Working Papers
The working papers collection comprises historical papers as well as current ideas and works in progress on some of the major issues and topics of our times.
Tom Uren was confident, in all my interactions with him, that his young protégé and apprentice Anthony Albanese would one day lead the Labor Party and go on to become Prime MInister. Tom was a very earthy man who understood the Western suburbs of Sydney intimately. One of his favorite expressions was ‘If you have your roots deep in the people you can blow in the breeze’. He saw in Anthony, raised in the Inner Sydney housing commission flats of Camperdown by his single mother, a young person who was deeply connected to the people and the grass roots of his community.
The new enthusiasm of the Federal Labor Party and Bill Shorten to recognise Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people as first nations in the Commonwealth Constitution of Australia is a turning point in national awareness and sophistication. It catches the Australian Commonwealth parliament up with a growing feeling of the Australian people.
"South Australia was the first place in the world that women could run for parliament.. I am particularly proud to say that if we win the next election our Labor government will be the first in Australian history with 50 per cent women in the parliamentary wing"
Bill Shorten, Speech to Open the 48th National Labor Conference
Are Australia's political foundations starting to shift? Trust in Canberra has fallen to a new low. Is this a temporary or a permanent condition of Australian political life? and what does it mean for future Australian governments?
Australia needs a new narrative that binds all who live here.
On Aug 4 the KVBN crowdfunding campaign ends. It is around the 30th biggest of the pozible crowdfunding campaigns in Australia and is the first such campaign to support a community broadband solution. Communities that are badly served by nationally managed broadband solutions are looking carefully at the model to devise their own solutions. KVBN will enable Kangaroo Valley to be more creative, outward looking, vibrant and more economically diversified.
An essay of recollections and old photographs: Shaun Carney's Press Escape, Melbourne University Press, 2016
The library vs dance , the modern vs the ancient, the modern vs the organic, weeds vs herbicides, family pests vs pesticides , community mind vs aritifical intelligence, the school vs the wild - in the space between these contests, the most interesting questions for us, at this time in history, arise
Paper back copy, Valentine Press, reḻeased Nov 2, (All Souls Day) 2017
