Getting To Better Together

In this episode of Getting to Better Together, Tami Harriott and colleague Shannon Brincat explore the intricate dynamics of global governance. They discuss its role in fostering international cooperation, resolving global issues, and building resilient futures in an interconnected world. Touching on topics like sustainability, the complexity of international regimes, and the challenges of fragmented rules, they examine the need for inclusive mechanisms and collaborative approaches to tackle global challenges effectively.

This podcast explores the concept of "a good life" and its connection to community, virtue, and sustainable development. Hosts Tami Harriott and Em Prof Richard Bawden discuss Aristotle's philosophy of happiness, the importance of collaboration, and the challenges of global inequity. They delve into moral responsibility, the loss of connectedness in modern society, and the paradox of globalisation. The conversation emphasises the hopeful notion of "getting to better together" and the need for collective action to address societal and environmental challenges.

In this insightful episode of Getting to Better Together, host Richard Borden explores the concept of development, its historical roots, and the challenges of navigating complexity in a globalized world. From the Truman Doctrine's vision of progress to the multifaceted issues of poverty, governance, and environmental change, this conversation dives into the intricacies of international development. Joining Richard is Dr. Ratan Kumar, Assistant Professor at Brac University and Adjunct Faculty at CIDSEL, who shares his anthropological perspectives on media, culture, and society. Tune in to explore how we can better understand and address the complexities of progress and development.

Language plays a critical element in the quest for getting to better together. Without the ability to share our thoughts and the meanings that we attribute to words, shared communication would be essentially impossible. Even when we are speaking the same language there are considerable difficulties in communicating exactly what meaning we are attempting to convey. When we say the word land for instance are we talking about the paddock out the back or the piece of property we own under our house? Or do we mean the nation as a whole or the entire landmass of the planet? Whenever a statement is made, be it a fact of the matter, an opinion or a wild guess, it is subject to different interpretations and even misinterpretations. We talk of information of misinformation of dis-information of mal-information of alternative truths. A very significant issue here, in our present context, is when we say better what do we mean? What constitutes better according to what criteria and who says so? These matters are profoundly complicated by the fact that there are literally thousands of different languages spoken in the world, each with its own words, pronunciations, grammar, vocabulary, and indeed processes of making meaning. As anyone who has even tried to learn a second language will know, it is quickly becomes apparent that what one can say in one language is often not translatable into another – meanings get lost in translation! In these circumstances, how do we come to understand each other at all across this Tower of Babel that is our world? Certainly a significant start would be for everyone to attempt to learn at least one other language beyond their mother tongue. In this episode, Richard pursues these matters of language and meaning with his guest, Levi Derbridge.  Dr Derbridge is a lecturer in world languages at the University of the Sunshine Coast. As a fluent speaker of Japanese, he has been involved in language education across secondary and tertiary sectors for more than 18 years in both Australia and Japan. His research explores how international mobility, language contact and technology use intersect, is currently authoring a book entitled language learning social media and study abroad: multilingual experiences of Japanese adolescents.

In this episode of Getting to Better Together, Tammy Harriet and Dr. Shannon Brincat explore the concept of Utopia. They dive into Thomas More's original idea of Utopia as both an ideal place and a fictional construct, discussing its relevance in today's world. Dr. Brincat reflects on the tension between aspirational thinking and practical action, especially in relation to political and societal change. They explore how Utopian ideals can inspire hope for a better world, despite seeming unattainable, and challenge the notion that change is impossible. Tune in for an engaging conversation on the power of visionary thinking in a world facing rapid change.

  In this episode of "Getting to Better Together," Tami Harriott and Dr. Shannon Brincat dive deep into the concept of the "good life." They explore how modern individualism, shaped by neoliberalism, distorts our understanding of a fulfilling life. Dr. Brincat challenges the dominant narrative that equates the good life with personal consumption and status, advocating for a broader, community-focused perspective. Drawing on classical Greek philosophy, they emphasize the importance of considering the good life not just for individuals, but for society as a whole, encouraging a shift towards more collective well-being. Tune in for a thought-provoking conversation on how we can redefine what it means to live a good life.

In this episode of Getting to Better Together, Tami Harriott and Declan Humphreys dive into the concept of "The Good Life." They explore how personal happiness intersects with ethical considerations and community impact. Tammy sees the good life as a balance between happiness and unhappiness, aiming for a state where one can pursue happiness without falling into unhappiness. Declan adds a philosophical perspective, referencing ancient Greek ideas of pneumonia—flourishing and living a fulfilled life. They discuss how happiness is not solely an individual pursuit but is intertwined with the well-being of others and the community. Tammy shares how her daily routine, including connecting with colleagues at a local cafe, contributes to her sense of happiness and fulfilment. The conversation emphasises the importance of considering both personal and communal aspects when reflecting on what constitutes a good life.

Leadership, it has been said, is like the Abominable snowman – its footprints are everywhere but is it never to be seen! In other words, we recognise it when we experience it, even if we can't quite put our finger on what it actually is. There is at least a half a dozen or more theories of leadership with even more descriptions of leadership styles and literally countless definitions of it. All too often the focus is on the characteristics and competencies of individuals leaders rather than on the process of leadership. Within our context of Getting to Better Together, it is perhaps best understood as a property of a group of people that, under appropriate circumstances, just emerges as a collective commitment to doing something that leads to ‘betterment'.   The best definition that we have found from this perspective is that presented by the American philosopher Julia Ciulla: Leadership is not a person or a position. It is a complex moral relationship between people, based on trust, obligation, commitment, emotion, and a shared vision of the good. Most significantly, it is a process that must be inclusive, most especially for those who so often, are not included in development initiatives which often ignore core moral issues such as lack of respect for gender equality or for the inequities of those who are disempowered because of their race, or their religious beliefs, or their age or migration status.    These matters of inclusion, empowerment and leadership lie close to the heart of Richard's guest in this episode of the podcast which he hosts from the Centre of International Development, Social Entrepreneurship and Leadership (CIDSEL) at the University of the Sunshine Coast: Jeanette Allom-Hill is the CEO of Sunshine Coast-based Lionhearted Foundation. Jeanette has held senior private sector leadership positions at Optus, NBN Australia, and Microsoft, as well as working across all levels of government, with senior roles in several government departments. After moving to the Sunshine Coast five years ago, she was group executive at the Sunshine Coast Regional Council, a role which culminated in her receiving the Telstra Business Women's Award in the Public Sector and Academia category in 2020.

One of our commonly held beliefs as Australians is that we are committed to the principles of FAIR GO. We hold that the values of equality, mutual respect, social equity, human rights, compassion, and egalitarianism, are deeply ingrained in our culture. We like to believe that we hold strongly to a set of what we see as such family values as trust, forgiveness, sharing, openness, and love. What a contradiction it was when a report published in November of last year recorded the fact that 1 in 5 Australians have experienced violence or abuse from their partners, with women twice as likely as men, to have suffered in this way. Even more horrifying was that in that same month it was reported that 58 women in this country, had been killed because of domestic violence up to that date in 2023. And 2024 is looking no different. So, what is behind the fact that more than 4 million adults in this country, have experienced physical violence, and/or emotional or economic abuse from a partner who, during the relationship, presumably expressed love for the very person they have subsequently abused or violated?  Are these statistics, aberrations from the norms of our culture – exceptions resulting from unusual social and/or economic circumstances - or have we been kidding ourselves all along, about who we really are as a community?  In this episode, Richard discusses these and related topics with Cathy Humphries who is among the most experienced and qualified people in Australia in this field. Cathy is Honorary Professor of Social Work at the University of Melbourne having recently retired from that institution with a truly outstanding record of research and engagement. Her deep commitment to researching issues of domestic violence - with a particular concern for children within this context - is matched by her insistence that her research has practical applications in the search for critically urgent improvements to these terrible situations.  

We humans are living in a period that is new in the entire history of humankind. We have essentially become a force of nature. The planet itself is being affected by our activities to such an extent that, as some scientists see it, we have been placing such unprecedented pressure on the planet, that we are facing the prospect that the Earth system might no longer support the conditions necessary for the survival of our species The signals are now virtually impossible to ignore. 2023 was the hottest year ever recorded and levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere were at an unparalleled high.  The rates at which glaciers are melting, oceans are warming, sea levels are rising and the incidence of hurricanes and cyclones, plus heat waves of extraordinary intensity, are all increasing. The accelerated rate of species extinction, the desertification and erosion of soils, the continuing loss of biodiversity and the rates of land clearing and deforestation, the increased risk of disease transmission from closer contact with wildlife, and threats of major disruptions to global oceanic currents, while less obvious, are all further amplifying the scale of the crises that we now face. With such complexity, it is no longer sensible to talk of problems but of a problematical – a complex mess of interdependent critical issues for which we can only seek sustainable improvements, not solutions. The call is for new ways of thinking and acting that are appropriate to these confronting circumstances with the usefulness of systems thinking and practices being increasingly recognised in this context. But what are these novel ways of thinking and acting? Ray Ison, who is Richard's guest in this episode, is someone who is extremely well qualified to provide insights in these domains. Ray is a very distinguished systems scholar and academic, researcher, and innovator educator. He is an Emeritus Professor within the Applied Systems and Thinking Practice group at the Open University in the UK. He has a very extensive list of publications including a number of books and has been an adviser to policymakers.  He is a past president of the International Society for the Systems Sciences among other leadership positions that he has held over the years.

  In this podcast series, we have drawn on the words of the American anthropologist, the late Margaret Mead, as a recurring inspiration for our theme of getting to better together. “Never doubt” she wrote “that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world: indeed, it's the only thing that ever has”.  Indeed, it is this belief that provides the foundation for virtually all that we do in the Centre for International Development, Social Entrepreneurship and Leadership, at the University of the Sunshine Coast. While one of the leading objectives of CIDSEL is international development, our mode of operation, in the quest for betterment, is through helping in the development of communities as groups of people who share something in common. It might be geographical location, or mutual interests and aspirations, or common values, or typically, combinations of all of these. From our own experience as well as from the experiences of others, we have come to recognise the significance of collective efforts to develop shared visions of desirable futures, to collectively establish clearly defined aims and objectives, and to identify opportunities for achieving these outcomes.  Vitally, we have come to appreciate the need for communities to mobilise their own social, natural, and financial capital resources to support practical initiatives in these development contexts where a communal spirit of enterprise can be translated into actual community business enterprises. In this episode, Richard talks with his guest Bill Mcdonnell who, in conversation, draws particularly on his own life experiences in community enterprises starting with his memories of life as a child living on a sugar cane farm in Queensland. From these foundations, he has developed a lifelong interest and very considerable involvement in capacity building through enterprise. He has been an adjunct with CIDSEL for the past 8 years. For nearly four decades prior to that, Bill followed a career in banking, with a particular focus on corporate commercial small businesses often in an international institutional context. 

There is much talk these days about the ethical challenges that generative artificial intelligence technologies pose. While most of us might be hazy about what these are, they themselves are in little doubt. A question to ChatGPT on these lines will result in a list of areas of concern that include job displacement, intellectual property, transparency, bias, and fairness. Upon reflection, there is nothing terribly unexpected here. Any one of us would recognise these matters as raising issues to do with what we consider to be morally right or wrong, or good or bad, or just or unjust. In fact, we pride ourselves in our uniqueness as a species, in this way. We believe that we are alone in our capacities to anticipate the future consequences of our actions, as well as being able to make ethical judgements about these potential outcomes.  But included in the list of ethical concerns recognised by ChatGPT about itself, as it were, is an indication of a technological self-awareness with the comment that the development and use of generative AI technologies “raises questions about the moral status and consciousness of AI systems themselves”.  Suddenly we are faced with the possibility that we have created machines that might be able to exhibit consciousness, have a conscience, and have capacities for making their own moral judgements. If this is a possibility, should we just let them do that, or should we ensure that such development is nipped in the bud?  In this episode, our host Richard Bawden discusses this and other questions about ethics and morality related to AI with his guest, Declan Humphreys.  Declan is the newly appointed Lecturer in Cybersecurity at the University of the Sunshine Coast, where he is developing research into the ethical design and use of AI. He received his PhD in philosophy from the University of New England, with a focus on the ethical impacts of new and emerging technologies. 

It has recently been announced that the University of the Sunshine Coast has been assessed by the Times Higher Education (THE) Impact Rankings, as being within the top 2% of more than 1500 universities across the globe for its performance with respect to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). It was ranked first in Queensland and sixth among all Australian institutions. Carefully calibrated indicators are used in assessment process to provide comprehensive and balanced comparison across four domains of university functions: research, stewardship, outreach, and teaching. Of the seventeen goals of sustainable development identified by the UN and published as Agenda 2030, the quality of education, climate action, zero hunger, responsible consumption and production, and life on land are among those that are specifically evaluated.  Richard's guest in this episode, Carmine Buss, is helping to lead sustainability initiatives at the University of the Sunshine Coast. Carmine is a psychology PhD student and humanitarian affairs green ambassador.  She comes to her doctoral research into environmental psychology following a truly outstanding undergraduate career, which was capped in 2021 by her receiving the Chancellor's Medal, The Student Leadership Award, and the University Medal for Academic Excellence.

The emergence of generative artificial intelligence and easily accessible large language models like ChatGPT, have the capability of challenging our self-perceptions and what we mean by intelligence, sentience, and consciousness. These new technologies have triggered major concerns that AI has or will soon have the capacity to genuinely “change everything”. And as many see it, this is extremely concerning - nothing less than an existential threat to all of humanity.  Richard's guest today, Dr Erica Mealy, is among those who are very well qualified to help us understand what is at stake here. Erica is an award winning academic at the university of the Sunshine Coast where she is a lecturer in Computer Science with a special interest in, and concern for the vital interface between AI technology and ethics. She has been writing code for more than 20 years and has become, in her own words, a ‘Technology and Design Evangelist'.  

The concept of universities engaging with communities and organisations beyond their walls, is a recurring theme throughout this podcast series. Indeed, it was the submission by the distinguished American scholar, Ernest Boyer a quarter of a century ago, that universities should become much more vigorous partners in the search for answers to the most pressing social problems of the day, that was one of the central motivations for us launching this endeavour in the first place.  To date in the series, our primary focus has been on the nature and significance of some of these most critical social, economic, and ecological issues that include climate change and the COVID-19 pandemic. To date we have placed less emphasis on the actual practicalities of the engagement process. How do individual and groups of academics actively engage with members of the public in mutually beneficial ways? How do universities as formal institutions go about developing partnerships with the communities of their region as well as with other public organisations in both the public and private sectors? In this episode we turn our attention to exploring an actual example of how this university, of the Sunshine Coast, is engaging with a wide range of community groups, commercial businesses, and other organisations and institutions. In this instance, the initiative is a specific and vital quest to contribute to the reduction in the number of suicide attempts and completions up here on the Sunshine Coast of Queensland. Richard's guest today is Mervat Quirke who is the Manager of Strategic Partnerships/Community Engagement and Development at the Thompson Institute at the University of the Sunshine Coast which is a world-class hub for research, teaching, and clinical services for Australia's most pressing mental health issues. 

At some date between August and December of this year, we Australians are going to be asked to vote in a referendum on whether we do or do not approve of altering the nation's Constitution “to recognise the First Peoples of Australia by establishing an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice”.  The issue is particularly complicated by the long history in this country of fractured relationships between the indigenous and non-indigenous peoples. It is a sobering realisation that it is only 50 years or so since a referendum was passed to recognise Aboriginal people as citizens of the Commonwealth of Australia. An extraordinary state of affairs given that the Aboriginal peoples had been living on this land for around 65 millennia whilst those issuing the edict had not even been here for one quarter of one millennium.   The situation leading to the current referendum proposal, demands reasoned discussions and debates, and clarification of points of difference. Tragically, the arguments between the supporters and the non-supporters of the current proposition, are becoming increasingly fierce. Circumstances demand the need for the clarification of misunderstandings of intentions along with the exposure of deliberate attempts to spread misinformation, disinformation, alternative facts, and fake news! Richard's guest in this episode is Tony Gleeson who is attempting to respond to these challenges. Tony certainly fits the category of a “thoughtful and committed citizen” as the farmer that he has long been. He has also had an illustrious career as a scientist with the NSW Department of Agriculture, CSIRO, and the NSW Oversees Trade Authority. He was a senior policy advisor and Chief of Staff for the Australian Minister for Primary Industries and Energy in the Hawke government. 

While the international development and leadership aspects of the title of our Centre here at the University of the Sunshine Coast are generally well-understood, the meaning of ‘the phrase in the middle' – social entrepreneurship – is less familiar to many. The word entrepreneurship itself tends to confuse the issue. Images of market-driven, profit seeking commercial enterprises in pursuit of private gain and economic growth readily spring to mind. However, the goals and purposes of social entrepreneurship are almost the opposite of these. Here the focus is on the creation of social value for the public good. Social entrepreneurs hold social concerns, often combined with environmental responsibilities, as central to their business strategies, or at least empathic sidelines.  Following the principles of a circular economy, which reflect the basic ecological processes of nature, they seek to reuse, recycle, and reduce waste to a minimum and to use some private gain to support a public good. Richard's guest in this episode is a wonderful example of one such. Robert Sinnerton works is what he refers to as the ‘business relocations business', which conventionally often involves the landfill dumping of ‘redundant' office furniture.  Reacting against such waste and recognising that such furniture was still a very valuable resource that could be reused by those in need, he saw the opportunity to provide a public good through donating the furniture to schools and other educational institutions rather than dumping it. This is his inspiring tale as he relates it in conversation with Richard.

The merest mention of Nepal evokes immediate images of the majestic grandeur of the Himalayan mountains, of precipitous gorges and mountain passes, and of course, of Mount Everest herself, the highest mountain on the planet, standing some 8.8 thousand metres above sea level. Yet tragically, this country is no paradise on Earth. Literally sandwiched between the two most highly populated and rapidly developing mega-nations, of India to the south and China to the north and east, Nepal, with some 30 million people, is one of the least economically developed nations on the planet.  It is estimated that one in four Nepalis live below the poverty line while the nation's economic growth continues to be adversely affected by political uncertainty, multi-factorial social conflict and, most significantly, by a host of natural disasters. It certainly experiences much more than its fair share of such natural disasters as earthquakes, floods, fire, drought, and landslides leading to its status as one of the most disaster-prone nations on earth.  One can only begin to imagine the scope of the challenges that these circumstances present to those in Nepal who assume responsibilities for the design, development, investment in, and maintenance of infrastructures that facilitate crucial economic development such as roads, power, information technologies, water and sanitation. Where does one even start? This was the question with which our host Richard Bawden, opened his conversation in this episode with someone who is intimately involved with precisely these matters in Nepal and who was a recent participant in a CIDSEL international short course on infrastructure development. Saumitra Neupane is a political economist specialising in policies, institutions, and markets of water and energy resources. For the past decade, he has been engaged in several research and reform initiatives in Nepal's water, energy, agriculture, and infrastructure sectors. At present, he serves as the Executive Director at Policy Entrepreneurs Inc. and is leading PEI's strategic initiative on infrastructure diplomacy.

All too often it seems, the pressing issues of the day that demand the attention of us all, are just too vast, too remote, too mind-bogglingly complex, that that attention is left wanting.  We leave it to ‘them' – to governments, corporations, our formal institutions, and so on - to fix the changing climate, the threats to world peace, the instabilities of financial systems, the loss of biodiversity and the quality of the environment. We feel overwhelmed not just by the immensity of the challenges but also by the sheer volume of the noise of information, knowledge, attitudes, opinions, mindsets and biases that fills the air of the ecosystems of the media upon which we increasingly rely for the basis of our decisions about how we should be better living our lives.  But then, on the rarest of occasions, come individuals and community groups that challenge that status quo: Inspired and inspiring people who shift the focus from the global to the local in taking informed actions that illustrate what can and should be done to right systemic wrongs. Richard's guest in this episode provides just such an inspiration. For many years, Dr John Drinan, scientist, writer, environmentalist, farmer, and genuinely concerned citizen, has, with others, been actively highlighting the many environmental, social and economic impacts of coal mining on the Hunter Valley region of New South Wales. John is the author of a recently published outstanding book, The Sacrificial Valley, in which he eloquently and passionately describes the complexities of the changes that the open mining of coal has brought to his ‘homeland' and the role that corporations and governments have played in contributing to the circumstances where: “Once-grand landscapes are gone, replaced by featureless ridges and mountainous piles of spoil, interrupted by man-made drainage lines and huge empty hole in the ground. Streams above and below ground are broken and contaminated. The air is filthy”.

In this episode, as a solo presentation, the host of our podcasts, Emeritus Professor Richard Bawden, reflects on the Mission of the mini-series and discusses some of the key challenges that have been highlighted over the past two years and 40 plus episodes of the initiative. The basic purpose of the endeavour, he argues, has been to contribute to critical public discussions about how the most pressing and complex issues of our times might be more responsibly, effectively and collectively addressed from the perspective of the continuing quest for the development of states of sustainable and inclusive well-being in an ever-changing, volatile, uncertain and complex world.  A key issue that arises in this context relates to where we can seek the trustworthy evidence that we need to support what we need to know.  How do we inform ourselves at a time in human history when in addition to the extraordinary amount of information available to us through so many different channels of media, we are also prey to so much confusing jargon, to disinformation, misinformation, fake news and alternative facts, to denialism, and plain lies and deceit?    Richard is an adjunct professor at the University of the Sunshine Coast with a long and varied history of life as an academic, mostly elsewhere, starting ‘way-back-when' as an agricultural scientist in England. Subsequently he has followed an often tortuous and turbulent path, literally across five continents, pursuing questions about how we come to know what we know, and why that is important to the way that we live our lives – or better put, how we ought to live our lives as responsible citizens of what is clearly emerging to be an all-too-vulnerable planet.      

In this episode, the general manager of CIDSEL and special guest for Richard Bawden, Tami Harriott, facilitates a conversation with four highly successful women from South Asia.

An elder in Aboriginal civilisation has been defined as someone who has gained recognition as a custodian of knowledge and lore – the customs, legends and myths that have been held for millennia. Whilst there are differences within different communities, one common trait among indigenous elders is a deep spirituality – a commitment to a worldview that, at base, means that there is more to life, and indeed to the entire universe, than ‘meets the eye', so to speak. Some meaningful connection between oneself and something much greater, that calls for a deep appreciation of oneness or wholeness and which demands the fusion or synthesis of the self with the other, of parts with wholes, of the material with the spiritual, of facts with values, of knowledge with wisdom, of actions with ethics. Do we, non-Aboriginal Australians have, within our industrial society, any equivalent role models with similar intellectual, moral and spiritual competencies? In this episode, our host Richard Bawden talks with someone who has many of the very characteristics of the sort of contemporary eldership that we should perhaps be seeking to seriously explore. David Chittelborough is a professor of pedology and biogeochemistry at the University of the Sunshine Coast and an adjunct Professor of the University of Adelaide. He is also a Baha'i, a congregant of a religion founded in the 19th century that teaches the essential worth of all religions and the unity of all people and where the essential quest is to find a unifying vision of the future of society and of nature, and the purpose of life.

In a recent solo episode in this mini-series, our host, Richard Bawden, talked of the significance of three different ways of knowing and their associated bodies of knowledge that he believes are foundational to addressing the pressing issues of this modern industrial era - ecological, economic, and ethical. These, he submitted, are critical foundations for responsible judgements in the face of current and potential challenges to our current ways of behaving in the world about us. Ecology reveals the nature and significance of inter-relationships within nature and between living systems and their dynamic environments. Economics helps us understand costs and benefits, optimal resource uses, and consumer choices, while ethics allows us to adjudge our actions from the perspective of moral concerns for the good, the just, the fair, the equitable, and the responsible. What does all of this mean in practice? Can we provide examples of where these three ways of knowing help us to at least clarify the issues, that we need to address? In this episode, Richard explores some of these matters with his guest, Dr Jane Palmer who has a very special interest in storytelling as a research methodology – an approach which revealed some profoundly disturbing issues from people living in traumatic circumstances, when she adopted it as a research methodology in Aceh in Indonesia following a catastrophic tsunami. Jane is an Adjunct Fellow at the University of Technology Sydney. Her research interests include the use of storytelling methods in post-conflict or marginalized communities to explore the processes of trauma, grief, resilience and adaptation. She has undertaken fieldwork in Indonesia and in regional and remote Australia, and has published in the areas of ethics, fieldwork methodologies, Indigenous studies and futures studies.

On March 8th we celebrate the International Woman's Day [IWD] in Australia - although it would be more accurate to state that this celebration is somewhat conditional, for there remain issues that we need to still address in this country with respect to reaching gender parity. Furthermore, as Australians, with respect to our global responsibilities as citizens of the world, we also need to contribute to the acceleration of the quest for women's equality across the entire world. There are still far too many situations which are not cause for celebration in this regard: far too many circumstances where women are far from equal in the scheme of things. And this is although International Women's Day is marked worldwide on March 8th, every year, as it has been since it started as a global event way back in the early 1900s. At CIDSEL this global responsibility is taken very seriously particularly given that the central focus of the Centre is international development – the perpetual quest for inclusive betterment within a global context. There is an explicit commitment to Embrace Equity which happens to be the specific theme for the IWD for 2023. Conceptual frameworks and specific activities for addressing what are referred to as GEDSI matters – Gender Equity, Disability, and Social Inclusion – are incorporated in every development project or program and accepted as moral duties. Richard's guest in this episode, Tami Harriott, assumes special responsibilities for GEDSI issues and has a deep commitment to GEDSI principles and practices within CIDSEL. The fact that she also the General Manager of this Centre, with profound commitments to gender issues consolidated through extensive international experience, further emphasises the importance of these dimensions to the Centre's initiatives - which of course include this podcast miniseries.

In essence, what we each ‘do' in, and to the world about us, is overwhelmingly influenced by how we each ‘see' that world: how each of us attempts to make sense of what is happening about us as a prelude for doing something in response. We refer to our ‘way of seeing' in this context, as our worldviews. These reflect complex sets of beliefs and value assumptions that we hold (but which mostly remain in our sub-consciousness). In the process of growing up, and without appreciating the details, we each discover that not everybody has same view of the world as we do. Indeed, we find out, pretty early in life as it happens, that profound differences in worldviews between us often leads to disagreements about events and ideas and opinions: just think politics and polarisation. The nature and significance of these worldviews are the topics of the conversation in this episode between our host Richard Bawden and Melanie Williams who has conducted significant research into these matters. Melanie is an Associate Professor at the William Angliss Institute in Melbourne where she is the Associate Dean with special responsibilities for Scholarship. Her primary role is to support vocational education teachers as they seek to improve their teaching and learning practice: Getting to Better Together in action!

When we hear the word ‘entrepreneurship', the image that all too often springs to mind is less than flattering, to say the least.  “The Wolves of Wall Street at work using someone else's money to make money for themselves”. “Private gain is the go and Greed is Good”. In reality of course, an entrepreneur is anyone who sets up a business - typically, an innovator and risk taker who is essentially seeking to make honest money through private, personal enterprise. There is, however, a special brand of entrepreneurship for which the objective is not private gain but public good. Social entrepreneurs seek to serve communities which are characteristically un- or underserved. The focus is on those who are typically excluded in society, the disadvantaged, the invisibles, the strugglers and so on who could, given the opportunity, be more commercially successful.   Richard's guest in this episode, Martha Joylyne Raka, is an inspirational living example of one such community-oriented social entrepreneur.  Martha is from Papua New Guinea where she works with groups of small farmers establishing collaborative partnerships and co-operatives that have the function of helping all involved to Get to Better through working Together.

Effective communication is an essential aspect of Getting to Better Together. How could we ever achieve anything if we were unable to understand each other: if we fail to agree about the meaning of anything? Yet, at the same time, communication would be virtually impossible if we paused to reflect on matters of meaning and language and understanding every time we said something to someone else. Somehow or another, we seem to muddle through conversations with relative ease once we have reached a certain level of language proficiency. To reflect on these matters might seem to be all too academic to have any consequence in our everyday worlds: yet, it is anything but, as anyone who has tried to learn a second language will most certainly have discovered. Dr Levi Durbridge, Richard's guest in this episode, has given these matters very serious consideration. Levi, who is fluent in Japanese as a second language, is Lecturer in World Languages at the University of the Sunshine Coast. He has been involved in language education across the secondary and tertiary sectors for more than 18 years in both Australia and Japan. His research explores how international mobility, language contact and technology use, all intersect with each other.

What's significant about togetherness in the pursuit of Getting to Better? Well it would seem that when we really work closely together in some form of collective or other, that we can achieve a state of group consciousness where we feel so immersed in the culture of the group – be it a commercial business, a voluntary organisation, an educational institution, a sporting team, or whatever - that we feel that we are being embraced by a sense of a collective spirit. It's not just that we are working together but that we are somehow as one, in some manner or another, that brings a special feeling to togetherness that allows us to flourish in our collective endeavours.   A sense of we are assumes an importance beyond the all too frequent, I am as a dominant feature of our culture. These fascinating matters are the subject of the conversation in this episode between our host Richard Bawden and his guest, Dr Helen Russ who has been researching into these matters and consulting with organisations from a unique We Are perspective, for a considerable length of time. Helen's investigations have included working with organisations overseas, especially Ireland and the USA as well as within Australia.

The central theme of our podcast mini-series of Getting to Better Together, is that it is only through collaboration that we will be able to deal successfully with the really pressing issues of the day. How can we trigger local community responses to matters, like climate change, that have global dimensions with local impacts? This represents a particular challenge to local governments. How are Shire Councils currently managing the necessary balance between the traditional local preoccupations (the infamous 4Rs - roads, rubbish, rats and rates) and the seemingly ever-emerging global challenges that pose real threats to local communities, like raging bushfires, floods, extreme weather events, and coastal erosions? In today's episode, our host Richard Bawden discusses how the local Noosa Council is dealing with these global/local or ‘glocal' challenges with the Mayor, Clare Stewart. Clare holds degrees in business as well as in law, including a Master of Laws and was a barrister before her marriage. She is a public speaker, a former nationally accredited mediator, and the author of an extraordinarily poignant autobiography, Standing on my Own Two Feet.

In Australia, the service industries now provide virtually four jobs out of five while our exports are dominated by primary resources from mining and agriculture. Whatever happened to our manufacturing industries? When we compare ourselves to other developed economies it would seem that we lag significantly behind them as an industrialised nation and this is in spite of many emerging opportunities. Are we too complacent to care, happy just to rely on what we have been doing successfully for the past couple of centuries or so? Do we not value innovation and entrepreneurship sufficiently to make the effort to respond to emerging industrial opportunities?  Most importantly, are our educational institutions, at all levels, failing to focus sufficiently on science and technology and on engineering and mathematics – the so-called STEM subjects - to encourage our young people to seek opportunities in secondary industries? In this episode of our podcast mini-series, our host Richard Bawden welcomes back the experienced educator Tony Richardson to discuss the nature and significance of STEM subjects, particularly in secondary education. Given the potential for the development of new technologies for renewable energies alone, Australia has abundant opportunities for coming generations of scientists, technologists, engineers and mathematicians. STEM certainly demands our urgent attention.

Over past episodes in this podcast mini-series, we have explored many of the pressing challenges of the day: Most especially the changing climate of the planet and the related global warming have focused our attention. We have talked about the key features and about the appeals by the IPCC and other international and national bodies for policies, strategies and behaviours to change our reliance on fossil fuel.  Energy and transport are two particular areas where very significant changes are possible especially through technological innovations. Richard's guest in this episode is at the heart of a good news story in Australia that is rising to precisely this challenge. Greg McGarvie, who is the managing director of the Australian Clean Energy Electric Vehicle Group (ACE EV) discusses their innovations which are providing what he refers to as a ‘door opener' for energy and transport.

On one day soon within the coming months, there will be 8 billion of we humans on this planet. Clustered across nearly 200 different nations we will all be hustling and bustling away, to survive in a world that is beset by uncertainties and complex social, economic, cultural, and ecological challenges. Given that most of these challenges have truly global dimensions, how do we rise above our own national concerns? Who will help us think and act beyond our borders? Who are our international guardians and carers?  Michael Sackett happens to be one of them and in and in his conversation with our host Richard Bawden, he shares his experiences and insights.  For more than two decades, Michael worked in increasingly senior positions with the United Nations organisation, particular within the World Food Program and in the latter part of his career, in Humanitarian initiatives mostly in Africa and Asia.

Another report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) brings another round of disturbing news about the extent to which the globe continues to warm particularly as a result of the elevated emissions of the so-called green-house gases.  As long as we continue to rely on the burning of fossil fuels as our major source of energy, the greater impact we will have on the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere - and thus the continuation of the greenhouse effect. So what is to be done?   In this episode, our host Richard Bawden, welcomes back the distinguished scientist and commentator, emeritus professor Ian Lowe. With enviable clarity, Ian not only helps us understand the science, economics and politics at the heart of the matter, but explains in detail what we could do here in Australia about dramatically reducing our emission levels though technologies that are already well developed and in use in parts of the nation already.

The central theme of this podcast series of Getting to Better Together is that it is only through collaboration that we will be able to deal successfully with the pressing issues of the day.  So how do we get together to address these issues? And how do we figure out what 'better' is in the first place? In this episode, our host Richard Bawden explores these matters from the perspective of sport as a medium for learning to collaborate in the quest for 'betterment' with his guest, Anthony Bedford. Associate Professor Bedford is an extremely well qualified and experienced commentator on such matters. He is an internationally recognised expert in sports analytics, the relevance of which to our present theme, quickly becomes evident during this fascinating interview.

One of the major impediments to progress being made in response to the dire challenges posed by climate change, seems to be our reluctance as human beings to see ourselves as part of nature. In a somewhat refreshing commentary, a new report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) released in February, suggests that major steps forward could be taken if we were to approach the issue from the perspective of social justice. To concern ourselves with fundamental questions about what it means to be human: to appeal to our better selves and to think about nature as well as about our fellow human beings from a connected context of care and empathy, ethics, and morality.  These are matters which our host, Richard Bawden, pursues with his guest in this episode, Dr Stefanie Fishel who is Lecturer in politics, international development, ecology, environmental justice, and law with special interests in climate change and biodiversity. With her broad compass of interests and expertise, it will be of no surprise that this conversation covers an extraordinary diversity of topics. These include relationships between citizens, politicians, and institutions in general, land ownership in Australia, agriculture, social justice, and indigenous ways of knowing, among others. 

In the previous episode in this series, we heard from two young women about their experiences as immigrants into this country. The context set by our host Richard Bawden, was the fact that the recording was made during Harmony Week starting 21st March. A week of celebrations of the cohesion and inclusion in Australia as a multicultural society. In this episode today, Richard talks with two other young women from different countries in the region to explore whether or not they feel included in a cohesive society and what, if anything from their personal experiences indicates that there is still room for getting to better together for the further development of an even more tolerant and culturally diverse society.

In this week we celebrate nationally what has become known as Harmony week. Established by the Howard government back in 1999, Harmony Day (the 21st March) was intended as a  celebration of cohesion and inclusion within Australian society. It was also to promote a tolerant and culturally diverse society.  In this episode we hear from two young women from different countries in the region about their experiences as immigrants into such a claimed culture - is it as good as it gets or is there still room for getting to better?

Not knowing how the future will turn out is a great challenge to those who have to educate today's children to be effective leaders in the world of tomorrow.  As the COVID 19 pandemic illustrates so poignantly, the world is likely to throw up more and more issues that are inherently complex and filled with uncertainties and even unknowables. So how do we school the young folk of today?  Richard's guest this morning is a very experienced 'old hand' at these matters. Don Maconachie, who is a Distinguished Companion of the University of the Sunshine Coast, has long been involved in educational reform from primary right through to tertiary. In this episode he shares many of the insights that he has gained from his myriad of experiences with schooling - a term which he distinguishes from education!  Reform and transformation are at the heart of his message. 

The basic assumption of getting to better together is that, when faced with common concerns, people will want to do that - or at least recognise that they (we!) need to do so. Even when these concerns are pressing, however, all too often, we simply ignore the need for communal discussion and action and hope that the proverbial ‘others' will act in our interests. Richard's guest in this episode, Professor Valerie Brown, has been attacking this dilemma as both a very distinguished researcher and a passionate activist in her long-time quest for nothing less than sustainable futures. Here she reveals a treasure trove of insights gained from that work.

The end of the year is nigh, and this calls for some reflections on our journey of Getting to Better Together over the past twelve months.  This episode is a solo effort by our host Richard Bawden. Rather than presenting a synopsis of all twenty or so episodes to date however, Richard looks for signs of betterment across three particularly pressing issues of global concern: The Covid pandemic, global warming, and the state of democracy.  He finds some room for optimism on at least two of these fronts.

At its 50th annual meeting in June 202, the World Economic Forum recognising the profound socio-economic instabilities associated with the COVID19 pandemic, argued that this presented opportunities to reset global priorities. Such a Great Reset would focus on rebuilding a more equitable resilient society in a sustainable way, based on environmental, social and governance metrics. More green public infrastructure projects would be a central feature reflecting an embrace of concerns for environmental protection and social entrepreneurship. Education would certainly feature as a central element of any such re-setting with the critical the need for new generations of leaders.  Richard's guest in this episode, is one who is accepting the challenge implicit in a resetting of education appropriate to emerging situations that will demand close collaboration between governments, corporations, institutions and the general public. Dr Tony Richardson is an educational specialist with over 30 years teaching and research experience. He currently consults with CIDSEL on educational projects, especially in Asia where he has sent a considerable proportion of his career.

When we are up to our eyes in our own crises, it is pretty difficult to appreciate the plight of others who are having to face challenges of an even greater magnitude.  Take the case of the COVID pandemic.  It is true that the wretched virus has had a very serious systemic impact on us here in Australia. At least we have been able to rely on formal support networks such as robust health and financial support systems and mature, extensive and reliable communication channels, all operating within a relatively trustworthy policy environment – even while we might disagree with certain details of the strategies that emerge from it. In this episode, Richard's guest, Dr.Jennifer Litau, a senior academic leader in Papua New Guinea, describes some of the aspects of the same pandemic as it wreaks its havoc in her country where formal support systems are all too often proving to be seriously inadequate to the devastating tasks that the disease continues to present. Under these circumstances, it is the historically effective informal systems that are providing types and levels of support that are, at least, preventing a total catastrophe from occurring. The Wantok system of reciprocal favours and obligations within extended families and beyond, is of profound significance in this regard, and Jennifer shares some of its vital features, functions and challenges, in her conversation with Richard.  

In this episode, our host Richard Bawden talks with Oliver Freeman who is a futurist and one of the pre-eminent scenario planners in Australia.  The conversation ranges over a number of issues related to the theme of developing foresight or learning from the future. This is of huge significance given the turbulence of the complex and ever-changing times in which we are living.

What each of us does in (and to) the world about us is essentially determined by how we see that world: Our behaviours and practices are functions of our perspectives which, in turn, are shaped by particular sets of beliefs and assumptions that we hold about such matters as the nature of nature, the nature of human nature, and the nature of knowledge. These foundations comprise what we refer to as our worldviews and our very lives are expressions of them. Richard's guest in this episode, Emeritus Professor Cynthia Mitchell, emphasises the tragedy that, in spite of their significance to the way we live our lives, most of us do not even know that we have worldviews, let alone think about their impact.  In a word, she argues, we are not reflexive: rarely, if ever, do we question our taken-for-granted personal assumptions even when these prove grossly inadequate to situations as we experience them. As she discusses here, this does not augur well under present and emerging circumstances in the world about us which are dictating the critical need for us to change our minds as a prerequisite for changing our ways.

As the COVID-19 pandemic continues to have such a frightening impact right across the world, it exposes very significant deficiencies, in so many different ways, to the quest of Getting to Better Together.  In the first place, there continues to be a lack of shared understanding of knowledge about the basic science of viruses and other infectious disease agents, and how they spread through communities to achieve pandemic status. Adding significantly to the complexity to the situation is an all too frequent lack of trust and respect for those public figures who are attempting to do the best that they can to get on top of the ever-evolving situation.  Richard's guest in this episode, Matthew Mason, provides some very welcome and extremely valuable explanations of matters right across this spectrum from the relatively simple biology and epidemiology of pandemics right through to their immense socio-economic, political, and public health complexity.  Matthew, an educator and researcher in public health at the University of the Sunshine Coast, is a specialist in the prevention and control of infectious diseases, in emergency management and clinical governance.  With enviable clarity, he explains the challenges presented, to policy makers in particular, by the common argument that it is either the health of the public or the health of the economy that deserves primacy.  

Scientific report after scientific report reinforces the evidence that though a host of different ways, we humans have been contributing to profound changes in the climate of our planet - or to be more precise, of the planet that we share with a myriad of other living organisms.  As Richard's guest in this episode explains, these changes, that have become increasingly apparent over the past half century or so, represent some very serious threats not just to the well-being of our own species, but to a host of other life forms on earth. Emeritus Professor Ian Lowe is one of the leading and most distinguished voices in this country and way beyond, calling for scientific evidence on climate change to be accepted and for science-informed policies and practices to be accordingly accepted and adopted.  The science is in, he emphasises, and with it, many indications of what we need, can and indeed should do to reverse the present, potentially catastrophic situation. But as he also points out, science cannot stand alone in this endeavour but must be accompanied by responsible and responsive complementary insights and practices from governments, businesses, and indeed by all of us as citizens in our quest for Getting to Better Together.

With four out of every five of we Australians now living in towns or cities, it is perhaps not surprising that we have become disconnected to nature.  The prevailing sense is that the countryside is 'out there' somewhere beyond our urban limits, only to be encountered as we drive through it on the way to holiday destinations on the coast.  Richard's guest in this episode is someone who has long been committed to doing something about this situation through education.  Professor Tonia Gray, a distinguished researcher in the Centre for Educational Research at Western Sydney University and an award-winning educator with a special focus on outdoor education.  In her conversation with Richard, Tonia explains, with considerable passion, the purpose of, and some of the methods involved in outdoor education as ways for reconnecting young people with the natural world.  A particular feature of outdoor education which she highlights is its emphasis on learning as a social activity of Getting to Better Together.

It is well known, of course, that universities teach undergraduate students, and that some of them have been doing that for literally hundreds of years.  But the modern university is much more than a teaching academy. As Emeritus Professor Robert Elliot, the guest of this episode reminds us, through their major involvement in research and other scholarly activities, they are essentially in the business of generating and sharing knowledge through community engagement as well as formal teaching. Their essential reason for being is to contribute to the betterment of society from the local to the global. And as he also emphasises, the word business is entirely appropriate here, for these days, universities are multi-million-dollar enterprises. Currently Pro-vice Chancellor for International and Quality, as well as a Professor of Philosophy, Professor Elliott has been directly involved in the business affairs of the University of the Sunshine Coast almost since its establishment in the late 1990s.

The state of the world tomorrow will belong to the youth of today. How does the current younger generation feel about that prospect? With all the current turmoil on so many social, economic, political, and environmental fronts, can today's young people be at all optimistic about the future that they will have to encounter?  Richard's youthful guest in this episode certainly thinks so.  Listening to his interview with the very talented Creole Wihongi, an International Studies and Law student at the University of the Sunshine Coast, is a truly uplifting experience.  Throughout their conversation, which ranges across a wide spectrum of contemporary issues and their potential impact on the future, Creole is delightfully and almost defiantly optimistic.    

There are very few issues more relevant or immediate to our theme of Getting to Better Together, than the food that we eat. Indeed we can argue that the quality of our food is absolutely central to the quality of our lives.  And this all starts with a concern for the way that our food is produced and distributed. These are issues that our host Richard Bawden pursues in this episode with his guest Amber Scott who not only holds to this principle with a passion, but who does everything that she can to put it into practice as a small-scale producer -and much more besides. As she reveals in her conversation with Richard, Amber is involved all the way from farm to fork in an extraordinarily innovative initiative in the Mary Valley in South East Queensland.

From time to time, something happens in the Australian political sphere that restores our collective faith in a grassroots participative democracy that places Getting to Better Together at the forefront of consideration.  Cathy McGowan's community-based election and parliamentary tenure on the crossbenches of Federal parliament from 2013-19 as the independent member for Indi in northern Victoria, provided a quite remarkable example of such an episode.  In this interview with our host Richard Bawden, Cathy shares her thoughts and critical reflections on 'doing politics differently'.