Imagining Peace

In the autumn of 2010, I walked the land for seven weeks with a group of women carrying a message stick. The journey tested both my patience and my feet, but I am glad that I managed to participate as long as I did. The peace walk was a watershed event. It came as I was walking away from ten years of community advocacy work to promote supportive housing for people with mental health issues, while working as a freelance editor.

My previous work with Education Queensland involved working with students seeking healing for emotional and relationship problems. This is skilled peace work. I see my work at Barrett Adolescent Centre and with the peace convergence as public and private aspects of essential systems reform.

In the summer of 2015–16, with the words of our PM Malcolm Turnbull championing “innovation”, I approached the lead housing bodies in Queensland with a public-private partnership proposal. I already knew from earlier investigations that the state lags in housing and support offerings. At this time federal funds were up for grabs to address domestic violence and the legal team was focused on grant applications. But even when they did finally phone me back, the word was that this was not in the framework of their operation and innovation was not a concept they were prepared to embrace.

Bracing myself, I offered a single tenancy-for-life to a friend with complex needs. Since then my aim has been to encourage participation in the community and to establish networks of support. It has been satisfying to verify that the principle of “housing first” can bring stability, healing, confidence and personal growth.

I am grateful for the many opportunities I have had to give back to the community and I believe everyone has something special to offer. I strongly support the introduction of a universal basic income that is linked to individualised social contracts overseen by circles of support in the community.

It is a privilege to bring a reformer’s zeal to broken systems and to endeavour to explain where belief systems are not congruent. With a deep belief that violence never solved anything, it is disturbing to me that violence is still state sanctioned. Our First Nations had a system of diplomacy developed over 60 000 years: we need to acknowledge and learn from that.