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The Sustainable Hour no. 589 | Transcript | Podcast notes
Our guests in The Sustainable Hour on 6 May 2026 are Professor Joseph Camilleri from Conversation at the Crossroads and climate activist Jane Morton from Beyond Billionaires.
This week’s Sustainable Hour episode moves from rising petrol prices and booming bike sales into something deeper – the state of democracy itself, and why it may be the missing link in solving the climate crisis.
From global energy shifts to local activism, from billionaires to citizens’ assemblies, the conversation asks a confronting question: Are we failing on climate because our democracy is no longer working?
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A world shifting faster than expected
The episode opens with a simple but powerful observation from Geelong:
• Bike sales have surged from one per week to one per day
• People are changing transport behaviour as fuel prices rise
• Sales of electric vehicles and home batteries are accelerating rapidly
What might feel like a crisis – rising fuel costs – is also acting as a catalyst. It is exposing both our dependence on fossil fuels and the speed at which society can adapt when conditions change.
At the same time, global developments point to a turning point:
• Renewables now generate more than a third of global electricity, in Australia 46 per cent
• Coal’s share has dropped below one third for the first time
• Battery storage is transforming energy markets, including in Australia
The energy transition is no longer a wishful idea – it is happening, and accelerating.
. . .
The deeper problem
But this episode does not stop at energy. It asks a harder question: Why, despite knowing about climate change for decades, have we failed to act decisively?
Professor Joseph Camilleri argues that the answer lies in a gradual erosion of democracy.
Democracy, he suggests, has been reduced to voting every few years – while real decisions are shaped elsewhere, by vested interests, by concentrated wealth or by systems lacking transparency and accountability.
This creates a growing disconnect between citizens and decision-making – a disconnect that has profound consequences for climate action.
Climate change as a democratic failure
Climate change becomes, in this light, not just an environmental crisis, but a democratic one.
Key forces shaping this failure include entrenched fossil fuel interests, massive military emissions and spending, and a political system unwilling or unable to challenge powerful actors.
The result is a system where long-term planetary wellbeing is sacrificed for short-term interests.
And as Camilleri points out, many social movements – environmental, social justice, economic – are working hard, but often in isolation. The lack of connection between them weakens their collective impact.
Reclaiming democracy – a new movement
The conversation centres around an upcoming launch event in Melbourne: “Reclaiming Democracy Together” – on Saturday 9 May at Melbourne Town Hall. This marks the 125th anniversary of Australia’s Parliament opening – and aims to re-examine what democracy should mean today.
The initiative, led by Conversation at the Crossroads, envisions a long-term effort built on three pillars:
• education for democracy
• collaboration across movements
• large-scale public deliberation on major issues
The goal is a return to the roots of democracy, adapted for today’s complex world.
The event is sold out – 2,000 tickets – but you can still take a seat in front of your computer or phone and listen to the speakers. Online tickets are available here.
. . .
Citizens’ assemblies – a way forward?
Jane Morton from the new initiative “Beyond Billionaires” introduces us to another powerful idea: Citizens’ Assemblies.
These are randomly selected groups of citizens – representative of the population – brought together to deliberate on major issues. Used successfully in countries like Ireland, they have helped break political deadlocks on complex and sensitive topics.
Jane’s proposal is that by using citizens’ assemblies to create independent, informed deliberation processes, we can shift power away from vested interests and address wealth inequality and the climate problem.
At a time of growing inequality and political distrust, this approach offers a practical pathway to rebuild trust and decision-making capacity.
A striking contrast highlights the challenge: Hundreds of billionaires in Australia earning tens of thousands per hour, while millions of Australians facing food insecurity. This imbalance translates directly into political influence. Without addressing economic inequality, true democratic equality remains out of reach.
If you would like to join Beyond Billionaires, you can start with filling this contact form: bit.ly/taxwealthaus
. . .
A moment of opportunity
Despite the seriousness of the challenges, there are signs of change. The public narratives around wealth and taxation are shifting. We are seeing unexpected alliances across political divides, and there is a growing dissatisfaction with the status quo.
This moment, our two guests suggest, could be a turning point – that is if enough of us are willing to act collectively.
As our 589th episode closes, a distinction emerges. Not blind optimism but grounded hope built on people coming together, shared purpose and collaboration, and a willingness to engage in difficult conversations. Because real change, as history shows, happens when people organise, connect, and act.
. . .
Song: ‘We Are the Difference’
The episode features our original track ‘We Are the Difference’ – an expression of democratic renewal and community action.
The song’s message resonates with the conversation: that accountability matters, that grassroots voices are rising, and that democracy is something we actively create. The song reinforces the central idea of the episode: Change is not delivered from above – it emerges from the people.
→ More songs from The Sustainable Hour’s Force of Life Collective here.
. . .
Listen, Engage, Act
With this episode we invite our listeners to move beyond observation. Democracy is not fixed. It is something we shape – together. In a time of climate urgency, that responsibility has never been clearer.
“Our project, our idea, is to try and recover the fundamental ideas which have inspired the great democratic project in human history. And for us, important examples are of course the Athenian model of all over 24 centuries ago. And then the more recent attempts following the English, French and US revolutions and more generally the enlightenment project which got going in earnest in the 18th century. Now if you look at the ideas that were developed in relation to these two experiments in human history, there is really very little to connect those ideas with what passes for democracy now.”
~ Professor Joseph Camilleri, Conversation at the Crossroads
→ Subscribe to The Sustainable Hour podcast via Apple Podcasts or Spotify
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We at The Sustainable Hour would like to acknowledge the traditional custodians of the land on which we are broadcasting, the Wadawurrung People. We pay our respects to their elders – past, present, and emerging, and extend that respect to all First Nations people.
The traditional custodians lived in harmony with the land for millennia, nurturing it and thriving in often harsh conditions. Their connection to the land was deeply spiritual and sustainable. This land was invaded and stolen from them. It was never ceded. Today, it is increasingly clear that if we are to survive the climate emergency we face, we must learn from their land management practices and cultural wisdom.
True climate justice cannot be achieved until Australia’s First Nations people receive the justice they deserve. When we speak about the future, we must include respect for those yet to be born, the generations to come. As the old saying reminds us: “We do not inherit the Earth from our ancestors; we borrow it from our children.” It is deeply unfair that decisions to ignore the climate emergency are being made by those who won’t live to face the worst impacts, leaving future generations to bear the burden of their inaction.
“The Indigenous worldview has been marginalised for generations because it was seen as antiquated and unscientific and its ethics of respect for Mother Earth were in conflict with the industrial worldview. But now, in this time of climate change and massive loss of biodiversity, we understand that the Indigenous worldview is neither unscientific nor antiquated, but is, in fact, a source of wisdom that we urgently need.”
~ Robin Wall Kimmerer, weallcanada.org
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→ Pearls and Irritations – 1 May 2026:
Rethinking Australia’s place in the world in an era of fracture
“As part of our Foreign Policy Rethink series, Joseph Camilleri sets out the case for breaking with a militarised, US-aligned mindset and building a more independent, cooperative approach to security and global engagement.” Article by Joseph A. Camilleri OAM
→ ABC Melbourne Mornings – 1 May 2026:
15-minute interview with Joseph A. Camilleri OAM on ABC Melbourne’s morning radio show
with Ralf Epstein about the launch of The Democracy Project and about the current state of democracy in Australia.
→ The Conversation – 1 May 2026:
John Keane on demagogues, despots and the rise of ‘phantom democracies’
“In many countries, hundreds of millions of people nowadays feel that when it comes to the biggest decisions affecting their lives, despite all the talk of “democracy” and “the people”, they have no control over those who decide things in their name. Their shared experience of organised powerlessness is amplified by fears that our small blue planet is spinning out of control.”
→ ABC Melbourne Mornings – 29 April 2026:
How to save democracy
AC Grayling is a well known philosopher from Britain and comes to Australia regularly. His latest book of philosophy is all about fighting authoritarianism and saving democracy. The book is called “For the People” where AC argues the case for democracy and urgency of the struggle to revive it.
→ Grattan Institute Report:
‘For the people: Future-proofing Australia’s democracy’
‘Around the world, democracies are backsliding, and the world order in which Australia has flourished is being seriously tested. These are more turbulent times not just for our economy or sustaining our living standards, but for liberal democracies themselves.’ Grattan Institute’s latest report exposes warning signs for Australia’s democracy, and underscores that it will take work to ensure our democracy is fit for these turbulent times. The report identifies five priorities for Australia to build a better and more resilient democracy.
“Democracy only works if the people exercising it have the capacity to reason about what they’re choosing.”
~ Sokrates, 2,400 years ago
“You cannot have a functioning democracy without an educated citizenry. And by educated, I don’t mean credentialed. I mean people who can think, question, assess evidence, and recognise when they are being manipulated. Separate the two and you don’t get a weaker democracy. You get the machinery of democracy running in service of its opposite. Elections become preference-extraction exercises. Campaigns become emotional manipulation operations. Populism fills the epistemic vacuum that civic ignorance creates.
The lesson is not that ordinary people cannot be trusted. The lesson is that democracy is not self-sustaining. It requires active maintenance of the conditions that make it work. Educate the citizenry, protect the information environment, fund the institutions that build civic capacity, and ensure democracy functions. Defund them, corrupt them, or deliberately degrade them, and the machinery of democracy becomes available for whoever is willing to hijack it. The Nordic countries chose maintenance. The American extraction class chose sabotage. The outcomes are not a mystery.”
~ Aldo Grech on Linkedin.com
“For male citizens, Athenian democracy was real, but it functioned nothing like what we practice today. The center of Athenian power was the Boule, a council of 500 men who prepared legislation for the Assembly to vote on — chosen not by election, but by public lottery, known as sortition. Magistrates and juries were selected the same way. Aristotle was clear about this distinction. In Politics, he contrasted sortition, which he viewed as democratic, with elections, which he saw as oligarchic. His reasoning was compelling: sortition ensured that legislative bodies were truly representative of the citizenry; it resisted corruption and the concentration of power; and it spread the opportunity to govern broadly throughout the population.”
→ Jeremy Lent – 2 May 2026:
“Democracy” Was Never Designed to Work — But Something Better Is Emerging
“The crisis of democratic legitimacy is a design problem—and better alternatives already exist.”
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→ The Guardian – 28 April 2026:
BP profits more than double as oil prices soar in Iran war
“First-quarter profits of $3.2bn prompt outrage from campaigners, who say figures come at expense of consumers.”
Climate damage by the poor and the rich in comparison
• The poorest half of the population have reduced their carbon emissions by 33 per cent since 1990. The richest 0.1 per cent have increased theirs by 10 per cent.
• The richest 10 per cent of the population emit on average three times more greenhouse gases per person than the poorest half. In 1990 it was twice as much.
• The richest 1 per cent emit eight times more per person than the poorest half. In 1990 it was six times more.
• The richest 0.1 per cent emit 33 times more per person than the poorest half. In 1990 it was 20 times more.
Source: Rune Møller Stahl from Politiken
→ ABC News – 18 February 2026:
Millionaire economist’s dire warning for Australian property market
“British economist Gary Stevenson warns Australia is losing the concept of ‘a fair go’.”
Documentary film: ‘This Is Not a Drill’
As extreme weather around the world grows deadlier, a new generation of leaders is rising to face the challenges. From Oscar®-nominated filmmakers, director Oren Jacoby and writer-producer Betsy West, ‘This Is Not a Drill’ documents three unlikely heroes as they take on one of the most powerful industries in the world.
Twenty-five-year-old Justin J. Pearson rallies a multiracial grassroots coalition to try and defeat a crude oil pipeline in Memphis, Tennessee.
Roishetta Ozane, a mother of six from Louisiana, transforms personal loss into political action, taking her fight from the storm-ravaged streets to the halls of Congress.
Sharon Wilson, a former oil insider turned methane hunter, uses infrared cameras to expose invisible, deadly gases pouring from fracking sites and pipelines in Texas that have been hiding in plain sight.
Backing them are unlikely allies, descendants of John D. Rockefeller, who are exposing ExxonMobil’s decades-long cover up. Together, this coalition uncovers what they call Big Oil’s “Big Con” – an industry doubling down on fossil fuels while disguising the truth.
‘This Is Not a Drill’, which premiered at the Telluride Film Festival, is the story of courage, betrayal and grassroots victories showing how people, armed with only grit and determination, can stand up to power.
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TRANSCRIPT
of The Sustainable Hour no. 589
António Guterres, United Nations Secretary-General: (00:01)
Cooperation over chaos. We are all in this together.
Jingle:
The Sustainable Hour. For a green, clean, sustainable Geelong: The Sustainable Hour.
Tony Gleeson: (00:24)
Welcome to The Sustainable Hour podcast. As always, we’d like to start off by acknowledging that we’re broadcasting from the land of the Wadawurrung people, the land that they’ve nurtured for tens of thousands of years before it was stolen. We’re broadcasting from stolen land, land that was never ceded, always was and always will be First Nations land.
They had a strong focus on do no harm and that applied to their communities and to their country. And in the process of doing that over tens of thousands of years, they’ve accumulated a great amount of ancient wisdom. The same wisdom that we’re going to need as we navigate the climate crisis.
Mik Aidt: (01:20)
A bike shop owner here in Geelong told me the other day that where he used to sell one bike a week maybe, he now sells one a day. That’s what’s happening. When petrol becomes expensive and unreliable, well, people adjust. So they take shorter trips in their cars, and they shift from their cars to bikes, to e-bikes, or simply start walking, or take the bus public transport.
But the biggest shift maybe is happening with our cars themselves. You know, EVs, electric vehicles, are now clearly the cheaper and the safer option. And EV sales have doubled compared to last year. So that combined with solar panels and home batteries booming… I don’t know, why is everyone complaining? ‘It’s so terrible how the petrol prices have gone up!’ – No, it’s not terrible, it’s really good! It’s making all this happen. It’s actually making us change our ways.
Imagine if petrol had become more expensive because of some new climate tax from the government. There would have been a lot of angry resistance and people complaining, upheaval! But the way it’s happening now, it’s only revealing two things: 1) How the fossil fuels have made us vulnerable. 2) How greedy the fossil fuel companies are.
They have absolutely no problem with, at this time when prices are going up and so on, they’re raking in profits. BP, for instance, have more than doubled their profits in the first quarter of this year. They had $3,200 million of profit. That’s $3.2 billion in profit at the expense of us, the consumers. Everyone who bought their petrol at BP servo have contributed to that they have doubled their profit.
I don’t think we want to or need to depend on petrol or oil or gas for that matter any longer. We can move to electricity. It’s cheaper. It’s better for our lungs and it’s the obvious choice.
However, today in The Sustainable Hour, we’re going to talk about something else that is really, really deeply important, I believe: our democracy. And: what does democracy have to do with our failing ability to deal with the climate crisis?
But before that, it’s time now for our global news, delivered as always by Colin Mockett OAM, who has had an eye on during the week what’s happening out there in the big world. So Colin, let’s hear what you have for us today.
COLIN MOCKETT’S GLOBAL OUTLOOK (04:09)
Yes, thank you Mik, and it does link to what you’ve been talking about there. Because our roundup this week begins with news from Northern Europe, that is Finland and the UK. From Finland came a report this week from the “Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air,” which disclosed that since the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, much of the demand for oil from Singapore, Brunei and Malaysian refineries is now being met by oil from Russia.
Now that’s oil that was previously barred from dealing through the world because of sanctions that were imposed after Russia invaded the Ukraine. Now if those names of the countries appeared familiar – Singapore, Brunei and Malaysia – they were the countries visited by Anthony Albanese two weeks ago to shore up Australia’s fuel supplies. So it’s almost certain that Australian motorists are not only paying extra for their fuel these days, but they’re now almost certainly using Russian sourced petrol and diesel that would have been illegal because of the sanctions prior to the Iran conflict.
Meanwhile, in the UK tomorrow, the British have local elections throughout the nation. Now, like us and many other countries in the wake of the Trump re-election, the Brits have find themselves mistrusting all politicians, most especially their two leading parties. They’re all on the nose.
Unlike us, they have a Trump-leaning right-wing party in Nigel Farage’s “Reform’. That’s the equivalent of our Pauline Hanson’s One Nation. Now, the Reform Party is tipped to do well tomorrow, as the major parties in the UK are very much out of favour. But so too, tipped to do well tomorrow are the Greens, which are polling very strongly with pre-poll voters. You know, when they exit the voting and they take the, who did you vote for of the pre-poll?
So governments around the world, most especially here in Victoria, will be looking at Britain, which is a nationwide election of local governments, to decide which way it’s going to swing, either right or left, but it certainly isn’t going to stay in the middle with the Starmer government.
Now to China, where according to an analysis from Carbon Brief, the world organisation, China’s emissions fell by 1 per cent in the final quarter of 2025. And that means that it has officially flatlined. All told, coal-fired emissions in China declined by 0.3 per cent. And that’s a significant transformation for China, which accounts for roughly one third of global CO2 emissions, more than any other country.
To put it into context, Chinese coal-fired emissions have increased every year for the past 40 years, during which time the country transitioned from a third world economy to become the world’s leading manufacturing economy. What it is now, without a doubt, the world leader, China, to overtake an America, Trump’s America, which has, what shall we say, become much more insular. Now up until now, all of China’s progress has been fuelled by coal-generated power, with most of the coal coming from Australia, but not anymore.
The shift is now being driven and sustained by China’s unparalleled clean energy expansion into wind and solar.
They are the world’s leading suppliers of wind and solar hardware. And the new figures show that China is now the world’s largest clean energy investor in its own economy, not just fuelling every other nation. It’s now the largest in its own economy.
Now hard on the heels of the Chinese figures came a report that analyses electricity data from 215 countries and 13 geographic and economic groupings such as Africa, Asia, Latin America, the EU and the G7. This data dives deep into the seven countries and regions with the highest electricity demand, which accounts for 72 per cent of global electricity demand.
China once more led the solar build-out, recording more than half of the global increase in both solar capacity and solar generation during last year 2025. Now this pushed the share of solar and wind in China’s generation mix to 22 per cent, which surpassed the OECD average of 20 per cent. India also ramped up their clean power deployment.
Renewable generation growth doubled in India. It doubled its previous record. And for the first time, India installed more new solar capacity than the United States did. And then another global milestone, renewables overtook coal power in 2025. Solar, wind and hydro power and other renewable sources together contributed more than a third of global electricity generation for the first time in the modern power system.
Conversely, the share of coal power dropped below a third for the first time in history. The accelerating buildup of solar power is increasingly taking place alongside battery storage deployment, which is enabling the next paradigm shift from daytime solar to anytime solar. Battery costs fell sharply for the second consecutive year. In 2024, battery costs dropped 20 per cent. In 2025, they fell a further 45 per cent. Front runners such as Chile and Australia installed enough grid battery storage to shift over 50 per cent of new solar generation in 2025, and are already seeing benefits in lower power prices and reduced curtailment.
And in Australia, it was announced this week that batteries overtook coal and gas to become Australia’s dominant price setter in the March quarter of this year, driving a fall in wholesale electricity prices and accelerating a structural shift in the power market. Average prices across the national electricity market fell to $73 per megawatt hour. That’s down 12 per cent from the year previous. As batteries set prices in about 32 per cent of dispatch intervals. That’s the first time that storage has led the market. The shift follows a rapid build out of capacity with more than 4,400 megawatts added over the past year, allowing batteries to absorb excess solar during the day and discharge it into the evening peaks.
The numbers point to a turning point for Australia’s energy transition. Batteries are no longer a marginal technology, but a central force that’s shaping our prices, displacing fossil fuels and redefining how electricity is traded throughout Australia during the daytime. The rise of storage is also accelerating the decline of coal-fired generation, where output in Australia fell to a new quarterly low, while gas generation dropped to its weakest level in more than two decades, as batteries and renewables meet a greater share of demand.
Renewables supplied 46.5 per cent of Australia’s total generation during the first quarter of this year. That’s a new record. And that’s thanks to strong gains in both solar and wind output. That increase on low cost supply was a key driver of lower average prices, particularly overnight when higher wind generation displaced coal-fired power.
And finally, news of the world’s greenest sports team, Forest Green Rovers. The Rovers lost 1-0 against Boreham Wood in the National League Playoff Eliminator last weekend. Following that defeat, they don’t have any further matches in the competition. However, the Rovers’ women’s team, they won against Poole Ladies 1-0 and are currently top of their division which is the Southwest Regional Women’s Football League Premier Division. That’s the fifth tier of the national competition. And they are now firmly in line for promotion. And that little bit of mixed sports news ends our round up for the week.
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Jingle: (14:23)
Listen to our Sustainable Hour – for the future.
. . .
Tony: (14:31)
Our guest today is Professor Joseph Camilleri. He’s Professor Emeritus at La Trobe University and he’s also convener of the movement “Conversations at the Crossroads”. So Joe, thanks for coming on.
Joseph Camilleri:
My pleasure.
Tony:
Tell us a little bit about the man who is Joseph Camilleri. And I guess that you want to particularly talk about the event that’s happening on May 9 in Melbourne?
Joseph:
Well, I don’t know that you want to hear too much about me, but I have been teaching at universities. I’m retired, formerly from teaching at La Trobe University, but at various universities I’ve taught for 43 years and my field is international relations, but touching on many issues, including intercultural dialogue, relations with Asia, political landscape in Australia and quite a lot more. And I have been engaged in various forms of public life for now close to 60 years.
So, Conversation at the Crossroads is the most recent and it is something we got together with a number of others, approximately six years ago. Lots of events and activities during this time. And we need, we’re now gearing up for, undoubtedly, the largest project we’ve attempted so far, which is “Reclaiming Democracy Together” and which as we are launching this coming Saturday, the 9th of May.
Colin: (16:32)
That’s a really excellent introduction, Joseph, and it’s piqued my interest in so many areas. Why now, and why reclaiming democracy? Have we lost democracy in Australia?
Joseph:
Well, Australia is but an outpost, or has been until now, an outpost of the Western world. What happens in Australia usually reflects trends and events in other parts of the world, in particular the Western world, Europe and North America, the US in particular. So what we’re seeing here a bit later and not quite as pronounced as the events unfolding in the US and Europe at the moment, but nevertheless in the same direction, is something that’s been underway for a considerable period of time and that is gradual decaying, unraveling of the democratic idea. So that now, and for some little time, we are reduced to thinking about democracy just as something you do once every few years when you cast a vote for this person, that person, usually that party or the other party. Which then doesn’t lead to very much, doesn’t influence a great deal. The revolving doors of which political party coming in or going out makes relatively little difference and the big decisions are made without much reference to the vast majority of who voted one way or another. So, we’re at, with many other things happening that are cause for concern.
There are two aspects, there are things that are palpably wrong with what we see around us, not just the powerlessness that people feel, but the lack of information about what decisions are being made, how they’re arrived at, and who’s influenced them. If you look at any of the major issues, that information is withheld from the public. And of course, in the absence of information about what’s happening, why decisions are being made and who’s making them, it’s impossible to be informed and informed well enough to be able to participate in serious discussion of the issues, let alone to be part of the decisions that are made. So I think it’s fair to say that in much of the Western world, and we are seeing it in Australia too in various ways, democracy is in trouble, deep trouble.
Our project, our idea, is to try and recover the fundamental ideas which have inspired the great democratic project in human history. And for us, important examples are of course the Athenian model of all over 24 centuries ago. And then the more recent attempts following the English, French and US revolutions and more generally the enlightenment project which got going in earnest in the 18th century. Now if you look at the ideas that were developed in relation to these two experiments in human history, there is really very little to connect those ideas with what passes for democracy now.
Colin: (20:49)
Our program is called The Sustainable Hour and we talk about sustainable issues. I’d love to hear and listen to you for ages about the way that democracy has been eroded over the course of the last 10 or 15 years. But could I ask you to focus a little bit more on how this is operating in the political world as regarding to climate change?
Joseph:
Well, that’s a classic example of failure of democracy. Climate change we’ve known about for a long time and other environmental problems that have been emerging since, in fact, from the 19th century onwards. People knew about climate change, though bothered to find out, for the best part of a hundred years. It’s not new, it’s got a lot worse as time has gone on. So there are several aspects. The possibility, if not the reality, of environmental collapse and decision making. And one of the main reasons why it has come to this unpleasant state of you look at all the environmental problems we confronted with, of which climate change is of course perhaps the most serious is that vested interests, the interests that have largely shaped the industrial project beginning in the 18th century and the development of fossil fuel industries, the vested interests that have, and financial interests that go with them and other interests associated with them, including military interests, the reality is that the military is now the single most important contributor to carbon emissions in 18 per cent of the world’s carbon emissions are directly connected one way or another with the activities of the military, whether in peacetime or wartime.
The use of fossil fuels in the production process, the transport of materials on a colossal scale. We are talking about, as you probably know, the current US military budget, just the US alone, is approaching 1.1, 1.2, and it’s projected to rise to $1.5 trillion dollars, which means $1,500 billion per year.
Now you have to ask yourself, where do many of these dollars go? Well, a substantial proportion other than for salaries to people, civilian and military. It is the production, transport, movement, use, of these machines, of these weapons of war. And then of course you have to ask yourself, what do the hundreds of thousands of people associate with military infrastructure? Who get their incomes from that? What do they do with their incomes? That’s a… So, it is production consumption on a massive scale. And that’s one of the realities and not talked about enough which is a shame.
All these are major decisions to which only a relatively small group of people are contributing and usually it is geared to the preservation of entrenched interests and politicians come and go, political parties gain government and then go into opposition. But for one reason or another would dare not take on these interests head on. And that’s the reality in which we live.
So the climate, the sustainability of the planet is put in danger by the relatively short-term interests of certain privileged groups and a political class that basically is incapable of dealing with that problem head on. So the challenges confronting the quest for sustainability is inseparable from the challenge posed by a decaying democracy in our world today, particularly in the advanced industrial Western world.
And that raises one other big, big question. One of the reasons why these issues that we’re discussing are able to confront us relentlessly is that too often the social movements that are beavering away on so many different issues whether it be environmental issues, peace and war issues, social justice issues, economic inequality, housing, mental health and 100 and other things, operate in silos. Operate in silos. They may think a little bit occasionally about the other issues. They may even see some connection, but there’s very little by way of connecting of issues, let alone connecting of people, let alone connecting of organisations around common interests, and that’s exactly what the paths of being would like to see, disconnection, insulated operating in silos.
Tony:
Is that what May 9 is essentially about then? Trying to get those people looking at their similarities rather than their differences and working together post May 9?
Joseph:
Yes, very much. And that’s where democracy comes into it. Because if there is a stumbling block, I mean, there are so many groups, including so many movements that are able to master considerable resources, resources, and yet are not making, take the environmental movement, that one would have thought should be possible by now and even when you have a few successes here and there, they are often followed by backsliding, and that is because in one way or another hit a stumbling block, they are banging their heads against the same brick wall, all of them. But unfortunately, they don’t come together to make progress in getting through that brick wall.
And so we would very much like to see much more consultation and collaboration between a number, many progressive movements and hopefully the project as it unfolds will create spaces where this begins to be thought of as an important objective and hopefully acted on.
Colin:
Hey Joseph, who is meeting on May the 9th? Where and is it open to the public?
Joseph:
Yes, well, we are meeting at the Melbourne Town Hall on May the 9th for a reason, why May the 9th, and the reason of course is that that was the day, May the 9th, when the Parliament of Australia was officially opened 125 years ago, so it’s the 125th anniversary. It was done with great pomp and ceremony. It’s an extraordinary piece of Australian history. 12,000 attended, each invited by the monarch. They came from all parts of Australia.
Colin:
Who is attending on May the 9th at the Town Hall?
Joseph:
It was open to the public. We’ve chose the Town Hall as the most obvious central point for an indoor event. And fortunately or unfortunately, registrations for attendance in person have closed because we’ve reached capacity. But people still have every possibility to register online. That’s not a problem.
So, I can’t tell you precisely who’s coming, but I think they’re coming obviously from all parts of Melbourne and different parts of Victoria. A few are coming interstate and I think there may be the odd one coming from overseas.
Colin:
And who is leading the debates?
Joseph:
Who’s speaking? I’ll just name a couple. Professor Gillian Triggs is one of our speakers. She was the president of the Australian Human Rights Commission for something like seven or eight years. She’s a leading scholar of law and she has held various positions and most recently she had, she assumed a role at the United Nations on question of protection for those whose rights are in jeopardy. And she’s back now in Australia and she’s an eminent figure both in the academic world and in public life. So she will presumably be talking about the relevance of human rights and of law in the way people go about reaching decisions and deliberating the big issues of time. Another one will be Professor John Keane, who is, I would think, the leading theorist or historian of democracy in this country and indeed has a very important international reputation. And I’ll just name a third one and that’ll do.
We have been privileged to secure the contribution of Professor Wendy Brown from the United States, who in my view is the leading scholar on democracy, certainly in the United States and one of the leading scholars anywhere in the world, who has made, is making major contributions to our understanding of democracy and its need to adapt to the modern world and this will be of interest to you, and how we integrate care for planet Earth as one of the foundational principles of democratic deliberation and decision making. She has developed this at a very high level of intellectual depth, but is able, has this extraordinary ability to relate it to people who perhaps have hardly ever read a book, or anything else, and make it make very complex ideas readily understandable. Widely sought after speaker and we’re very pleased to have her with us.
There will be some others. One whose health is in question a little bit. So that’s a little bit of a question mark is Francesca Albanese who is the UN Special Rapporteur on human rights in Palestine and very controversial in some quarters.
Tony: (34:30)
Listeners, you’ve got The Sustainable Hour podcast. At the moment, we’re listening to Professor Joseph Camilleri, and specifically about the event looking at democracy, the true nature of democracy on May 9. Jane Morton has just joined us. And yeah, maybe your thoughts, Jane, on what’s happening?
Jane Morton: (34:58)
Hi everyone. So I’m part of a new campaign that’s starting up called Beyond Billionaires. We initially called it “Tax Wealth Not Work” following on from Gary Stevenson’s tour, “The People’s Economist”. And I’m very excited about it because I think that we’re at one of those moments where there’s a wave of momentum building.
I think you can see it in the debate around the budget where people like Conrad from “Punters Politics” are on the news every night talking about the need to tax gas. I think until very recently, we’ve had neoliberalism just dominating the messaging and people have just been brainwashed with this idea that we’ve got to privatise everything, that you’ve got to decrease tax on the wealthy because it’ll trickle down somehow.
And I think suddenly the narrative is changing and we have this incredible opportunity to look at a redistribution of wealth, which I think is absolutely essential, but also to look as I’m sure Joseph has been saying, to look at restoring democracy. So one of the things that we’re arguing for, campaigning for, is actually a citizens assembly on the redistribution of wealth. What we think is that we’re in this vicious cycle where as billionaires just have more and more money, so much money, as Gary Stevenson says, so much money that actually can’t spend it on any kind of life, any kind of living, no matter how extravagant, even if they’re buying private jets and things, they still can’t spend it. So they’re pretty much forced to buy houses, land, resources, media outlets.
And basically what we’ve seen, of course, is they also buy politicians, buy political parties. So we’re in this terrible bind where the ultra-ultra-wealthy are getting wealthier and wealthier. We’ve got Musk heading for it being a trillionaire, like it’s just unimaginable. And as they have more and more influence on the media and on politicians, it gets harder and harder to change because the disinformation and the vicious campaigns against any politician that tries to change things are just getting stronger and stronger. So what we think is that if we could actually get a systems assembly, that might break the deadlock.
But even campaigning for it is starting to change that narrative around the idea that we can just trust these politicians totally under the thumb of vested interests or whether we need more people power basically. So it’s basically win-win either way. If we get the Citizens’ Assembly, that’ll be great. If we don’t, we’re just raising awareness of the need for a complete reboot of democracy.
Colin:
Joe, does that fit in with your plans for the day?
Joseph:
Economic inequality is a crucial aspect of democratic thought, democratic thinking, the commitment to democratic deliberation and decision making. I mean, let’s face it, in Australia today, this is very much in line with what Jane was saying, we have something maybe a little under 200 billionaires, hard to estimate, but around that figure, perhaps a little less, perhaps a little more. And on average, each one earns $87,000 an hour. $87,000 an hour.
And at the same time, $2.5 million people suffering from food insecurity and the children amongst them are struggling to have one reasonable meal a day. The same Australia, the same. Now the question is the point to make it’s so obvious one feels a bit ridiculous about making it. Can you imagine the disparity of influence? The household, two children suffering from food insecurity along the lines I’ve described, the influence they are able to bring to bear to major decisions, and the influence of the person who earns $87,000 an hour. When you’re at that level, you just pick up the phone and speak to the Prime Minister directly. It doesn’t matter whether he’s flying to the US. If you want to, you speak to him and to any other minister.
Just think of the biggest in many of our streets in Melbourne. I mean, the difference, the disparity, is so glaring that to talk of… supposed to be one of the principles of democracy is just nonsense. So unless you have a substantial reduction in economic inequality and disadvantage, you can’t even begin to approximate equality of political influence, political equality has to be remedied.
Colin: (40:22)
Jane’s solution is Citizens’ Assembly. Does that fit in with your view of democracy?
Joseph:
We’re very keen to explore the Assembly. In fact, we did run a little experiment last year, Citizen Assembly, in which we were discussing the pros and cons of the proposal to establish a nuclear power industry in Australia. Yeah, we called it the proposal.
The catch with that is, calling it and what happens with the outcome of its deliberations. That’s the critical point. If a government were to call a citizen assembly, you can bet your bottom dollar it’d be a waste of time because it would be vested interests controlling the process and framing the question and so on and so on. If it were a just society initiative, it would be interesting. Assume it’s well done, very useful, et cetera, would be very useful.
But it’s only when very large numbers are able to attend such an assembly or series of assemblies that it can be reasonably expected to an impact. What we are interested in doing is to see whether over time, it’ll take a little bit, we can scale up the number taking part.
I prefer to call it a convocation. A convocation of the people. And using the latest technologies, assuming we remain in control of how they’re used, even if we could only reach, which is a small proportion of the total current voting population, is getting close to 18 million, even if we could only involve half a million, that would be a significant step. And once, of course, you’ve got to the one or two million, I can rest assured the powers that be will be getting rather jittery.
Citizen assembly, yes. There are tools already that exist which would enable hundreds of groups to be meeting simultaneously over at different times and connecting with each other. But it’ll take time to introduce that, to find the resources necessary to keep it going and to prepare. It needs a lot of preparation.
What happens in such a convocation of people, they need to be relatively well informed. That’s one. There’s another principle of democracy that’s not well understood. You do not come to the democratic table to push our personal private interest. You don’t. Rousseau taught us that. He called it the ‘general will’, not the mass of competing wills or globules. It’s the general will, the general good, which now must also include the general good of the earth.
So you come to see what’s best for the nation, for your community, if it’s only a local community you’re looking at, for what we call states in Australia, for the nation, for the region, for the world. You don’t come to say, ‘I don’t want this building to go up, it hides the sun, impedes my view. And that’s all I’m interested in. I come to win this thing.’ So, there’s a lot of work to be done.
But yes, the notion of people coming together, deliberating and making important decisions, some people call it citizen assembly, can be called other things, is something we need to keep exploring and developing.
. . .
Mik:
This week’s Sustainable Hour is quickly running out and it appears to me this is such an important discussion. Luckily, we know that it’s continuing on the 9th of May where everyone can join online, but also after that. just as we’re rounding off the Hour, first you Jane, a little bit also about if people want to participate in the Citizens’ Assembly that you talk about. Where’s the connection point? Where do we, is there a website? How do people find you? And the same to you, Joseph: what’s happening next? But Jane first.
Jane:
Thank you. Look, what the Citizens’ Assembly we would be pushing for is one set up in the same style as the Irish ones that were the ones that led to successful referendums on gay marriage and abortion reform, abortion law reform. So they are like a jury where you randomly select a stratified sample that represents the population. They’re usually only a hundred, not hundreds of thousands.
They have been extremely successful overseas in breaking deadlocks. So people can’t volunteer to be part of them because they would be set up by an independent agency where they would have access to independent experts, they’d be able to request other experts, they would have time to deliberate over many days. And what experience shows overseas, and they’re used a lot in Europe, is that people who are invited to deliberate on behalf of the greater good and the whole population take the responsibility very seriously and come up with very good solutions. Of course it’s best if it’s set up with prior agreement by the government, not influenced by the government, but prior agreement by the government that they’re going to pay attention to the recommendations. That is quite possible.
If it wasn’t set up by the government, would have to try and fund it ourselves and it would be hundreds of thousands of dollars, but that’s not impossible. But anyway, you can’t volunteer to be part of that. But we would love you to be part of our campaign. It is so brand new that we don’t even have a website yet. But we do have a sign up form. So it would be a matter of going to bit.ly/taxwealthaus – I’m sure it’ll be in the program notes somewhere.
Mik:
Jane, maybe an easier way of saying it is keep listening to The Sustainable Hour. We’ll keep you posted and tell people how they connect with you as you progress.
Jane:
That’s a great idea and we will have a website like literally within a week which will be called Beyond Billionaires. It won’t be that hard to find.
Mik: (47:26)
And Joseph, after the 9th of May, what can we expect from your group and what’s going to be the big vision in the coming years?
Joseph:
Well, at the moment we are thinking of a seven-year project. Of course, that does not mean that things will come to an end at the end of the seven-year period or that all that needs to be done will have been done, far from it. But at least in terms of what a project getting off the ground at this time, we think it’s reasonable to think of three stages. The first stage, which might take us two years, two and a half years, give or take, we see as demonstrating the feasibility of the idea of introducing radical approach to democracy, radical in the sense that it’s going back to the Radical. That’s the Latin word for Roots. The roots. Back to the fundamentals of democracy with some adaptation to take account of development. And we see operating on three, along three lines, three areas.
One is education for democracy. There’s a lot to be done in terms of raising the level of understanding about what democracy involves and how you can approach it and what can be done about it. Education for democracy, both in formal institutions and in general community education.
The second prong is to try and connect with many, groups, socially progressive groups working on a range of issues to create space where they can come together, small numbers, larger numbers, to discuss areas of common interests, possibly to consult and where possible to collaborate. That’s going to be very important aspect of the work and there is a question involved in that. How can you expect an entire population or even a substantial cross-section of the population to engage in democratic decision-making and deliberation at this very complex level called the national level where you never, never experience it in your everyday life?
And that’s why we have to ask our environmental groups, social justice groups, trade unions, professional associations themselves as democratic as they could. Could more be done so that decisions are the result of the deliberation of all members and supporters of given group. More effectively, more meaningfully than is currently the case.
And the third area is to try to bring people together in assemblies, well prepared, well informed to discuss major issues, and contentious issue, whether it is the quick phasing out of fossil fuels or whether it is the doing away of military alliances, et cetera, cetera, et cetera, and see how the discussion emerges and whether people have the capacity to relate to each other in a respectful, informed, and effective dialogue that’s going to be a crunch part of the project as it unfolds, we hope, over the next two to three years.
Jane: (51:17)
Can I just briefly comment? I hope at this point in history that it’s actually not going to be so hard to bring left and right together on this and I think a really interesting development, you know, if you look at the people who voted for Trump, they thought they were going to drain the swamp, they thought they were going to have no more wars. We’ve seen a very strange and surprising thing happen, which is that the United Australia party and One Nation have just signed on to the gas tax idea.
Like I think that the right-wing populists have been riding the same wave that we want to ride, which is profound dissatisfaction with democracy and with the so-called cost of living crisis, which is the increasing wealth inequality crisis. So I think we have to really seize the moment. I think we can. I think we’re seeing very surprising developments just happening, unfolding around the world, not just in Australia in recent months.
. . .
Mik: (52:11)
We have come to the famous Be-section of The Sustainable Hour where we’re looking for an alternative to ‘Being the change’. We used to say ‘Be the change’, then we started saying ‘Be the difference’. What should we ‘be’ after a discussion like this one we have had today? – Jane, do you have a suggestion?
Jane:
We should be optimistic – that I’ve always thought: to win on the climate, you know 20 years of campaigning on the climate can be sort of depressing, but I’ve always thought we need to, that to win anything we need to win everything, because the stumbling block has always been that democracy, like they’ve known since Greek times, that real democracy is actually randomly selected people rather than elected people, because when you get elected people you get vested interests and wealthy and wealthier people controlling those
We’re at a moment, I think, where we can transform democracy and change everything. know, have ordinary people that agree so we don’t have great big wars, have ordinary people agree so we don’t wreck the planet, have ordinary people agree so that we redistribute wealth. Nobody needs a billion dollars. Nobody. You can’t spend it in a lifetime, even if you try. So redistribution of wealth is sort of the key that unlocks everything else.
Mik: (53:28)
Joseph, what would you say we should be?
Joseph:
Well, I wouldn’t say we should be optimistic because there are really very few grounds for optimism to be absolutely clear. But we can be hopeful and hope arises as people come together, link up their skills, their energies, their aspirations to a worthwhile vision, objective, and that’s what empowers. And sure enough, in the past, at different times, people coming together have created a lot of important changes for the better.
We’ve gone through a period when there has been considerable disillusionment, disempowerment, and the question is whether we can turn that around. And there are forces at work which are trying to take advantage of the disempowerment and the disillusionment.
And that is the task of extremist groups, many of them of the far right, who sense that as an opportunity of a lifetime, who will mouth a few progressive slogans just like the fascists did in 1920s and early 30s. And we have to be careful.
So we have to bring together people, have serious conversations. Some of may be difficult conversations, but it’s very important to have these conversations before things get out of hand. So there’s a lot to do. The risks are very considerable, but so are the opportunities. And I think it is a spiritual dimension of hope which takes us forward and might make it possible for us to minimise the risks and maximise the opportunity.
Colin:
I think you can count that one as a be informed and be open for change.
Mik:
Be hopeful and be optimistic.
Joseph:
Ha ha ha ha
. . .
SONG (55:54)
“We Are the Difference” – mp3 audio
Verse 1:
We’re out on the street where new voices have risen
We first ask a question and then we listen
We’ve had enough of the old games they play
Of power and lies, of silence, of looking away
Chorus:
We are the difference
We feel the heartbeat of the nation
Independence is the difference
For democracy, for community
We protect each other – and our humanity
Bridge:
So: Step back! You proxies. We’re calling you out!
We WILL be holding you to account
This is no longer a fight between left and right
This fight is between democracy and authoritarianism
under the false banner of grassroots activism
Spoken:
I don’t care if you call me woke
just because I’m actually empathetic
and care about helping people.
If that’s what woke is
then I’m all for that
I stand firm, and support where I can
I’m not giving up, I can tell you that
Verse 2:
Old parties crumble, the truth breaks through
real grassroots rising, growing fast
Misinformation, intimidation
We meet the proxies with determination
Chorus:
We are the difference
We feel the heartbeat of the nation
Independence is the difference
For democracy, for community
We protect each other – and our humanity
Bridge:
We won’t be silenced, we are on our way
We are the difference, we won’t be swayed
Bring the dark to light
Write it down, call it out
Every fear, every fight
Intimidation is a disgrace
Chorus:
We are the difference
We feel the heartbeat of the nation
Independence is the difference
For democracy, for community
We protect each other – and our humanity
[Statements by Sue Barrett: I’m here to vote, not to be bullied. Please step down. Intimidation isn’t democracy, it’s a disgrace. Why are you trying to scare voters instead of trusting them to choose for themselves? I have the right to vote for you for more harassment. Please step back!]
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
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