The RegenNarration

This is an excerpt from episode 85 featuring the last 20 minutes or so of my conversation with Cathy McGowan. We pick things up with the passage that became the opener in the main episode. It heralds a powerful sequence from Cathy, and an insight into what’s bubbling up around the country in the lead up to the next federal election. We then go into how things worked for her, and other increasingly successful independents, on the ground – the practical realities, the value set, and the networks of support that make it all possible. We draw to a close with more of the vision, strategy and supportive infrastructure being developed, to get more community-minded independents elected. Oh, and an express request from Cathy to share this podcast.Title slide: The cover to Cathy’s book.Music:Faraway Castle, by Rae Howel and Sunwrae.Find more:You can hear the rest of our conversation in the main episode, ‘Politics That Works: A proven way becoming a powerful movement’. Send us a textSupport the showThe RegenNarration is independent, ad-free and freely available, thanks to the generous support of listeners like you. Please consider becoming a paid subscriber to help keep the show on the road - and gain access to a great community and some exclusive benefits - on Patreon or Substack (where you'll find my writing). You can also donate directly via the website (avoiding fees) or PayPal. I hope to see you at an event, and even The RegenNarration shop. And thanks for sharing with friends!

Cathy McGowan was the first female independent MP to sit on the Australian parliamentary cross bench. She was elected in 2013 to the federal seat of Indi, which had been an entrenched conservative party seat for 74 years. At the following election, in 2016, she increased her majority, despite the Liberal/National Party coalition going hard to reclaim it. When Cathy bowed out of parliament ahead of the 2019 election, Indi again made Australian political history with the election of Dr Helen Haines as its second successive independent woman MP. And it’s all been achieved on the back of a still growing community movement, now far from limited to Indi.This is one of the greatest political stories going in Australia, and arguably the world. It’s a story about how community-minded people are getting elected, getting represented, and getting the outcomes that representation can and should get. In that sense, it’s also a story about how politics in this country – and arguably further afield – can be transformed for the better. Cathy has a vision that in 10 years this transformation could realistically be achieved, starting with the next federal election.Cathy is now helping to leverage this capacity right across the country. She wrote a book last year, and the enormous reaction to it prompted the first National Convention of Community-Minded Independents earlier this year. Organisers were blown away when 300 people from more than half of Australia’s federal electorates turned up. So with no shortage of people up for this, and more supportive infrastructure developing, a proven way is becoming a powerful movement - with genuine representation, responses to climate and biodiversity challenges, wellbeing economics, reconciliation and regenerative practices on the cards.“It is past the time of sitting back, hoping that others will do something. It is time to turn up, speak up and step up. The outcomes are worth it. The nation needs it.” – Cathy McGowan.This episode was recorded online with Cathy at home on her farm in the Indigo Valley, Victoria, on Thursday 27 May 2021.Title slide: Cathy McGowan (supplied).You can see the promotional card from the National Convention that I mentioned in our conversation on the episode web page. Music:Faraway Castle, by Rae Howell and Sunwrae.Find more:Cathy McGowan (including how to get her book & other resources). Getting Elected (resources from the 1st National Convention for Community-Minded Independents).Women for Election Australia (aiming to equip 2,000 womeSend us a textSupport the showThe RegenNarration is independent, ad-free and freely available, thanks to the generous support of listeners like you. Please consider becoming a paid subscriber to help keep the show on the road - and gain access to a great community and some exclusive benefits - on Patreon or Substack (where you'll find my writing). You can also donate directly via the website (avoiding fees) or PayPal. I hope to see you at an event, and even The RegenNarration shop. And thanks for sharing with friends!

This is an excerpt from episode 84 featuring the last 20 minutes or so of my conversation with Dr Anne Poelina. We pick up the conversation with Anne’s powerful articulation of a way to proceed with planning in the Kimberley, on the back of an existing federal government bioregional framework. We go on to talk more about the incredible new film The Serpent’s Tale, leading to Anne’s heart-rending plea for more of us to correspond with the West Australian government. She goes on to suggest how. And Anne's story of the blind Aboriginal elder who sang his way to Uluru – 6 times! – offers a touchstone for the profound nature of the Songlines, and of so much what we stand to gain together, by standing together now. A true circular economy, as elder Mary Graham puts it - in relationship with everything. Anne often talks about ‘waking up the snake’ – the consciousness of the people. We close with me asking her whether she thinks this is happening.Title slide: Martuwarra (pic: Mark Jones).Music:Liyan, by Anne’s son Mark Coles-Smith, composing as Kalaji (joined by Ursula Yovich).Find more:You can hear the rest of our conversation in the main episode, Regenerative Songlines: Film, First Law & the Martuwarra Fitzroy RiverYou can see a few terrific photographs on that episode web page too.Send us a textSupport the showThe RegenNarration is independent, ad-free and freely available, thanks to the generous support of listeners like you. Please consider becoming a paid subscriber to help keep the show on the road - and gain access to a great community and some exclusive benefits - on Patreon or Substack (where you'll find my writing). You can also donate directly via the website (avoiding fees) or PayPal. I hope to see you at an event, and even The RegenNarration shop. And thanks for sharing with friends!

This episode departs from the usual schedule, as there’s a particularly pressing aspect to this one. Dr Anne Poelina is a Nyikina Warrwa (Indigenous Australian) woman who belongs to the Mardoowarra, the lower Fitzroy River in the Kimberley region of Western Australia. She is also Chair of the esteemed Martuwarra Fitzroy River Council. When Anne and I last spoke for the podcast, in Broome a few years ago, I said this:“If anywhere epitomizes the critical time we’re in, it’s in the spectacular cultural and natural landscapes of her homeland. Almost incredibly, there are 40,000+ fracking wells slated for this area, along with the damming of the Fitzroy River, and more ‘old-model’ industrial agriculture. Yet the next economy is also in tow here, and this is where Anne is currently focusing her extraordinary breadth of cross-cultural knowledge and experience.”Three years on and a power of work has been done. This includes the forming of Regenerative Songlines Australia. And while that ‘old industrial model’ lurks in the Kimberley, a profound new film screened last week called The Serpent’s Tale. It documents the creation of Martuwarra, the National Heritage listed Fitzroy River. And its launch draws attention to an important state government submission process on now, while invoking deeper connection with the River and Country generally. This episode was recorded on 20 May and released on 24 May 2021, the anniversary of the exploding of the Juukan Gorge last year, which destroyed a 46,000-year heritage site. A reminder that the stakes couldn’t be higher, in terms of staving off disaster, but also ushering in the emerging new story of connection and regeneration. For those less familiar with Anne, she is also an international award winner, Managing Director of Madjulla Incorporated, a qualified nurse, traditional midwife, has multiple postgraduate degrees, and over 30 years’ experience in Indigenous health, education, language and community development. Title slide: Dr Anne Poelina (supplied).You’ll find a selection of photographs from Anne on the episode web page too. Music:River Feeling, at the start of the episode, and Liyan, at the end, both by Anne’s son Mark Coles-Smith, composing as Kalaji (joined in Liyan by Ursula Yovich).Find more:Dr Anne Poelina The Martuwarra Fitzroy River Council Trailer for the film, The Serpent’s Tale  Make a submission or write an email or letterSend us a textSupport the showThe RegenNarration is independent, ad-free and freely available, thanks to the generous support of listeners like you. Please consider becoming a paid subscriber to help keep the show on the road - and gain access to a great community and some exclusive benefits - on Patreon or Substack (where you'll find my writing). You can also donate directly via the website (avoiding fees) or PayPal. I hope to see you at an event, and even The RegenNarration shop. And thanks for sharing with friends!

This is an excerpt from episode 83 featuring the last 20 minutes or so of my conversation with award-winning archaeology professor, Peter Veth. We pick it up at the tail end of Peter answering my question about how archaeology has changed to work with First Nations, not on them. We went on to chat about the global ‘blockbuster’ exhibition Songlines, currently touring, and how it’s changing the Australian (and arguably world) psyche. We then delve more into the extraordinary impacts that these emerging ‘finds’ and connections are having on people – both First Nations and the rest of us. And take a final sweeping look across country at the extraordinary living cultural heritage coming to light, and what needs to happen with it in response. We close with Peter’s reflections on the value of a life, in the context of crisis and deep time.Title slide: The dawn over Cape Range, the day after final production of this episode (pic: Anthony James).Music:The Great Unwind, by William Tyler off his album Modern Country.Find more:You can hear the rest of our conversation in the main episode, Regenerating in Deep Time: New finds, narratives and future possibilities.  You can see a few terrific early photographs of Peter among some of the First Nations communities we talked about, on that episode web page too.Send us a textSupport the showThe RegenNarration is independent, ad-free and freely available, thanks to the generous support of listeners like you. Please consider becoming a paid subscriber to help keep the show on the road - and gain access to a great community and some exclusive benefits - on Patreon or Substack (where you'll find my writing). You can also donate directly via the website (avoiding fees) or PayPal. I hope to see you at an event, and even The RegenNarration shop. And thanks for sharing with friends!

This is a special extra to episode 83 with award-winning archaeologist, Peter Veth. We delve further here into what Peter believes needs to happen in the crucible of landscapes such as those in north west Australia. We talk about the place of heavy industry, cultural enterprise and interpretation, economies, education and media. With an approach that celebrates the extraordinary deep time value of these co-created landscapes and cultures. Generating a more universal view, as Peter puts it – reflecting how First Nations see things, and how many young people see things now too. Title slide: Peter Veth at Cape Range (pic: UWA).Music:The Great Unwind, by William Tyler off his album Modern Country.Find more:You can hear the rest of our conversation in the main episode, Regenerating in Deep Time.You can see a few terrific early photographs of Peter among some of the First Nations communities we talked about, on that episode web page too.Send us a textSupport the showThe RegenNarration is independent, ad-free and freely available, thanks to the generous support of listeners like you. Please consider becoming a paid subscriber to help keep the show on the road - and gain access to a great community and some exclusive benefits - on Patreon or Substack (where you'll find my writing). You can also donate directly via the website (avoiding fees) or PayPal. I hope to see you at an event, and even The RegenNarration shop. And thanks for sharing with friends!

Australia’s history is being significantly rewritten - or perhaps better said, heard. There is growing widespread understanding of the sophistication, presence and wisdom of the First Australians, and not just from the game-changing works of people like Bruce Pascoe and Bill Gammage. Now that modern Australia is looking in more of the right places, with the right mind, and with the First Australians themselves, our national - and really, human - story, is changing everywhere. This is a story of successful continuous human migration, cultivation and livelihood, right across Australia, over many a changing climate and shifting sea level. And leading archaeology professor from UWA, Peter Veth, has been working with First Nations for over 40 years to help share this story.Peter has just started a new dig with First Nations folk here on the North West Cape of Australia, part of the World Heritage Ningaloo Coast. It’s expected to reveal the First Nations presence in this part of the world dates back an extraordinary 60,000 years. And when pieced together with other finds and collaborations happening across Australia and the world, it changes the way we see our country, it’s people, and the human experience generally. And that, in turn, is broadening the menu of present and future possibilities enormously, at a time when this region, its people, and the world as a whole, need it most. This conversation was recorded on the new moon of 12 May 2021.Title slide: Cape Range, on the World Heritage Ningaloo Coast (pic: UWA).You can see a few terrific early photographs of Peter among some of the First Nations communities we talked about on the episode web page.Music:By Jeremiah Johnson.Find more:Tune into the special extra with Peter.On Peter Veth. On the new Nyinggulu Archaeology Project, from ABC Pilbara, Ningaloo research to tell 60,000-year-old story as new technology uncovers deeper past. Songlines exhibition.Songlines book by Margo Neale and Lynne Kelly. On the Resilient Reefs initiative (and hearSend us a textSupport the showThe RegenNarration is independent, ad-free and freely available, thanks to the generous support of listeners like you. Please consider becoming a paid subscriber to help keep the show on the road - and gain access to a great community and some exclusive benefits - on Patreon or Substack (where you'll find my writing). You can also donate directly via the website (avoiding fees) or PayPal. I hope to see you at an event, and even The RegenNarration shop. And thanks for sharing with friends!

This is an excerpt from episode 82 featuring a grab of about 14 minutes or so from my conversation with Geoff Bastyan. He’s the bloke at the heart of what’s been recognised as the world’s most successful seagrass restoration. And what a story it is. With all the key ingredients. Like being told it couldn’t be done, facing a dire wipe out of the pre-existing seagrass meadows, and intuiting the surprisingly simple method that would turn it all around. And what that means for marine habitat and food, preventing coastal erosion, and for what’s come to called ‘blue carbon’, can’t be overstated.Title slide: Restoration in progress – a 1997 seagrass restoration trial, four years later in October 2001 (pic: Geoff Bastyan) (sourced from this terrific article on it all).Find more:You can hear the rest of our conversation, waterside in Albany, in the main episode, ‘The World’s Most Successful Seagrass Restoration, with humble pioneer Geoff Bastyan’.You’ll find a series of photos on that episode web page too. Send us a textSupport the showThe RegenNarration is independent, ad-free and freely available, thanks to the generous support of listeners like you. Please consider becoming a paid subscriber to help keep the show on the road - and gain access to a great community and some exclusive benefits - on Patreon or Substack (where you'll find my writing). You can also donate directly via the website (avoiding fees) or PayPal. I hope to see you at an event, and even The RegenNarration shop. And thanks for sharing with friends!

You might remember Keith Bradby from Gondwana Link in episode 79 a few weeks ago. If you haven’t heard it yet, suffice to say here that Gondwana Link has been called “the most exciting thing happening in restoration in Australia, if not the world.” Within its 1,000 kilometre restoration zone lies the Oyster Harbour catchment. And the Harbour that does the catching has drawn renown as the site of the world’s most successful seagrass restoration. With a humble bloke by the name of Geoff Bastyan at the heart of it.Geoff is regarded as a bit of local legend around Albany, in the south of Western Australia. And a few years ago, he was duly awarded the prestigious Great Southern Development Commission medal. It was back in the 1970s that Geoff first noticed the local harbours losing their vital seagrass meadows. He self-funded a monitoring effort over the next decade, by which time almost all the seagrass was gone. The harbours were effectively desertifying, largely due to industrial and agricultural run-off. But as older industries closed, and farmers, the local catchment group, and others inland reduced agricultural run-off, Geoff was painstakingly pioneering a way to restore the seagrass - when conventional wisdom suggested it couldn’t be done. Seagrass benefits the health of marine ecosystems in so many ways, by providing marine habitat and food, preventing coastal erosion by stabilising sediments and protecting shorelines from large swells, and storing nutrients and what’s come to be called ‘blue carbon’. Geoff cites a study here that found the restored seagrass meadows of Oyster Harbour, even after a relatively short time span, store between 30 to 50 times more carbon per hectare than the Amazon rainforest.This conversation was recorded waterside in Albany, Western Australia, on 5 March 2021.Title slide: Geoff Bastyan (source from Great Southern Live at a now inactive page - https://www.greatsouthernlive.com.au/albany-wa-oyster-harbour-catchment-geoff-bastyan-sea-grass-rehabilitation).You’ll see a few photos on the episode web page too.Find more:My conversation with Professor Gary Kendrick for the Clean State podcast ‘Blue Carbon, Conservation Economies and the Great Seagrass Restoration’. My conversation with Keith Bradby, the CEO of Gondwana Link.On the Oyster Harbour Catchment Group. And if you’re interested in getting involved, in all manner of ways, includiSend us a textSupport the showThe RegenNarration is independent, ad-free and freely available, thanks to the generous support of listeners like you. Please consider becoming a paid subscriber to help keep the show on the road - and gain access to a great community and some exclusive benefits - on Patreon or Substack (where you'll find my writing). You can also donate directly via the website (avoiding fees) or PayPal. I hope to see you at an event, and even The RegenNarration shop. And thanks for sharing with friends!

This is an excerpt from episode 81 featuring the last 20 minutes or so of my conversation with writer and Australian National Living Treasure, Tim Winton. We pick up the conversation where I wondered if Tim agreed that the grounds for positive change seemed to be getting more fertile. We go on to explore more of Tim’s personal story, source of meaning, and view on the value of art. Especially in the context of joining efforts to transition away from this ‘peculiar, savage and inhumane form of capitalism’, towards the true bottom line of the soil, air, fresh water and ocean that sustains all.Title slide: Exmouth Gulf (pic: Anthony James).Music:Faraway Castle, by Rae Howell & Sunwrae.Find more:You can hear the rest of our conversation in the main episode, ‘Leaning Towards the Light: Recovering masculinity, meaning & true power’.You’ll find a few photos on that episode web page too. Send us a textSupport the showThe RegenNarration is independent, ad-free and freely available, thanks to the generous support of listeners like you. Please consider becoming a paid subscriber to help keep the show on the road - and gain access to a great community and some exclusive benefits - on Patreon or Substack (where you'll find my writing). You can also donate directly via the website (avoiding fees) or PayPal. I hope to see you at an event, and even The RegenNarration shop. And thanks for sharing with friends!