Bloom

Shane Fitzsimmons on the 2019-20 Australian Bushfires, Leadership, and Natural Disaster Resilience

Shane Fitzsimmons currently leads Resilience NSW - the peak disaster management and recovery agency in NSW - as its inaugural Commissioner, following a long and distinguished career with the NSW Rural Fire Service (RFS). Shane came to national prominence in Australia through his role as Commissioner of the NSW RFS during the 2019-2020 bushfires, where he led NSW’s response to the fires which raged across South Australia, Queensland, Victoria, and most severely in NSW and the ACT. These fires tragically caused the loss of 33 lives, destroyed over 3000 homes and damaged thousands more, burnt 30 million hectares of land, and caused over a billion animals to perish. Shane’s leadership throughout the bushfires received universal acclaim for his empathy, calmness, trust, care, and clarity of communications as the nation endured unprecedented natural disasters.

In this podcast, Nick and Shane discuss:

• Shane’s early life in Sydney’s northern beaches, and how he found his way to volunteer firefighting

• His 35 year career with the NSW RFS, the modernisation of the emergency management sector, and the remarkable spirit and humanity of volunteers and staff working in disaster management

• Shane’s experience of the 2019-20 Australian bushfire season: its devastating scale and impacts, and the remarkable stories of hope, spirit, and community resilience that emerged through shared hardship

• Leadership qualities, including authenticity, humility, care, and communication

• The creation and work of Resilience NSW, and how communities are faring amidst the compound disasters of drought, fires, floods, storms, and mouse plagues

• How government agencies can ensure that recovery is community-led

• How to ensure community groups who are disproportionately impacted by disasters, such as women, First Nations peoples, the elderly, and migrants, are able to participate in resilience and recovery activities

• The outlook for the 2021-22 bushfire season, and how organizations can look after their fatigued and exhausted workforces after years of continuous responses to disasters          

Tú Lê on Cultural Diversity, Social Justice, Politics, Identity, and Australia

Tú Lê is a young lawyer, community worker, and political advocate. Tú recently came to national and international prominence, with articles recently published in The New York Times, in the wake of the Australian Labor Party’s decision to nominate the former Premier of NSW and current federal Senator Kristina Keneally for preselection in the Western Sydney electorate of Fowler, ahead of Tú as the locally preferred candidate. The backroom political decision sparked a national conversation about cultural diversity within our representative institutions, multiculturalism in Australia, the disconnect of the political class from everyday people, and cultural and socio-economic barriers to participation in civic and economic life.

In this podcast, Nick and Tú discuss:

• Tú's family journey as refugees from Vietnam to Australia in the wake of the Vietnam War, her early life in Adelaide and Western Sydney, and the importance of her Buddhist faith and community

• Tú’s current work as a lawyer and coordinator at the Marrickville Legal Centre, working across migration, employment, and criminal law

• Tú’s experience nominating for Labor Party preselection in the electorate of Fowler, and the controversy that emerged after Labor’s national executive parachuted Senator Kristina Keneally into the seat

• The importance of cultural diversity in our representative institutions, where a quarter of the population is non-white and minority groups constitute six percent of the federal parliament

• “The Bamboo ceiling” in the Australian workforce and across society more generally

• Australian identity, what it means to be an “Aussie”, and how we can adopt more inclusive understandings of national identity and history

• The electorate of Fowler and Western Sydney more broadly, and what these communities represent and reflect about modern Australia

• Some of the political issues Tú would prioritise in Parliament, including a constitutionally-entrenched “voice to Parliament” for First Nations Peoples, climate action, and reforming Australian immigration policy

Dr. Paul Monk on the 'Addressable You' in Lyric Poetry

Originally published with transcript at https://www.nickfabbri.com/bloom/paulmonklyricpoetry

 

In this podcast, Nick and Paul discuss:

• Poetry’s Touch by Professor William Waters and its influence on Paul’s approach to lyric poetry

• The ‘addressable you’ in poetry

• Reflections on communicative intimacy and the idea of authentic understanding between people in romantic or other relationships

• A number of Paul’s poems from his published works Lyrical Epigrams, All The Bad Things, and Delphic Deixis

• Paul’s relationship with Claudia Alvarez

• Artwork in the Chauvet Caves, and human civilization and beings across time

• Paul’s experience of being catfished, and the creative inspiration that this generated

• New infatuations, muses and poems

Dr Paul Monk is a poet, polymath and highly regarded Australian public intellectual. He has written an extraordinary range of books, from Sonnets to a Promiscuous Beauty (which resides in former Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull’s library), to reflective essays on the riches of Western civilization in The West in a Nutshell, to a prescient 2005 treatise on the rise of China in Thunder from the Silent Zone: Rethinking China. 

Follow Paul on Twitter

Dr. Paul Monk on Overcoming Cancer

Originally published with transcript at https://www.nickfabbri.com/bloom/paulmonkoncancer

 

In this podcast, Nick and Paul discuss:

• Paul's cancer journey and the odds of his survival

• The development of immunotherapy and other revolutionary cancer treatments

• Cancer research and the medical establishment

• The examples and books of Jimmy Stynes, Lance Armstrong, and Christopher Hitchens

• Reflections on mortality, death, and existential meaning and purpose

• The impact of Paul’s cancer journey on his relationships

• The 2016 International Cancer Conference in Brazil, and conversations with Dr. David Speakman, Chief Medical Officer of the Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre

• Reframing one’s priorities after living with cancer

Dr Paul Monk is a poet, polymath and highly regarded Australian public intellectual. He has written an extraordinary range of books, from Sonnets to a Promiscuous Beauty (which resides in former Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull’s library), to reflective essays on the riches of Western civilization in The West in a Nutshell, to a prescient 2005 treatise on the rise of China in Thunder from the Silent Zone: Rethinking China. 

Follow Paul on Twitter

 

 

Dr. Paul Monk on Mortality and Meaning

Originally published with transcript at https://www.nickfabbri.com/bloom/paulmonkmortalityandmeaning

 

In this podcast, Nick and Paul discuss:

• The commemoration of the dead through religious rituals, such as the Kaddish

• Representations of mortality, death, and dying as expressed in poetry and literature

• Why death exists in the world at all, as a function of life and natural selection

• The intersection of the biological process of death and religious rituals around and for death

• Concern for the dead in classical works such as The Iliad and Antigone

• Paul’s journey with metastatic cancer and contemporary literature on mortality

• Reviewing one’s priorities after confronting one’s mortality

• Reflections on death and dying through everyday encounters with our built environment, such as cemeteries

• Oliver Sacks and gratitude for the gift of life and consciousness

Dr Paul Monk is a poet, polymath and highly regarded Australian public intellectual. He has written an extraordinary range of books, from Sonnets to a Promiscuous Beauty (which resides in former Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull’s library), to reflective essays on the riches of Western civilization in The West in a Nutshell, to a prescient 2005 treatise on the rise of China in Thunder from the Silent Zone: Rethinking China. 

Follow Paul on Twitter

Dr. Paul Monk on the rise of Xi's China

Originally published with transcript at https://www.nickfabbri.com/bloom/paulmonkonchina

In this episode, Nick and Paul discuss:

• Paul’s book Thunder From the Silent Zone, and four possible futures for China

• The history and legacy of Hu Yaobang, the "conscience" of the Chinese Communist Party

• The history of democracy in China, and the possibility of political reform or democratisation

• Xi Jinping and his designs on Hong Kong, Xinjiang, Tibet, and Taiwan

• China’s rapid militarisation under Xi, and implications for Australia and the regional order

• Exercises in thinking: adopting the world view and perspectives of Chinese communist nationalists in regard to the current geopolitical order

• The Thucydides Trap, and the prospect of conflict between China and the United States

• The COVID-19 pandemic and China

• The diplomatic and trade war between China and Australia

• Literature on the implications of China’s rise

Dr Paul Monk is a poet, polymath and highly regarded Australian public intellectual. He has written an extraordinary range of books, from Sonnets to a Promiscuous Beauty (which resides in former Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull’s library), to reflective essays on the riches of Western civilization in The West in a Nutshell, to a prescient 2005 treatise on the rise of China in Thunder from the Silent Zone: Rethinking China. 

Follow Paul on Twitter

 

 

Father Frank Brennan SJ AO on Faith, Law, Social Justice, and Australia

Originally published with transcript at https://www.nickfabbri.com/bloom/frankbrennan

 

In this interview, Nick and Frank discuss:

• Frank’s early life and education in Queensland, and the influences of his mother and father on his life

• Frank’s ordination within the Catholic Church and the Society of Jesus (the Jesuits)

• The impact of Jesuit Pope Francis on the Catholic Church, particularly with regard to environmental issues

• The future of the Catholic Church globally

• Frank’s early work with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples in Redfern, Sydney, and the influence of Father Ted Kennedy on Frank’s formation

• The development of Australian land law, with reference to the Australian High Court’s Mabo and Wik Peoples decisions

• Practical policy steps towards Reconciliation, the Australian Constitution, and First Nations Peoples

• Frank’s work with refugees and asylum seekers, and his experiences in East Timor and with the 2001 Tampa case

• Migration policy changes for a more humane and ethical Australia

• Frank’s understanding of Jesus Christ, and how this has informed his work with the most vulnerable and disadvantaged in our communities

• The daily work of a priest, and death and dying in the COVID-19 pandemic

• Frank’s views on education in the 21st century, and his hopes and vision for Newman College

Follow Fr Frank Brennan on Facebook and Twitter

 

Father Frank Brennan is a Jesuit priest and the current Rector of Newman College within the University of Melbourne. He is a man of many talents and interests, having worked variously as a Jesuit priest within the Catholic Church, a human rights lawyer, a professor of law at Australian Catholic University, and CEO of Catholic Social Services Australia. He is a National Living Treasure, and widely known to the Australian public through his long career of leadership and advocacy on a range of human rights and social justice issues relating to asylum seekers, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, and the poor, vulnerable and disadvantaged both in Australia and abroad.

 

Benson Saulo on Identity, Faith, Family, Social Impact and Living Courageously

Originally published with transcript at: https://www.nickfabbri.com/bloom/bensonsaulo

Benson Saulo is an inspirational and trailblazing 32 year old Australian, who has had a wide and diverse career across the social purpose sector, consulting, banking and finance, diplomacy and advocacy. Benson has recently been appointed as the first Indigenous Consul-General to the United States, where he will take up his post in Houston, Texas at the end of 2020 along with his wife Kate and daughter Anais. 
 
In this interview, Nick and Benson discuss:

• Benson’s early life in Tamworth in rural NSW, and his early career in the banking and finance industry following moves to Sydney and then Melbourne

• The importance of culture and identity, growing up as the son of an Indigenous mother and a Papua New Guinean father

• Becoming a husband and a father, and the role of family in Benson’s life

• Walking the Camino de Santiago and the importance of faith, spirituality, and mindfulness

• Benson’s year as the Australian Youth Representative to the United Nations in 2011, and the powerful stories that have stayed with him from travelling around Australia

• The social purpose/impact space in Australia, and Benson’s work with the National Indigenous Youth Leadership Academy and other organisations

• Benson’s appointment as the first Indigenous Consul-General to the United States, and his upcoming move to Houston, Texas to represent Australia

• The current state of affairs in the US, with the COVID-19 pandemic, mass civic unrest, and economic devastation

• What kind of an impact Benson would like to make in the future

Follow Benson on Twitter @bensonsaulo

Elly Symons on Greece, Identity, the Parthenon Marbles, and the Life and Legacy of Samuel Symons

In this interview, Nick and Elly discuss:

• Elly’s love of Greece and Cyprus

• Questions of identity, home and belonging

• The Parthenon Marbles, and Elly’s work to reunite them through the Parthenon Committee of Australia

• Life and living history in Athens and Europe

• Reflections on the incredible life and legacy of the late Samuel Symons

• Living through a cancer diagnosis as an individual and as a family

• Samuel’s contributions to the Peter MacCallum Cancer Foundation and the Victorian Comprehensive Cancer Centre

• Love, memory and gratitude

• How we remember loved ones, compared with the memorialisation of historical figures or events

Follow Elly on Twitter @ellymariasymons

Gareth Evans on Life, Politics, Australia, and Good International Citizenship

Transcript available at https://www.nickfabbri.com/bloom/garethevans

In this interview, Nick and Gareth discuss:

• Gareth’s early life and influences, and what drew him to politics

• Some of his most enduring political and policy achievements

• Reflections on Bob Hawke and Paul Keating as men, and as Prime Ministers of Australia

• The current world order, and the state of multilateralism and global cooperation on “problems without passports”

• Mass-atrocity events, and the personal and moral challenges of being Foreign Minister of a sovereign state with competing policy priorities

• The development of the global political commitment to the Responsibility to Protect (R2P)

• Memories and reflections on Gareth’s work as President and CEO of the International Crisis Group (ICG) in Brussels, and the differences in preventing deadly conflict from within an NGO than in government

• Reflections on his time as Chancellor of the Australian National University, and the university’s unique role in Australian society

• The meaning of Australia, and some of Gareth’s most treasured corners of the country

• Reflections on life and retirement

Professor the Hon Gareth Evans AC QC FASSA FAIIA is Distinguished Honorary Professor at the Australian National University, where he was Chancellor from 2010-19. He was a Cabinet Minister in the Hawke and Keating Labor Governments from 1983-96, in the posts of Attorney General, Minister for Resources and Energy, Minister for Transport and Communications and - from 1988-96 - Foreign Minister. During his 21 years in Australian politics he was Leader of the Government in the Senate (1993-96) and Deputy Leader of the Opposition in the House of Representatives (1996-98). From 2000 to 2009 he was President and CEO of the Brussels-based International Crisis Group, the independent global conflict prevention and resolution organisation.