Highlights of my Australian tour

For those who are interested here are the details of my recent Australian tour. I was invited by World Vision Australia, a worldwide community development organisation with a Christian ethos, to speak at one of the One Just World forums it organises across Australia with the International Women’s Development Agency and AusAid. Given I was travelling such a long distance I decided to use the opportunity to speak at some other events too.

Thursday 8 March
– Appearance on the Jill Emberson programme on 1233 ABC Newcastle radio to publicise the following evening’s forum.

Friday 9 March
– Lunchtime talk to development studies students at the University of Newcastle, New South Wales. Donnie Maclurcan, a co-founder of the Post-Growth Institute, gave an alternative perspective.
– One Just World forum on “Closing the poverty gap”. Along with myself and Donnie Maclurcan the other speakers were Cheryl Kernot and Doris Puiahi.

Monday 12 March
– Spoke at an event on “Europe’s existential funk” organised by the Centre for Independent Studies in Sydney alongside Oliver Marc Hartwich. You can watch an introductory video to the event here and the full event here.On the same day the Australian newspaper published my article on “Sharing pain, not wealth”  (part of it is behind a paywall but the full text is available below).

Tuesday 13 March
– Spoke at a Shaken and Stirred dinner event in Sydney organised by Thought Broker on “Courageous capitalists and other market myths”.

Wednesday 14 March
Appeared on The Drum programme  on ABC TV to talk about Ferraris for All.

Friday 16 March
Online Opinion republished my article in the Australian from earlier in the week.

Sunday 18 March
As a personal bonus I attended the opening Formula One Grand Prix of the season at Albert Park in Melbourne. I had hoped to go to an Australian Rules football match too but did not have time to do both. Next time perhaps …

On the way to Australia I did a two-day stopover in Singapore where I wrote a blog post for Fundweb on how many westerners perceive the island state (see text immediately below). On the way back I took a similar break in Hong Kong to get a glimpse into China’s development. I was struck by how rapidly the former colony has deindustrialised – with most of its manufacturing shifting to the mainland – and how much official sanction was given to green ideas.  Unfortunately I did not have time to make the short trip to the mainland.

I hope to keep in contact with many of the people I met on what turned out to be an excellent trip in many ways. Thanks to all of those who helped make it possible.