A head of lettuce hits $12, supermarket shelves start looking a little thinner, floods cut communities off for weeks — and suddenly “local food” stops being a lifestyle trend and starts looking like common sense. Tianda Williams joins Voices of the New Economy to explore how uForage is helping people re-localise food systems by turning surplus into shared nourishment. uForage is a community-powered food map that connects backyard growers, small producers, foragers and neighbours — making it easier to find local eggs, honey, herbs, seasonal produce, and even wild food growing in plain sight. The conversation moves from lived experience to practical systems change: why food insecurity is often a distribution problem, how community networks become lifelines during climate disruption, what foraging can teach us about abundance and place, and why the “technology that disconnected us” might also help reconnect us — if it’s built with the right values.

Tianda Williams is a rural Australian advocate for sustainable, community-driven food systems and the co-founder of uForage, a grassroots platform helping people connect with local growers, backyard abundance, and foraged food. A mother and survivor of domestic violence, Tianda’s work is shaped by lived experience and a deep commitment to making sure no one goes hungry — especially as climate disruption and supply shocks make big food chains feel increasingly fragile. Through uForage, she’s helping communities re-localise food, reduce waste, and rebuild the everyday networks that make resilience possible.

Voices of the New Economy is a collaborative storytelling project of NENA. The podcast is produced by the Humanitarian Changemakers Network (HCN), an Anchor Organisation of NENA, as part of its commitment to strengthening economic literacy, amplifying community innovation, and supporting pathways to systemic change. Each episode features researchers, practitioners, organisers, and everyday changemakers working across disciplines and communities to re-imagine how our economies can serve people and planet.

LISTEN & EXPLORE FURTHER

A full companion article for this episode is available here.

Connect with NENA: Website, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn

Connect with Humanitarian Changemakers Network (HCN): Website, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn

Get involved: NENA members and friends are warmly invited to participate in the podcast — as interviewees, storytellers, or contributors to the NENA Storytelling Hub. To get involved, visit the Hub page or email: nena@neweconomy.org.au

What does a “new economy” look like when it’s grounded in democracy, agency, and the limits of the living world? Audrey, co-founder of People for Nature, shares how a lifelong connection to insects and the mountains eventually led her from corporate communications and decarbonisation tech into citizen-powered climate and biodiversity work. Together we unpack why information alone doesn’t shift systems, how tools like Climate Fresk and Biodiversity Collage help people see interconnections, and what it takes to turn eco-anxiety into eco-agency. Audrey also reflects on the promises and pitfalls of technocratic solutions, the power of local stewardship (from backyard pesticide choices to koala monitoring), and why meaningful change is built through thousands of “do your part” actions that ripple outward through communities.

Audrey Barucchi is the co-founder of People for Nature and a passionate advocate for climate and biodiversity literacy as the foundation for systems change. With a background spanning economics, corporate communications, and decarbonisation technology, she bridges science and storytelling to help people understand complex environmental challenges — and feel empowered to act on them. Originally from France and shaped by a lifelong love of insects and the natural world, Audrey now works to transform eco-anxiety into eco-agency, equipping communities with the tools, confidence, and connection needed to build a more regenerative, nature-aligned future.

oices of the New Economy is a collaborative storytelling project of NENA. The podcast is produced by the Humanitarian Changemakers Network (HCN), an Anchor Organisation of NENA, as part of its commitment to strengthening economic literacy, amplifying community innovation, and supporting pathways to systemic change. Each episode features researchers, practitioners, organisers, and everyday changemakers working across disciplines and communities to re-imagine how our economies can serve people and planet.

LISTEN & EXPLORE FURTHER

A full companion article for this episode is available here.

Connect with NENA: Website, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn

Connect with Humanitarian Changemakers Network (HCN): Website, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn

Get involved: NENA members and friends are warmly invited to participate in the podcast — as interviewees, storytellers, or contributors to the NENA Storytelling Hub. To get involved, visit the Hub page or email: nena@neweconomy.org.au

Economics doesn’t need reinventing, Eugene argues — it needs remembering. Fresh from his tenth year at the World Economic Forum in Davos, he shares what it looks like when the world’s most powerful rooms split into two camps: those still polishing strategy on paper, and those ready to tear it up and act.

The conversation moves from trillion-dollar talk to street-level reality: why modern systems can “perform exactly as designed” even when they’re failing most of us; how the doctrine of growth collides with the doctrine of significance; and what it means to build an economy that elevates individuals and communities without creating harm elsewhere. Eugene also unpacks the rise of AI and “responsibility diffusion”, offering a grounded challenge for changemakers: stay in critical-thinker mode, keep agency alive, and design for long-term service rather than short-term returns.

Eugene is a strategist, storyteller and former photojournalist whose work sits at the crossroads of business, culture and systems change. After starting his career in New York newsrooms in the wake of 9/11, he moved through advertising and corporate strategy in Australia, building a behind-the-scenes view of how organisations shape behaviour, markets and narratives. For the past decade, he’s been immersed in global convenings like the World Economic Forum in Davos — this year marking his tenth time on the ground — translating “ivory tower” conversations into practical insights for founders, creatives and changemakers. He’s the author of Built to Collapse: A Tale of Unlimited Growth When Growth Costs You Everything, a business-fiction critique of the growth machine that calls us back to first principles: service, sustainability, and significance.

Voices of the New Economy is a collaborative storytelling project of NENA. The podcast is produced by the Humanitarian Changemakers Network (HCN), an Anchor Organisation of NENA, as part of its commitment to strengthening economic literacy, amplifying community innovation, and supporting pathways to systemic change. Each episode features researchers, practitioners, organisers, and everyday changemakers working across disciplines and communities to re-imagine how our economies can serve people and planet.

LISTEN & EXPLORE FURTHER

A full companion article for this episode is available here.

Connect with NENA: Website, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn

Connect with Humanitarian Changemakers Network (HCN): Website, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn

Get involved: NENA members and friends are warmly invited to participate in the podcast — as interviewees, storytellers, or contributors to the NENA Storytelling Hub. To get involved, visit the Hub page or email: nena@neweconomy.org.au

This episode dives into the world of co-operatives and why they are such a powerful — and often overlooked — foundation of the new economy. Antony McMullen unpacks what actually makes a co-op different from a conventional business, and why those differences matter in practice, not just in theory. From democratic decision-making and shared ownership to responsibility for people, place and purpose, the conversation explores how co-operative principles shape the everyday realities of running an enterprise. Drawing on examples from Australia and around the world, the episode reveals the surprising scale and diversity of the global co-operative movement — from mutual banks and agricultural co-ops to worker-owned businesses and community-led infrastructure. Rather than treating co-operatives as a utopian fix, this discussion is grounded and honest, exploring both their strengths and their challenges, and showing how they offer a practical way for people to participate more meaningfully in economic life.

Antony McMullen is a co-operative developer working at the intersection of the social economy and community-led enterprise. He is Chair of Co-operative Bonds, co-founder of 888 Co-operative Causeway, and host of Mutual Mindset, a national learning program supporting co-operative development in Australia. With qualifications in community development, social impact, and theology, Antony has supported the design and growth of co-operatives across a wide range of sectors, including community services, energy, agriculture, and finance, and brings a long-standing commitment to democratic ownership models that align economic activity with social and ecological wellbeing.

Voices of the New Economy is a collaborative storytelling project of NENA. The podcast is produced by the Humanitarian Changemakers Network (HCN), an Anchor Organisation of NENA, as part of its commitment to strengthening economic literacy, amplifying community innovation, and supporting pathways to systemic change. Each episode features researchers, practitioners, organisers, and everyday changemakers working across disciplines and communities to re-imagine how our economies can serve people and planet.

LISTEN & EXPLORE FURTHER

A full companion article for this episode is available here.

Connect with NENA: Website, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn

Connect with Humanitarian Changemakers Network (HCN): Website, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn

Get involved: NENA members and friends are warmly invited to participate in the podcast — as interviewees, storytellers, or contributors to the NENA Storytelling Hub. To get involved, visit the Hub page or email: nena@neweconomy.org.au

This conversation with Dr Elizabeth McDougal explores why education is not a supporting player in economic transition, but one of its deepest foundations. Drawing on contemplative pedagogy and Buddhist approaches to learning as whole-person cultivation, Elizabeth reflects on how modern education systems often privilege cognitive performance and measurable outcomes, while sidelining relational, somatic, imaginative, and reflective ways of knowing. The discussion connects learning to the wider patterns of modernity and extraction, and asks what it would take to cultivate the kinds of discernment, metacognition, and capacity to hold complexity that regenerative futures require. The episode offers a grounded invitation to slow down, rethink what counts as knowledge, and recognise that new economies emerge through the ways we learn to live.

Dr Elizabeth McDougal is a lecturer in Contemplative Pedagogy and Applied Buddhist Studies at Nan Tien Institute, where learning is approached as whole-person cultivation. Her work focuses on bridging pre-modern Tibetan contemplative culture with contemporary education and social change, and she has spent many years living and learning within Tibetan Buddhist monastic contexts across India and the Tibetan plateau. Elizabeth’s research explores how cultural change reshapes ways of knowing, and how pedagogies that integrate relational, somatic, intellectual, and imaginative intelligences can strengthen critical discernment and the capacity to navigate complexity. She also serves as a translator and community coordinator supporting the transmission of Tibetan contemplative traditions in the modern world.

Check out the NTI’s Conversations series.

Voices of the New Economy is a collaborative storytelling project of NENA. The podcast is produced by the Humanitarian Changemakers Network (HCN), an Anchor Organisation of NENA, as part of its commitment to strengthening economic literacy, amplifying community innovation, and supporting pathways to systemic change. Each episode features researchers, practitioners, organisers, and everyday changemakers working across disciplines and communities to re-imagine how our economies can serve people and planet.

LISTEN & EXPLORE FURTHER

A full companion article for this episode is available here.

Connect with NENA: Website, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn

Connect with Humanitarian Changemakers Network (HCN): Website, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn

Get involved: NENA members and friends are warmly invited to participate in the podcast — as interviewees, storytellers, or contributors to the NENA Storytelling Hub. To get involved, visit the Hub page or email: nena@neweconomy.org.au

A new economy cannot be separated from the question of governance: who makes decisions, whose interests are prioritised, and how communities can hold power in systems increasingly shaped by commercial influence. In this conversation, GP and population health educator Dr Peter Tait outlines why good governance is foundational to human and ecological wellbeing, and why civil society must become more active in reshaping the political process. The discussion explores practical pathways to democratic renewal — including electorate-level accountability, deliberative forums such as citizens’ assemblies, and more direct democratic models that move beyond “showing up to vote and having a sausage”. Throughout, Peter argues that economies do not exist as abstract forces; they are the product of choices, rules, and decision-making systems — and those systems can be redesigned to better serve the public good.

Dr Peter Tait is a practising general practitioner who works in mental health and alcohol and other drug care, and teaches population health at the Australian National University. Through clinical medicine, public health, and long-term engagement with environmental and peace initiatives, he came to identify governance failure as a recurring cause behind many of the harms affecting communities and ecosystems. He convenes the Canberra Alliance for Participatory Democracy, supporting stronger civic participation and practical pathways toward good governance, and is committed to advancing decision-making systems that protect wellbeing and the public good.

Voices of the New Economy is a collaborative storytelling project of NENA. The podcast is produced by the Humanitarian Changemakers Network (HCN), an Anchor Organisation of NENA, as part of its commitment to strengthening economic literacy, amplifying community innovation, and supporting pathways to systemic change. Each episode features researchers, practitioners, organisers, and everyday changemakers working across disciplines and communities to re-imagine how our economies can serve people and planet.

LISTEN & EXPLORE FURTHER

A full companion article for this episode is available here.

Connect with NENA: Website, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn

Connect with Humanitarian Changemakers Network (HCN): Website, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn

Get involved: NENA members and friends are warmly invited to participate in the podcast — as interviewees, storytellers, or contributors to the NENA Storytelling Hub. To get involved, visit the Hub page or email: nena@neweconomy.org.au

This conversation with Robin, Coordinator of Live Well Tasmania, explores how economies might be redesigned to support wellbeing, connection, and ecological care rather than endless growth. Drawing on her background in economics, environmental science, and community development, Robin discusses Community Based Income — a proposal for a liveable wage paid for caring, learning, and community contribution — and how it differs from universal basic income. The discussion moves through the psychosocial roots of unsustainability, the role of trust in economic life, and why inner transformation is inseparable from cultural and systems change. Together, the conversation asks what it would take to build an economy that truly enables people and communities to live well.

Robin is the Coordinator of Live Well Tasmania, where she has worked for the past decade to support community-led responses to sustainability, wellbeing, and social connection. She holds a Bachelor of Economics, a Qualifying Masters in Environmental Science, and a PhD in sustainable communities, and previously worked for 12 years with CSIRO. Robin also tutors in social science at the University of Tasmania. Her work focuses on the psychosocial dimensions of sustainability, the redesign of work and income, and the role of community-based approaches in fostering cultural transformation. Learn more: https://lwt.org.au/

Voices of the New Economy is a collaborative storytelling project of NENA. The podcast is produced by the Humanitarian Changemakers Network (HCN), an Anchor Organisation of NENA, as part of its commitment to strengthening economic literacy, amplifying community innovation, and supporting pathways to systemic change. Each episode features researchers, practitioners, organisers, and everyday changemakers working across disciplines and communities to re-imagine how our economies can serve people and planet.

LISTEN & EXPLORE FURTHER

A full companion article for this episode is available here.

Connect with NENA: Website, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn

Connect with Humanitarian Changemakers Network (HCN): Website, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn

Get involved: NENA members and friends are warmly invited to participate in the podcast — as interviewees, storytellers, or contributors to the NENA Storytelling Hub. To get involved, visit the Hub page or email: nena@neweconomy.org.au

A bold and challenging conversation with Robert McLean, retired newspaper editor and host of the podcast Climate Conversations, explores one of the most deeply held assumptions of modern life: that progress depends on ever-increasing work and consumption. Robert makes the case for a four-hour work day as a practical response to climate breakdown, arguing that people in wealthy countries need to become financially poorer in order to use less energy, slow material throughput, and reduce the risk of the worst climate impacts. The discussion moves through what this shift could mean for transport, everyday consumption, and the texture of community life, while also reflecting on why big ideas can sound impossible until we decide to take them seriously.

Robert McLean is a retired newspaper editor and former editor of The Shepparton News in northern Victoria. After a long career in community journalism, he turned to podcasting to amplify conversations about climate change and the systemic choices that drive ecological harm. He is the creator and host of Climate Conversations, where he speaks with a wide range of thinkers and organisers, including voices from degrowth, universal basic income, and other new economy movements. Robert is also the convenor of ABC Friends Goulburn Valley, occasionally writes columns for his former newspaper, and regularly attends public lectures in Melbourne.

Voices of the New Economy is a collaborative storytelling project of NENA. The podcast is produced by the Humanitarian Changemakers Network (HCN), an Anchor Organisation of NENA, as part of its commitment to strengthening economic literacy, amplifying community innovation, and supporting pathways to systemic change. Each episode features researchers, practitioners, organisers, and everyday changemakers working across disciplines and communities to re-imagine how our economies can serve people and planet.

LISTEN & EXPLORE FURTHER

A full companion article for this episode is available here.

Connect with NENA: Website, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn

Connect with Humanitarian Changemakers Network (HCN): Website, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn

Get involved: NENA members and friends are warmly invited to participate in the podcast — as interviewees, storytellers, or contributors to the NENA Storytelling Hub. To get involved, visit the Hub page or email: nena@neweconomy.org.au