With a record majority off a near record low primary vote, the new parliament continues the rise of new electoral coalitions, unsettling our assumptions about class, gender, race, and power.

Join our stellar panellists George Megalogenis, Frank Bongiorno, Elizabeth Humphrys, Ben Spies-Butcher, and Emily Foley for a wide-ranging discussion on the future of Australian democracy, exploring whether we’re witnessing a rupture or a realignment, and what it means for political life in Australia today.

How is the traditional party duopoly is being eroded under pressure from shifting demographics, growing economic inequality, and increasing political disillusionment?

And what happens when the working class no longer feels represented, while younger, more diverse voters don't see themselves reflected in the major parties?

This episode is brought to you by the Australian Political Studies Association in partnership with the Social and Political Sciences Discipline at the University of Technology Sydney.

Speakers

George Megalogenis is an author and journalist with over thirty years’ experience in the media, including over a decade in the federal parliamentary press gallery. His latest Quarterly Essay, Minority Report, explores the strategies and secret understandings of a political culture under pressure.

Frank Bongiorno is based at the Australian National University and author of several works of Australian history, including The Eighties: The Decade That Transformed Australia (2015) and Dreamers and Schemers: A Political History of Australia (2022). He is a Fellow of the Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia and the Australian Academy of Humanities.

Elizabeth Humphrys is the Head of Discipline of Social and Political Sciences at the University of Technology Sydney. She researches the impact of economic crisis and climate change on workers. Her book How Labour Built Neoliberalism was described in the Sydney Review of Books as a ‘tremendously important’ contribution to understanding economic change in Australia’s recent past.

Ben Spies-Butcher is an Associate Professor of Economy and Society at Macquarie University. He is the Deputy Director of the Macquarie University Housing and Urban Research Centre and Co-Director of the Australian Basic Income Lab. His most recent book is Politics, Inequality and the Australian Welfare State After Liberalisation with Anthem Press.

Emily Foley is a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Canberra and Flinders University. Her research focuses on social democratic and centre-left parties, focusing on party politics, political organisation, and participation in Australia. Her work also explores immigration policy-making and labour rights, with an interest in the intersection of democratic governance and social justice.

Impact Talks at UTS is brought to you by Impact Studios.

Drawing on his research in design for societal challenges and his leadership roles in government and civic innovation, Bason explores how design can be a driver of systemic urban change.

From Europe’s New European Bauhaus movement, which is embedding sustainability and aesthetics into the heart of policy, to the radical redesign of Copenhagen - now ranked among the world’s most liveable cities - Bason describes how design thinking can accelerate the shift toward more resilient urban systems. He also shares insights from Thoravej 29, his base of work and Denmark’s most sustainable building renovation to date, which serves as a hub for social innovation and collaboration. Together, these case studies illustrate a roadmap for global cities seeking to navigate the transition toward thriving, sustainable urban futures.

Bason's work has consistently bridged the worlds of academia, policymaking, and practice, demonstrating that sustainable transformation requires more than technology or policy alone, but also a deep cultural and design-led reimagining of how we live together in cities.

Other speakers in this episode include:

• Her Excellency Ingrid Dahl-Madsen, Danish Ambassador to Australia, New Zealand and Fiji
• Eamon Waterford, CEO, Committee for Sydney
• Dr Leanne Sobel, Adjunct Fellow at UTS Business School and Director Strategic Design at Snowmelt
• Jua Cilliers, Professor of Urban Planning and Associate Dean at UTS Faculty of Design and Society
• Prof Martin Tomitsch, Professor & Head of the UTS Transdisciplinary School | Strategic Design | Researcher in Future Technologies, Human-Computer Interaction and Responsible Innovation

This event and episode were brought to you by The Committee for Sydney and UTS.

Impact Talks at UTS is an Impact Studios podcast.

How do artistic practices challenge dominant narratives about life, nature, and control?

And if compost, tissue culture, and data can form a new cycle of life, what might that say about our future?

In this thought-provoking episode, artist and researcher Ionat Zurr delivers a keynote that traverses three decades of collaborative bio-art practice. From growing semi-living worry dolls to lab-grown meat and leather, Zurr interrogates the ethics, aesthetics, and implications of creating life in controlled environments. Her ecofeminist lens critiques patriarchal and capitalist ideologies that reduce life to code and commodify biological processes.

Stella Rosa McDonald, curator of UTS Gallery, introduces the All That Is Alive exhibition and symposium, highlighting its regenerative themes and the museum as a living system shaped by care and memory.

Aunty Rhonda Dixon Grovenor, Gadigal elder, opens the event with a powerful Welcome to Country and two evocative poems celebrating the gifts of nature—water, sun, wind, and earth—and the importance of gratitude and connection.

All That is Alive is an iterative touring exhibition co-commissioned by UTS Gallery & Art Collection and La Trobe Art Institute. It brings together 12 Australian artists and collectives working with living systems. You can visit the exhibition at the UTS Gallery until 12 December 2025.

Through deeply personal reflections and bold insights, Lorena Allam, Kate Grenville, Lindon Coombes, Mariko Smith, and moderator Robynne Quiggin unpack the emotional, political, and cultural dimensions of truth-telling. If you’ve ever wondered “Where do we begin?” or “Why does truth-telling matter now more than ever?”—this conversation is essential listening.

In this special panel hosted at UTS, moderator Robynne Quiggin is joined by: 

Lorena Allam 

A multiple Walkley Award–winning journalist descended from the Yuwaalaraay and Gamilaraay peoples of northwest NSW. Lorena has had a distinguished career at the ABC and The Guardian, where she was the first Indigenous Affairs Editor. She is now a Professor at the Jumbunna Institute for Indigenous Education and Research at UTS. Her work has focused on truth-telling in media, Indigenous rights, and the legacy of colonialism in Australia  

Kate Grenville 

One of Australia’s most acclaimed authors, Kate Grenville AO is best known for her historical novels including The Secret River, which explores the colonial frontier and its impact on First Nations peoples. Her work has won numerous awards including the Orange Prize and the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize. She has also written extensively on the writing process and Australia's colonial legacy  

Professor Lindon Coombes 

A descendant of the Yuwaalaraay people, Lindon is the Director of the Jumbunna Institute for Indigenous Education and Research at UTS. He has over 20 years of experience in Aboriginal affairs, including leadership roles in government and community organisations. His work focuses on Indigenous policy, justice, and self-determination 

 Dr Mariko Smith 

A Yuin woman with Japanese heritage, Dr Smith is the Strategic Lead, First Nations at the Australian Museum. She is a curator, academic, and interdisciplinary researcher whose work centres on Indigenous cultural resurgence, museology, and incorporating Indigenous ways of knowing into creative and academic practice. She holds a PhD from the University of Sydney 

Together, they share insights into how truth-telling can foster deeper understanding, connection, and a more just future for all Australians. 

Recorded during National Reconciliation Week at UTS 4th June, 2025

Keywords: Reconciliation, Truth-telling, Aboriginal History, Indigenous Voices, Australia, UTS, Colonialism, First Nations, National Reconciliation Week 

What are the radical challenges to trans and gender diverse rights?

And what are the joys, curiosities and possibilities of social justice focused research and truly inclusive futures?

After some decades of progress, western governments are now reversing or threatening to reverse the legal rights and recognition of trans and gender diverse people.

In this context, trans and gender diverse people are often called upon to debate their rights and access to care.

This event refocuses the lens, and brings together scholars and community members working on empowering trans communities to talk about:

• trans identities and decolonial solidarities
• queer futures in the Asia Pacific
• trans futures in the classroom, and
• the expansion of trans legal rights and medical care.

Host

Woody (Louis Walker), drag artist and UTS staff member (Education Portfolio)

Panellists

• Dr Madi Day, Lecturer, Centre for Critical Indigenous Studies, Macquarie University
• Sidhi Vhisatya, Masters candidate, artist and curator, School of Communication UTS
• Professor Anna Cody, Sex Discrimination Commissioner, Australian Human Rights Commission
• Dr Archie Thomas, UTS Chancellors Research Fellow, Social and Political Sciences
• Dr Sasha Bailey, Trans Health Research Group, University of Melbourne

This event is the Andrew Jakubowicz annual lecture.

Andrew Jakubowicz is an emeritus professor at UTS, and is one of Australia’s pre-eminent scholars of cultural diversity, multicultural communities, and racism. For over 30 years Andrew was Professor of Sociology at UTS. The UTS Andrew Jakubowicz lecture was established in 2018 in his honour. A major theme of each event is the responsibility academic researchers have in shaping public discussion of major societal issues of wide relevance.

This is a collaborative event hosted by:

• UTS Discipline of Social and Political Sciences, Faculty of Design & Society
• UTS Centre for Social Justice and Inclusion
• UTS Trans and Gender Diverse Staff Reference Group

Please note: Madi Day's speech is not included, and you can hear them in the panel discussion. For further reading on Indigenous futures, read Everywhen: against 'the power of now' by Mykaela Saunders.

Host bio 

Woody (he/him) is the self-proclaimed rootinest tootinest cowboy in the Inner West! Woody is a strong advocate for Drag King visibility and inclusion, and is passionate about sharing trans joy and making space for play and whimsy alongside our fight for trans rights. He made his debut at The Underground in 2019 as a UTS student, and has been trotting on his hobby horse around NSW ever since. 

Speaker bios

Dr Archie Thomas is a non-Indigenous scholar and transgender man who has published widely on Indigenous and LGBTIQA+ movements, histories and policy issues in Australia, with a focus on educative institutions such as the schools and media. He is a Chancellor’s Research Fellow in Social and Political Sciences at UTS. He is the lead author of Does the media fail Aboriginal political aspirations? 45 years of news media reporting of key political moments (Aboriginal Studies Press, 2020) and Yipirinya: education for self-determination (forthcoming, 2026).

Dr Anna Cody is the Sex Discrimination Commissioner, Australian Human Rights Commission. Before this, Dr Cody had a distinguished career as an academic, as a lawyer specialising in discrimination and as a passionate advocate for human rights.  Most recently she was the Dean of the School of Law and Professor at Western Sydney University for 4.5 years, leading education and research impact within the School to better reflect the diversity of the community and the intersection of law and justice.

Sasha Bailey (she/her) is a Research Fellow at University of Melbourne working across Trans Health Research Group (Department of Medicine) and Centre for Youth Mental Health (Orygen). Her program of public health research aims to improve the mental health and wellbeing of trans Australians through digital interventions and enhanced models of care.

Sidhi Vhisatya is a queer art practitioner from Indonesia, currently based in Sydney, Australia, where he is undertaking a Master by Research at the University of Technology Sydney. He has been part of the collective management of Queer Indonesia Archive (QIA) since 2020 and is working with the Bali Archive and Repository (BaliAAR). Sidhi works closely with Perwakas and the KAHE Community to explore and develop archival strategies that support and reflect the experiences of the trans community in Flores, Indonesia. His practice focuses on curating exhibitions and experimenting with methods of material collection, particularly within community-based and collaborative contexts. His broader research and artistic interests lie in storytelling and public history as critical tools for queer community engagement across Indonesia, alongside a focus on the intellectual history of Bali between 1920 and 1965.

Dr Madi Day is a trans Murri who was raised up on Dharug Ngurra where they live and work in the Blak LGBTQIA+SB community. Their work joins a tradition of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander trans people who continue the longest running protest to colonialism and carry an unbroken legacy of resistance to attacks on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, lives and systems of governance and kinship. Madi specialises in research and policy concerning Indigenous peoples, gendered violence, digital technology, and whiteness and the far right.

This discussion has been lightly edited. Produced by Impact Studios at UTS.

How has the depoliticisation of the domestic violence movement affected outcomes for women and children?

While we now understand that domestic and family violence is more than physical violence, how do we continue to recognise and not turn away from the very real physical violence that Aboriginal women experience?

What would take to build services that both prevent and respond, that are not just nonviolent in the way that we construct them, but anti-patriarchal?

What are the opportunities right now to make change?

Speakers

Ashlee Donohue: CEO of Mudgin-Gal Aboriginal Corporation, author, educator, and advocate for Domestic and Family Violence awareness

Jess Hill: Award-winning journalist, author of See What You Made Me Do, and Industry Professor, UTS Business School

Dr Anne Summers AO Professor of Domestic and Family Violence, UTS Business School

Credits

This episode has been lightly edited. Impact Talks at UTS is produced by UTS Impact Studios.

Why is Australia one of the only liberal democracies without housing rights protection?

Could a Human Rights Act help fix Australia’s housing crisis?

Everyone should have a safe, secure and healthy place to call home, regardless of your postcode or bank balance. But this is not the reality for far too many people in the community.

A new report on the right to housing commissioned by the Human Rights Law Centre and authored by Professor Jessie Hohmann from the UTS Faculty of Law, helps shifts the focus of discussion to people. 

Speakers

Cassandra Goldie: CEO of Australian Council of Social Service and Adjunct Professor with UNSW Sydney.

Professor Jessie Hohmann: is an Associate Professor at the UTS Faculty and Law, and an internationally recognised expert on the right to housing in international law.

Tania Thompson: is the founder of Golden Oldies and a housing advocate with lived experience.

Caitlin Reiger: is CEO of the Human Rights Law Centre and a human rights lawyer.

Moderator

Amy Persson: Pro Vice-Chancellor (Social Justice and Inclusion) for the University of Technology Sydney (UTS)

This event in February 2025 was hosted by the UTS Faculty of Law, Centre for Social Justice & Inclusion and the Human Rights Law Centre.

Credits

This episode has been lightly edited.

Impact Talks at UTS is produced by UTS Impact Studios, with sound engineering by Alison Zhuang. 

Is AI just a cover for data theft and surveillance capitalism?

Are we on the brink of machines outsmarting us at everything?

Keynote speaker

Professor Emily M. Bender is the co-author of The AI Con: How To Fight Big Tech’s Hype and Create the Future We Want. She was featured in TIME100's inaugural list of most influential people in AI in 2023, and is a Professor of Linguistics at the University of Washington, USA.

Emily is in conversation with Professor Carl Rhodes, Professor of Business and Society at UTS Business School and author of Stinking Rich: The Four Myths of the Good Billionaire and Woke Capitalism, with opening remarks from Professor Sally Cripps, Co-Director of the Human Technology Institute at UTS.

Credits

This episode has been lightly edited.

Impact Talks at UTS is produced by UTS Impact Studios, with sound engineering by Alison Zhuang. 

What are the origins of ESG (environmental, social and corporate governance) and what is its role today?

What is 'responsible investment' in a rapidly changing world?

How can building skills across the sector drive change?

Keynote speaker

Paul Clements-Hunt is the former head of the UN Environment Programme Finance Initiative, and coined the term ESG.

Panellists

Professor Martina Linnenluecke is Director at UTS Centre for Climate Risk and Resilience.

Gordon Noble is Research Director at the UTS Institute for Sustainable Futures.

Rachel Alembakis is Stewardship Manager at U Ethical Investors.

Nayanisha Samarakoon is Head of Policy and Advocacy at the Responsible Investment Association Australasia (RIAA).

This event was presented by UTS Business School on 27 May 2025, in collaboration with the Responsible Investment Association Australasia (RIAA) and the UTS Institute for Sustainable Futures.

Credits

This episode has been lightly edited, and the audience Q&A has been left out.

Impact Talks at UTS is produced by UTS Impact Studios, with sound engineering by Alison Zhuang. 

Following her address, Sarah is joined in conversation by celebrated author Anna Funder and economist Roy Green. Together, they reflect on the fragile state of democracy around the world and the urgent need to reimagine civic discourse, media and education in an age of misinformation.

Guests:

Sarah Churchwell

Professor of American Literature and Public Understanding of the Humanities, University of London. A leading voice on American cultural and political identity, Sarah Churchwell is the author of Behold, America and The Wrath to Come. Her work examines the myths that shape national consciousness, particularly around democracy, freedom and populism.

Anna Funder

Author of Stasiland and Wifedom. Anna Funder is an award-winning writer known for her powerful investigations into truth, memory, and authoritarianism. Her latest book, Wifedom, reframes the story of George Orwell through the lens of his first wife, Eileen O’Shaughnessy, shining new light on women’s erasure from political and cultural history.

Roy Green

Emeritus Professor, UTS; Chair, Port of Newcastle. An economist and innovation expert, Roy Green has advised governments, businesses, and universities on productivity, industry policy, and economic transformation. He is a passionate advocate for inclusive, sustainable growth and the role of knowledge institutions in democratic renewal.

Presented as part of the Vice-Chancellor’s Democracy Forum at the University of Technology Sydney.

Credits

This episode has been lightly edited.

Impact Talks at UTS is produced by UTS Impact Studios, with sound engineering by Alison Zhuang. 

Yet too often, non-Anglo names are mispronounced, altered, or avoided—reflecting lingering colonial legacies and contributing to the marginalisation of diverse identities in workplaces, schools, and community life.

In this panel discussion, community voices, academics, and thought leaders explore how respectful name recognition can foster deeper inclusion.

Panel facilitators

The event was MCed by Susana Ng, City of Sydney Multicultural Development Officer, Sand the panel was facilitated by Dr Elaine Laforteza and Dr Zozan Balci from UTS

Dr Elaine Laforteza has a PhD in Cultural Studies. She is the Equity and Diversity Project Officer (Cultural Diversity) at the UTS Centre for Social Justice & Inclusion. She has held academic positions at Macquarie University, Charles Sturt University, and most recently in the School of Communication at UTS. Her work has been published in peer-reviewed academic journals and community media, and her book ‘The Somatechnics of Whiteness and Race’ is available through Routledge.

Elaine hosts SBS’s award-winning podcast, ‘My Bilingual Family’, and is also an emerging playwright, producing plays for various festivals in Sydney.

Dr Zozan Balci is an academic and sociolinguist in the School of Communications. An expert in life history interviewing, she excels at transforming research into powerful storytelling that resonates with a broad range of audiences.

As a passionate social justice advocate, she connects researchers and students with real-world issues for social change, earning multiple awards for her work with not-for-profits and community organisations through the Centre for Social Justice and Inclusion. Her new book, ‘Erased Voices and Unspoken Heritage’ is available through Routledge.

Speakers

Jie Pittman is a proud First Nations cultural educator, entrepreneur, and storyteller from the Gadigal-Darug, Murramurang/Budawang Dhurga-Yuin, Kooma, Wiradjuri, and Ngemba nations. As CEO of Jie Pittman Pty Ltd, he leads nationally recognised programs such as the 10 Elements Cultural Exchange and the Liven Deadly Program, which embed Aboriginal cultural identity and healing into education, government, and corporate spaces.

Jie brings lived experience and a deep understanding of the power of names as anchors of belonging, resilience, and intergenerational strength. His contribution to Say Our Name offers a decolonised lens on how name recognition can restore dignity, strengthen community identity, and create culturally safe spaces across schools, workplaces, and society.

Koon Lai is an executive coach and leadership facilitator with over two decades of experience with PwC. A seasoned executive, she brings deep lived experience to her transformative coaching, equipping culturally diverse leaders with the skills, strategies, and confidence to navigate and excel in the Australian workplace.

A leading voice on cultural inclusion, Koon’s thought leadership has resonated with millions on LinkedIn. Beyond her work, she is a proud mum of three boys and deeply connected to her Malaysian-Chinese heritage.

Kyriakos Gold is one of Australia’s leading voices in social enterprise, platform strategy, and inclusive public design. He is the founder and CEO of Just Gold, Australia’s first certified social enterprise creative agency and consultancy, and Chair of the Aurum Foundation.

His initiatives—including Autistic Pride Day, the Think platform, and inclusive governance frameworks—have shaped how governments, business, and communities engage with public impact. Kyriakos was inducted into the Victorian Multicultural Honour Roll and received a commendation from the NSW Parliament. A former journalist and non-practising lawyer, he translates systems thinking into visibility, policy impact, and nationally recognised change.

Say My Name initiative and documentary

The Say My Name initiative developed by the University of Technology Sydney (UTS) seeks to decolonise name recognition through correct pronunciation, cultural understanding, and everyday respect.

Watch the full documentary on Youtube: http://bit.ly/4e6cPDr

This episode was recorded at Customs House on 11 June 2025. The event was presented by UTS and the City of Sydney. This partnership is part of the City of Sydney’s social cohesion program, which aims to build a more inclusive and connected city.

Credits

Event recording by Zacha Rosen.

This episode has been lightly edited, including some introductory speeches and some of the Welcome to Country shortened.

Impact Talks at UTS is produced by UTS Impact Studios, with sound engineering by Alison Zhuang. 

Alison Page is really obsessed with training up a new generation of Aboriginal designers and that’s been a driving force behind her book, Design and Building on Country: First Knowledges for Younger Readers, co-authored with anthropologist and architect Paul Memmott.

It’s a rework of Design and Building on Country, published in 2021 as part of Thames & Hudson’s First Knowledges series.

In this short talk, hear...

• How did lego get Alison into design?
• What does it mean to design with Country?
• How can design be used as a form of storytelling and knowledge-keeping?
• What does 'form follows Country' mean in the context of design education?
• What is 'biomimicry' and how did First Nations people use it in design?
• How can traditional Aboriginal design principles be applied in contemporary Australian architecture and urban planning?
• How can design reconnect people with a sense of belonging and community?

Alison then talks Dillon Kombumerri, a principal architect and co-creator of the 'Connecting with Country' framework. They discuss the growth of Indigenous presence in design, the challenges of integrating cultural principles into urban settings, and the importance of designing for both cultural expression and environmental sustainability.

Speakers

Alison Page is a First Nations artist, designer and filmmaker who co-creates with Aboriginal communities, organisations and cultural practitioners, to bring the power of Indigenous storytelling to public spaces primarily to awaken the memory of Country.

Hailing from Yugambeh and Quandamooka Country, Dillon Kombumerri is a Professor of Practice at the Cities Institute. He is also Principal Architect for the Government Architect NSW and has over 30 years of experience bringing his own unique indigenous perspective to re-imaging the built environment.

Credits

This episode was recorded at UTS House as part of SXSW Sydney 2024.

UTS House at SXSW Sydney 2024 explored future trends and emerging technology from leading academics and industry experts in a series of interviews and panel discussions across the week.

Impact Talks at UTS is produced by UTS Impact Studios, with sound engineering by Alison Zhuang. 

How can companies foster inclusive cultures during periods of growth?

Panelists share their journeys and offer insights on navigating the complexities of entrepreneurship, advancing diversity, equity, and inclusion and responding to current societal shifts.

Speakers

Famey Williams (Githabul), Chief Executive, Aboriginal Housing Office. Famey has over 18 years’ experience working with Aboriginal communities across NSW Government and non-profit sectors, her community and culture serve as a barometer in her roles and she looks to bring that lens to all her interactions professionally.

Gunjan Wadhwa, Co-founder of Astra Health AI. Gunjan has over 10 years of experience across the Technology, Financial Services, Consulting, and Healthcare industries. At Astra Health AI, their mission is to transform the healthcare experience with the power of AI for the better. They are passionate about making it more streamlined and centred around patients.

Heather Thomson, Chief Operating Officer, Global Sisters. Heather’s 25-year professional career has been dedicated to social and economic justice for women. At Global Sisters, she works to scale impact, supporting thousands of women to reach their full economic potential & create a ripple effect of change in their family, community and society.

Adama Kamara, Founder of Just Shea, a skincare brand that uses African botanicals in its formulations and draws deeply from her West African heritage. She has a social background in social services and is a member of the organizing committee for the Africultures Festival, Australia's largest African arts and cultural festival. She is also the Deputy Chief Executive Officer of the Refugee Council of Australia. 

Gabriella Maselli McGrail, Director & Producer, Maselli Film. Gabriella's filmmaking approach empowers creatives through collaboration, reflecting her dynamic career and commitment to championing women.

The panel is chaired by Dr Claire Wright, lecturer and business historian at the UTS Business School teaching and researching Australian corporate networks, governance and diversity in leadership.

Credits

Impact Talks at UTS is produced by UTS Impact Studios, with sound engineering by Alison Zhuang. 

This global trend casts children as brand ambassadors but with their ‘everyday life’ as the show. 

• What's the risk of harm to kid influencers?
• Can children consent to their private life being readily available online?
• How do we draw the line between play and labour?
• What is 'playbour'?
• When a guardian controls the 'talent', how do children access income?
• If you're a guardian of a kidfluencer, or a parent sharing content about your kids, what practical things can protect their privacy on social media?

Speakers 

Dr Genevieve Wilkinson, senior lecturer in the Faculty of Law, University of Technology Sydney. 

Kate Delmo, Head of Discipline for Strategic Communication in the School of Communication, Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, University of Technology Sydney. 

Stephanie Scicchitano, PR expert from Born Bred Talent

Chantel Mila Ibbotson, content creator 

This episode was recorded at UTS House as part of SXSW Sydney 2024.

UTS House at SXSW Sydney 2024 explored future trends and emerging technology from leading academics and industry experts in a series of interviews and panel discussions across the week.

Impact Talks at UTS is produced by UTS Impact Studios, with sound engineering by Alison Zhuang. 

Professor Anne Summers AO’s new report, The Cost of domestic violence to women’s employment and education, quantifies the financial impact on women for the first time.

This report builds on her groundbreaking previous report, The Choice: Violence or Poverty.

Professor Summers presented the grim findings that show the experience of domestic violence is responsible for women’s lower labour force participation rate, and for students dropping out of university without completing their degrees. Both have significant implications for women’s longer-term financial well-being.

In this session, Professor Summers and Jess Hill discussed the implications of these findings for women’s progress towards full equality, and what they mean for our continuing struggle to reduce domestic violence.

This event was hosted by the UTS Business School and Centre for Social Justice & Inclusion.  Watch a video recording of the event.

Speakers

Anne Summers AO is currently Professor of Domestic and Family Violence at the University of Technology of Sydney Business School. She has been awarded substantial funding by the Paul Ramsay Foundation and UTS to continue her innovative data-based research into domestic violence in Australia. Her report, The Choice: Violence or Poverty (2022), used previously unpublished ABS data to reveal the far greater prevalence of domestic violence than was previously known, and especially the shockingly high incidence among women who have become single mothers as a result. The report influenced the federal government to make changes in the 2023 federal budget to the payment system for single mothers, enabling these mothers to remain on the Parenting Payment until their youngest child reaches the age of 14.

Previously, Anne has advised Prime Ministers Bob Hawke and Paul Keating, run the Office of the Status of Women, been Canberra Bureau Chief for the Australian Financial Review newspaper, been editor-in-chief of America’s leading feminist magazine Ms., editor of Good Weekend, chair of the Board of Greenpeace International and a Trustee of the Powerhouse Museum. She was appointed an officer of the Order of Australia for her services to journalism and to women in 1989; had her image on a postage stamp as an Australian Legend in 2011 and in 2017 was inducted into the Australian Media Hall of Fame.

Jess Hill has become one of Australia's most recognised and respected thinkers on gendered violence. In addition to her broadcast work - two highly acclaimed docuseries on SBS, a Quarterly Essay titled The Reckoning, and a podcast series on coercive control titled The Trap - she has spoken at almost 400 events to diverse audiences across the country. Her work has received multiple awards, including two Walkley Awards, an Amnesty International Award and the Stella Prize in 2020. In 2023, she was named the marie claire Changemaker of the Year and in 2024, she was awarded the NSW Premier’s Woman of Excellence.

Credits

Sound engineering by Alison Zhuang.

Impact Talks at UTS is produced by Impact Studios.

In this episode of Impact Talks at UTS, a panel of experts explores the challenges organizations face in driving this shift.

Speakers

Catherine King is the Chief Strategy Officer at Leo Burnett with over 20 years of advertising experience that focuses on the intersection of brand building, human behaviour, culture and influence. To develop this perspective, Catherine has held leadership positions with creative, consulting, strategic, PR and digital teams across both multinational and independent agencies in partnership with a broad range of brands that include Suncorp, Destination NSW, Diageo, Royal Caribbean, Sony, Microsoft and Nestle. In her role at Leo Burnett, Catherine leads an ongoing research study called "What good is doing good", affectionately known as the "Good Study", which aims to better understand the role that brands should and could play in the areas of public interest, encompassing human, social, environmental and financial impact.

Nicky Sparshott is an experienced CEO, Board Director, and Change Agent with 30 years of global experience working in leading blue-chip organizations such as Unilever, Coca-Cola, and Procter & Gamble. Most recently, she was the Global Chief Transformation at Unilever, designing and deliver value creating change initiatives across the enterprise with a focus on organisational design, performance culture & portfolio optimisation. Prior to this appointment, Nicky was CEO of Unilever Australia & New Zealand and Global CEO of luxury retailer, T2 Tea.

Nicky also serves on a few Boards - Chair of the University of Technology’s Industry Advisory Board; Chair of Global Sisters, Non-Executive Director for the World Wildlife Fund (WWF), and NED on Moose Toys Advisory Board. She is known for building competitive advantage in business by being a force for good; simultaneously delivering economic, environmental and social outcomes and in 2022 was awarded CEO of the Year by CEO Magazine for consistent delivery of business outcomes whilst spearheading transformative ESG programs - bringing together profit & purpose.

Siobhan Toohill is a Sustainability advisor having established and led sustainability functions in listed finance and property over the past 20 years. As the first chief sustainability officer at a major Australian bank, she was responsible for Westpac’s sustainability strategy, as well as policy and action on climate change including net zero transition planning, natural capital and human rights. Siobhan has led a wide range of initiatives, including customer vulnerability (including problem gambling), Indigenous engagement, child safeguarding, strategic philanthropy and social impact and is currently a trusted advisor to business and government through a range of governance roles.

John Lydon is Co-Chair of Australian Climate Leaders’ Coalition, a member of the NSW Net Zero and Clean Economy Board, Chair of Generation Australia, and serves as an Industry Professor at the University of Technology, Sydney Business School. Previously he was the Managing Partner of McKinsey Australia & New Zealand, holding several roles across the global Firm. John also served as Economic Commissioner of Greater Cities Commission from 2021-2023.

Professor Martina Linnenluecke is an internationally recognised scholar who conducts research on the strategic and financial implications of corporate adaptation and resilience to global environmental change, with a specific focus on the impacts of climate change. Professor Linnenluecke is the Director of the UTS Centre for Climate Risk and Resilience where she leads an interdisciplinary team of experts undertaking work on climate adaptation and resilience, decarbonisation, sustainable finance, climate analytics, metrics, targets and disclosure, and well as climate policy responses. 

Credits

Sound engineering by Alison Zhuang.

Impact Talks at UTS is produced by Impact Studios.

In this episode of Impact Talks at UTS, the UTS Business School launches its new centre Change for Good with an expert panel discussion addressing the question:

What are the biggest behaviour and social change challenges facing Australia now and into the future?

Speakers

Host and moderator, Professor Ross Gordon, Director of Change for Good at UTS - a Research Centre focused on transdisciplinary behaviour and social change for social good.  

Ross is an interdisciplinary behaviour and social change activist with degree qualifications in marketing, public policy, and politics and history. He researches social issues and behaviour and social change, through a critical, reflexive, and multi-perspective lens. Ross served on the inaugural WHO Technical Advisory Group on Behavioural Insights and Sciences for Health from 2000-2024 and is currently serves as an observer for the group. He works on various behaviour and social change issues including gambling, non-communicable diseases, Covid-19, energy hardship and energy efficiency, climate action and environmental sustainability, alcohol, tobacco control, mental health, childhood obesity, workplace bullying, and power and politics in the neoliberal university. Ross has been a principal or named investigator on projects attracting over $9.2m in research funds. He has published over 120 academic journals, book chapters and conference papers and a leading book: Strategic Social Marketing: For Behaviour and Social Change published by SAGE.

Professor Maria Raciti, Co-Director, Indigenous and Transcultural Research Centre at University of Sunshine Coast.

Professor Maria Raciti (Kalkadoon-Thaniquith-Bwgcolman) is a social marketer who uses marketing tools and techniques to bring about social justice and behaviour change. Professor Raciti is co-founder and co-director of the UniSC Indigenous and Transcultural Research Centre, co-leader of the education and economies theme in the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Indigenous Futures, a member of the executive of the Australian Association of Social Marketing, board member of International Social Marketing Association, the 2018 Research Fellow with the National Centre for Student Equity in Higher Education and was part of an Australian Government departmental task force assisting with the 2019 National Regional Rural and Remote Tertiary Education Strategy.

Estelle Grech, Policy Manager at the Committee for Sydney

Estelle is an urban planner, passionate about improving social equity in cities. With experience in local government, consulting, and as a senior advisor in the NSW Government, she now leads planning and housing policy at the Committee for Sydney. A Churchill Fellowship recipient, Estelle recently travelled to over 13 cities across Europe and the US to research how to design better cities for women and girls. She has worked on a wide variety of projects, from community and cultural strategies to affordable housing studies, and has overseen the development of initiatives such as the Safer Cities program, Greater Sydney Parklands and policies to increase women in construction.

Belinda Duckworth, Australian Association of Social Marketing

Belinda is a dedicated public health marketer and health promotion professional with 25 years of experience across national, state, and local health district levels. With an early career as an Occupational Therapist in both community and hospital settings, both in Australia and internationally, Belinda brings a deep understanding of consumer and stakeholder engagement. Belinda also serves as a board member of the Australian Association of Social Marketing Management Committee.

Sound engineering by Alison Zhuang.

Impact Talks at UTS is produced by Impact Studios.

In a patriarchal system, women’s relationships transform into a role – Mother. Wife. – that erases their individuality and signs them up to a motherload of unpaid labour.

In Australia, women do more than nine hours more unpaid work and care each week than men, and do more unpaid housework than men even when they are the primary breadwinner.

Nowhere in the world is this trend reversed.

Women’s domestic labour upholds households and economies but is too often devalued and unacknowledged.

It’s a bargain few people, including men, want to be part of. Yet it stubbornly persists.

The event will also feature panel discussion with A/Prof Ramona Vijeyarasa and Prof Peter Siminski, where our speakers will share insights and expertise on how we can move towards more equitable models.

This event is co-hosted by the UTS Centre for Social Justice & Inclusion and the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences. 

Keynote speaker

Dr Anna Funder is one of Australia’s most acclaimed and awarded writers. Her books Stasiland and All That I Am are prize-winning international bestsellers and translated into many languages. Her book, Wifedom, is hailed as a ‘masterpiece’ and was chosen as a Notable Book of 2023 by the New York Times and a Book of the Year by The Times, The Economist, the Financial Times, the Daily Telegraph (UK) and The Telegraph (UK). Anna’s signature works tell stories of courage, resistance, conscience and love, illuminating the human condition in times of tyranny and surveillance. Anna is a University of Technology Sydney Luminary and Ambassador.

Panellists

Associate Professor Ramona Vijeyarasa is a legal academic and women’s rights activist. She is the Chief Investigator behind the Gender Legislative Index, a tool designed to promote the enactment of legislation that works more effectively to improve women’s lives. Ramona’s academic career as a scholar of gender and the law follows ten years in international human rights activism, which has informed her impact-driven approach to research.

Professor Peter Siminski is an applied microeconomist. He has over 20 years of policy-oriented research experience and is the Head of the Economics Department at UTS. Peter’s work applies modern impact evaluation techniques to estimate the effects of Australian Government policies and programs on people’s lives. The measurement of inequality and intergenerational economic mobility is a key theme of his work.

Amy Persson (MC and moderator) is the interim Pro Vice-Chancellor (Social Justice and Inclusion) at UTS. Amy is a public policy specialist who has worked across the private, public and not for profit sectors and was Head of Government Affairs and External Engagement at UTS. Previously, she held Senior Executive roles in the NSW Department of Premier and Cabinet and also ran the Behavioural Insights Unit and Office of Social Impact.

Sound engineering by Alison Zhuang.

Impact Talks at UTS is produced by Impact Studios.

Keynote Speech Transcript

It is a great honour for me to be standing here today with my colleagues, friends, and all of you at this great university. I thank Vice-Chancellor Andrew Parfitt, Interim Pro Vice-Chancellor Amy Persson and her predecessor, Professor Verity Firth, for this opportunity, and I am very much looking forward to the discussion with Associate Professor Vijeyarasa and Professor Siminski. 

I am part of a generation before pointy, painted nails and false eyelashes were standard glamour. I have a wardrobe of fairly androgynous suits in different colours – blue, red, white, green – my husband says I dress like a Wiggle. But today, I stand before you in this extremely uncharacteristic bubblegum pink dress doing something I never imagined I’d do in my life: channelling Barbie. Less the doll, more the movie. Let me tell you how this happened. 

Last year, my UK tour for WIFEDOM started with a publishing team lunch. I was extremely jetlagged but had to stay awake for an evening event, I took myself off to see BARBIE. Afterwards, I walked straight out of the cinema and, in an act of mad, sleep-deprived solidarity, bought this shiny pink number. I’ve been looking for an opportunity to wear it ever since. Today’s the day.

Barbie is a work of genius. Part of its cleverness is that the movie posits two worlds. 

One, in which Barbies (women) can be anything they choose to be. They are supreme court judges and park rangers, doctors and barristers and presidents, dentists and pilots and plumbers. 

And another, the real world, represented by contemporary LA, where men are central and women are peripheral. In the real world men run the corporations and the country; they have most of the power and most of the money and most of the leisure time. When Ken, who comes to the real world with Barbie, quietly asks a businessman if patriarchy is still working as well as it did here before #MeToo, the man leans in and whispers, ‘We’re doing it well, just hiding it better.’ 

Men working on a building site feel entitled to humiliate Barbie as she passes by, just for fun and to make sure she knows her place in this world. This is the kind of frontline, basic abuse that is the most obvious way that patriarchy tells us, loud and clear, on the street or in the boardroom that men are central and powerful, and women are to be defined by them, in their interest. 

In our world, Barbie comes to feel ‘ill at ease, conscious … but it’s my self that I’m conscious of’, she says. She feels ‘a definite undertone of violence’ and ‘a sense of fear … though without any specific object’. A school mum explains this that this is the normal feeling of anxiety being a woman involves, as we are overloaded and responsible for so much, though relatively powerless in the wider world.

Ken says, ‘I feel amazing.’

One of the reasons I never had a Barbie doll was that my mother was a feminist. In our household, we thought that things were getting better for women and girls. Indeed, my mother’s work as a research psychologist contributed to changes in Australia’s taxation system so that divorced fathers would contribute to the financial support of their children. We assumed that the Barbie world, where women would be central to themselves and able to do anything, was coming, at least to our progressive, rich, post-Whitlam corner of the planet, pretty soon.

A full house in the Great Hall for International Women's Day 2024.

But it has not come. Yet.

People at this great university and many others, in think tanks and governments all around the world are occupied with this question. We know that the world needs the talents and time of women to be a just place, as well as to improve our nations’ economies, while looking after the planet. We see progress in women’s equality going forward by some measures, though stalling or going backward in others. 

When I was a little girl in the 1970s and a teen and then a student in the 1980s, it would never have occurred to me that the male idea of the world would express itself in tsunamis of anonymous, horrifying and pathetic misogyny online, expressing the terror that being male will cease to mean being superior to a woman.

Or that pornography would become about choking and doing other things to women that cannot be about pleasure or love, but plainly about pain and submission. 

Or that poverty, globally, would be predominantly female.

Or that Chanel Contos, who was not a gleam in her parents’ eye, would have her work cut out for her calling out a culture of sexual assault among the most privileged gilded youth of the nation. 

Or that there would be such a thing as a gender pay gap in the 2020s, let alone in many industries, one of nearly a quarter of pay difference, double if you include bonuses. 

Or that women would continue, by powerful, unspoken social expectation, backed by punitive tax measures and a privatised childcare system, to bear the burden of being both unsung CEO and labour force in the home: generally doing double the work of life and love and care that keeps families going. And all this, right here, in what is by many measures the richest but at the same time one of the fairest countries on the planet.  

In WIFEDOM, I also examined another world, the one of the marriage of Eileen O’Shaughnessy and George Orwell 80 years ago. It was fascinating to me how the work of a brilliant, highly educated woman could be,]]>Anna Funder, award-winning writer and author of Wifedom: Mrs Orwell's Invisible Life, unpacks how the patriarchy continues to maintain the status quo – using the extraordinary lives of Eileen O’Shaughnessy and George Orwell, and her thoughts on the 2023 hit movie Barbie.

In a patriarchal system, women’s relationships transform into a role – Mother. Wife. – that erases their individuality and signs them up to a motherload of unpaid labour.

In Australia, women do more than nine hours more unpaid work and care each week than men, and do more unpaid housework than men even when they are the primary breadwinner.

Nowhere in the world is this trend reversed.

Women’s domestic labour upholds households and economies but is too often devalued and unacknowledged.

It’s a bargain few people, including men, want to be part of. Yet it stubbornly persists.

The event will also feature panel discussion with A/Prof Ramona Vijeyarasa and Prof Peter Siminski, where our speakers will share insights and expertise on how we can move towards more equitable models.

This event is co-hosted by the UTS Centre for Social Justice & Inclusion and the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences. 

Keynote speaker

Dr Anna Funder is one of Australia’s most acclaimed and awarded writers. Her books Stasiland and All That I Am are prize-winning international bestsellers and translated into many languages. Her book, Wifedom, is hailed as a ‘masterpiece’ and was chosen as a Notable Book of 2023 by the New York Times and a Book of the Year by The Times, The Economist, the Financial Times, the Daily Telegraph (UK) and The Telegraph (UK). Anna’s signature works tell stories of courage, resistance, conscience and love, illuminating the human condition in times of tyranny and surveillance. Anna is a University of Technology Sydney Luminary and Ambassador.

Panellists

Associate Professor Ramona Vijeyarasa is a legal academic and women’s rights activist. She is the Chief Investigator behind the Gender Legislative Index, a tool designed to promote the enactment of legislation that works more effectively to improve women’s lives. Ramona’s academic career as a scholar of gender and the law follows ten years in international human rights activism, which has informed her impact-driven approach to research.

Professor Peter Siminski is an applied microeconomist. He has over 20 years of policy-oriented research experience and is the Head of the Economics Department at UTS. Peter’s work applies modern impact evaluation techniques to estimate the effects of Australian Government policies and programs on people’s lives. The measurement of inequality and intergenerational economic mobility is a key theme of his work.

Amy Persson (MC and moderator) is the interim Pro Vice-Chancellor (Social Justice and Inclusion) at UTS. Amy is a public policy specialist who has worked across the private, public and not for profit sectors and was Head of Government Affairs and External Engagement at UTS. Previously, she held Senior Executive roles in the NSW Department of Premier and Cabinet and also ran the Behavioural Insights Unit and Office of Social Impact.

Sound engineering by Alison Zhuang.

Impact Talks at UTS is produced by Impact Studios.

Keynote Speech Transcript

It is a great honour for me to be standing here today with my colleagues, friends, and all of you at this great university. I thank Vice-Chancellor Andrew Parfitt, Interim Pro Vice-Chancellor Amy Persson and her predecessor, Professor Verity Firth, for this opportunity, and I am very much looking forward to the discussion with Associate Professor Vijeyarasa and Professor Siminski. 

I am part of a generation before pointy, painted nails and false eyelashes were standard glamour. I have a wardrobe of fairly androgynous suits in different colours – blue, red, white, green – my husband says I dress like a Wiggle. But today, I stand before you in this extremely uncharacteristic bubblegum pink dress doing something I never imagined I’d do in my life: channelling Barbie. Less the doll, more the movie. Let me tell you how this happened. 

Last year, my UK tour for WIFEDOM started with a publishing team lunch. I was extremely jetlagged but had to stay awake for an evening event, I took myself off to see BARBIE. Afterwards, I walked straight out of the cinema and, in an act of mad, sleep-deprived solidarity, bought this shiny pink number. I’ve been looking for an opportunity to wear it ever since. Today’s the day.

Barbie is a work of genius. Part of its cleverness is that the movie posits two worlds. 

One, in which Barbies (women) can be anything they choose to be. They are supreme court judges and park rangers, doctors and barristers and presidents, dentists and pilots and plumbers. 

And another, the real world, represented by contemporary LA, where men are central and women are peripheral. In the real world men run the corporations and the country; they have most of the power and most of the money and most of the leisure time. When Ken, who comes to the real world with Barbie, quietly asks a businessman if patriarchy is still working as well as it did here before #MeToo, the man leans in and whispers, ‘We’re doing it well, just hiding it better.’ 

Men working on a building site feel entitled to humiliate Barbie as she passes by, just for fun and to make sure she knows her place in this world. This is the kind of frontline, basic abuse that is the most obvious way that patriarchy tells us, loud and clear, on the street or in the boardroom that men are central and powerful, and women are to be defined by them, in their interest. 

In our world, Barbie comes to feel ‘ill at ease, conscious … but it’s my self that I’m conscious of’, she says. She feels ‘a definite undertone of violence’ and ‘a sense of fear … though without any specific object’. A school mum explains this that this is the normal feeling of anxiety being a woman involves, as we are overloaded and responsible for so much, though relatively powerless in the wider world.

Ken says, ‘I feel amazing.’

One of the reasons I never had a Barbie doll was that my mother was a feminist. In our household, we thought that things were getting better for women and girls. Indeed, my mother’s work as a research psychologist contributed to changes in Australia’s taxation system so that divorced fathers would contribute to the financial support of their children. We assumed that the Barbie world, where women would be central to themselves and able to do anything, was coming, at least to our progressive, rich, post-Whitlam corner of the planet, pretty soon.

A full house in the Great Hall for International Women's Day 2024.

But it has not come. Yet.

People at this great university and many others, in think tanks and governments all around the world are occupied with this question. We know that the world needs the talents and time of women to be a just place, as well as to improve our nations’ economies, while looking after the planet. We see progress in women’s equality going forward by some measures, though stalling or going backward in others. 

When I was a little girl in the 1970s and a teen and then a student in the 1980s, it would never have occurred to me that the male idea of the world would express itself in tsunamis of anonymous, horrifying and pathetic misogyny online, expressing the terror that being male will cease to mean being superior to a woman.

Or that pornography would become about choking and doing other things to women that cannot be about pleasure or love, but plainly about pain and submission. 

Or that poverty, globally, would be predominantly female.

Or that Chanel Contos, who was not a gleam in her parents’ eye, would have her work cut out for her calling out a culture of sexual assault among the most privileged gilded youth of the nation. 

Or that there would be such a thing as a gender pay gap in the 2020s, let alone in many industries, one of nearly a quarter of pay difference, double if you include bonuses. 

Or that women would continue, by powerful, unspoken social expectation, backed by punitive tax measures and a privatised childcare system, to bear the burden of being both unsung CEO and labour force in the home: generally doing double the work of life and love and care that keeps families going. And all this, right here, in what is by many measures the richest but at the same time one of the fairest countries on the planet.  

In WIFEDOM, I also examined another world, the one of the marriage of Eileen O’Shaughnessy and George Orwell 80 years ago. It was fascinating to me how the work of a brilliant, highly educated woman could be, apparently, invisible to her husband at the same time as it was, intellectually and practically, indispensable. Eileen kept George going domestically, supported him financially, saved his life in the Spanish Civil War, had the idea for Animal Farm as a novel, which she worked on with him each day, making it, he thought, the best of his books. But he never felt the need to acknowledge her in any way, and nor, really, did his biographers after him.

As a writer, the unseen work of a great writer’s wife fascinates me. But as a woman and a wife, her life terrifies me. I recognise in it a life-and-death struggle between maintaining herself and the self-sacrifice and self-effacement so lauded of women in patriarchy, which are among the base mechanisms by which our work and time, which are indispensable, are made invisible. 

Time is valuable, because it is finite. So, as with all other finite commodities, there is an economy of time. Time can be traded, bargained for, snuck and stolen. A weekend is finite – as any parent trying to juggle space and a portion of time within it with a spouse will tell you. A life is finite. Access to time, as to any other valuable good, is gendered. One person’s time to work is created by another person’s work in time: the more time he has to work, the more she is working to make it for him. To examine a marriage of eighty years ago involves the faux-comfort of distance (surely we are more evolved than that?) along with a frisson of horror: things have not changed nearly enough. 

Every society in the world is built on the unpaid or underpaid work of women. If it had to be paid for, it would cost, apparently, US$10.9 trillion. But to pay for it would be to redistribute wealth and power in a way that might defund and de-fang patriarchy. 

How is it that all this work, so indispensable, can be invisible? One reason is because patriarchy attaches the work of care to the definition of what it is to be female, and not to what it is to be male. An example: decency was a core value to Orwell. When we say a man is a ‘decent bloke’, ‘or a good bloke’ we mean that he is a man of his word, trustworthy, a good friend. When we say a woman, wife or mother is ‘decent’ or ‘good’ those things have other meanings, which are attached to the care, work and time she gives those around her. You can be a decent bloke without doing any domestic or care work. But you could never be a decent a woman, mother or wife without caring for others. This is the swift and dirty trick of patriarchy: to attach work done for others to the definition of what it is to be you. It’s not really ‘work’; it’s just you proving you’re a decent (female) person.

There are many individual exceptions to this situation. Single-parent households where one person (most often, a woman) does it all. Heterosexual and homosexual couples in which the work of love and life is shared more equally. And we live in an age in which the gender binary (along with what it is to be a ‘good’ woman, or a ‘real’ man) is being challenged. Maybe a more fluid understanding of gender will eventually also free us not only from the fictions of what it is to be female and what it is to be male but also from the assumptions about work and care that those definitions carry. 

I am married to a wonderful man who’s emotionally astute and deeply engaged with our children and our domestic life. Craig and I share the financial load; we share most things in our lives. For him, care is central. But our experience is that the patriarchy still allocates a lot more of the care work to me – either to do or to raise in a conversation and delegate.

I don’t think we can or should be tackling this issue of male entitlement to women’s domestic labour one marriage at a time. It is no longer a private matter. It is an epidemic of inequality, and it needs a society-wide response. In the same way that at the end of the 19th-century society decided that everyone should be literate – a huge social change – and instituted free public primary education and free lending libraries, we need to decide, collectively, that society should have the benefit of women’s work and time, and make it possible. 

Like lifting people out of poverty or into literacy, we need social measures – free childcare and reform of the tax system for a start, and measures to ensure the removal of the barriers to women claiming equal representation in every sphere, including, of course, the boardrooms and parliaments of the nation. 

I am not saying it will be easy. Power and privilege were never given up easily, only taken justly. 

Possibly the most fictitious element in BARBIE, is how easily Ken gives up power, after he took it illegitimately. 

He says he didn’t really like it. ‘At first,’ he tells Barbie, ‘I thought the real world was run by men. And then I thought it was horses, but then I realised that horses were just men extenders.’ 

Patriarchy is the man extender, the imaginary horse they ride about on. We – especially many of you in this room – know what to do to get them off their imaginary steeds and to invite them to share with us the work of life and love and our time together on this planet. 

Time, as I say, is valuable, because it is finite. It’s time this was over.

Thank you so much for your time today.

Copyright: Anna Funder.

How can we drive connection between personal and organisational purpose, meaning and values?

And how important are these issues in navigating an increasingly complex world?

Dr Suzy Green and Dr Rosemary Sainty pose these questions and more to Professor Emeritus Robert E. Quinn, Professor Carl Rhodes and Corene Strauss in a conversation about purpose, meaning and values to inspire positive change.

Credits

Robert E. Quinn is Co-Founder and Faculty Advisory Board, Center for Positive Organizations and Margaret Elliot Tracy Professor Emeritus at the University of Michigan, Ross School of Business is in the top 1% of professors cited in organizational behavior textbooks. He is the author of 18 books including Deep Change, a long-term best seller. Bob has one of the highest rates of repeat invitations in the speaking industry and his recent talk on purpose has been viewed by over 15 million people.

Professor Carl Rhodes is Dean of UTS Business School, University of Technology Sydney. In this role, Carl is responsible for the academic and strategic leadership of the School, in pursuit of its vision to be a socially-committed business school. Prior to his academic career, Carl worked in professional and senior management positions in change management and organisational development. As a scholar, Carl researches the relationship between business and society in the nexus between liberal democracy and contemporary capitalism. 

Corene Strauss is a cause related CEO, leading the Australian Disability Network since July 2021. Passionate about improving the lives of others and building communities for good, Corene has led the transformation of multiple organisations including CEO of Special Olympics Australia, part of the world’s largest disability sports organisation and prior to that the first female CEO appointed to the NRL’s Men of League Foundation responsible for the welfare of the rugby league community. Corene was appointed to the Board of Directors of Invictus Australia in June 2024.

Dr Suzy Green is a Clinical and Coaching Psychologist (MAPS) and Founder & CEO of The Positivity Institute, a positively deviant business, dedicated to the promotion of wellbeing in workplaces and schools. Suzy is a leader in the complementary fields of Coaching Psychology and Positive Psychology. and currently holds Honorary Academic positions in the UTS Business School, the Centre for Wellbeing Science, University of Melbourne, the School of Psychology, University of East London.  

Dr Rosemary Sainty is a thought leader bridging organisational psychology, corporate responsibility, sustainability, and governance. Rosemary is the founding Australian representative to the UN Global Compact having headed up the federally funded National Responsible Business Practice Project. She currently coordinates the positive psychology / positive organisational scholarship teaching programs at UTS Business School, with a research interest in responsible, sustainable and flourishing organisations.

Sound engineering by Alison Zhuang.

Impact Talks at UTS is produced by Impact Studios.

What is the relationship between poetry and the public realm—from bards to court poets to laureates?

How will a poet laureateship help shape the reception of Australian poetry at home and abroad?

Professor Holland-Batt talks to these questions, followed by a Q&A session led by Dr Delia Falconer. 

Credits

Professor Sarah Holland-Batt is an award-winning poet, editor and critic. Her books have received a number of Australia’s leading literary awards, including the Stella Prize for her most recent book, The Jaguar, and the Prime Minister’s Literary Award for Poetry for her second volume, The Hazards. She is also the author of a book of essays on contemporary Australian poetry, Fishing for Lightning, collecting her poetry columns written for The Australian. She is currently a cohost of Julia Gillard’s Book Club on A Podcast of One’s Own, and Professor of Creative Writing at QUT.

Dr Delia Falconer is the author of two novels (The Service of Clouds and The Lost Thoughts of Soldiers) and two works of nonfiction (Sydney and Signs and Wonders: Dispatches from a time of beauty and loss), which have been shortlisted for national and international awards across the categories of fiction, nonfiction, innovation, biography, history and research. She is the Head of Discipline in Creative Writing at UTS Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences.

Sound engineering by Alison Zhuang.

Impact Talks at UTS is produced by Impact Studios.

How can we get more women surfing? How can we create more inclusive line-ups? 

What challenges do Australian women surfers still face? 

Hear how surfing is changing in Australia - from the rise of women’s participation to equal pay, and find out why barriers like intimidation, unequal access, and outdated norms persist. 

How has media representation shaped these changes? What role does sponsorship play in supporting or sidelining women surfers? How can women's surfing competitions grow in Australia?

Hosts

Dr Ece Kaya: is the Associate Head of Engagement of the Management Department and Senior Lecturer in Management at the UTS Business School.

Dr Leila Khanjaninejad: Lecturer in Creative Intelligence and Innovation in Transdisciplinary (TD) School, UTS.

Panelists

Tyler Wright: Australian Surfing Royalty, two times World Champion and Paris 2024 Australian Olympian.

Rebecca Olive: Vice Chancellor's Senior Research Fellow in the School of Global, Urban and Social Studies at RMIT University.

Ashika Kanhai: Senior lawyer who leads the Climate Justice Legal Project  and Chair of the Surf Coast Women's Boardriders Club.

Impact Talks at UTS is produced by UTS Impact Studios, a podcast studio that unlocks academic research through engaging and accessible podcasts.

Sound engineering is by Alison Zhuang. Episode image photo of surfer Tyler Wright from her Instagram https://www.instagram.com/tylerwright/

These trends are already undermining the reliability of news, disrupting elections, challenging democratic processes, and infringing rights globally. As automation rapidly expands the reach and scale of this phenomenon, policy and regulation are often held back by a lack of agreed principles and priorities.

Host

Hamish Macdonald: Australian broadcaster and journalist. He is co-host of Global Roaming on ABC Radio National and ‘The Project’ on Channel Ten.

Panelists

Monica Attard: Australian journalist and Director of the UTS Centre for Media Transition, best known for hosting ABC’s PM, The World Today, and Media Watch.

Creina Chapman: Former Deputy Chair and CEO of the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) charged with powers to combat online misinformation and disinformation. Creina has held senior executive and strategic adviser roles at Southern Cross Austereo, News Corp, Publishing and Broadcasting Limited, and the Nine Network.

Michael Davis: UTS research expert on information integrity, generative AI, and the news based in the UTS Centre for Media Transition.

Cullen Jennings: Chief Technology Officer of American multinational digital communications giant, Cisco Systems

 Sophie Farthing: Head of Policy Lab at the Human Technology Institute, UTS.

About Global Gamechangers

Global Gamechangers is presented by the UTS Faculty of Design, Architecture and Building, as a series of public conversations about the issues that matter. Find out more at uts.edu.au/partners-and-community/events/global-game-changers

Watch the video recording of this talk on YouTube.

Impact Talks at UTS is produced by UTS Impact Studios, a podcast studio that unlocks academic research through engaging and accessible podcasts.

Sound engineering is by Alison Zhuang. 

Imagine a world where all the products we want and interact with become 'carbon sinks' and reduce atmospheric carbon emissions. 

In this world, when you buy a product, you'd decarbonise the atmosphere, make sure that the carbon stays out of the atmosphere and is repurposed in innovative ways. 

Production and consumption would be sustainable and have a positive impact.

How can carbon help us fight climate change?

Host 

Craig Reucassel: Australian writer, comedian, and TV presenter, best known for his work on the Australian TV programs, The Chaser and The War on Waste, televised on the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (the ABC). (Australia)

Introduction: How can we rethink carbon?

Alex Thomson: Marine ecologist, Science and Technology Australia ‘Superstar of STEM’, leading science communicator and industry engagement manager in the UTS Faculty of Science, and a big fan of algae and how it can change our planet! (Australia)

 Panelists

Gunter Beitinger: Industrial engineering and project leader at multinational technology company Siemens – striving towards net zero with SVP Manufacturing, Factory Digitisation, and Decarbonisation Platform SiGREEN. (Germany)

Julia Reisser: co-founder of innovative climate-positive Australian company Uluu, leading production of a natural material derived from oceans able to replace plastics at scale. (Australia)

Peter Ralph: Leading international researcher in the fields of algae bio-systems and biotechnology, seagrasses, and the adaption of aquatic plants to warming and acidifying oceans; and Executive Director of the UTS Climate Change Cluster in the Faculty of Science. (Australia)

Amy Low: Director of brand and marketing for iconic Australian surf-wear company, Piping Hot, delivering sustainable and affordable material and product production for clothing, swimwear, footwear, and accessories. (Australia)

About Global Gamechangers

Global Gamechangers is presented by the UTS Faculty of Design, Architecture and Building, as a series of public conversations about the issues that matter. Find out more at uts.edu.au/partners-and-community/events/global-game-changers

Watch the video recording of this talk on YouTube.

Impact Talks at UTS is produced by UTS Impact Studios, a podcast studio that unlocks academic research through engaging and accessible podcasts.

Sound engineering is by Alison Zhuang. 

Urban environments are also responsible for 75% of global emissions. 

In this international discussion, experts explore the transformative power of Green Infrastructure (GI) in urban landscapes and examine innovative ways to make cities smarter, greener, and more communal - places where people can live for generations to come.   

• The transformation of 'concrete jungles' into liveable green hubs does not happen overnight nor by accident.  It needs tremendous imagination, willpower, and collective effort. How can we do this?
• How can we deeply rethink resources, their value, and the concepts of ‘scarcity’ and ‘abundance’ to make a sustainable, habitable world?
• How can we integrate nature, infrastructure, and technology?  
• What are some of the most innovative green tech solutions leading to change for the better? 

Host 

Anthony Bourke: Professor of Architecture at the University of Technology Sydney and TV Presenter; Australian host of the popular TV series Grand Designs Transformations, Restoration Australia, and Grand Designs Australia (all on ABC TV)

Panellists

Remy Sietchiping: Internationally recognised expert and UN strategist on Urban Planning and Geographic Information Systems; Chief of Policy at UN-HABITAT, the United Nations Human Settlements Programme, Nairobi, Kenya.

Germain Briand: Owner and director of the internationally acclaimed company, The Urban Canopee, on a bold mission to accelerate our cities’ greening through innovation to fight climate change and re-connect people with nature.

Jua Cilliers: Recognised global leader in urban planning and green infrastructure solutions, 'A Defender of the Future', Head of the School of the Built Environment, University of Technology Sydney.

Rob Stokes: Leading Australian spokesperson on city planning and the importance of Net Zero Cities; former New South Wales Minister for Planning and Public Spaces.

About Global Gamechangers

Global Gamechangers is presented by the UTS Faculty of Design, Architecture and Building, as a series of public conversations about the issues that matter. Find out more at uts.edu.au/partners-and-community/events/global-game-changers

Watch the video recording of this talk on YouTube.

Impact Talks at UTS is produced by UTS Impact Studios, a podcast studio that unlocks academic research through engaging and accessible podcasts.

Sound engineering is by Alison Zhuang. 

• Natural disasters and local communities.
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• Sustainable building on a large scale.
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• A carbon tax and climate economics.
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• Engaging the public on climate change.
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• The potential of algae to replace common materials.
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• Recycling glass in new ways.

Hear three minute presentations from leading UTS experts and industry practitioners on solutions related to rethinking disaster recovery, new materials to drive a circular economy, climate-adapted businesses, and ways our cultural institutions are addressing the climate crisis. 

Speakers 

Professor Elizabeth Mossop, Creative Industries Strategic Lead and Academic Director, Northern Rivers Living Lab, UTS 

Associate Professor Stefan Lie, Co-Director, Material Ecologies Design Lab, UTS 

Dr Mona Mashhadi Rajabi, Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Centre for Climate Risk and Resilience, UTS Business School 

Dr Unnikrishnan Kuzhiumparambil, Senior Research Fellow, Climate Change Cluster (C3), UTS 

Dr Jenny Newell, Curator for Climate Change, Climate Solutions Centre, Australian Museum 

Carmel Reyes, Climate Action and Sustainability Manager, Powerhouse  

Sam Kernaghan, Director of Resilience at the Committee for Sydney offers a response to the climate solutions discussed. 

This event was part of Climate Action Week Sydney, supported by City of Sydney. 

Impact Talks at UTS is produced by UTS Impact Studios, with sound engineering by Alison Zhuang. 

Fintan O'Toole asks why systems and values that had been taken for granted for so long are now in such peril. He argues that a central part of the problem is the distortion of the sense of victimhood.

There are profound injustices but the rising far-right movements have little interest in remedying them, Instead, they take the language of resistance to oppression and distort it into a self-pity in which even those who are highly privileged can feel sorry for themselves -- and imagine themselves to be victims of some other group.

The result is a politics of tribalism in which defeating the Other is much more important than gaining anything tangible.

How can we combat this drift into tribalism and restore the sense of common purpose without which democracy becomes hollow?

Fintan O'Toole (keynote speaker) is one of Ireland's leading political and cultural commentators. Fintan is a columnist with The Irish Times and Leonard L. Milberg visiting lecturer in Irish Letters at Princeton University.

He is the winner of both the Orwell Prize and the European Press Prize, and the author of more than 25 books. His most recent book, We Don’t Know Ourselves: A Personal History of Ireland Since 1958, was named 2021 Book of the Year by the Irish Book Awards and as one of the ten best books of 2022 by the New York Times.

Dr Anna Funder (moderator) is an award-winning author and UTS Luminary.  Anna is the author of Stasiland, All That I Am, Wifedom: Mrs Orwell’s Invisible Life and the novella The Girl With the Dogs. Anna’s novel Wifedom was a Sunday Times Bestseller and New York Times Notable Book of 2023.

Roy Green AM  (moderator) is an Emeritus Professor and Special Innovation Advisor at UTS. Roy is on the Board of CSIRO and the SmartSat CRC, and he is a member of the CSU Council and Australian Design Council and Committee for Sydney Economics Advisory Council. 

The Vice-Chancellor's Democracy Forum (VCDF) is UTS’s premier public lecture series. This is the second of the 2024 forum series, held on 26 September 2024.

Each year, the Vice-Chancellor invites significant thinkers across various fields to engage in open dialogue on topics crucial to today's society and its advancement.

Impact Talks at UTS is produced by UTS Impact Studios, with sound engineering by Alison Zhuang.

Race Discrimination Commissioner Giridharan Sivaraman delivers a compelling keynote on the higher education sector's role in combating racism, and discusses the Australian Human Rights Commission's historic anti-racism study at universities. 

Following his keynote, he joins Larissa Behrendt, Kylie Readman, Salma Elmubasher, Glen Babington, Michael Blumenstein and Elaine Laforteza (moderator) to explore how UTS is driving anti-racism efforts and the necessary steps universities must take to foster an environment of pride and belonging for all. 

Giridharan Sivaraman is Australia’s Race Discrimination Commissioner whose role is to promote equality between people of different backgrounds, conduct research and educational programs to combat racial discrimination and protect people from unfair treatment or vilification based on their race, colour, descent, visa status, or national or ethnic origin. 

Distinguished Professor Larissa Behrendt AO is a Laureate Fellow at the Jumbunna Institute for Indigenous Education and Research at UTS. Larissa has a legal background with a strong track record in the areas of Indigenous law, policy, creative arts, education and research.  

Salma Elmubasher is the Ethnocultural Officer at the Ethnocultural Collective, a part of the UTS Students Association, advocating for spaces for UTS students who identify as Black, Indigenous or as a Person of Colour to connect and organise together.   

Professor Kylie Readman is UTS's Deputy Vice-Chancellor and Vice-President (Education and Students). She is responsible for overseeing UTS's key priorities in teaching, learning and the student experience.  

Glen Babington is UTS’s Chief Operating Officer and Vice-President and is responsible for the university’s finance, marketing, communications, property, IT, HR and legal functions, as well as the Data Analytics and Insights Unit. 

Professor Michael Blumenstein is currently the Deputy Dean (Research and Innovation) in the UTS Faculty of Engineering & IT. UTS’s largest and most culturally diverse faculty.  

This public lecture was presented by UTS Centre for Social Justice and Inclusion on 21 August 2024, as part of the Centre’s Inclusion Festival. 

Impact Talks at UTS is produced by UTS Impact Studios, with sound engineering by Alison Zhuang. 

Professor Stiglitz (keynote speaker) is a Nobel Laureate, former World Bank Chief Economist, best-selling author and professor at Columbia University. 

Professor Kathy Walsh (moderator) is a Finance Professor and the Associate Dean (Research and Innovation) at the UTS Business School and has a critical role in fostering a vibrant research culture of rigorous, relevant and impactful research.

This sold out public lecture was presented by UTS Business School on 30 July 2024.

Impact Talks at UTS is produced by UTS Impact Studios, with sound engineering by Alison Zhuang.

Meredith Whittaker (keynote speaker) has over 17 years of experience in tech, spanning industry, academia, and government. Before joining Signal as President, she was the Minderoo Research Professor at NYU, and served as the Faculty Director of the AI Now Institute which she co-founded. Her research and scholarly work helped shape global AI policy and shift the public narrative on AI to better recognize the surveillance business practices and concentration of industrial resources that modern AI requires. 

Professor Edward Santow (moderator) is the Co-Founder and Director - Policy & Governance at the Human Technology Institute, and is leading a number of major initiatives to promote human-centered artificial intelligence. From 2016-2021, Ed was Australia's Human Rights Commissioner, where he led the Commission's work on artificial intelligence & new technology; refugees and migration; human rights issues affecting LGBTI people; national security; and implementing the Optional Protocol to the Convention Against Torture (OPCAT).

Associate Professor Ramona Vijeyarasa (panel speaker) is Director of the Juris Doctor Program at UTS, and is one of the leading global scholars on gender-responsive legislation. Ramona is Chief Investigator behind the Gender Legislative Index (GLI), an online tool that uses human evaluators and machine learning to assess whether domestic laws meet global women's rights standards.

Professor Peta Wyeth (panel speaker) is Dean, Faculty of Engineering and Information Technology at UTS. Peta is internationally recognised in the field of Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) and is at the forefront of research into emerging tangible, mobile and embedded technology for education and entertainment. Peta is at the forefront of research into emerging tangible, mobile and embedded technology for education and entertainment. Her research career is typified by interdisciplinary collaborations addressing real world problems.

Impact Talks at UTS is produced by UTS Impact Studios, with sound engineering by Alison Zhuang.

The Hoey shut its doors suddenly in 2009 and has remained empty ever since. Relive the music scene of the 80s, 90s and early 2000s in this love letter to Sydney’s iconic live music venue.

I feel like I just made a lot of friends there, friendships there that I still have now. There are people that continued to be involved in music but I think it was just because it was really small. Somebody came off stage like, there's nowhere to go!  Like you needed to interact with everybody. 

Sarah Blasko

Speakers

• Dr Liz Giuffre, Senior Lecturer in Communication, Music and Sound Design, UTS
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• Dr Gregory Ferris, Senior Lecturer, Media Arts & Production Program, UTS
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• Sally Seltmann, Award winning Australian singer and songwriter
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• Sarah Blasko, Admired Australian singer, songwriter, musician and record producer
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• Clyde Bramley, Much-loved bassist and vocalist

This event was part of UTS @ Vivid 2024. 

Photo of Combat Wombat's debut performance at the Hopetoun Hotel in May 2005 by James O'Brien.

Impact Talks at UTS is produced by UTS Impact Studios, with sound engineering by Alison Zhuang.

In today's fashion world, Artificial Intelligence (AI) is boosting the unsustainable practices of ultra-fast fashion and to cut designers out of the deal.

But, a new generation of innovators are keen to use the power of AI for good, to design better more sustainable clothes, and to address fashion's big land-fill problems.

What's possible and how will they do it?

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2. Chair: Anna May Kirk, Program Curator, Powerhouse Museum
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5. Dr Taylor Brydges, UTS Institute for Sustainable Futures
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8. Wajiha Pervez, PhD Candidate, Faculty of Design, Architecture & Built Environment and Centre of Excellence in Sustainable Fashion and Textiles, UTS
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11. Justin O’Sullivan, Founder and CEO, ReWise
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This event was part of Climate Action Week Sydney, supported by City of Sydney.

Watch this panel discussion online on the UTS website.

Impact Talks at UTS is produced by UTS Impact Studios, with sound engineering by Alison Zhuang.

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Get fresh insights and dive deep into what matters. Based on Gadigal Country, in the heart of Sydney’s creative and digital precinct, the University of Technology Sydney is Australia’s top university for research impact.