My name's Petrina Skiavi. I'm the secretary of the National Foundation for Australian Women. And I'm delighted to warmly welcome you all here to the 2023 Pamela Danoon lecture. The Pamela Danoon lecture is Australia's longest running and most prestigious feminist lecture. And I'd also like to extend a special welcome to members of the Danoon family, Christine and Gordon, who are here this evening. I'd also like to acknowledge and welcome friends of Pamela who are in the audience. I would like to commence tonight's proceeding with by acknowledging and paying my respects to the traditional custodians of country, the Nanawal people, and recognize their connection throughout time to its lands, seas, skies, and borders of which we live, work, and benefit from today. I would like to pay my respects to elders, past and present, and extend that respect to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people here today. Sovereignty has never been ceded. This was and always will be Aboriginal land. The National Foundation for Australian Women supports the Uluru Statement from the Heart and supports a yes vote at the referendum. We accept the invitation in the Uluru Statement from the Heart to walk together with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples in a movement of the Australian people for a better future. I'll just quickly turn to some housekeeping now. A reminder to everyone to please turn off your mobile phones. Secondly, to let you know that this event is being recorded. So we have a video recording that the ANU is kindly doing and also ABC Big Ideas is recording this event tonight. Toilets, if required, are out there and to the left of the lifts. And I'd also like to please invite everyone if you've got your wine glasses with you, if you kindly return them to the table out there as well. I'd also like to thank everyone who found the building because I know it was a little bit difficult. And also if you'd like any information for accessibility for leaving and getting back to your venue, we're happy to assist. So please come and to get back to your cars. So I know that some people had trouble sort of finding the lifts and finding the most direct way to get back. So please let us know. Tonight's lecture features Mari Coleman, AO, PSM, on the occasion of her 90th birthday. Mari will be in conversation with Jane Madden, president of the National Foundation for Australian Women, with reflections on feminism, past, present and future. I would like to extend my gratitude to the ANU Gender Institute and Fiona Jenkins, especially for sponsoring this event and for all their hard work in making it happen. Before I introduce Mari and Jane, I would like to tell you a little bit about the Pamela Danoon lecture and its origins. Pamela Danoon worked tirelessly to promote equality for women and was the national coordinator of the women's electoral lobby from 1982 to 1984. She actively lobbied for women's rights in Canberra during the 1980s. Pamela was supported by a group of dedicated feminists who looked to establish a durable body to administer funds to promote the ideas and policies for women's movement in Australia into the future. By the time of Pamela's death in September, 1988, the idea of the National Foundation for Australian Women as a body focusing on research, policy formation and communication had been formed and was set up from a bequest by Pamela. The Pamela Danoon lecture was inaugurated in 1989 as a tribute to the memory of Pamela Danoon and as a reminder that the gains that have been made by women over the years have only been possible because of the enormous dedication of women like Pamela. The Pamela Danoon lecture aims to inspire and motivate women to find out more about issues for women in Australia and encourage some of them to get involved in a local organisation that works to promote women's rights and other major women's issues. We are fortunate to have one of the founding members of the National Foundation for Australian Women, Mari Coleman, giving the Pamela Danoon lecture this evening. Mari will be in conversation with Jane Madden, as I mentioned, and it is my pleasure to introduce them both to you. I'd like to introduce Mari by giving a quote from her. For me, the love is of good public policy, not politics. And somehow, I seem to find the energy to keep arguing for it. Awarded an AO for Distinguished Service to the Advancement of Women, Mari Coleman's name has been synonymous with the women's movement in Australia for the past 60 years. She maintains her indignation at the gender pay gap and has championed everything from universal access to childcare to paid maternity leave. A lot of these issues take tremendous persistence, she says. Mari was the first woman in Australia to head a statutory authority when she chaired the Whitlam Government's Social Welfare Commission in 1973. She had a long and distinguished career in the public service, being awarded a public service medal in 1990 and a centenary medal in 2011. Mari was a founding member in 1989 of the National Foundation for Australian Women and chaired the Social Policy Committee until early 2020. The Social Policy Committee of the National Foundation for Australian Women plays a leadership role for women's organisations nationally in the research and analysis of the impacts of policies on women. She is also a committee member for the Australian Women's Archive Project. Mari has been inducted into the Victorian Parliament's Honor Roll of Women and the ACT Honor Roll of Women. Jane Madden is the President of the National Foundation for Australian Women. Jane is the founder and principal of a Canberra advisory firm, Brickfield Insights, specialing in strategy, capability and international business development and also works as an executive coach to private and public sector leaders. She has held positions at the most senior levels of the Commonwealth departments of Foreign Affairs and Trade, Industry and Prime Minister and Cabinet. A former Deputy Secretary in the DFAT portfolio, she led a highly successful diplomatic career including as ambassador to UNESCO Paris, councillor, Australian Embassy Tokyo and assignments in Asia, Africa and Pacific. Throughout her professional and personal life, Jane has been passionate about the role of women in society and in the workforce. Jane is also a highly regarded non-executive director with over 15 years experience as chair and member of boards and committees across government, business and the not-for-profit sector. As well as serving as president of the NFAW, Jane is the global chair of the Fred Hollows Foundation and is on the boards of Australian business volunteers and the Canberra Institute of Technology and a number of startup ventures and advisory committees. I'd like now to warmly welcome Mari and Jane. Right. Thank you so much, Petrina. And what a joy and privilege it is, Mari, to be in conversation with you as we hear of your reflections on feminism, past, present and to the future. Can I say on behalf of us all, firstly, happy birthday. Happy 90th birthday. I also want to say happy 50th birthday because as Penny Wong reminded us this week with International Women's Day, this year, this week marks 50 years since Mari became appointed as the first Australian woman to lead a Commonwealth government agency. In 1973, as head of Whitlam's Social Welfare Commission, 50 years, half a century. That is also worth a round of applause. As well as Penny Wong, this week, we've had salutations across so many parts of Australia on the occasion of your birthday and these anniversaries. And this afternoon at the National Press Club, Sam Moston also saluted you and that's worth catching on eye view as well. But really, turning to you, Mari, I think we're all keen to tell a little bit about the early years. Tell us a little bit about your early life and the beginnings of this incredible journey and incredible career that you've had. Thank you. Oh, well, how early, Jane? I had the very good fortune to grow up in rural Australia, not as part of the established rural and the gentry. My father worked for the New South Wales Government Railways and we travelled extensively because that was... First of all, it was extremely fortunate in the Depression to have a job. Secondly, to have a job with a government entity which even in the worst years paid them. They continued to employ my father but they were paid once a month, one week and four. So, and my father being of Scots heritage and my mother, whose family were of mixed Irish and Yorkshire, were dedicated to the proposition that one studied and one worked and with any luck got out of this. So, from an early age, I was encouraged to study it. So I did... My early years of education were with the... what was then called Black Flyers Correspondence School, the New South Wales Education Department. And I would go down to the train station with my father and wait for the train to go by that would drop the bag with my work for the next week but also pick up the bag which contained my work for the previous week, yes. So it was an interesting way to deal with education. There was, of course, no telephone, no other kind of communication other than that. So that was the start of my education but I did finish up at rural high schools. Right. And when did your interest in quality, in gender equality begin to emerge? How did that manifest, please? Oh, look, that's hard to say. I can remember having a heated argument with a schoolteacher when I was about 14, I suppose, on the issue of equal pay. Right, 14. So this is the 40s and he explained carefully to me that were women to try to get equal pay, they would never be employed. I'm glad you've pulled... you showed him wrong. But so, look, I thought I would put that down as an elemental concept of fairness rather than any awakening feminist theory at that stage. Right. Marie, you've had in this journey so many amazing firsts and achievements. Can you share what have been perhaps some of your proudest movements, perhaps the appointment in 1973 as the first agency head might be one of them, but perhaps reflect on the achievements and then I'm also going to ask you, of course, as we women know, some of the challenges behind those things. Well, I have to say, I was surprisingly innocent when I landed in Canberra. That is to say, I had been very actively involved in Victoria in arguments, discussions around various aspects of social policy. I became very involved with Ronald Henderson and the people around him at the Melbourne University Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research and with people like John Button and Race Matthews and others who were active in the Fabian Society in Victoria at that stage and the Victorian Fabians were producing a lot of interesting policy papers through the ages of Race and John so that I was involved in the discussions with them about health insurance and aged care, a whole lot of issues like that and particularly engaged after my friends Dick Scotton and John Diebel produced their seminal paper in 1969, I think it was for the Australian New Zealand Institute of Sociology. Anyway, it's 1969, nobody here is going to bother, on a proposal for a national health insurance system which was, of course, the system that ultimately Whitlam adopted in opposition so I had been very involved in the public debate about that and I think that was why I was approached by Hayden and Whitlam to come to Canberra. Without wanting to do a book launch, a sneaky preview, some of Mari's tales of that time are in a book which will be launched next month, Women and Whitlam but that's for another occasion. So back to those firsts, you know, relisting some of those things and perhaps being the only woman in the room some of those discussions, those important evolving policy developments, how did you find those, how challenged were you as a woman in some of those circles, both before Canberra and then of course as you came to Canberra? I found it tolerably easy in the Victorian system to be involved in those debates and actually had quite good relations with some of the liberal coalition governments in Victoria. I often used to have lunch with the Minister for Welfare, a gentleman called Ian Smith who was such a sweet Tory and he used to be so mortified if I offered to pay for lunch I can't describe it to you but I got on very well with Robert Hamer who became Premier and so forth and had a prickly relationship with Henry Balti who once asked me when I went in on a delegation whether I was with Victoria or for them in Canberra. He thought that way. Interesting man. The Canberra situation was very different. I had never been a public servant. It's something of a disadvantage suddenly finding one's self-head of an agency in the public service and I tended to make unfortunate jokes very much the result of some of my daughters such as I never thought I'd meet a permanent head and now anyway it turned out that this was a really bad joke and I was more or less the age of the daughters of most of the blokes who are the heads of agencies so they were as bemused as I was and the additional problem when it came to the Department of Social Services as it then was was that Bill Hayden who was my minister was very keen to introduce a number of new measures which were absolutely inimical to the very conservative values of some of the senior blokes and it was, I mean an archetypal example which is discussed in that book where we fight over a payment for single mothers and some of the arguments which were advanced in the Department were ludicrous. I recall a deputy secretary saying something to this effect if we were to give single women a payment that is greater than the rate of agricultural laborers payment in Tasmania it could lead to homicides and I said it's a non-secretary but it was that kind of talking past each other was very difficult on a lot of stuff. And while you're treating these boards you're also balancing family life and I want to salute Murray's family in the audience and that must have also been a very difficult challenge. We had talked as a family about me taking up the position and the idea was that I would commute between Canberra and Melbourne each week and that I would have a housekeeper and that sort of worked but unfortunately the excellent woman who had been recruited by my family friends, the Cullens, Peter former advisor to Goff and they lived at the end of our street. My children grew up with the Cullens. She suffered a family bereavement and that arrangement broke down and the consequence was that the two younger daughters came to Canberra. It's interesting when we think about child care too today so much was also established in terms of the architecture in the 70s and you were the inaugural director setting up the Office of Child Care in 1976 looking back on that how do you think it set the pattern for families going forward in the last few decades of Australian light. It was an extremely interesting time. When Fraser came in he had a I think lots of people thought Fraser was an absolute ogre. They subsequently learned that worse was to come. He was an educated man who had educated family and he actually quite approved of child care which was quite surprising. Margaret Whitlam became the minister responsible and I think she was initially rather surprised at how enthusiastic Malcolm was about child care. I'll tell you an anecdote one of the first cabinet meetings which I did attend a group of women, one of whom led by a woman who had been quite a good friend of mine running the women who want to be women whoever thought it weren't had come to Canberra to congratulate the Prime Minister and they promenaded to the Parliament and into the cabinet room with a cake on which they had embroidered that a woman's place is in the home. They're not embroidered, they decorated and I can tell you that that was one of the first times I became aware of how Margaret Gullfald's neck stiffened as did her jaw to say that she was not happy and underestimates it. But at that cabinet meeting the minister I'm going to have to try to remember his name, he was known as the little leg spinner from down in one of the southwestern areas of southwestern gentry in Victoria introduced the proposition that the child care act of 69 had been introduced by a liberal government and obviously that was what we were going to support and there was a general comment around the cabinet office, cabinet room that even though most of these gentlemen didn't have the faintest clue what child care was if it was a liberal policy and a liberal act then it was good, good go, good to go. So we began the task of trying to use the act and at the same time it was also my duty to completely wind back common wealth funding for preschools which was a bit against the grain but what one is charged with doing is one does, provided of course in current circumstances that it's actually legal. Well taking some of those battles we know that the Productivity Commission even now is being asked by the government to do another inquiry into child care. So moving to the current times I'm really interested because your passion for policy is always to think of further reform and how things can be improved. What do you think should happen with early child care today? Well it's also worthwhile noting that the South Australian government has Gillard doing a Royal Commission there into early childhood which I think is extremely interesting. One of the characteristics of the 70s was a general passion for things being run by the community at community level. Now that's great under certain circumstances. It was clearly a revolution against excessively bureaucratic management of all sorts of things but it did mean that when it came to establishing child care we were talking about individual little services with no coordination structure, no opportunities for staff training, development and career options and I think we're still seeing the bad consequences of that. I think I did a review for the South Australian government of early childhood in 84 it was and did help to set something in place there which made the state government do much more to bring child care and early childhood education services together and I think that would be an important thing that I'd hope the Productivity Commission is taking into account at this time but I do think when we're talking about the problems with attracting and maintaining staff in any of the care sectors child care is a particular example. We do have to take account of the fact that if people are left in atomised services there's often a limited amount of career opportunity and there may be great problems in simply trying to address staff retention and attraction and solely through wages. I think there are other aspects which I hope the Commission is going to take into account. Thank you. Looking more broadly at policy reform that matters to gender equality and thinking about the Albanese government today what's your assessment of their early days and their approach? Well great expectations in a time of budgetary constraint which is a very complicated time obviously the government has decided that they're prepared to back such issues as improvements to paid parental leave and Marion and I know what a challenge that has been to get it even in let alone thankfully beginning to see improvements they're committed to a massive expansion in child care. They've also committed to massive enhancements in residential aged care but again today I hear that the residential aged care sector is talking about a seven to eight thousand shortage of nurses by the end of the year now you can't conjure seven to eight thousand competent aged care nurses out of the woodwork before the end of the year there has simply been totally inadequate attention given over the past decade or so to the issues of recruitment and education opportunities I could go off on a rift about my views about the stupidity about privatizing the tape sector but we might leave that for another time but unless we want to keep on having crises about inability to move good policies forward then we have to have forward looking really solid commitment to training education and maintenance of people in these areas Yes thank you. Yesterday International Women's Day Minister Katie Gallagher mentioned the government's first status of women report card which is a very welcome initiative from NFAW's perspective but the data in it is very sobering one in two women in Australia sexually harassed over 55 year old women the fastest growing group of homelessness in this country and so on and so forth it's a very shocking read in many respects and yet 30% of Australian men consider that gender equality doesn't exist so let's hope like some report cards it gets better over time because God forgive it it gets worse your reflections on why after all these inroads and we've just taken childcare as one example but there's so many other areas where great strides were made why are we here in 2023? Well I was watching ABC TV for Sam Boston's speech today regrettably the just as she was getting onto the question of the reluctance of some blokes to come to grips with equality the ABC cut away to an interview with the Prime Minister in India and a cricket match so I didn't get the benefit of Sam's observations on that but I do think there is a solid group of people who have always argued that there is no such thing as a gender wage gap and we had a Prime Minister not so long ago who enunciated on International Women's Day the proposition that he was not opposed to women advancing as long as he didn't mean some men losing well if you see equality as a zero sum game then you're always going to have that kind of opposition in some quarters I think and I don't think we have achieved a total change in general attitudes I don't know whether we're going through another wave but I know that there was a lot of enthusiasm about opportunities for women and growth in the Whitlam period even though in the Hawke period when Susan Ryan did such a splendid job introducing affirmative action and so forth we were still seeing by the second half of the series constant media discussions about is feminism over does the women's movement still exist and in fact it was that kind of discussion which was one of the triggers for us establishing the National Foundation at that time and I do think some parts of the women's movement who had been vigorously active in the 70s had moved into the arduous task of running women's services and therefore weren't necessarily out arguing the general principles and so we went through another period of people saying women's movements all over now I think we're back we've sort of climbed back a bit we've done quite a lot of work against some times very adverse circumstances I think the work that Kate Jenkins has done has been absolutely terrific again I think we're at a time where a lot of people say well you've done so much I suppose we must simply live with the fact that there will be waves of enthusiasm and waves of achievement and then periods of hopefully not going backwards thank you well I had the pleasure to be in the room with Sam and her response actually struck quite a similar chord and talked about you know gender equality not being a zero sum game you know everyone can benefit and the rising tide can carry many boats and I'm not exactly paraphrasing but there was a similarity in her comments to you today Murray you made reference there to women's movements and of course you know with my role in NFAW I'll have to ask you what's your perspective on the role of the diverse women's movements and any sort of advice or guidance to us and others in the room and more generally goodness persistence I think just bloody minded persistence is the name of the game quite frankly and not losing sight of where one hopes to move things that's just it but persistence, persistence always persistence and aren't you the absolute embodiment of that looking to the future if I may are you optimistic about gender equality if we maintain that steady persistence that you're urging us all to do so I remember years ago perhaps it was Elizabeth Reid I'm not sure making the observation that a woman who sought to achieve equality lacked ambition look women I mean if one looks back over the broad sweep of history it's not easy to find a time when there has been equality and I think when one looks at the resurgence of certain kinds of extremely conservative religious beliefs for example I'm not trying to pick on any particular faith here but I'm just observing that there aren't very many who promulgate ideas of equality and we do seem to be in a time of increasing emphasis I read news out of the United States with increasing depression but that's not the only place that depresses me I only have to read about what's happening in Iran or one or two other places to again be equally depressed about what's happening to the rights of women the Taliban preventing children, girl children from school we live in some dark times but I think it's extremely important that we continue to keep an eye on where we want to go and that we continue to have in the country like Australia not only domestic but also foreign policies which respect women's rights for you personally do you have any particular aspirations? I just wish I could find somebody who could help me with weeding ever practical Maori well look it's since I broke my hip my balance is improving but I cannot get down there no practical look I am slowly withdrawing from very active roles although I snipe from the side in ever articulate fashion so no I am delighted to see successive generations of increasingly well educated girls coming through young women coming through I mean I was one of a very small cohort when I went to Sydney University in 1950 and I can tell you that in the economics faculty it was an even smaller cohort so things are changing and women are going through tertiary education at a much greater rate than they ever were and I think I retain the view that education is an invaluable tool in progressing women's equality we're going to have the opportunity for one or two questions from the floor so if there is one or two people and I haven't prepped please can you come and stand up near the microphone so that we can pick up the recording don't be shy questions please to Murray not necessarily comments we'll have time for those later on Murray with those aspirations and reflections do you have any advice to do your former self that you could perhaps share with us to that young Murray Coleman in the economics faculty of 1950 Sydney University or back in the country Victoria well there we go perhaps it would be just to generally say don't be so nervous it might be okay right confidence confidence and persistence okay we have I think a question coming forward please do so very interesting thank you very much Murray as many of us in this room know working in the public service is a series of wins and losses two steps forward three steps back shuffle sideways etc but reflecting back on your time what would you see as the greatest success and what would you see perhaps as a missed opportunity or something which with the perspective of greater wisdom you might have done differently and come out better well without trying to grade some of those things it is absolutely true I remember talking with another senior officer at one year and observing that it was very hard for people who were hopeful that all of the women who were at senior level were going to achieve things to get it across that so much of our time was spent preventing things the brilliant savings options of course we've just had some recently very distressing examples of savings options that should have been prevented I'm finding it hard to answer that question in specifics I do think of missed opportunities I remember the work that Meredith Edwards did in bringing forward a proposal in the hawk government for an extensive taper for sole parents which would facilitate gradual increased transition into the workforce but while still maintaining economic security Meredith that's a very short version of what you had proposed and I think now of how that was distorted with the rubric of mutual responsibility and how a job is better than any kind of welfare we have seen over the last decade an astonishing reversal of the philosophical base on which the wartime established post war reconstruction and the basis of the modern social welfare system where the idea was a dignified life and a system of entitlements now within that rubric the idea was that people were entitled to a certain level of payment no more and no less but nevertheless it was there as an entitlement I think the greatest disappointment to me has been to watch the extent to which that sense of a legitimate entitlement for the citizen who's paid taxes has evaporated in this rubric of mutual obligation which doesn't seem to evolve doesn't seem to be very mutual and has led to a very very punitive attitude towards people who are entitled to support from the taxpayer I don't think that's answered your question I'm sorry but that's a general observation Thank you and we're saying this of course in the midst of the robo debt inquiry which you alluded to there We have another question coming forward thank you Thank you ladies Thank you for your lecture and well my question may be not that suitable because well I noticed that there are some radical action and well thoughts about women rights so when we are fighting for it some people it may be some radical because it is still at the beginning and their thoughts about women rights is like teenagers so they have seen it but maybe they may be radical or not that suitable and I think it's reasonable because we all encounter some discrimination or some insult in our life so it may arise anger or some so but someone think it's not reasonable because others will look down upon people who fight for women rights because of these radical thoughts so I'm wondering whether my thinking about it is reasonable is right or do you have some advice because I'm really confused about it thank you very much and so the role of radical feminists that's really at the heart of that wonderful question well I think it's very interesting to read the work of Professor Wright I'm trying to think of her first name the historian who's published a couple of years ago Claire Wright yes a wonderful book about the feminists of the federation period in Australia and they were very radical they were very radical I think the young woman from Adelaide who took herself to London and devised the idea of going up in a balloon and throwing feminist pamphlets out of a balloon as it went across London was absolutely astonishing at that time the definition of what's radical keeps on changing you know and people get used to certain kinds of things and it stops being seen as radical when I was a university student to talk about access to reproductive health was dangerously radical dangerously radical these days we're still having arguments about it but we're now talking about whether or not access to reproductive health services should be available but why isn't access better what's radical changes from time to time my dear is what I'm trying to say don't be frightened at any stage if somebody says that your ideas are radical that's a reflection of them out of you wonderful words we have time for one more question I think thank you hi I think your reflections on your policy career are amazing but you alluded a bit I guess to you know when you spoke about being the age of the children of some of the other heads of departments I wanted to know a bit more about your experience in the workplace we had I attended a session at my work today which is a heavily male dominated environment about what we could do to better support women in the workplace and a lot of people were stumped I guess with concrete questions about how the men could make very good useful productive changes to support women in the workplace and I wondered about your reflections on that I had the unusual experience of being head of an agency which meant that I employed a lot of women now that did lead to a certain cadre of Canberra journalists deciding to continually attack me as only employing women even though we were very very equal opportunity and I think it was sort of 49% to 51% or something like that I had excellent young men working for me some of them have done very well like Andrew Podger for example yes that's the public service joke I had good young men working with me and good young women and I didn't find that frankly a problem a lot of other people did when I went to the Office of Child Care again I found that the public service board was doing extremely interesting and useful things which meant that I was able to organize for some of my women staff permanent part time which had not previously been available and that was extremely valuable to several of my staff who had child rearing responsibilities didn't want to not have a career but again that was essentially because I was in a position to do it now I think this comes back to female leadership in the public service and it's whether or not you want to support other women or not and I don't wish to reflect on any of the current senior women at all but I think that's a very serious issue that unless you have leadership which is about equal opportunity it's very hard to get anywhere that's not much help to you is it she's nodding she's saying it is conscious of time Mari I was wondering just any final reflections or parting words you'd like to share on this your 90th birthday celebration week look I think what I need to say is that yes I've had a long career which has had its ups and downs but I have always had the opportunity to work with some absolutely splendid people whether they were people working for me when I was in the bureaucracy it's worthwhile noting that I've had longer out of the bureaucracy working on community projects than I actually had in the bureaucracy that happens over 50 years people like working with Mari and others on the campaign on paid parental leave you know it was wonderful and we had such a sterling group of academics working together on that sort of project the people who volunteered their time in the social policy committee the fact that we've been able to put together really terrifying documents for the last government on the gender lenses on the budget all with volunteer women one or two volunteer blokes but mostly volunteer women means that my career has only been possible because of other excellent colleagues and excellent colleagues people like myself and others stand on your shoulders Mari so I think even in her parting words we've seen that generosity of spirit that you have with those kind and wonderful words what we might do now is pass to Professor Fiona Jenkins who's the convener of the ANU Gender Institute and our wonderful host tonight I would like to just in passing to her though thank you personally for the leadership you've provided not just to NFAW over so many years Mari but to the women's movement generally and for your beautiful memories and reflections tonight and to acknowledge to Professor Sally Moyle who should be here who was the organiser she's the vice president of the NFAW but sadly is tending to her mother in hospital so we thank her and above all we thank you and to you Fiona thank you well it's time to wrap up this fabulous discussion and I must say Mari I feel you represent an Eurofeminism that was marked by so much audacity you know by wit as well as wisdom and I think that's a wonderful lesson for us to take this evening those things really matter as well of course as bloody minded persistence that's very very important so thanks for sharing all your thoughts on how to do it look I want to thank a few people first again Pamela Dunoon's family this lecture has run for many years in the late Pamela Dunoon's honour and every year it is a wonderful way of bringing together people who share aspirations and dreams for a feminist now or a feminist future and it's a great opportunity to celebrate a life that was dedicated to that ambition so a wonderful institution and we're delighted to be hosting it here on this very beautiful evening and I hope you've taken a chance to look out of the windows it really is a radiant evening to be having this lovely event of course I'd like to thank very much the National Foundation for Australian Women for all the work you do together with the work you've done to organise the event this evening I thought that was very elegant chairing Jane, thank you very much for chairing and leading this conversation this evening and thanks to the ARV who stepped in at the last moment to perform introductions and of course we send our best wishes to Sally Moyle who would have loved to have been here this evening I'd like to recognise the behind-the-scenes work of the ANU Events team who stepped in to help us at the last minute as well and Isabelle Bremner who's been my admin assessment on this job and has been doing a fabulous job remotely from Sydney so just to prove that thanks to the ANU Media team who are recording visually this evening and are in big ideas who are recording for the radio please join me in thanking again a feminist legend who at the age of 90 is still showing up and showing us how it's going to be done Mary Coleman, you're amazing, we salute you thank you


The SCP Foundation has sites all over the world and in fact it has probably more employees than most mega corporations, has more employees than a lot of intelligence services, has more employees than some small countries. In order to make something like that work there's got to be HR applications, a system, and involved in this system must be a necessity for secrecy because unlike an intelligence agency almost everyone who works for the SCP Foundation has to be vetted, has to be trustworthy, and has to be able to withstand the possibility of blackmail. So let's talk a little bit today about how one might join the SCP Foundation. So first of all we have to consider the fact that the SCP Foundation contains numerous anomalies that have a wide range of technical expertise required in order to keep them contained. You get your basic end-of-the-world monsters trying to break out of whatever chains we built around them, so you'd need blacksmiths who can make chains out of maybe even anomalous materials. These experts in particular fields would need to have non-anomalous expertise that can translate well into the anomalous world and you'd want the top of the line people. One pathway we can talk about is the essentially college to foundation pipeline. The SCP Foundation almost certainly starts looking at recruiting scientists and researchers from college and that means that they would in most major and probably even some not major colleges have people on the lookout for the possibility of recruiting people. And that recruitment would probably start with a basic kind of minimalist approach like just to get a sense of who these people are and then afterwards to really examine their backgrounds, how many people there are in their lives, who would miss them if they disappeared and so on. Dr. Sumerian is something that a character that I originated, although it's been written by many other people at this point so I don't like to say that it's necessarily mine, but his origins as an SCP Foundation employee are something that I am well versed in because I'm the one that thought him up in the first place. So in my headcanon version of Dr. Sumerian he was brought on board originally after finishing a doctorate in English literature which is he thought was going to be completely useless and a minor of philosophy and originally he was just a writer for SCP-245 and when he worked on SCP-245 it was a very simple project. He needed to create a game that SCP-245 would not recognize as a sense of futility. That's about it. Technically the entity is 245, the game is actually 245-1. So his origins with the foundation literally just was hey we need somebody who can create a convincing story to trick this one SCP and then once he was done he was done there's no that that that is a self-containing SCP so at that point it was either no longer work for the foundation or continue to work for the foundation in another capacity and his evolution from that point was he started to work in the HR department and then he worked there for a couple years and eventually made it into the ethics committee which his minor in philosophy helped him get to that particular point. Now that's just talking about his career trajectory but his initial recruitment was about the fact that the SCP foundation just needed a guy who could create a video game for them in a way that the story would be convincingly tricky so that the SCP couldn't get out and if you think about it most people would get recruited into the SCP foundation based on a particular project and then if they end up doing other things it would be because that project either ended or their participation was no longer required. So you know you end up with people like Dr. Sumerian who ends up on the ethics committee after everything is said and done but you also end up with people who work as kind of like roaming researchers just kind of work Dr. Brites or the Dr. Clefs who we have no idea what their doctorates are in but we don't have to know necessarily and of course your MTF agents are going to come in from military they're going to come in from police forces in some cases they're going to come in from anywhere where you get training in and not all MTFs are you know when we talk about MTFs we talk about them as though they're all like shooty shooty good guys but or bad guys sometimes but in reality MTFs are a wide range of things so you know you got writers there's MTFs that are just writers that are MTFs that are just video game creators they're MTFs that are music musicians they're MTFs that are artists they're empty you know call sorts of creative endeavors they're MTFs that are just fry cooks I mean it goes on and on and on so you find these people and you put them into the SCP Foundation and then they work at their jobs until they're either no longer needed or they're again their expertise has been exhausted on this particular project but because human resources are so valuable and like you have vetted this person to the point where you know that they can be trusted before you hired them so even though their expertise is in say food preparation because you were trying to help use them to contain an anomalous Wendy's in the end you're going to take that person you're gonna probably put them in the cafeteria right because they have food preparation experience they are vetted fully and they're already read on and the idea that there's some anomalous shit going on and I think storyline wise and probably even beyond that more of like a sort of a young adult novel sort of recruitment thing like in young adult novels you know somebody comes along it's like you're the special chosen one we need your skills you're the only one who can do this job and then you get involved in a world that you didn't realize existed right it's very young adult the way the SCP foundation goes about things and that's probably the reason why kids tend to be drawn to the SCP foundation in general beyond this spooky scary spooky scary monster stuff that's going on but also that means that in the end it's really more about chance the idea that your particular set of skills is necessary to the foundation's continued containment of some anomaly somewhere would be the only reason you would ever end up getting recruited by them of course SCP foundation employment is not a trivial thing when we talk about it the reason why anyone wouldn't work for the SCP foundation despite the danger despite the secrecy despite the fact that you may end up having to leave the love your loved ones behind and pretend that you are now dead although that might actually be appealing to some people is the pay that's the end given the important part about this is that I don't care what job you're doing for the SCP foundation you were probably well paid for that position to the point where like you're making double or triple what you would make if you were doing the same thing in the civilian world and this is necessary just from the base core kind of like the government has a problem of people betraying their country because they get paid to betray their country there's you know there's the idea of split loyalties blackmail these other things but the vast majority of the time if somebody betrays their country it's for money same thing is going to go for the SCP foundation and trust me there's plenty of people out there who would love to have an agent inside the SCP foundation you know who have tons of money I mean there's literal companies out there that in the anomalous world like MC and D or Anderson robotics and etc and they probably have bought some member I mean heck MC in one of the stories I wrote MC and D basically buys a character who eventually becomes a site director they don't pay him though they just ensure that he gets like they anomalously ensure that he gets promoted but it's the same roughly the same thing that's the important part so yeah you're going to make sure that these people get paid and paid well and have lots of benefits lots of vacation time by the way because Jesus Christ are they going to have to take vacations from some of the terrible shit they see and of course you know beyond the money beyond the ability to apply your skills at a job that you maybe enjoy is the idea that you're also helping save the world just by serving lunch to some scientists and mtf and agents but I think that's it really you're just going to it's of random chance right you just need to be really good in your field show a lot of promise or be somehow invaluable or know a particular and unique skill that nobody else knows how to do if you have all three of those things even better and if you're trustworthy if you're the kind of person that's stable enough for them to actually believe that you would be good fit in their in their scheme in a way that you are predictable because this is the foundation is about nothing else if not control they'd want to have control of your private life control over your public life control over you and to be fair this is not for everybody for obvious reasons anyway that's it just giving a little bit of an insight into the employment at the sb foundation since I know a lot of people like to think of the sb foundation as though it were real so it's fun to just every once in a while consider how they would operate and thank you very much for watching if you enjoyed the video please scroll down and hit the subscribe button and I'm not joking about that this last month or so up till about now we've started getting more subscribers now but man a lot of people view this vid view these videos and then don't subscribe I would very much appreciate it if you subscribed it's uh uh I've been having a bad month let's just say that on the subscriber counts and then after that if you'd like to support the channel even more head on over to patreon.com forward slash the samaritan like everybody here on the screen already has including vv and dr j redacted at $100 and lawful evil at $60 thank you for letting me know that I'm not alone out here and I'll see you all again on Tuesday


Monster Love by Russell Gins Illustrated by Steve Mack I love you so much!  Yuck! Monster Love! I love you so much!  Yuck! Monster Love! I love you so much!  Yuck! Monster Love! I love you so much! I'll give you my hat. It's also the home of my favorite pet rat. Yuck! Monster Love! I love you so much! I'll rub your tummy and give you this arm that I stole from a mummy. Yuck! Monster Love! I love you so much! You're my best friend of all and the one I will take to the Monster Ball. Hey! Monster Love!


You know, first of all, summer's here. Second, we've been vaccinated. It is so, I just have to keep saying this. It's so wonderful to be out and be back in Vermont. Oh my goodness, it really is. And Vermont, I just got to praise everybody from the governor to every citizen, the highest vaccination rate, the lowest infection rate, and that means we can all be together safely as we are today. So nice to be in Burlington. And it's also nice to be in Burlington because this week in Congress, I'm going to have an opportunity to vote on a transportation bill. We have been talking in this country for years about the need to pass a significant transportation bill that would provide money to fix our roads, bridges, improve our neighborhoods. And under the new rules in Congress, members of Congress are allowed to designate certain projects to be included into the transportation bill. I supported that. It's congressionally authorized spending. It has to be in public. It has to be for a project that meets community needs. I have to put my name on it so it can be subject to review and criticism. And I want to say that with great pride, I put my name on the project in the Invest America Act that would allow for a funding of an initial phase of the Rail Yard Enterprise project. And under this legislation in the Invest America Act that we will be voting on this week, $2.25 million would be authorized for the planning, the permitting, the preliminary work. Only the road connected that way. We'll let you get set up. No, that's great. And just while we're waiting, the people who are with me and will be speaking today, of course, our Mayor Murrow Weinberger, also Michelle Boomhower from the Vermont Association, Agency of Transportation, Mark Hughes from the Vermont Racial Justice Alliance, and Chapin Spencer, Director of Public Works in the City of Burlington. But as I was saying, this project is what would inform the days we called Congressional Year Mark. It has to be public and I have to put my name on it. It's subject to scrutiny so anyone who disagrees with me knows what I did and knows why I did it and can act accordingly. But I'm very proud that this congressionally designated spending, the first time I've been able to do it in years, is for the Rail Yard Enterprise project. This can be transformative for this section of Burlington and connect us the rail yard area with the south end that is vibrant and booming. It's about a project that improves livability for the community. It has the potential to alleviate traffic in a high residence area, have it come here where it will be much less intrusive, at the same time connecting two neighborhoods that can be vibrant and providing access to the bike path that is so close to us. Transportation projects take a while, but they also take money. And the money here is going to be for the planning, the permitting, and all the hard work that is necessary to be done in order to then continue on a $20 million project that is ultimately what we think the price tag will be. This money quadruples the money that has been available only through the city and the Vermont agency. So it should be a very significant contribution to significant progress towards the Rail Yard project. So I now want to turn this over to the mayor of Burlington who's got the easy job of making this all happen. Good morning everyone. It's exciting to be with you and it's exciting to be with this group this morning of federal and state partners as well as community partners who we've been talking about this project with for some time and this is a significant milestone today in bringing into reality the Rail Yard Enterprise project. As the congressman said, there is broad consensus that the Rail Yard Enterprise project will advance many shared goals by creating a new network of multimodal infrastructure investments here in the south end. The Rail Yard Enterprise project will, which I'm going to call REP from here, will improve the ability of neighbors to live, work, and travel safely. It will enhance connectivity between Pine Street and Battery Street and our newly developed Waterfront and it will advance economic development and make new connections making our street network more resilient. You know just standing here and seeing how that truck had to do this kind of awkward turn a moment ago is an example of how the south end has really been the transportation network in the south end has been incomplete and unfinished for a very long time and what this project is about is about getting that transportation network done and getting it right and it's one of a number of projects here in the south end that we're working on with both the state and the federal government to get this right and it's very important. The fact that there has been these this area and farther south in the south end these sections of the city that are unfinished and the status of the projects that have been talked about there are unresolved has not been good for anybody. It's been bad for walkers, it's been bad for bikers, it's certainly been bad for people who want to get around town driving, it's been bad for truck traffic, it's been bad for a net zero goals in that an inefficient incomplete transportation network doesn't do everything it can to reduce emissions and it's been bad for investment. It's left many projects on the drawing boards not moving forward because of this uncertainty. We're in a period now where we are bringing that uncertainty and incompleteness to an end. We're getting it done, we're getting it done right and working this formally known as an earmark investment is a key step in that that is really going to make sure that this project which has been you know I think we have to acknowledge has not gone as fast as we wanted to up until now. Chief and I said at a press conference around the corner you know nine years ago this is really going to accelerate this and bring this into reality. Another just point I want to make about this and then I'm excited to hear from others is that there has never been a time in the almost decade now that I've been in office when the state local and federal partners have been so aligned and working together so well on so many issues and I am confident that this is an example not only of the way in which we're tackling climate and transportation issues together but that we will be working together to recover from this deep recession and working together to tackle other crises of our time including reversing systemic racism and the historic harms that racism has done to our communities. So thank you Congressman Welch the Invest Act supports so much of what Burlingtonians know progress demands in addition to this piece of it it supports investment in rail the electrification of transportation and other aging infrastructure and modernization and it's a really exciting time and we're looking forward to talking more about the partnership with the federal government on other projects in the weeks and months to come so thanks again Congressman Welch and thank you to our partners for being here. Thank you Mr. Mayor and our state partner is the Vermont Agency of Transportation and Michelle Boomhauer is here to speak on behalf of the agency thank you. Thank you Congressman Welch and Mayor Weinberger it's been quite a journey as the mayor indicated it's nine years since we kicked this project off I was the director of transportation at the Chittenden County Transportation Regional Planning Commission at that time and so I've been involved in this project for a long time as well and my last six years at the agency of transportation have been dedicated to making sure as state partners that we are bringing the staffing expertise and the resources needed to support the city in making this happen as the owner of the property here in the rail yard we are sort of key partners in making sure that we find solutions that keep our rail business active which helps with our greenhouse gas emissions while really working to problem solve how we create neighborhood connectivity and assure that the residents in the Maple King Pine Street area are not burdened with transportation impacts that we have historically seen as issues here in the city and elsewhere in Vermont so this additional federal funding is going to allow for us to really accelerate the permitting and design and right-of-way processes for this project we are looking to assure that we have a resolution on the final environmental document the NEPA document which will be required to allow us to allocate federal funding to this project when it's ready to go to construction and the final alignment design is ready to advance and we're hoping that that will be in May of 2022 just less than a year from now is what we're targeting and then the agency of transportation has set aside in our planning for future construction activities about 20 million dollars in funds that we estimate will be required for this project and we have our top engineering staff ready to assist the city and we're very much looking forward to this project advancing expeditiously now that we've sort of reached the point where we are going forward so I'd like to thank the city of Burlington thank the congressmen and all the partners who stand with us today and who will continue to stand with us moving forward to make this project a reality thank you thank you Michelle and from Mark Hughes from the Vermont Racial Justice Alliance it's really important in America's transportation plans that we begin addressing what we've neglected to address and that's the impact of transportation projects on racial justice mark thank you so much for your work thank you representative west and thank you so much for inviting me out Mr. Mayor it's good to see you again it's always a pleasure to partner with you on projects like this Michelle Chapin all of you I've even met a brother from Iowa that's out there that's actually going to be engineering the project so that's my homeboy just to let you know um so um yeah why are we here why is the racial justice alliance here you know based upon everything that I've heard so far it's probably hard for you to connect those dots uh you know first let me introduce my pastor the new alpha missionary Baptist church the Reverend Dr. Christopher Von Cochra who's here joining us also a chair the board of the foundation that's behind the alliance uh we also have our community outreach Cleofas here one of our directors of community outreach is going to be very significant very impactful and reaching out continuing to reach out into these impacted communities uh that this particular project is seeking to avoid uh I think the um the you know I want to you know also introduce uh Roy Roy V. Hill II who's also a member of the board and then also Rajni Eddons uh cultural empowerment and spoken word here in community a very powerful voice in the community why are so many black people standing behind us they were not invited I invited them I invited them because of what we came here to stand for uh the reason why we're here is the reason why we're associated with this project despite the fact of me being asked not to talk about it I'm going to talk about it because that's what I'm here to do that's what I'm remaining committed to is is the Champlain Parkway which is a 60 year project we know that that project right now is it it is headed towards a you know the biggest black and brown and poor neighborhood uh in Vermont and we also know that it is with its design it will reduce traffic in a fluent white neighborhoods in in the south end by 72 percent and it will increase the traffic in black neighborhoods by 37 percent that is why we are here okay we didn't come just to discuss the rail yard enterprise and some kind of microcosm or something as if our larger issues do not exist that is not how we solve issues what we're here to do is to to you know support what it is that our representative has done this 2.25 million actually quintipples not quadruples the amount of money that was already allocated towards this effort as some of you know about this project the rail yard enterprise was the original alternative route for this project to avoid the mess that we're trying to avoid so the question is simple how do we address the realities that uphold the edifice of what produces a situation where a highway project reduces traffic by 72 percent in a fluent white neighborhood and increases traffic by 37 percent in the in the most black brown and poor neighborhood in the state probability on that is like throwing darts or crashing planes the reason why that exists is because we have we have systems that are failing us systems at the federal government and i'm calling on Secretary Buttigieg to insert himself in this process so we have we have failures at a statewide level there's no reason why we should be out for a summer study talking about what we're going to do about rating equity on these projects right now we should already be way out ahead of that game this whole business about the um you know the screening processes that have just been implemented in terms of the Vermont transportation project selection projects prioritization process process and if there is no equity in it we know that there's no reason for it everybody knows what we need to do and one of the things I challenge the state is is you know let's get you know let's get busy let's lean in you know stop hiring all the consultants that are telling you all of the things that you want to hear and lean into this process stop dancing around this issue uh what we have here is we have an emergency and it is a shame that the coronavirus has not taught us at least that that we're on the other side of that and we're having this conversation where i'm being told not to talk about this larger project so I appreciate what you have done representative um Welch and and I I do think that it is a small step in the right direction in terms of addressing this issue um in terms of putting a mandate over this issue but at the edifice of what it is that we're dealing with there are some serious structural things that we need to do to address what it is that is creating these whether it's in the chinton county chinton county regional planning office whether it's at the statewide level and even at the city and mr mayor I challenge you because at the heart of all of this is economics at the heart of everything we're talking about I think Dr King said it best there can we cannot address this without a radical redistribution of political and economic power and as you're preparing for your housing summit I challenge you to take a step back from that and give us an economic summit because what we need to do is we need to sit down and talk about money in this city so you are welcome for the 2.25 million dollars and I appreciate having the opportunity to come and address you thank you thank you mark and now chape and spencer the director of public works chape thank you thanks from new welch chape and spencer director of public works thanks for having me I'll be brief given the temperature that we're all enjoying right now I wanted to talk really about the foundation that this project is sitting on which I think mark is you well discussed really we need to engage the community fundamentally and from the first step and that this project really has benefited from that we have had a steering committee we have had countless public meetings we've done two planning processes really to make sure that this project is solidly on the right foot we've worked with federal highway and v-trans on new opportunities such as the planning and environmental linkages program that really helps expedite projects certainly there are projects that are federally in state funded that take too long we are approaching this project in a different way in order to deliver the benefits that you've heard from the mayor and others today sooner and my department is going to lead this project it is a top priority some of our staff are here today who are going to lead that project we are very excited to be a partner I will say and give a shout out to one other constituency group today and that is the property owners in the adjacent area here this project is not going to be easy there is no current public right of way in this area so it will really be our successful partnership with the neighbors here that is going to drive this project to a successful completion and I look forward to working with them every day as we had moving forward so thank you all very much and look forward to getting this project in the ground thank you we have time for a few questions yes for other infrastructure projects throughout the area like the I-89 walk-like bridge well there's two things first of all all local projects whether it's in Burlington and Chitton County or Vermont generally need federal participation and what is different this year or us in congress is we actually have a congress that is intent on passing a significant infrastructure bill we'll be voting on this bill we saw that there's enormous progress on a bipartisan bill in the senate so I have more optimism that we're going to get significant federal funding for infrastructure projects and that means that bodes really well for communities that are incredibly hard work of planning and dealing with all the issues that range from this specific project to the racial justice issues that mark raised they'll have some resources to be able to make progress so I see this in the context of a congressional commitment to finally getting funds back to our communities and our states to do these projects that are so important to them I'll just add that I mean the the project you're you specifically reference there is a South Burlington project and is um I would say uh you know it's not something that this team of the city team city of Burlington team is is responsible for for planning we are we are we make comments on on that project I do think there are a bunch however as I referenced of projects going on here in the south end some starting as soon as this summer the rebuilding of the rotary the shellburn um road rotary it's going to start in a matter of weeks weeks at this point on the other side of the building here we have work going on right now that is going to bring Amtrak here and has impacts on the on the rail yard right over here we um uh are um we have this other federal project which is a separate at this point a separate federal project the Champlain Parkway we have improvements on main street and water infrastructure in this area all this all this work needs to be properly coordinated if we're going to get it all done get it all done right and get it all done in a way that has um the supports the the the south end and the communities here as as we go and this this federal grant this 2.25 million is very helpful in um accelerating the rail yard enterprise project uh and getting all that work properly coordinated and our team right now is working on a schedule that will become um will be going to the city council for approval with uh soon that will show how all of all of this tens of millions of dollars where the work is going to be coordinated and one of the reasons so important to get it coordinated is because fundamentally the city of burlington hat agrees uh with what mark was was just saying and has always agreed with what mark which is saying is that this connection from battery to pine street is critical it's critical for for the community um and uh that was taken out over the objections of the the city of burlington back in the 2005 2006 period by the state and federal government that's why one of the first things I did when I came into office was to font create a new federal project and got support from our state and federal partners nine years ago to start this and it hasn't again it has not moved as quickly as we like today's announcement more than anything is an indication that this project is now moving forward it has alignment with the other levels of government it now has funding from the other level of government it's very exciting to hear a representative from the state say that her goal is to have the federal approvals in place by next spring that is an aggressive timeline um and uh so so I mean more you wanted to hear exactly but this is about coordination with the other projects and this is a very good sign for that coordination yep so Courtney we've been studying that question through this um um updated environmental impact statement um process that is uh still underway and that will result in a um a new report and uh potentially a new record of decision being issued sometime this this fall we are working hard with the state and local partners sorry state and federal partners um uh on exactly that uh on the issue of how uh all this work is coordinated and um we will be coming forward soon uh hopefully and we don't have it yet or we'd be talking about it today but hopefully with a schedule a coordinated schedule um that uh gets all this work done and gets it done in a way that is best for the community and we look sorry well the council have to approve that schedule that'd be something that goes to them for I believe remind me exactly what I think it is. Sure um our plan is definitely to bring this to the council ultimately uh the council's decision of what they choose to do with it but the council does have footage area authority to approve construction contracts so really what we're doing is trying to lay out a landscape that the community and the council can understand and that the council can then uh work with us to progress these projects through it in order to move forward for this fire. It's asking any unrelated concerns of yours regarding addictions of any of our mom hotels or hotels? Well I'm happy to answer that question but I don't want to keep everyone standing here if there are other questions. Yeah I'm happy to do that. Any other questions for for this group? Okay well thank you, thank you guys. Appreciate it.