We’re heading into a period of hyperactivity at TFE, though we reckon most people would feel the same given this exploding industry of ours.
Event-wise though it’s intense as Murray Hogarth reported last week (he’s got more in store).
On 9 May it was Consult Australia’s leadership forum on inclusion in the workplace – and a lot about women.
Next week it will be Melbourne Design Week where TFE will moderate a panel plus attend some ARBS events.
And coming up on 4 June (just in case you hadn’t noticed) is our next masterclass – this one on how to get nature back on our side our urban places by properly treating natural assets with the respect they deserve. It’s one of those topics that is a joy to dig into because of the immediate, visible and palpable benefits that a win with nature can bring.
And as synergies have it, this week saw the release of the Biodiversity in Place Framework. Check out our story on that.
For our masterclass, Extreme Green Infrastructure, we’re of course wading into the uncomfortable underbelly of that territory, working out, as we like to do, where the barriers are and how we can wrench them apart and climb through.
Which we know is rarely science, data or resources that’s the big impediment – but people and their bad rusted on habits.
To bring a bit of fun into the educational bits at the end of the masterclass we’re now offering the audience their own Andy Warhol moment – a share of his “15 minutes of fame” thing. The idea is to practise some “live journalism” on those who want to come onto the “stage” and offer them a video clip of the session to take home and use on their socials, for a give-give/win-win result.
Indigenous design at Riverlee’s whacking big New Epping project
For Melbourne Design Week we’re moderating a panel organised by developer Riverlee, which we’ve profiled before in our pages, on its New Epping development on the northern reaches of Melbourne, and how it will incorporate Indigenous design and cultural elements.
The project is on more than 51 hectares and it will roll out over a decade or so.
It includes a former quarry and landfill site that’s considered “scorched earth” by the local Indigenous Wurundjeri people and will involve restoration of a former creek and a local frog population.
The panel will focus on how Elder Aunty Joy Murphy Wandin is leading a design intervention that honours her people’s historic connection to the site.
We haven’t spoken to Aunty Joy yet but the briefings so far with other panel members have been eye opening, and that’s years after thinking we’d been opening our eyes and ears to the stories that Indigenous people have been trying to tell us for a long time.
You can’t concrete over Country
On Tuesday we spoke with panellist Maddison Miller, a Darug woman and lecturer at The University of Melbourne in Indigenous cultural ecological knowledges, who painted an overview of the theory and big picture insights into the issues and opportunities of such a project.
The typical understanding of Country and healthy Country needs some adjusting she suggested. Contrary to what some people might think Country is not some pure pre-colonial world. For instance, what does it mean for the middle of Preston (a northern Melbourne suburb) to be healthy? she asked.
“You can’t concrete over Country; that’s like a new terra nullius, that you could develop a place so much that it no longer holds its value as Country. Everything is Country… so everything we build becomes Country,” she said.
“Country is it’s not just the ground or the trees or like nature. It’s every real thing and it’s the relationship between everything. And so, historically, when something has happened to Country or something has been introduced like Dingo, those things become part of country.”
But Country can be harmed and when that happens it needs to be restored.
The conversation offered a powerful synergy with the insights we need to bring to our masterclass.
Another panellist Jeremy Gaden of Greenshoot Consulting who introduced Auntry Joy to Riverlee said his work with Indigenous people, and that of the industry as a whole. was unfolding as an evolution.
It’s essentially a reframing of the “old school” attitude in the social procurement framework about “giving” something back to First Peoples or helping “poor Aboriginal” people, he says.
It’s today more about saying: “Actually we want to create wealth for these people. We’re not looking at deficit we’re looking at strength. And by positioning, First Peoples within the social component, you know, for me, it’s that we need to stop putting First Peoples in a social bucket…actually, they’re the primary bucket.”
(Riverlee, by the way, is supporting The Fifth Estate’s travel and accommodation to attend the event in Melbourne.)
Consult Australia on leadership
And in a final event note we need to acknowledge the thoughtful work that Jonathan Cartledge is responsible for, in putting on an event earlier this month to focus on leadership, women and inclusion.
The panel included the highly regarded Alison Mirams who took the working week at builder Roberts Co, which she previously headed, to a radical five days – making life easier for both women who worked in the company and men. Her recollections of shifting the dial were challenging.
There was also Paul Collings a former McKeinsey culture expert and facilitator; Fay Calderone, partner, Hall & Wilcox; and David Raftery, Arcadis, country director & business area director – resilience
The affable and highly eloquent Cartledge gave one of the best introductions that most people had heard, as one of the panellists put it, starting with the story of the feisty Barangaroo, a Cammeraygal woman who challenged the early settlers, and from whom the place Barangaroo takes its name.
Cartledge delivered some searing observations and challenges to kick off proceedings.
Today’s chief executives he said are expected to “publicly take a stand on the treatment of employees, climate change discrimination with the wealth gap and immigration. No pressure”.
But they also stand to gain significant opportunities from this.
It was important to prioritise actions, focusing on the regulations that shape organisations and “preventing and responding to workplace misconduct” not just as a business imperative, but increasingly as a human rights issue.
He noted that in Australia, two in five women report having experienced sexual harassment as younger employees; there was discrimination against LGBT and racial minorities and most victims assume nothing will be done if they report the issues. Tech was used as a common form of harassment and most of this from male dominated industries.
The cost to business was estimated to be close to $3 billion annually “in lost productivity, staff turnover and managers’ time”.
But it was the cost to personal lives, confidence, self esteem and job satisfaction that also mattered, he said.
It was a week in early May where already 29 women had died from gender violence, Cartledge pointed out, but that was a number that had already shockingly risen to 36 by 24 May.
And an era when NSW police attend to more than 500 domestic violence incidents every day.
Are we going backwards with women’s rise to equality?
As the panellists discussed there’s much great work in certain areas but it needs to filter down and sideways – because class and privilege are no barrier – to the rest of society to effect the radical change that suddenly seems deeper and harder than ever.