Post-Growth Australia Podcast - podcast cover

Post-Growth Australia Podcast

Michael Baylisspgap.fireside.fm
The podcast where better is definitely better than bigger. Do you think growing infinitely on a finite planet is an oxymoron? If the answer is yes, then this podcast is for you. In each episode of the Post-Growth Australia Podcast (PGAP), host Michael Bayliss talks to experts to unpack the notion of post-growth societies and what this means for us, for future generations and for the planet. Each episode will also play an environmental themed song from local artists. PGAP is made possible by the support of Sustainable Population Australia (SPA).
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Episodes

World Population Day 2025 with Valorie Allen

In the lead up to World Population Day (WPD) 2025, we welcome back Val Allen, who was previously a panel guest for the PGAP episode “3 Women 2 Countries 1 Message: World Population Day 2022 (https://pgap.fireside.fm/wpd2022).” Three years later, Val has a new book out – “HOW MANY IS ENOUGH?” -just in time for World Population Day 25. She is also in the process of finalising a new documentary “TICK TOCK BOOM BANG” due later this month, which she has produced along with Nick Bohle of HatChap produ...

Jul 09, 202515 min

Techno Dystopia and the Age of Humachines with Michael D.B. Harvey

In this episode of PGAP, we’re joined by Michael D.B. Harvey, author of "The Age of Humachines: Big Tech and the Battle for Humanity’s Future." Harvey offers a sobering perspective on the trajectory of modern technology - not towards a Star Trek-style utopia but into a hyper-neoliberal, corporate-driven dystopia shaped by Big Tech. His analysis strikes a chord with the Post-Growth community, which has long challenged the illusion that technology alone can rescue us from our social and ecological...

Jun 30, 20251 hr 27 min

Beyond the Petri Dish with George Tsakraklides

In this latest episode we speak with scientist, researcher and author George Tsakraklides about the deeper roots of humanity’s many crises. Drawing on his rich scientific background and corporate insight, George explores how our evolutionary wiring, societal structures and cultural narratives hinder meaningful change. We unpack the psychological forces driving self-destruction, the limitations of rational thought and the need to reconnect with a deeper sense of being. From the inherited challeng...

May 08, 202548 min

Protecting Australian forests against the endless growth paradigm with Susie Russell

Susie Russell is a long-time activist and campaigner for protecting Australia’s forests who holds committee positions in The North East Forest Alliance (https://www.nefa.org.au/), the North Coast Environment Council (https://www.ncec.org.au/), 4Nature (https://www.acnc.gov.au/charity/charities/e62f6142-3aaf-e811-a963-000d3ad244fd/profile) and The Rainforest Information Centre (https://www.rainforestinformationcentre.org/). Susie was awarded the Miles Dunphy Award in 2024 and soon after was arres...

Apr 04, 202555 min

PGAP Presents: UNSW Centre of Ideas –Degrowth

In 2024, the University of New South Wales (UNSW) held a panel discussion on Degrowth as part of their Centre for Ideas series. The panellists were Tommy Wiedmann (Professor of Sustainability Research), Bronwen Morgan (Professor of Law and member of NENA), and Sabrina Chakori (CSIRO researcher). The discussion was hosted by former Deputy Lord Mayor and author of Glimpses of Utopia, Jess Scully. The panel explored sustainability and the urgent challenge of ensuring human needs are met without com...

Feb 27, 20251 hr 13 min

Isaac Kabongo: Degrowth, COP talks and Family Planning in Uganda

Isaac Kabongo is the CEO of the Uganda-based Ecological Christian Organisation (ECO (https://ecouganda.org/)), a faith-driven initiative dedicated to fostering environmental stewardship at the grassroots level. ECO works to integrate sustainability with community-led action, including raising awareness about family planning and contraception. By reframing the relationship between Christianity, family planning, and discussions around population, the organisation provides an important bridge betwe...

Feb 02, 20251 hr 7 min

PGAP Welcomes Back Anne Poelina New Patron of SPA

In late 2024, Sustainable Population Australia (SPA) proudly welcomed Professor Anne Poelina as its newest Patron. This mini-episode features the audio recording from a video interview that co-host Michael Bayliss conducted with Anne as part of SPA's Meet the Patrons series. An abridged version of this interview is available on YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8wQjr0Gk6Uo). As a Nyikina Warrwa Traditional Owner from the Kimberley region of Western Australia, Professor Poelina brings a pr...

Jan 16, 202526 min

In Memoriam: Dr John Coulter

In this episode of Post-Growth Australia Podcast (PGAP), we pay tribute to Dr. John Coulter, who sadly passed away in September 2024. John Richard Coulter (3 December 1930 – 6 September 2024) was a trailblazer in the conservation movement, most notably serving as Leader of the Australian Democrats in the early 1990s. In 1971, he organised an open letter published in The Australian newspaper, addressed "to those who shape Australia’s destiny," urging them to recognise the limits to growth. (This ...

Dec 12, 20241 hr 4 min

Post US Election Blues: Where Do We Take Our Activism from Here?

The aftermath of the US election has left many of us in a state of shock. Voters were faced with a stark choice between more growth-based neoliberalism or alt right extremism, choosing the latter. It was a great day for billionaires either way. As Australia looks to face a very similar choice in mid-2025, it is clear that activists must take stock, recalibrate and work together effectively to advocate for a third alternative that celebrates people and planet. PGAP co-hosts Mark Allen and Michael...

Nov 28, 202448 min

PGAP presents Rethinking Sustainability Radio Documentary

Welcome back to a brand-new Season Seven of Post Growth Australia Podcast! As our world teeters on the edge of an increasingly perilous environmental future—extending beyond climate change—we must ask: what does true sustainability entail? How far are we from it, what are the root causes of our current trajectory, and what paths could lead us there? Rod Taylor (author, columnist, radio host) asks these very questions to eleven esteemed Australian scientists and thinkers in a brand-new radio docu...

Nov 17, 202457 min

Season Six Finale with Degrowth Network Australia

For the season six finale, PGAP welcomes three core members of Degrowth Network Australia: Sandy Gonzalez de la Vega Gonzalez, Tonié Field and Jess Prescott. According to the Degrowth blog (https://degrowth.info/en/degrowth): "As degrowth becomes a more familiar term worldwide, a loose informal network of Australian degrowth activists, scholars and advocates has emerged into the formal Degrowth Network Australia (DNA)." Although a new collective, DNA has already made their mark through workshops...

Aug 24, 202438 min

A Post Growth Approach to Urban Planning with Michael Buxton

The way we design and plan our cities and towns significantly influences our daily lives, which, in turn, affects our carbon emissions and ecological footprints. Australia's continually expanding cities are a striking example of this, illustrating the consequences of an unrelenting pursuit of growth. Fortunately, there are a few urban planners who recognise that transitioning to a degrowth, steady-state system is imperative for the future of urban planning. Our special guest, Emeritus Professor ...

Aug 13, 202449 min

Mini Episode: Shane Simonsen on Farming, Podcasts, Books and Population

In this mini episode, Post-Growth Australia Podcast reunites with Dr. Shane Simonson. Last time we spoke with Shane in PGAP season 3 (https://pgap.fireside.fm/zeroinput), he gave us a tour of his 'Zero Input Agriculture' farm in Queensland. We caught up with Shane to get an update of the farm - including the addition of some new four legged residents - only to discover that Shane has branched out accross many projects including: Cohosting the Going To Seed Podcast. (https://podcasts.apple.com/us...

Jul 25, 202415 min

World Population Day 2024 Special

Welcome to PGAP’s “World Population Day 2024” special, where your co-hosts Mark Allen and Michael Bayliss share their recent musings on sustainable population. World Population Day (https://www.un.org/en/observances/world-population-day) is an annual event, observed on July 11 every year, which seeks to raise awareness of global population issues. Our ‘manifesto’ on the population debate can be read on the PGAP blog: “To populate or not to populate? How we can come together around the eternal de...

Jul 09, 202443 min

Mini Episode: Larry Blight, Noongar Menang Friend of Yakamia Forest Boodja

This mini episode of PGAP is the 'soundtrack' to a recent seven-minute video that was made by Michael Bayliss on behalf of the Friends of Yakamia Boodja action group, "Meet Larry Blight, Menang Noongar Educator and Friend of Yakamia Forest Boodja (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5LnUMHckXEg&t=4s)" It touches on some of the main themes that were discussed during a more in-depth conversation that we had with Larry for the full-length episode of Season Five, "Conversation with Noongar Menang Ed...

Jul 02, 202411 min

Post Growth Guide with Marcus Feldthus

Our special guest for the first full length episode of this season is Marcus Feldthus from Post Growth Guide (https://www.postgrowthguide.com/). Post Growth Guide is a company that is based in Denmark, where Marcus Feldthus and Oscar Haumann work within the business community to assist other organisations in transitioning to post-growth ways of operating. This is crystalised in the handbook "Setting Limits To Growth: How to make better business decisions in the 21st century (https://www.postgrow...

Jun 23, 20241 hr 8 min

Mini Episode: Alex Baumann on Public Housing and Degrowth

Post-Growth Australia Podcast welcomes back Dr. Alex Baumann for a mini episode on housing and Degrowth. Alex was one of our star guests a couple of years ago, whose epsiode, "A Public Housing Revolution for Degrowth with Dr Alex Baumann (https://pgap.fireside.fm/degrowthousing)" remains one of PGAP's highest performing episodes. Alex returns to update us on the following: The launch of the De Gruyter Degrowth Handbook (https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.1515/9783110778359/html) and most ...

Jun 06, 202422 min

Season Finale: Going deep into Deep Ecology with John Seed

For the final episode of season 5, PGAP welcomes special guest John Seed (OAM). John is founder and director of Australia’s Rainforest Information Centre (https://www.rainforestinformationcentre.org/) and is an Australian figurehead for the Deep Ecology Movement (https://www.deepecology.net/). A long time hero of both co-hosts Mark and Michael, John combines decades of successful environmental activism with an emphasis toward re-establishing a deep emotional connection with the natural world. It...

Apr 01, 202459 min

BONUS EPISODE: Sustainable Population Australia says NO to a Big Australia

For this short bonus episode of PGAP, we welcome back Martin Tye, Social Media and Promotions Coordinator of Sustainable Population Australia (https://population.org.au/) (SPA). Martin shares with us the details of SPA's new campaign 'Say NO to a Big Australia!' He also gives us a heads up on SPA's public forum, being held in Adelaide on April 20th, "From housing crisis to eco-crisis: Why Australia's Population Growth is Unsustainable," including keynote speakers Leith van Onselen and Dr Jane O'...

Mar 21, 202412 min

Finding The Money with Maren Poitras

As this episode goes to air, a brand-new documentary on Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) is touring Australia and PGAP has been given the incredible opportunity to speak to USA based director of "Finding the Money (https://findingmoneyfilm.com/)", Maren Poitras. Maren has just embarked on a screening tour of South East Australia alongside Stephanie Kelton, who is a leading proponent of the MMT movement and author of ‘The Deficit Myth’ (https://stephaniekelton.com/book/). (Australian Poster) During t...

Feb 29, 202450 min

Debunking Green Growth with Timothée Parrique

For this episode of Post-Growth Australia Podcast, we go international by welcoming our esteemed guest Timothée Parrique, who is based in France and Sweden. Timothée is an economist at the School of Economics and Management of Lund University (Sweden). He has built a steady reputation as a colourful writer and speaker on the fallacies of our growth-based economy and is a loud and proud advocate of Degrowth, Post-Growth and Steady State based solutions. Topics discussed with Timothée in this epis...

Feb 08, 202458 min

Conversation with Noongar Menang Educator and Storyteller Larry Blight

Happy new 2024! For this very special episode of Post-Growth Australia Podcast, we interview Menang Noongar educator Larry Blight on site at the Yakamia forest, one of the few remnant pieces of bushland in Albany, which is currently under threat from overdevelopment (of course!) Larry discusses the environmental and cultural significance of the Yakamia forest. We then delve into a broader conversation across many issues such as overdevelopment, colonisation, the perils of neoliberalism and popul...

Jan 07, 202449 min

PGAP live at the NENA conference: Life After Capitalism

PGAP recently had the pleasure of travelling to Canberra to record live at the 2023 New Economy Network Australia (https://www.neweconomy.org.au/) (NENA) conference: ‘Life after Capitalism’. We recorded a collage of presentions and interviews with conferences attendees into order to showcase nearly two hours of Post-Growth goodness. This episode includes well-known names such as Tom Ballard, Donnie MacLurcan, Anitra Nelson and Gareth Hughes. (graphic courtesy of NENA) PGAP acknowledges the Ngunn...

Dec 14, 20231 hr 56 min

Jon Doust on education, The Voice, the art of losing and much more

On this episode of Post-Growth Australia Podcast, we are joined by Jon Doust - professional writer, speaker, comedian, performer, activist and trouble maker. Not only does Jon live in the same town as your PGAP hosts (Albany), he went to the same school as Michael. In this episode, we exchange notes on our formative years, which for Jon are documented in his trilogy of books ‘Boy on a Wire’, ‘Return Ticket’ and ‘To the Highlands.’ This provides a springboard for an in-depth discussion around the...

Nov 09, 20231 hr 14 min

Mark Diesendorf and the Path to a Sustainable Civilisation

We are certainly living in precarious times. We have transgressed six out of nine planetary boundaries (with more to come). The gap between the ‘haves’ and ‘have nots’ is beginning to look less like a gap and more like a chasm. The threat of wide-scale war looms large. How do we get ourselves out of this mess before Mad Max becomes a documentary? Luckily for us, Mark Diesendorf and Rod Taylor have co-authored a new book “The Path to a Sustainable Civilisation: Technological, Socioeconomic and Po...

Oct 03, 20231 hr 16 min

Planning for a Just Collapse with Kate Booth

It is not every day that urban planning and societal collapse are discussed in the same conversation. But for Kate Booth – activist academic and Associate Professor at the University of Tasmania, both are critical and interlinked issues. In this very educational episode, Kate talks us through the Insurgent Planning movement as well as the Just Collapse movement. At a time when Australia’s Federal Government is scrambling to build 1.2 million new homes while the recent climate data suggests that ...

Aug 31, 202355 min

Let’s Get Crazy with Rob Dietz from Crazy Town Podcast

Welcome to the season five premiere of Post-Growth Australia Podcast. What better way to launch our new season than with Rob Dietz, co-host of Crazy Town Podcast, (https://www.resilience.org/crazy-town-podcast/) perhaps the standard bearer of degrowth themed podcasts. (Rob Dietz). Rob is the Programs Director of Post Carbon Institute (https://www.postcarbon.org/) (PCI). A brilliant public speaker and story teller, Rob talks us through the journey of Crazy Town Podcast, which he co-hosts with col...

Aug 14, 20231 hr 5 min

Celebrating the 25th Anniversary of Population Media Center with Bill Ryerson

In 1998 Population Media Center (https://www.populationmedia.org/) (PMC) was formed to ‘make the stories that remake our world’. 25 years later, radio and TV shows, supported by PMC, have been heard throughout the world, including Ethiopia, Senegal and Papua New Guinea. Produced in collaboration with local communities and local scriptwriters, these shows share a common thread in that the audience are invited to consider positive family planning decisions through the role modelling of engaging an...

Jun 07, 20231 hr 2 min

Housing Crisis?? What Housing Crisis!!

Fun Fact! When your co-hosts Michael Bayliss and Mark Allen aren’t making brand new episodes of PGAP, they are involved in many other worthy enterprises. Michael has just co-written a brand new report “Population and the Housing Crisis”. Mark performed his debut show at the Adelaide Fringe, “The Boomer and The Doomer.” Like most things we do, this all flew under the blip of the mainstream media radar, so we took the opportunity this episode to interview each other on our respective endeavours. I...

May 25, 20231 hr

MMT for Activism with Gabrielle Bond

At PGAP, we are huge fans of Modern Monetary Theory (MMT). However, the question is often asked, how can an understanding of MMT, or a broader understanding of economics, help the cause when it comes to degrowth advocacy or environmental activism? For this episode, we warmly welcome Gabrielle Bond, CEO of Adelaide based Modern Money Lab and member of Extinction Rebellion, to tell us more about how MMT can inform our activism toward a better, more equitable, post-growth world. For further reading...

Apr 30, 202352 min
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