Welcome to the inaugural issue of the New Economy Journal!
Months of work in the making, it’s a great pleasure to see the Journal finally launched, and we’re incredibly happy with the quality of the pieces we have the privilege to present.
This first issue features personal stories about leaving the rat race, interviews with top federal politicians, critiques of government policy, comparisons of sex with farming, profiles of social enterprises, calls for nuanced discourse on population, poetry, the Uluru Statement from the Heart, analysis of the state of ecological economics and more.
We hope you disagree with some, take hope from others, and learn from all about how we can build a new, just and sustainable economy.
The Editors
Table of Contents
Event Report: A Farm Day Out!
Why do we have sex? Well, one reason is that it creates genetic diversity, which means, as a population, we are much less likely to be wiped out by some disease. Though asexual reproduction is much more efficient, the benefits of genetic diversity are so big that sex dominates as...
Ecological Ethics in a ‘New’ Ecological Economics
It is time for a new research agenda to examine the worldview and ethics of ecological economics. Ethics must be central to any economic theory, and, if not addressed, our economy (and society) will stay on its present, destructive course and we will be unlikely to reach a truly sustainable...
Permaculture Pedals, Part 1: My Back Story – A Bush Kid from the City
This is the first in a 4-part series (read part 2 and part 3) telling the story of Mick Crear’s decision to leave his job, and all the baggage that came with it, to pursue a simpler, richer life as a permaculturist cycling around Australia. “I’m going to ride a...
Locavore Living: Taking Back the Commons for Common Good
There’s a new story inspiring a global movement for positive change. It’s all about re-inhabiting the commons and sharing. Listen in to this special festival panel and hear how communities are re-activating neighbourhoods, co-designing, growing food commons, working and living together, and addressing the big questions with powerful local responses....
A Poem: Migrating Starlings & Journeys of Survival
It was a quiet morning walk in the Daintree Rainforest / When the silence was sliced, by their agitated screeching / Our attention arrested, we hasten our pace / To race up the tower, what could be amiss / The metallic starlings are causing a ruckus / Shiny purple and...
An interview with Andrew Leigh, Shadow Assistant Treasurer
Andrew Leigh’s book, 'Disconnected'. Photo credit: Duncan Wallace Tony Benn, the UK Labour Party MP and a key proponent of democratic socialism within the party, once said that in politics there are signposts and weathercocks. There are those who change their positions according to the winds of opinion, and those...
Food Sovereignty: A quick note on why Venezuela is in crisis
Peter Kropotkin – the Russian Prince, famed scientist and anarchist thinker – wrote, in the 1890s, that a revolution will fail if it doesn’t secure its food supply: "Bread, it is bread that the Revolution needs!" Unless this happens, “the people began to grow weary. ‘So much for your vaunted...
A Short Story About Lentil as Anything
Imagine going out to dinner with your friends in Melbourne’s St Kilda, or Sydney’s Newtown. Imagine enjoying a delicious three course meal, served to you by friendly and dedicated wait-staff. Now imagine asking that same wait-staff for the bill and being told that there is no set price to pay....
Pay the Rent, Part 1: The Uluru Statement from the Heart – Self-Determination?
Last month I attended an event on the Uluru Statement and Indigenous Self-Determination, held at Melbourne Law School. The chair of the panel was Dr Shireen Morris, the Labor candidate for Deakin at the upcoming federal election, and one of the principal architects of the First Nations Voice proposal. The...
The Health of the Murray-Darling: Reflections from a special hearing of the Australian Peoples’ Tribunal for Community and Nature’s Rights
We’ve had three full days and one half day of Public Hearings for the Citizens' Inquiry into the Health of the Darling River and Menindee Lakes. And I’m feeling so much grief from the stories that have been told that I can’t eat and I can’t sleep. Read More ...
Scott Morrison’s Population Crisis
This week Prime Minister Scott Morrison announced the Liberals’ plan for Australia’s future population. Morrison and Alan Tudge, Minister for Cities, Urban Infrastructure and Population, fronted up to the cameras with a plan to reduce Australia’s immigration intake by 30,000, from 186,000 in 2018-2019 down to 160,000.