Change Agents: Darren Kindleysides and Don Rothwell on how Australia briefly stopped Japanese whaling
Navin75/Flickr, Australian Marine Conservation Society, ANUThe anti-whaling group Sea Shepherd has called a halt to its famous missions tracking the Japanese whaling fleet in the Southern Ocean.
For the past 12 years the group’s boats have engaged in annual high-seas battles with vessels carrying out Japan’s self-described scientific whaling program. But Sea Shepherd founder Paul Watson has admitted that Japan’s use of military-grade technology such as real-time satellite tracking has left the activists unable to keep up.
Watson also criticised the Australian government over its response to Japan’s whaling program, despite a global ban on most whaling.
Read more:
Murky waters: why is Japan still whaling in the Southern Ocean?
Scientific whaling is technically allowed under the International Whaling Commission’s treaty, and countries such as Japan have the right to decide for themselves what constitutes “scientific” in this context.
Australia is not the only government to be accused of reluctance to stand up to Japan. But in 2014, Japan’s pretext for whaling was finally discredited when Australia won a case at the International Court of Justice in The Hague. And, for a year, the Japanese whaling stopped.
This episode of Change Agents tells the back story of how that happened through the eyes of two key players, ANU legal academic Don Rothwell and Darren Kindleysides, who was then campaign manager at the International Fund for Animal Welfare. They worked on a strategy to provide both the legal argument and the political will for Australia to take on Japan in the courts.
Change Agents is a collaboration between The Conversation and the Swinburne Business School and Swinburne University’s Department of Media and Communication. It is presented by Andrew Dodd and produced by Samuel Wilson and Andrew Dodd, with production by Heather Jarvis.
The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
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35:17
Change Agents: Amee Meredith and Caterina Politi on reforming ‘one-punch’ laws
Amee Meredith and Caterina Politi turned the worst day of their lives into a campaign for meaningful law reform. AAP/The Conversation The death of Melbourne heart surgeon Patrick Pritzwald-Stegmann has again focused attention on the fatal consequences of so-called “one-punch” attacks.
In response to this form of violence, Australian states and territories have enacted quite different laws, often following campaigns by family members seeking justice for a lost loved one.
On this episode of Change Agents, Andrew Dodd speaks to two of these campaigners. In Victoria, Caterina Politi campaigned successfully for ten-year mandatory minimum sentences following the death of her son, David Cassai. And in the Northern Territory, Amee Meredith lobbied for tougher sentences after the death of her husband, Brett, who was also a territory police officer.
Change Agents is a collaboration between The Conversation and the Swinburne Business School and Swinburne University’s Department of Media and Communication. It is presented by Andrew Dodd and produced by Samuel Wilson and Andrew Dodd, with production by Heather Jarvis.
The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
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34:15
Change Agents: David Buchanan and Fr Paul Kelly on ending the gay panic defence
David Buchanan and Fr Paul Kelly have spearheaded pushes to abolish the gay panic defence. Forbes Chambers/ABC/SuppliedThe gay panic – or homosexual advance – defence has allowed people literally to get away with murder. It’s given them a way to convince juries they were provoked to kill because a homosexual person propositioned them.
In an alarming number of cases, juries were convinced that an advance by a gay – or supposedly gay – man was sufficient provocation for killing him. Juries have opted instead to convict the defendant of the lesser offence of manslaughter.
Over the past 14 years this practice has been abolished across Australia’s states and territories; Queensland is the latest state to do so. In this episode of Change Agents, Andrew Dodd speaks to Catholic priest Fr Paul Kelly and Sydney barrister David Buchanan, SC, about how they did it.
Change Agents is a collaboration between The Conversation and the Swinburne Business School and Swinburne University’s Department of Media and Communication. It is presented by Andrew Dodd and produced by Samuel Wilson and Andrew Dodd, with production by Heather Jarvis.
The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
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32:49
Change Agents: Alex Wodak and Lucy Haslam on the push to legalise medicinal cannabis
Lucy Haslam and Alex Wodak helped convince the public and politicians that the time for legalised medicinal cannabis had come. AAP/Alan PorrittIn 2016 three Australian states and the Commonwealth passed laws to legalise the growing of medicinal cannabis. It was an extraordinary result for a campaign that struggled for decades to gain traction.
Suddenly the push had taken off in the public imagination, prompting state and then federal politicians to agree to the cultivation and prescription of cannabis for people suffering from a wide range of conditions.
In this episode of Change Agents, Andrew Dodd speaks to Lucy Haslam, who launched the grassroots campaign in New South Wales after her son Dan was diagnosed with terminal cancer, and Alex Wodak, the president of the Australian Drug Law Reform Foundation. Together they convinced the public and politicians the time for change had come.
Change Agents is a collaboration between The Conversation and the Swinburne Business School and Swinburne University’s Department of Media and Communication. It is presented by Andrew Dodd and produced by Samuel Wilson and Andrew Dodd, with production by Heather Jarvis.
The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
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34:07
Change Agents: Stuart Morris and Leonie Hemingway on Australia’s most radical reform of local government
Stuart Morris QC (left) and Leonie Hemingway (formerly Leonie Burke) led the Labor and Liberal governments' attempts at reforming local government. Andrew Dodd, CC BY-NDVictoria’s council reforms in 1994 remain Australia’s most radical restructuring of local government.
The changes under the Kennett government reduced the number of councils from 210 to 79 through amalgamations.
In this episode of Change Agents, Andrew Dodd brings together Stuart Morris QC and Leonie Hemingway (formerly Leonie Burke), the two people who respectively led the Labor and Liberal governments’ attempts at reform.
They speak for the first time publicly about their successes and failures on the road to this overhaul of local government.
Change Agents is a collaboration between The Conversation and the Swinburne Business School and Swinburne University’s Department of Media and Communication. It is presented by Andrew Dodd and produced by Samuel Wilson and Andrew Dodd, with production by Heather Jarvis.
The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
Change Agents is about the art of change and the people who make it happen. It focuses on real and recent case studies where often ordinary people have brought about profound social, political, cultural and political change. It celebrates their success and challenges them to explain how they did it and the obstacles they overcame along the way. Change Agents is a collaboration between The Conversation and the Swinburne Business School and Swinburne University’s Department of Media and Communication.
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