Category Archives: Past Speakers

August 2016 Guest Speaker, John Falzon

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john_falzon.jpegOur August guest speaker was John Falzon, the CEO of St Vincent de Paul, who spoke on Poverty. John Falzon has written and spoken widely on the structural causes of marginalisation and inequality in this country and is an advocate in campaigns for a fairer society.

John is a passionate supporter of the unemployed in a society where the market has failed but they are being blamed. The unemployed and the homeless are blamed for the collapse of the job market where whole industries have gone overseas, hours have fallen, and                      Photo: vinnies.org.au
casualisation continues to grow. They are blamed for being unable to get into the housing market, when this has become an arena for wealthy people to play in.

July 2016 Guest Speaker, Sandra Mahlberg

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Vintage Reds were very lucky to hear Sandra Mahlberg, the Chair of Rotary for the ACT and South-eastern NSW, speaking on the work done by Rotary Oceania Medical Aid for Children (ROMAC).

ROMAC operates an entirely volunteer network of medical and non-medical volunteers who transport sick children from countries in our neighbourhood, to Australia or New Zealand, where they receive medical treatment they would be unable to get at home.

Hundreds of children have been given a new and rosier future thanks to the work of this wonderful organization, and you can donate to them knowing that every cent goes to the work of giving a better life to a child.

Canberra Hospital has been a supporter of this project, and children including Santa and Juanitahave gone home healthy after being looked after here.  Most recently Charlie and his mother, from the Solomon Islands, arrived for surgery on his bowel.

Our photo shows Sandra pinning on her Vintage Reds badge.20160719_Sandra_Mahlberg.jpg

June 2016 Guest Speaker, Rachel Bahl

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Our June speaker was Rachael Bahl, the NTEU secretary for the ACT.2016-6-21_Racheal.jpg

The National Tertiary Education Union represents academic and professional staff, full-time and casual.

Tertiary education continues to come under attack from threats of massive budget cuts and the casualisation of the workforce. The speed of change has removed any secure connection between coursework and degree, and the job market.

The Liberal government was unable to get its 2014 budget cut of 20% from higher education through the Senate; and it has also had to back down from plans to deregulate university fees. The 20% cut is still a possibility, though; and other plans include partial deregulation of “flagship” courses, Higher Education Loan Project (HELP, formerly HECS) repayments to begin at lower income levels, and increasing the student contribution as a percentage of the cost of their courses.

May 2016 Guest Speaker, Kathy Ragless

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Photo: Alex Ellinghausen, Canberra Times

Kathy has been the director of Companion House for the last fifteen years.

Companion House is a community-based NGO, part of a country-wide network of organisations working for survivors of torture and trauma. Services (which are free) continue to expand, from medical and counselling care to children’s early intervention counselling, community development, transitional housing and migration advice.

Companion House was established in the late 1980s by activists from Amnesty International. South American refugees were the first wave of clients. The organisation is largely government funded, though donations of private money have gone up in the last 5 years. Over the past year and a half, Companion House has seen about 1200 people across all programs. Continue reading →

April 2016 Guest Speaker, Humphrey McQueen

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Vintage Red member Humphrey McQueen addressed our meeting with the question, “Can capitalism survive any crisis?”

2015-12_Jeremy_K_McQ.jpgHumphrey McQueen described himself as “a former freelance historian and old aged pensioner”. In addition to this modest self-appraisal, he is an activist and scholar in many fields including international and industrial relations, the media, politics and the visual arts.

Humphrey considered threats to capitalism  – from nuclear war; the “end of history”, that is, the end of a world run by the interests of a small group of Western countries; and climate change – before moving to crises in finance, housing, banking etc.

Photo: Jeremy Kirkwood

Those needing to read more of Humphrey should have a look at his work on the website: http://www.surplusvalue.org.au/McQueen/sitemap.htm

March 2016 Guest Speakers from CLA

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Dr Kristine Klugman and Bill Rowlings from Civil Liberties Australia addressed the Vintage Reds meeting in March.

Civil Liberties Australia is a non-party-political organisation, which makes it able to criticise or praise impartially. Bill introduced the meeting to one aspect of the CLA’s activities, the Better Justice Strategy, illustrating this with the case in Tasmania of Sue Neill-Fraser, imprisoned for the murder of her husband. It’s a case with multiple disturbing details, and a number of people believe that she is innocent of the crime. And there are other troubling cases around the country, including here in the ACT. A few members of the legal profession have risen to high office without any apparent good reason, and some of their judgements reflect this.

Australian courts of law have barely changed in 50 years. CLA has put together a series of initiatives for reform, covering modernisation, affordable and timely access to the law, improvement in the quality of magistrates/lawyers/judges, etc.

February 2016 Guest Speaker, Jenny Miragaya

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Jenny Miragaya, ACT secretary of the Australian Nursing and Midwifery Federation, spoke to the Vintage Reds February meeting on the ACT government’s needle and syringe program (NSP).

There have been attempts over the last few years to address the problem of needle safety in the Alexander Maconochie Centre. Unions representing staff employed at the prison, the CPSU representing prison guards, and the ANMF, have worked with government health and corrective services staff to resolve the question. Continue reading →

November 2015 Guest Speaker, John Minns

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John Minns from Canberra’s Refugee Action Committee spoke to the Vintage Reds at our monthly meeting on 17 November 2015.

There are lots of sources of information available which correct the “myths” about refugees – for example this one from the Federal government’s Parliamentary Library.

The Refugee Action Committee’s humanitarian and rational alternative policy for Australia’s response to refugees can be found here. See a summary of John’s address  below: Continue reading →

October 2015 Guest Speaker, Lyndal Ryan

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Lyndal Ryan, ACT Secretary of United Voice, addressed the Vintage Reds October meeting, on the issue of “Penalty Rates”. 

United Voice represents workers in cleaning and security, childcare, aged care, higher education, hospitals and clubs, leisure and hotels. Its history goes back to the Watchmen, Caretakers & Cleaners’ Union of 1910, and more recently the Liquor, Hospitality & Miscellaneous Workers Union (LHMU or “Missos”), formed by amalgamation in 1992. So it’s celebrating a hundred years of looking after workers’ interests.

September 2015 guest speaker Kelly Bowman

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I give a Gonski

There was a lot to talk about this morning, after yesterday’s demolition of the former prime minister Tony Abbott and his replacement by Malcolm Turnbull. But Vintage Reds managed nonetheless to pay attention to a very good presentation by Kelly Bowman from the Teachers’ Federation, on the Gonski campaign now ramping up, “I give a Gonski”. Kelly is a teacher at Karabar High School in Queanbeyan.

The Abbott government’s back-down on funding for the last two years of the six-year Gonski funding model will cost schools in NSW alone over a billion dollars, of which over $900 million was to flow to state schools. Gonski aims to lift students out of educational disadvantage, whether they are students from low-income families or from rural and remote areas, students with a disability, Aboriginal students, or those from non-English speaking backgrounds. “It’s what Australians call a fair go”.
Continue reading →