So much to reflect on!

Sup everyone,

Well isn't the year flying by! I can't believe we're almost halfway through 2025!

If you're reading this on Sunday morning and you're based in South-East Queensland, please make sure you come along this afternoon to the Justice for Palestine rally in Brisbane's CBD. It's kicking off at 1pm in King George Square.

I haven't emailed for a while, because the past few months have been crowded with election campaigning and grassroots community organising, but also because I figured most of you on this list would be receiving more than enough political commentary in your inboxes already.

But I have still been writing a bit. So here's a roundup of recent articles, a couple upcoming events you might be interested in, and a quick recap of some other stuff I've been up to...

The piece I most hope you'll make time for is this reflection on the recent election results, where I unpack some of the deeper challenges the Greens are facing. In it, I start to flesh out what I think is an important distinction between being perceived as 'extreme' (a subjective, ambiguous term) and being a genuinely anti-establishment party that practices what it preaches in terms of deeper systemic change (a slightly shorter article that covers similar ideas is also available on the Green Agenda website).

Establishment vibes: Do ‘extreme Greens’ criticisms hit harder when we’re no longer ‘doing politics differently’?

We can’t beat them if we play by their rules

Jonathan SriranganathanJonathan Sriranganathan

I also churned out this article immediately after the election, which is still pretty much on the money (even though at the time of writing, I don't think many people had clocked that Adam Bandt was also going to lose his seat).

Before the dust settles... What should we be attending to in the federal election aftermath?

Here’s what I’ll be thinking more deeply about over the coming days

Jonathan SriranganathanJonathan Sriranganathan

I've been particularly sad about Max Chandler-Mather losing the electorate of Griffith. He has been an excellent representative for my area over the past three years, who has done an amazing job of broadening the parameters of mainstream political debate.

I do, however, think it's very important to remind ourselves that the Greens' 2025 federal election campaign policy platform itself was, overall, quite conservative. Even on housing, the party stopped short of calling for complete, immediate abolition of negative gearing tax deductions, instead suggesting that property investors could still claim tax deductions on their first investment property – hardly an 'extreme' position!

I've been enjoying reading through some of the other election reflections published on Green Agenda – it's nice to see I'm not the only one calling for the Greens to reorient strategically.

For those who prefer listening over reading, you might also like to check out this post-election Radio Reversal podcast episode I recorded with Anna Carlson.

The Ongoing Crisis: Election Special w Jonathan Sriranganathan

Crisis, Disaster & Collective Futures

Radio Reversal: The Podcast's SubstackRadio Reversal Collective

And for something a little different, in the lead-up to Anzac Day, I published this article exploring a culturally significant Australian funeral ritual – the poppy service – that I haven't previously seen many people talking about...

Blurred rituals: Do poppy services at funerals amplify the emotional resonance of Anzac Day?

On artificially connecting nationalist military traditions to the intense grief at a loved one’s passing…

Jonathan SriranganathanJonathan Sriranganathan

A couple months ago, when it looked like the federal Labor party was in a lot more trouble, I wrote this piece about the risks of the Greens rolling over too easily in balance of power situations. Although the party's House of Representatives result has turned out to be far worse than I'd hoped at the time, I think this article is actually even more relevant now... The Greens still hold the balance of power in the Senate, giving the party significant leverage if the party room is wise enough to use it effectively. However there's a very significant risk that the Greens' mediocre election result will lead to a more timid strategic approach in the Senate, passing suboptimal Labor bills rather than pushing for bigger changes. Give it a read, and please share it with any activists you know.

Can activists ensure the Greens won’t sell out in balance of power negotiations?

Australia could be approaching a critical political moment that those of us with an interest in deeper systemic change would be wise to start talking about now. There are no guarantees, but it’s looking increasingly likely that neither major political party will hold enough seats after the coming federal

Jonathan SriranganathanJonathan Sriranganathan

Cyclone Alfred feels like a long time ago now, but I'm quite proud of this piece I wrote in the immediate aftermath, and I think the reflections will remain relevant as we face a future of more frequent severe weather events. Although Alfred wasn't nearly as destructive as many had feared, it still revealed significant deficiencies in the ways governments and communities respond to such events.

Capitalist systems are so rigid that many of us couldn't even take time off work to help our neighbours or prepare our homes for the possibility of destructive cyclonic winds. What does this say about the way we've structured our lives and our relationship to time itself?

Cyclone time: Capitalism and river mud on the streets of Brissie

What if our entire relationship to time and work isn’t compatible with a changing climate?

Jonathan SriranganathanJonathan Sriranganathan

For those who've been following my work on other channels, you might also have seen that I've been supporting various forms of housing justice activism over the past few months. I would've liked to be even more active in this space, but election campaigning sucked up a lot of my time.

One particular action that I think deserves more discussion and critical analysis is an anti-eviction protest I was involved in out at Runcorn on Brisbane's south side in late April.

Sadly, the tenants have now had to leave (I'll share more details about the broader saga in a subsequent article). But the immediate success of this specific protest reminded me of the significant, latent potential of anti-eviction organising.

I shared some of my reflections in a longer video on Tiktok.

For those of you who aren't yet sick of election reflections, I also wanted to invite you to join an online discussion I'm facilitating this Tuesday afternoon (the recording will also be posted online afterwards for those who are already busy at 1pm on a Tuesday).

While the Greens vote fell in many of the party's strongest electorates (for reasons explained in the articles I've shared above), candidates running in outer-suburban electorates with higher levels of cultural diversity and housing stress actually saw significant positive swings. This was particularly obvious in the southern half of the Moreton electorate (where I was actively involved in supporting Remah Naji's campaign), and in the western Melbourne electorate of Fraser, where Huong Truong ran an amazing campaign, achieving what I think was the strongest swing towards the Greens in the whole country.

I'm really looking forward to chatting with these two amazing women about their campaigns. Excitingly, it looks like Senator Mehreen Faruqi will also be able to join us for this important discussion, to add her reflections on the experiences in western Sydney.

Make sure you register for this event via Remah's website, and you'll be emailed a link to the Zoom discussion. To help spread the word, you can also share and invite friends to the Facebook event.

For those of you based in Brisbane, I wanted to remind you that my good mate Andy maintains a weekly email newsletter called BREAD promoting upcoming protests and radical community events. If you're trying to minimise social media use but still want to stay in the loop, I strongly recommend subscribing.

Oh and for anyone who's interested in my music, I have two gigs coming up with my band Rivermouth!

On Saturday, 14 June at the Cave Inn in Woolloongabba, we're playing a 35-minute set at Casual Sequence's Music Market Day, a great (free) community event where artists converge to share skills and creations.

And on Saturday, 28 June, we're performing on the main stage at Northey Street City Farm's Winter Solstice Festival.

Hopefully if you're in town, I'll see you at one of these gigs!

Finally, I wanted to invite some feedback from regular readers. This is a very short survey (just 2 questions) to help me understand what kinds of articles/commentary you're most interested in.

Please take a moment to share your thoughts! If you have more detailed feedback for me, you're of course also welcome to just flick me an email.

Apologies in advance for sometimes taking a few weeks to reply to everyone who contacts me – I'm getting a lot of emails. This mailing list now has almost 800 subscribers (only a small proportion of whom are paying subscribers). I'd like to express my deep gratitude to everyone who is supporting this work financially, and also to everyone who regularly shares my articles online.

I feel like this is a particularly important political moment in which to be producing radical political commentary and analysis, and I'd love to be able to put more time into writing (and replying), so if you're currently a free subscriber and can afford to upgrade to a $1/week paid subscription, I'd be incredibly grateful...

Thanks again for reading! As always, I encourage you to forward this email to anyone else who might be interested in my work.

See you on the streets!

In solidarity,
Jonathan