Planet Local Voices II with Warwick Smith

Warwick Smith is an Australian economist, ecologist, writer and policy analyst, working across many areas of economic research, from labour and taxation to environmental and wellbeing economics. He has He’s an honorary fellow at the University of Melbourne's School of Social and Political Sciences, co-founder and economist at the Castlemaine Institute and a co-founder of the Castlemaine Community Investment Co-operative. He’s been putting strategies for localised economic development into practice for many years. In this episode, Warwick introduces his town of Castlemaine on Dja Dja Wurrung country in Victoria, Australia, and the range of interesting projects happening there. He shares the process of starting the Castlemaine community investment cooperative, which is acquiring real estate for the community and by the community, remove it from rampant speculation to support the local culture, community and economy instead. He stresses relationship building as a key part of this hands-on work, and reflects on ways to help ordinary people and public policymakers understand and put into practice alternative economic development ideas.