Welcome friend. Here we are at the ground floor of a new platform for people and planet.
Hothouse Magazine – a safe space for dangerous ideas. Who, what, why? Here’s a little back story.
I’m Matt Bray, founder and current Chief Editor of this new entity Hothouse. A portal whose purpose is to amplify stories from the climate, environment and social justice community.
Over the past 5 years I have had the opportunity to collaborate with a lot of organisations in the purpose space. From my work with Comms Declare building a community of marketers pledging to not work with fossil fuel clients and running the Fossil Ad Ban campaign in Australia – to collaborating with dozens of organisations in the environment and community space through my creative studio Art Disrupt – to running events to encourage connection and conversation as part of People Planet Pint and Environmental Film Festival Australia – and a few other bits and bobs. I’ve been busy.
On this journey I have met thousands of amazing people connecting and contributing to the solving the biggest challenges communities are facing on a planet on fire. People focused on solutions and taking action – often under resourced and under the radar. Theirs were stories that needed to be told, at scale. And just over a year ago a team from this community gathered to scratch an itch – how do we help this go mainstream? After a strategy session around a boardroom table at a coworking space in Richmond Hothouse was born. A safe space for dangerous ideas. A seed planted, ready to be activated.
But to kick this off we needed time and money and Hothouse was parked until the capacity to inject resources became available. Off the back of a few collabs I had found space to put some time into progressing the Hothouse project. So here we are. And what Hothouse Magazine becomes is 100% dependent on the community it supports. This is our story.
As we set up shop things will be running pretty lean but soon we’ll be sharing content, events, actions and activities that you can participate in for an informed, inclusive and connected community.
Well, that’s the plan anyway.
Sign up to the newsletter. Our content is going to be top tier.
And if you’re flush with cash, or have access to the bosses credit card, flick us a donation to help us get things moving quicker to a bigger audience.
In solidarity.
Matt Bray
Hi Matt, I found hothousemag.com via the “Parties Are the Problem” posters appearing at traffic lights round our neighbourhood. I’m puzzled. Are the posters a call-to-action? What does Hothousemag hope these posters will change? Is this the top priority message towards a sustainable society?
Political parties exist and persist in every society for good reasons. Without them, parliaments would be forever mired in chaotic pub-fights between hundreds of individual views without sufficient coherence or influence to win votes for good decision making.
Yes, I know, parliament does look like a pub fight at times and it’s decisions are not always wise. But by any realistic standards, our parliamentary democracy works well.
It’s also true that non-aligned independents have been a positive influence on parliament. But their effect depends on their having coherent party policy to push against. If there were no political parties the ‘independents’ would be no different to any other MP and no more influential.
The problems are the problem. The idea that a political system built on hundreds of disparate, uncoordinated politicians without collective resources in listening, research and policy would make better decisions, ignores 200 years of experience and evidence from around the world. If there were no political parties, we’d have to invent them.
‘Parties Are the Problem’ doesn’t actually mean anything. It’s just unthinking, evidence-free, how-I-feel opinion. It’s a distraction from the real problems for people only too happy to be distracted.
Thanks for your comment Ian. Our posters are designed to prompt two reflections on the current political landscape in Australia.
1. Do the two major parties, when in power, govern in the best interests of the Australian community?
2. Are there alternatives to the ‘two party system’?
Australians have a unique opportunity with preferential voting to select your local candidate that best represents your values and if unsuccessful that vote gets passed on to the next candidate at full value. This allows voters to confidently support their local candidate/s, in order of preference, they feel is best for the job without the stigma of a wasted vote.
These posters give an entry point into the conversation around alternatives and potential for change.