Acknowledgement of Country//
News headlines:
CW: Please be aware that the following news broadcast contains graphic descriptions of violence, if you’d like to skip, come back in 15 minutes. For support, call Lifeline (13 11 14) or Suicide Callback Service (1300 659 467).
We heard an excerpt from last week’s Electronic Intifada newscast with Nora Barrows-Friedman and Roqayah Chamseddine. The report took us through the events in Palestine and Lebanon each day of the week leading up to Thursday 8th October, which marked day one-thousand and ninety-eight of the war on Gaza and the 4th year of genocide.//
CW: The following segment contains themes of alcohol and other drug use and overdose, which some listeners may find distressing at this time. Skip this segment and retrn in 15 minutes, and remember support is always available for you through the the National Alcohol and other Drug Hotline 24/7 on 1800 250 015 and Suicide Callback Service 1300 659 467.
Dave Taylor, Advocacy and Media Manager at VAADA, the Victorian peak body for AOD services, joined us to unpack the new report from the Coroners Court of Victoria showing that the number of fatal overdoses in Victoria continues to rise, with the highest recorded deaths - 632 - since the data first began being collected in 2000. We also unpacked different cohorts that are experiencing higher rates of overdose, and for the first time Greater Geelong became the local government area with the highest number of fatal overdoses, surpassing Melbourne.//
We played a segment from Tuesday's webinar 'Compounding poverty: Three issues to learn about this Anti-Poverty Week', featuring Dr Josie Douglas, General Manager of Professional Services at the Central Land Council, and Roxanne Kenny and Maryanne Malbunka, Central Land Council Elected Delegates. Josie, Roxanne and Maryanne speak about the exorbitant cost of living in remote communities and the blatant inadequacy of the Remote Areas Allowance, which has only been increased two times and by less than three dollars since its introduction in 1984. 'Compounding poverty' was facilitated by Simon Schrapel, Anti-Poverty Week National Co-Chair and Chair of the Accountable Income Management Network, and hosted by Antipoverty Centre in collaboration with the Central Land Council and Single Mother Families Australia.//
We were joined by Tom Hvala, PhD candidate at Melbourne Law School, whose research adopts an intersectional feminist approach to improving women's access to reproductive healthcare from a labour law perspective. Through his research, he has also explored dynamics between labour law and climate change, recently co-authoring a paper with Dr Gabrielle Golding and Phillipa McCormack, 'Interrogating the Case for Climate Change Leave in Australian Labour Law'. We spoke with Tom about the impact climate change is likely to have on workers into the future, whose responsibility it is to cover the costs of these impacts on workers, what Spain’s ground-breaking climate change leave looks like, and the possibility for the implementation of such leave in Australia.//
Jay Coonan, co-coordinator of Antipoverty Centre, spoke with us about key grassroots campaigns in the fight to re-politicise and end poverty in Australia during this year's Antipoverty Week, running from 11-18 October. Australia's main unemployment payment, Jobseeker Allowance, is $412 a week – 40% below the poverty line. More than 1 million people rely on unemployment payments, around 40% of whom are disabled.//
Emily, Inez, Leila, Priya, Kate
