring desire for political independence in the North, which gained momentum at the last state election with the success of the Katter Australia Party and an independent who ran on an NQ State referendum platform. This presentation will not make an economic argument in favour of a new state. Instead, I suggest that the most direct way for North Qld to remake its economic future is to take democratic responsibility for its own destiny. The renewed movement for a referendum on creating a new state is an opportunity to reimagine the public good, and to remake the social contract for North Queenslanders.
Biography
I am an anthropologist and Latin Americanist with an interest in political theory.
My current research explores the ways that democracy can dissolve into dictatorship, and possibilities for art and museums to foster political memory and reflect on these transitions.
Marie Shieh & Barry Disch
Would public banking work in Australia?
Abstract
Our presentation will be about the creation of money and the importance of having a public bank create money as opposed to private banks. We will give a brief account of how money is created, a brief history of public banking in Australia and give examples of how public banking works in some communities and countries around the world and explore how public banking might look in Australia.
Biography
Barry Disch is an acupuncturist and a concerned citizen who has done his homework in economics and is a member of the Public Banking Institute in the United States. He tried to start up a public bank in a small city in California before moving to Australia in 2015.
Marie Shieh is Barry's wife and a GP and is also a concerned citizen She has collaborated with Barry on many projects including a TEDx talk, a clinic, public banking as well as raising a family.
Elizabeth Spencer
James Cook University
Rules for a New Economy
Abstract
Where will the legal infrastructure come from to support, integrate with and nurture the networks, connections and shared initiatives for a new sustainable NQ economy? Governance processes and rule-making facilitate, support and reflect the way we live and work. As the crucial infrastructure for an orderly society and economy, law not only underpins but is integral to the fabric of socio-institutional interactions. The nation state model of law served the industrial era well through the 19th and 20th centuries, but it is ill equipped to adapt to the context of the information age. Big data, artificial intelligence, social media, and digital disruption are changing the way we live, do business, interact socially and order our lives. However, law is notoriously slow to change for many reasons. Consequently, governance models tend to be slow to respond to changing social and economic needs; there is a growing disjunction between a complex global economy and current legal infrastructures. The premise of this workshop is that legal systems can be anything we want them to be, and that to be sustainable there should be a diversity of alternatives for different contexts and needs from local to global, rural to urban, etc. This workshop will first, set the stage for reimagining rules and law and second, offer some hands on activities to play with the fundamental design of rules and governance structures for different contexts and purposes. The aim is to begin to question our assumptions about rules and law and where they can come from, how they can be made and changed and how they can better serve human communities.
Biography
Liz Spencer is lawyer, educator, urban planner, writer and yoga instructor with extensive experience in legal education & formal training & experience in facilitation, negotiation, & mediation. She is the author of two books & numerous publications in the fields of commercial law, dispute resolution, intellectual property management & development cooperation. Committed to sustainable innovation for North Queensland, Liz lives in Townsville. She is currently professor and head of law at James Cook University.
Valentine Nona & Sue Kenney
Jina Gunduy (Palm Island Sustainability Hub)
Supporting mico-businesses and community economics on Palm Island
Abstract
Jina Gunduy is creating the Palm Island Sustainability Hub for everyone who wants to build a brighter future for their families and people.
Our vision for the hub is to transform 1600m2 of land and buildings into a cheerful, positive space for projects where people can learn new skills – such as house building, home repairs, boat building, arts and crafts – and to create small scale, sustainable, economic development. The hub will also be a place for people to share knowledge about land and sea country, and create new sustainability projects, such as community gardens, recycling projects, waste management and other activities.
By focusing on a strengths based approach to community development, the Sustainability Hub will see local people work with other local people to build their skills and help them to achieve their goals. Palm Island is a unique Indigenous community in tropical north Queensland. It is home to around 2,500 people, including the Munbarra Traditional Owners, and descendants of families from all across Queensland who were forcibly moved to the island from 1918 onwards.
Despite our past, we believe the future can be socially, culturally and economically vibrant.
Biography
Valentine Nona is from the Djiru people of North Queensland, in the country that now includes Mission Beach. Valentine has a background in building, business management and maritime projects.
Sue Kenney has a background in education, community development, project management and business development.
Protecting the environment from politicians
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