At the time of making this program, Australia still awaits the final outcome of the 2010 federal election. Neither major party won enough seats to form government, and are negotiating minority government coalitions with independent MPs. While we wait, let's consider some of the progressive policy ideas that were missing from much of the election campaign.

The Centre for Policy Development has produced an e-book of policy ideas for the next federal government, More Than Luck: Ideas Australia Needs Now. We hear from Antoinette Abboud, the CPD Public Affairs Manager, as well as contributors Kate Gauthier and Eva Cox. We also speak to Professor Lyn Carson about Australia's democratic deficit - the growing estrangement between voters and those they vote for. And Crikey editor Sophie Black reflects on the hung parliament.

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On this week’s program we take a look at same-sex marriage rights in Australia. We hear from concerned lesbian mum Kelly Pilgrim-Byrne who recently lodged an anti-discrimination complaint against Queensland Family First candidate Wendy Francis for offensive comments she made equating children with homosexual parents as suffering from child abuse. And then from Tasmania, human rights advocate and trans-woman Martine Delaney shares her thoughts on how the major political parties in this country are out of touch on the issue of same-sex marriage rights.

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In February 2009, Australian-based clothing manufacturer Pacific Brands announced that it would close seven of its factories across the country and move production of socks, underwear, and clothes offshore to take advantage of lower wage costs. Nearly 2000 workers lost their jobs. We speak to Helena Spyrou from the Textile, Clothing and Footwear Union of Australia about a new exhibition that documents and celebrates the working lives of some of these workers. The exhibition, Heroes of Holeproof, uses film, photography and text to capture the experience of life at one of the seven closed factories and the sadness, fear, anger and, for some, relief in its closure.

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Communities around the world want action on climate change, but they’re just not getting it - not internationally, and certainly not locally. This week’s show features Professor Robyn Eckersley from the University of Melbourne, talking about the main players in this game and discussing who is most resistant to a global climate treaty. We also hear from Amanda McKenzie, the National Director of the Australian Youth Climate Coalition, about what young Australians are doing to solve the climate crisis and what action they want from the government.

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Today on the program we speak with Dr Lesley Laing, Senior Lecturer in Social Work and Policy Studies at the University of Sydney about her report, No Way To Live. We also hear from the Honourable Justice Robyn Layton discussing the nature of social justice and its interaction with law at the annual Catherine Helen Spence Oration.

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This week we take a look at a very exciting development for Australia - the appointment of our first female Prime Minister, Julia Gillard!

While many people, including some prominent male politicians, claim her gender won’t be an issue, Julia Gillard herself has acknowledged that there is still differential attention towards women in politics in Australia, especially on matters of appearance. But our new PM remains optimistic - appreciating being instrumental in ‘normalising’ the image of a woman doing the highest job in politics.

We hear from three progressive women who work in support of equal rights and female political representation; Kathleen Swinbourne from the Women’s Electoral Lobby, Hutch Hussein from Emily’s List Australia, and Kathy Richards from the Equality Rights Alliance. They speak about their hopes and concerns for Julia Gillard, Prime Minister.

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In 1975, Greg Shackleton went to East Timor to report for Channel Seven News with colleagues Tony Stewart and Gary Cunningham. They were killed in Balibo, along with Channel Nine reporter Malcolm Rennie and cameraman Brian Peters, when Indonesian troops overran the town on October 16, 1975. Since that day, Shirley Shackleton has tried to get the truth about what happened to her husband. Covered up during Indonesia’s brutal occupation of East Timor, unchallenged by successive Australian governments, it propelled her into activism for East Timor's freedom. Shirley Shackleton has written a memoir, The Circle of Silence: A Personal Testimony Before, During and After Balibo, and spoke about it recently in Melbourne.

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Today we hear from Donna Mulhearn, a non-violent peace activist, speaking at the Newcastle launch of her book, Ordinary Courage: My Journey to Baghdad as a Human Shield, about her time as a human shield in Iraq in 2003 and more recent experiences in Fallujah.

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This year marks the 25th birthday of Guerrilla Girls, an anonymous and infamous group of feminist art-world avengers based in the United States. Founded in 1985, the Guerrilla Girls assumed the names of dead women artists and wore gorilla masks in public, concealing their identities while critiquing the art world's gender imbalance through culture-jamming posters, billboards, and books. To honour the occasion we speak to one of the founding members of Guerrilla Girls, who goes by the pseudonym Kathe Kollwitz. We also take a peek beneath the pillbox hat of Mrs Bea Wright from the John Howard Ladies Auxiliary Fan Club, a group originally dedicated to 'apeing' and exposing the awful right wing truth of former Australian Prime Minister John Howard.

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We take a look at the implications of some of the Federal Government’s recent proposed changes to mental health care in Australia. Our guests are CEO of the Australian Association of Social Workers, Kandie Allen-Kelly, and two Victorian mental health Social Workers.

As part of recent Federal Budget cuts, the government planned to remove Social Workers and Occupational Therapists from the Better Access to Mental Health Care program, from 1 July this year. After a week or so of intense lobbying, there was a concession of sorts, with the government agreeing to delay implementing the new system until April 2011. Despite the promise of further discussions and greater consultation with professional groups, the government has just confirmed that there will be no further negotiations - Social Workers will be removed from the Better Access program next year.

Since 2006, under the Better Access program, mental health Social Workers and Occupational Therapists qualified for Medicare rebates, allowing them to bulk-bill clients with non-acute mental illness. Under this program GPs are also able to refer patients to them. Many working in the sector fear that if the Better Access program is cut as the government plans, then some of Australia’s most vulnerable people - those with mental health problems and a low-income - will lose access to valuable services.

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Today we look at media messages about sports and pregnancy for women in Australia. The under-representation of women’s sporting achievements has been documented in a new report, Towards a level playing field: sport and gender in Australian media, and we hear from Kate Palmer, CEO of Netball Australia, about the share of media coverage for female-dominated sports. Then Jessica Tata from RMIT University discusses her research into body image pressures during pregnancy. Also on the program, Professor Rosalind Croucher discusses the Australian Law Reform Commission’s new consultation paper on family violence reform.

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Today on the program we hear a response to the government’s proposed new mining and resources super profit tax. During the largest escalation of mining activity in Australia’s history, the super profits tax has been proposed to help distribute mining wealth more evenly across the nation. Indigenous leaders have stated it will hurt people in remote regions and that mining companies will be less willing to reach agreements that benefit remote communities. It has also been suggested that the super-profits tax could fundamentally change the policies of the socially responsible mining and energy corporations who negotiate impact benefit agreements with local Indigenous groups.

We hear Marcia Langton, Professor of Australian Indigenous studies at the University of Melbourne, speaking at the State Library of Queensland. Professor Langton asks who really benefits from the mining resources boom and what it means for Indigenous and non Indigenous Australians living in mining regions. For further reading, see Professor Langton's article, 'The resource curse', from edition 28 of the Griffith Review.

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On today’s program we look at prisons in Australia and ask, ‘What would a world without prisons look like?’. It's been twenty years since the opening of Australia's first private prison, Borallon Correctional Centre in Queensland. We hear from prison activist and lawyer Amanda George who argues not only that private prisons are morally indefensible but that all prisons should be abolished. We also hear from Rachel Herzing from the US-based organisation Creative Interventions about ways to respond to violence that don't rely on intervention from the state.

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This is a re-broadcast of a Women On The Line program that first aired on Friday 5 February 2010.

Nina Power is a Senior Lecturer in Philosophy at Roehampton University, and writes the blog Infinite ThØught. She discusses her new book, One-Dimensional Woman, a critique of the kind of contemporary feminism that poses women as thriving in consumer capitalism, published by Zero Books.
That the height of supposed female emancipation coincides so perfectly with consumerism is a miserable index of a politically desolate time. Much contemporary feminism, particularly in its American formulation, doesn't seem too concerned about this coincidence. Nina Power's short book is partly an attack on the apparent abdication of any systematic political thought on the part of today's positive, up-beat feminists. It suggests alternative ways of thinking about transformations in work, sexuality and culture that, while seemingly far-fetched in the current ideological climate, may provide more serious material for future feminism.

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Today on the program we look at two aspects of government policy and health; the lack of government action in relation to the health of coal communities in the Hunter area, and the agreement by state and federal governments to revolutionalise the health system in Australia. We speak to NSW Greens MLC Lee Rhiannon who has been calling for an independent study into the health impacts of the coal mine and power industries for the last 5 years, and also to Australian Nursing Federation Federal Secretary Ged Kearney about the positive moves in relation to health reform.

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We take a look at what life is really like for lesbians and gays in Australia, and start by going back in time to the 1950s.

Dr Ruth Ford from the history department at La Trobe University talks about the life of Val Eastwood: dancer, model, restaurateur and author, who opened a café in 1951 that welcomed not only lesbians and gays, but communists, prostitutes and criminals as well. At the time, homosexuality was a criminal offence throughout Australia. Robert Menzies had just begun what would be an 18-year term as Prime Minister and had embarked on his mission to destroy the Communist Party. The pubs closed at six and few Aboriginal people had the right to vote. The café went on to become a haven for gays, lesbians, and Melbourne’s bohemian misfits.

Times have changed considerably for gay, lesbian, and transgender people in Australia. Homosexuality has been decriminalised in all states and some laws have been amended to partially remove discrimination in areas like social security, taxation, workers’ compensation and family law. But how has homophobia changed since the 1950s? Associate Professor Lynne Hillier from the Australian Research Centre in Sex, Health and Society says that homophobia remains a feature of young people’s lives. She has collected data from thousands of young people and speaks about the release of the Beyond Homophobia policy blueprint.

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We look at a recent report done in Victoria on the economics of equality - the first of its kind in Australia.

Economists have traditionally believed that poor countries that wanted to grow rapidly had to expect a widening gap between the haves and have-nots - that is, inequality came hand in hand with development. Standard measures of development just looked at GDP. However, over the last few decades new ideas have emerged on measuring development with a greater focus on measuring wellbeing and happiness. Many economists now see greater income equality as actually being compatible with faster growth, and perhaps even contributing to it.

The report that we’re talking about on today’s show, The Economics of Equality, explores more recent changes in the economic measurement of wellbeing and how these new economic measures relate to equality. Written explicitly for the Victorian Equal Opportunity and Human Rights Commission, and in partnership with the Social Justice Initiative of the University of Melbourne, this report aims to give the Commission the knowledge and evidence base it needs to be able to articulate the economic value of its work, in terms of the impact it has on the wellbeing of Victorians.

We’ll hear from the report’s author, Helen Mitchell, as well as from VEOHRC Commissioner Helen Szoke, who sees the huge potential in using economic arguments to achieve equality.

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Officially, Australia has a long-standing opposition to capital punishment. The Federal Government abolished the death penalty in 1973, and in February of this year passed laws that ensure the death penalty can never be re-introduced by any state or territory. Obviously, this is not the case in the United States, and our guest today recently spent time in Louisiana working as an intern in a capital defence office for the anti-death penalty organisation, Reprieve.
Lizzie O'Shea, a lawyer from Melbourne, speaks about capital punishment in the South, and visiting prisoners on death row at Angola, Louisiana's largest prison.
You can read more about Lizzie O'Shea's time with death row inmates in the current issue (198) of Overland.

This week we hear excerpts from an Arts Matters forum held at the University of Sydney on Why Feminism Matters. Speakers included leading international political scientists and Australian academics and researchers discussing the role feminism plays in shaping the political agenda, and thoughts about how contemporary feminists can keep the forward momentum.
From the United States we hear from Karen Beckwith, the Flora Stone Mather Professor in the Department of Political Science at Case Western Reserve University, and Mary Fainsod Katzenstein, Professor of American Studies and Professor of Government at Cornell University. Fiona Mackay is Senior Lecturer in Politics, and Director of the Graduate School of Social and Political Science at the University of Edinburgh, Scotland.
The Australian speakers are Sue Goodwin, Senior Lecturer in Policy Studies in the Faculty of Education and Social Work at the University of Sydney and Rebecca Huntley, writer and social researcher.

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So how do you fit a radio station into a suitcase? Today we tune into radio projects from Canada, Africa and Fiji. Blythe Mackay from Canadian NGO Farm Radio International will explain how remote farming communities in Africa are exchanging grassroots ideas and information across the continent - through the innovative use of radio. And Eleanor Jackson from the Australian-based International Women’s Development Agency will explain all about suitcase radio in Fiji, and the women who are pioneering it.

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Today we feature highlights from a recent One Just World forum in Melbourne about women changing the world and combating gender inequality. The key speakers were Hilary Charlesworth, an internationally renowned commentator on international law and human rights with a strong interest in gender issues, and Jane Sloane, the Executive Director of the International Women’s Development Agency.
Just five years from now, all the Millennium Development Goals are supposed to be met. Goal #3 is promoting gender equality and empowering women, and we still have a long way to go. Given the right support and opportunities women are powerful agents of change and social transformation and when they have a say in decisions affecting their lives they share the benefits with their families and communities. Gender inequality still exists, and frightening statistics attest to this: according to the Women’s International Network women do 66% of the world’s work, but receive only 5% of the world’s income. And the United Nations Development Program states that 2 out of 3 of the world’s 960 million illiterate adults are women. What can be done to challenge this inequality and empower women? Tune in to find out!

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On today’s program, we mark International Women’s Day. Jean Taylor discusses her new book, Brazen Hussies: A Herstory of Radical Activism in the Women’s Liberation Movement in Victoria, 1970-1979.

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Today we look at the Senate Inquiry into the sexualisation of children in the contemporary media environment. The inquiry was called in response to concerns that images of sexualised children were becoming increasingly common in advertising and marketing material, and that children are often forced to psychologically and cognitively deal with sex and sexuality before they are developmentally ready. We speak with Dr Emma Rush, Associate Lecturer in Ethics and Philosophy at Charles Sturt University and the lead author of Corporate Paedophilia: Sexualisation of Children in Australia.

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Today we’re covering conflict, cancer, and age discrimination at work. I’ll be finding out why there are fears of renewed conflict in Southern Sudan, from Oxfam Policy advisor Maya Mailer. Then we’ll hear from Annabel Davis, about how Ovarian Cancer Australia is trying to raise awareness about tackling ovarian cancer. And Age Discrimination Commissioner Elizabeth Broderick explains the Federal Government’s new plans to encourage older Australians to stay in work.

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Today's program looks at 'digital inclusion' in Australia and how access to information and communication technologies enables 'social inclusion'. General Manager of Infoxchange Australia, Natalie Collins, talks about plans for a national digital inclusion project. Nicky Lo Bianco from the State Library of Victoria's VicNet discusses their recent report on the digital inclusion of minority language groups.

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Nina Power is a Senior Lecturer in Philosophy at Roehampton University, and writes the blog Infinite ThØught. She discusses her new book, One-Dimensional Woman, a critique of contemporary feminism, published by Zero Books.

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On today’s show we look at the current position of Aboriginal Australians, specifically the impact of the ongoing NT Intervention.
We hear from Emma Murphy, who has worked in remote Indigenous communities and recently visited town camps and Aboriginal organisations in Central Australia to find out how the intervention, while posing as a solution to a number of problems, has actually undermined grassroots community solutions. We also hear from Pat Eatock, veteran Aboriginal activist and Kairie elder, who believes the assimilative and dispersive policies attached to quarantining welfare is destructive to Indigenous culture and community.

Art as a form of political protest has a long history. In Iran, where restrictions on the media and the rights of women make freedom of expression a difficult task, women are taking a creative approach to activism.  The female-dominated One Million Signatures campaign aims to promote law reform in Iran. Today we are looking at the work of one branch of the campaign, its Arts Committee. We’re heading to Tehran, to hear from Azadeh, a young theatre studies graduate, about  her use of street theatre as a way of highlighting injustices in Iranian law.

When Israel’s 18th Parliament opened this February, there was only one Arab woman amongst its intake of legislators. Hanneen Zoubi was the first Arab woman to be elected for an Arab party in the Knesset and the first woman ever to represent a non-Zionist party. She is a representative of the Tar-jar-mu party, the Arab-Israel party with a Palestinian nationalist platform.  Hanneen Zoubi was in Melbourne recently as the guest of Australians for Palestine and spoke with 3CR’s Nola Brooks.

Balibo is an Australian film from director Robert Connolly that tells the story of the Balibo Five and Roger East, six Australian-based journalists who were killed in 1975 when Indonesia invaded East Timor. Although the Balibo story centres largely on the fate of men, it is also of personal significance to the women on our program today. Maureen Tolfree is the sister of journalist Brian Peters, one of the Balibo Five murdered by Indonesian troops on October 16, 1975. And Bea Viegas, who left East Timor with her family as a one-year-old in 1975, speaks about the significance of the Balibo story in the history of East Timor, and her first acting role playing the character Juliana in the film.

SUMMER PROGRAMMING #1
Family Law Review
Producer: Jaye Hardy
Broadcast: Friday 1 January

Changes to the Family Law Act in 2006 put greater emphasis on the importance of the father's presence in children's lives, yet a widespread perception remains in the community and among some lawyers that the shared parenting ideology trumps other considerations. We speak to Dr Elspeth McInnes, senior social policy advisor for the National Council for Single Mothers and their Children, and Barbara Bigs, author and child protection campaigner, about the current system and proposed changes.