— Hello

— the main bit of the newsletter — Reflections from Lombok

— Smart stuff — links and good reads

— Little distractions — pop culture, podcasts, shows

Hello

I have just got back from ten days in Indonesia, in Bali and Lombok, where the weather was warm. And I am now in Canberra, where the weather is terrible. I am trying to handle this with maturity and grace.

It was a really nice trip. My second trip to Indonesia this year, it was pretty different heading solo rather than in a 40+ year old girlies gone very moderately wild situation (which was also excellent). The main difference was that I got to dust off my very rusty Indonesian language skills and have loads of conversations with local people, which was interesting as always.

It was also very different to my Indonesia adventures in my 20s, which was sometimes a mental adjustment. Even though I feel incredibly lucky to be able to travel after some very disabling moments with chronic illness over the years, it’s still hard to grapple with our changing bodies and their limitations.

But ultimately, it is always a privilege to be able to travel, even if you are in pain after falling off a motorbike, doubled over with GI distress after warung food or limping after having to climb a giant hill to get to your hotel breakfast. More details on those adventures on the links.

This is a very Indonesia Substack, so sit back, relax, pop the lid off a Bintang and get some updates about one of our nearest neighbours.

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The invisible hand at work in Lombok

“You choose the view, we’ll check the paperwork,” declares the real estate billboard, written in English in a clean, sans serif font, on the road into Kuta, Lombok.

Moments later, another set of billboards — in the exact same graphic style but for a different company — declare that there is only one name to turn to for villa construction in Kuta. Meanwhile at ground level, women in headscarves are eking out a living selling powdered drink sachets from stores at the front of their homes. Schoolkids whizz by on motorcycles sans helmets and people tend to fields under the hot sun.

Moments later, a brand new matcha cafe.

By the time you reach the centre of town, which still has a dusty laid back vibe, nearly all the restaurants are Western, selling pizza, poke bowls and protein — the holy trinity of global nomadism.

Welcome to Kuta, Lombok. The next island over from Bali, but decidedly different in culture and geography, Lombok has long been jokingly called ‘European Bali’, suggesting a level of continental refinement in its visitors compared to the Indonesian archipelago’s catch-all tourism wonderland.

Like its Bali namesake in the golden days before the Bintang bogans, Kuta is known for its beaches. Surf schools dot the thoroughfare into town alongside the burgeoning matcha industry.

But Lombok is not Bali, and that is part of its growing appeal.

At the spacious airport, which seems built for potential rather than current need, passengers are allowed to wander leisurely down the tarmac to the entry doors in true regional Indonesia style, some taking videos in front of the plane. The single luggage conveyer belt seems to take an eternity to switch on, and a local sticks his head through the black flaps to ask his mate in the back to just pass him his bag.

The landscape in the south of Lombok is ruggedly beautiful — driving over dry, undulating limestone hills, opening to spectacular coastal vistas. In the interior, as you get closer to Mount Rinjani, the active volcano that looms over the island, the forests become dense and tropical. The indigenous ethnic people of the island, the sasak, are predominantly Muslim, known for their skilled weaving and pottery.

In town, you can walk around on the unreliably present footpaths. There’s busyness, but no traffic jams. But the homogeneity of tourist towns has started to make its mark. Everything is a cafe instead of a warung. It’s easier to find acai than proper local food. I seek out ayam taliwang, a spicy grilled charcoal grilled chicken known across Indonesia but originating in Lombok — I have to beg in bahasa Indonesia for it to actually be made spicy, and even then, it feels muted. But thankfully, the coffee is excellent (I am part of the problem with my flat white dependency but at least I know it).

Lombok is not Bali. But it is starting to have some Bali problems. Having built up the Island of the Gods with villas and related traffic problems, ‘expats’, global nomads and tourists seeking laid back authenticity are looking east. Construction is constant. English signage is prevalent — including the real estate ads implying you can buy any view you like with little regard for the locals. Rubbish too often litters the sides of roads, and the air can be heavy with the scent of burned refuse. Efforts to improve tourism in some areas have already had negative consequences, with authenticity being bulldozed for ‘amenity’.

Yet, the current economic circumstances mean that the local people I chatted to seem to want more of all of the above, while also being concerned about the consequences.

The rupiah is extremely weak at the moment. Its tough to make a living. After high social mobility for many years, the middle class in Indonesia has been shrinking since the pandemic. The central government’s push for mega tourism projects (literally called ‘New Balis’ and in the case of South Lombok, about 80% funded by Beijing through the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank) has caused friction locally, including forced evictions and other rights violations. There’s a palpable malaise about the current political situation in the country, particularly levels of corruption.

In all my years spent in Indonesia, I have never had more people ask me about migrating to work in Australia (both in Bali and Lombok): the names of random regional agricultural towns like Griffith somehow having travelled back through the diaspora. It wasn’t just wishful daydreaming; people were interrogating the logistics. Conversations drilled down into daily cost of living: how much does a car cost, how much is rent, how much is a bag of rice?

Domestic tourism is still the main market in Lombok — on my flight from Bali, the plane was about half-half locals and foreigners, and I sat next to a lovely guy from Bandung who was heading to Lombok for a well-deserved break from work stress. But international tourists were seen as the real money makers, and the drivers and other people I spoke to had a real longing to see more.

I asked local people if they were worried that the foreign investment would push local people out — citing some of the problems that Bali has, like extreme traffic, bad behaviour, and disregard for local people and culture. For starters, nobody that I spoke to had been to Bali: the problems of mass tourism a half an hour flight away were abstract concepts. The day-to-day economic concerns were understandably prevailing. The inequality that they saw between foreigners and locals definitely came with a sting and bitterness, but several saw temporary migration to a high income country as the chance to save up to start their own business to take advantage of a tourism boom. There was some concern about behaviour, but a kind of dull acceptance. I pointed out a girl riding on her motorcycle in a bikini a long way from the beach and said that I thought it was rude to not have more clothes on. My local driver just said “that’s normal now”.

But it would be wrong to depict Lombok’s locals as passive actors in this — one (perhaps weird) example is the taxi mafia in Kuta and surrounds. In most urban or touristy parts of Indonesia ride sharing apps are prevalent, and drivers are paid poorly — especially when you consider the terrible traffic. In Kuta Lombok, the apps and even companies like Bluebird taxis have been kept out by local taxi mafia, and for foreigners there seems to be a floor of about Rp150,000 ($12 AUD) a ride. As a solo tourist, it is kind of annoying to have to organise transport in this way — going to the beach cost me $50 as I had to hire a car and driver for half a day and I couldn’t just come and go when I wanted. Dinner at an amazing restaurant on the beach cost nearly as much for transport as the food. But at the same time, from a workers rights perspective, I get it.

Amid Lombok’s beauty, while enjoying the fabulous tourism experiences that it offered, I couldn’t help but worry a little for its future. Lombok might be the ‘next Bali’, but there will always be a next Lombok if it isn’t handled well.

In the meantime, it is definitely worth a visit — just don’t be a crap tourist, because that responsibility lies squarely with the visitor, not the locals.

Smart stuff

• A strange choice for a holiday read, but I absolutely smashed through Careless People by Sarah Wynn-Williams, about her time working in global public affairs at Facebook. Wow. I knew it was bad, but wow. Given her background in NZ diplomacy, it’s also worth a read for anyone international affairs adjacent.

• I also read Dream Count by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, one of my all time favourite writers, and it delivered — a story of sisterhood, the tensions of being around the age of 40, and how to build a rich life. Great female midlife crisis reading (I may currently be having one…).

• For those wanting to learn more about the political and social context in Indonesia, I recommend this Substack. New developments include military style bootcamp training for nationalised convenience stores, which is a sentence that makes absolutely no sense — especially in a country where there has always been a high amount of local retail entrepreneurship.

• You know Australian investigative journalism is in a rut when it needs to be financed by a sex work side gig. A great piece.

Little distractions

• Travel photos over on Instagram, including some new sews.

• Another take on Bali tourism from a very funny Indonesian content maker.

• I was in Bali for the Bali racist run club controversy (print that on a tote bag and sell it in Canggu). As a result, my algorithm has gone full Indonesia — this content maker’s accents are so spot on they always crack me up. Here’s his take on the running club controversy.

• Via my mate Tilda, a couple of great Substack reads on travel and female friendships.

— Hello

— the main bit of the newsletter — Albo and Wong in the Pacific

— Smart stuff — links and good reads

— Little distractions — pop culture, podcasts, shows

Hello

It’s still really cold, I survived end of financial year consultant crush, and my mental health is pretty much solely dependent on the trip I have to Indonesia next week to get warm, so let’s just dive right in shall we?

As a Canberra resident, I too would plan a Pacific jaunt in July, so well played Albo and staffers. (Once I worked on an academic conference that brought Pacific Islanders to Canberra in June or July, and I apologise to all the victims.)

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Albo and Wong kicking goals in the Pacific

PM Albanese and FM Wong headed out into the Pacific earlier this month. But you’d barely know it from reading Australian mainstream media at the time. A poorly timed and poorly executed commercial radio ‘comedy’ podcast appearance from the PM, where he said he would shag, marry and date Kylie Minogue (I mean, we all love Kylie) and told a cringing nation that the footy makes him horny, dropped at the same time as the regional tour.

The real question is: how was he unable to dodge those questions, when diplomatically dodging questions is a huge part of the job? Just say ‘the missus would kill me I can’t’. Who briefed him for this? And why do you even need to be briefed to not accidentally talk about your marital sex life on tape? I hope Jodie tore him a new one.

My other thought: Penny would never. I take quiet solace in the fact she surely would have been quietly judging his heteronormative nonsense as she remained focused on the significant regional agreements they were there to engage on.

So in the (imagined) spirit of Penny, back to the tour, which took the pair to Fiji and Solomon Islands.

In Fiji, two significant security treaties were signed: the Vuvale Union and the Ocean of Peace Alliance (Veitacini Treaty). These have been bubbling away for some time (the Vuvale Union has been elevated from a pre-existing partnership in place since 2019), so it is a foreign policy win that Rabuka signed on the dotted line. There are critics of these treaties, who are skeptical of Australian overreach in Pacific-led peace and security efforts, but the treaties are far from one-sided, bringing in a mutual defence obligation, as well as a significant spending commitment from Australia on transnational crime, education, health and infrastructure.

And proving the importance of Australia’s relationship and partnership-based approach to Pacific engagement, China made a clanger even worse than Albo’s podcast performance by launching a nuclear-capable test missile into the Pacific mid tour. The test sparked protests and very fair regional consternation — a real own goal.

(As a casual observer, a missile test is an amazing way to send a message, if the message you are sending is ‘we are unhinged yet powerful’. We’re just lobbing over dad jokes, football teams and forced references to being a family, a much safer form of bombardment… Australia might be annoying sometimes, but we aren’t very scary.)

In Sollies, PM and FM announced education funding, opened an Australian-funded maternal healthcare centre, attended Independence Day celebrations (Sols is marking 50 years of independence in two years, which will be a big deal) and had talks, presumably about the potential of a regional security agreement, something recently-installed PM Wale has said he supports.

Keeping the Pacific diplomatic roadshow kicking on, back in Brisbane, the Australia-Papua New Guinea Annual Leaders’ Meeting had a rugby forward focus and the PM also hosted leaders from Samoa and Tonga. (I have thoughts about the football of it all, but that’s for another day.)

And in Canberra at the end of June, the Nakamal Agreement with Vanuatu was signed, after an earlier very public snub and ten months of negotiation. As ASPI writes, it is a ‘watered down’ version. But partnership always involves compromise. The Pukpuk Treaty with Papua New Guinea came into effect this month as well, after being signed last year.

As Connor Graham at Lowy Institute described it, we are on a Pacific diplomacy hot streak. It is hard to remember when this much has happened on our Pacific relationships in such a short period of time… especially when it hasn’t involved the coordinated shirts of the Pacific Island Forum.

Let’s see how things continue to play out, but the current spate of agreements suggests that we are on the right path in our engagement with the Pacific, even if/when China drops a literal bombshell. As Kylie knows well, everybody needs good neighbours: emphasised here by Joanne Wallis and Jack Corbett, who have recently released a book on the history of the Australia-Pacific relationship.

Smart stuff

• I’ve been working with the Department of Pacific Affairs at ANU on some ‘scrollytelling’ stories to showcase their wonderful research. Here’s the first one, on their Solomon Islands elections report.

• For Pride Month, Erin Cook gave an excellent wrap on where LGBTIQA+ issues stand in Southeast Asia with some links to great longreads well worth diving into.

• Politico is launching a Canberra ‘playbook’ — will be interested in the somewhat foreign take on our quirky town.

• Belinda Lopez’s interview with Vannessa Hearman about her own book and Kirin Desai’s The Inheritence of Loss was a fascinating reflection on structural violence, and made me want to dive into Vannessa’s own writing on Timor-Leste and Indonesia.

• Sad news to hear of the passing of economist Ron Duncan AO. I met him many times at Devpolicy over the years and he was always kind, patient and thoughtful.

Little distractions

• Speaking of our pop queen Kylie, the recent Netflix documentary on her career is well worth a watch. Lots of fun Australiana nostalgia and a reminder of the sexism and other battles she has endured. She is an impressive woman. And sorry Albo, you’re no Michael Hutchence, she would never.

• On other, lesser Kylies, Kylie Jenner is now shilling Meta Rayban spy glasses despite the fact that she has spent her whole career complaining about being stalked by the papparazzi, and without any apparent concern for the safety of other women who now have so many new, celeb-approved ways to be filmed without consent. This ICYMI podcast episode wraps it up.

• I’ve started watching Alone Australia’s new season on SBS, which is set in the Arctic Circle this time — seems nearly as cold as Canberra this winter. Less worms, more bears, similar levels of fishing, plus suspense about whether the mushrooms are actually edible.

• This piece on the perspectives of Gwenyth Paltrow’s fat body double in ‘Shallow Hal’, a relic of a very different era, is an interesting read.

• The latest season of Below Deck Med is a good one. Chef/Queen Joy is my new favourite person.

— Hello

— the main bit of the newsletter — will a PCOS rebrand help patients?

— Big distraction — a week in Bali after a decade away

— Smart things — links and shares on important issues

— Little distractions — recipes, online shopping, podcasts, shows

Hello

Thanks to everyone who shared my Farrer form guide. Of course parochial Albury politics drove my largest readership for a Substack… I can never escape.

On byelection night I got to watch Pauline Hanson dancing gleefully and awkwardly to ‘The Voice’ by John Farnham in the venue where we held my mother’s wake, so Farrer really continues to twist the knife. Fractures are already showing as the new Member for Farrer appears to not be as directly racist as the people who voted him in, so watch this space I guess.

Back to more usual content this time — a grab bag of things related to international and regional issues, feminism, body politics and pop culture. Mostly a protracted whinge about the impacts of medical misogyny. Buckle up!

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PCOS is now PMOS, but will it do anything?

As a comms person, the power of branding is never lost on me. But as a person with a stupid collection of chronic illnesses, largely neglected by the medical system due to entrenched misogyny, fatphobia and everything else, I have never been too bothered by what they have been called and would rather attention actually be focused on researching them, fixing them, or making them more manageable.

That being said, the recent rebranding of Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome (PCOS) to Polyendocrine Metabolic Ovarian Syndrome (PMOS) — a 14 year effort — seems like a win for patients. As someone with the classic metabolic issues of this disease, as well as persistent chin hairs and many other bigger problems, lumpy ovaries riddled with half baked follicles were actually low on the shit list. Especially since I was too tired, sick and broke to get around to trying to have a child anyway thanks to playing Pokemon (gotta catch ‘em all?) with every associated chronic condition.

Like so many women with vague, troubling chronic illnesses, my experience of the medical system, besides a few rare bright spots, has been a financially extractive trauma factory.

When I first got a PCOS diagnosis — more than a decade after it was blatantly obvious that I had PCOS because apparently I was just looking for an excuse for being fat instead of needing actual medical care — fertility was the only concern of doctors. And let’s just say they weren’t that concerned. The societal, personal and broader health impacts of PCOS/PMOS were met with a shrug, and usually a jab or two of extra weight stigma (there’s another kind of jab for that now, I hear).

I found out, just a few years ago, that the psoriasis I have had since I was three years old was highly correlated with insulin resistance and PCOS/PMOS. Learning that your metabolic fate was probably written in the stars at age three, while having endured decades of marginalisation, blame and judgement along the way, was certainly a mixed sack of feelings to add to my medical emotional baggage.

Despite popular belief, you can’t eject yourself from chronic illness through body piety. The harder I tried to exercise and starve my way to metabolic health, the more other parts of my body broke. Yet all too often, ‘lifestyle’ is the only intervention offered. Data also shows a strong genetic link. My mother — who was never formally diagnosed with PCOS/PMOS but had many of the symptoms — suffered from endometrial cancer. PCOS/PMOS patients have up to a five times higher risk of endometrial and uterine cancers, something not even mentioned in an ABC article this week about raising awareness of uterine cancer risk (just the usual advice telling people not to be fat). This disease has always caused many harms well beyond fertility alone, yet has rarely been taken seriously.

So hopefully this name change makes things slightly easier for other women.

Australian researchers were at the helm of the renaming process — something that is always good to see. Like the researchers, I hope this signals a fresh investment in research and management, and less stigma. If our medical system could focus on evidence instead of blame for PCOS/PMOS and many other conditions, we’d all be in a better spot.

Bali after a decade away

My biggest distraction was a recent super fun trip to Bali for a friend’s 40th. Returning to the rainiest, coldest weather imaginable in Canberra has not been fun. But Bali was very fun.

Yes, it is full of insufferable influencers. A friend went to the gym and was the only person not filming themselves with a portable tripod. The traffic is terrible now, especially around Canggu and Seminyak. There’s a clear and steady march towards environmental implosion thanks to the lack of development controls or planning. A trash management crisis is currently in the news. I’m also painfully aware of the shrinking civic space in Indonesia, economic contraction and other pains the country is facing at the moment, in Bali and beyond.

But for all the negativity about Bali as long-timers lament the good old days when fewer people had access to global and regional travel, the food, massages, people and vibes are still amazing. There’s so many beautiful places to spend time — once you are out of the car. It is still worth visiting for a close, easy holiday. The Rupiah is extraordinarily weak at the moment, which is terrible for the people of Indonesia, but will hopefully encourage visitors to stimulate the economy? That’s what I was telling myself about getting a massage every 24-48 hours anyway.

We stayed in Pererenan, the new hipster frontier as the Canggu matcha belt marches north. Pererenan didn’t even exist as a tourist destination when I last went to Bali just over a decade ago — Canggu was just starting to build up and the Petitinget area in Seminyak was the cool zone. It can now take two hours to get between Pererenan and Petitinget, such is the rapid rate of construction of everything except roads.

While there is the gentle but ominous tap-tap-tap of construction hammers all over the place in Pererenan (including at a spa I went to that was actively under construction while I was being massaged, something its polished website didn’t hint at…), it was still chill enough to walk around and the traffic was fine — once you get there through the Seminyak and Canggu bottlenecks. There’s a St Ali coffee, which tells you immediately of the hipster sensibilities of the place — you do not have to lurch far for a good coffee in this neighbourhood, even without a direct Melbourne affiliation (Little Lima was a cute one). There is an abundance of boutiques selling overpriced rayon blend clothing, including culturally appropriative flowy kimonos, monotone activewear and bum-floss bikinis. Froyo abounds, and girlie pop tarot/piercing shops punctuate the main drag with bright facades to distract from any questions about qualifications or psychic prowess. (As much as I can joke about all this, I secretly love the tropes of holiday towns, hosting the kind of retail that can only survive in a context of escapism, burnout recovery and low consideration for practicality. I am a sucker for microeconomies based on the whiff of hope that a jar of jam, candle, beach coverup or impractical handbag will maintain the holiday energy for just that little bit longer.)

Pererenan hosts many amazing restaurants — surprisingly fabulous Lebanese at Zali Pererenan and elevated Indonesian at Home by Chef Wayan were highlights. But you can still get a motorcycle exhaust-perfumed ayam geprek or nasi campur on the street as well, which always makes me happy.

Before moving into our lush villa, I stayed a night at Noema Pererenan, which is a stunning hotel. Perfect pool, multilevel playground that I kind of wanted to climb on myself, friendly staff and a stellar breakfast spread with heaps of Balinese and Indonesian options. The attention to design was next level, and I would definitely go back. SE Asia really does ‘cool’ so very, very well.

It was great to be back in Indonesia after far too many years away. It is even better that I have another trip in around seven weeks thanks to getting a super cheap fare when the new CBR-DPS direct route was announced earlier this year. This is how I am mentally surviving this winter.

This time I’m heading to Lombok, which I’m really looking forward to — fewer bogans and influencers, more Europeans, hopefully not doing that weird poolside deck chair colonialism they do by putting out towels at the crack of dawn to claim space. That behaviour really offends my Australian sense of justice — it is not a fair shake of the sauce bottle. I can endure it though, as long as I can get a decent flat white to keep me calm…

As much as there are so many further-flung countries I want to explore, there is something to be said for holidays to places where there is comforting familiarity. This trip was a good reminder that I will always love visiting Indonesia, and I should try to do it more often.

Smart stuff

• The drug use and HIV crisis in Fiji, and drug trade more broadly across the Pacific, is deeply troubling. The complicity of the Australian market in driving this trade cannot be overlooked. Foreign Correspondent recently did an excellent two-parter on the issue that is well worth a watch. Lowy Institute hosted a great discussion on the episodes and issues. This Devpolicy Blog from Planned Parenthood shows the tough realities on the streets of Suva.

• Budget was handed down. As usual I was looking most closely at the official development section (there’s never really anything in the budget for single middle-aged women anyway!) Per Devpolicy’s analysis, Australian aid increased in nominal terms, but when we get real, it has decreased yet again. Considering the extremely bleak global context, it would be great to see us do more — but I am still comforted by the fact we aren’t walking away when so many others are.

• Speaking of global crisis, if you’ve forgotten about the Strait of Hormuz as our domestic fuel situation has settled a bit, its still all blocked up over there, and the longer the crisis continues, the more people will be pushed into extreme poverty. The UN is estimating tens of millions globally. We are also on the precipice of a related global food crisis. We should all be pretty concerned about this! The chat has gone too quiet on this one.

Little distractions

• I finished reading ‘Famesick’ by Lena Dunham. Like nearly every urban Millennial woman of my age, the HBO TV show Girls was a seminal text. Famesick is an interesting behind the scenes of what it is like to ‘make it’ so surprisingly and suddenly while still so very young, as well as an extremely relatable story of the difficulty of grappling with chronic illness onset in your late 20s onward (when my first dramas with vague but debilitating symptoms also started). Also, Lena can really write. It probably isn’t interesting enough on its own if you are not of the Girls generation, but if you are, it is a peek behind the curtain. I have my critiques though — I still don’t fully understand some of the terrible missteps she made in public at some points after reading the book, so I think there’s only a partial accountability there, as much as she was crucified and attacked no matter what she said or did. The part I found most relatable was the inability of some peers to really understand the life shattering impact of chronic illness, especially when you are young and ambitious, and the ‘living with it’ that eventually comes with age and time.

• I’ve been watching the last season of Hacks (streaming on Stan). While some seasons have been better than others, looking back it has been a great show. The comedic exploration of work relationships, female friendship, workplace sexism, ageing, family, ambition and fame, amid extremely laugh-out-loud and well-written jokes, makes it an easy and enjoyable watch. Even though it has now ended, it isn’t too late to binge it.

• Speaking of excellent comedy writing and great performances focusing on writers and female friendships — the second season of Big Mood, also streaming on Stan, is another one to watch. Short, sweet and funny episodes make both seasons of this show very easy to binge on a weekend. Nicola Coughlan’s portrayal of Maggie, an up-and-coming writer grappling with bipolar disorder, and her close friendship with Eddie, who has tried to take over her late father’s struggling pub, is warm and wildly funny, despite the incredible challenges the pair face over the two seasons.

• I don’t know how I came to exclusively use Mutti tomatoes as my tinned cooking tomato of choice, but this taste test from The Guardian has rocked my world, and made me question the intersections of identity that have shackled me to Mutti. (I will probably still buy Mutti because it has never done me dirty, so…)

— Hello

— Farrer form guide

— Other sections in the newsletter will return in the next edition because I am rushing this out. Sorry!

Hello

First of all, apologies I didn’t get out a newsletter in April — it was a busy month. I was in Melbourne for half the month on two different trips and also snuck in a brief Albury stop as well. I went to two conferences and I was drowning slightly from all the things that need doing at the start of a new program at work.

But since pre-polling is already open in Farrer, I thought I had better get on to this stat since the polls are on 9 May.

Please share with anyone in the electorate or anyone who might be interested. Please especially share with anyone who might be about to make a terrible mistake with their vote.

I’m writing this as a private citizen, and this has nothing to do with any of my work.

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The Farrer form guide for the 2026 by-election

Look, let’s be real — I don’t know how form guides for horse racing are formatted, I just appreciate alliteration. So this will take an approach that makes sense to me.

Why are you writing this and why should I read all these words?

I grew up in Farrer, in Albury, and have been frustrated for a very long time by Farrer politics. I’ve been watching it closely since I was in high school. My dad was an Independent on Albury City Council for three terms so I know quite a few of the characters involved, as well as a lot of the history and hearsay. My family also owned the infamous local late night pizza shop Sweethearts until 2019 which provided excellent proximity to gossip.

I now live in Canberra, so I have a good idea of what it takes to actually function effectively in this town. I would very much appreciate if Farrer didn’t send us a complete Barnaby to deal with during sitting weeks. When people whinge about Canberra, the real problem is the people that everyone else in the country sends here. We vote for sensible people…

I am also extremely concerned about what is happening on the right of Australian politics. Farrer is going to be a test ground and potential enabler of a whole lot of chaos depending on the result on the weekend.

I should note that my insights are very Albury-centric, and my deep fear of snakes and bad coffees has kept me out of large swathes of the electorate. I acknowledge the limits to my analysis. I do spend chunks of time in Albury regularly.

The context

The seat of Farrer fell vacant after Liberal Party Leader Sussan Ley was rolled by her party in February, leading to her resignation. A by-election was called, set for Saturday 9 May.

Ley has held the seat of Farrer since 2001, when I was in Year 10 at Albury High and Fallin’ by Alicia Keys was dominating the music charts.

The seat of Farrer has only ever been held by Liberals and Nationals, and nobody has managed to really make a dent in their primary vote over the years. It has been very safe.

People would wonder why it has always been forgotten about by both the Federal and State governments. Meanwhile it is so far south in NSW that it gets Victorian news broadcasts and everyone plays AFL and there was not a single reason for any politician to bother porkbarrelling.

The seat

Farrer is a stupidly huge electorate, but not as ridiculously shaped as it used to be when it extended all the way to Broken Hill. It is the second largest electorate in NSW by land area. Sussan Ley in part maintained her grip on the seat by having a light plane license.

It brings in the increasingly gentrifying regional city of Albury, which comprises close to half of the voters of the electorate, the historically Italian Walter and Marion Burley Griffin designed town of Griffith, which is about half the size of Albury (keep in mind that Wodonga does not count here at all — Wodonga is in the electorate of Indi). Then things get real country real fast. Deniliquin, home to the Deni Ute Muster, and then many other towns you’ve never heard of like Hay, Yanco, Moama and Finley, fill out the rest of the vast space of Farrer. It also includes the Murrumbidgee basin, home to many farmers that are perpetually angry about water.

Just over the border is the Victorian Federal electorate of Indi, famous for being one of the first places in the country to go Independent in 2013 when people could not deal with Liberal Sophie Mirabella any longer (not enough time in this sub to go over her interesting history…). Indi has since inspired many other seats to follow suit. The seat was held by Cathy McGowan and now Helen Haines since 2019. Indi shares many demographic characteristics with Farrer, but Farrer had been perpetually unable to get its act together on a cohesive community independent campaign until about two years ago.

The Ley legacy

There was a time when, despite my obvious proclivity for the progressive side of politics, I could agree that Sussan Ley was a decent enough local member in many respects. She advocated on issues such as childcare access and women’s leadership in rural and regional affairs. But as the Liberal Party lurched to the right and began meddling in identity politics, Ley went along for the ride — several other Liberal women took a stand against the party’s turn away from true conservative principles and also called out the inherent sexism of the ScoMo years. Sussan, however, was on the climb.

In recent years she’s engaged in blatant racism against First Australians, particularly around the Voice referendum. She made an Australia Day speech twice in Albury that ignored the violence of colonialism, upsetting Wiradjuri elders and anyone else who cares about reconciliation. She has made wild dog whistling remarks about immigration and violence. She created a false narrative about the reasons Albury City moved its citizenship ceremony off Australia Day/Invasion Day to fan moral panic against ‘woke’. The list goes on and on. She also stood behind ScoMo and Dutton, lending an aura of feminine support as they made some of their most egregious missteps.

And most importantly for Farrer, she has essentially ignored the electorate and its concerns as she climbed to the top of the Liberal Party. Proximity to power should have benefits for constituents, but this very much was not the case, as Farrer’s votes and support were taken for granted.

The only shock about the independent movement in Farrer is that it took this long to get organised.

Why is Labor not running a candidate?

I had fun when I saw people from outside Farrer making all sorts of commentary about why Labor wasn’t running a candidate in Farrer. As usual, nobody was able to think of a very obvious way to find out why — ask someone who knows the electorate.

The main and very obvious answer is that they would never win, and not just because of the trend that parties in power rarely win by-elections.

But the truer answer is that Labor has always been an absolute mess in Farrer. The local branch scared away any women long ago. One time they ran a literal child as the candidate (OK he was probably 18+ but he really didn’t have a chance). A Labor councillor in Albury who has also run for the Federal seat spent a long time dropping light sexism, being ‘anti-woke’, picking fights with anyone vaguely progressive, and then blocking them on his Facebook page: a sure fire strategy to really strengthen the base. (He seems to have mellowed with time though but maybe that is because I can’t see his content? My mum — who was basically the nicest and least confrontational person on earth and from a hardcore Labor and union family — even got into an online conflict with this guy…) There was absolutely zero investment from the party in developing a strong candidate for the seat, or properly resourcing a campaign.

Labor has long been complicit in Farrer’s presumed electoral safety. To have any chance of securing the seat in the wake of Sussan’s inevitable retirement, investment and effort would have needed to start about a decade ago. Even the Greens have stronger visibility now in Albury, which demonstrates how much demographics have shifted (and also probably why house prices are now so expensive? VLine terminates in Albury and that’s where a lot of Naarm pandemic expatriates and late Millennial returnees seeking free grandparental childcare got off the train.)

I understand why Federal Labor didn’t want some crushing by-election result in the news, but running a candidate might have helped the Independent to crush rumours that she is “Labor by stealth”, and provided another source of preference flows — but also could have potentially cannibalised her primary vote. I am sure that someone ran some numbers somewhere on this… at least you’d hope they did?

The Independent — Michelle Milthorpe

In the interests of full transparency, I believe Michelle Milthorpe is far and away the best candidate running for Farrer. My dad has her posters all over his house, and the area of Albury where he lives (South Albury) has been strongly mobilising behind Michelle since the election last year. It may have taken the Voices for Farrer movement a frustratingly long time to get organised, but they’ve united behind a very strong candidate.

Milthorpe performed strongly in Albury in her first electoral showing in May last year, winning all the booths, and also quite respectably in Griffith. She made a real dent in Sussan Ley’s longstanding grip on the electorate. In the lead-up to the byelection, she has rightly been focusing on the rest of Farrer — that’s the really tough battleground.

A quick rundown of reasons to like Michelle:

• She’s from a farming family so isn’t just some bougie Albury person with no chance of wider cut-through

• She’s a teacher with a very good reputation from people I know who personally worked alongside her

• She has been a vocal advocate for child sexual assault survivors through her Justice Shouldn’t Hurt legal reform campaign, which has successfully changed practice in NSW (some details here, but Trigger Warning). Anyone with a successful policy advocacy background would be a huge boon to have as a local member.

• She’s taking a similar approach to the Indi independents with a grassroots, listening-based campaign.

• She has been backed and supported by other independents who are excellent advocates and representatives in the Federal parliament, such as David Pocock, Helen Haines and Monique Ryan. These MPs and Senator are among the most evidence-based and investigative people that we see in Canberra and are a true asset to the Parliament. We need more representatives like this driving true accountability.

• She is a Climate 200 backed candidate, which means she is committed to climate action.

• She has strong priorities in areas that are important for the electorate. I don’t fully agree with her on the Albury Hospital but that is a whole other can of worms I don’t quite have the space to drill down on here — just know that it is the key issue in Albury right now.

Unfortunately, many of the above positives have been used to undermine her campaign by her opponents, particularly Climate 200 funding, which is apparently more abhorrent than being bankrolled by Gina. I am unfortunate enough to still be exposed to a lot of Albury Facebook, so I get to see the commentary.

The main attack throughlines are very broad and non-specific, largely based on ideological lines and disinfo. They are:

• Independents are Labor or Greens in disguise. They always vote with Labor. (Milthorpe’s policies are on the centre left, and independents do vote with the government a lot — but after extensive negotiations where they often manage to achieve policy change. That’s how you work effectively with the government of the day. If you just oppose everything you never get policy wins or change. I will discuss this further when we get to One Nation.)

• She’s a Teal (even though I thought Teals were Liberals in disguise who just believe in climate change, so a direct contradiction to the above)

• Independents don’t achieve anything (categorically untrue, and also having the Leader of the Opposition as your local member didn’t achieve anything either…)

• Implications that being funded by Climate 200 comes with a lack of transparency, even though it is very transparent that she is funded by Climate 200 and what that entails.

• Weird ideas about preference flows, even though in our political system every individual has control of their own preferences, and even though preference flows to Greens or Labor would do nothing, or are not possible, given the field. Milthorpe is very likely to gain the highest vote share based on first preferences. Preferential voting explained nicely here by former Albury City Councillor and now NSW Greens MP Dr Amanda Cohn. The lack of understanding of how preferences work in our political system is one of the great failings of our education system.

The terrifying other contender — One Nation

I am not going to hold back here. I don’t view One Nation as any kind of productive presence in our national political discourse. They are a driver of racism, disinformation and sexism, and have done nothing to progress the rights or opportunities of the ‘everyday people’ they purport to be standing up for. Bankrolled by billionaires, they are harnessing the dissatisfaction of everyday Australians, which should be listened to and considered by decisionmakers, and using it to more deeply embed the status quo while driving hate and division. One Nation is a party for the rich and powerful pretending to be a party for the ordinary folk.

A vote for One Nation is throwing your vote away. They have achieved nothing on policy or political change in this country. Their track record is chaos, but not even the interesting kind of chaos that actually achieves something against all the odds. It is self-serving chaos. No other party uses and abuses their voters like One Nation.

Yet here we are, where the One Nation candidate in Farrer is in a terrifyingly tight race with the Independent. Or should we say former Labor candidate?

David Farley tried to run for the Nationals, then Labor, where he was allegedly a member and donor (and I have noted the concerning culture of the local Labor branch above in case some see this as a comfort…). When One Nation somehow rose from being a cow turd on the bottom of the national gumboot to being given legitimacy and a chance, guess who has popped up as the candidate?

It makes sense that someone who is self-interested would run for the party of self-interest. But what should really worry One Nation fans, if they could take a small moment to use their noggins, is that Farley’s views don’t fully align with Pauline’s. He is already on the outs with the party HQ by all reports from Canberra. If he gets turfed out or cast aside, guess what he would be??? An independent.

Is David Farley a potential independent by stealth?

Even if he manages to stay within the most tempestuous party in Australian politics, without fully kowtowing to the leadership on immigration, he is unlikely to have any influence. And this is in a party that has no true political influence at all in the Parliament, particularly in the lower house, at the moment. It’s quite a gamble for folks in an electorate that has suffered from a lack of representation and fight for a long time already.

One Nation is also the only party where a disastrous campaign seems to be no deterrent to supporters. Here’s a quick overview of Farley’s stumbles and huge red flags, besides the reveal on his former party allegiances:

• He voiced support for Michelle Milthorpe at the last election, just a year ago and donated to Voices for Farrer.

• He is struggling to walk the line between One Nation’s hardline anti-immigration approach and the fact that the Riverina and Farrer at large needs migrant workers. One of the major issues is healthcare worker shortages, as well as agricultural and trades workers. He is constantly yo-yoing on his immigration stance depending on who is in the room. It is wild to me that no journalist has really tried to pin him down on this (if I’ve missed it let me know).

• His stance on climate change, net zero and other triggering words for the right has also shifted substantially, outlined in the link above. He is clearly out for himself, rather than having any kind of moral clarity.

• He offended the entire town of Griffith by implying it was a cesspit of crime run by the mafia.

• He attended an anti-abortion event. One Nation’s policy is staunchly anti-abortion and anti-women and Farley is peddling misinformation about ‘abortion up to birth’ being legal. This should terrify anyone with a uterus, and their friends and family. Your rights are on the line.

• He shared three OnlyFans reels to his Instagram account, demonstrating further sexism and a bit of creepy old dude energy as well. He said it was accidental.

• By doing this, he somehow managed to offend Family First, despite being united in their oppression of women’s bodies and choice, and they will not be preferencing him first. Offending Family First while allegedly being on the right is kind of an amazing level of failure.

• He made a sexist slur about Julia Gillard, calling her a “non-productive old cow”. And let’s remember this guy was in the Labor party at one point. You can not trust his allegiances.

• It was revealed last month One Nation appointed a convicted rapist as campaign manager twice, and Farley didn’t really come out swinging against that, when his main contest is an advocate for victim-survivors.

• Amongst all this, his policies are as clear as mud. While his agricultural industry background is certainly substantive, any focus on policy, evidence and knowledge is trampled over by ideology. One Nation has plastered the electorate with posters in support of Ben Roberts-Smith, who was reported by his own military comrades for war crimes. Gina Rinehart money is churning through the billboards and TV channels of the area while people decry an independent for getting a modest sum from Climate 200. Meanwhile I guess issues like health, telecommunications and the regional economy will just have to sort themselves out amid the race baiting, while the planet burns.

If the people of Farrer want a circus, they already have the incredibly talented Flying Fruit Flies. There’s no need for front seats to the One Nation big tent.

The enablers — Liberals, Nationals and other assorted parties on the right

The historical holders of the seat of Farrer are now bit-players, however they are making an incredibly weird choice to support One Nation through their preferences. As their relevancy is being questioned at the national level, in Farrer, the Coalition partners are actively playing a role in their own erosion. Instead of taking any kind of principled stance against One Nation, they are focused on attacking the independent, and it is indeed their preferences that may cinch One Nation a lower house seat. Nats leader Matt Canavan bumbled through an explanation for this on Insiders (3 May) which made little sense and was hardly convincing.

This is a further sign that conservative parties are on a race to the far right in Australia. It is deeply concerning. Any win in Farrer will be a further enabler for One Nation and their toxic rhetoric. The Coalition seems determined to race them to the bottom rather than presenting any clear differentiation — as we saw in the breakups and makeups of the Coalition over issues such as net zero since the 2025 election, which cemented Sussan Ley’s fate.

It is the Australian public who will suffer, particularly those on the margins, which includes rural communities that can no longer trust their interests to be defended amid fights based on ideology and rhetoric rather than services and policy.

Everyone else

ABC has the full list of candidates. Polling to date shows that it is a race between Millthorpe and One Nation. While gaining strength in Albury over time, the Greens are very unlikely to make a substantial dent over Farrer as a whole, despite a candidate who is speaking out on important issues such as mental health access.

The other candidates are a grab bag of minor parties, and this is already long so I’m not going to go deep. Apparently I went to school with the Liberal candidate, but just like algebra, I do not remember it.

In conclusion

This got really long and I didn’t get on to half of the things I wanted to rant about, like Albury’s proclivity to get obsessed on a single issue to the point where it becomes impossible for a candidate to take any stance other than the one that the loudest voices in the community are yelling about, even if there is a diversity of views and some evidence and nuance that is desperately needed (see the Hospital debate currently, but also the 20 year + internal external freeway debate and the ongoing pool wars).

I didn’t even get to rant about one of my ‘favourite’ past independent candidates for Farrer, who took donations from irrigators to run his campaign but then ended up working for a certain government agency in control of river-related environmental concerns, and recently said that independents can’t achieve anything even though he unsuccessfully ran as one not very long ago.

But in short, I just really hope people think about what they are doing when they head to the polls. I get exasperated at a lot of things too, and I understand the sentiment of making a ‘protest vote’ — but there’s no Labor running in this seat to protest against, and the party that represented you for decades is clearly getting the boot. Think about who will actually represent you, and your concerns, and actually work with the government of the day to achieve better policy, services and commitments that might actually improve your lives.

Think about the people who live around you in the community, including the migrants that make a huge contribution, but are facing growing racism and backlash.

Think of the women in your lives who shouldn’t have to re-prosecute their rights to reproductive health.

Think of what you really need to happen to get what you want, and who will actually be in a position to work with others to achieve that.

Farrer is at the arse-end of NSW and has been safe for too long. This is a huge chance. Don’t give up the chance for representation to a party only interested in the sound of its own voice, or in spewing hate.

— Hello

— the main bit of the newsletter — women’s rights under threat globally

— Smart things — links and shares on important issues

— Distractions — recipes, online shopping, podcasts, shows

Hello

Well… things just keep happening, don’t they?

One minute you are pottering around the house on the weekend, the next minute a new war has kicked off.

I am not going to pretend I have the regional knowledge to provide any Middle East commentary here, and I have no idea what Trump’s end game is. But I am alert, alarmed and doom spiralling, as is my late Millennial birthright.

(…and wishing I could afford an EV instead of my stupid petrol dependent car right now! EV people were smug enough already!)

From what I am hearing, a large part of Australia’s foreign policy resources have been manning the crisis call centre at DFAT. Non-essential travel is off the cards… possibly so that staff can’t escape from doing a shift at the crisis call centre. I don’t think that the wider public understands that no matter how many degrees you may have, a career in international affairs always carries the risk of ending up working in a call centre like you’re in an AAMI insurance ad.

Quips aside, consular assistance is very important but often thankless work, and a lot of people are very stressed and uncertain right now.

Hoping for peace, expecting the opposite, and thinking of everyone tied up in the mess.

Domestically, the upcoming Farrer byelection is my Roman Empire. Many readers might know I grew up in Farrer, my family has long been engaged with Albury politics, and I have long-running personal feuds/grievances with many local political figures. I go back to Albury for a stint a few times a year just to keep angry and informed (but mostly for my family, let’s be real). Most Farrer commentary I have read in the national media so far has only been lightly informed. Stay tuned for a Farrer form guide sometime in the next two months where I spill some local tea. Even Antony Green would be racing to the giant touchscreen to open his emails.

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Don’t look away: amid global chaos, women’s rights are under threat

Last weekend marked International Women’s Day.

In Australia, we were transfixed on the deeply troubling plight of the Iranian women’s soccer team. While some defected and were granted protection visas while in Australia, the massive pressure on these young women, including threats towards their families, meant they were facing near impossible choices.

Sadly, too many women across the globe face similar impossible choices every day, often sacrificing their own safety, wellbeing and rights to care for those around them. It shouldn’t have to be a trade-off.

Personally, I’m proud that Australia continues to take a principled stand on gender equality internationally, particularly as other nations reduce their funding and support. Our work is being watched. We cannot afford to be complacent.

Globally, we are facing a well-funded, coordinated and deliberate pushback on women’s rights. Leaders at the UN are calling it the most serious threat to gender equality in a generation. And Australia is not immune.

Some fast and blunt facts:

• Global funding cuts are putting 90 percent of women’s organisations at breaking point.

• A quarter of countries reported pushback on gender equality in 2024.

• In 2026, women worldwide still only have 64 per cent of the legal rights of men.

• The women’s rights situations in some countries, particularly Afghanistan, are barbaric.

• Sexual violence in conflict is rapidly increasing.

• Women are among those most affected by the impacts of climate change.

• Extremist backlash is growing, including in Australia. New studies show 17% of the population believe feminism should be resisted with violence. It was the second most supported extremist view. 40% of boys aged 13 to 17 agreed that women lie about domestic and sexual violence.

• Gen Z men in Australia are more likely to hold sexist views than previous generations.

At the UN last week, we saw what it means to have one of the most powerful nations in the globe roll back their support for gender equality and aggressively push conservative agendas into the women’s rights space.

The US blocked adoption by consensus of the Agreed Conclusions at the Commission on the Status of Women (CSW): the first time ever in the 70 year history of CSW that an outcome wasn’t adopted by consensus.

Thankfully, the overwhelming majority of states supported the final text on women’s access to justice, with 37 out of the 45 CSW member states of the Commission voting in favour, 6 abstaining, and only the US voting against.

It was still a watershed moment though: even the things we have taken for granted are no longer safe. It shouldn’t be controversial to argue that women and men should have the same access to fundamental rights such as justice. But these are the debates we are now finding ourselves in.

Holding these international forums in a country that is now openly hostile to the UN, women and free speech also raises a whole host of other questions: this piece by Asha Clementi highlights some of the new or more pronounced barriers being faced by international civil society, including visa denials.

In a world where so much is happening, it can be easy to be distracted by new crises. But we need to work hard to ensure the important gains we have made on gender equality do not slip away amidst the chaos.

Gender equality is in everyone’s interest: this isn’t just a women’s fight, and we need everyone on board to beat the pushback.

Smart stuff

• A super interesting social experiment is about to take place in Marshall Islands — a world first Universal Basic Income scheme to stem outward migration. Read about it here and here.

• This is such an interesting read on how movements can fail once institutionalised, how governance structures can hinder, and how incentives, including donor behaviour, can be far more powerful in shaping behaviour than the ‘mission’ if an organisation lacks political grounding.

• If you missed Gordon Peake’s diaries on his Antarctica trip with Sea Shepherd, check it out.

• This ABC article on Timor-Leste that shows why ‘development’ detached from reality is never a good idea.

• What the world needs now is healing. My former colleague and storycraft queen Belinda Lopez is sharing a new series on her Substack on books that can heal us in these challenging times.

Little distractions

• These social posts by the National Gallery of Art in DC where older curators talk about art entirely using Gen Z slang are a masterclass in comms. Funny, engaging and educational.

• This creator’s videos showing how dumb, self-serving and ego indulging AI bots can be is maddening, funny and important. I’m not anti-AI by any means, but we still need critical thinking.

• ‘Wuthering Heights’ really was bad and smooth-brained. They should have set it in Queensland just for laughs, it couldn’t have been much more ridiculous.

• The hanging rail in my wardrobe completely collapsed under the sheer weight of fabric I was begging it to hold up (storage is constantly in shortage here, crying in single old Millennial in the housing market), so I’ve got a massive wardrobe clearout on my Ebay account — share with anyone you know in the market for plus size clothes, wide shoes, or fabric.

• I have not been able to cook much this month thanks to trying a new med that comes with introductory nausea and other suffering, so no recipe recommendations (I’m fine btw, just always trying to be marginally closer to normal with my collection of chronic illnesses). To survive, we’ve been revisiting all the pre-prepared meal companies. In Canberra, despite the aggressively sporty name, we like Gym Meals Direct. For vegan options, Iku is good (but the serving sizes are small for some). Soulara is another option. The freezer is super full so we haven’t done Dinner Ladies this time, but it is always reliable. Blakeaway is a good splurge option. Macros is also on the list to try, recommended by a friend who recently had surgery. My cooking is definitely tastier if I do say so myself, so hopefully I can get back to it soon.

— Hello

— state-sanctioned violence in Sydney

— the main bit of the newsletter — communicating about aid and development as UK Aid looks to its future

— Smart things — links and shares on important issues

— Distractions — recipes, online shopping, podcasts, shows

Hello

It’s February already. January seemed long — but not as languid as I like my summers to be. In an ideal situation, I wouldn’t really need to think very hard in January, but there was overthinking involved.

There were at least two heatwaves that had me melting into my furniture. The US appears to have completely abandoned the basic principles of democracy. Then there’s Iran and all the other global tragedies continuing to play out with little regard for the flick of a fresh sheet of the calendar.

I’m always hopeful that the new year will somehow encourage people to step back and go… ‘woah, OK. Let’s not keep doing this [gestures around] in the new year everyone!’ But instead of resolutions on world peace we just end up with a spike in diet culture and gym advertising. Thanks capitalism!

We had our nationally awkward January long weekend. I went to the beach, which was delightful in many ways, but the fact that we still haven’t changed the date of our national day so that it doesn’t cause deep harm and offence to First Australians cast a long shadow — like a family-sized cool cabana saving someone’s spot on the sand when they aren’t even there. Won’t someone think about the social cohesion?

All in all I am starting the year wondering if I have another B12 deficiency or if this sense of weariness is just permanent now.

Maybe we can still make things a bit better though? Let’s give it a crack.

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Let’s take a little look at our own democracy…

It’s easy to sit here and take pot shots at the US at the moment, because yes, their democracy is beyond cooked. Sending thoughts to those bravely standing up to ICE and the terror occurring in neighbourhoods across the country.

But just this week we have witnessed significant state-sanctioned violence in Sydney against pro-Palestine protestors, who are rightly very angry that Israeli President Isaac Herzog has been invited to visit this country.

Despite clear video evidence that police were aggressive and physically violent towards people were were behaving peacefully, including Muslims kneeling in prayer, the NSW Premier Chris Minns is trying to flip the script, supporting police actions and blaming protestors for exercising their democratic rights. Amnesty International, other rights groups, MPs and Senators (such as David Pocock below) have called for a full investigation, and I personally back these calls, because this is madness.

But there’s also the fundamental question around why Herzog is visiting anyway, and how we got here.

Just a brief list of some of his contributions to world peace:

• blaming all Palestinians for the actions of Hamas and hence the genocide Israel has carried out against them.

• photographed signing bombs that were to be dropped on civilians in Gaza.

• while not (yet) issued with an arrest warrant by the ICC, he is named in a UN Human Rights Council report for committing ‘direct and public incitement to commit genocide’.

Albanese has justified the visit on the grounds of ‘social cohesion’ and ‘creating a greater sense of unity’ after the antisemitic Bondi attacks… which makes absolutely no sense at all. Of course there would be significant — and justified — protest activity taking place around a visit. Many, many Australians have spoken out on the lead up to this, including Jewish Australians. Allowing Herzog to visit would very predictably only lead to further division.

So why do it?

From an international relations perspective, there is no strategic gain to this visit. Herzog is not going to suddenly allow humanitarian access and stop the genocide because he was served up a lukewarm welcome and few lamingtons. He is no doubt going to give the Australian Government a few gut punches about recognition of Palestine while he is here, while justifying the continued genocide in Gaza wherever possible, spreading propaganda and misinformation. Meanwhile, the horrific mainstream media commentary around the protests and the police response is completely divorced from factual information and only fracturing our society further.

This visit is not good for any Australian. So, why? Why would you do it? I can usually figure out an angle or a reason, or at least a strategy, behind the decisions of our leaders, whether I agree with them or not. But I do not understand what Albanese is doing here, and given the predictable division this has caused, we deserve a better explanation.

We also need to take some lessons from this.

1. NSW Police need to be thoroughly investigated, because this is not the first time they’ve very proactively tried to stop peaceful protest.

2. We need to protect our democracy and stand up to impositions on the right to protest.

3. Our mainstream media is becoming deeply, deeply trash, and we need to have a reckoning on this somehow (PS if you’ve got some free time, complain to the Press Council).

4. Greens and Independents are the only functioning Opposition in this country at the moment. While all this is happening, the Liberal and National Parties are too busy negotiating their messy divorce and preparing for a potential spill.

5. This is a slippery slope. We may have rejected ‘Trump style politics’ at the last election, but holding it back is something that requires day-to-day work. We need to safeguard our democracy.

Are we actually clearly saying what foreign aid does? Probs not!

The UK International Development Committee is currently gathering evidence as part of its inquiry into the future of UK Aid — a future that is looking very slash and burn. An interim report has just been released this week, and communications, particularly around multilateral contributions, is called out a few times, as well as the need to demonstrate impact.

There’s also this Substack from King’s College talking on the failures of aid communications in the UK, such as “the absence of visible outcomes, the repetition of crisis narratives and a sense that when things go wrong, nobody is accountable.”

Spheres of Knowledge

UK AID: Show, Don’t Tell

If UK aid has a communications problem, it is not because the public is uniquely hostile or incurious. It is because the system has spent too long telling people what aid is for, and far too little time showing them what it actually achieves…

Read more

7 months ago · 1 like · 1 comment · King's Global Affairs

One of the biggest takeaways from this piece is around missed opportunities. And I see this all the time in my own work communicating the impact of Australian aid. Beautiful content will be produced at the program level, ticking off key priorities like centring local voices and promoting gender equality, while showing demonstrable change in people’s lives etc etc. And then once it gets inside government, it never goes anywhere. The problem isn’t always content supply or creation, it is very often distribution.

There’s many reasons for this. Here’s a short list (take me out for beers for the long list):

• Poor internal communications

• Limited planning

• Low prioritisation in many areas amid already tight human resourcing

• A focus on risk avoidance, which leads to any communication being seen as inherently risky (even though there’s also risks in not communicating…)

• Geopolitical competition and the curious decisions that we make about how to respond: for example, focusing on comms about small gifts from Australia like stationary and office supplies — because that is what China does — instead of telling stories about how people’s lives are actually being improved or transformed through long-running Australian support to the Pacific.

• No significant investment in audience or message testing, or other metrics, that could help targeting.

• Decentralised communications, meaning that the skill level of people overseeing communications is hugely variable at different Embassies and High Commissions, as is the resourcing level. The importance placed on communication comes down to whoever is boss at the time. (There’s many upsides to this decentralised approach and many talented people in the field — I’m just talking about when it becomes a barrier.)

• Not enough repackaging and reuse of quality content to meet the needs of different target audiences. Reinventing the wheel instead of looking for what is already available.

• Not drawing on partners or programs enough for content, even when they are already producing it.

• Inherent tensions between public diplomacy, diplomacy proper, and aid and development. In some countries, mentioning aid funding can be seen as offensive to the country government — language has largely shifted to partnership, but this might not be understood by donor country domestic audiences. In other countries, aid targeting can cause tension and reluctance to communicate: for example, support to the Rohingya in Bangladesh. Relationships need to be managed, and managing communications is understandably part of this.

• A preference for content on trade, people-to-people links, culture, sports, migration and other aspects of our diplomatic offering. This content is important too, but why not both?

All in all, it’s complex. But I do firmly believe we could be doing a much better job at explaining the power of our relatively small overseas development assistance budget.

The King’s piece is predominantly looking at communication for UK audiences — but donor country audiences are only a small part of the picture, and frankly shouldn’t be the priority. This is my main gripe with the piece, as it doesn’t talk about communications in the countries where UK Aid is working: aid is an important tool of soft power. But if we produce good content in the countries where aid is impactful, it doesn’t take a lot to adapt that for domestic Australian audiences when and if needed.

I’ll stop now as I know this is probably only interesting to a handful of people. But if you are sitting out there as a person who isn’t very engaged in aid and development and wondering why it matters, it means we also aren’t doing a good enough job of explaining our aid program in Australia: and I strongly suspect that is the case.

While we are fortunate that the aid program seems relatively safe in Australia at the moment, there’s always a risk that the tide could turn if government changes, and the global trends are not looking good. It would be better to explain it well now, rather than to wait until it might be too late.

Smart stuff

• “I hadn’t fully grasped how the idea of a better future sustained me – now I, like many others, find it difficult to be productive” — this has been my feeling coming into the new year, a deep sense of being drained, even with tangibly good things on my own personal horizon. I shall henceforth blame the polycrisis.

• This ProPublica investigation on deaths in South Sudan caused by the destruction of USAID came out just after I hit send on my last Substack, but it is very much worth a read. It is part of a broader series of important journalism on the impacts.

• Cutting the internet in Afghanistan is gender-based violence.

• Why women are more wary of AI (TLDR: gender bias, abuse and misogyny, anyone?).

• The neuroscience of being a middle aged woman who is tired of having to be polite when people are being annoying and wrong.

• This NYT piece on Indonesia’s purpose-built capital, Nusantara, was interesting. I would be intrigued to go there. It sounds like a Southeast Asian homage to Canberra, especially with all the focus on fresh air and sports. (While we lack in Indonesian food we do at least have an airport…)

• Gordon Peake unpacks the recent New Partnership for a New Era between Timor-Leste and Australia with some pithy zingers. (“Shout out to whoever drafted the 83 word sentence with multiple clauses.”) Gordon is about to go on a voyage to Antarctica with Sea Shepherd, so subscribe to his Substack to follow along.

• As someone who loves a podcast about cults in my downtime, the ongoing saga of the Grace Road Group in Fiji is murky business.

• My former colleague Terence Wood is now on Substack with his insights on NZ aid and foreign affairs.

• A useful summary of the importance of storytelling in systems change, for my fellow comms geeks.

Little distractions

• Bad Bunny Superbowl Halftime Show. OMG. I loved it. I am learning a lot about Puerto Rico this week thanks to Benito Bowl, and also went down a spiral of watching ‘behind the scenes’ videos to see how they did it.

  

• If you — like me — enjoy wearing black linen clothing on occasion, check out Turn Black, based in India. They only sell black clothes. I’ve ordered from them a few times and the quality is great — plus they are truly size inclusive. If you are outside their standard range, they will make your garment to your exact measurements for no extra cost. Even though I sew a lot, I prefer to make fun colourful stuff rather than plain pants or basics, so Turn Black is great at filling that gap for high quality staples. I particularly love their seersucker and cotton crepe fabrics for that low-ironing life.

• If you like cooking shows and you didn’t watch the first season of Culinary Class Wars on Netflix, well… the second season is also great. Watch both! The production values are amazing, the judges have a great rapport, the contestants are interesting and talented: I just wish they would explain what some of the Korean ingredients are in the subtitling so I didn’t have to google as much while watching. I was on team Brewmaster Yun.

• The Pitt is back. Bridgerton is back. The latest season of Below Deck Med was good reality TV, and a new season of Below Deck Down Under has started. The ABC drama miniseries on Evonne Goolagong is worth a watch, it is well done.

• Before I was dragged kicking and screaming back to my desk for the year, I saw some great exhibitions in both Canberra and Melbourne: Super Kaylene Whiskey at National Portrait Gallery, the 5th Indigenous Art Triennial at NGA, and Westwood Kawakubo at NGV.

• I hadn’t made this one pan chicken and cardamom rice from Jerusalem for ages, but pulled it out recently and remembered it was a winner.

— Hello

— the main bit of the newsletter — the state of the aid sector

— The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives is not that deep but is also a terrifying look at structural misogyny

— Smart things — links and shares on important issues

— Distractions — recipes, online shopping, podcasts, shows

— A bonus little Christmas gift guide if you have last minute shopping to do

Hello

This is my last Substack for the year because my brain has already melted. It is done. I probably won’t be back until February, because summer.

But I’ve plated up some of this cerebral ooze for you, my dear reader! In this extremely varied, December special I’m going to cover everything from the state of the aid sector to some of the worst yet addictive pop culture the world is producing nowadays (Secret Lives of Mormon Wives), and maybe even a few online shopping tips.

I wrote and scheduled this newsletter before the abhorrent terror attack against Jewish Australians on Bondi Beach on Sunday. I am horrified and my thoughts are with everyone affected. It’s also really really concerning that we are already seeing this being used for political point scoring by the right. Can we all please do better?

My fast take on social media.

We need to tackle this collectively and meaningfully instead of seeing it fuel further division.

For everything else… let’s put a pin in that until 2026. See you on the flipside.

Substack is a paid newsletter platform that allows you to support the writers you love. The plan is to keep this newsletter free for a while to get the word out, but if you can, your support would mean a lot — I am committed to sending at least ten newsletters per year for paid subscribers. Sharing with friends also helps, and is free!

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The state of the sector at the Australasian Aid Conference

At the start of this month, I spent an enriching few days at the Australasian AID Conference at ANU, hearing how the global community is well and truly rooted on multiple fronts. Massive funding cuts. An increasingly unpredictable USA. Rights backlash. The undermining of the international humanitarian system. Intensifying geopolitical competition. Conflict. And I didn’t even get to a climate change session but I’m sure those were scary too.

In a way I jest — there were heaps of inspiring people there doing amazing work and some bright lights of innovation and resilience. I also just love seeing everyone. It isn’t all bleak. But when you take a big picture perspective… it can feel a bit stressful!

Here’s a couple of takeaways from some of the sessions I attended.

This panel on backlash against gender equality and other rights issues was a really important discussion. I’d recommend having a watch, even if you aren’t deep in aid or international affairs, as these are issues that affect us all and also are playing out domestically in Australia. There’s lots of ideas of how we can try to navigate the growing division fuelled by the far right, but also how the left can maybe tell its story on gender equality better to the centre. And a big shoutout on the importance — and potential threat — of powerful communications.

The conference panel on Gaza, which is not online, was also an excellent discussion. Lots of musings on whether the global humanitarian system is still fit for purpose and shrewd observations of some the very deliberate attacks on this very system by the Israeli government and allies. Downstreaming of risk on to local responders also came up as a core topic, amid broader discussions on the importance of localised response — this is something we always need to be considering in localisation discussions. This discussion on multilateralism is a good follow-on about similar issues with the international system, with more of a health and human rights focus.

For policy and evaluation nerds, this panel on the science of scale had some useful insights and I particularly enjoyed hearing the practical realities of large-scale education reform in the Philippines. I also went to a really interesting and research-driven panel on some of the security issues playing out in the Myanmar-Bangladesh borderlands, including in the refugee camps of Cox’s Bazar — the XCEPT program has some fascinating research on cross-border conflict drawn on in the panel.

All in all — there’s a lot to do in an increasingly resource-scarce environment. But there are a lot of people trying really hard to keep working on these crucial global issues, for the sake of humanity.

But let’s circle back on that after the holidays.

The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives is not that deep but is also a terrifying look at structural misogyny

The third season of Secret Lives of Mormon Wives (SLOMW going forward) dropped recently on Disney+ and I smashed through it while also hating so much of it at the same time.

For those who are unfamiliar with this whole realm of TikTok and reality TV, let me contextualise:

• The show follows a group of Mormon women in Utah who are in a group called MomTok — effectively a content creation gang where they post collaboratively to increase their online reach on TikTok and other online social media platforms. Their content is largely little memes and dances. The MomTok moms are all stunningly beautiful and all nearly look the same. It took me two seasons of the TV show to be able to tell some of them apart.

• Somehow, the financial success of MomTok has enabled all the women to surpass their husbands as breadwinners, which is unusual in the deeply patriarchal structures of the Mormon church.

• MomTok was embroiled in a ‘soft swinging’ scandal in 2022 where core MomTok member Taylor revealed in a livestream that there had been some light partner-swapping among MomTok and that she had fallen in love with one of the other MomTok husbands. This online scandal is how they ended up with a whole reality TV show on Hulu. (Explainer here if you want to know more on this scandal — but be aware that to this day nobody really understands what ‘soft swinging’ is.)

• At least 1-3 members of the main cast are pregnant in each season of the show.

• Another notable scandal was when MomTok member Whitney did an amazingly tone deaf TikTok dance in a hospital room while her baby was seriously unwell with RSV. (I can’t find the original anymore which suggests she’s tried to scrub it from the internet, just other people’s edits)

  

  @ryinskott#momtok #whitneyleavitt #hospitaldance #sexandthecity #carriebradshaw #aw

  Tiktok failed to load.
  
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So that’s how we ended up with SLOMW. The online tradwife movement definitely would have played a role in encouraging Hulu to pursue this as a series as well. The entire premise of the show is for the women to continually ask “will MomTok survive this?” with the titular “this” being the fuel of scandal being thrown on the MomTok bonfire of capitalism so that it explodes into even more weird and tenuous brand deals. They were literally at a product launch of a fake mink blanket this season. The stakes are high and low at the exact same time.

In classic reality TV format, the show does its best to give one of the women a villain edit every season, but the real villain of the show is the Mormon husbands, who later and — somewhat desperately — rebrand as DadTok. With maybe two exceptions, DadTok is a cesspit of fragile masculinity. Several members are literally a bundle of red flags tied into the shape of a human. The gaslighting, emotional manipulation and immaturity of the majority of these men is aggravating to watch, and has clearly been enabled by a lifetime of growing up inside a patriarchal institution that has only emboldened their deep sense of entitlement. We didn’t see much of DadTok in the first season, but then DadTok must have got upset — in seasons two and three, they are at times wedged into the show so awkwardly that it feels clear it was a contractual condition so their wives could continue to film. No reality TV viewer wants to see three men fly fishing and having extremely stilted scripted conversations about their feelings, yet we are served it up to placate them, just as their MomTok wives must placate their controlling behaviour in order to retain enough agency to keep up their influencer businesses. The men’s repeated efforts to frame themselves as stand-up good guys almost comically reveal their deep flaws.

Then we have the women. MomTok’s company line is that it is about '“women empowerment” (why do Americans phrase it like this?) and friendship and support. But the swinging scandal, the fact that MomTok is actually a lucrative business collective, and the reality TV edit mean that something is always “tearing MomTok apart”. At times, the fourth wall is even broken, and it is revealed that brutal contract negotiations for SLOMW are one of the things that MomTok needs to survive — the frequent breaking down of the fourth wall is actually one of the more compelling parts of SLOMW for a reality TV connoisseur.

The root problem of MomTok, and the thing that is truly always tearing it apart, is that it exists in a framework of structural patriarchy. While the women of MomTok may have more modern ideas and lifestyles than the Mormon church endorses, they are products of the church: when Taylor has lunch at her parents house and they slut-shame her and blame her for her boyfriend’s infidelity, siding with him, and you see her spiral into guilt. In the midst of separations and marriage breakdowns, the women are always taking the blame. More darkly, several cast members have experienced sexual assault and are grappling with its long-run impact — a topic that is sometimes handled OK by the show, and other times terribly. Again, the women are the ones spinning down the blame spiral, as they have been conditioned to do so by an institution that expects and demands perfection and piety.

In this framework, is it any wonder that MomTok would fight each other tooth and nail for the economic freedom that comes from making money by doing a little dance on the internet? Is it any wonder that they largely tolerate and at times endorse the horrors of DadTok?

As Sophie Gilbert in The Atlantic writes:

“The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives is a logical end point for lifestyle-focused reality television, which has never quite been able to decide whether women should be gyrating on a pole or devoutly raising a dozen towheaded children. This show bravely asks: Why not both?”

The other thing that makes the show compelling to a non-Mormon audience is all the little Mormon things — voyeurism into a faith and culture little understood by outsiders. They don’t drink hot drinks like coffee or tea, instead subsisting on giant sodas with a dizzying array of artificial add-ins. They don’t drink alcohol but quite freely go to clinics to do ketamine to unpack past traumas and conflicts and suck on laughing gas to get botox. Some of the women wear, or have worn, “garments” — special underwear to remind them of their promises to God.

Amid all this, you have the usual reality TV drama. She said/he said, frenemies to enemies, and massive blow ups that involve law enforcement. At one stage, when police get called to an explosive argument on the front lawn of a Halloween party, MomTok member Jessi coyly asks the cops: “Have you heard of Secret Lives of Mormon Wives?” trying to explain why their yard is full of TV cameras and overhead lighting. The police are unmoved.

But maybe they should be watching.

The greatest lesson SLOMW can impart is to show the patterns and damage that structural patriarchy imposes upon women, even on those so publicly ‘empowered’.

Smart stuff

• This Australia in the World podcast episode on Australia’s foreign policy focal shift from ‘alliance, region and rules’ to ‘region, relationships, rules and resilience’ is an interesting discussion. I’d also pair it with the discussion on Pacific integration recently furthered by Development Intelligence Lab — it does feel like we are making some strategic strides in the region under this government, as much as those of us who work in this space will always have thoughts on how and where we could do better.

• “This is the story of how a fugitive in one of the most isolated outposts of the Pacific united a global empire of fringe beliefs, where everything — from the nature of money, government, and the very fabric of reality itself — is up for debate.” Another great Pacific investigation from OCCRP on a rogue ‘King’ in Bougainville with ties to the sovereign citizen movement.

• Gordon Peake reflecting on the legacy of RAMSI in Solomon Islands more than two decades on. The ‘fundamental dilemma of diplomacy’ is very real for anyone working on reform issues in the Pacific today.

• Jose Ramos Horta’s comments in this interview on democracy, diplomacy and the international system are pretty interesting, on the 50 year anniversary of Indonesia’s invasion of Timor-Leste.

Little distractions

• Judge Judy and Amy Poehler’s chat on Good Hang podcast is fun. So is the Ina Garten episode.

• This article in NY Mag on a woman with 14-15 kids who became a serial birther well into her 60s is just all kinds of whackadoo and raises some serious questions about reproductive technology and ethics.

• My sister and I got super addicted to Physical Asia on Netflix. There is something incredibly soothing about just watching strong people push and lift things and work functionally in a team after a long day tapping little letters on the hard work machine. It has great editing and production that draws even the least fitness-minded person (me) in.

• I had a good fortune to spend some time on the Mornington Peninsula and in South Gippsland in Victoria last month to celebrate one of my beautiful friends. Recommend the two Mornington Peninsula hot spring venues (the OG and Alba), and I also had lots of great food.

Little festive shopping guide

Because I love to help and love to shop, here’s some gift ideas if you need to get something quick! Note that most of these gift suggestions are highly targeted toward middle aged women or foodies…

• Condiments. I am a condiment queen. I love a good condiment. I often make my own — particularly sambal — but when I can’t be bothered, here’s some picks:

  • Jimoto foods sauces and seasonings, in particular the spicy ume and lime, fresh yuzu and chilli, and shiso teriyaki. Available in some bougie supermarkets as well as online.

  • Matt’s Hot Shop — for the lover of hot sauce.

  • Al Brown Kasundi Ketchup and Habanero Mustard Mayo, available at Woolies in some places and at multiple online stores.

  • Ottolenghi yuzu, ginger and miso marinade also available at Woolworths. Stupidly expensive but goes on sale often enough.

  • Greenstreat dressings — not a particularly useful recommendation unless you live somewhere with a Greenstreat (Albury, Melbourne, Brisbane), but these dressings are an Albury classic, particularly the poppyseed dressing. I always stock up.

  • All of the chilli crisp. Recommendations include umami papi, chotto motto (their yuzu hot sauce and ‘chicken salt’ are also great), and this make your own kit from Naked Asian Grocer — plus the original, laoganma, of course. Marion’s (available at the supermarket) is also good. Plus hot honey. Many brands abound, Quinby’s is good, as are others.

  • If you have a Costco membership you can buy giant bottles of Kewpie and Kewpie sesame dressing, which are the gift of joy that last three to six months depending on household size.

  • If you want to make your own condiments and gift, Lara Lee’s sambal tomat is great (needs to stay cold), there’s a billion recipes for homemade chilli oil out there but Sohla’s is super popular. Salsa macha is also on my ‘to make’ list.

  • If you are in Canberra, The Pantry Shop in Fyshwick has some good condiment options.

• Coffee beans. Favourites include: Femili PNG coffee, AltDrop (Melbourne speciality coffee from multiple roasters — Market Lane, Padre just a few favourites), Gabriel coffee, Redbrick coffee, Commonfolk (tried this when down on the Mornington Peninsula recently)… the list goes on and on.

• Excellent olive oil makes excellent food. I love Goldi and Mount Zero. Mount Zero’s olives are also delicious, I accidentally bought two 2kg jars of them during the pandemic because I thought it 4kg “wouldn’t be that many olives” — don’t do that unless you own a restaurant. But they are great olives.

• I love my colourful recycled plastic chopping boards from CookDineHost. Pinchy products also have some cute ones.

• For a crafty gift to encourage a screen break during the summer (I plan to be sewing for a decent chunk of it) — especially if you have someone young in your home who the government has now banned from social media — Journey of Something have lots of options for adults and kids alike. Craft Club have easy latch-hooking kits (though very polyestery) that are suitable for tweens as well. Stitched Up Kits have cute looking embroidery sets, and Pott’d and Sculpd have lots of pottery and painting related options. Also the economy of candles is always incomprehensible to me (why are they $50 each at markets??) because they are incredibly easy to make yourself. Here’s some starter kits. Have fun!

Wishing you a wonderful Christmas and New Year. See you in 2026!

— Hello

— the main bit of the newsletter — why I’m obsessed with The Diplomat (the Netflix one, not the foreign policy blog)

— Timor-Leste joins ASEAN

— Smart things — links and shares on important issues

— Distractions — recipes, online shopping, podcasts, shows

Hello

Will I begin every one of these newsletters by commenting about how the year is just flying by? Quite possibly!

There’s lots of smart links in this issue, all sorts of snippets on the region.

But I want to start by saying… STOP VIOLATING THE CEASEFIRE. STOP KILLING PEOPLE. 100 people killed, including 46 children in the past couple of days. We need to keep all eyes on Gaza, this isn’t over until people are free and safe. It’s not really a ceasefire if the killing is just stop-start instead of unrelenting.

OK, well now that I’ve said that, here’s the rest of the newsletter.

And a video of how my dog behaves anytime someone uses a garden hose in his vicinity, just for the lolz.

Substack is a paid newsletter platform that allows you to support the writers you love. The plan is to keep this newsletter free for a while to get the word out, but if you can, your support would mean a lot — I am committed to sending at least ten newsletters per year for paid subscribers. Sharing with friends also helps, and is free!

Share

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I’m obsessed with The Diplomat

The Diplomat on Netflix is like a bowl of delicious salty popcorn for anyone adjacent to foreign affairs. When the new season dropped, I gobbled it up in less than two days, and I am currently staring at the microwave hoping Netflix cooks me another bowl fairly quickly.

Light, airy, at times borderline carnival sideshow, but with great performances and an addictive pace that means your snack quickly turns into a meal, I am holding on to this metaphor about popcorn as hard as Ambassador Kate Wyler (Kerri Russell) holds on to the interests of the fictional US Government, while dealing with her maddening, yet powerful, husband Hal (Rufus Sewell).

One of my favourite speeches this season was by Eidra (Ali Ahn), the CIA chief of station in London. I love Eidra as a character and she reminds me of so many people I know in foreign affairs — whip smart, doing their job very well, holding incredible amounts of responsibility and secrets, balancing conflicting interests, trying to hold down a personal life amid it all, while still having loads of personality and being a bit snarky and sassy on the side.

This speech is in answer to a question from Stuart (the Deputy Head of Mission, played by Ato Essandoh) about whether she is angry about the alleged behaviour of a key political figure (trying not to spoil here).

“Stuart… I am a young, tiny, Asian American woman at the top of one of the most baldly paternalistic arms of the US government. I am furious all the time. If I could go after terrorist and human traffickers with an organisation that didn’t have an 80-year legacy of racism and human rights violations, I would.”

Stuart: “We should be getting this for the recruitment video.”

“There is not another, better, CIA or America. The ones we have are f*cked up. We make compromises. Some days we feel okay about that, some days we have gin.”

It just encapsulates so well the feeling of trying to do good work in (or with) inherently broken institutions, or trying to work in your country’s interests when sometimes your country is doing things that really make you angry.

We all have goals of doing great, good or better things, but at the end of the day we often have to work with the morally murky, systematically frustrating, or bureaucratically bungling systems and institutions that are already in place.

I think The Diplomat also does a good job of exploring the gender dynamics within politics, institutions and relationships, even when a woman reaches a position of significant power. Particularly in Season 3 — I won’t spoil, but the mounting bitterness within Kate at dealing with the same old gendered nonsense in politics is palpable and understandable. Kate is also no hero, despite often being framed as one — she is flawed, just like all of us.

There’s many things about it that are a bit silly — but I felt season 3 was less silly than season 2, which did get a bit slapstick at times. It is a TV show, at the end of the day. But sign me up for season 4 none the less!

Keep an eye out for the hilarious references to AUKUS in season 2 — called the ‘Dreadnought Deal’ in the show, but with strong parallels to real life, right down to offending France. When the plot is so closely based on some of the truth of foreign affairs, it’s hard to look away, even when it does get a bit farcical. But sometimes the world of international relations is a bit hard to believe anyway.

Timor-Leste joins ASEAN at a very Trumpy meet

ASEAN has been in the headlines this week as foreign and economic ministers gathered in Kuala Lumpur, and I was chuffed for Timor-Leste on finally becoming a member of the regional body. Parabens (congrats)!

It has been a long time coming. Timor-Leste is the first new member of ASEAN since the 1990s, and it first applied for membership in 2011!

Erin Cook’s Substack has an excellent wrap of a busy ASEAN season, with plenty of cross-armed hand holding, a certain orangey guest and other antics (Erin is my go to recommendation for SE Asia news).

I will be interested in whether this definitively situates Timor-Leste in Southeast Asia in terms of how we talk about the country in Australian foreign policy — it is often seen as an ‘add on’ to the Pacific in terms of regional programs and the lack of ASEAN membership has meant we’ve been a bit tentative about throwing it in Southeast Asia fully as well. Sometimes this straddling has benefitted Timor-Leste, other times it has probably been a negative.

Will being the smallest economy in ASEAN pay off for Timor?

(For the trivia lovers, Brunei has the smallest population in ASEAN and Singapore the smallest land area, but both have much bigger economies than Timor-Leste by both GDP and GDP per capita. Myanmar has a lower GDP per capita than Timor-Leste, but is a larger economy on the whole.)

Here’s a few interesting thinkpieces on what it all might mean for the crocodile half-isle:

• Guteriano Neves on Lowy Interpreter

• Nuno Canas Mendes on The Diplomat

Smart stuff

• The People vs Robodebt three-part documentary on SBS On Demand is well worth watching, especially for anyone who works in public policy. Sad, sobering look at what happens when public service leaders put the demands of ministers ahead of truth and the community, as well as the importance of whistleblowers and those willing to take on the system. It still troubles me that we still talk about adaptive policy as ‘failing’ or ‘backflipping’ — the recent language on superannuation reforms being a case in point (don’t ask me what an unrealised gain is though). The media needs to consider the consequences of constantly framing change as ministerial failure.

• My mate Gordon Peake is a wonderful writer who captures the foibles of life working in aid and development. His latest piece on Inside Story on the range of foreign ‘characters’ who inhabit the Pacific — both now and historically — is well worth a read.

• This paper in Lancet Global Health on the growing use of AI to create ‘poverty porn’ imagery for fundraising and aid is something I’ve already noticed in my own work. For those of us communicating aid and development, we’ve been working for well over a decade to stop the use of poverty porn/white saviour/degrading imagery, instead advocating for empowering, positive, dignified imagery to be used instead. Sadly it seems like AI could be undoing this slow work.

• As someone who covered several local councils in Sydney in my early journalism days and had a certain member of my family heavily involved in local politics in my hometown, this Background Briefing episode on a councillor’s reign of terror in Lismore shows just how badly things can go when the wrong personalities get elected.

• This Anne Helen Peterson interview on a new book — Having it all by economist Dr Corinne Low — about women’s time, income and ‘utility’ was an interesting read.

• I enjoyed this Mexican perspective on Indonesia, particularly rice and food culture.

• Great analysis by Cameron Hill on Trump’s impact on what was USAID. It’s a bit techy for outsiders, but the TLDR of it all is: ‘Like many other aspects of the US state, America’s foreign aid is being reshaped in the image of one man and the domestic political movement that he singularly personifies.’

• Lowy Institute’s Pacific Aid Map update shows that Australia continues to be the heavy lifter in the Pacific, even before the slash and burn of USAID. Geopolitical competition is far from over, though.

• Also at Lowy, FM Penny Wong paints a sobering picture on the ‘hollowing out’ of the UN system — important reading for anyone who cares about the rules based order.

  Reform is essential: we do not want a UN that simply contracts, becoming increasingly dysfunctional and at risk of capture. We do not want a blunt 30, 40 or 50% slashing of each UN agency. That will only end up with “shell” or “zombie” agencies, doomed to fail because they can’t deliver basic functions.

  As it is, UN agencies are already too siloed, duplicative and spread too thinly. We do not want the critical, but often invisible, functions that we all rely on such as disaster early warning systems or preventive healthcare, to simply degrade on our watch. We don’t want poverty entrenched, humanitarian crises unaddressed and human rights abuses to go unchecked, driving transnational crime and irregular people flows to our shores.

  Nor do we want a dysfunctional UN that can be manipulated by those who mean to dismantle it or to take it over for their own aspirations. Or smaller or more vulnerable countries going back to being overlooked, including in the Pacific.

• On a personal gripe — leave the em dash alone!!! A few clients have brought up my use of the em dash lately after all the fuss about it being overly used by AI. I’ve been using em dashes liberally for 20 or more years. I am saddened by the emergent discrimination against the em dash. As I said on LinkedIn like an absolute dork (is it even possible to post on LinkedIn without seeming like a weird dork?): “AI is here to stay. Let’s not allow it to reduce readability out of suspicion. If something reads badly it should be fixed, but if it reads well with em dashes then dash away I say! Let’s worry about substance, accuracy, style, tone and readability instead.”

Little distractions

• I am absolutely adoring Samin Nosrat’s new cookbook, Good Things. I have only made a couple of things from it so far but the creamy sesame-ginger dressing has already entered my top tier dressings list. Samin is also such a beautiful writer, the book is like a hug in these tumultuous times.

• For a fresh treat in this warm weather, Nagi’s bun cha recipe is a winner, with an abundant herby salad. I was in Sydney recently and was swooning over the delicious Vietnamese food in Marrickville — VN Street Foods and Banh Cuon Ba Oanh were among my favs.

• Speaking of Sydney, I hadn’t been to Burwood in so many years — I mostly remember very occasionally going to the Westfield when I lived in the Inner West many moons ago. When Time Out named it one of the world’s coolest neighbourhoods earlier this year, I thought it was time for a re-visit. It’s fun! I had heaps of great street food there. Definitely a cool suburb to check out and I would go back in a heartbeat. Take a second stomach.

— Hello

— the main bit of the newsletter — on Netflix’s newish doco on The Biggest Loser and why we need to stop dismissing the lived experience of people in fat bodies

— Gen Z popping off in Nepal and Indonesia

— Smart things — links and shares on important issues

— Distractions — recipes, online shopping, podcasts, shows

Hello

Where did August go? To deadlines and a horrible cold that wouldn’t go away for weeks, that’s where.

But here I am in September, grateful that we are slowly emerging out of wintriness. I have some planting to do in my small yard, so am spending my weekends going to nurseries to look for hardy native plants (I am not a green thumb) and then getting overwhelmed by the options and the care requirements. I have just decided to take my usual Darwinian survival of the fittest approach to gardening, and see what happens.

Since I have been a bit patchy with these, this one is a bit longer, and it also has a fair bit of content talking about weight culture, so a content warning on that if you are just not in the mood.

Substack is a paid newsletter platform that allows you to support the writers you love. The plan is to keep this newsletter free for a while to get the word out, but if you can, your support would mean a lot — I am committed to sending at least ten newsletters per year for paid subscribers. Sharing with friends also helps, and is free!

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Just ask a fat person

*Content warning — this section will involve discussion of intentional weight loss and weight-based abuse*

When I saw Netflix was releasing a documentary on The Biggest Loser, I felt myself go into the psychological equivalent of the brace position.

When I was at high school, everyone was watching The Biggest Loser, and I looked like a contestant at the start of their Biggest Loser journey. It was not fun. PE class was already torturous enough, without the culture reinforcing the idea that belittling someone was an effective weight loss method. Later in life I embarked on a weight loss push involving extreme diet and exercise and my body has never been the same (in a bad, less healthy way).

But when I saw that the documentary included Aubrey Gordon, co-host of the Maintenance Phase podcast and author of several excellent books, I breathed a sigh of relief. They had met my minimum criteria for consuming any content related to diet culture — they had asked at least one fat person for their opinion.

You’d be surprised at how rare it is. Culturally, we have begun to slowly start to accept that lived experience should and does count for something, and in many other areas of marginalisation, there has been a slow crawl towards inclusion (though also a terrifying lurch away again in the Trump era in many areas).

‘Nothing about us without us’ is an important catch-cry among the disability community, and it should apply to all areas of policymaking, decision-making and public discourse for people in marginalised bodies — especially those dealing with an intersection of oppressions.

But people in fat bodies are still viewed as unreliable narrators. Whether it is our own lived experience, the discrimination we face, our own health, our own needs, or our own abilities, there is constant dismissal. Giving voice to our experience is nearly always seen as ‘making excuses’ instead of wanting to be treated with some degree of dignity and to access fundamental rights such as healthcare.

I’ve had many people — even those who have known me well — straight up dismiss lived experience examples of discrimination or abuse that I have shared with them, acting like I am ‘imagining’ a problem. This is something I know people facing other forms of marginalisation also regularly experience (and I acknowledge that I have many other forms of privilege in my favour).

Despite bearing the brunt of diet culture our entire lives — on health or nutrition or any related topic — our body size is treated like an immediate disqualification for having an opinion — even for people who are very qualified. We are seen as failures, or weak willed. Yet the most experienced person at adhering to diet culture (or receiving absolutely insane ‘health’ advice from alleged professionals and then trying to apply it) is quite possibly the fattest person you know.

So while I don’t think Fit for TV: The Reality of The Biggest Loser was the greatest documentary out there, it did at least give voice to the experience of the contestants — which was not homogenous — and a birds eye view of the show’s place in diet culture of the early 2000s. The lack of remorse or reflection from those involved in the show’s production was also pretty galling.

Hearing the former contestants, many still beating themselves up about their bodies despite the clear abuse they faced and empirical evidence that the show had irreparably changed their metabolisms, was a stark reminder of the deep psychological, physical and social harm created by fatphobia, and the difficulty of defining ‘health’ in such a context.

A show like The Biggest Loser could never have been created if there wasn’t an underpinning belief that fat people were deserving of punishment and abuse. This belief — while more publicly challenged by fat activists and feminists than it has been in the past — still persists. Progress against it only seems to be backsliding in the Ozempic era where a return to thin is in (a whole other think piece… but quickly flagging I have zero judgement of anyone using GLP-1s, it is more the cultural conversation on them that I find somewhat concerning).

While I doubt a TV show like The Biggest Loser would ever be made again (hopefully not…), it was a product of a ‘weight loss at all costs’ culture that we simply haven’t shaken. It is worth reflecting on the broader impact of that.

Do we ever ask a fat person for their view or their needs when it comes to public health policy that directly impacts people in fat bodies? Do we export the same failed approaches in weight-focused public health interventions overseas without taking into account local cultural, social and economic contexts? Will the jump to (expensive) medical weight loss further entrench inequality and discrimination? And will the side effects that some people experience on medical weight loss drugs be just another thing that fat people are ‘not trying hard enough to push through’?

Are we focusing on improving people’s overall health, or just on making them smaller? This was the question that should have been asked of The Biggest Loser, and it is a question we still aren’t asking enough. We also need to listen to the voices of those impacted the most.

Gen Z are over it

The news out of Nepal this week has been pretty stunning. While there is a long road ahead to rebuild democratic governance in the country, the fact that the interim Prime Minister that youth activists picked via a vote on Discord has now been sworn in is truly a new blueprint for uprisings. The first woman PM in Nepal and a former chief justice, Sushila Karki certainly seems like a solid choice — while the youth want change, it seems they still value experience. Watch this space.

My thoughts have also been with Indonesia. It is concerning and sad that people demonstrating for better accountability from public officials were met with tear gas and water canons, and some have lost their lives — including a motorbike delivery driver who was not involved in the protests at all. It has been heartening to see Indonesians across the globe stand up in solidarity. While the government has scrambled to address some of the protesters’ concerns, on the other hand, some changes hint at an entrenchment of policy positions that are not in line with the ‘17 + 8 demands’ that have emerged from the protests and popular sentiment. Again, watch this space.

It seems Gen Z is over it across the region — and I respect it.

(More on the meaning of warga jaga warga here.)

Smart stuff

• I listened to a sad but well made podcast about the re-emergence of maternity homes in the US in the post Roe vs Wade era.

• ABC are running a range of content to celebrate Papua New Guinea’s 50th anniversary of independence — congrats PNG! I also went to the opening of a great exhibition of PNG art at the National Gallery of Australia yesterday called Bilong Papua New Guinea. Those in Canberra should check it out, or you can explore the pieces here.

• Why is Kim Kardashian marketing a $48 jockstrap for our faces?

Little distractions

• In brighter Indonesia news, Broadsheet has now gone as far as declaring Indonesian cuisine the inheritor of iconic Lygon Street, and I am here for it! When I visit Melbourne I always order Indonesian takeaway immediately — Canberra really doesn’t have the same super authentic, strong options. Some of my favs include Beku Gelato, D’Penyetz, Kenangan (in Queen Vic market so not quite on Lygon), and Salero Kito in the CBD for a traditional Padang fix. Really need to try Waroeng SS next time — when I was studying language in Yogyakarta for a month it was a favourite place to eat. I also always want to go to the martabak place but know that I will end up in a sugar trance if I eat a whole martabak manis solo. I was also in Sydney in July and staying in a cheapie airport hotel only to discover that Mascot is now Sydney’s Indonesian food hub. Had an amazing nasi kapau in my hotel room from Medan Ciak, eaten with my hand as per tradition because I forgot to ask for cutlery on my Uber Eats order. It was blissful, and my hotel room then smelled like it all weekend… When I moved back from Indonesia in the early 2010s, Indonesian food was still hard to find here, so I am thrilled that more Australians are discovering it.

• One of my favourite food podcasts Home Cooking is back for another season.

• Nagi’s Chicken Biryani is worth the effort. And if you happen to find yourself randomly with leeks, chard, goats cheese and gnocchi, this a good throw-together one tray dinner.

• I am watching the new season of the Great Australian Bake Off on Binge, which is as incredibly wholesome as always, and one of my favourite bakers is Aysha, who has Solomon Islands heritage and incorporates it into her beautiful bakes.

• If you need to understand the alleged beef between Brooklyn Beckham, Nicola Peltz and Victoria Beckham, or just need to be very much distracted from the far more important garbage fires raging around us, this is a captivating blow-by-blow.

• Ever since I went to Japan I get these videos of someone sending a radio controlled car out to buy food, and I watch them every single time they are served up to me.

• I really enjoy creator Nicole Daniel’s sketches, including the cringe inducing ‘non-profit boss’. This series of ‘trying to buy something at a small local craft store’ is just so funny and highly relatable. Amazing that this is a transnational thing as well, this could be any small holiday town in regional Australia…

• Given last month’s embarrassing turn to mid-90s style racism across Australia, this nostalgic clip from Home and Away is worth a watch. A surprisingly woke take on the Pauline Hanson era. Summer Bay is still not a particularly diverse community though…

— a long introduction

— the main bit of the newsletter — the overlooked but rather excellent ICJ climate ruling

— Smart things — links and shares on important issues

— Distractions — recipes, online shopping, podcasts, shows

Hello

I have a little notepad in Evernote called ‘for substack’ where I am supposed to be dropping all the things I read and like and want to share. I just looked at it, and it is blank. Amazing effort on my part.

The news is still tragic and maddening and overwhelming. I’m still pretty busy. This month I’ve been to Albury and Sydney and Melbourne, while also having quite a bit of work to get through too.

In Albury, I was hanging out with my nephews and niece, which is always loud, wonderful and joyful, and my six-year-old nephew — who lives a very blessed life himself, as all children should — asked me if I ever look at my dog and think about how good it would to be him.

“He doesn’t have to do boring grown-up things like wash the dishes,” he said.

“It’s true,” I said. “He has a pretty good life. He just gets to get pats and go for walks and have fun.”

“I think he even has it better than me,” my nephew said, after a moment of reflection. “He doesn’t even have to put things away.”

The heavy burden of occasionally putting their own things away, which my darling nephew doesn’t do that often anyway, should be the benchmark of ‘hardship’ we are working towards for all children.

The world is too cruel and unkind for too many, and it breaks my heart. The suffering inflicted on the children (and adults) of Gaza is beyond reprehensible. We should be taking all possible actions to sanction and hold to account those responsible and to put an immediate end to this genocide.

The ‘cracking down’ on those who raise their voices against genocide or in support of Palestine, whether through the law or Parliamentary procedure or fear, is also deeply concerning and seemingly increasing. It’s one thing to look away from genocide because it is hard to look at — it is another thing entirely for the state to use its power to silence those trying to draw attention to it. What the hell are we doing?

Substack is a paid newsletter platform that allows you to support the writers you love. The plan is to keep this newsletter free for a while to get the word out, but if you can, your support would mean a lot — I am committed to sending at least ten newsletters per year for paid subscribers. Sharing with friends also helps, and is free!

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An international court does something excellent

I am a bit too swamped to write a big essay on something at the moment for the newsletter, but one heartening piece of news that I think got really lost in the general cesspit of sadness and excrement is last week’s ruling by the International Court of Justice (ICJ) on climate change.

The ICJ ‘non binding opinion’ that states have a legal obligation to tackle climate change and that failing to do so is a “wrongful act” is a big moment for climate advocacy, and could open the doors for those calling for reparations or ‘loss and damage’. Our neighbours in the Pacific islands have played a big role in advocating for this moment — particularly Pacific youth, and the beautiful but climate disaster-plagued nation of Vanuatu.

The historic advisory opinion was the biggest ever handled by the court.

“In the Court’s view, the well-established rule of international law that the conduct of any organ of a State must be regarded as an act of that State is applicable in the context of climate change. Failure of a State to take appropriate action to protect the climate system from GHG emissions — including through fossil fuel production, fossil fuel consumption, the granting of fossil fuel exploration licences or the provision of fossil fuel subsidies — may constitute an internationally wrongful act which is attributable to that State.”

Here’s some coverage of the excellent advocacy that led to this moment, and some analysis of what it all means from people who have followed it more closely than me:

• ‘We were heard’: the Pacific students who took their climate fight to the ICJ – and won (The Guardian)

• International Court of Justice says countries failing to tackle climate change risk breaking international law (ABC)

• Renewed hope: Why the ICJ climate decision matters to us all (Devpolicy)

• World’s highest court issues groundbreaking ruling for climate action. Here’s what it means for Australia (The Conversation)

Smart stuff

• I haven’t watched Lena Dunham’s new series ‘Too Much’ on Netflix yet, but this Vulture article on ‘the end of the funny fat lady’ is interesting, even though I don’t fully agree with several parts of it. The conclusion also feels overly optimistic as we enter a nouveaux era of body policing and sexism — I wish I could believe that fat actresses could finally and more permanently be ‘allowed’ to play more emotionally fulsome characters, but I am not sure we are there. The return of Lena has brought out a lot of commentary — she tends to do that — a couple of the more thoughtful pieces here and here.

• Excellent overview by Susan Hutchinson on The Strategist on 25 years of UNSC Resolution 1325 on women, peace and security and the need for real action to stop the backsliding.

• It took Trump six months to 'dismantle' decades of HIV progress, which was exactly what was going to happen as soon as he and Elon went slashing at USAID. A human tragedy.

• The Epstein stuff is a horror show, and this obviously comes with massive trigger warnings for sexual assualt and r*pe, but this substack by More to Hate is one of the better things I’ve managed to read about Trump and Epstein.

• This Devpolicy Blog on the havoc being wreaked upon the aid sector, and of course consequently the people supported by it, is a good summary of a terrible, maddening thing.

• Gorgeous photo series on the fisherwomen of Iran in New Yorker mag.

Little distractions

• My cooking has disintegrated to the level of Costco chicken enchiladas (surprisingly good) this month. This one-pan Ottolenghi puttanesca is on my ‘to cook’ list though.

• On lazy cooking, for ramen that feels slightly pious I recommend Naked Asian Grocer. All their dry noodles are great quality. Their chilli oil kits are also great, and much cheaper than many of the jarred bougie brands of chilli crisp. Their furikake is also decent — I am nearly through all the good furikake and miso soups I bought in Japan, so sad!

• When in Melbourne for work I usually stay in Collingwood or Fitzroy and I usually discover some delicious new delight every visit. This time, To Be Frank Bakery down an alleyway in Collingwood. Oh my god. Their pastries are amazing. The lamination on the pain suise is so perfect it almost doesn’t seem real. The loaves of sourdough looked and smelled excellent too but I wasn’t in the market for one. Highly recommend.

• This Indian American women’s TikTok content about cooking for her white husband cracks me up.

  

  @sujarocksChutneys!! #mayoiswhitechutney #mayoisspicy #foodplating #culturetiktok #culturalappreciation #culturalappropiation #yellowchutney #redchutney #americanfood #condiments #mustard #indianfood

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  @sujarocksAntipasto Salad is the Invite!Team Nicole for life.🥰 #foodtiktok #mayoiswhitechutney #americanfood #antipasto #4thofjulyparty #gettogether #southernhospitality @folkmedicineremedies

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• My sister and I have been watching the latest season of Below Deck Down Under. The Below Deck franchise is an emotional life raft in rough seas. Incredibly formulaic and soothing, but also full of petty drama. I love it. No matter the work stress I might be facing, it just makes me so grateful I have never had a job where I had to share a bunk bedroom with work colleagues. The captains are always a masterclass in strong management, and then the other staff are always an amazing array of brilliant (Aisha!), OK, bad and borderline psychopathic. Half of the crew desperately need therapy, and the other half just want to make good money to have fun holidays. And then there are the guests. One of the ultimate distraction TV shows.

— Free advice on document accessibility when I could charge you to fix your documents instead

— Smart things — links and shares on important issues

— Distractions — recipes, online shopping, podcasts, cool things online

Hello

As I anticipated, as soon as I got very busy with work, my fortnightly-ish schedule for the newsletter blew out to a month. In my defence, it wasn’t just work that was crazy this month… we narrowly averted World War 3? For now? The news has just been out of hand.

I don’t really have a take on it all besides… what the hell? And what next?

But I do find it staggering that the next generation of school students will probably have to study TruthSocial posts instead of the speeches of Winston Churchill or something. Foreign policy by little brain farts on the internet.

Substack is a paid newsletter platform that allows you to support the writers you love. The plan is to keep this newsletter free for a while to get the word out, but if you can, your support would mean a lot — I am committed to sending at least ten newsletters per year for paid subscribers. Sharing with friends also helps, and is free!

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Dry advice on document accessibility as the world collapses around me

This is a bit random, and probably a bit dry and boring — but I’m at a loss about what to say about current world events, and I figure a decent portion of readers work in jobs that involve creating Word documents.

Lately, I have been dealing with many, many requests to make Word documents accessible so that they can be uploaded to government websites.

I’m happy to take the work, and always happy to help. But part of me wonders why this work is so often being outsourced when it is fairly straightforward. It seems a very new concept in my sector (aid and development), which is a bit shocking really.

So for you, dear reader, here is a crash course on the biggest problems I see in documents that get rejected by the valiant public servants assigned with upholding Web Content Accessibility Guidelines.

These guidelines assist users of screen reader technology to navigate websites and online documents. They also assist a wide range of other users, such as those with learning disabilities, reduced vision… or people who are just busy. Honestly, some of these are just basic principles of readability.

• Do not use merged cells in tables. That is an automatic accessibility fail, and the number one issue I see, because merging cells can be quite helpful in creating complex tables. Redoing tables with merged cells is fiddly, and a significant reason why people come to me for assistance — so it is best to not merge cells in the first place. Tables should have a header row, no blank cells, and absolutely no merged cells. This is the only way that screen readers can interpret them correctly.

• Check the contrast of text, in the body of the document and in any diagrams. This helps everyone be able to read documents better, not just users with vision impairments. This is a great tool to check contrast if you are unsure.

• Readability is a core tenet of graphic design and accessibility. If you are trying to shove too much into a graphic or on a page, perhaps rethink what you are trying to achieve.

• Write descriptive alt text. Alt text, or alternative text, is a textual description of an image that serves as a substitute when the image cannot be displayed or is not available to the user (i.e. if the user is vision impaired). Putting the word ‘image’ or ‘diagram’ in the alt text is not enough. A person using a screen reader shouldn’t be missing out on important information. If the image is a chart, the alt text should explain the data in the chart. If the image is a complex diagram of how a program works, the alt text should explain the diagram properly. If it is a photo, it should give a good description of what is in the image. If you don’t have enough room in the alt text box to explain, direct the user to an annexe where textual detail is provided.

• Use proper header structure in the document. Utilise Header 1, Header 2, etc. This helps screen reader users — and every kind of user — to navigate the document.

• All images and graphics should be inline. The only exception is purely decorative elements. If the graphic isn’t inline, the screen reader has no idea where to read out the alt text. Text boxes should not be used if at all possible, and if used, they must be inline.

• Basic principles of decent design help everyone using the document. White space, organised content, dot points, proper use of section and page breaks — all of this helps everyone. Nicely laid out documents are easier to read.

• If you are a business or organisation with a Word document template, check that the template itself is accessible. It will save you a whole lot of grief down the track making the same corrections over and over if your document templates meet accessibility requirements.

This list is not exhaustive, but covers off the main things I see.

More resources:

DFAT’s guide

Vision Australia’s guide

And of course, if you need help with getting a document to meet accessibility requirements, or designing new templates… I know a girl. Hit me up.

I will try to write something more engaging next newsletter, but hopefully this was slightly useful.

Smart stuff

• Helen Sullivan at ANU has written an interesting piece on the fraying social contract of Australian universities. The recent machinations in the Australian university sector, including job cuts at my two alma maters of ANU and UTS, is deeply concerning. Even though I am a consultant, I also understand the backlash and concern about the big managing consulting company approach to university reform. As a nation, we seem to be failing to grasp that outside of the resource and agriculture sectors — which fundamentally depend on innovation — we are primarily a knowledge economy. The state of our universities should be more of a public policy and political concern.

• Recent pieces by Amy Remeikis (formerly at The Guardian, now at the Australia Institute) on the AUKUS deal have resonated with me — I would like to see a review of the deal with more public debate on the pros and cons, and I do also believe it is restraining criticism of the US by the Australian Government.

• I loved this series of photos of beautiful, architectural ‘microlibraries’ in Indonesia. Unfortunately they don’t look disability accessible — something that I hope is considered in future designs. But the concept is great.

Little distractions

• I’m loving Amy Pohler’s podcast ‘Good Hang’. The episode with Michelle Obama was particularly fun.

• During busy, cold times, this Ottolenghi one pan harissa pasta dish often gets a run. These gingery cabbage pork rolls I made recently were also a real winner, and not toooo fiddly. This ginger chicken claypot rice-inspired dish was also a winner (I wasn’t paying attention so burnt the bottom of the rice a little but that just added more claypot legitimacy). For the vegos out there, gochujang gnocchi (specifically frozen cauliflower gnocchi), is a current favourite. I don’t really use a recipe but this Marion Grasby one looks similar-ish to what I throw together.

— International diplomacy on Gaza is hard but it is time for our government to get angry

— Smart things — links and shares on important issues

— Distractions — recipes, online shopping, podcasts, cool things online, Bob Katter

Hello

It is getting cold here. Winter is not my friend. My arthritic knee is screaming at me and my tiny dog looks at me forlornly from a spot directly under the reverse cycle unit as I write. Yet we persevere. Thanks again for your subscriptions, and please do give this a share if it is even mildly entertaining or worthy — free and paid subscriptions are very, very welcome as I build this little project.

Substack is a paid newsletter platform that allows you to support the writers you love. The plan is to keep this newsletter free for a while to get the word out, but if you can, your support would mean a lot — I am committed to sending at least ten newsletters per year for paid subscribers. Sharing with friends also helps, and is free!

Share

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It is probably time for some sanctions

Like anyone with a heart, I’ve been horrified by the ongoing genocide in Gaza, and the flagrant middle finger that Israel has shown to international humanitarian law. The loss of life and suffering is horrific enough. But the out and out cruelty of deliberate starvation, deliberate denial of the most basic of human rights, and the extended and seemingly deepening violence against a civilian population— including innocent children — is simply beyond the pale.

As someone with some idea of how challenging international diplomacy is, and a good idea of how maddening the international system is to deal with, sometimes I’ve felt almost conservative compared to my most lefty of associates. I’ve been sharing journalism on what is happening in Palestine, and sharing my outrage. And I truly, deeply understand the anger — I feel it too. I am so glad people are being very vocal and standing up against this atrocity. I find it absolutely bizarre that being pro-Palestine is framed as being somewhat fringe or disruptive in the Australian mainstream media, and even more maddening that being anti-genocide is at times framed as anti-semitic when it is fundamentally about human rights.

But I do drawn a line. I’ve steered clear of some of the most vitriolic language around Australia’s leaders and their efforts on international advocacy, because I honestly believe they have been trying.

There is a huge difference between the messaging you can deliver as an activist, and the messaging you can publicly deliver as a foreign minister or prime minister — that doesn’t mean the messaging isn’t more direct behind closed doors, or that the FM doesn’t wish she could publicly drill Netanyahu down a details-oriented shame spiral like a mid-level official who doesn’t have all the numbers at Estimates.

Yes, Australia should do more and be more vocal. But it is also hard. Australia is a middle power that has signed its security destiny to the USA, an ardent backer of Israel’s actions now run by an absolute psychopath who has no signs of empathy or humanity. Aid into Gaza has been blocked, and is now only being delivered in drips. Those needing it are in direct danger. An Israeli-controlled ‘Foundation’ using American contractors and backed by a private equity fund is the only distributor allowed in, completely avoiding the accountable, transparent and tested international aid infrastructure.

On one hand, the only way forward to is try to work with these maddening, frustrating, dysfunctional and morally broken nation states who hold so much power. Sometimes that involves walking a middle line in public, appealing for reason behind closed doors and tenuously propping up flimsy bilateral bridges that you’d love to just torch, on a personal level.

On the other, it is now very clear that we are beyond our middle power strengths of koala diplomacy, flat white diplomacy, or Bob Irwin in Bonds.

We are not seeing progress or reason.

It is time for the government to take a tougher stance.

As Senator David Pocock wrote this week, “if the horror unfolding in Gaza is not our country’s red line for stronger action then I don’t know what is”.

Domestically, what does the government have to lose? They have just been re-elected in an absolute landslide victory. The opposition is in shambles. In the Senate, the cross-bench is largely Greens who have a strong pro-Palestine stance. In three years when we next head to the polls, the Australians not paying attention to this issue will have forgotten what happened in the first months of this government. But those who are watching will remember if we didn’t say or do enough.

Internationally, our economy is already being played around with by Trump’s unpredictable tariff ‘policy’ and we’re being told to spend more on defence because the US might just kick off the China-Taiwan war for fun. It is time to tone down the cute sidekick schtick and set some clear boundaries. We wouldn’t be alone.

Of course, there may be things on the table we don’t know about — but if these are stymying our national response on Palestine, then perhaps we should know. Blink three times if Trump has threatened a massive retaliatory tariff on aluminium or something? I’ll blink four times if I don’t really care at this point.

It is time to look at sanctions on our 49th largest two-way trading partner, and 56th largest export market, unless the government can explain to us why it is holding back. At the moment, it is not easy to understand.

Smart stuff

• NSFW, but my former colleague and brilliant science writer Kate Evans has started a Substack with her sister Monica looking at the scientific side of sex. Their first issue is on the allure of breasts. A bit of a departure from Kate’s previous, but equally interesting, history of the feijoa!

• Another former colleague, Lindy Kanan, has produced an excellent and sobering research report on access to reproductive justice for Pacific seasonal workers in Australia. Blog here, report here, ABC coverage here. It was my pleasure to design a cover for the report.

• On the issue of internet regulation I brought up in my last Substack, a three-part series ‘Australia vs the Internet’ on ABC’s If You’re Listening podcast provides a good overview.

• Laura Tingle’s parting commentary as she moves from the press gallery into a global affairs role at ABC was as spicy and spot-on as you would expect.

• Still on Gaza, Dr Mohammed Mustafa’s testimony on the conditions during his medical missions is heart wrenching.

Little distractions

• I want to give a shout out to Amplefolk, a great Aussie business that sells actually large, ethically-made, gorgeous towels to fit bigger bodies (but honestly, all bodies feel better in a big luxe towel, that is why my sister is always swiping mine out of the linen cupboard… bath sheets ain’t what they used to be, these are so big and cosy). They also sell activewear, and I can attest for fellow big body babes that their leggings actually stay up — thanks to Amplefolk and some other size inclusive brands like Hine and Snag my recent middle aged foray into reformer pilates has been mercifully free from legging-creep. Plus they share heaps of great IG content on how to be a great ally to your fat friends, and more.

• I enjoyed this short podcast on the invention of the rice cooker — and as is too often the case in history, a woman did a lot of the work to make it a success with very little of the credit.

• While national treasure Nagi Maehashi aka RecipeTinEats might have been in the news lately for a couple of controversies (alleged plagiarism — against her, not by her — and being the source of the mushroom alleged murders beef wellington recipe), her recipes always stand up! The incredibly easy but impactful lamb shank massaman curry is such a great winter warmer.

• Even though I am far from plant-based, Tamtam’s amazing Instagram content on little-known Indonesian plant based dishes is awesome. I’m always learning things.

• Shout out to my sister and her envy-inducing Instagram — she has just spent five months travelling in South America and is about to return to the Canberra winter.

• Bob Katter is always a national distraction. Feral pigs do eat turtle and bird eggs, so there are some nuggets of conservation truth in this rant, but I’m not sure giving every young fella a gun and the right to go out shooting after the rugby season is over is the best approach… but I literally have the two university degrees he disparages so what would I know? Entertaining none the less.

— The internet is not American

— Australia’s election and global affairs

— Smart things — links and shares on important issues

— Distractions — recipes, online shopping, podcasts, shows

Hello

Hello I’m back!

Thanks to all those who subscribed, paid or unpaid, and sent encouraging messages about my newsletter experiment. It was heartening! Spamming this directly into inboxes was oddly intimidating, even though I am regularly shoving content in front of people’s eyeballs for a living.

I realised that in the first edition…

… I forgot to say how frequently I was planning to send this thing. I am aiming for ‘a minimum of monthly’. i.e. actually aiming for fortnightly-ish, but I don’t want to commit to that because I am a one woman show. I don’t want to send out brain farts when I am overloaded with other work just to meet an arbitrary deadline.

A note that if you are getting too many emails from Substack about things like notes and posts, you can control these notifications in your personal settings. The platform can be quite overzealous.

Substack is a paid newsletter platform that allows you to support the writers you love. The plan is to keep this newsletter free for a while to get the word out, but if you can, your support would mean a lot — I am committed to sending at least ten newsletters per year for paid subscribers. Sharing with friends also helps, and is free!

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The internet is not American

With my comms hat on, I decided to dive headfirst into the Substack community to promote my first newsletter, emphasising that it had an Australian bent.

The first comment:

“Good idea, maybe another name. Unfortunately, Melania Trump has ruined anything close to ‘Be Best.’ It was the first thing I thought of reading your post and immediately turns me against it.”

Constructive feedback always welcomed, but ‘A bit better’ does not include any of the same words as ‘Be best’.

But more importantly…

THE WHOLE INTERNET IS NOT AMERICAN.

This is one of my pet peeves when interacting online—the constant assumption of American cultural hegemony, and the expectation that everyone must simply accommodate it.

Sure, we all heard about Melania’s clunky title for her child wellbeing initiative in the first Trump presidency. It is impossible to escape American news and culture: much of it is important to know, and some of it is good. It is a dominant sociopolitical force.

But is Melania front of mind whenever I see any phrase encouraging improvement that happens to contain the letters ‘b’ and ‘t’? No.

Whether it is correcting our spelling of ‘colour’, to assuming our seasons are the same as the Northern Hemisphere, to trying to gatekeep the use of the term ‘Blak’ by Indigenous Australians after watching a few episodes of Heartbreak High on Netflix [TikTok was full of these takes, I won’t link to them because they are wildly racist and ignorant], there’s no escaping that many Americans assume their culture is the default, and all else must be explained or justified.

I can only imagine how much worse it is for those in even smaller countries. At least Americans are familiar with Australia’s royal family: the Irwins. And the Bluey psy-ops mission is going pretty well too...

(We also allegedly speak the same language…)

I know this is just the sociological concept of dominant group theory playing out in online spaces, just as it plays out in societies, workplaces, homes and many other IRL [in real life] situations.

It’s the people saying ‘but skinny shaming is bad too’ on a fat activist’s posts about structural weight discrimination. It’s the wedding venue booking form a friend recently dealt with that still only had fields for ‘bride’ and ‘groom’ more than seven years after marriage equality was enacted.

While this might just sound like a big old whinge (it is…) about online microaggressions, there are also very real consequences of this America-centric internet, especially since so many of the platforms that people across the globe use are US-based, and beholden to their politics.

Just as the whole internet is not American, it doesn’t only speak English. The lack of minority language moderation has long been inflaming political tensions and hate speech online across the Asia-Pacific and beyond.

When Meta announced it was getting rid of its already extremely weak fact checking and content moderation at the start of this year, seemingly in response to the new US administration, I saw a great post on LinkedIn from Samoan journalist Lagipoiva Cherelle Jackson that reminded us there was already zero fact checking or content moderation on Meta or other platforms in Samoan or other Pacific Island languages, with grave consequences. Tech-facilitated gender-based violence is a growing issue in the Pacific (and in Australia, and elsewhere), and very little is being done to create safe spaces for women online.

There’s also the issue of the ‘manosphere’ spreading toxic misogyny to young men and boys, with the algorithm directly serving content that even the most careful parent is struggling to evade: newly re-elected ACT Independent Senator David Pocock raised this as one of his first issues following last weekend’s election.

There’s obviously sweeping regulatory and policy decisions that we could make to improve the current situation (but maybe not the microaggressions). Major social media platforms have been slow to come to the table—X is basically a cesspit of conspiracy theories and hate speech nowadays and Meta doesn’t seem too bothered about taking the same path.

Frankly, I would appreciate governments being tougher on these platforms, demanding higher levels of moderation, and community standards that actually align with our values and laws.

For Australia, taking a proactive, whole of government stance, closely connected to our broader regional engagement, could assist smaller countries in the Pacific that will never have the user numbers and economic heft to force action alone. We’ve already seen sporadic platform bans, such as a ‘test’ ban of Facebook in Papua New Guinea in March, under the guise of combatting misinformation. Unfortunately, such shut downs are also a threat to the dissemination of factual and journalistic information, hurt businesses and close off the important and socially beneficial communication that these platforms provide.

I know there are people working on these issues, in government and beyond. But I also get the impression these same people are also pretty busy trying to figure out how our country can stop everyone under 16 from going on social media by December this year, a policy that feels like a concession to the way social media giants operate instead of an effort to change them.

If the internet was safer for everyone, regardless of age, we wouldn’t be in this position of needing bans. And AI is already making everything a whole lot harder, with bigger challenges to come.

So what to do?

Since I am just aiming for ‘a bit better’ here, and I am also slightly petty, one option is to call cultural hegemony out. Constantly. It won’t solve any of these big issues at all — but it at least feels like something!

Frustrate Americans for sport. Only use the metric system and ask for conversions of everything. Ask Americans to explain what Twinkies are in granular detail. If they say someone is a sophomore, say ‘you mean second year uni?’ Ridicule Starbucks at every opportunity. It’s just about a gentle rebalancing of the relationship.

Perhaps marginally more usefully, report everything you see on social media that is harmful. When the auto-bot replies immediately that it is going to ignore your report, escalate it. It is time consuming and frustrating and usually results in nothing, but I can’t think of any other way to signal that the ‘community standards’ of these platforms are well out of line with actual community expectations. I cannot count how many grossly fatphobic and misogynistic things I have reported — including about me personally — that are apparently hunky dory according to Meta’s current approach.

And most importantly, let those in power know that you want to see more done to make the internet a safer space for all, especially young people and women. I have very little faith that Australia’s under 16 ban will actually keep kids offline — it seems more likely to let these platforms off the hook when it comes to proactive efforts to protect children and young people, which could make things even more unsafe for kids elsewhere. Minimum moderation standards, an independent ombuds(wo)man to review decisions in real time, expensive fines — there’s options. Let’s explore them, in partnership with our regional neighbours.

Australia votes… definitively and clearly

Speaking of sticking a middle finger up to American hegemony (I didn’t intend for this edition to have such an anti-US slant, there are so many Americans that I like, I promise!), the Australian Federal Election on 3rd May delivered a landslide victory for Labor and PM Anthony Albanese, and a clear rejection of anything to do with Trump-style politics.

Independents also continued to perform strongly, raising the question of whether they are actually becoming the ‘third party’ in our political system.

It’s almost as if decades of climate inaction, an obsession with identity politics and a deep-rooted problem with women have driven strong candidates away from the Liberal Party?

I have some strong thoughts about the Liberal Party’s choice of new leader post Peter Dutton — as an Albury girl (in the Farrer electorate) with a family that has long been involved in local level politics, I have followed Sussan Ley’s career since high school. Her language has become increasingly right wing and identity politics-based over time, particularly once she stepped into the Deputy Leader role in 2022, and some locals refer to her as the ‘Member for the Gold Coast’ after this doozy. During the Indigenous Voice to Parliament referendum campaign, she gave many public addresses driving division while decrying the referendum for being divisive. Her Australia Day speech in Albury this year — actually delivered twice on the same day despite audience rumblings both times — was particularly egregious, offending Elders and the increasingly centrist to progressive Albury population. She completely erased the violence of colonialism while comparing the First Fleet to Elon Musk’s Space X. Sorry to the aliens if true…

There have already been many takes on why the election played out the way they did. So many. I’m not going to rehash them. I will say that I have enjoyed Hannah Ferguson of Cheek Media’s commentary throughout the campaign on young people and political engagement, and her Press Club address marks a generational turning point. It is quite interesting that she has already announced her candidacy for the Senate four years out from the next election. Watch this space?

I also think it is a shame that the squeaky wheel on renters rights and housing that we really need in the Parliament, Max Chandler-Mather, lost his seat. Housing affordability is an issue we really can’t continue to ignore in this country. And Adam Bandt always struck me as measured and a clear communicator. There will no doubt be much soul searching and reflection at Greens HQ.

Despite the resounding success and a raft of fresh faces, many of them women, the latest Labor factional machinations are a bit of a worry — it seemed to only take less than a week post-victory for the party to forget that the public really doesn’t love factional dramas? Hopefully things will settle down.

In terms of our region and international affairs, it is good news that we are continuing forward with a Labor government. Significant strides were made in the last term on filling policy gaps that had formed during the post-Julie Bishop Coalition era — a new International Development Policy, new International Gender Equality Strategy, new International Disability Equity and Rights Strategy, new Humanitarian Policy and an Aid Transparency Portal. While not exactly thrilling except to the geekiest of geeks, these are nothing to sneeze at, and many of the old strategies were really out of date.

Our regional relationships have improved from a low base during the latter years of Coalition leadership, including positive developments on Pacific mobility.

And the new Cabinet and Ministry appoints what could be a record number of positions to foreign affairs-related portfolios. (Historians, correct me…)

With Penny Wong as FM, Pat Conroy continuing as Minister for Pacific Island Affairs as well as Minister for Defence Industry, new Cabinet entry Anne Aly becoming Minister for International Development (formerly combined with the Pacific under Pat Conroy), and Don Farrell as Minister for Trade and Tourism, there’s four cabinet positions focused beyond our shores (plus Defence of course, continuing to be held by Richard Marles).

Anne Aly, with her background in counter-terrorism and academia, is a strong addition to the International Development portfolio. Last year she attended the urgent humanitarian summit on aid for Gaza on Australia’s behalf, and this will no doubt be an issue where sustained engagement is required.

In the Assistant Minister positions, Matt Thistlethwaite holds Foreign Affairs and Trade (he was Parliamentary Secretary for Pacific Island Affairs during the Gillard government), while portfolio newcomer Nita Green is taking on Pacific Island Affairs and Tourism. Tim Watts has been appointed Special Envoy for Indian Ocean Affairs — despite losing the Assistant Ministry it is good he still has an important role, as he has always been a strong supporter of building Australia’s ties with Southeast Asia.

So now we are done with campaigns, we can breathe a sign of relief (no more Trumpets’ text messages) and get down to business. A newly-released Development Intelligence Lab Pulse Check gives some suggestions on what the new government should prioritise in foreign affairs and is worth a read.

Smart stuff

• The latest Maintenance Phase podcast ep provides a wrap of everything happening in the ‘Make America Healthy Again’ agenda… and it is largely concerning. Lots of swears in this one.

• May 12 marked International ME/CFS Awareness Day — something I’ve dealt with since 2013, but thankfully well managed at the moment. Here’s one sufferer’s story on ABC. We are still seeing pretty disgraceful opinions towards ME/CFS and Long COVID patients from peak medical bodies in this country, like the RACGP, which recently made a submission completely ignoring the growing evidence base on graded exercise therapy, and railing against the apparently ‘low value therapeutic’ (low dose naltrexone) that helped me shake a debilitating 11-month bout of Long COVID in 2023. On a brighter note, Australia is also home to one of the world’s leading research centres on this illness – something our own medical profession might want to wake up to.

Little distractions

• The Inuit comedy North of North on Netflix is such a fun watch! I would love to see a second season. Here’s an ABC article with some background on the show.

• If you find yourself in Hong Kong, the sourdough egg tarts at Bakehouse are so so good. I was in Hong Kong at the beginning of March and I still periodically think about these egg tarts, and a friend recently visited and confirmed my belief that they are top tier.

• Like most of Australia I am following the compelling ‘mushroom murders’ trial: the ABC Mushroom Case Daily podcast provides a good wrap. I have my theories, but this Substack doesn’t bank anywhere near enough for me to get sued so those will stay in the group chat.

• For those who celebrate, it is new Masterchef Australia season. Honestly one of the ways I ride out the brutal slide into Canberra winter.

• Pumpkins are in season here in Australia, and this Meera Sodha recipe is a favourite.

— Introducing this newsletter experiment

— Praising The Pitt

— My never-ending quest to get people to understand why foreign aid is important

— Smart things — links and shares on important issues

— Distractions — recipes, comfy pants, online shopping, podcasts

Welcome

Hi, I’m Ashlee.

As a chronically online Old Millennial with a journalism degree, I’ve done it all when it comes to oversharing at this point.

Teaching myself HTML as a teen to build the most heinous Geocities websites, using my precious school holiday dial up internet quota to tell the world banal personal information through the medium of flashing GIFs.

Multiple iterations of blogs — some anonymous, most not. Community radio. The 2000s trend of baring deeply personal traumas in essays published in the mainstream media for a paltry freelance fee, all to be yelled at by anonymous strangers in the comments.

And all of the social media. All of it.

So why not give Substack a crack?

The strategic communications professional within me has hesitated. Surely the best chance of success for an endeavour such as this is to have a clear angle, a point of differentiation, a strong target audience, a value proposition. Some of my favourite Substacks very clearly do this. (See Erin Cook’s insights on Southeast Asia, Kate Walton’s round up of feminist news in the region, Anne Helen Peterson’s Culture Study or Virginia Sole Smith’s anti-diet Burnt Toast.)

The human being in me just wants to write about the random jumble of things I am interested in. International development is my professional focus, and I care about it deeply. As an Australian, I am fascinated by our beautiful, complex region and our place within it. I’m an intersectional feminist. I can’t look away from politics even when I want to. I live in a fat hyper-politicised body and I want people to better understand that fatphobia hurts us all. I love to cook. I travel. I sew my own clothes. I’m a very talented online shopper. I watch the most unapologetically garbage TV shows to have ever existed, as well as some of the good ones. I anthropomorphise my little dog.

The one thread that ties all of this together (except the TV perhaps…): I want make things a bit better than they already are.

This year, it feels like many things have gotten much, much worse. I’m writing this in the aftermath of the economically idiotic Trump tariff announcements and their partial backflip. I’ve seen colleagues across the region impacted by the devastating USAID freezes and cuts, and I know that people will die and suffer. In my line of work, I’m constantly aware of which countries are facing crushing humanitarian crises, and the acute levels of deprivation on the ground. The genocide in Gaza rages on, and the climate emergency is sounding louder and louder sirens that we somehow continue to block out.

Even though I am cynical, and even though — like most Old Millennials — I’m always a little bit burnt out, I do still believe we can do a bit better.

So that’s what this newsletter will be about.

Trying to figure out the ways we can make things a little bit better, whether that is international affairs or designing humane plane seats. And offering some little boosts and distractions along the way to help all of us working on these hard slogs.

There will also be memes.

Welcome!

Substack is a paid newsletter platform that allows you to support the writers you love. The plan is to keep this newsletter free for a while to get the word out, but if you can, your support would mean a lot — I am committed to sending at least ten newsletters per year for paid subscribers. Sharing with friends also helps, and is free!

Share

Subscribe now

I’m obsessed with The Pitt

If you need a show to binge, I just raced through The Pitt, a medical drama set in a single shift in an emergency room in real time (yes, like 24).

It touches on some heavy issues, like gun violence, drug use, the mental health of young men, housing crises, health systems crumbling under mounting pressure. It even has a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it moment on medical fatphobia, one of my favourite things to rant about. It shows how the mammoth efforts of individuals are sometimes the only thing keeping essential systems or institutions remotely functional. It suggests that we are all maybe a little bit traumatised from the pandemic, especially health workers. On a brighter note, is also getting praise for its representation of neurodiversity.

It is a stressful watch at times, but it is addictive, and quite relatable for anyone in any line of work where there are never enough resources to go round.

A content warning for lots of blood and some crunching of bones. I may have had to cover my eyes a few times.

Streaming on Foxtel/Binge in Australia.

Every person nodding along in health, international development, education, the community sector, academia, NGOs, small business, government…

Doing a better job of talking about foreign aid

A note: when I talk about aid and development in this newsletter, I am trying to not get too jargony or sectoral, so it can potentially be understood by normal humans. Would appreciate feedback on whether I have succeeded. It is hard when you are in so deep, but I really want to practice what I preach.

Since the Trump 2.0 administration announced the ‘funding pause’ of USAID in February and then started blowing things up, my overall feeling has been ‘Ugh’. And I know I am not alone.

But besides ‘ugh’, the next big feeling is ‘what do we do?’

Others have suggested that it is an opportunity to further reform the aid sector. I must admit, I am not super optimistic that a resource-scarce environment where increasingly conservative Western governments are spouting conspiracy theories about aid funding is fruitful ground for positive change, but I do hope I am wrong.

Besides leaving us with fewer resources to address growing humanitarian and developmental need, one of my fears is that disinformation is going to push back the localisation and decolonisation agendas [approaches to international development that put power in the hands of local organisations and individuals], reduce rights-based programming [i.e. initiatives to improve gender equality, disability inclusion and human rights] and fuel an even more arduous approach to risk from donors [the governments of countries that give aid are often very worried about things going wrong — too much of this worrying can reduce the impact of development programs and place all kinds of administrative burdens on local organisations and NGOs].

There’s no shortage of ‘rethinking development’ happening out there. Others have proposed changing the terms we use to describe our work, big paradigm shifts and more — I agree with many of these arguments. But I think we need to do something right now to try to stop further cuts to funding for the world’s poorest.

As a professional communicator, the one great hope I have is that we could start to protect aid and development work from disinformation through proactive and strategic messaging. There is an urgent need for those working on development issues in Australia and elsewhere to recognise that the risk of not communicating is far greater than that of communicating. We all need to consider how we tell stories of impact and need, and whether we could tell those stories a little more loudly and clearly.

This is not a unique problem for foreign aid and development policy. I think it is an issue that persists across a range of policy areas that have, at their core, some kind of moral imperative and a degree of distance from most people’s everyday lives. See some of the debates around immigration, or Australia’s National Disability Insurance Scheme, for example.

I’m starting to wonder: are we assuming a baseline of morality that has been eroded? How do we get publics in developed countries to even understand what extreme poverty or humanitarian crisis means when they are in bad news overload and tuned out? And why isn’t self interest (i.e. not being on fire all the time, for those of us in many parts of Australia) enough of a motivator on climate action, for example? Doesn’t this bode poorly for any national interest argument on aid funding?

I don’t have these answers. But I think on the whole we probably need to explain more and assume less.

It is hard, but aid and development policy can make it into the mainstream media. Earlier this year, Australia released its International Gender Equality Strategy, something that we should feel some degree of pride about, especially considering global trends. It achieved more media coverage than usual for a government strategy launch (in part due to world events, such as Trump directives on removing the word gender in Federal policies and government documents).

The Foreign Minister’s speech delivered clear and strong message, with a single take-away talking point: gender equality is fundamental to our national interest.

We need more of this! Clarity is good!

But we also need to take the next step and really explain why. Not just in the launch speech, which had some strong messaging, but over and over again, through different channels and platforms that reach diverse audiences. It is not obvious to most Australians why supporting gender equality overseas would fundamentally benefit them, and it needs to be explained if it is to be supported. Same goes for many other areas that we work on.

Strong, consistent messaging. Taking a clear and vocal stance on rights issues. Telling interesting stories of impact and results, and actually disseminating them broadly. Sharing the stories of real humans. Not leaving space for ambiguity (but also not minimising complexity). Explaining how development assistance helps local leaders and changemakers to improve things in their own countries. Reminding everyone we are all connected and seemingly far away problems cannot actually be ignored. And above all else, remembering that the work we do can actually be interesting. (Well, some of it…)

This alone is probably not going to turn things around. We are always fighting for space in an information-saturated world. I am fully prepared that people will still think I build skyscrapers in Shanghai or something when I say I work in international development for many decades to come. But surely it could help a bit?

(… at least more than Blue Origin did for feminism and climate advocacy. I enjoyed all the jokes about it though… this op ed in The Guardian was funny and brutal)

Smart stuff

• An interesting Search Engine podcast episode on virus transmission, featuring journo Carl Zimmer on his book ‘Airborne’.

• A SOAS take on Season 3 of The White Lotus, on whether it actually steers clear of Hollywood’s long-running stereotyping of Southeast Asia. (If anyone has read anything written by a Thai person about the show, which I was just as obsessed with as most of the world, please share it with me…)

• The earthquake in Myanmar has really turned an already terrible situation into an even more terrible situation. If you are in a position to donate, I’d recommend the Emergency Action Alliance appeal.

• As we head toward the Australian election (inconveniently scheduled on a milestone birthday for a certain newsletter writer), there is speculation that the Coalition will cut foreign aid if elected, except in the Pacific.

• Australia had a national reckoning over domestic violence, but where’s the focus this election?

Little distractions

• I love this illustration account on Instagram. It perfectly encapsulates what it is like to live with a funny little dog.

• I recently returned from Japan. I won’t bore you with my stereotypical tales of konbini food, fast trains that we definitely should have built here decades ago, and high tech loos. It was a good time. But I will give you a simple recipe for okonomiyaki, one of the wonderful foods of Japan that is easily replicable at home (though never quite as good as on the teppan grill in Osaka or Hiroshima, of course). To make this recipe with nearly no chopping, buy a bag of finely sliced coleslaw from the salad baggies at the supermarket, use frozen or canned corn and skip the soaking/boiling steps. If you don’t have dashi (I’m currently in regional NSW so I don’t…) a splash of fish sauce, soy sauce or a pinch of stock powder with 200ml water does the job. If you don’t have rice flour you can use plain flour or GF flour — you might need to add a bit more water. You can throw some cheese in. You can throw some bacon bits in. You can use BBQ sauce instead of making okonomiyaki sauce, or you can just buy the pre-made sauce at an Asian grocer. You can sprinkle with furikake, and kewpie mayo is always a good idea. Make them as big as a dinner plate or make them small like fritters. I’ve found all my okonomiyaki experiments super forgiving. Have fun! (Adam Liaw’s recipe another reliable option.)

• My go-to tomato sambal recipe, just because. It is especially good on eggs (if you can afford them at the moment…)

• I’m not sure about their ethical provenance (there’s this but I haven’t investigated) but these size inclusive cotton lounge pants from the Lullaby Club (AU) are super comfortable (up to AU size 26) and seem durable.

• For sewing and craft folks, check out Circular Sourcing, an Australian-based site I recently discovered that sells designer deadstock and surplus fabric from fashion businesses.

• I’m way behind on Normal Gossip podcast episodes, but this one was a funny and endearing story about long-lasting female friendships.

• Awesome disability representation on this season of Alone Australia on SBS. ‘Muzza’ is also quite the character.