How did you come to be studying Arts (Asian Studies) at UNE in the early 1990s? What were your ambitions at the time?
I had finished an agricultural science degree at Sydney University, which I started at age 17 with the romantic idea of becoming a farm manager, despite being a city child. I had hoped it would be a place of exciting ideas and vibrant debate but was sorely disappointed. The UNE degree, which I started as an external student, was a second chance to find a university education that would fulfil those criteria.
What do you recall of your time at UNE?
Dr Denis Wright, sub-dean of Asian Studies, and the supervisor of my thesis (“Actors or Puppets: The Female Prime Ministers of South Asia”) was one of the first lecturers who really delivered on my expectations, with a brilliant course on the history of India. Dr Jeff Archer taught a brilliant course on politics and the novel and introduced me to Ursula Le Guin with The Dispossessed. I remain a great fan.
Not all courses were this brilliant however - I distinctly remember the first-year sociological lecturer telling me “radical feminism has nothing to offer sociology”. After I’d finished raging, I wrote my essay on radical feminism and got the prize for the best first-year essay. And the lecturer for the politics course Marxism and Anarchism was a Marxist doctrinaire who always wore a redbandana. My essay arguing that Marx was an anarchist got the lowest mark I ever received for an essay, but it was worth it.
I’m very wedded to the idea of universities as communities of scholars, who can all learn from each other and develop human understanding together. The large number of external students at UNE was conducive to that. I remember doing a course on Australia during the wars, and some young internal students being blown away by the fact that members of our group had been on the Vietnam War-era protests we were studying.
I became a tutor at St Albert’s during my Honours year. It had just become co-ed, and my employment was a conscious attempt to tackle the very male, private school culture. That year was also an opportunity for me to pursue extra-curricular activities. I played a season of rugby, which I greatly enjoyed, but was really too slow for the number 8 role.
My two-hour weekly show on UNE’s radio station was where I learnt not to be afraid of a microphone. I interviewed visiting speakers on many subjects.
Yours has not been a traditional political trajectory. How did growing up in Australia and working as a journalist help prepare you for politics?
I still often get accused of being “blunt”, even when I think I’m being diplomatic. Working in male-dominated Australian newsrooms helped prepare me for the rough-and-tumble of British papers and politics, although I did have to learn not to swear. It was standard in Australian journalism but produced pursed lips at The Times.
The breadth of my UNE degree, spanning history, politics and sociology, helps ensure, together with my experience in international journalism, that I’ve got the breadth of knowledge to contribute on many different subjects.
When you became a member of the Green Party, your ambitions were to “try to make a difference”. What difference do you feel you’ve made?
I see the need to “change everything”, as my recent book is titled. We don’t just need to argue for different individual policies, for social innovation as well as technical innovation, but different ways of thinking,in systems rather than siloes, and develop new ways of relating to each other and the world. Neoliberalism has clearly failed. The book sets out Green political philosophy, grounded in democracy and trust in individual human potential.
The Green Party received a peerage in Theresa May’s 2019 resignation honours. How did this sit with you, given your criticisms of the “undemocratic” Westminster system and the British monarchy?
I was democratically selected by the party and we made it as democratic as we could. In the 2015 election, when I was leader, we got 1.1 million votes, and in a democratic system we would have had 25 MPs, rather than one. I represent those voters, and the many others frustrated by the current system. It is a measure of the dysfunction of the constitution that the House of Lords, with 92 hereditary and 26 bishops and the balance of power held by the cross benches, is more representative of the country than the Commons, where Boris Johnson got 44% of the vote and 100% of the power in 2019.
I seldom use the title, except to explain that Manor Castle is the S2 area of Sheffield, which, despite the name, is the very opposite of posh. Probably the last person with a title living there was Mary Queen of Scots, who was held captive in the castle. And if it helps a charity to raise money or get attention, I am happy for it to be deployed.
Your new book Change Everything refutes three fallacies - that we need growth, that life is for work, and that we must compete or lose. Why is it a blueprint for our times?
You cannot have infinite economic growth on a finite planet; that’s not politics, but physics. We are trashing the planet while creating deeply unhealthy, miserable societies. We are entering a new age that demands a new philosophy. Insisting that everyone build their life around paid work means most people spend their time, energy and talents as directed by a boss. A universal basic income brings the freedom for each individual to decide for themselves how to deploy their capacities, which can only produce better results.
As for competition, our education systems, geopolitics and so many aspects of our life are built around the idea of beating others, but in a world of limited resources, with ageing and soon shrinking populations, the foundation of our thinking needs to change to focus on everyone having sufficiency, of provisioning all. That’s not just a moral argument; it is also the only route to security.
Where we are now is profoundly unstable, in economic, social, environmental, education and geopolitical terms. That meansradical change is inevitable, which is good news. The future does not look like the past. Now is the time we can build societies that work within the physical limits of this fragile planet, while meeting human needs.
Natalie (right) with Kate Raworth, author of Doughnut Economics.
Former leader of the Greens in Australia, Christine Milne, has endorsed your book, which was crowdfunded. What are your observations of the Greens in Australia? What can our country learn fromyour book?
The Australian Greens have the advantage of a reasonably fair electoral system for the Senate, but have had to show they can defeat, as they have, the undemocratic House of Representatives system. Australian politics has been even more influenced by the worst of US politics.That has given the Greens in Australia, like the UK parties, a huge political space in which to operate.
Change Everything uses mostly British examples but is applicable to virtually every country when it comes to the decent treatment of people and our planet. What Australia has, which I can see the Greens understand and are seeking to engage with, is the wonderful continuous civilisation of the Aboriginal peoples – 50,000 yearsof accumulated knowledge and wisdom.
What kind of politics are you engaged in today?
I bring the voices of those who are seldom heard into the House of Lords – the refugees; much-discriminated-againstGypsy, Roma and traveller people; victims of domestic abuse and environmental crimes. I also try to visit and speak with as many different groups and organisations as possible, including schools in disadvantaged areas. I focus internationally on peoples too often forgotten, from Rohingya refugees to the women of the Democratic Republic of Congo.
I’ve always aimed to help everyone see they can be a leader. Leaders who make it all about them personally are disastrous for organisations, communities and countries.
