The Renters and Housing Union (RAHU) Victoria has acheived a lot for tenants in the short time it's been active. In this City Limits, Kevin and Meg speak with RAHU Secretary Eirene Tsolidis Noyce.If you have a rental issue or enquiry, contact RAHU's Renters Rights Support team at organise@rahu.org.au Later in the show, Shane McGrath from Housing for the Aged Action Group joins to discuss the recent work at HAAG. If you're an older Victorian with a housing issue, you can call HAAG toll-free on 1300 765 178 or visit their website here.You can also click here to find the info Shane discusses today about the National Construction Code in relation to insulation regulations.  

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City Limits - Renters and Housing Union + Housing for the Aged Action Group

This week City Limits hosts Kevin and Zeb speak with campaigner Anna Langford, from Act on Climate at Friends of the Earth Melbourne.We chat about the upcoming COP26 in Glasgow, including Australia's embarrassingly inadequate targets, a surprise turnaround from the Murdoch press and big business on their climate change rhetoric, and the role of the States and Territories in picking up some of the federal government's slack.We also cover Act on Climate's exciting new campaign, Climate Impacts at Work, collaborating with several unions to investigate climate impacts in the workplace and the solutions workers want to see from governments.Join in for the launch of their campaign with an online event (October 27, 2021 at 6:30pm - 7:45pm), and hear about:Frontline workers’ experiences of climate impactsHow the project will work and which unions are already participatingHow your union can get involvedThe climate action already happening in the union movement, driven by Trades Hall and the United Workers UnionListeners can also find out more on how to get involved with the upcoming School Strike for Climate on October 15th.

City Limits - Energy Update with Act on Climate

This week on City Limits, Kevin and Zeb catch up with our transport regular John McPherson to discuss a range of issues, including more on government secrecy and FOI loopholes, industrial disputes going on in the trucking industry, and short-sightedness with respect to transport planning and future climate impacts.

City Limits - October Transport Update

This week on City Limits, Meg, Kevin and Zeb speak with Han Aulby, Director of the Centre for Public Integrity, and later with Dave Sweeney, nuclear-free campaigner with the Australian Conservation Foundation.With Han, we discuss definitions of corruption, the continued absence of a national integrity commission, and the influence of lobby groups and problems with the Australian model defining lobbyists. To join their webinar Strangling Accountability (12pm, Friday 24th September), with investigative journalist Paul Farrell and barrister Geoffrey Watson on the secrecy of government information, register here. Later, we talk to Dave about Scott Morrison's surprise $100B nuclear-powered submarine announcement with the UK and US, and the answers that parliament and people deserve to know about this deal. He dissects the problems from an environmental and diplomatic standpoint, describing the subs as a "Trojan horse" which has strong potential to submerge Australia into the murky waters of nuclear power, nuclear weapons, and warfare. 

City Limits - Government Transparency + Nuclear Sub Deal

This week, Kevin and Meg talk to Shane McGrath from Housing for the Aged Action Group, then with Cathryn Murdoch and Jack Verdins from Friends of Public Housing and Defend and Extend Public Housing. With Shane we discuss the flood of eviction applications to VCAT following the end to the eviction moratorium, no further protections (save for a few narrowly-targeted grants) for Victorian renters suffering the financial fallout of the pandemic, and the direct transfer of money from the public to the private sector and its success in lining the pockets of wealthy investors in the housing sector. We finish up this interview with a critique 2021 rental reforms and how it's just a small part of the problem that forces people into poverty.Later we talk to Cathryn and Jack about the difference of the Victorian Government's more recent response to a positive COVID case in public housing estates, the government's inability to address comorbid issues affecting people during this time, so-called not-for-profits exploiting housing instability, and how public housing should be widely available to anybody who asks for it.If you're an older Victorian with a housing issue, you can still call HAAG toll-free on 1300 765 178 or visit their website here.

City Limits - Widening inequality and instability in housing

This week, Zeb and Kevin speak to Professor Paddy Moriarty to dissect the deceptively simple idea of a global switch to renewarbles from his perspective. They discuss the book he is writing on renewable energy and the "green economy", the science underpinning the renewable energy industry, and the importance of reducing energy consumption overall.

City Limits - Analysing the switch to renewable energy

This week, Kevin and Zeb speak with regular transport commentator John McPherson about Victoria's proposed orbital rail line's criticism in the papers, how to encourage motorists on to trains without speedy services, the importance of fixing and updating the state's existing public transport services and more.

City Limits - September Transport Update

Victorians with disabilities have been asking for accessible public transport for over 40 years. Most of our state’s public transport system is still inaccessible. This week Zeb and Meg are joined by Ally Scott and Martin Leckey from the Disability Resources Centre. They speak about the long-running campaigns to make public transport accessible to everyone.Support the DRC's Transport For All campaign here!Links from the top of the show:Festival of Urbanism link here, and ICAN Cities Appeal support link here.

City Limits - Victorian public transport for people with disability!

This week Kevin and Zeb chat with anti-nuclear campaigner from the Australian Conservation Foundation, Dave Sweeney. In the wake of the 76th Anniversary of the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, nuclear issues still plague our country. Amongst topics discussed today: How do people who invent and manufacture nuclear weapons sleep at night? Federal Labor's policy platform to sign the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons - we'll take it with a pinch of salt but appreciate the discourse!Plans for a national radioactive waste site on Barngarla country, Kimba SA to go ahead - without the clause precluding future legal pushback. When 95% of our nuclear waste is already in a protected and secure site, this is unwanted, unnecessary and irresponsible!Help raise funds for the Barngarla people to have a say on this issue here!Mine "rehabilitation" - Australia's 50,000 unrehabilitated mines and the botched Australian model to privatise profits of extractive companies, leaving taxpayers with the costs of cleanup. Woodside's plans to dump part of their failed oil facility into our 2nd largest reef, Ningaloo (WA), leaching toxic contaminants like manganese into the world heritage site, and "Scarborough", their proposed collaboration with BHP which aims to emit 1.5B tonnes of carbon into our atmosphere.The latest red-flag of a report released by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, and why Australian conservative politicians are still hostage to a sector that will continue to burn until the bitter end, despite the consensus between scientists, economists, and we the people!

City Limits - Anti-Nuclear for People and Environment, not Big Business

This Transport Week, Zeb and Kevin chat with regular John McPherson about Victorian Public Transport, including accessibility, technical faults, the effects of short-term contracts on the basic functioning on a privatised PT system, questions about the proposed rail-link to the airport, the importance of getting our existing metro train lines up to scratch (with double-lines and reliable signalling) before planning an new orbital system.

City Limits - August Transport Update

Join Zeb and Meg this week on City Limits to discuss Australia's forests, the campaigns to protect them, and the importance of direct action!We interview Scott Jordan [20:55], Takanya/Tarkine campaigner from the Bob Brown Foundation, about the current permit application to build a toxic tailings dam in this irreplaceable temperate rainforest. We also talk indigenous cultural heritage, citizen science, and what's really "locked-up" when it comes to our ecosystems.Next up [41:47], we invite Chris Schuringa (campaigner from GECO, Goongerah Environment Centre) on to discuss updates on the successes of the 4-month community action to protect unburnt forest on the Errinundra Plateau, GECO's plans for when logging machines return in spring and summer, the role of Bidwell-Maap people in protecting logging coups (despite the Victorian Government's recalcitrance in even acknowledging the role of Aboriginal people) and more. If you can't get your boots on the ground at either of these sites, here are some other ways to help:Have your say in the government's Bushfire Review (submissions open until 31st August)Have your say in the Vic Government's changes to weaken logging lawsYou can also contact local Federal MPs and state senators to tell them to nominate and stand for the Tarkine rainforest as a world heritage site.

City Limits - Protecting Our Forests

In this jam-packed show, Zeb and Kevin speak with public housing tenant Cathryn Murdoch (Defend and Extend Public Housing), then Howard Marosi and Jack Verdins (Friends of Public Housing Vic), and later Shane McGrath (Housing for the Aged Action Group). We discuss all things public housing, including ongoing conditions for PH residents during this lockdown, the Victorian Review of Social Housing Regulation (make a submission through this website), and the usual smoke and mirrors terminology surrounding housing issue.If you are an older tenant who would like to get involved and have a say on housing issues (e.g. submissions for the Vic Social Housing Review!) you can join one of HAAG's working groups - info at oldertenants.org, or call (03) 9654 7389

City Limits - Public Housing + Victorian Review of Social Housing Regulation

An extra housing show graces your ears this week, as Kevin and Meg speak with housing activist Professor Libby Porter from the RMIT Centre of Urban Research. She debunks some myths and misconceptions about Victoria's Big Housing Build and the Public Housing Renewal Project, and discusses the Social Housing Regulations Review and the recent report listing Australia as having the forth-highest housing market in the world.LINKS:Save Public Housing Collective's Maps - tracking the privatisation of PH through estate renewal, sale of public land, transfer to community housing providers, etcReport: Does the Big Housing Build address the housing crisis in Victoria? - Professor Libby Porter and Dr David Kelly

City Limits - Housing

This week on City Limits, Zeb and Kevin invite regular commentator John McPherson on the show to talk all things transport!

City Limits - July Transport Update

This week on City Limits, Meg and Kevin invite Cathryn Murdoch and Jack Verdins (Friends of Public Housing Vic) to join us with updates about all things public housing from their perspectives, including the effects of lockdown and poor dissemination of vaccine info for tenants, how public housing has changed over the years, and government money going to private sector housing.Later in the show, we talk to Fiona York from Housing for the Aged Action Group for a chat about the Social housing Regulation Review, an update on HAAG's work, (and another update on the campaign against logging wet forests in East Gippsland), and more.  If you are over 50 years of age and would like some independent advice, information, or practical housing support, call HAAG toll-free on 1300 765 178, or go to oldertenants.org

City Limits - Belated Housing Week

Urban environment issues, analysing government services, both federal and state and local campaigns.

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City Limits

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