Seriously Social

How can the voice of children and young people count if they aren't counted in elections? When you turn 16 you can drive a car, consent to medical procedures and pay taxes—but you can’t vote. 

Professor Lisa Hill explains why we’re so scared of giving younger people a vote, and shares fascinating research about 16 and 17-year-olds in the voting booth. 

Useful Links

• Voting at 16: Does lowering the voting age lead to more political engagement? Evidence from a quasi-experiment in the city of Ghent Cambridge University Press
• Condorcet’s Theorem 1000-Word Philosophy
• Climate anxiety in children and young people and their beliefs about government responses to climate change: a global survey The Lancet

Are you an activist or slacktivist? Would you take to the streets for a cause you’re passionate about, or sign a petition? What actions make a real difference? In this episode of Seriously Social, Brisbane City Councillor Jonathan Sriranganathan, academic and activist Aidan Ricketts and sexual consent advocate Chanel Contos answer the question 'What is the point of a protest?', take a look at the ways protesting has changed over the years and highlight how governments and lawmakers are making it harder for protestors to exercise their rights.   

Useful Links

• 1800 RESPECT Phone 1800 737 732
• Lifeline Phone 13 11 44
• Kids Helpline Phone 1800 55 1800
• Centre for Sex and Gender Equality The Australia Insititute
• Teach Us Consent
• Extinction Rebellion
• The history of the Australian Environment Movement Australian Environmental Grant Network
• Franklin Dam and the Greens National Museum Australia
• Elizabeth Reid talks women, advocacy and change in Australia Seriously Social

Australians love sport. It’s healthy, fun and brings the community together for a common goal. Or so we’re told. But what happens when our national obsession with sport causes division in the community? And who is left out of the game altogether? In this episode of Seriously Social, Emeritus Professor David Rowe explains how involvement in sport can be so contentious it has started a war while author and host of The Outer Sanctum podcast, Nicole Hayes, discusses the benefits to the wider community that occur when marginalised voices enter the conversation about sport.

Useful Links

• Honduras vs El Salvador: The football match that kicked off a war BBC News
• The day Cathy Freeman flew the flag and flagged the future The Sydney Morning Herald
• Australian Citizenship: Our common bond Department of Home Affairs
• Kick It Out
• Reclink

It’s our 50^th episode and we are celebrating this milestone with an extra-special interview with the first women’s advisor to a head of government anywhere in the world. Elizabeth Reid AO, Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences in Australia and a former visiting Fellow at the Gender Relations Centre and Department of Human Geography at ANU, was appointed in 1973 to advise then Prime Minister Gough Whitlam on the changes in policy that the women of Australia were desperate to see implemented. From placards and protests to the halls of power, Elizabeth Reid takes us through the ways in which women have tried to make society sit up and listen, and the challenges of being a figurehead for a social movement for change.

Watch our extended interview with Elizabeth on our Seriously Social YouTube channel: https://youtu.be/SrPI3F2hCWs 

Fill in our podcast survey here: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/BX33W8K 

Useful Links

• Elizabeth Reid: Transforming adversity into impact ANU Gender Institute
• Women’s Liberation Movement
• International Women’s Year
• Milestones for Australian Women Since 1975 ABC News
• March4Justice

Would you switch to greener super if it meant more money at retirement? But is the benefit worth the hassle? As climate change makes itself felt in our everyday lives, we explore how our choice of superannuation fund can cost us in the long run if we don’t pay attention to climate-friendly investment now. In this episode, Professor Jacqueline Peel, Director of Melbourne Climate Futures talks about how it's possible to prompt climate action by strategic superannuation investment. Professor Wai Fong Chua also reveals just what it will take for big businesses to disclose climate-related material risk.

Useful Links

• “REST super fund commits to net zero emission investments after Brisbane man sues” ABC News
• Melbourne Climate Futures University of Melbourne
• The Paris Agreement United Nations Climate Change
• Market Forces

When you think back to your childhood, who do you remember spent the most time doing the day-to-day care? The most common answer to that question historically, would be mum. But in 2022, is that beginning to change? In this episode, Professor of Gender and Employment Relations, Marian Baird, (University of Sydney), discusses Australia’s current Paid Parental Leave schemes including how they work, what needs to change and how can we learn from other schemes. 

Useful links:

• Dad days: how more gender-equal parental leave would improve the lives of Australian families by Grattan Institute
• Early Childhood Australia 
• Gender equality and paid parental leave in Australia: A decade of giant leaps or baby steps? by Marian Baird, Myra Hamilton and Andreea Constantin 
• PPL Evaluation Report by the Institute for Social Science Research, University of Queensland 

Are you one of the 50% of Australians who have tried an illicit drug? Or do you believe all drugs should be illegal? The field of drug policy is in a state of flux. Whilst drugs are being legalised in some parts of the world, other countries are cracking down. In this episode, Professor Alison Ritter, Director of the UNSW Drug Policy Modelling Program, explores Australia's drug policies: who makes them, who influences them, and who is being left out of the discussion?

Useful Links

• Drug Policy Modelling Program, University of Sydney
• Australian Institute of Criminology

Feeling burned out? It’s not surprising: experts say we all have a 30% chance of experiencing it. (Sorry to doctors, teachers and others in caring professions: your chances are way higher.) In this episode, the founder of the Black Dog Institute, Professor Gordon Parker, explains what burnout is, why it’s often misdiagnosed, and which personalities are most at risk of experiencing this syndrome which can impact our relationships, personality, and brain function.

Useful links:

• Burnout: A guide to identifying burnout and pathways to recovery by Gordon Parker, Gabriela Tavella and Kerrie Eyers
• The Carers Club
• Lifeline: 13 11 14

Did you know there have been more dictatorships than democracies? Ever wondered if all dictators are cut from the same cloth? With the help of author Professor Graeme Gill and journalist Matt Bevan from the ABC “If you’re listening” podcasts, we explore how dictatorships work and why democracy is a more unusual system of government than most of us realise. 

Useful Links

• If You're Listening Podcast with Matt Bevan
• Bridling Dictators: Rules and Authoritarian Politics by Graeme Gill

What makes a speech, especially a political speech impactful, memorable and stirring? And why does it always feel so long between those times when we hear a good one? In this episode of Seriously Social, political historian Professor Sean Scalmer joins us to discuss the origins of the stump speech, and what it takes to move hearts and minds with words.

Useful Links

• On the Stump: Campaign Oratory and Democracy in the United States, Britain and Australia by Sean Scalmer
• Julia Gillard's Misogyny Speech in Full (2012) ABC News
• Lieutenant General David Morrison AO ICMI Speakers and Entertainment
• Jacqui Lambie delivers emotional speech condemning uni fee rises ABC News
• Winston Churchill Speech Before Commons (June 4, 1940) Hanover Education
• Australian Election Speeches: Gough Whitlam 1972 Museum of Australian Democracy
• Paul Keating speech on impact of European settlement on Indigenous Australia (1992) ABC Australia
• Grace Tame and Brittany Higgins address the National Press Club of Australia National Press Club of Australia