There Will Be Dancing
Courage, care, and climate leadership worth dancing for.
There Will Be Dancing is a podcast from Women’s Environmental Leadership Australia (WELA), amplifying the voices and leadership of women and gender-diverse changemakers working for our climate and environment.
Taking its name from the idea that movements for change must leave room for joy, the podcast weaves together personal stories, creative contributions, and thoughtful conversations to show that leadership can be hopeful, collaborative, and deeply human.
Across each episode, you’ll hear from experienced leaders and emerging voices challenging outdated norms and creating new pathways for climate and environmental action.
There Will Be Dancing
Starting Things with Karen Alexander
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What does it take to build a movement that outlasts you? How do you turn the anger at watching something you love be destroyed into the fuel for a lifetime of action? And what if you realise, decades into that work, that you should have tackled gender first, because it was always the issue hiding underneath everything else?
In this final episode of Season 1 of There Will Be Dancing, Victoria sits down with Karen Alexander, one of the founding matriarchs of the Australian environmental movement and one of Victoria's own most cherished mentors. Karen was a key figure in the Franklin River campaign, the fight that stopped a dam, changed the course of an election and gave birth to modern environmentalism in Australia. She went on to found the Wilderness Society and Bush Heritage, and to co-found Women's Environmental Leadership Australia (WELA). Her fingerprints are on more of the movement's most significant moments than most people will ever know.
Together they explore what it means to start things. Karen speaks about the deep love of country that has powered her life, from a childhood spent roaming the forests of the Dandenong Ranges to falling in love with the wild southwest of Tasmania at seventeen.
The conversation also touches on something that has threaded through the whole season: the role of eldership. Karen reflects on what Western society loses by putting its elders in homes rather than honouring their experience, what she has learned from First Nations communities about the role of elders in passing on knowledge and responsibility and what it might mean to build something like that within the environmental movement here.
This episode also features a deeply moving contribution from Dr Caroline (Carlie) Atkinson, who speaks about what it meant to gather and listen and heal in the wake of the Northern Rivers floods, and how the Community Healing Hub that grew from that disaster was born not from policy but from a remembering.
The hosts also take a moment to reflect on the season as a whole, on the thread of relationships that ran through nearly every conversation and on the courage and creativity of the people doing this critical work in ways the mainstream media will never cover.
Learn more about Karen Alexander's conservation work and the history of the Franklin River campaign via The Wilderness Society and Bush Heritage Australia
Read more about the Franklin River campaign and its legacy here.
Learn more about Dr Carlie Atkinson's work here.
Thanks for listening to Season 1! Sign up to receive updates on our next season here.
Our Hosts:
- Victoria McKenzie-McHarg (CEO, WELA) - A strategic leader with decades of experience in climate and environmental advocacy.
- Odette Barry (Founder, Odette & Co) - A storyteller and PR expert teaching changemakers how to tell their story.
- Sanaya Khisty (Head of Strategy and Government Relations, 5B) - A policy and advocacy leader working in clean tech on climate solutions.
Want to learn more about WELA? Visit wela.org.au, sign up to our newsletter and find us on Instagram | LinkedIn | Facebook
This episode is proudly supported by Women's Agenda, helping to amplify essential conversations at the intersection of environment, gender, and leadership.
Welcome to There Will Be Dancing, a podcast that amplifies the voices of women and gender-diverse change makers protecting our environment and climate. Early 20th century political activist Emma Goldman once said, If I can't dance, I don't want to be part of your revolution. And we use this to remind ourselves and you, our dear listener, that embracing joy amidst the turbulence of change making takes real courage and commitment. So let's have some fun. We acknowledge and pay our respects to the traditional custodians and storytellers of these lands. And pay special recognition to the Bungalan Nations and Rundry Country where this podcast is created. This podcast is by Women's Environment Leadership Australia. And now thanks to Women's Agenda for supporting these essential conversations about the environment, gender, and leadership. Hello and welcome to the final episode of season one of There Will Be Dancing. I'm Victoria Mackenzie McCug, your host, and I'm joined by my co-hosts Saniah Kisty and Odette Barry. Saniah and Odette, it's our final show.
SPEAKER_03It's a final show.
SPEAKER_02It's hard to believe we're here. I feel like there's been so many conversations about the podcast happening, so many conversations on the podcast happening. And here we are, like wrapping up on such a special project to explore with you two wonderful women. It's been such a privilege to sit beside you in the evenings, um, you know, uh witnessing and learning from some incredible matriarchs across the movement and to have an opportunity to have an excuse to reach out to women that I've admired the work of for many years, but also to be invited into your worlds and your networks and to meet incredible humans that have really blown my mind. I feel very lucky to have sat with you. Thank you.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, and I think, Odette, you put it really well at some point that you get through the day and you're like, oh my goodness, we've got a couple of hours of recording ahead of us. But then you walk out of these conversations and you just have so much more energy because you've just had these wonderful, far-reaching, kind of covering all kinds of different topics about this person's life. Like it's not just about their work, it's about their life and who they are and how they've become that person. Uh, and I have found that deeply moving.
SPEAKER_04It's one of the key things about leadership, isn't it? It's never just about your professional world or your volunteer world or however you show up for it. It's your whole life gears you and shapes you into the sort of leader you become. And we have heard from some extraordinary people across these episodes, both in the interviews we've had and in the contribution pieces, which I've also really enjoyed uh receiving from our community. Do you have any standouts that you've um or lessons, I guess, that you've learned throughout the process?
SPEAKER_03I think for me, one of the things that's really stood out is how much the importance of relationships has come out across so many of our guests' interviews. Um, you know, thinking about Sharon Burrow talking about the importance of bringing together different parties for a conversation to move to towards a shared objective and the role that those relationships play. Kelly O'Shaughnessy talking about working with business on the EPBC reforms. And then recently, Tegan Lerm also talking about how part of Project Planet and Build a Ballot strategy was to make friends with people who have shared objectives and see what that can lead to. It's just such a feature of these conversations that we've had.
SPEAKER_02That's super interesting because that's PR 101. Like we are in the game of relationships, and it's interesting seeing how that, you know, is such a useful leadership tip leadership tool. I really um I took so much from Robin James's um conversation um and the strength and gentle um egoless confidence that she exuded, that it was very yeah, I took a lot from that, and it's not her words, but the giving power away in conversations to get the work done and not getting caught up on it because my naive ego still likes to claim power. And that was really nice to see that embodied with such like strength and um clarity. I really, really enjoyed that. But yeah, hearing from Pegan was such a joy, I think from like a communications perspective, to nerd out um and see what that evolution of communications challenges looks like under the lid for them. Um, but of course, Holly and um Natalie were also hugely um valuable from a communications perspective to see how these very effective communicators are thinking about communications challenges and the landscapes that they operate in. Um, yeah, what a gift.
SPEAKER_04The um discussion that we had with um with Ruth Langford and as a contributor piece was one that really stood out to me about responsibility. And it's I think it's something that has been a feature in my life uh constantly, con conversations around responsibility. And that piece um uh that she was talking about as a First Nations woman in Tasmania, and it was in that episode on caring for country, and she was talking about um responsible cultures and what it is to be from a responsible culture who understands its its connection and responsibility to country and community and care, and so much of our modern world being caught up in individual rights as opposed to collective responsibility.
SPEAKER_03I I really that's one that's really stayed with me, as has Bianca McNear's story, and they're so just about to say the big turtles are turtles stuck in my mind.
SPEAKER_04Totally, and and actually there's quite a number of I've loved the interviews and I have loved learning from all of them. There's a number of those contributor pieces that have been so special, and what a gift from the community to share. Some of them really creative, some of them a straight narrative and story, some musical contributions, just such a beautiful way to hear about people's experiences and connections and turtles. Uh, the the final one from me, I think um is also a real focus on start, like people stepping up to do super tough stuff. And we know this, right? We know in social movements that's what people do, but I have been just it's been a real reminder of what courage and commitment people bring. Uh, you know, Yolanda, starting divers for climate, and and yeah, Tegan just in our most recent episode, it's a huge commitment that people bring to create a better world. And these people are all around us all the time and using tools that we don't even know exist. And it's inspiring because you just don't hear it in mainstream media. And yet, these are the stories that need to be told. It's beautiful.
SPEAKER_03And I think for me, the the variety of work happening in the space has been so insightful just to hear about, you know, it's it's quite a niche topic what we're exploring here on this podcast. Yet the breadth of opportunity to talk to people that are doing different things has constantly surprised me.
SPEAKER_02Well, now that we know that environmental conservationists are actually gamers, um I think we're officially mind blown. But yeah, thank you, listeners, for giving us the opportunity to do something that's such a joy for all of us.
SPEAKER_04Since we're a community podcast, every week we include an audio contribution from you, our listeners, and broader community. And this week that contribution comes to us from Dr. Carly Atkinson.
SPEAKER_00When the floods came, they came like a roar that no one could quiet. The river we loved, the one that had held us, fed us, sung to us, rose up with the full memory of everything we had forgotten. She came not to destroy, but to remind, to remind us that she is alive, that country breathes, and that we are all part of that breath. When the water finally withdrew, it left behind a silence, thick, heavy, sacred silence. The kind that settles deep in your chest. No one quite knew where to begin. The official systems, the ones built on clinical models and crisis protocols, they struggled to hold what was unfolding. They had sharp edges, sterile language, forms to fill. But grief doesn't fit into forms. Healing isn't linear. So we did what our people have done. We gathered, we sat in circle, we cried, we listened, we cooked, we cleaned, we created spaces soft enough to hold the ache. Spaces where care was relational, not transactional, where the story mattered more than the diagnosis. That's how the Northern Rivers Community Healing Hub was born, not from policy, but from a remembering. A remembering that true healing cannot be medicalized, that trauma cannot be treated from a distance, that we must remove the sharp edges of a clinical approach and return to relationship, to the warmth of presence, to the art of being with, not doing to. For Aboriginal peoples, when a collective trauma happens, we already know the way forward because we have walked through this before, through invasion, through loss, through fire and flood. Our bodies remember we heal together or not at all. We know that collective trauma requires a collective approach, that the only medicine strong enough is the medicine we make together. So we sat to make sense together, to feel together, to move forward together. That is our way. It has always been that way. Starting things for me is not about intervention, it's about return. Every new beginning is really an old story finding its voice again. The hub began with listening, listening to country, to the birds returning, to our trembling bodies that still knew the rhythm of belonging. We lit lemonrtal fires, sang songs, held one another through shaking and laughter. We let the country hold us, and in her arms we remembered who we were. Healing became ceremony, not service. Circle but not system, story but not symptom. I've come to see that leadership isn't about being in front, it's about creating a space where others can rise, where many hands hold the work together. Leadership is circular, it's relational, it breathes. When we lead from this place, we start things at last because they grow from relationship, not control. To start something real, you must be willing to start small, to begin in uncertainty, to be changed by what you begin. Because starting something sacred asks humility, to listen more than speak, to allow yourself to be led by what you love. The country teaches this every morning. After fire, after flood, she begins again, quietly, without announcement. Green shoots through crack ground, magpie singing the first song of the day. That is the original leadership. That is renewal. When people ask how did you start the healing hub, I tell them it started itself. We simply listened to country, to spirit, to one another, and followed the pulse of what wanted to grow. And now, as the climate shifts and the world trembles, we are being called again to start, not from panic, but from presence, to circle in. To remember that climate action is not separate from healing, that restoring ecosystems and restoring relationship are the same work. That indigenous wisdom, rooted in thousands of years of living with country, not on it, shows us the way forward. If we want to heal the earth, we must become relational again. We must gather in circles of care. Scientists beside storytellers, elders beside activists, farmers beside healers. We must learn to listen as country listens, to move at the speed of trust, to honor the knowing that all things are connected. Water, fire, story, grief, joy, seed, and song. So yes, we start again, not because we have all the answers, but because life keeps calling us to begin, to start from love, to start from listening, to start from each other. And as we do, as we gather around the fire, around the work, around the earth herself, there will be laughter, there will be tears, and yes, there will be dancing.
SPEAKER_03And Carlo, she entered that just so perfectly for us in this episode, didn't she? Yeah, it was a little bit too perfect. I was really reminded of that relationship piece that was so present throughout Carly's contribution there. And it really does just hit home that that has been a feature of so many of these conversations, and I can't help but wonder how much of that is related to the gender component.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, absolutely. I think something that really stood out for me was the line the story mattered more than the diagnosis. And just how important having unstructured spaces to talk through your experiences and that you don't have to have, you know, a formulate plan for what gets covered. And and I I see that in a lot of the work we do with you know vulnerable communities, the preparation and the planning that you you put into trying to support people, we can't have a perfect plan. And it it was just really lovely to be reminded of that, that in the wake of the floods, it's having those spaces to just talk the catharsis of talking.
SPEAKER_04In that relational work and and hearing that First Nations perspective, the relationship is with people and the connection is very deep. There's also with country and like deep listening as the basis of deep relationship and connecting in all the different ways we need to. And that means slowing down when our challenges and issues are urgent, and gosh, dealing with those floods and that scale of disaster would have felt so urgent in that moment. But to recognize part of the work here is to listen and be still, to then act from that place of deep relationship is really important.
SPEAKER_03And Kali picks up on that cue when she says there was a thick, heavy, sacred silence after the floods, and it reminded me so much of what it's like after a bushfire. Um because it is literally that moment of stopping, slowing down before you respond. Um, and that is nature and country speaking.
SPEAKER_04And Carly, thank you, Carly, for providing us um with this gorgeous reflection for today. For today's conversation, I sat down for a one-to-one interview with Karen Alexander, who is one of the leading matriarchs of the Australian environmental movement. Some of you might know her name uh because she is one of the people who was behind the wildly successful Franklin River um campaign, the campaign that saved that river and was the birthplace of modern-day environmentalism here in Australia. Karen was the founder of the Wilderness Society, was a founder of Bush Heritage, uh, has been a co-founder of Weller and a personal mentor, support, and inspiration to so many, including myself. It's a real thrill to have had this interview with her, and I'm really pleased to be able to share it with you all today. Your history in this work is the stuff of mythmaking, you know, the Franklin campaign, the PETA campaign. You were part of creating the greens, of building up the Wilderness Society, of founding Bush Heritage. And I think your fingerprints are all over so many major innovations in our climate and environment movement. And this is a movement that would not have been the same if it hadn't had you as a fairy godmother. And I am a leader who would not be the same if I had not had you in a similar role. So what a thrill to have you. Welcome, welcome to the pod, Karen.
SPEAKER_01What an extraordinary introduction, I better say. But thank you. I've learned to say thank you from Weller to these things. Okay, please see me like that. Well, that's really nice. Um, for me, I just love what I've done. Why wouldn't I have done why wouldn't I have done that? Why why wouldn't one do that? You're passionate about something. And the choices that in today we have the luxury of choices for someone to have a lower income, which is what it is, to do what one is passionate about.
SPEAKER_04I mean, you have lived a life of passion, passion for our environment that has been clearly fuelled by people that you've worked with and been passionate about. But those are still not easy choices. You've made, you've chosen a very different path to many others. What led you down that path? How and what gave you the confidence to keep making those choices?
SPEAKER_01Growing up in the Danelong Rangers, really, that was my that we had five acres, but then we had Sherbrooke as the backyard. And I think I hesitate to say this, but there were slightly difficult times at home. My mother was an extraordinary woman, and she's there in the 50s, passionate about her music and music education, and trying to be a mother, and trying to be a wife, and do all well, do all very high. And that was a bit unusual in those days, and most of her work in the city, and we live in Belgrave. So it was, it was, there was tension there, and she found it really hard to be a mother. Um, and for all sorts of reasons, which I now understand. So we spent a lot of time outside, but I was naturally drawn outside. Apparently, I'd crawl to the front door at a very early age. I learned to crawl and to walk at nine months. I was there out the door as soon as I could possibly be. So I think there was a um a throwback to whatever, strong connections at any rate, and then exploring the forest. And my parents were very like you could go off the age from about the age of seven. We could we could go and be you know, my dad had said, if you get lost, follow a creek, that will always bring you out somewhere on a road. Don't follow a track. And that is a really good thing to give confidence to a child to explore the bush. And then when you start to see it destroyed, impacted on, which of course happens, of course it does. Whoa, what's going on here? This is a place that we should be keeping. This is a beautiful place, this is a special place. This is the place that nurtures us very both in a material sense, as in water and air and so on, but also in a call it spiritual, aesthetic, yeah, whatever sense, a soul sense, which is what it has always done for me.
SPEAKER_04I also really love that advice. If you get lost, follow a creek. I feel like that's a metaphor for life as well.
SPEAKER_01Follow nature, follow nature, and you will then be renewed and you will realise why you're there, even at the same time as knowing that it's being destroyed. It's a very difficult balance. And balancing, you're not balancing, you're holding these two things together, knowing. And and yet your the inspiration to keep going, the persistence to keep going is the connection to the bush, which is why I think we moved back up into the Danny Nongs, both to mum getting old, but also to be there, to be literally grounded, to have the soil in your fingernails to be there and revegetated the 10 hectares that my grandfather had cleared. So quite symbolic in that way. I never met him, and I had conversations with him down under the trees and in the creek, telling him what we were doing and honouring his work, but saying, hey, it all went too far across the state. It went far too far. We've cleared far too much. I think he got it. I think, you know, as in my in my head, that he would have understood that we'd gone too far in terms of clearing. We need to live. We don't have to actually eat cows, but we, you know, we need, sure, we're going to have an impact. And we're going to live with.
SPEAKER_04Yeah. And so that connection to nature has clearly fuelled you, and I hear that it's fuelled you as you've continued on this sort of path through your life of activism and change making. But what inspired you? It's you could have gone down the path purely of um on-ground conservation work, but you actually pivoted into pretty pointy activism. And what what got you there? How did you what was that like to make that decision that this is the last year?
SPEAKER_01The next really strong connection. So I talked about Sherbrooke Forest as a child and so on, and there were other places, but then going bushwalking in southwest Tasmania in my first year at university, so 17, 18, and falling in love with that area somehow, that wild country, was it just I was bowled over by it. I can the feeling of moving into those the mountains and the valleys and the coastlines and so on. And we were there that first trip for four weeks. And in those days, this is the late 60s, you we met two other people bushwalking. Two. And in February. Two other people bushwalking. They were Swiss and they ate this funny stuff in the morning for breakfast that you just poured hot water on. It was called Musley. And we and but then, of course, Denny King was living down there, he was a tin miner right down there and had been there since the mid-30s. And so we met that family, and they've played a really important part in my life. Still, Denny's no longer with us, but they're his daughters, Janet and Mary, and his grandkids, are really close friends in Hobart. And then, and he also taught me a different way of thinking about that, but that was later. So I think, and then into Lake Pedda, which was this magical place. Talk about sacred, a sacred in a sense. In the sense that you feel connected. It's beautiful, but it's got some atmosphere of ancient being and just even though in fact it's quite young because it's only last ice age, so it's but yes, so that, and the next pivotal thing was losing Lake Peddett. Seeing it flooded for what, in my fairly limited understanding of the system, political system, seemed like no really good reason, except somebody who liked to build dams. And it like that really made me, I realized a bit later on, because then they wanted to do the Franklin, I thought, you bastards, you're not getting this one. Deep anger, and but turning that anger into action. I mean, I wasn't, it's you're not necessarily all very terribly aware of the emotions, but the feeling of, well, I'm gonna work, I'm gonna stop this one, we'll stop this one. This is absolutely unacceptable decision making.
SPEAKER_04I mean, it's powerful to hear that taking the anger and turning it into action and making that a really positive and and generative force because I mean the world is in a pickle right now, and there are a lot of angry people and angry young people who have every right to be pretty wild about the world they are inheriting and the situation, and how we support people to take that anger and turn it into powerful action, I think is a is a real challenge for us now.
SPEAKER_01Yes, yeah, and it can be done. I mean, as in it is it's how do you tap into it? How does it in a in a way that works that's actually going to address solving the problem rather than I mean, the only time I really felt like doing graffiti was the first time I drove out along that road out to to Strathgordon in the middle of southwest Tasmania, and there's a huge sign which said Lake Pedda, and I just thought, not lake pedta, it's fake pedta, and I wanted to rip it out. It was made of concrete though, it was a bit hard. And I think I wanted to look right on a fake pedder, and I might one day still, but I didn't.
SPEAKER_04They'll know how to who to track down. So you have done this work of protecting fighting for pedta, then the pivotal and and really quite seminal campaign um to save the Franklin successfully. Well done.
SPEAKER_01Oh god.
SPEAKER_04And then a long life of other um campaigns that have followed. And now here you are as an elder of our movement, as a matriarch. I know elder is a term that you've lent into. We've talked quite a lot about about what that means and and how to be a good elder to a social movement and to a community.
SPEAKER_01What are your how does it feel to be in that position then it feels a huge privilege to be honoured in a way, I suppose, that I really wasn't expecting or or look looking for. And so it's lovely, it's it's lovely to you know, it's been very special for me to have my work so found to be so interesting because it it's and and to be special, it's really it's very unexpected. You don't do it for those reasons, and so um, so what is it? It feels quite quite delightful, I suppose. And and then though, the critical thing is well, actually, what does this role mean if this is where I am now? And I'm certainly not going to get back into full-time campaigning, so this is where I am, and what does this role mean? And of that recognition, and one can be a rather slow learner, that this our Western society here in Australia, at any rate, so non-indigenous, um, and this is a big generalization, puts our elders in homes. We do not honour their experience, their expertise, their stories, their ways of helping us live better, and so on. And sure they might know the latest tech, but life is actually not about tech. Life is about how we relate to each other. And they, elders have decades and decades of experience and so on. And so, again, learning from First Nations, how much we have to learn from First Nations, where there is a a where, in my understandings, learning to be a responsible adult takes decades, and you learn a lot of that from elders who've gone through things before. Even today, you hear people talk about, you hear First Nations women say, I talked with the elders and I got this advice from my elders, I think of my ancestors, what they would have done. So they're they're tapping into the incredible knowledge of elders and respecting them hugely for that for that knowledge. Now, well, what is that for us? What is that for me, I should say, or for other elders I might I might talk with and so on. And I think we're still struggling with that. The role models aren't there. I mean, I feel ashamed is a bit too strong, but I feel like, oh, I didn't value elders. I valued them as people, of course I did, at so on, but not in terms of what they might, what they might have to offer, to offer in terms of where I might be going. I've tried to think of my aunts and uncles, they knew me well, they'd known me from a child, but I never said to them, oh, I never went to them for advice. We'd have lovely talks, but it wasn't seen as advice, it wasn't seen as maybe even mentoring, it wasn't it wasn't that what a missed opportunity for me and also for them. Because I'm sure if I'd asked them, they would have been delighted to to try and answer my questions.
SPEAKER_04I mean, I think one of the real strengths of of Wella has been the fact that you and the other co-founders, Karen, are are elders of our movement and therefore that approach to intergenerational learning has been baked into our ways of working from the start. It's certainly not something I was actively looking for until to the point that it's not normalized in in our ways of working, until it was a gift to me that happened by you know becoming a part of the Weller community and realizing oh, you don't get this kind of wisdom in our other professional learning processes. It's pretty unique.
SPEAKER_01And did you did you first find that at the first intensive in 2016, because that was one of the strongest pieces of feedback in the evaluation, what worked really well, etc., and what could have worked better, was the value that both elders there, older people there, older women there, and younger women found from having that mixed generation. And yes, and of course, we wanted when we were setting up and inviting people to apply and then choosing choosing people, we wanted diversity, including age. It's an obvious diversity that you'd want, and geographic, etc. So that so yes, we helped set it up, but I don't think I know that none of us doing the organizing then expected realised that there would be such a benefit to it, that people would value it so much. And that's wonderful. I just think that that really that it worked so well that age diversity and so on.
SPEAKER_04And for context for um for the audience, this is we're talking about the national leadership program that well it still runs today, but was the foundation program upon which um what has become the organization was was built upon. And I went through that first programme when it was first run in 2016, and um yeah, a fantastic programme. And we actually, it was several years later, we knew how important, well we thought we knew how important that intergenerational learning was, but we ran a program during the COVID years where there was there wasn't an elder in the room, and when Sue Lewis, one of the other co-founders, joined that session online, the energy in the space changed. Like you felt it in the whole way the group dynamic happened and played out, and you saw how many, and there were several people in the room who gravitated to Sue's presence, they physically moved closer to the screen. There was, and we realized in that moment, oh, we have to be actively planning and thinking how this works through all of our learning for that um for the benefits of that intergenerational experience to shape the work that we do together and the work we do for nature.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, and one of the challenges that I'm wanting to address or started addressing is okay, what does that mean for me now? I'm not centrally involved in Weller, supportive, and still only trying to seek funds for thing programs that are happening. But as an elder, what would it mean? Like now living in Hobart, what does that mean for doing there? So thinking through who else to get involved, other elders, and then what might we offer, apart from cake? Cake is very important for the elders, grandmothers to offer cake, uh, but to invite maybe young people in to say, you can ask us any question you want to. Is it as simple as that? It could be. It could be, and you have that on a regular basis, so younger people, and it might be middle-aged people, it doesn't actually have to be just younger than us come and they know that there's a forum there, and it can be private or public, whatever they're choosing to do in terms of the questions and so on. At least something like that might be really simple. So I think we have to establish, we are at that stage of establishing something that might work in this society where elders have great more greatly valued and and tapped into. They're not directing, but they're tapping able to tap in tap into them.
SPEAKER_04It's a it's a beautiful and very generous offering and so very needed. Yeah. Karen, I want to take us back to earlier in your career, because it's one thing to be looking back on what has what have you learnt in in that, and I'll pull on that thread as well in a moment. But um the theme of today's episode is also about starting things, and you have started many things, and um, you could argue you started the modern-day environment movement through some of those campaigns for Pedda and and the Franklin. But you've then you've gone on and started lots of different bits and pieces, including Weller. I guess the bit I'm really interested in is lots of people have the data, lots of people have information, and they can talk and explore. Very few people, time after time, strap their boots on and go, let's go, we're gonna make a new thing happen. What is that Moxie and drive that makes you um where does that confidence come from? It's a it's confidence.
SPEAKER_01I tell you what, I'm very good at saying who can help me do this, or who can help us do this, who can help us do this? We think this is really important. I'll go, who can help us? Or who might be interested? And just and then talking. That's really, and of course, you often your idea will be if you're a I'm a big picture thinker, and lots of people are, and they see a thing, they're saying, should I act on this or not? Because there's a million things out there you could act in. Is this something that I'm passionate about that I could carry forward and have the energy to do? And so on. If you say yes, then who can help you do that? I do, and then not not being put off by feeling that, well, maybe no one else would want to do it. Ask. And if they're not interested, they'll tell you. But then you lose nothing by asking, by saying, hey, look, I think this is a good idea. You know, what do you would can we talk about it, please? And so on. Maybe I'm quite good at at um portraying the problem and then and then exploring the solutions with people, but with people. So there's a sense we can move forward. If we work on this together, we will get somewhere. I might have that, and but other people can have that. That sense of we can work, this is really important, we can work on this together, and we can come up with a solution.
SPEAKER_04I mean, I think history shows that you are very good at that. And and we've seen that in campaigns. What have you learnt from from, particularly from some of those early campaigns? And we we often talk about the Franklin campaign as a really seminal moment in Australia, political history and environmental movement. History, you know, a campaign that in some ways becomes a birthplace of a very different sort of social movement. What did you learn from that time? I mean, you were young, it was a very um comparatively inexperienced collective of people making that happen.
SPEAKER_01Looking back, so of course, looking back from quite a while later, I realised I brought to the table some of the skills I'd seen my mother show with her passion for her music and knew that every child should have access to music and so on, and again asking, you know, who can help do this and forming groups and and getting going and having that vision. I learnt that look again, looking back, at the time I had no idea I was learning this, but at the time, you know, that what she had modelled for me was uh a delight in having anyone volunteer. So someone comes in and you, yes, you want to help. Oh, that is so good. What would you like to do? Can we sit down and talk about it? This is what we're on about. How do you see yourself fitting in? So I was I was apparently in very well, I know what's very, very welcoming of people. Being able to run meetings without being heavy-handed was we didn't call it consensus decision making, but after all, you wanted everyone to feel part of things, then you want them to feel part of that decision. Um, and then being open to people offering expertise. I think that was another key factor when I look at it. So an ad, a couple of ad guys came in saying we can help, we're from the advertising industry, and I was my little box of advertising industry was, you know. But they were they were really great, and they just said, now do you know which arguments work? And I said, Oh yes, you know that it's uneconomic and environmentally destructive and it won't have many jobs, and where's the powers going? And we're not, they're not properly paying for it. He said, Yes, that's what's important to you, I think. But how do you know whether they work or not with your audience? And I'm like, Oh, well, they seem to, because people are giving money and what he said, but do you have ever like what so that was we did focus groups and I was bowled over by so being open to people offering things, open to new ways of, well, this, oh, this looks sounds like it could really help us. And those focus groups, um, and we had to then define an audience. Well, who is it we're trying to reach? And what is it we want them to do? You know, it was a very so yeah, it was that was a really that's I learned the value of focus groups, getting a better handle on who you're trying to define your audience, and what the uh what were the messages that worked with that audience? And fortunately, the messages that worked were, you know, well, this is world heritage, you don't destroy world heritage. Uh it's it's costing a huge amount of money and it's massive destruction, and it's a time going to have a tiny amount of power. Today, 180 megawatts of power was gonna come from that dab. It's like two weeks of solar panels being installed in Australia today. Like wow. Well, so of course we didn't know that. But it was, yes, so learn those, that lesson, another big lesson. Where is this going to be won nationally? What is going to win it? One of the older parties having a different policy. That means going to Labour Party branches in Victoria, because we were Victorian, and the others should be too, to get each of those branches, and easy for a Victorian branch to say no dams, getting a policy across the Victorian Labor Party at their conferences that it would be a no-dams thing, pushing that at the national level in July 1982, so you had a choice. People had a choice at the election the following March in 1983 between a party that would destroy this, as the ad colour ad said, um, and one that said they would save it, and so on. And then for us, two years even before that, saying if it's going to be won nationally, it'll be won in marginal electorates. That's where we'll have influence through votes and doing the research on finding marginal electorates and setting up setting up branches there. So it was that really we were very, very strategic. We knew where was possible to get a change, to get a national uh decision. Uh, and the other big thing is knowing the um that the World Heritage listing was crucial to have that because that was a way that the feds could actually take take action, which had not been there in Lake Petit time.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, I mean the politics are crucial, right? And have been. And it's pretty dire when we look around. I mean, the Albanese government approved another coal mine this week, just this week, and I think there was one in the last couple of weeks as well. It's we are in this sort of we're seeing increased concern about climate change. We see it across the board in polling and um and deeply held concern as well. And we see more action than ever before. We're seeing it, we see levels of action from business and from governments that were not happening in the 80s. So it is actually like the work has driven transformative action, and yet we're still seeing these really backwards, and the politics is not keeping up. Where do we go with that? What is your because it's changed so much since those days. Likewise, polarization in the community. How do you how do we handle that now?
SPEAKER_01I mean, I knew they wouldn't be good, but I didn't think they'd be this bad, the Albanese government. Um, I thought, is it a time for, and this is one of these reactions you then have to carefully evaluate for all of us to go to into parliament and surround it, and you need a million people, and you'd need a lot of comp not a lot of, you'd need an awful lot of mobile toilets. But that's the sort of stuff that would happen, and you're there saying you must, you've got to change. You know, there's a lot of us who are really deeply concerned, and mobilization, and a lot of us who are older who can take that time, plenty of people can't. So you'd have to work out some other way of supporting them. Is is that a tactic that would that would actually work? You know, I think it once it got to like maybe 20,000, 30,000 people, people would start to say, Well, I'm going to go, come for a week, come for a month, come till they change. And it would demonstrate how. Now, I I can't organise. I can get people to go. I'm not gonna well, except I thought, well, I could just go. A bit like Theodor Grunberg's thing. I'm just gonna sit here. I'm concerned about climate change. Um, one could just go, but you couldn't uh I don't know, that's a sort of left field tactic, but maybe we need that sort of thing. Of course, the other thing is, although it's a while to another election, is what what's the teals are clearly demonstrating a whole new way of getting a point across. Teals and Greens, other independents who might be really good, are David Pocock and so on, like in their, how do we maximise that? If we're going to use this parliamentary system, how do we maximise those numbers of people so that there is no way that the next government can have as many seats? He's only in by the preferences from Labour, from mainly from Green voters. It is a he's got might have a lot of seats, but he sure doesn't have a lot of extra votes. You know, their primary vote is dropping. So recognising that, then mobilising, empowering people to get in and support independents and Greens at that next at the next election, will make sure that it is uh a minority government that has to then negotiate. The changes that the Greens were able to bring in with Julia Gillard, all that stuff seen as really negative, it's fantastic. They got the stuff still there because of that hard-nosed negotiation. We'll give you support provided A, B, C, D, and lock it into legislation so it can't it can't be changed. So there, yes, I think that's that's another way forward. I'm not so enamoured, I suppose, of the um, for whatever reason, the more the more um blockading time, whatever. The Franklin was done, a blockade for publicity, not because it was going to stop the dam. And it got incredible publicity, the timing was fantastic, lead up to the election, it fell in at the right time, and it was upriver and everyone was trained. Later blockades, like the one that happened in East Gippsland, were an absolute disaster. It was terrible, terrible. People's motivations were fine, but they totally disrupted the local campaign that was working with key loggers and others to try and to try and get change happening at that local level. And these outsiders came in and blockaded, and it blew the whole thing apart. It was just awful for the local people. So that blockade in itself is not, has to be part of an overall strategy and very carefully thought through and so on, because it's got the potential to be seen as very negative by the very people you're trying to reach.
SPEAKER_04It's interesting, you know, hearing you speak uh that need for mobilizing, but also really around deep collaboration and being able to actually talk to people and work out collectively work out strategies that are gonna that are gonna work.
SPEAKER_01But you well, you you never know whether something's you have to say, are it likely to work with these conditions, you know. So nothing you have to take the risks. You know, the blockade in many way for the Franklin was a huge risk. Like it was like, are we going to get good media? But understanding the risk and and addressing it and making sure that this is how you maximize the chances of it, of it um working and so on was good. The role of luck in campaigns, where there was a lot of luck in the front on over the years, learned a lot of luck, timing for various things.
SPEAKER_04But it's not it's not just luck, is it? Like, I mean, yes, sometimes luck, absolutely. You you flip a coin, you hope for the best, you have a crack, you know, and the spaghetti strategy, throw it at the wall and hope something sticks. Absolutely, luck is a part of it. But sometimes you make your own luck. I mean, Stephen Harris, thank you for what you have done, but at the same time, he's been inspired by a campaign that has built over many years.
SPEAKER_01Yes, so what that points to, of course, is how valuable good people inside. Bureaucrats who manage to hang in there with integrity, campaigning, get no credit for because no one is allowed to tell anyone who they are, they can't say who they are, but they push things, they push the boundaries of the World Heritage Area that was being drawn up for the wet tropics out as far as possible. No, because well, with good evidence, they should be out there, recognizing the politics of things where you can do it, but there's just there are so many good people. The Florent Fauna Guarantee Act, which came in here because of Philip Sutton working hard, seeing the concept, getting it pushed through, it was groundbreaking. Around the world, Philip used to get invited. Having Kathy Priest, who then as his assistant also working, a different, brilliant ecological head. Philip didn't have an ecological background. So, you know, those and they're inside the system, and they get this this is amazing to get this stuff up. And although it's a little bit out of date, but it is 30 years old, if not more, and it's still of use.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, it's uh it's we can see the world as outsiders to the system, and how do we change from the outside? But yes, a big thank you to those who stick it out on the inside because that is the essential work to land the change. Yeah. I mean, there's a lot of um listeners who are wondering how best to be effective and how, and you know, I've asked myself that throughout my career at every at every point. Like, is this the best thing I can be doing? If you were to look back now and give advice to your younger self, Karen, what what advice would you be giving?
SPEAKER_01I would address the gender issue much earlier. Oh, tell me more. Well, I remember saying to Bob Brown over coffee, not that long after the Franklin, I must have been starting to think beyond wilderness, you know, hey, how come our system seems to want to destroy this side of things? And how does wilderness, as we called it then, um uh, which was still to point out there was still a recognition of First Nations in there, but it was also could was definitely being used by some people to exclude First Nations. So so but saying to Bob, you know, until we deal with the gender issue, I don't think we're going to solve this big picture problem. And I I'd I'd I'd never knew the word as a child, but but from at about the age of four, I'd wanted to be a boy because I saw that they had far more fun. Not because I was particularly, you know, wanting it, you know, I was still wanting to be female, but I'd wanted to be, I got great pleasure out of being Paul the Tomboy and climbing trees and dressing like a boy, because they clearly had more fun and more freedom. So why wouldn't you want to have that and so on? But it took me a long, quite a while after the Franklin campaign to realize to think the through, and I didn't follow it up more strongly. That was a, you know, it was like, well, I didn't think, I think partly because my passion was nature and so on, that I didn't quite see that the gender issue would be, although I could state it, I couldn't quite see where to take it, where how to take it and how to address it. And it was sort of slightly skewed in my passion for nature. Um, so it's really, so that's I do looking back, I think if you get an insight like that, so a lesson would be if you get an insight like that or a feeling like that, and it seems to be a little bit different from others, talk about it. Go to a mentor, find someone to sit down and say, Look, I'm seeing this, what do you what do you think? And then if you've got, and then you might choose, really have a decision about whether you pursue that or you decide not to, rather than just letting it sit there. And I've gone back and looked through a whole lot of my stuff now with moving. Of course, you find all these old things. Because you've just moved to Tasmania. Because you've just moved to Tasmania, so downsizing and discovering all these all these things that I'd done that I'd sort of forgotten about. But one of the things was a whole pile of files and other thoughts and some action on training, training in a vertical compass, you know, which was actually related to quite a lot of it was related to gender issues without it being quite defined in that way. I how do you deal with a male interviewer in a media thing who clearly is quite dismissive of what you're doing? So how do you, you know, the skills to do that? That's a gender issue, no, but it was set in the media framework. You know, how do you deal with some bloke who's sitting there at around the you know at the head of the table as a committee chair when you're not being listened to? No, what do you do with all that stuff? So there were there were things, aspects of it, but I hadn't didn't stand back and say this is a generic problem. How might we address that? Yeah.
SPEAKER_04And yet you did then finally come to that question many years later when you became a co-founder of Wella. What was the inspiration to try and finally take that forward? And what's that journey with Wella been like?
SPEAKER_01Well, the journey's been utterly fantastic, totally mind-blowingly wonderful. So, and of course, the impetus was the friendship with Jane Elix, who'd been um, I'd been her boss at Australian Conservation Foundation. She I just let her do her thing, she was so good at it. Um, and uh uh so getting to know Jane, knowing Judy Lambert from the from the Franklin, not Franklin campaign and and so on, Marg Blakers from God knows when, long time, uh, and so on. And we would meet regularly because we all in Canberra, uh just just best friends, as friends, but also deeply concerned about what the hell was happening with the world and whether or not we couldn't, can't we solve these problems? We could we can't we do this? Uh and so it was um, and then Jane getting uh getting the um project to do the to do the leadership um questions of 35 was it, women, what she perceived as women leaders in the environment movement. So this was part of an Australian Research Council Research Council grant on democracy in Australia. So she was one relatively small component to that. And so interviewed me, and I still remember her question about well, what does what does being a leader mean to you? And my well, well, I haven't really been a leader, what do you mean? You know, because my concept name of leader was that person at the head of an organization or the prime minister or leader as in rather than leadership. And I had never really considered the difference between, you know, what is leaders, what are leaders, what is leadership. Um and so we did the interview. I I don't think it was particularly good one. I remember thinking, well, there's a lot of interesting things to think about, but I hadn't, you know, what I'd ever I'd given her was so she comes up with the final report and that story of um and that she's dying and Judy has to finish, Judy Lambert has to finish the final report, and Jane's saying to Judy, her close friend and colleague, don't let it sit on a shelf. So Judy, of course, acts on that. We all acted on things that Jane said, and um brings it to that group of women and says, Well, what are we going to do? Well, an obvious thing is to get the women back together who'd been interviewed and ask them. We don't know what's the best thing to do, but they will. So hence Weller.
SPEAKER_04And what a huge journey. What an amazing offering to the community and and to women and gender diverse people who are doing this work in Australia to find their voice and to be able to learn from all of your experience. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Well, it's an utter joy for me. I would never have predicted that my professional life could could have such an extraordinary organisation, such glorious people, such fabulous outcomes, you know, that as in people feeling like they've been empowered, but they have got the confidence and they've got the skills and they know where to turn to when they're wanting support or just to discuss things. I mean, yes, it definitely over time has great would now and long-term great capacity for change. Yeah. And we might solve the gender issue. Whoa. Let's do that.
SPEAKER_04Um, Karen, you mentioned joy and maintaining joy through this work is a big part of what we talk about at Weller and in this podcast. Um, do you dance, Karen?
SPEAKER_01And if you dance, what is one of your best dancing experiences? Yes, I dance. I love dancing. I love that it's the physicality of the and the music, I don't know, and just flowing, getting away into some other spot. A best dancing experience, oh my gosh, Vic. I've probably got several. It would be in a, it it actually, I love the vigorous, I love stuff that's really vigorous. However, I think the best one would have been a quiet with just a few other women in a natural setting somewhere, and there's just people just start to get up, and there's some music, someone's playing music, acoustic music, and people um just start getting up and just moving around. And there's, you know, sometimes you're with somebody holding them or moving around, and sometimes no, and then it floats. It was sort of like a uh it felt like the way, you know, when you've got foam on water coming coming down a river, and it's beautiful, it moves, but it's moving this whole time. It's twirling into things and then separating out, and then it's got a sort of loggish tail, and then it sort of comes back together, and then it forms a little sort of mountain of bubbles, and it's like that. It was like that.
SPEAKER_04Oh my god, Karen, that's the most beautiful metaphor for dance. I really hope there's a some sort of dancer listening to this who can design a work inspired by the foam on the river. Oh my goodness.
SPEAKER_01Well, in Tasmania, of course, because the rivers tend to be, especially in the southwest, dark from the tannin from the peat, so they're dark water. And when they're still, it's the most amazing reflections. They're just perfect. And though that when it's going over water, little waterfalls and ripples, it gets little foamy, foamy bits, and they're rather creamy colour. And you know, our city heads might say, Oh, what's that? But in fact, it's all very natural at each forms, these beautiful patterns, just glorious patterns, which then float down until you fall over the next little waterfall, and I imagine they all reform again, they do something different, come out slightly different at the other end.
SPEAKER_04A challenge to the choreographers in our audience to take it on. Karen, it's been just a gorgeous chance to spend some time with you this morning and have this conversation. A huge thank you to everything you have given this community and given to me personally, but given to um our work and our movement.
SPEAKER_01Well, thank you, Vic. You are it's a it's a lovely thing to be part of.
SPEAKER_03What really stood out to me, there were a couple of things that stood out to me from this interview that you did with Karen, but one of the points is around intergenerational learning and her ideas for how to make sure that knowledge can be passed on and that there are spaces and ways to do that. I it resonates so much. I have always gained a lot out of being in workplaces or volunteer spaces where there are people from different generations around me. Because you it just changes, and you actually said this in the interview, Vic, it changes the dynamic of the group in a really interesting way.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I think that was something that really resonated me for me in that conversation as well. I think um, yeah, I that wisdom that we miss out on when we don't have um cross-generational um rooms. And yeah, like you, I have been such a lucky beneficiary of the wisdom of many elders in my lifetime, uh, personally, professionally, and the magic of that connection, I think, is I I loved seeing that called out in the conversation.
SPEAKER_04It's lovely to hear that you both have had that. I I think actually, outside of rarefied spaces, a lot of people are really missing that in their professional lives. I think it's why it um gels so strongly in our leadership programs, that people realize the value of that eldership and and what people can bring to a conversation at that different stage of life. Um and we we do see participants gravitate to it, look for it. Uh, and one of our challenges is now how do we instill that culture of leadership, uh, of eldership so that the next wave of elders are happy to step into that role and identify in that way. Uh, because we do need people taking and stepping actively into that eldership role as well.
SPEAKER_03You mentioned this in the interview with Karen as well, and it surprised me to hear that people weren't getting that uh for wherever they are and however, wherever they're working, because it is, you know, the transmission of knowledge in a workplace does typically happen in a hierarchical fashion that is based on age and experience in the workplace.
SPEAKER_04And how many women do you know in senior leadership roles in all of these different organizations who have been at it with not just decades of experience, but real gravitas in that as well? It's I think it's rarer than we think.
SPEAKER_03Well, I think that what I reflected on is that it's the mentorship component that is probably missing for a lot of people and that you get when you're in a dedicated leadership program like Wella.
SPEAKER_02I think of like my mother-in-law, who is an elder who I respect so deeply, and I just wish everyone had a some a Margaret Barry in their lives like I do, because the having you know, I constantly feel like I'm asking her, how will I navigate the next chapter? It's gonna make me so emotional. But it's such a gift to have someone so wise and so open and so generous who can help guide you through the seasons of life that intimately understands you. And I feel like I've been so lucky to have several friends who are 10 years, 20 years, 30 years, 40 years older than me throughout my life that have been extraordinary. Um I I think I've found it harder to find that access in a professional setting. Like when I worked in corporate environments, I don't think that the women around me were perhaps as generous and open to bringing people up with them as I think women are perhaps today.
SPEAKER_04It could also be, I think that's that's an interesting reflection. I wonder also if it's when you're still in that role, there is a difference, I think, in the responsibilities that you have to hold. And when you have actually moved beyond that and you're no longer in that executive level role, you're actually um possibly newly retired, you're at a different stage of life, you've got nothing to prove. You've got no nothing you're trying to um make sure you're accountable and responsible for in such a formal way. And I think therefore you can be a little more uh generous, perhaps, and and bring a different perspective. I think that's that key piece in eldership that um really matters.
SPEAKER_03She talked about asking for help, the value of relationships and just just asking. It's it's so um so front of mind with so many of these conversations, and especially the ones that are based on founding and starting things, is that you just cannot do it on your own.
SPEAKER_02In starting things, there are so many hats you have to wear. And so you do have to uh ask people to help, but you also one of one of the greatest frustrations I find is when people are you know taking guidance and advice from people when they don't know the questions to ask. And so sometimes you are at the mercy of experts, quote unquote, um, who can lead you astray on what you don't know. And and that, but then at the same time, some of the the people I admire most in my life um professionally, they are the best at asking people for help and and asking, what do you think? And I I love that question of like, what would you do in my situation? Um, and to ask that of many rather than asking that of one.
SPEAKER_04Thank you again, Karen, for that fabulous interview. Um, and I'm so glad we're able to the timing that we can get it into this into this first season because that's a wrap. This is the end of the first season of your new favourite podcast, There We'll be Dancing. Karen, a joy to have you on the show. And a big thanks today to our contributor, Dr. Kelly Atkinson, for that beautiful story. A huge thanks to my fellow host, Odette Barry and If the wonderful ride to be on, doing this alongside the both of you. Thank you so much. And to our listeners, thank you for following along and listening and other conversations with us. It's been such a privilege to share the stories and so many ideas that we've got to say, conversation. In the meantime, we would love to stay late to subscribe, and you can find links from Instagram and show notes. And if you want to be able to hear about things to do and all things well, make sure you sign up to the well-like newsletter. Again, links to that in the show notes. This podcast has been brought to you by Women's Environmental Leadership Australia. Thanks to our producer, Matt Siegel from Green Thumb Media. Thank you again for being here, and until next time, enjoy your dancing.