The following is a detailed schedule of the event and important information for the G20 Alternative – Creating Community Forum.

 
Map of the event

The location for the event is Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (RMIT). For a map of the event, please go to:
 
http://actionforesight.net/lists/dl.php?id=7

• Music & Speakers / large group dialogues at RMIT’s Casey Plaza (Bowen St off La Trobe St)
• Workshops to be in RMIT building 8 (off Swanston St.)
• Beautifull food at RMIT’s Student Union function room (off Swanston St.) provided by Lentil as Anything (www.lentilasanything.com)

Volunteers

Free Lunch on the day for any volunteer…

Any volunteer who can give a few hours of their time on the day will get a free lunch at the Lentil as Anything G20 Alternative Bistro! 

Email volunteers@melbournesocialforum.org or info@melbournesocialforum.org

Stalls by Creating Community

An impressive gathering of stall holders will showcase many of the local organisations that create the alternatives that make our lives better everyday, in big and small ways.

• DIY House Gig Network  – Bringing music to the people
• CERES – Community Environment Park http://www.ceres.org.au
• Melbourne Food Network & EDAP
• Fitzroy Carlton Credit Cooperative
• AXXS  – Information Technology / Web hosting / Free software http://www.axxs.com.au/
• Hooked  – Fair Trade http://www.hooked.org.au/
• Screen Printing Co-operative
• Indymedia – Alternative Internet media  http://melbourne.indymedia.org/
• 3CR Community Radio  http://www.3cr.org.au/
• Channel 31 – Community TV  http://www.c31.org.au
• Friends of the Earth Melbourne – Environment and Social Justice NGO  http://www.melbourne.foe.org.au
• Eco-Shout – Melbourne’s environmental Internet portal  http://www.eco-shout.org/
• Organarchy – RMIT Food Co-op
• Greens On Campus – http://www.vic.greens.org.au/about-the-greens/young-greens/GoC
• Plug in TV -  Independent Media Collective http://www.plugintv.net

Schedule of the day

10:45-11:00 AM

Welcome to country

Casey Plaza

11:00-12:00 Noon

MUSIC for AWAKENING by:  Tr1be  (world beat)

Casey Plaza

WORKSHOPS: 11AM-12AM

Real Aid or Regional Thuggery – Australia’s role in the Pacific?

What’s really going on with the RAMSI intervention in the Solomons? Why is Australia’s billions of dollars spent in the Pacific making our neighbours so cranky? Come and discuss how the vision of ‘Aid effectiveness’ that is shared by the Australian government and the G20 perpetuates a flawed model of development and explore why Australia’s aid to the Pacific is a textbook case of global aid priorities gone wrong.

Kate Wheen
AID/WATCH
Ph. 02 9557 8944
www.aidwatch.org.au

Lentil as Anything G20 Alt Bistro / RMIT Union Function Room

Iraq – America’s Achilles heel 

After three and a half years, over 2,000 dead US troops, 650,000 dead Iraqi people, things aren’t looking so good for the Empire. With the anti-war movement growing, their army looking shaky and the Coalition governments getting nervous, this is the perfect time for the Anti-War movement in Australia to start upping the anti. Come to participate in a forum on how we can help get the troops out of Iraq, with discussions of upcoming anti-war mobilisations such as the 4th anniversary protests in march next year and Bush coming to Australia for APEC.

Presented by Resistance

Building 8, Level 6, Room 47

Queer Activist Network (QAN)

Join members of the newly formed Queer Activist Network (QAN) to discuss the campaign for free HIV/AIDS care in developing countries. We will also talk about the future of QAN and other QAN campaigns such as repealing homophobic laws, queer refugees and the national queer space campaign.

see: http://www.greenleft.org.au/back/2006/687/687p9b.htm

Building 8, Level 6, Room 48

Justice for Palestine!

International collaboration and skill-share workshop for Palestine solidarity activists.
Organised by Auckland University Students for Justice in Palestine, Aotearoa Jews for Justice and Melbourne Palestine Solidarity Network.
Phone 0406 402 401 Email: melbourne.palestine@gmailvisit http://ausjp.wordpress.com/ and www.melbourne-palestine.info

Building 8, Level 6, Room 46 

12:00-1:00 PM

Dialogue on Addressing Debt-Poverty

Maria de Lourdes Vicente da Silva – Landless Workers Movement of Brazil (MST)
Mike Cebon – Global Trade Watch
Stephen Jolly – Socialist Party
Kate Wheen – AID/WATCH

Casey Plaza

1:00-2:00 PM

Voices of Local Alternatives

Creating Communities will give voice to the many local alternatives that exist all around us. Stall holders speak about the many different community based alternatives they embody.

Casey Plaza

WORKSHOPS 1:00-2:00PM

Climate Change – The Case for Zero Emissions

This presentation will briefly outline what is climate change and why today’s global warming is human forced. It will look at tipping points, feedback loops, lag effects and global dimming and why because of these we must immediately adopt a Zero Emissions goal. It will explore near Zero Emission solutions focusing on the stationary energy sector.

Matthew Wright is a campaigner with Beyond Zero Emissions, an independent Zero Emissions climate change campaign based in Melbourne.

@ Lentil as Anything G20 Alt Bistro / RMIT Union Function Room

Venezuela – Making poverty history TODAY

Special guest: Nelson Davila – Venezuelan Charge d’affairs to Australia

Since the election of the Chavez government in 1999, Venezuela has
pursued an economic path opposite to that prescribed by the G20, World
Bank and the IMF. Rejecting the profits first ethos of these
institutions Venezuela has used the nations wealth for the benefit of
workers and the poor.

Free education and medical care systems have been established.
Illiteracy has been eradicated. More housing for the poor has been
built in two years than in the previous 20 years. Workers
self-management of some major factories has been developed and
millions of hectares of unused, yet arable land has been taken from
large companies and re-distributed to landless poor people.

These achievements contrast to those countries in Latin American that
are yet to break from the IMF model. Venezuela has become an
inspiration to people all over the world. Nelson Davila, the
Venezuelan government representative in Australia, will explore the
achievements and challenges of the “Bolivarian Revolution”.
“The only way to defeat poverty is to give power to the people” – Hugo Chavez Frias – President of Venezuela

Ph 9639 8622 or 0425 887 078

Presented by the Australia Venezuela Solidarity Network

BLD 8, Level 6, Room 47

The IRON WALL – A film by Mohammed Alatar

“Zionist colonization must either stop, or else proceed regardless of the native population. Which means that it can proceed and develop only under the protection of a power that is independent of the native population – behind an IRON WALL, which the native population cannot breach.” – Zionist leader, Vladimir Jabotinsky, 1923

The Iron Wall exposes the aim of the settlement movement and the Apartheid Wall to create facts on the ground to make the creation of a Palestinian state impossible.

Organised by Melbourne Palestine Solidarity Network
Phone 0406 402 401
email melbourne.palestine@gmail
visit www.melbourne-palestine.info

BLD 8, Level 9, Rm46

Australian Corporate complicity in Iraq

AID/WATCH campaigner Kate Wheen and Newcastle University academic Chris Doran will specifically focus on Australia’s enthusiastic participation in the Neo-liberal wet dream that became Iraq’s economy as well as give a revealing analysis of where government aid money was really going at the time of this unnecessary war.

Kate Wheen
AID/WATCH
Ph. 02 9557 8944
www.aidwatch.org.au

BLD 8, Level 9, Room 43

Camp Sovereignty workshop

Robbie Thorpe will talk about past & present actions such as the
Stolenwealth Games. His aim is to raise the awareness of indigenous
reform concepts and get them into practice. Robbie has a list of key
reforms, starting with the sacred fire. The importance of these reforms
are paramount as they aim to rebuild indigenous culture from the ground
up. Along the way, non-indigenous can help and learn about the world’s
oldest known culture.

BLD 8, Level 9, Rm44

Creating a Future for People in Mexico

A workshop on the Zapatistas Community experiences or how the people in Atenco and or Oaxaca are organising against state repression, Multi National Corporations and Neo-liberalism.

Heriberto Salas – The other campaign, Mexico

BLD 8, Level 6, Room 46

2:00-3:00 PM

Dialogue on Addressing Climate Change

Cam Walker – Friends of the Earth
Geoff Davies – Australian National University
Donna Lorenz – EarthTech

Casey Plaza

3:00-4:00 PM

Yemanja: Jazz, Samba and Funk duo (www.yemanja.com.au) 

Casey Plaza

Peoples Health Movement

The Peoples Health Movement, is a global coalition of grassroots and health activist organizations whose goal is to re-establish health and equitable development as top priorities in local, national and international policy-making.

Despite overall increases in life expectancy in the past century, economic prosperity and development is widening the gap between the healthy and wealthy on one hand, and the poor and unwell on the other.  Economic disparities both within and between countries has grown. In about 100 countries incomes are lower in real terms than they were a decade ago. By 1995, the world’s richest 225 people had the combined wealth equivalent to the annual income of the poorest 225 billion people in the world (nearly half of the world’s population). At the same time the environment is being plundered and degraded, and the world is facing a growing scarcity of renewable resources.

Health is a social goal and a responsibility across our whole society.  In both rich and poor countries, people’s health largely depends on the social conditions in which they work and live.  By acting on social causes of ill health, governments can reduce health disparities, promote population health and create and sustain economically viable societies.

Web http://phmovement.org/

Email: chamberl [at} ihug.com.au

@ Lentil as Anything G20 Alternative  Bistro / RMIT Union Function Room

DISMANTLING CORPORATE RULE

Corporations have become the dominant institution of our time. They have hijacked our government and economy – our very democracy. A movement is growing to claim our sovereign power to make corporations subordinate. This workshop teaches the history and context for corporate power and will help participants to take the “1st Steps” necessary to reclaim our democracy from corporations.  It will address the history and root causes of the rise of corporate power, and corporate usurpation of our democratic authority to govern ourselves, particularly via the legal doctrine of corporate personhood.

Corporate personhood is the legal doctrine which recognises corporations and private firms as having the same legal entitlements as natural persons, which in turn ensures corporate access to the democratic process while simultaneously guaranteeing it many of the same protections as private citizens.  Corporate personhood is what allows corporations to give donations to political parties; to lobby; to purchase other corporations and eliminate any restrictions to wealth and power, which in turn has allowed corporations an unnatural and hugely undemocratic influence over the political process.

The workshop will also address the origins of corporate personhood and the ascendancy of the corporate form.  It will include an analysis of the role of the royal corporate charters as a motivation for the American Revolution, and the restrictions placed on the corporate form in both Britain and the United States until 1886, when the US Supreme Court recognised that corporations were protected under the US constitution’s Bill of Rights.  This in turn gave rise to the modern corporation- in Australia and otherwise- as we know it today.It will also address how British law formed the legal context for the Australian colonies up until Federation, when the new constitution established for the first time a national context for administering and regulating the corporate form.  Significantly, corporate personhood was firmly and clearly written into the 2001 Corporations Act: “A company has, both within and outside this jurisdiction, the legal capacity of a natural person” (Corporations Act 2001 (Cth) s. 161).  The Corporations Act is the legal justification for the Howard government’s Industrial Relations laws.

Presented by Chris Doran

Building 8, Level 6, Room 47

REAL HOPE in Education and Governance

The aim of this workshop is to introduce participants to a new way of seeing the future and learning how to ‘be the change you wish the world to see’.  The presenter, Susan Carew is a World Peace Clown and on her return from Russia with Dr. Patch Adams developed the REAL HOPE values based anti-bullying program which she teaches in primary schools.  Susan has a degree in Economics and Marketing and completed Peace Studies at La Trobe University in 2002.  Susan is currently combining her work in schools and research.  She is working as a senior research analyst and believes social change comes from changing ourselves.  To do this we need to educate new generation of children with universal values and the tools to govern democratically.  Susan will
ntroduce participants to another way of seeing new possibilities through universal values, techniques and activities.   Participants will learn:

• R.E.A.L. H.O.P.E. – values based decision making model;
• Mediation;
• Collaboration;
• ICE – inspire, challenge and empower;
• Creative activities for connection and creativity;
• Clowning for stepping out of stereotypes;
• Generate new solutions.

So imagine the world you want to see happen and realize we have REAL HOPE for the future.

Check out the website on www.worldpeacefull.com or contact Susan at carews@iimetro.com.au

Building 8, Level 9, Room 43

Indigenous Visions,

The Mapuche vision after 500 years of foreign domination. Community organising to challenge Multinational incursions (logging, energy companies).

Carmen Curihuentro – The Mapuche Nation, Chile

Building 8, Level 6, Room 46

DREAMTANK: RAINBOW INDIGENOUS DREAMING: EARTH COUNCIL 2012

DREAMTANK PROMOTE THE FIRST WORLD REFERENDUM ON THE FORMATION OF EARTH COUNCIL. IN BILLIONS OF HEARTS THE DESIRE IS THERE. WE WILL PREVAIL OVER THE MULTI-NATIONAL CORPORATIONS, THE ELITES AND THEIR PUPPET GOVERNMENTS  WHO ARE NOT EVIL JUST IGNORANT. THE EARTH IS EXPERIENCING GLOBAL ECOCATASTROPHE RIGHT NOW!

There will be no jobs on a dead planet! We must save our planetary home. Without a vision we are without hope yet there is a cohesive dreaming happening right now. A collaboration of persons and organizations from around the world seek a true planetary government based on the sovereignty of the individual, eco-villages/cities and biosphere regionalization.

The Earth Council ethos is based an interpretation of Australian Aboriginal ethos regarding the proper relationship between human and human, and humans and other life forms:
 
1. Balance: A system cannot be life enhancing if it is out of kilter, and each part shares in the responsibility of sustaining itself and balancing others.
2. Response: Communication is reciprocal. There is here a moral obligation; to learn, to understand, to pay attention, and to respond.
3. Symmetry: In opposing and balancing each other, parts must be equivalent because the purpose is not to “win” or dominate, but to block thereby producing further balance.
4. Autonomy: No species, no group, or country is “boss” for another; each adheres to its own Law. Authority and dependence are necessary within parts, but not between parts.
 
Dreamtank promotes the idea everyone is responsible for this awakening, there own awakening and encourage the practice of inner work. Dreamtank supports the The Earthcharter Initiative. Contact www.earthcharter.com

Building 8, Level 9, Room 44