@emmadavidson @timhollo Ah okay, my bad, I misread.
Scrolling down to near the end:
"Can you use government effectively to devolve power into the streets and suburbs? How does it work, to use a system designed to centralise and control both physical spaces and decision-making spaces, to decentralise and give up control?"
I've got a few ideas on this one.
I've noticed that often what happens is a progressive governments successfully implement a reform to improve social equity. Then a future regressive government will reverse it.
A progressive government will provide ongoing funding arts or legal aid organisations, and the next right wing government will cut it.
Or a progressive government will build public housing, and the next right wing government will sell it off.
So that's a challenge.
And a potential way around it might be to provide more large once-off lump sum grants to non-profits. Or establishing trusts and foundations that are jointly owned by a number of community groups that can provide ongoing funding.
So instead of building a billion dollars of public housing, a progressive government provides a billion dollars of funding to tenant-owned housing co-ops to build or buy more housing.
Or a progressive government might grant $1 billion to a fund made up of 40 legal aid non-profits. That money is invested, and each year 4% of the funds (that's $40 million, or $1 million each for 40 non-profits) get distributed as community grants.
A progressive government might buy or build buildings (think office space, theatres, Gallery space) and then grant that out to non-profits.
Or buy large farms and grant them out to Aboriginal Land Councils.
Getting a bit more radical, with the right legislation, there's nothing to prevent a government setting up an organisation and then spinning it out as a member-owned nonprofit.
And there's nothing to prevent a government from buying or starting a for-profit business, and then spinning it out as a worker-owned cooperative. Or a member-owned social enterprise.
Imagine a grantmaking trust spin-out with a billion dollar investment fund that grants $1 million to 40 new worker co-ops or social enterprises each year.
The end result, after a couple of terms of progressive government, would be a far stronger and financially self-sustaining community sector. Far more workers in member-owned or worker-owned organisations.
It would be a lot more challenging for a future regressive government to put the genie back into the bottle.
A few other ideas I have would be to use the time in government to break up regressive centres of power.
Perhaps it's time to break up Coles and Woolies?
Or to do a Royal Commission into things like foreign interference in politics through business lobby groups?
Or take the artificial restraints off the trade union movement and allow strikes between bargaining periods?
@aj @timhollo some of those are current Greens policies. Others are similar to things Greens Ministers have tried to do, but were blocked by Labor in achieving. But the good news is that we can do some of those things without government, and that’s what I’m working on now. Change doesn’t have to come from a singular leader, it can come from consensus in a collective. It doesn’t have to be backed by hard power, it can be grounded in shared values.
I got asked at #EO2026 about how we continue to make progress when a change in leadership can undo it all. My answer is about making integrity a criteria for leadership, and decentralising decision-making. In this video from 30:30
