I began my working life as a metal worker producing axles, but mostly in my life I have produced words – words on Australian politics, on history (1980s), social movements (1990s), civil litigation and free speech (1995-2010), environment (2000s), inequality and social justice (2010s), and political economy.
Below are my collected words, beyond the blog.
Significant SACOSS Publications
I have produced a lot of words while working for the South Australian Council of Social Service since 2010, but few are original or genuine research, or had any political impact. The publication list below are the exceptions.
2021:The State of Concessions in South Australia: Poverty Premiums and Barriers to Access, (Co-authored with Shawna Marks, this critiques the concessions system and sets principles for reform)
2020: Connectivity Costs II: Telecommunications Affordability and Waged Poor Households, (Co-authored with Rebecca Law, this extended the earlier wage poverty work)
2019: Working to Make Ends Meet: Low-income Workers and Energy Bill Stress, (Co-authored with Rebecca Law, this was original research on waged poverty)
2018: Submission to the South Australian Legislative Council Select Committee on Poverty (which sought to frame understandings of poverty and present SA data)
2017: Anti-Poverty Week Report (which was instrumental in establishing the idea of poverty premiums in Australia)
2016: Connectivity Costs: Telecommunications Costs for Low Income Australians, (Co-authored with Vanessa Musolino)
2016: Losing the Jackpot: South Australian Gambling Taxes (which contributed to the government establishing Australia’s first point of consumption wagering tax).
2015: Submission to the SA State Taxation Review (which positioned SACOSS as a key part of state tax debates)
2015: Justice or an Unjust System? Aboriginal Over-representation in South Australia’s Juvenile Justice System (Co-authored with Catherine Earl and Emma McArthur, and launched by the SA Chief Justice, Chris Kourakis)
2014: Taxes and the SA State Election (which was the policy underpinning of years of SACOSS advocacy)
2013: South Australian Consumer Credit Legal Services: A Scoping Study (which was instrumental in securing funding for the establishment of the legal service)
2012: Unsupported Debt: The Crisis in Financial Counselling in SA (produced in conjunction with Anglicare, UnitingCare Wesley Adelaide and the Salvation Army)
2011: Unique Peaks: Peak Organisations in the SA Health and Community Services Sector (including a definition of the roles and responsibilities of peak bodies adopted by the SA government – although I later revised it!)
2010: Alternative Employment Models in the SA Community Sector (a major piece of research which had zero impact!)
Academic/Publications in Refereed Journals
“Anti-SLAPP Law Reform in Australia”, in Review of European Community and International Law, Vol 19, Issue 1, 2010 (a summary of where we got to after several years of campaigning).
“Beating a SLAPP suit“, in Alternative Law Journal, Vol 32, No.2, June 2007 (a summary of Animal Liberation’s unconventional tactics in fighting a law suit against them).
“Just When You Thought It Was Safe to talk about Hindmarsh Island“, in Indigenous Law Bulletin, Vol 5, No. 15. February/March 2002 (discussing the outcome of one of the biggest defamation cases around this issue).
Between Statistical Imperatives and Theoretical Obsessions: An Inquiry into the Definition and Measurement of the Economy, PhD Thesis, University of Adelaide, 2000.
“Accounting for Economic Welfare: Politics, Problems and Potentials”, in Environmental Politics, (England), Vol 9, No.3, Autumn 2000 (based on a couple of chapters of my PhD).
“Defamation Processes and the Hindmarsh Island Bridge Campaign“, in Indigenous Law Bulletin, Vol 4, No. 26. January 2000 (documenting the civil litigation against activists opposed to the building of the bridge).
“The Ghosts of Dead Economists: Marshall, Keynes and the Political Economy of National Accounting”, in Policy, Organisation and Society, Vol 14, 1997 (based on the opening chapters of my PhD tracing two definitive moments in the history of economic statistics).
“Law and Peace” in Alternative Law Journal, Volume 19, No.4, August 1994. (Co-authored with Mary Heath) (summarising the legal cases arising from the Nurrungar ’93 peace protests).
Other Significant Publications
Gagged: The Gunns 20 and other law suits, (Envirobook: Sydney 2009) (a personal account of ten years of my life in a book about SLAPP suits).
Gunning for Change: The Need for Public Participation Law Reform (The Wilderness Society: Hobart, 2006) (which contributed to the introduction of Australia’s first anti-SLAPP legislation)
“Chilling the Environment Movement” in Australian Options, No. 42, Spring 2005 (drawing a bigger picture from SLAPP suits and a campaign of attacks on NGO tax charity status).
“Tricky Legal Business: The Impact of Legal Processes on the Campaign against the Hindmarsh Island Bridge” in Impact, January 1999 (prepared for the 1998 EDO National Conference, this was the first documentation of the impacts on civil liberties of the series of defamation cases and threats).
“An Official Peace Movement”, in Social Alternatives, Vol 15, No 3, July 1996 (analysing the sudden ‘resurgence’ and decline of the peace movement at the time of the French nuclear tests in 1995).
“Approaching the Court” in Nonviolence Today, No. 46, September/October, 1994. (Co-authored with Mary Heath) (outlining the political theory/assumptions underpinning different approaches to the court cases arising out of the Nurrungar ’93 peace protests).
“An Alternative Trade”, in Social Alternatives, Vol 13, No. 3&4, October, 1994 (arising from my Oxfam experience in trying to decipher the problems and possibilities in so-called “ethical” trade).