Michael Green

Writer and producer

Q & A with Michael Shuman

In Community development, Social justice on

Earlier this year I interviewed American economist, lawyer and writer Michael Shuman. He’s the author of two books on re-localisation, Going local and The small-mart revolution and a founder of the Business Alliance for Local Living Economies.

Shuman writes about the economic benefits of buying from locally owned businesses, arguing that the money you spend has a much bigger economic multiplier effect. That is, it circulates more quickly and more often, and in doing so, it creates more jobs, income and wealth.

As an example, he refers to a 2003 study in Austin, Texas, where economists analysed the impact of a proposed Borders bookstore against two local bookstores. They found that $100 spent at Borders would circulate $13 in the local community, while $100 at the local stores would circulate $45.

When we spoke, he began by telling me that the localisation message is spreading fast.

MS: I’m very struck by the similarity of the consciousness about various crises that are hitting the world – in finance, peak oil and climate change – and equally struck by the similarity of the solutions that people are developing at the community level. Frankly, everywhere I go there are profound and growing localisation movements.

MG: What’s the main thrust of your message?

MS: First of all, every time you spend your money you are voting for the kind of economic future you want. And if you vote with your money more conscientiously for local businesses with high quality local goods and services, there are a whole bunch of wonderful things that can happen to your economy. If you don’t vote that way, you’re economy is going to become hollower and shallower, and your prosperity is going to be imperilled. And I think it’s even truer for investment, because right now we have an investment system where everyone under-invests in local business. I think if we can change that, we can dramatically increase the number of local businesses and prosperity will flow from that. The two critically important decisions to think about are your purchasing and how you invest your super.

MG: What do you mean by ‘local’?

MS: I define local as the smallest jurisdiction in which you live that has real political, economic or legal power. So if you live in Melbourne, the city would be the relevant area. If you lived in a remote rural region, you might think of a larger area. It’s necessarily a flexible term, but the point that I like to emphasise is that local ownership means that the people who own the business live in the immediate jurisdiction in which it operates.

MG: You wrote The small-mart revolution in 2007, arguing that small, local businesses contribute more to long-term economic prosperity and community wellbeing. The world seems to have changed a lot since then – has your thinking changed?

MS: In the book I lay out a dozen trends in the global economy that were accelerating localisation. All of the trends have moved faster than I anticipated. For example, I never expected oil to hit $150 a barrel so quickly. It didn’t stay there very long, but it won’t before we get there again. Also, when I wrote the book, I felt that the conventional understanding about the financial system would make it very difficult to convince people to move into local stock quickly. But the financial crisis has so changed people’s perceptions about the risks inherent in the current system that it has really opened their minds to localisation in a huge way. I think the shift in global consciousness is profound and has moved much more quickly than I thought it would.

MG: You write that smart localisation is about being self-reliant and exporting – not about limiting global trade. So are you saying the ideas we have about scarcity aren’t accurate, and there’s actually great scope for growth?

MS: That’s right. It’s not a new argument – for example, look at the writing of Frances Moore Lappé with Food First, thirty years ago. She made the argument that the planet has more than enough food to feed people, but our distribution systems are corrupt. As the years have gone by she has increasingly talked about the importance of local food systems that feed populations first and foremost, and then we build trading systems for more exotic foods on top of that. And I think that’s true in all kinds of goods out there.

It’s not to say there aren’t shortages or profound challenges in moving communities that are in very high levels of poverty into a place where they can be active participants in the global economy. But in my work in the US I’ve seen that the poorest economies are the ones that are most predisposed to try new approaches because they have been most readily left behind by the mainstream economy. And when you’ve got little or nothing and you change your approach, a little of something that’s better can actually generate a lot quickly.

MG: But in the short term, if I’m spending more money locally, then someone else will be missing out.

MS: I agree with that – for example, the argument is that in the US we import bananas from Guatemala so if we figure out ways of producing bananas in hydroponic greenhouses, the peasants who are producing those bananas in Guatemala are going to lose out. I think the weakness of the argument is that the peasant receives such a tiny fraction of the value-added of that banana – probably a fraction of one per cent – that it turns out to be an enormously inefficient mode of helping that peasant. And so both the promise that trade-as-usual helps the poor, and notion of the harm that comes from changing traditional trade, both of those things are a lot smaller than people assume.

But there is a short-term cost and there’s a transition in that. What I would add is that it is in the interests of communities to share their best practices for free with other communities worldwide. We should all become part of a kind of open-sourced world of information about the technology, business finance and public policies that support localisation. Every community that takes this seriously should try to share what’s working and what isn’t.

MG: But isn’t localisation a trend that will inherently disadvantage developing countries – if wealthy countries become more self-reliant, won’t that punish developing-country commodity producers?

MS: I think there is something to that argument, but again, it’s clear that the kind of development policies we’ve undertaken have been a dismal failure for most of the world. In the places where they have been successful, like the Asian tigers and China, they’ve come with grotesque costs to the environment, human rights, labour rights and equity. I just really feel that creating models of community self-reliance around basics and sharing them internationally is going to be much more important to poor communities than any of these other strategies.

MG: Is it implicit that a localised economy will produce a more egalitarian society?

MS: In the United States there is a sociology literature on this. Basically, communities that are largely made up of small businesses have higher measures of social equality and, in some cases, even lower levels of welfare dependency. I think part of the reason is that in a community of small businesses where there’s a lot of local commerce, it’s a relationship-based economy. That is, both the employer-employee and consumer-seller relationships are rooted in people who know each other. If you know each other you have to act more responsibly because you can’t just pick up leave and hide what you’ve done.

Primate fear

In Environment, Social justice on

 

The orangutan population may be dangerously low, but conservationist Dr Willie Smits has made a place for hope.

What should you do if an army colonel comes home while you’re confiscating his orangutan? For Dr Willie Smits, the Dutch-born founder of Borneo Orangutan Survival (BOS), the unexpected clash became a near-death experience.

“He pulled his gun, chk chk, on my chest…‘I’m going to kill you here and now’.” Smits recalls as he jabs at the spot the weapon hit him. “But you still have to be able to remain quiet, look him in the eyes and say ‘Colonel, you know the punishment for having an orangutan and…for shooting a man. You take your pick’.”

This frightening encounter is just a glimpse of the 52-year-old’s intense commitment to the survival of the orangutans, our closest and most intelligent primate relatives.

Smits visited Australia in 2008 to promote his co-authored book, Thinkers of the Jungle. His dedication to the red apes vibrates through every sentence he utters. “I want to show what marvellous beings orangutans are,” he says. “They are so altruistic and really, they are the better humans. So it’s a genocide that is taking place.”

With over 200 staff across four different sites in Borneo, BOS is the world’s largest primate protection organisation. Smits, who holds a doctorate in forestry, works “20 hours a day, seven days a week,” nurturing those in his rescue centres and campaigning against the illegal logging and animal traders that threaten them.

There are only about 57,000 wild orangutans left in Indonesia and Malaysia. At the current rate of decline, BOS believes that the primates could be wiped out by 2015. “If we cannot even save orangutans, then what hope is there left for the rest of the world?” Smits asks.

Smits is tall and broad. His brown eyes flare and his voice simmers with rage as he speaks about the clearing of forests to satisfy overseas demand for timber and palm oil – now an ingredient in everything from ice cream and chocolate, to toothpaste and pet food. He’s outraged and bewildered by consumer apathy in western countries. “I don’t think anyone who understands the injustice that is happening to the orangutans and the local people could sit still and do nothing. I cannot imagine that.”

His own path to action came by chance. One evening in 1989, while working as an advisor to the Indonesian forestry minister, he saw a sick orangutan baby thrown on a rubbish heap in Balikpapan, a coastal town on Borneo. He decided to look after it and from that moment on, more and more red apes were delivered into his care. Two years later, running out of room at his home, he established BOS.

Despite the passing years, the first orangutan remains the most special to him. He called the baby Uce, after the sound of her heavy, strained breathing. When it came time for her release in 1992, she refused to go. Smits consoled the ape and offered her a leaf as a parting gift.

In 1998, he saw Uce again. “I really thought I’d lost her in the forest fires, but then we found her and she had a baby,” he says, his anger vanishing as he recalls their reunion. “She took me to a Licuala palm and she bit off a leaf and gave that to me. That was the same leaf, the same species I gave to her. She knew I would understand that she was saying thank you after all these years,” he says.

That’s just one example of the intelligence and culture that Smits says he sees everyday, from fishing and tool use, to self-absorbed preening before a mirror. As he flicks through the photos in his book, he points with pride at his primate friends, his voice now brimming with care and admiration. “Orangutans put flowers in the edges of their nest. They have aesthetic feelings. And how they love to look at themselves in pictures,” he says, laughing. “They start posing.

Despite the dire outlook for the species’ survival, Smits still has room for optimism. He is inspired by the early success of BOS’s nature park, Samboja Lestari. There, the organisation is re-vegetating cleared land to provide a habitat for 2000 orangutans.

Local families farm sugar palms in the land surrounding the reserve. They earn a sustainable income and protect the inner ring from fire and illegal forestry. “You can actually do something that creates jobs and still creates safe havens for nature. So it doesn’t need to be all gloom and doom,” he says.

Besides, Smits says, what makes it all worthwhile is that his favourite ape, Uce, is now pregnant for the third time and her first baby is “a truly wild-born, independent orangutan”. He only sees her every few years. “I’m waiting for the next chance to go see her, but the love will still be there.”

Life saving

In Social justice, The Big Issue on

First published in The Big Issue

Peter Singer, philosopher and surfer, does not believe in retail therapy. In fact, he wants people to give more away. Even in tough economic times, he argues, people can afford to help those less fortunate than themselves.

It’s scorching hot. Peter Singer, philosopher, is sitting in a jumbled cafe-cum-general store in Anglesea, on Victoria’s Great Ocean Road. He’s wearing red board shorts, a beach t-shirt and a cheap digital watch. “Diogenes the Cynic was supposed to have lived in a barrel, otherwise naked,” he quips. “I’m closer to that than a business suit, which is what some American philosophers wear.” The 62-year-old, one of the world’s most influential thinkers, took up long-board surfing five years ago. He is relaxed and cordial, and speaks with unwavering logical control. “There’s a lot of unnecessary suffering in the world,” says Singer, leaning forward in his chair. “I’d like to do something to reduce it.”

That’s the matter-of-fact motivation driving Singer’s work. In a career spanning four decades and 25 books, the Australian-born philosopher, academic and author has confronted issues ranging from animal liberation and euthanasia to the ethics of day-to-day life. “I guess I enjoy a good argument,” he continues, wryly. “People always said, even when I was a kid, that I liked to argue.”

In his latest book, The Life You Can Save, he argues that the rich – and, on a global scale, that means almost all Australians – are morally obliged to give more aid to end extreme poverty overseas. Nearly 27,000 children die every day from preventable diseases and more than 1.4 billion people are living on less than US$1.25 per day.

Singer wants to change our understanding of what it means for people in affluent countries to lead an ethical life. “Most of us are absolutely certain that we wouldn’t hesitate to save a drowning child, and that we would do it at considerable cost to ourselves,” he writes. “Yet while thousands of children die each day, we spend money on things we take for granted and would hardly miss if they were not there. Is that wrong?” Singer’s answer – set out in a clear and compelling manner in his book – is an unequivocal ‘yes’. This is a book that deserves close attention: it has the potential to change lives.

The Life You Can Save is an extended reprise of an argument made in one of Singer’s first published essays, ‘Famine, Affluence and Morality’, written in the early 70s when he was just 25. In that essay, and again now, he argues that people should give money to aid agencies because, by doing so, it is possible to prevent death and suffering without giving up anything nearly as important.

That might not sound controversial. But Singer maintains that when people choose not to donate, and instead spent their money on other items, they are implicitly valuing those items more highly than the lives of the poor.

For Singer, the ethically justifiable action is to give money away to the point where, by giving any more, you would cause as much suffering to yourself as you would relieve by your gift. At the least, spending on luxury goods or exotic holidays is morally wrong.

In the new book, he softens this position by also offering readers a less demanding standard of giving: most people, he argues, should give 5% of annual income (more for the very rich, on a sliding scale). “It’s an attempt to get away from the idea that you have to live so that everything you do is costed against what it could do to save a life of another,” he explains. He maintains that this standard, if widely adopted, would be sufficient to end world poverty.

As well as its ethical slap, the book offers a close factual analysis of global poverty, affluence and the ins-and-outs of aid. Singer examines the reasons why we do and don’t give, rebuts common objections to giving and sets out its likely benefits.

Beachgoers come and go from the café; the cash register rattles. Against this backdrop, extreme poverty seems a far-flung concern. And Singer is wary of the potential for domestic economic worries to further undermine aid for the world’s poorest. But he is encouraged to see more discussion of ethics in public life. With a rack of glossy magazines at his left shoulder, he says: “I think maybe the recession does make us take stock of where we are and what we really need, and [also] makes us think about values in a more fundamental way.”

Since 1999, he has split his time between Australia and the US, where he teaches at Princeton University in New Jersey. He gives a third of his income to charity and says he lives a very comfortable and enjoyable life. “I’ve improved over the years, but I know that there’s still a lot more I could be giving.”

He wants to create a public culture of charitable giving. Citing evidence that people are more willing to give if they know others are too, he encourages his readers to tell friends and family about what they donate. The sweetener to his story is that, far from diminishing your wellbeing, giving money away can make you happier. Both age-old wisdom and recent neurological studies link giving with fulfilment. “You can make a difference and it will make your life better as well,” Singer says. “I really think that’s true.”

The life you can save

They all want to change the world

In Community development, Environment, Social justice, The Age on

First published in The Age

Over the past 21 years, one Melbourne building has housed all manner of groups, all with one thing in common: the will to build a better place, as Michael Green reports.

ON FLINDERS Lane, next to the City Library, stands an office building like no other in Melbourne. Behind the front desk, a pink wall is cluttered with posters promoting an array of social causes. A patchwork of flyers waits on a table. The lift walls are coloured with calls to action.

Beneath its gargoyles and giant bay windows, Ross House’s tenants are a rainbow of community groups and causes. Whether the Stroke Association, the Darfur Australia Network, the Aboriginal Literacy Foundation or the Tree Project, the common thread is that all the groups housed here want a more just or environmentally friendly world.

Next week the Ross House Association will celebrate its 21st birthday. Not surprisingly the celebrations will include an indigenous welcome to country as well as music and comedy; the food is being provided by the Asylum Seeker Resource Centre. But after the festivities talk will turn to the association’s big plans for the future.

Ross House is currently owned by the ANZ Trustees but, all going well, the association will take over ownership of its home next year. “We’re getting the keys, basically, so it’s a great time for us,” says Rick Barry, the Ross House Association CEO, describing the move as a “coming of age”.

In its 21 years the five-storey 1890s building has been an incubator for hundreds of community groups, giving them space, facilities and the kick-start that comes with a city address. They come and go, growing bigger or smaller as their funding and needs change. The association charges below market rent, depending on the organisation’s size and capacity to pay. The smallest space leases at about $130 per month.

Committee member Sue Healy has been involved since community groups first moved in. She has the anecdotes befitting such length of service and tells them at pace. “At end-of-year parties in the old days, you started the champagne at breakfast and then you went on to lunch and tea.”

“There’s been conflict too,” she says, like the initial almighty row between the trustees and the tenants, who wanted to manage the building themselves.

The seeds of Ross House were sown in the 1970s when many small self-advocacy groups began to spring up around Melbourne. At a meeting in 1980, a collection of the groups told the Victorian Council of Social Service they needed help to find cheap, secure office space.

A heritage-listed, 1898 building that was originally a warehouse for wholesale importers Sargood, Butler, Nichol & Ewan Ltd was found, and bought with money donated by the R. E. Ross Trust, the state government and others.

Ross House finally opened in 1987 with the goal of supporting self-advocacy groups and thereby helping disadvantaged people take control over their lives. The association has always encouraged groups run by members of the community they serve, and taking control of the building through self-management was an extension of that principle.

Illustrious former tenants include the Wilderness Society and Channel 31, which, according to Healy, began from “a single desk in a cupboard”. One of her most fond memories is of a Slavic women’s group: “They used to come in for a lunch, all athletic ladies. Large, they were.” Among the current tenants, she marvels at the Handknitters Guild on level three. “They’re hand knitters for social justice! They make things and then they donate the money.”

The Blind Citizens of Australia have recently moved in, also on level three, and they are already enjoying the benefits of reduced costs and a greater profile, says executive officer Robyn McKenzie.

“Our members are either totally blind or have a severe vision impairment. Being in the CBD, we’ve been able to increase our volunteer corps because people can actually get to us with ease,” McKenzie says. Another big plus has been the extra networking with other disability organisations in the building.

That collaborative atmosphere has also rubbed off on Matt Bell from Reconciliation Victoria, on level four. “It’s inspiring to come into a building where you’ve got so many great organisations,” he says. “There’s a huge amount of social change and advocacy done from here to strengthen our community. There’s a sense that this is where it’s all happening.”

Youth literary-arts group Express Media has been a tenant on level two since 2006. Tom Rigby, editor of its Voiceworks magazine, says it is a stimulating place to work. “The water-cooler conversations are a lot deeper. They’re more relevant and interesting than you would get in most offices because when people come into the building, they’re switched on. There’s a great spirit around here.”

Taking over ownership of a multimillion-dollar heritage-listed building is a big responsibility, and the committee of management knows it will have to fund-raise extensively to pay for the upkeep of facilities. Barry says they have developed a 20-year maintenance plan to ensure they are ready. The association is also planning an energy audit and retrofit to make the building cleaner and greener. They hope to make it one of the most sustainable office blocks in the city.

Healy has coined her own adjective to describe the ethos of the building — “Ross Housey” — and it peppers her conversation. For example: “The trouble was, they really didn’t run their group in a Ross Housey way.” There was nothing for it. That group had to go.

But exactly what is Ross Housey? “Well, it’s about people having the right to be involved and consulted. To treat everybody with respect, and to respect their opinions if they’re different from yours,” she says, then grins, whispering, “except, of course, if they’re very far right”.

Mixed passages: how public-private housing is shaping up in Melbourne

In Architecture and building, Social justice, The Age on

Private owners are moving into remodelled housing estates, alongside public tenants. Is it a magic potion or a bitter brew?

A white picket fence guards the Kensington Management Company’s office. But the modest, brick building on Derby Street isn’t a symbol of conservative suburbia. Inside, CEO George Housakos and his team are carrying out a bold change in our public housing system.

At nine o’clock, the office begins to bustle. The company’s twelve staff attend to the needs of over a thousand public and private residents. The not-for-profit company is a body corporate and rental business, as well as a service provider for public tenants. “We’re the first model of its kind in Australia,” Mr Housakos says.

On the Kensington site, the state government and Becton Property Group are redeveloping an old public estate.

It’s the first sod turned in a revamped housing strategy: the era of public-only housing will soon meet the wreckers’ ball. Policy-makers are now plotting developments with a blend of owner-occupiers, renters and social tenants.

New Becton CEO Matthew Chun says the company is pleased with the results at Kensington. The renewal project began in 2002, and is now about two-thirds complete and, so far, fully occupied. When it’s finished, there will be 455 private and 435 public dwellings.

Mr Chun believes the mishmash of residents and the design of the buildings work well. “The intent is that you can’t tell the difference between houses occupied by public housing tenants and those owned by the private sector.”

Victorian Minister for Housing Richard Wynne is keen to replicate that model elsewhere. The government has already announced similar makeovers in Carlton and Westmeadows, and will next tackle the Richmond towers. “My goal with all of these developments is to achieve a good public–private mix and to ensure that we don’t get a net loss of public and social housing,” he says.

According to housing expert Professor Bill Randolph, public–private redevelopments have become both a national and an international trend. “It’s happening in North America, it’s happening in England and parts of Europe,” he says. “There’s an international consensus that the old model of building big concentrations of public housing has failed.”

Professor Randolph, Deputy Director of the Australian Housing and Urban Research Institute (AHURI) at the University of New South Wales, says that cycles of hardship emerge when there are a lot of people with disadvantages in a small area.

“The majority of public housing tenants are elderly, or they’re people with disabilities, or can’t work, or they’re carers,” he says. “They’re disconnected from the mainstream society and then they get preyed upon by the drug dealer who thinks he can set up shop in these sorts of areas.”

Minister Wynne is most concerned about high unemployment rates on the old estates. “When public housing was constructed in the 60s, it was worker housing. That is no longer the case,” he says. “So in any of the large public housing high-rises, due to the very tight targeting of public housing, the vast majority of people there do not work anymore. And we think that’s unhealthy.”

The overwhelming benefit of mixed residential estates is that they polish the tainted image of public housing. Professor Randolph says that AHURI research on the ground supports this theory. “There’s no doubt that renewing the estates by putting in new homes and a range of people reduces the stigma.”

But the policy may also have some drawbacks. Professor Randolph notes that governments are “chasing the holy grail of renewing these areas without significant amounts of public subsidy”. That means that public land, often in high-value inner-city areas, must be sold to fund the projects. It’s a one-off policy option. Next time the estates need refitting, the government won’t have the land to leverage with the developers. “I think it would be better if we recognised that there is a real genuine need for affordable housing that should be subsidised from the public purse to some extent.”

Another risk is that the private sector is wary of buying in, still put off by their perceptions of public housing. While the Kensington project has attracted many investors and renters, it has a low rate of owner-occupation.

The same goes for the Inkerman Oasis, a mixed-tenure development in St Kilda. The Port Phillip Council has transformed its old depot site into an award-winning 245-unit estate comprising both private and community housing.

Although the final stage of construction has yet to begin, the Port Phillip Housing Association’s 28 community units, as well as most of the private apartments, are already complete. The association favours applications from long-term locals. Its tenants, like Sue Nikora and her son, pay low rental rates (set at about 25 to 30 percent of the tenant’s income).

Ms Nikora left her last community townhouse because she had “neighbours from hell”. Here, in St Kilda, despite having some concerns about vandalism in the block, the 52-year-old says arriving home from work is a joy.

“When you are living in a mixed place like this, I think the ones that do tend to play up behave themselves a bit more.” Ms Nikora supports the tenancy blend. “We’re all people. You can’t just keep them apart. People have to learn to live together. It’s as simple as that.”

But some of her neighbours aren’t so happy. Robert Blair is a private owner and also the building manager of the complex. He says that while most of the housing association tenants are good neighbours, the younger ones cause trouble. “They put graffiti on the walls. They cause havoc,” he says. “We don’t want them here. Why they would put kids in a place like this is a bit of a mystery to me.”

Another resident, who asked not to be named, shares his concerns. She is disappointed by the lack of connection among neighbours. “There isn’t a real sense of community with the Port Phillip tenants. In theory, I love the idea of the mix. I’m a bit embarrassed to say, a couple of years in, I’m not a fan of it in my backyard.”

But both the council and the housing association say they haven’t received any complaints from private residents. “The mix works well because people are people,” says City of Port Phillip Mayor, Janet Cribbes. “How much money you have to allocate to housing doesn’t affect who you are as a person or what you are like as a neighbour.”

St Kilda real estate agent Simon Saint-John says the perception that private buyers are nervous is way off the mark. He says property values and rents are consistent with the local average. “From our perspective, it’s made no difference at all. There’s huge demand to get into that complex.”

Across town, Mr Housakos makes a cup of tea and readies himself for another busy day. He believes that a vibrant neighbourhood is a must if the Kensington redevelopment to succeed. “The bit that we think is critical is… the whole series of ways that we get the community to engage, from local jobs through to activities that improve health and wellbeing.”

The estate has a community development action plan and committee made up of a mix of residents that meet every month. There are also regular newsletters, a new common veggie patch and training sessions on nutrition. “We get both private and public tenants turning up,” says Mr Housakos.

Last year he undertook a brief study tour of England, Scotland and the Netherlands to learn from similar projects. “You can’t just build a new set of buildings. You’ve actually got to think about what happens to the people inside.”

Melbourne’s combo-constructions

Kensington

A joint partnership between the state government and Becton Property Group, the redevelopment of almost 900 units is two-thirds complete. Half will be private and half public, including the refurbishment of two existing towers. Construction will finish by 2013.

Carlton

Thirteen blocks of walk-up flats have been demolished across Carlton sites to make way for a new mixed estate. About 550 private, and 250 public apartments are on the drawing board. The state government will announce the developer later this year.

Westmeadows

This July, Premier John Brumby announced a redevelopment plan for The Mews public housing estate in the city’s north-west. The project aims to add over 400 new public and private homes by 2014.

Inkerman Oasis

On the site of the old council depot on Inkerman Street, the Oasis eco-friendly development comprises 217 private, and 28 community apartments. The final two blocks of private units are yet to be built.