Matt Ryan

Imagine kicking the former national rugby captain out of your sports club instead of the gambling lobby.

To paraphrase Groucho Marx, who'd want to belong to a club that would accept Responsible Wagering Australia as one of its sponsors?

This is incredible news, and shows the incredible power of collective action. The fight against the neoliberal university (my own included) goes on, but its nice to hear some good news for a change.

Very interesting! Why do you think this is?

The Production Gap report is one of the most important publications I know of.

With each iteration we see fossil capital continuing to bet against our future.

Either we curb fossil fuel production on the supply side, or we all burn - market prices will not wind this industry down.

Rachel Reeves tells private equity bosses she plans to shut down more regulators Chancellor stopped short of saying which regulators were in government’s crosshairs

The Labour government, in its relentless quest to prove Marxists were right about the state, is about to hand more of our every day life to private equity

share.google/kbaGuwRP7XsS...

Based on current policies, oil & gas demand could grow for 25 years rather than peaking this decade as expected, according to a IEA draft report

Coal consumption will peak in the 2030s, but demand in 2050 would be over 50% higher than expected, according to calculations by @javierblas.bsky.social

This is huge!

As the world rapidly heads into #climate #overshoot I've noticed a disturbing pattern in journal articles recently.

I'll summarize it quickly in this thread 🧵

Neither corporate nor government: Why university governance needs to be different, and better Marija Taflaga, Francis Markham and Keith Dowding. Preprint, 29 August 2025. https://doi.org/10.25911/MWW4-9781 Abstract Australian universities face a governance crisis rooted in failures of accountability. Unlike parliaments and corporate boards, university councils lack effective mechanisms for principals to discipline agents. In parliaments, voters can replace elected representatives; in corporations, shareholders can vote out directors. Both systems close the delegation–accountability loop, ensuring alignment between principals and outcomes. University councils, however, are self-perpetuating bodies dominated by external appointees, and in recent decades they are typically from corporate backgrounds. As neither producers nor consumers of universities’ core product—knowledge creation and dissemination—they have minimal intrinsic stake in academic outcomes leaving councils detached from the university’s core mission. This misalignment fosters mission drift, weakens oversight, and contributes to repeated scandals. Because councils largely appoint their own successors, they remain insulated from meaningful scrutiny, unlike boards or parliaments where underperformance is sanctioned externally. Restoring accountability requires giving academic staff and students a renewed oversight role, alongside clear safeguards for the public interest. Because academics and students are both producers and consumers of knowledge, they have a direct and enduring stake in its quality. We recommend two mechanisms to do this are: 1. Academic Senates empowered to appoint and review council members, ensuring councils reflect the university’s purpose. 2. Robust Committee Systems that embed staff and student voices in decision-making, reduce information asymmetries, and align incentives with academic purposes.

Australian universities are in a governance crisis. VC pay blowouts, scandals, mission drift — these aren’t random, they’re structural.

This new working paper with @marijataflaga.bsky.social & Keith Dowding digs into why the system is broken, and how to fix it.

doi.org/10.25911/MWW...

A thread:

The government's proposed FOI Act amendments are out.

Media has focused on the new submission fee, but far more alarming are changes making it easier for govt to block access to public information.

Two in particular stand out:

ANU at a crossroads: between the social body and the iron cage - Overland literary journal The organic solidarity on display across ANU gives the institution its moral clarity and counterweight to a bureaucracy that risks becoming a case as hard as steel. In the last six months, ANU staff, ...

A gut-wrenching read from a brilliant scholar, on the crisis at ANU. It speaks to the broader sickness in our universities (including my own).

FYI @frankbongiorno.bsky.social @hannahforsyth.bsky.social @capandgown.bsky.social @joshuablackjb.bsky.social

overland.org.au/2025/08/anu-...

'Huge' leak from gas plant kept secret from public in 'national scandal' Documents reveal the scale of carbon pollution leaking from a Darwin LNG tank was like adding 8,300 new cars to the road every year. It is about to be filled again.

For decades the world's biggest above-ground tank - located 7km from Darwin- has been leaking huge quantities of LNG- possibly the equivalent of millions of tonnes of C02.

Labor policy adviser says to lower expectations on climate targets Ryan Cropp Ryan Cropp Energy and climate reporter Aug 27, 2025 – 4.32pm Save Share Gift this article A key Labor climate adviser has warned the government against setting its 2035 emissions target too high, arguing that any goal north of 60 per cent will require a major expansion of emissions reductions in the transport, industrial and agricultural sectors. Frank Jotzo, the author of a forthcoming Labor-commissioned report into a potential carbon border tax, said excessively ambitious policies being proposed by some climate groups would be impractical and easily undermined by opponents of change.

"any goal north of 60 per cent will require a major expansion of emissions reductions in the transport, industrial and agricultural sectors"

yep that is the entire point?????????????????????????????????????????????

www.afr.com/policy/energ...

Record Clean Energy Additions Ease Blackout Fears in Australia Australia is at reduced risk of blackouts over the next decade thanks to a rapid buildout of renewables and batteries that will help offset the retirement of the nation’s coal fleet, according to the ...

Australia might finally be on track to have enough renewables to dodge blackouts as our coal fleet retires over the next decade, according to a new AEMO forecast.

Last year we added a record 4.4 GW of solar, wind & batteries, with more on the way.

Story: www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

tfw your joint intellectual project makes it out of the group chat. Thanks @kurtiveson.bsky.social for your astonishing write up of our work! We're merely picking up on the threads of spatial and environmental political economy laid down by yourself and many others!

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And the original article is here: www.ppesydney.net/content/uplo...

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Read more here:

ses.library.usyd.edu.au/handle/2123/...
ses.library.usyd.edu.au/handle/2123/...
ses.library.usyd.edu.au/handle/2123/...

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The most special part of this story is that
@kurtiveson.bsky.social
has read our work as a collective project - which is precisely what it is. I guess this is what it looks like when a joint intellectual project makes it out of the group chat, and into the world.

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How can we understand the socio-ecological relations set in train as "commodity frontiers" rolled across stolen Aboriginal land? A question I grappled with through the internally-related stories of wool, coal, and sugar.

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So how does the ecosocialist method travel to the settler colonies of Australia and Aotearoa? How does it speak to the Capitalocene, or the 'overshoot' conjuncture?

Issue 95 (Winter 2025) - 50 Years of Political Economy in Australia - Progress in Political Economy (PPE) SPECIAL ISSUE – 50 YEARS OF POLITICAL ECONOMY IN AUSTRALIA Complete issue JAPE95 complete Contents The Editors: Editorial Voices of Former Students of Political Economy: Anthony Albanese; Thalia Antho...

50 Years of Political Economy. Some fantastic articles, but only one has brought me to tears.

@kurtiveson.bsky.social's generous contribution takes time to dwell on the PhD theses of @natashaheenan.bsky.social, Anna Sturman, and myself.

@ppesydney.bsky.social

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www.ppesydney.net/jape-issues/...

PhD Scholarship: Pacific Powers - Flinders University

Announcing a PhD scholarship for a history project on imperialism and great power projection in the Pacific. Supervised by Prudence Flowers and I here at Flinders, Adelaide. It includes an international fee waiver and stipend. Start Jan 2026. www.flinders.edu.au/scholarships...

There is a lot written on the crisis in our universities. You wont find anything more concise, from anyone more qualified, than this excellent, short piece from @hannahforsyth.bsky.social

🚨 PhD Scholarship 🚨

Thinking about a PhD on the political economy of climate change? Want to work with some of the kindest and best scholars in the field? Do this.

Tbh, I'm jealous of whoever gets this!!!

A thousand times, yes!

"while it’s true that special interests cannot stop the world’s shift toward renewable energy, they can significantly slow it"

"if it takes us anything like 40 years to get there, forget it. The world that we run on sun and wind is going to be broken."

Fight fossil capital.

Climate target malpractice As the Albanese government prepares to announce Australia’s 2035 climate target, pressure is mounting to show greater ambition. A cut in greenhouse gas emissions of at least 75 per cent below 2005 lev...

Australia's emissions are flat, not falling.

I've often tried to explain *clearly* how Aus "cooks the books" with their land-sector emissions accounting - but I never pull it off. It's a good thing we've got @pollyjhemming.bsky.social to help us.

www.thesaturdaypaper.com.au/comment/topi...

Marching through Macquarie

Ben with Damien

Mehreen Faruqi speaks to rally

Proud to stand with my Sociology colleagues, joined by @mehreenfaruqi.bsky.social @damiencahill.bsky.social and the mighty @nteunion.bsky.social against the devastating cuts proposed at Macquarie University

YouTube video by Journal of Industrial Relations Climate, Law & Labor: A Conversation on Work Health and Safety in a Warming World #videoabstract

What happens when climate change collides with labor law & workplace safety? Eugene Schofield-Georgeson and I discuss our recent articles from @jirjournal.bsky.social on how frameworks are adapting—or failing to adapt—to the realities of climate disruption

youtu.be/-Vh17Whrygs?...

Made it past halfway, then got turned around. Well done everyone! Truly a day of humanity.