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Not a Date to Celebrate with Clothing the Gaps · She's On The Money

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: My name is Tatasha Bamblet. I'm a proud First Nations
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: woman and I'm here to acknowledge country t Glenn Young
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: Ganya Nianar Kaka yah y and Binahaka nian Our gay
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: In Mbini yakarum Jar Dominyamiga Umagahawakawaman Damon Imlan Bomba ban
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: Gadabomba in and now in wakah ghan On, yak rum
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: Jar water Nadaa. Hello, beautiful friends, we gather on the
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: lands of the Aboriginal people. We thank, acknowledge and respect
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: the Aboriginal people's land that we're gathering on today. Take
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  Speaker 1: pleasure in all the land and respect all that you see.
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: She's on the Money podcast acknowledges culture, country, community and connections,
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: bringing you the tools, knowledge and resources for you to thrive.
• 0:45
  Speaker 2: She's on the Money.
• 0:47
  Speaker 3: She's on the Money.
• 1:07
  Speaker 2: Hello, and welcome to She's on the Money.
• 1:10
  Speaker 4: The podcast that is here to have big money conversations.
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  Speaker 4: I'm Victoria Devine and today's episode might feel a little
• 1:17
  Speaker 4: bit different, and that's exactly the point. January twenty six
• 1:22
  Speaker 4: is not a date to celebrate for many of us,
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  Speaker 4: especially our First Nation's community and friends. It's a day
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  Speaker 4: of mourning, a reminder of loss, resilience and the work
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  Speaker 4: that is yet to still be done. So instead of
• 1:34
  Speaker 4: our regular Money Diaries episode, we wanted to use this
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  Speaker 4: moment for something bigger on this date, a moment to listen,
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  Speaker 4: to learn, and to talk about how we can all
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  Speaker 4: show up in a way that's respectful, informed and impactful.
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  Speaker 2: And to help us do that, we're.
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  Speaker 4: Joined by my friends Laura Thompson and Sarah Sheridan from
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  Speaker 4: Clothing the Gap, an incredible Indigenous led social enterprise that's
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  Speaker 4: turned a clothing labor into an absolute movement. Through their work,
• 2:03
  Speaker 4: they've built community created jobs and helped thousands of Australians
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  Speaker 4: understand exactly what it means to vote with your dollar,
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  Speaker 4: not just today, but every single day. In this episode,
• 2:15
  Speaker 4: together we're going to unpack how Clothing the Gaps began,
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  Speaker 4: the gaps they're closing, and what it takes to build
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  Speaker 4: a profit for cause brand from the very ground up
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  Speaker 4: and practical ways that we can show support, including the
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  Speaker 4: ways that don't cost a thing. A very warm welcome
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  Speaker 4: to my friends Lauren and Sarah.
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  Speaker 2: Thank you.
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  Speaker 5: It's really lovely to be here and I feel like
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  Speaker 5: we can just wrap up now, because I feel like
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  Speaker 5: you just all of that uh.
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  Speaker 4: Cool, Yeah, Indigenous Social Enterprise, You're doing a really good job.
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  Speaker 4: You've created job just like raising winess. Yeah, tick and
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  Speaker 4: a gap. I'm so excited to have a chat with
• 2:51
  Speaker 4: you guys, and especially on today, I feel like so
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  Speaker 4: many people in our community are in that limbo of
• 2:57
  Speaker 4: like do we talk about it? Do we not talk
• 2:59
  Speaker 4: about it? Do we mention it? And like, what a
• 3:01
  Speaker 4: better way than to get the two of you here
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  Speaker 4: to go? This is what we need to be sharing.
• 3:06
  Speaker 4: These are the conversations we are having, and I just
• 3:09
  Speaker 4: feel so grateful that you're allowing me to use you
• 3:12
  Speaker 4: guys to educate our community, because like, it's not it's
• 3:15
  Speaker 4: not my place to be like this is important. I
• 3:18
  Speaker 4: want to hear it from the mouths of the horses basically,
• 3:21
  Speaker 4: So let's get to know the two of you a
• 3:24
  Speaker 4: little bit better. I want to go all the way
• 3:26
  Speaker 4: back to the very beginning. How'd you meet? What sparked
• 3:29
  Speaker 4: clothing the gap?
• 3:30
  Speaker 5: Yeah, it's a great question, Victoria. So Laura and I
• 3:34
  Speaker 5: met eleven years ago when I approached laws to join
• 3:39
  Speaker 5: the Victorian Aboriginal Health Services Healthy Last our team as
• 3:43
  Speaker 5: a UNIQU placement student. Oh cool, Yeah, so Laws was
• 3:46
  Speaker 5: actually my boss. Fun fact Ooh how the tables have two?
• 3:51
  Speaker 2: She's still my boss.
• 3:52
  Speaker 4: It's okay, same, same, but like the respects levels, I
• 3:56
  Speaker 4: feel like you're a little bit different. The dynam makes
• 3:57
  Speaker 4: it different.
• 3:58
  Speaker 5: Eleven years of getting to making back together, it's yeah,
• 4:01
  Speaker 5: it's been pretty fabulous.
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  Speaker 4: It's so cool.
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  Speaker 5: Yeah. So I was, you know, yet another non Indigenous
• 4:05
  Speaker 5: student who wanted to do their placement at the health service.
• 4:08
  Speaker 5: And I'd been spending some time working alongside some other
• 4:12
  Speaker 5: different Aboriginal organizations back in Melbourne, and everybody kept telling
• 4:16
  Speaker 5: me that I needed to meet Laura.
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  Speaker 2: And it's really funny.
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  Speaker 4: I still like, cool, who's Laura.
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  Speaker 5: It was like, sounds good, we'll do that, and it's
• 4:22
  Speaker 5: really funny. I've still got my diary from oh my God,
• 4:25
  Speaker 5: like my last year of UNI, and it's hilarious. And
• 4:27
  Speaker 5: there's this like one week where it's like a coffee
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  Speaker 5: with Laura at US ten am and then it's like
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  Speaker 5: crossed out and it's like moved to Tuesday.
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  Speaker 2: It's like coffee with Laura three pm.
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  Speaker 4: Like she just cany me throughout the week, just let
• 4:39
  Speaker 4: her know where she's stand.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, you really didn't want to buy me at the start. Hey, yeah,
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  Speaker 2: that's true. I was just really busy doing the work
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  Speaker 2: on the ground.
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  Speaker 6: Yeah.
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  Speaker 4: Absolutely. And a coffee you're like a coffee with like
• 4:53
  Speaker 4: no shade, But coffee with a student, I just don't
• 4:56
  Speaker 4: have capacity right now, I get that.
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  Speaker 6: Yeah, And I it was already had like non indigenous
• 5:02
  Speaker 6: students in the team, and they do take a lot
• 5:05
  Speaker 6: of time and one hundred to familiarize themselves with Aboriginal
• 5:11
  Speaker 6: community control and work that we're doing. So I'm a
• 5:14
  Speaker 6: Gunna Jamara woman and grew up in Collingwood fit Troy,
• 5:18
  Speaker 6: but my family were really influential and actually establishing the
• 5:21
  Speaker 6: Victorian Aboriginal How cool.
• 5:24
  Speaker 2: Yeah. So eventually Sarah and I did catch.
• 5:28
  Speaker 4: Up and you liked each other.
• 5:30
  Speaker 2: Yeah, we each other's energy.
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  Speaker 6: Yeah, And Says did a placement and I offered her
• 5:36
  Speaker 6: a role and.
• 5:37
  Speaker 5: We worked together at the Health Service about three and
• 5:39
  Speaker 5: a half years and we got to create some really
• 5:41
  Speaker 5: incredible impact together. But the really hard part about it,
• 5:45
  Speaker 5: I guess, was that it was all really dictated by
• 5:47
  Speaker 5: government funding cycles.
• 5:48
  Speaker 4: Yeah, and that's really rough. I see that coming up
• 5:50
  Speaker 4: time and time again. When I speak to people, they're like,
• 5:53
  Speaker 4: we really want to have this impact and we know
• 5:55
  Speaker 4: how great it would be, but we on't access funding.
• 5:58
  Speaker 4: And I guess that's a lot of what we talk
• 5:59
  Speaker 4: about trees on the money, like how do we get
• 6:01
  Speaker 4: money to actually have the impact that people deserve to have.
• 6:07
  Speaker 6: We're both health promotion practitioners. We both have backgrounds in
• 6:10
  Speaker 6: public health, but we used to call ourselves health promotion
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  Speaker 6: entertainers because we really did bring.
• 6:16
  Speaker 2: All the sparkle to engage community.
• 6:19
  Speaker 4: Yeah, and you have to. It's like not just about
• 6:21
  Speaker 4: the paid parts, Like you've got to be engaged and
• 6:24
  Speaker 4: if you're not, like people aren't going to engage with you,
• 6:26
  Speaker 4: and then you're not going to get your funding.
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  Speaker 6: Absolutely, I think we've done a really good job at
• 6:31
  Speaker 6: motivating community to make healthy lifestyle choices. And yeah, we
• 6:36
  Speaker 6: wanted to do that on a bigger scale, and we
• 6:39
  Speaker 6: felt limited by the government, so we said, let's.
• 6:42
  Speaker 2: Start our own business.
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  Speaker 4: So we.
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  Speaker 5: Started a health promotion consultancy, which we always say is
• 6:50
  Speaker 5: a really hilarious business to start when the biggest competition
• 6:54
  Speaker 5: in the market actually does it for free good of
• 6:57
  Speaker 5: your health.
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  Speaker 2: But you know that's why just pretend they do any
• 7:00
  Speaker 2: which is.
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  Speaker 4: What we did.
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  Speaker 5: No, we actually had some really lovely partnerships and we
• 7:04
  Speaker 5: had two contracts before we left our job, our full
• 7:07
  Speaker 5: time jobs at the health service that an orders to
• 7:09
  Speaker 5: sort of step out with a bit of confidence that
• 7:13
  Speaker 5: we had some work to start off with. So the
• 7:16
  Speaker 5: first business that we started together was actually called Spark Health,
• 7:19
  Speaker 5: which means that when closing the Gaps very first started,
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  Speaker 5: we always had merch as part of the incentivization piece
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  Speaker 5: of participating in the program. So if you came to
• 7:29
  Speaker 5: four out of six of our health and wellbeing sessions,
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  Speaker 5: you got your free singer I mean, and the singer.
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  Speaker 2: Means yeah, exactly right.
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  Speaker 5: Like people love like and trust me like community love
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  Speaker 5: free merch, especially.
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  Speaker 4: Somebody who runs a community community.
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  Speaker 5: And the so I guess like in like long before
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  Speaker 5: I joined the team, like this is a thing that's
• 7:48
  Speaker 5: been around for a really long time, Haylaws.
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  Speaker 6: Yeah, And the only way that you could get it
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  Speaker 6: was through participating.
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  Speaker 2: It was basically a bribe, but.
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  Speaker 4: You have to show But I also like that you
• 7:58
  Speaker 4: have to show up to get it. And it's like
• 8:00
  Speaker 4: that like you know when people like go overseas and
• 8:03
  Speaker 4: they come back with a tope bag with where they've
• 8:04
  Speaker 4: been because they want everybody to know, like you're wearing
• 8:07
  Speaker 4: your singlet, because you want people to know you're involved.
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  Speaker 4: And I think that's actually really beautiful as well, because
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  Speaker 4: they're like, not just promoting you, but they're proud of
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  Speaker 4: being associated.
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  Speaker 6: And you could only it was that shared experience. You
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  Speaker 6: couldn't buy the T shirt that only you could only
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  Speaker 6: earn it, and it really created a sense of community
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  Speaker 6: of people I guess that were living those healthy lifestyle values.
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  Speaker 6: But we were only working with I guess, the local
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  Speaker 6: Aboriginal community, mostly in Melbourne, but in sometimes in the
• 8:37
  Speaker 6: broader Victorian community.
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  Speaker 2: At that point, even in our new business.
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  Speaker 6: Our focus really was on the health of the Victorian
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  Speaker 6: Aboriginal community, which is stunning.
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  Speaker 4: And then from that clothing the gap eventuated. So how
• 8:50
  Speaker 4: did you pivot from being like, okay, we're in health
• 8:52
  Speaker 4: promotion to having free merch that we give out to
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  Speaker 4: now we sell the merch and actually it's not merch
• 9:00
  Speaker 4: the whole business.
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  Speaker 2: How does that like? Because that's a shift. It was
• 9:04
  Speaker 2: never ever the plan. Do you mean you didn't wake
• 9:07
  Speaker 2: up and go so I want to be in fashion?
• 9:12
  Speaker 7: No, no, oh, I know, and we always we always
• 9:18
  Speaker 7: laugh about it, like we personally we love fashion and clothes,
• 9:22
  Speaker 7: but we never saw ourselves Yeah.
• 9:24
  Speaker 4: No, me, It's like me, like, I just couldn't imagine
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  Speaker 4: that pivot, Like, yeah, especially when you're so impact driven.
• 9:33
  Speaker 4: You're just like, no, like fashion and stuff is so fun,
• 9:36
  Speaker 4: but like that's not where the impact is. But you've
• 9:38
  Speaker 4: drawn them together.
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  Speaker 6: But it was like at the same time, when you know,
• 9:42
  Speaker 6: I was the one sort of creating those that free
• 9:45
  Speaker 6: incentivized merchandise. You know, there wasn't a whole lot in
• 9:48
  Speaker 6: the market that where people could actually wear their culture
• 9:51
  Speaker 6: and designs.
• 9:52
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 9:53
  Speaker 6: So it was a real signifier to mob to be
• 9:55
  Speaker 6: proud of who they are when they wore that single it.
• 9:57
  Speaker 8: Yeah.
• 9:58
  Speaker 6: So I was always wanting to look for ways, even personally,
• 10:02
  Speaker 6: that I could get up every morning and dress myself
• 10:04
  Speaker 6: and let people know, yeah.
• 10:06
  Speaker 2: My mom and this is what I care about.
• 10:08
  Speaker 6: Yeah, And I've been my whole life looking for those
• 10:10
  Speaker 6: opportunities to do that. So the real shift happened in
• 10:14
  Speaker 6: twenty twenty when COVID hit and all of those programs
• 10:18
  Speaker 6: that were delivering in delivering in community were no longer deliver.
• 10:22
  Speaker 5: So we'd gone essentially from like I felt like I
• 10:25
  Speaker 5: lived out of my car and was like delivering kills
• 10:27
  Speaker 5: and well being programs like right across like we were
• 10:29
  Speaker 5: I was in Geelong like two nights a week, in Melton,
• 10:32
  Speaker 5: like we were everywhere, and then all of a sudden,
• 10:35
  Speaker 5: we and we pivoted really fast at that first outset
• 10:38
  Speaker 5: of COVID, Like I think, like, you know, we were
• 10:40
  Speaker 5: at office works buying webcams when there was still webcams
• 10:43
  Speaker 5: at office works. We were quick.
• 10:45
  Speaker 4: You guys were wrong.
• 10:46
  Speaker 5: Yeah, yeah, no, we really really had to be. And
• 10:49
  Speaker 5: I guess like one of the other parts is is
• 10:51
  Speaker 5: that when we started Spark Health, we had the merch right,
• 10:53
  Speaker 5: and the merch just kind of like it was kind
• 10:56
  Speaker 5: of like it was doing it seeing a little bit,
• 10:58
  Speaker 5: and it was sort of this tricky bit of like
• 11:01
  Speaker 5: do we do more?
• 11:03
  Speaker 2: Is it a distraction? You do we get to that
• 11:05
  Speaker 2: sort of that crossroads.
• 11:06
  Speaker 4: You're like we either it's popular more cross or is
• 11:09
  Speaker 4: it or we stop totally?
• 11:11
  Speaker 6: And do we have enough energy to spread ourselves so
• 11:14
  Speaker 6: thin across now?
• 11:15
  Speaker 4: Merchandise seeing you guys were too busy, busy, especially because
• 11:19
  Speaker 4: you don't have a lot of funding, you're trying to
• 11:20
  Speaker 4: make it stretch. You're like trying to work out where
• 11:23
  Speaker 4: to be and I'm assuming you're pretty like I won't
• 11:25
  Speaker 4: say burnt out yet, but like, girl, if you're saying
• 11:28
  Speaker 4: I was in gelonged tonight's week and then I'm a
• 11:29
  Speaker 4: melting Like I don't think you were not stressed. No,
• 11:32
  Speaker 4: it was a lot.
• 11:33
  Speaker 6: Yeah, we're at the cold face of health promotion delivery
• 11:37
  Speaker 6: in community most nights when it was convenient.
• 11:41
  Speaker 4: Yeah, and that's exhausting as well, like emotionally, like that's
• 11:44
  Speaker 4: just a lot to take. I always talk about it
• 11:46
  Speaker 4: in that I don't know if I could work in
• 11:49
  Speaker 4: those areas because I would take so much of at
• 11:51
  Speaker 4: home and like it would overwhelm me.
• 11:54
  Speaker 2: But like you've got that and you're traveling, and then
• 11:56
  Speaker 2: it was the work. Should we do prisons?
• 11:58
  Speaker 6: And I was dressing up as a superhero and like
• 12:01
  Speaker 6: just all the things like we loved.
• 12:03
  Speaker 4: I'm not surprised, Like when you walked in, you have
• 12:06
  Speaker 4: that energy that you're just somebody I want to know better.
• 12:09
  Speaker 2: I'm like learning now. I'm like, yeah, I see, we
• 12:14
  Speaker 2: started a game show. It was really fun.
• 12:16
  Speaker 5: So I'm essentially just a taller, funnier, Grant Daniel and
• 12:20
  Speaker 5: and it was called spark Feud, you know, family feud.
• 12:24
  Speaker 2: We literally we surveyed our taking a.
• 12:26
  Speaker 5: Job absolutely move over, move over, and we would get
• 12:30
  Speaker 5: booked to deliver this game show we had like a
• 12:33
  Speaker 5: road show, got costumes and all.
• 12:38
  Speaker 8: That.
• 12:38
  Speaker 4: I didn't know about.
• 12:39
  Speaker 5: You guys were brilliant.
• 12:42
  Speaker 2: We might do it. You know, we'll bring it out especially.
• 12:46
  Speaker 6: I mean, it was awesome, but it was we were
• 12:49
  Speaker 6: One of the biggest worries for us at that time
• 12:52
  Speaker 6: was literally burnout. It's not to say that we don't
• 12:55
  Speaker 6: work extremely hard now, we always are, but was that
• 12:58
  Speaker 6: forward facing community.
• 13:01
  Speaker 2: That's literally where my brain went.
• 13:02
  Speaker 4: I'm like, these girls are putting in so much energy,
• 13:06
  Speaker 4: how are they getting it back?
• 13:08
  Speaker 6: The thing was we we built communities of people that
• 13:11
  Speaker 6: were changing behaviors.
• 13:13
  Speaker 4: Yeah, incredible.
• 13:14
  Speaker 6: So then when it come to COVID if remember that time,
• 13:18
  Speaker 6: a few things happened to us. One of them was
• 13:22
  Speaker 6: we received a cease and desist from Gap Clothing.
• 13:27
  Speaker 5: Yep, so we got a notice of intent to oppose
• 13:29
  Speaker 5: our trademark application from Trail Little Bin.
• 13:32
  Speaker 4: Yeah, which was hectic, not for you, for them, like,
• 13:35
  Speaker 4: don't put that in the bin. You probably should do
• 13:36
  Speaker 4: something about that, and we should think about it. But also, yeah,
• 13:39
  Speaker 4: we didn't put it in the bin, Victoria. We put
• 13:41
  Speaker 4: it in the top drawer because we had six months
• 13:43
  Speaker 4: to deal with it. So that was literally a later Ye,
• 13:46
  Speaker 4: we forget about it now you can.
• 13:48
  Speaker 2: Go right there for a moment.
• 13:50
  Speaker 6: And then some of the merch that we had created
• 13:52
  Speaker 6: for Spark Merch also had the Aboriginal flag on it. Yeah,
• 13:55
  Speaker 6: so then we got another seas and desist from when
• 13:59
  Speaker 6: Clothing because the original flag was copyrighted and you needed
• 14:02
  Speaker 6: to ask for permission and pay for it.
• 14:04
  Speaker 2: I was like, oh, we're.
• 14:05
  Speaker 6: Pretty shocked to hear about that. Maybe we'll do something
• 14:08
  Speaker 6: about this.
• 14:08
  Speaker 4: Yeah, then that feels like I get it, but I'm
• 14:11
  Speaker 4: shocked to hear about that as well. I just would
• 14:13
  Speaker 4: have thought that that's owned by community, like and then
• 14:17
  Speaker 4: you know, as an Indigenous woman yourself, if you would
• 14:19
  Speaker 4: like to use that, that's yours, bab, like, you can
• 14:22
  Speaker 4: put that wherever you want. Turns out that's not the case, though,
• 14:24
  Speaker 4: had upset.
• 14:25
  Speaker 6: Yeah, and because it's the official flag of Australia.
• 14:28
  Speaker 2: I think a lot of people can understand kind of
• 14:30
  Speaker 2: a bit that way.
• 14:31
  Speaker 5: But it was this really weird thing where the Aboriginal
• 14:33
  Speaker 5: flag had been proclaimed as an official flag of the country,
• 14:36
  Speaker 5: so therefore covered by the Flags Act, which.
• 14:39
  Speaker 4: You guys really went hard.
• 14:40
  Speaker 2: When you were like, let's get into some trademarking issues.
• 14:43
  Speaker 2: You were like another small business was interested. You were like, yes,
• 14:46
  Speaker 2: it was the government.
• 14:48
  Speaker 5: It was there, and then it was also so it
• 14:52
  Speaker 5: was publicly owned a public flag, and then also privately
• 14:56
  Speaker 5: owned so it had a copyright on it, and then
• 14:59
  Speaker 5: from the cop right was licensed. So then it was
• 15:02
  Speaker 5: actually the licensee holder when clothing for us.
• 15:06
  Speaker 2: So we freed it.
• 15:07
  Speaker 6: We got please help us two and a half years.
• 15:13
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I'll look back on us up until that point.
• 15:15
  Speaker 6: I thought this will be you know, our legacy, you know,
• 15:19
  Speaker 6: you know, and the community's legacy, I think and clothing
• 15:22
  Speaker 6: the gaps legacy really around how we used fashion to
• 15:25
  Speaker 6: create social change. It was actually that uh, that work
• 15:30
  Speaker 6: that made us decide we can change legislations, we can
• 15:34
  Speaker 6: change laws if you know, through the clothing brand. And
• 15:39
  Speaker 6: it made sort of take a step back from the
• 15:42
  Speaker 6: forward facing health promotion delivery and use fashion to build communities.
• 15:49
  Speaker 6: But this time, and this was the thing we'd never
• 15:51
  Speaker 6: done was inviting non indigenous people into the space, and
• 15:56
  Speaker 6: they were just hanging out waiting to be like we
• 16:00
  Speaker 6: want to help tell us what to do?
• 16:02
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, that's that's here. I'm ready to go.
• 16:05
  Speaker 4: Yeah that's me. I'm like in the wings, like I
• 16:07
  Speaker 4: want your voices to speak louder than mine. But like,
• 16:10
  Speaker 4: how do I help you open those doors? Because I
• 16:12
  Speaker 4: know there are so many doors that I could help open,
• 16:14
  Speaker 4: but I'm not the one that should then work through them,
• 16:16
  Speaker 4: and so like you just kind of wait and go what.
• 16:19
  Speaker 2: Do you need?
• 16:19
  Speaker 4: How can I help?
• 16:20
  Speaker 2: What can I do?
• 16:21
  Speaker 4: And you guys like just wait, just wait.
• 16:24
  Speaker 2: I want to ask about.
• 16:25
  Speaker 4: Clothing the Gap, like witty, funny, hilarious, like what a
• 16:28
  Speaker 4: good name for clothing brand? But it means so much more.
• 16:31
  Speaker 4: Can we talk a little bit about these gaps that
• 16:34
  Speaker 4: you are trying so hard to close and being successful
• 16:37
  Speaker 4: out by the way, But like when you started, you
• 16:40
  Speaker 4: were like cool, clothing the Gap, and I'm sure there
• 16:43
  Speaker 4: were like a lot of things that you were planning.
• 16:44
  Speaker 4: How's that changed?
• 16:46
  Speaker 6: Yeah? I think like when I think the government initiative
• 16:50
  Speaker 6: closing the gap, lots of people and knew about it.
• 16:54
  Speaker 2: I think one of the things we struggled with.
• 16:56
  Speaker 6: Early on was people realizing if they were the perch
• 17:00
  Speaker 6: from us, what the impact of that purchase meant.
• 17:02
  Speaker 2: And when we used the name clothing, the.
• 17:06
  Speaker 6: Gap people associated with perfect Yeah, and for us, one
• 17:10
  Speaker 6: of those gaps we initially wanted to close was the
• 17:13
  Speaker 6: health gap.
• 17:14
  Speaker 2: But I think as.
• 17:15
  Speaker 6: We've progressed in the business, we've realized, you know, some
• 17:18
  Speaker 6: of those gaps that we've actually been able to close
• 17:20
  Speaker 6: around building allyship, advocating, educating, and looking. I guess, what
• 17:26
  Speaker 6: are those social justice issues that we want to bring
• 17:29
  Speaker 6: attention to for First Nations people. That's what we've been
• 17:33
  Speaker 6: able to do through the visibility of the brand.
• 17:34
  Speaker 5: Yeah. Absolutely, And I think there was this really interesting
• 17:37
  Speaker 5: turning point for us when probably when we first started
• 17:40
  Speaker 5: producing clothes, it was if we can sell enough clothing
• 17:43
  Speaker 5: because at the start, like no seed funding, no rich
• 17:48
  Speaker 5: investors came and hung out with us, and we're like,
• 17:50
  Speaker 5: we have one hundred thousand.
• 17:51
  Speaker 2: Dollars to take it, do what you want. None of
• 17:52
  Speaker 2: those It was literally was.
• 17:54
  Speaker 5: And ie savings and just in reinvesting every single dollar
• 17:59
  Speaker 5: that we earned into the business. So at the start,
• 18:02
  Speaker 5: it was very much like if we can, you know,
• 18:05
  Speaker 5: if we can sell enough merch like maybe one day
• 18:08
  Speaker 5: we won't have to subcontract back into the people who
• 18:12
  Speaker 5: we were essentially.
• 18:13
  Speaker 2: Being booked for jobs.
• 18:14
  Speaker 8: Yeah.
• 18:14
  Speaker 5: Yeah, you can just run the programs and just do
• 18:18
  Speaker 5: the work that community is asking of us to do,
• 18:21
  Speaker 5: rather than having to essentially tender for work and then.
• 18:24
  Speaker 2: Do the thing.
• 18:25
  Speaker 4: But you have to do what you've got to do.
• 18:27
  Speaker 5: And like anybody who's listening that's thinking about, you know,
• 18:30
  Speaker 5: what their own thing looks like, like, you just do
• 18:33
  Speaker 5: what you have to do to make it work, right,
• 18:35
  Speaker 5: And then it really flipped in being able to see
• 18:38
  Speaker 5: the power of the brand of as US was talking
• 18:41
  Speaker 5: about as public health and as health promotion in and
• 18:45
  Speaker 5: of itself. But I like to use the analogy of
• 18:48
  Speaker 5: a really really like easy public health. Example is an
• 18:52
  Speaker 5: a frame out the front of a cafe in amongst
• 18:54
  Speaker 5: the tables that says, this is a smoke free zone.
• 18:57
  Speaker 4: Perfect.
• 18:57
  Speaker 5: It changes the way that that environment feels. It changes
• 19:00
  Speaker 5: the way that people behave there, It changes what people
• 19:03
  Speaker 5: do there. Yeah, if I see in a cafe and
• 19:06
  Speaker 5: I wear might always was, always will be T shirt,
• 19:09
  Speaker 5: it changes this way that that space feels, changes the
• 19:13
  Speaker 5: expectation of what conversations that at least one person are
• 19:17
  Speaker 5: except to tolerate, you know, for me as a non
• 19:21
  Speaker 5: Aboriginal person, you know, for save, if lawds were seeing
• 19:25
  Speaker 5: at a table opposite, how would that make you feel
• 19:27
  Speaker 5: those I'll.
• 19:27
  Speaker 6: Be like, Oh, this person cares about first first na
• 19:33
  Speaker 6: pretol check. I feel like maybe we could connect, maybe
• 19:36
  Speaker 6: we could be friends.
• 19:38
  Speaker 4: Yeah, you know, but even then, it's just so nice
• 19:40
  Speaker 4: to see just ourship. You don't even have to talk
• 19:42
  Speaker 4: to each other too.
• 19:43
  Speaker 6: It's just that change, like maybe this cafe is for me, Yeah,
• 19:48
  Speaker 6: and it is, but like and it should be. It's
• 19:50
  Speaker 6: just a visible presentation in that. So essentially, public health
• 19:55
  Speaker 6: is anything that makes an environment safer, healthier for people.
• 20:00
  Speaker 2: And we know that a reduction in or an.
• 20:03
  Speaker 5: Elimination of racism in spaces, yeah, directly contributes to health
• 20:09
  Speaker 5: and well being for people. So I would still say
• 20:11
  Speaker 5: that we are still very much doing public health.
• 20:13
  Speaker 2: It just looks probably a little bit different, very different,
• 20:16
  Speaker 2: and we got more fashion guys more fashion.
• 20:19
  Speaker 6: But I mean if the health we always say this
• 20:21
  Speaker 6: health promotion was the best business background we could have
• 20:25
  Speaker 6: to be successful and what we're doing because we never
• 20:28
  Speaker 6: ever focused on e commerce or sales. It was always
• 20:30
  Speaker 6: about the message, and it was always about building community,
• 20:33
  Speaker 6: and it was always about changing behaviors. But Victoria, one
• 20:36
  Speaker 6: thing we forgot to mention was in twenty twenty, it
• 20:38
  Speaker 6: was also the murder of George Floyd. It was yeah,
• 20:42
  Speaker 6: and that was also a pivotal moment where people started
• 20:45
  Speaker 6: to buy from us because there was also those Black
• 20:48
  Speaker 6: Lives Matter rallies at that time. One of the first
• 20:51
  Speaker 6: people in the market. We had a few T shirts.
• 20:53
  Speaker 4: You would have been able to be really responsive to
• 20:56
  Speaker 4: that situation.
• 20:57
  Speaker 6: We were, and we had to free the flag T
• 20:59
  Speaker 6: shirt and always was always will be T shirt in
• 21:01
  Speaker 6: the shape of the Aboriginal flag.
• 21:03
  Speaker 2: Trying to get around that copyright.
• 21:05
  Speaker 4: Issue being a little bit sneaky, Yeah, I have to do.
• 21:09
  Speaker 2: We've spent a lot of time thinking about how we can.
• 21:13
  Speaker 4: Seen stuff. But I super love it because it's not like, oh,
• 21:16
  Speaker 4: we're trying to rip off another brand. It's like, no,
• 21:18
  Speaker 4: we're trying to claim this back and we haven't got
• 21:21
  Speaker 4: it yet, but we know we're going to get it,
• 21:23
  Speaker 4: but we.
• 21:23
  Speaker 2: Haven't got it yet. And I just I love it.
• 21:25
  Speaker 2: And that's why we took the color.
• 21:27
  Speaker 6: We called it the empty flag, and it was like
• 21:29
  Speaker 6: the shape of the Aboriginal flag without the color.
• 21:31
  Speaker 4: Yeah, that's not it.
• 21:32
  Speaker 5: It's not the same. Like how much do we have
• 21:34
  Speaker 5: to change it for it to not be a breach
• 21:36
  Speaker 5: of the licensing agreement anymore?
• 21:38
  Speaker 6: And we talk quite openly about this. We were like
• 21:40
  Speaker 6: inundated with with sales. We had people lining up down
• 21:45
  Speaker 6: the street to get a T shirt. We just could
• 21:47
  Speaker 6: not make enough, right, And on shopify there's this button
• 21:54
  Speaker 6: and it's continued to sell when out of stock.
• 21:56
  Speaker 4: Oh yeah yeah we pressed it.
• 21:59
  Speaker 2: It was pre but people didn't know it.
• 22:01
  Speaker 4: Yeah yeah, but that's fine. You know what I feel
• 22:04
  Speaker 4: like in small business and like I obviously am a
• 22:07
  Speaker 4: small business myself, you're kind of like, just do it.
• 22:10
  Speaker 4: See what happens.
• 22:11
  Speaker 5: Like now, we would tell people be like it's on
• 22:13
  Speaker 5: pre order, it's arriving.
• 22:15
  Speaker 4: Yeah, But like I always say, bite off more than
• 22:17
  Speaker 4: you can chew and then we'll just figure out how
• 22:19
  Speaker 4: to swallow it later. Like and that's terrible business advice, right,
• 22:23
  Speaker 4: But every single small business owner that is driven by passion,
• 22:26
  Speaker 4: that is driven by you know, trying to have an impact.
• 22:29
  Speaker 4: I've never met someone who doesn't agree with that, like
• 22:31
  Speaker 4: people who are maybe too conservative, Great, no worries, like
• 22:34
  Speaker 4: you've started an accounting form or something when you have impacts,
• 22:37
  Speaker 4: you're like, I'll work out hard to chew that later.
• 22:39
  Speaker 2: Like, but I took the buy.
• 22:40
  Speaker 4: Yeah, now we have to do what we said we're
• 22:42
  Speaker 4: going to do. And I think there's something so beautiful
• 22:45
  Speaker 4: about that. But also, are you okay because that would
• 22:47
  Speaker 4: have been chaos?
• 22:48
  Speaker 2: Now, Look, it was.
• 22:50
  Speaker 6: It was a ceiling that we didn't know what the
• 22:53
  Speaker 6: limit was, and it allowed us to just completely open
• 22:55
  Speaker 6: that up. I was and Lack says, now, we wouldn't
• 22:58
  Speaker 6: do that now that I was like very much in
• 23:05
  Speaker 6: the space of where was everyone pre Black Lives Matter movement?
• 23:10
  Speaker 6: And if you didn't have a T shirt before this moment,
• 23:12
  Speaker 6: you can wait two weeks. I was completely there, and
• 23:15
  Speaker 6: we wrote a lot about our a ship beyond the
• 23:17
  Speaker 6: trend and what that looks like. And to be honest,
• 23:20
  Speaker 6: we built a community of people at that moment that
• 23:23
  Speaker 6: we were able to continue to talk to and if
• 23:25
  Speaker 6: we didn't sell them a T.
• 23:25
  Speaker 2: Shirt and waist connected exactly. So it was one of
• 23:29
  Speaker 2: the best decisions.
• 23:30
  Speaker 4: A week I was post we can blame them.
• 23:33
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and if you show up to the.
• 23:38
  Speaker 5: That Saturday that's coming and you're not wearing and always was,
• 23:40
  Speaker 5: always will be a T shirt, it's still okay. You're
• 23:44
  Speaker 5: still there and you should have over that. And that's
• 23:49
  Speaker 5: where we got to was like literally we were it
• 23:51
  Speaker 5: was in our first tiny little office. Our first office,
• 23:53
  Speaker 5: Victoria was up these rickety set of stairs above rent
• 23:57
  Speaker 5: a Bomb in Preston. Oh yeah, well actually technically this
• 24:02
  Speaker 5: was our second office. Our first office was in the
• 24:04
  Speaker 5: spare change rooms at the football club at the Fitz Restars. Sorry,
• 24:09
  Speaker 5: that is not your kitchen table, that is that's your
• 24:13
  Speaker 5: office outside of home. Yeah, it was all of the
• 24:16
  Speaker 5: lost and found football boots.
• 24:18
  Speaker 4: But that's okay, you do what.
• 24:19
  Speaker 2: Sometimes context doesn't matter exactly.
• 24:21
  Speaker 5: I will not forget that smell though, And I literally
• 24:26
  Speaker 5: stood out the front of I remember like COVID rules, right,
• 24:29
  Speaker 5: so there was only like three shoppers allowed upstairs at
• 24:33
  Speaker 5: a time. So every single person, so we had this
• 24:37
  Speaker 5: line down High Street in Preston that.
• 24:39
  Speaker 2: Went like a block and a half had to be
• 24:41
  Speaker 2: socially to be.
• 24:42
  Speaker 5: And everyone had to like stand their distances apart, and
• 24:45
  Speaker 5: so everybody had like a set time that they were
• 24:47
  Speaker 5: allowed to.
• 24:48
  Speaker 2: Comics looking back on it, and at the same time.
• 24:51
  Speaker 5: You're like, they still showed up good and like every
• 24:55
  Speaker 5: single person got drilled about. Will open up your phone
• 24:58
  Speaker 5: while you're here, You're going to follow this, this, this, and
• 25:00
  Speaker 5: this person. You need to sign this petition. They got
• 25:04
  Speaker 5: like an actual drawldry list.
• 25:07
  Speaker 2: Here's what we expect of you. You can't come in
• 25:09
  Speaker 2: our little house until then.
• 25:11
  Speaker 5: And that's exactly it. So and as I said that,
• 25:13
  Speaker 5: we've got to build this community of people where we
• 25:15
  Speaker 5: made it very very very clear that if you are here,
• 25:18
  Speaker 5: there is action that's asked of you in this process.
• 25:20
  Speaker 2: It's not just about the T shirt.
• 25:22
  Speaker 4: Oh no, no, no no. And I think that I
• 25:24
  Speaker 4: would be very disappointed if it was just about the
• 25:27
  Speaker 4: T shirt. And I get that, and I think that's
• 25:29
  Speaker 4: why your business has such grit and the fact that
• 25:33
  Speaker 4: you guys don't rely on grants. You rely on sales
• 25:36
  Speaker 4: of your clothing to perpetuate this. And I think that
• 25:38
  Speaker 4: that's incredible but also would be really stressful. At the
• 25:42
  Speaker 4: same time. Can you talk me through some of the
• 25:44
  Speaker 4: financial realities of that choice of model of business, especially
• 25:49
  Speaker 4: for a social enterprise, and what is it taught you
• 25:53
  Speaker 4: or it's.
• 25:54
  Speaker 5: Taught us a lot actually, and it's it's been a
• 25:56
  Speaker 5: really interesting process and in the current economic environment for retail,
• 26:02
  Speaker 5: it's been a really big reminder of we have to
• 26:04
  Speaker 5: be a viable and sustainable business first. We want to
• 26:07
  Speaker 5: be here to continue to create impact for a really
• 26:10
  Speaker 5: long time, and we have genuinely had to completely rework
• 26:14
  Speaker 5: the whole way that we run our business over the
• 26:16
  Speaker 5: last twelve months. Otherwise, if we had a nerve, you know,
• 26:19
  Speaker 5: we've been reflecting on this a lot lately, if we
• 26:21
  Speaker 5: would be bankrupt, like we would not be here closing
• 26:23
  Speaker 5: the gaps would no longer exist. Because when you are
• 26:27
  Speaker 5: a social enterprise, our commitment is to always give a
• 26:31
  Speaker 5: majority of our profits, resources and efforts to our cause.
• 26:36
  Speaker 8: Yep.
• 26:36
  Speaker 5: We're also a certified Aboriginal business where a big court
• 26:39
  Speaker 5: we'd have a locally made collection that's ethical clothing Australia
• 26:41
  Speaker 5: credited and locally made with the whole.
• 26:45
  Speaker 2: Oh and we're Bear Corp and just local like stop it.
• 26:48
  Speaker 5: The really interesting part about it is is that the
• 26:52
  Speaker 5: challenges that small businesses in general face face, new businesses
• 26:57
  Speaker 5: and social enterprises purposely businesses fel them a lot harder
• 27:00
  Speaker 5: and quicker. I think so we actually pivoted really early
• 27:05
  Speaker 5: in terms of the economic slowness that's happened over the
• 27:10
  Speaker 5: last little while, Like we had made changes probably eight
• 27:13
  Speaker 5: months prior to that, because we could feel.
• 27:15
  Speaker 2: It coming faster.
• 27:17
  Speaker 5: One of the biggest lessons that I think that we've
• 27:19
  Speaker 5: learned is ensuring that the business model works before you
• 27:26
  Speaker 5: get really deeply invested in over committing on the impact bit.
• 27:32
  Speaker 5: And that's taken us a really long time to getther
• 27:35
  Speaker 5: of getting really clear about what we do, how we
• 27:39
  Speaker 5: do it, the partners, the community partners that we work
• 27:42
  Speaker 5: with along the way to have the longevity in the
• 27:45
  Speaker 5: impact as well.
• 27:46
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I was going to like hearing you say that
• 27:49
  Speaker 4: you're both so incredibly passionate, and I can hear that,
• 27:52
  Speaker 4: so I can see how you might go but we
• 27:54
  Speaker 4: want to do everything And that would then be really
• 27:57
  Speaker 4: limiting because you go, well, we actually only have this budget.
• 28:01
  Speaker 4: How do you then prioritize our impact when you're like,
• 28:03
  Speaker 4: there's so much change that needs to happen, Like, how
• 28:06
  Speaker 4: are you managing that? Because I can just see how
• 28:09
  Speaker 4: that might just be overwhelming And then you you know,
• 28:12
  Speaker 4: you're still having an impact, but you're like, but we
• 28:14
  Speaker 4: should be doing more. Like I can just see that
• 28:16
  Speaker 4: you're that type of people, especially.
• 28:18
  Speaker 6: When you build a platform and you want to be
• 28:20
  Speaker 6: able to to share it to alevate other issues, and
• 28:25
  Speaker 6: then we just become sort of overwhelmed and not as focused.
• 28:29
  Speaker 6: And then if you're not as focused after your a game, yeah,
• 28:33
  Speaker 6: and then we can't actually make the difference that we
• 28:35
  Speaker 6: want to make around certain things, Like we just can't do.
• 28:38
  Speaker 2: Everything that we want.
• 28:39
  Speaker 6: We're a limited resource, but we're in this beautiful position
• 28:42
  Speaker 6: as a social enterprise of being able to not being
• 28:46
  Speaker 6: reliant on the government.
• 28:48
  Speaker 4: Oh that's slag.
• 28:50
  Speaker 6: Yeah, and have a unique position to be able to
• 28:52
  Speaker 6: use our power and our voices without any fear that
• 28:56
  Speaker 6: we're going to lose.
• 28:57
  Speaker 4: Might be rescinded or something.
• 28:58
  Speaker 6: Yeah, And that's what keeps us in this space when
• 29:01
  Speaker 6: I sort of think about like, I come from a
• 29:04
  Speaker 6: family who are activists, and none of them had been
• 29:08
  Speaker 6: in business, and some I think, well, why, you know,
• 29:11
  Speaker 6: I'm not in business to make money.
• 29:14
  Speaker 2: I'm in business.
• 29:15
  Speaker 6: Because I actually feel more self determined than I ever
• 29:19
  Speaker 6: have because we don't actually have to work with, you know,
• 29:24
  Speaker 6: the colonial structures.
• 29:25
  Speaker 2: We just have to work with community.
• 29:27
  Speaker 6: They're the ones that support us and fund us to
• 29:30
  Speaker 6: do to create the impact that we want to that
• 29:33
  Speaker 6: we want to work.
• 29:33
  Speaker 2: We also get to choose who we work with. Yeah,
• 29:36
  Speaker 2: there's a lot of in that.
• 29:38
  Speaker 6: So that's that is the power of beauty. And we
• 29:42
  Speaker 6: get to build our own economic independence. Yeah, I get
• 29:47
  Speaker 6: to We get to mentor other people in business.
• 29:49
  Speaker 2: We just do that quite naturally.
• 29:51
  Speaker 6: And when Says talks about twenty twenty four being like
• 29:55
  Speaker 6: a tough year in retail across the board for everyone
• 29:57
  Speaker 6: with the cost of living crisis, it was hard for
• 29:59
  Speaker 6: me to recognize that.
• 30:00
  Speaker 2: Because we're so in the work.
• 30:03
  Speaker 6: Yeah, and as like I knew we weren't selling as much,
• 30:08
  Speaker 6: but it was our focus isn't always on financials, yeah,
• 30:12
  Speaker 6: and on the sales. And often when we're doing the
• 30:14
  Speaker 6: good work, we make the sales. If we focus on
• 30:17
  Speaker 6: the impact, if we tell the stories, if we continue
• 30:19
  Speaker 6: to advocate, community keep supporting us. At the same time,
• 30:23
  Speaker 6: I guess it's important to keep oversight of the whole picture.
• 30:28
  Speaker 6: And you know, we're certainly getting better at that five
• 30:31
  Speaker 6: years into business.
• 30:32
  Speaker 4: And you have to get better at that, and like
• 30:34
  Speaker 4: it's not what you want to hear as motivated individuals
• 30:38
  Speaker 4: who want to have an impact. But then I don't
• 30:40
  Speaker 4: know if you know this, Boogs financial Advisor. I just
• 30:43
  Speaker 4: have a lot of thoughts about finances, and I'm like,
• 30:46
  Speaker 4: I get where you're coming from.
• 30:47
  Speaker 2: You're not financially motivated.
• 30:49
  Speaker 4: But the more financially secure we are, the more impact
• 30:52
  Speaker 4: we can have. And that's where I go, how can
• 30:54
  Speaker 4: I get my hands into this and like, help you
• 30:57
  Speaker 4: find that drive to make more money while not feeling
• 31:00
  Speaker 4: like you're being greedy for wanting to make more money,
• 31:03
  Speaker 4: because that's actually directly related to the impact every single
• 31:07
  Speaker 4: dollar that you bring in has.
• 31:09
  Speaker 2: So the more money we.
• 31:09
  Speaker 4: Can bring in great, the more saturation we can have
• 31:12
  Speaker 4: in the market, and the bigger percentage of each of
• 31:14
  Speaker 4: those dollars actually goes to community, actually goes to your
• 31:18
  Speaker 4: causes and actually goes to closing that gap because you know,
• 31:21
  Speaker 4: right now you would have genuine business expenses. We have rent,
• 31:25
  Speaker 4: we have overheads, we have to buy stock, and if
• 31:28
  Speaker 4: we're only making small margins and not selling heaps, well,
• 31:31
  Speaker 4: that small margin then goes to you know, the cause.
• 31:35
  Speaker 2: But the bigger the margin, the more impact we have.
• 31:37
  Speaker 4: And that is a really hard thing to help small
• 31:41
  Speaker 4: business owners who are driven by impact conceptualized because they're like, oh,
• 31:45
  Speaker 4: but I'm not money hungry, Victorian.
• 31:46
  Speaker 2: I'm like, I know, I know.
• 31:48
  Speaker 4: But if we look at every single dollar that comes
• 31:50
  Speaker 4: into your business and making that work as hard as
• 31:53
  Speaker 4: possible for your cause, do you want that?
• 31:55
  Speaker 2: You go, well, yes, go great. We have to care
• 31:58
  Speaker 2: about the finances. Absolutely.
• 32:00
  Speaker 5: It's flipping it to for some people be thinking about
• 32:02
  Speaker 5: it as a rese like it's just a resource. It is,
• 32:05
  Speaker 5: and the more resource you have and it is that
• 32:08
  Speaker 5: empowers a resource. So I've been able to do more
• 32:12
  Speaker 5: and do it differently and do it in the way
• 32:14
  Speaker 5: that you know that we know is impactful in that
• 32:17
  Speaker 5: as well.
• 32:17
  Speaker 4: Yes, rough, But.
• 32:18
  Speaker 6: The question that we're mostly asking ourselves is are we
• 32:21
  Speaker 6: doing enough for community?
• 32:23
  Speaker 2: You know? Are we doing enough?
• 32:24
  Speaker 6: And that is I feel like and for lots of
• 32:27
  Speaker 6: i'd say Aboriginal businesses, it feels like the expectation are
• 32:30
  Speaker 6: they giving back is something that we That threshold feels
• 32:35
  Speaker 6: higher for MOB because certainly I don't know how many
• 32:37
  Speaker 6: other retailers or other business out there where people got
• 32:40
  Speaker 6: them say.
• 32:40
  Speaker 2: What are you doing with your profits? Like we get
• 32:42
  Speaker 2: that Aboriginal businesses.
• 32:45
  Speaker 4: It's actually insane because like I don't get asked that, Yeah,
• 32:49
  Speaker 4: like nobody goes Victoria, what do you do with your profits?
• 32:51
  Speaker 4: And like I will happily tell you, But like I
• 32:54
  Speaker 4: see that being asked to view in your social comments
• 32:57
  Speaker 4: online and just people having these un realistic expectations at
• 33:01
  Speaker 4: the end of the day. Yes, but that's not your
• 33:04
  Speaker 4: business at the end of the day, because you're a
• 33:06
  Speaker 4: private company, you are not government funded, You do not
• 33:11
  Speaker 4: you not owed that information. But then also, why are
• 33:13
  Speaker 4: you questioning me as though I would not be doing
• 33:15
  Speaker 4: the right thing? Have you seen the mission behind this business?
• 33:18
  Speaker 2: And that's I think that's und Sharon.
• 33:21
  Speaker 6: That's for us why those accreditation that we listed off
• 33:23
  Speaker 6: before are so important because it gives transparency that we're
• 33:26
  Speaker 6: externally audited and there's a responsibility and there's a privilege
• 33:30
  Speaker 6: that comes to being a social enterprise. And that's why
• 33:34
  Speaker 6: and I just really want to acknowledge the privilege that
• 33:36
  Speaker 6: we've got to be actually able to have set our
• 33:39
  Speaker 6: business up in the way that we have. But these
• 33:41
  Speaker 6: questions of give back and responsibility, it's not just for
• 33:45
  Speaker 6: social enterprises that Aboriginal businesses feel more broadly is yeah,
• 33:49
  Speaker 6: I just want to raise there's something that I don't
• 33:51
  Speaker 6: think non Indigenous businesses experiences are same. And having said that,
• 33:56
  Speaker 6: when you invest and buy and support Aboriginal businesses, we
• 34:00
  Speaker 6: quite naturally give back to our own mob. Like the
• 34:04
  Speaker 6: stats from Supply Nation is that we're one hundred times
• 34:07
  Speaker 6: Aboriginal businesses, a hundred times more likely to employ Aboriginal people.
• 34:10
  Speaker 6: We do that naturally, yet we're still questioned about are
• 34:14
  Speaker 6: we giving enough back?
• 34:15
  Speaker 4: It's crazy our mob. And it's also like your culture
• 34:20
  Speaker 4: as well, Like and I didn't mean to cut you off.
• 34:22
  Speaker 4: I'm just so frustrated that you get these questions. I
• 34:26
  Speaker 4: recorded a podcast a little while ago with the First
• 34:29
  Speaker 4: Nation's Financial Literacy Foundation, and it's just this concept that
• 34:35
  Speaker 4: I don't think a lot of white people can understand
• 34:39
  Speaker 4: that your income is not seen as your income. It's
• 34:41
  Speaker 4: seen as giving back to community, and like that's kind
• 34:44
  Speaker 4: of the primary purpose. And that's so flipping beautiful. Why
• 34:49
  Speaker 4: can't we not only embrace that, but like understand and
• 34:52
  Speaker 4: then further support that. Because the second one Indigenous person
• 34:56
  Speaker 4: has access to wealth, they immediately don't go greater goodbye car,
• 35:00
  Speaker 4: they go How could I help my friends, my family, like, oh,
• 35:04
  Speaker 4: such and such over here needs this, Like it's this
• 35:07
  Speaker 4: altruistic undertone that I'm like, we just don't have that.
• 35:12
  Speaker 2: We need more of that.
• 35:13
  Speaker 5: You know, as you walk into ashop on Sydney Road
• 35:15
  Speaker 5: in Brunswick or around your country, you can see all
• 35:17
  Speaker 5: of our accreditations. We should be looking for those same
• 35:19
  Speaker 5: accreditations everywhere everywhere that we go. So I think every
• 35:22
  Speaker 5: single thing that we buy is an opportunity to change
• 35:25
  Speaker 5: the way that the world looks and functions and feels like.
• 35:28
  Speaker 5: And the more of the dollars that we're already spending,
• 35:31
  Speaker 5: sometimes it's not about spending more. It's just about changing
• 35:35
  Speaker 5: the location the direction of the money flow that you've
• 35:37
  Speaker 5: already got. That can just make such a big difference.
• 35:40
  Speaker 5: Like I get so excited about being able to you know,
• 35:43
  Speaker 5: when it comes time for me, it's you know, it's
• 35:45
  Speaker 5: time for a new pair of genes, Like yeah, right,
• 35:48
  Speaker 5: where am I buying this from?
• 35:50
  Speaker 2: Because this actually matters?
• 35:51
  Speaker 5: Like, you know, I start my little list is like
• 35:53
  Speaker 5: I start with an Aboriginal business, and then it's is
• 35:55
  Speaker 5: it Australian made?
• 35:56
  Speaker 2: Is a bee core? Is it?
• 35:57
  Speaker 5: I lotionally deprive, Just like, how great to look into
• 36:00
  Speaker 5: your wardrobe in your house and be like, I have
• 36:03
  Speaker 5: these incredible stories attached to all of these things that
• 36:05
  Speaker 5: my money is just like it's working about where it's invested.
• 36:10
  Speaker 5: My money invested in my wardrobe is also working just
• 36:13
  Speaker 5: as hard out in the realmigious girls like.
• 36:15
  Speaker 4: We still want a nice pair of jeans. But then also,
• 36:18
  Speaker 4: the thing I love about this is is it really
• 36:20
  Speaker 4: plays into my ethos. I'm always like, put twenty four
• 36:23
  Speaker 4: hours between you and your spending because I don't want
• 36:25
  Speaker 4: you to make impulse purchases. But if you do this,
• 36:27
  Speaker 4: you're like not only not making impulse purchases, you're making
• 36:31
  Speaker 4: impact purchases. And we can like go, oh, you really
• 36:34
  Speaker 4: liked that thing in that shop, Great, take a photo
• 36:36
  Speaker 4: of it, go home and see if there's an indigenous option,
• 36:39
  Speaker 4: like see how you could drive more impact. And I'm
• 36:41
  Speaker 4: just like that's pretty sexy, isn't it.
• 36:43
  Speaker 6: Oh we talk about what we call it it like
• 36:47
  Speaker 6: having a black wardrobe and people say, I have, you know,
• 36:50
  Speaker 6: clothing the gaps tea, and I'm like, yeah, cool, But
• 36:53
  Speaker 6: what really impresses me?
• 36:54
  Speaker 4: Or what other where else are you shopping?
• 36:57
  Speaker 2: What other black brands are you wearing?
• 37:00
  Speaker 6: You know, there's enough space in indigenous fashion for everyone,
• 37:04
  Speaker 6: because the conversations we want to have with Australians is
• 37:07
  Speaker 6: to have a whole black wardrobe, ye, and not.
• 37:10
  Speaker 5: Just closed the gaps.
• 37:11
  Speaker 2: Right, many be disappointing if that's all you had.
• 37:14
  Speaker 4: Yeah, it's like, yep, cool, what else? What else have
• 37:17
  Speaker 4: you got? Yeah?
• 37:18
  Speaker 6: And we're all wearing we obviously we wear a lot
• 37:20
  Speaker 6: of clothing the gaps because we're promoting our brands, but
• 37:23
  Speaker 6: we underneath this, im wearing gam and threads and says
• 37:26
  Speaker 6: us Off, I'm wearing Leander and you know there are
• 37:28
  Speaker 6: just so many have These favorite t shirts are from
• 37:32
  Speaker 6: Hausadah and.
• 37:33
  Speaker 2: Yes, pushing your luck there.
• 37:37
  Speaker 4: I love it.
• 37:37
  Speaker 2: All right, let's take a really quick break.
• 37:39
  Speaker 4: And when I come back, I want to talk to
• 37:41
  Speaker 4: you guys about the financial realities of balancing profit and
• 37:44
  Speaker 4: purpose and how we can then spend further in line with.
• 37:47
  Speaker 2: Our values, which is where we're already going.
• 37:48
  Speaker 4: Us I was like, well, let's cut here, so go
• 37:50
  Speaker 4: to a break, so guys don't go anywhere. All right,
• 37:57
  Speaker 4: we are back and this very special episode with Laura
• 38:00
  Speaker 4: and Sarah from Clothing the Gap I don't know, it's
• 38:04
  Speaker 4: been so insightful. I feel like the energy between you
• 38:06
  Speaker 4: two is just so beautiful. I'm like, can you stay?
• 38:09
  Speaker 4: Do you want to do more podcasts?
• 38:10
  Speaker 2: Yesterday?
• 38:11
  Speaker 4: But you have not just built a business, You've feel
• 38:13
  Speaker 4: a whole movement, like just the idea that people are like, oh,
• 38:16
  Speaker 4: wear that I do this? Like, you know, we're talking
• 38:18
  Speaker 4: about how do we find in gingerous gens brands so
• 38:21
  Speaker 4: that we can actually drive our impact. When your work
• 38:25
  Speaker 4: has both a social mission but then also a bottom line,
• 38:29
  Speaker 4: which can be really hard, there's obviously bound to be
• 38:33
  Speaker 4: a lot of tension. How do you balance profit and
• 38:36
  Speaker 4: purpose and impact from week to week because some of
• 38:40
  Speaker 4: us doom out and we look at the bigger picture
• 38:41
  Speaker 4: and you go, oh, we need to make some tweaks,
• 38:43
  Speaker 4: But like from week to week, I'm assuming this is
• 38:45
  Speaker 4: an ongoing conversation. And then how do you make decisions
• 38:48
  Speaker 4: when you know your personal priorities are pulling you in
• 38:51
  Speaker 4: one way but your finance is looking a little bit different.
• 38:54
  Speaker 2: Oh, it's a really good question.
• 38:57
  Speaker 6: I'd say we're always purpose driven, and it probably takes
• 39:01
  Speaker 6: this a little bit to catch up that sometimes maybe
• 39:04
  Speaker 6: you know, when we've had tough months that perhaps we're
• 39:08
  Speaker 6: struggling with profit because we've been focused on the purpose
• 39:13
  Speaker 6: and the success of closing the Gaps is the fact
• 39:17
  Speaker 6: that it is impact driven and the decisions we've made
• 39:21
  Speaker 6: has not been to shift away from our values or purpose.
• 39:25
  Speaker 6: It's just to go lean leaner, which is hard because
• 39:29
  Speaker 6: that means it's less hours of Indigenous employment.
• 39:32
  Speaker 2: But it hasn't changed the.
• 39:34
  Speaker 6: Goal of the mission because if we started to focus
• 39:37
  Speaker 6: on driving profit a we we wouldn't be motivated. Yeah,
• 39:42
  Speaker 6: we wouldn't be motivated to do the work, and we'd
• 39:44
  Speaker 6: lose up.
• 39:45
  Speaker 4: I think whole purpose of your passion is not money
• 39:48
  Speaker 4: and sales. Your passion is clearly impact. And we were
• 39:52
  Speaker 4: talking back in October about how you know, when you're
• 39:55
  Speaker 4: doing your mail outs, you had been putting your not
• 39:58
  Speaker 4: a date to celebrate Camp Pains into those mailouts, and
• 40:01
  Speaker 4: I was like, in October.
• 40:03
  Speaker 2: Guys, that's where you're doing it.
• 40:04
  Speaker 4: Yeah, So like, can we talk about that, because that's
• 40:07
  Speaker 4: not about being financially led, but more about campaign led
• 40:11
  Speaker 4: and impact led. And I feel like that's really proactive.
• 40:14
  Speaker 4: And I feel like for a very long time these
• 40:16
  Speaker 4: topics weren't being discussed until January twenty six. We'll talk
• 40:20
  Speaker 4: about it on that day and not again. But like
• 40:22
  Speaker 4: you're showing your community months before. Hey, here's a fridge magnet.
• 40:27
  Speaker 4: Is you said, a handwritten letter?
• 40:29
  Speaker 2: Yeah? Like queens what like?
• 40:30
  Speaker 4: You are going above and beyond telling me so excited
• 40:33
  Speaker 4: about this campaign.
• 40:34
  Speaker 6: I'm so excited about Black Friday because of this campaign opportunity.
• 40:38
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and.
• 40:40
  Speaker 6: Black Friday is in Australia is a thing for retail
• 40:44
  Speaker 6: and so is that.
• 40:44
  Speaker 4: Why you were like, I'm going to start talking about
• 40:46
  Speaker 4: January twenty six on Black Friday.
• 40:48
  Speaker 6: Because we're going to send out a lot of packages
• 40:50
  Speaker 6: because we have to go on sale and survive. We
• 40:53
  Speaker 6: do what we got to do, and we're not motivated
• 40:56
  Speaker 6: by having sales, yep. But I am motivated by the
• 41:00
  Speaker 6: number of people that will buy from us when we're
• 41:02
  Speaker 6: twenty five percent off sitewide. And the fact that I
• 41:05
  Speaker 6: get to slip in a campaign letter and a magnet
• 41:08
  Speaker 6: and really talk to people individually when they have to
• 41:11
  Speaker 6: physically open something up like that was just a super
• 41:16
  Speaker 6: game changer for me of why I'm excited about how
• 41:19
  Speaker 6: many sales we make, because that's how many letters we
• 41:23
  Speaker 6: get to put in that impact.
• 41:25
  Speaker 5: Yeah, and I would just say that, like, we're really
• 41:27
  Speaker 5: really creative about fixing that problem and that tension that's
• 41:31
  Speaker 5: that we talked about before. So this is a prime example. Right,
• 41:35
  Speaker 5: we get charged at our three pl for every single
• 41:39
  Speaker 5: individual insert that we put in. So when Laws and
• 41:42
  Speaker 5: I were chatting about when we were thinking about Black
• 41:44
  Speaker 5: Friday planning and how do we educate in this moment
• 41:48
  Speaker 5: and how do we make the most of these parcels
• 41:50
  Speaker 5: that are going out and also just like, let's do
• 41:54
  Speaker 5: a magnet so that it goes on my bridge, and
• 41:55
  Speaker 5: we're going to do a letter, and we're going to do.
• 41:57
  Speaker 2: This, and we're going to do that. And you're like, yeah, yes, yes,
• 42:00
  Speaker 2: line item, line item that holding the envelope.
• 42:05
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 42:05
  Speaker 2: I was like, cool, don't worry about that. We're just
• 42:07
  Speaker 2: talking about impact.
• 42:08
  Speaker 5: What we're doing is we fix that problem. We put
• 42:11
  Speaker 5: them all in the one envelope.
• 42:12
  Speaker 4: Okay.
• 42:13
  Speaker 5: Yeah, So that now it feels really cute as well
• 42:15
  Speaker 5: as it feels like victoria when you buy from us
• 42:17
  Speaker 5: on Black Friday, when you got that parcel sent to
• 42:20
  Speaker 5: your house and it's got this letter. It's this moment, right,
• 42:24
  Speaker 5: we're capturing people in this moment, but also it's way
• 42:26
  Speaker 5: more economically viable.
• 42:28
  Speaker 4: Oh totally.
• 42:29
  Speaker 5: So we just get really creative about how we how
• 42:31
  Speaker 5: we do the impact and then we essentially just like
• 42:34
  Speaker 5: justify it to ourselves and.
• 42:35
  Speaker 6: Fiancesay, I've left this really late to organize this.
• 42:39
  Speaker 2: It's going to cost us a lot, but it.
• 42:41
  Speaker 4: Will be worth it, I promise.
• 42:42
  Speaker 2: But it's it's it's it pain moment. You know, this
• 42:46
  Speaker 2: will be a campaign moment.
• 42:47
  Speaker 6: And we're creative and we're entertainers.
• 42:51
  Speaker 4: We love that that's your background, No wonder, your stuff
• 42:56
  Speaker 4: is just so engaging all the time.
• 42:57
  Speaker 2: Well, and we're ridiculous.
• 42:59
  Speaker 6: And one of my fears is being boring. Like if
• 43:01
  Speaker 6: we're going to no, no, no, you're really fun. If
• 43:05
  Speaker 6: we're not people's time and people are willing to listen
• 43:08
  Speaker 6: to us, then we really want to appreciate the moment
• 43:11
  Speaker 6: they're spending with us by being as engaging with them
• 43:14
  Speaker 6: as we can. This letter that went out on the
• 43:17
  Speaker 6: front of it, it said, you know, a letter about
• 43:21
  Speaker 6: a day that divides us on the front and then they.
• 43:24
  Speaker 4: Already want to open it.
• 43:26
  Speaker 2: What's this exactly?
• 43:27
  Speaker 4: What is it?
• 43:28
  Speaker 2: What is these today that divides us?
• 43:29
  Speaker 4: And then it's sort of because it was October. You're
• 43:32
  Speaker 4: not really thinking about January twenty six, are you.
• 43:35
  Speaker 6: But these campaigns, you know, these conversations around changing the
• 43:39
  Speaker 6: date and about jan twenty six not being a day
• 43:41
  Speaker 6: that we celebrate have been going on for years, yep.
• 43:46
  Speaker 6: And if we really want to make a change and
• 43:49
  Speaker 6: spark those conversations, we need to be active all year round.
• 43:53
  Speaker 6: And I think, you know, for the for the community
• 43:56
  Speaker 6: of people that shop with us, you know, I think
• 43:58
  Speaker 6: we've gotten to the point where they're not just wearing
• 44:00
  Speaker 6: clothing the gaps on Norrific and Aboriginal days, wearing all
• 44:03
  Speaker 6: year round. And that's the support we need to create
• 44:06
  Speaker 6: this social change. And you know, we need leaders and
• 44:09
  Speaker 6: people saying that petition around jan twenty six all year
• 44:12
  Speaker 6: round if we need, if we want to create this
• 44:14
  Speaker 6: momentum and shift.
• 44:15
  Speaker 4: And so tell me more about not a date to
• 44:19
  Speaker 4: celebrates campaign, because I mean today perfect day to start
• 44:22
  Speaker 4: talking more about it. I know there's a lot of
• 44:24
  Speaker 4: confusion about Okay, respect that, but what does.
• 44:27
  Speaker 2: That really mean?
• 44:28
  Speaker 4: Tell us how we can embrace this, tell us how
• 44:31
  Speaker 4: we can support you, how we can support our indigenous culture.
• 44:34
  Speaker 4: What does that look like?
• 44:35
  Speaker 5: Yeah, so Jane twenty six is not a day to celebrate,
• 44:38
  Speaker 5: as we've talked about throughout the start of the pot
• 44:40
  Speaker 5: as well, Victorian. You know, for me as a non
• 44:43
  Speaker 5: Aboriginal person, I want to be able to celebrate the
• 44:48
  Speaker 5: incredible things about this country. But we cannot do that
• 44:51
  Speaker 5: our a on January twenty six because it marks the
• 44:56
  Speaker 5: very clearly marks the start of invasion in this country
• 45:01
  Speaker 5: and the incredible, overwhelming amount of pain and suffering that
• 45:08
  Speaker 5: has come from that right through till today. You only
• 45:11
  Speaker 5: have to look at the work of the Yarouk Commission
• 45:13
  Speaker 5: over the past years of gathering and listening to community
• 45:18
  Speaker 5: stories about the impacts that colonization has had in this
• 45:24
  Speaker 5: country to go January twenty six is not it. And
• 45:28
  Speaker 5: that's essentially where where we're very much at is that
• 45:31
  Speaker 5: January twenty six is not a date to celebrate.
• 45:33
  Speaker 2: It's pretty simple date of warning.
• 45:35
  Speaker 5: It is, and you know, it's been a date of
• 45:38
  Speaker 5: mourning for generations in the Aboriginal community. One of the
• 45:41
  Speaker 5: biggest things that people non Aboriginal people often come back
• 45:44
  Speaker 5: to us when we talk about this, it'll be like, oh, well,
• 45:47
  Speaker 5: we've been celebrating Australia on Jane twenty six for everyone
• 45:49
  Speaker 5: like we have nine ninety four.
• 45:53
  Speaker 4: That's it. Yeah, that is it.
• 45:56
  Speaker 5: This is not something that when you ask most people
• 45:59
  Speaker 5: about what it is that they're so attached to this
• 46:02
  Speaker 5: date is that there really isn't an enormous amount of
• 46:05
  Speaker 5: attachment to it. It's just this concept that to be
• 46:09
  Speaker 5: able to reflect on Jane twenty six, for me as
• 46:13
  Speaker 5: a non Aboriginal person with respect and with some empathy,
• 46:17
  Speaker 5: and to be able to update.
• 46:19
  Speaker 2: Our thinking with new information.
• 46:21
  Speaker 5: Sure, you may not have known about much about what
• 46:24
  Speaker 5: John twenty six really meant for First Nations communities.
• 46:27
  Speaker 4: No at all.
• 46:28
  Speaker 2: I feel like me and like it was me too, Victorian.
• 46:32
  Speaker 4: I think when high school we were doing these big
• 46:35
  Speaker 4: Australia day parties, and you know, I look back on
• 46:38
  Speaker 4: it and I'm horrified. Absolutely, But if you know better,
• 46:42
  Speaker 4: you can do better. And you guys are educating us
• 46:45
  Speaker 4: so that we can know better. Now we get to
• 46:47
  Speaker 4: do better. What a privilege?
• 46:49
  Speaker 5: Absolutely, and what an opportunity. And I guess the question
• 46:53
  Speaker 5: really is is if you know now and we're not
• 46:55
  Speaker 5: doing something about it, that's when.
• 46:57
  Speaker 4: That's when it's disrespectful. That's when we go what are
• 46:59
  Speaker 4: you even doing what kind of human being are you?
• 47:02
  Speaker 5: So lots of people are doing lots of different things
• 47:04
  Speaker 5: around John twenty six. We're seeing different brands and businesses
• 47:08
  Speaker 5: and you know, like yourself Victoria sharing their support through
• 47:12
  Speaker 5: their platforms for the not a Date to Celebrate campaign
• 47:15
  Speaker 5: and conversations around the truth and the reality of John
• 47:19
  Speaker 5: twenty six. We're seeing people choose to switch their public
• 47:22
  Speaker 5: holiday to another day and go to bus to go
• 47:24
  Speaker 5: to work and think about, you know, just not celebrating
• 47:29
  Speaker 5: on John twenty six at all. So we're seeing a
• 47:30
  Speaker 5: lot of public action around John twenty six, but what
• 47:35
  Speaker 5: we have really seen a lack of is government leadership
• 47:38
  Speaker 5: and action around thinking about what an alternative to John
• 47:43
  Speaker 5: twenty six is and acknowledging that this is something that
• 47:45
  Speaker 5: really has to shift. We can't continue like this. This
• 47:48
  Speaker 5: just feels like we are at an absolute standstill of
• 47:52
  Speaker 5: It feels like a majority of people don't celebrate on
• 47:55
  Speaker 5: John twenty six. Triple j Hottus one hundred shifted away
• 47:58
  Speaker 5: from John twenty six. What luck five years ago? Now
• 48:02
  Speaker 5: this feels like it should be old.
• 48:04
  Speaker 4: Actually shouldn't be a thing, like it's ridiculous.
• 48:07
  Speaker 2: It does confuse me. I'm like, like, I get it,
• 48:10
  Speaker 2: I get it. I was educated on why are we
• 48:12
  Speaker 2: still talking about it? Were not all on the same page.
• 48:15
  Speaker 4: And I think that that's one thing that I personally
• 48:17
  Speaker 4: really struggle with is someone has come up and I
• 48:20
  Speaker 4: don't care what it is.
• 48:21
  Speaker 2: Let's pretend it's an office.
• 48:23
  Speaker 4: Someone goes. I find it really disrespectful when you x
• 48:26
  Speaker 4: y Z thanks for telling me. I'm so sorry. I
• 48:28
  Speaker 4: didn't realize I was upsetting you. I'm just not going
• 48:31
  Speaker 4: to do it anymore. Like, is that not how we're all?
• 48:34
  Speaker 4: Like this should be quite simple, Like we've put our
• 48:37
  Speaker 4: hand up, and yes it's been for literal years. You
• 48:40
  Speaker 4: put your hands up and said, hey, do you reckon?
• 48:43
  Speaker 4: Like we're not saying don't, but do you reckon? We
• 48:44
  Speaker 4: could just do it a different day, the one that
• 48:47
  Speaker 4: like even us like we could get involved in that
• 48:49
  Speaker 4: day then because like you're right, it sounds like a
• 48:51
  Speaker 4: bit of fun, but like not then like that just
• 48:53
  Speaker 4: doesn't work. And people are so hamstrung on being like no,
• 48:58
  Speaker 4: it's our right, get get in. This is horrific what
• 49:03
  Speaker 4: has happened. And I feel like just too many people
• 49:05
  Speaker 4: are trying to slide under the rug exactly what happened.
• 49:08
  Speaker 4: We should be using this as an opportunity to talk
• 49:11
  Speaker 4: more about that, to build bridges, to become more resilient,
• 49:15
  Speaker 4: to be more respectful.
• 49:17
  Speaker 2: Why aren't we doing that?
• 49:19
  Speaker 6: You couldn't have You've explained it so well, Victor. This
• 49:23
  Speaker 6: is we shouldn't still be talking about this. This is
• 49:26
  Speaker 6: an issue that the government can change quite easily.
• 49:28
  Speaker 2: We don't need a referendum.
• 49:29
  Speaker 4: It's not that deep. It's not that deep, Like in
• 49:32
  Speaker 4: the most respectful way, it is not that deep.
• 49:35
  Speaker 2: Change the date by then?
• 49:38
  Speaker 6: Why are we cluing the gap, spending so much time
• 49:41
  Speaker 6: and so much resource. And one of the criticisms that
• 49:43
  Speaker 6: we get from Mobby is there are more important issues
• 49:47
  Speaker 6: that you should be talking about than this. And I
• 49:49
  Speaker 6: absolutely one hundred percent agree that we are wasting our
• 49:52
  Speaker 6: time talking about this. But the reality is.
• 49:54
  Speaker 2: You could actually just take this off and then we
• 49:55
  Speaker 2: can talk about the age.
• 50:00
  Speaker 6: But when we talk about our focus, we want to
• 50:02
  Speaker 6: tick this off. This is essentially a painful moment that
• 50:06
  Speaker 6: we choose to celebrate the day, the worst possible day
• 50:09
  Speaker 6: you could choose in the calendar, and the government can
• 50:13
  Speaker 6: change that quite simply. And we just want to tick
• 50:17
  Speaker 6: this off because we are sick of talking about it,
• 50:19
  Speaker 6: We're sick of experiencing jan twenty six and the pain
• 50:24
  Speaker 6: and trauma that it brings. When we feel like, you know,
• 50:26
  Speaker 6: you've had that realization. Still, lots of Australians are choosing
• 50:29
  Speaker 6: to celebrate on that on that day, it is a
• 50:32
  Speaker 6: day that divides the nations. There's a day where there's
• 50:35
  Speaker 6: a whole lot of racism and in the lead up
• 50:38
  Speaker 6: to it's just a horrible weight it end January and
• 50:44
  Speaker 6: there's so many people that have supported the campaign. We've
• 50:47
  Speaker 6: had over you know, seventy thousand people sign that petition
• 50:51
  Speaker 6: that we only started last year. Actually obsessed and we're
• 50:55
  Speaker 6: keen to table this petition. We're keen to see more
• 50:59
  Speaker 6: workplaces get involved and to use any strategy that we
• 51:03
  Speaker 6: can think of just to you know, be able to
• 51:08
  Speaker 6: find ways to celebrate the good things about this country
• 51:11
  Speaker 6: just on another day.
• 51:12
  Speaker 4: Absolutely, And if you guys are listening to this and
• 51:14
  Speaker 4: really resonating with the conversation that we have, I will
• 51:16
  Speaker 4: make sure that that petition is in our show notes
• 51:18
  Speaker 4: so that you can also sign it and share it
• 51:20
  Speaker 4: and that would be a perfect way to help today,
• 51:23
  Speaker 4: like if you're like I don't know what I should
• 51:25
  Speaker 4: be posting, host the petition.
• 51:27
  Speaker 2: Share it.
• 51:27
  Speaker 4: It's a free way of advocating for a community who
• 51:30
  Speaker 4: are currently not being heard in the way that they
• 51:32
  Speaker 4: deserve to be.
• 51:33
  Speaker 5: Absolutely, and there are so many different things that people
• 51:35
  Speaker 5: can do that doesn't actually cost a thing to what
• 51:38
  Speaker 5: else can we do?
• 51:39
  Speaker 2: Come on, but sorry, I'm cheese on the money. I
• 51:42
  Speaker 2: love free stuff.
• 51:44
  Speaker 5: We all love free stuff, right, and agency actually doesn't
• 51:47
  Speaker 5: cost anything. Often it's actually about using your voice. We
• 51:50
  Speaker 5: talk often about everybody has a circle of influence that
• 51:53
  Speaker 5: they can engage with and have those conversations with. So
• 51:57
  Speaker 5: talk to your friends and family about what John twenty
• 52:00
  Speaker 5: six really does mean from a first nation's perspective, and
• 52:05
  Speaker 5: engage with the Yearrook resources today like go and listen
• 52:08
  Speaker 5: to some of those stories from community. You can sign
• 52:12
  Speaker 5: the petition absolutely and share it, Sign and send an
• 52:16
  Speaker 5: MP letter. We have to remember that our MPs sit
• 52:19
  Speaker 5: in their seats to represent their constituents, which is us,
• 52:22
  Speaker 5: and if we do not tell them what we think
• 52:24
  Speaker 5: and what we want them to do, sometimes they assume
• 52:26
  Speaker 5: and often they get that wrong. So make it very
• 52:28
  Speaker 5: clear how you feel about John twenty six today and
• 52:30
  Speaker 5: that it is not a date to celebrate I really
• 52:33
  Speaker 5: believe that there is an enormous amount of support out
• 52:35
  Speaker 5: there for this and that we will continue to get
• 52:38
  Speaker 5: traction on this conversation and that there has to be
• 52:41
  Speaker 5: an outcome and a resolution at a MP tunnel. We
• 52:44
  Speaker 5: can't keep having Groundhog Day about John twenty six and
• 52:47
  Speaker 5: we need everybody to have.
• 52:48
  Speaker 2: Those conversations in their spaces to get that done.
• 52:51
  Speaker 6: Yeah, and it just I find it remarkable. You know,
• 52:54
  Speaker 6: we've been making not a date to celebrate teas for
• 52:56
  Speaker 6: about five years now. I didn't think that we would
• 52:59
  Speaker 6: need to get to the point where we would have
• 53:01
  Speaker 6: to table a petition in Parliament. I did think perhaps,
• 53:05
  Speaker 6: and maybe it was not even mean that this would
• 53:08
  Speaker 6: be resolved by now. And the very fact that we're
• 53:12
  Speaker 6: a business who's leading this campaign, it's just a reminder
• 53:17
  Speaker 6: of the power of businesses to do good and actually
• 53:22
  Speaker 6: perhaps we're in the best position to be able to
• 53:26
  Speaker 6: make the social change.
• 53:27
  Speaker 4: One thousand percent. I know that we are very quickly
• 53:30
  Speaker 4: running out of time, so I don't want to take more.
• 53:32
  Speaker 4: But one thing that I also find our community I
• 53:35
  Speaker 4: won't say struggles with but has put their hand up
• 53:37
  Speaker 4: and said, I find this really challenging, and you said
• 53:40
  Speaker 4: before send a letter to your MP. Like, we all
• 53:44
  Speaker 4: sit down and go, what do we say? I don't
• 53:46
  Speaker 4: agree with this? So we will also drop a template
• 53:50
  Speaker 4: of a letter that you could send to your MP,
• 53:52
  Speaker 4: and you can like change it however you want. Put
• 53:54
  Speaker 4: your name in, put your local MP's name in. But
• 53:57
  Speaker 4: just what that might look like, because so many of
• 54:00
  Speaker 4: us want to have that impact but just don't maybe
• 54:03
  Speaker 4: have the words to articulate that as clearly and as
• 54:06
  Speaker 4: impactfully as possible. So we'll put that in the show
• 54:09
  Speaker 4: notes as well, and it'll be free to download on
• 54:11
  Speaker 4: our websites so you can use it however you want.
• 54:14
  Speaker 4: Is there any other ways? Before I let you go? Sorry,
• 54:17
  Speaker 4: I feel like I'm taking all of this time, but
• 54:19
  Speaker 4: I'm like, this is such a good episode. Are there
• 54:21
  Speaker 4: any other ways that today we can show our allyship
• 54:24
  Speaker 4: that doesn't cost anything?
• 54:26
  Speaker 6: Yes, it's sharing content doesn't cost anything to reshare content
• 54:30
  Speaker 6: from black creators on your story.
• 54:33
  Speaker 2: And then I would just think about you know.
• 54:35
  Speaker 5: Jan twenty six is a really good reminder to re
• 54:38
  Speaker 5: engage in conversations that perhaps you may have slipped out
• 54:40
  Speaker 5: of for a bit. But I really do think that
• 54:44
  Speaker 5: it's so important for people to think about what we
• 54:47
  Speaker 5: do outside of days like Jane twenty six or reconciliation
• 54:50
  Speaker 5: week or night or week of making sure that it
• 54:52
  Speaker 5: is Allyship beyond the trend or beyond the calendar date
• 54:56
  Speaker 5: that comes up.
• 54:57
  Speaker 2: It's how do you engage in those conversations all year round?
• 55:01
  Speaker 5: Yeah, you know, we spoke about it a little bit earlier.
• 55:04
  Speaker 5: As a business, we actually can't survive on people buying
• 55:07
  Speaker 5: from us three days.
• 55:09
  Speaker 4: Ye oh no.
• 55:10
  Speaker 5: Absolutely, not thinking about how you support First Nations people, communities,
• 55:15
  Speaker 5: brands in.
• 55:16
  Speaker 4: Business as well at work, like at She's on the Money.
• 55:20
  Speaker 4: I don't think we talk about this enough, but we
• 55:22
  Speaker 4: have created a panel of Indigenous people that we refer
• 55:26
  Speaker 4: to when creating Indigenous content to make sure one it's
• 55:29
  Speaker 4: hitting right. Two I am not the voice that's not
• 55:32
  Speaker 4: for me. I'm the door that's like I can open
• 55:34
  Speaker 4: the door. And how that plays out is going to
• 55:38
  Speaker 4: be very different based on who we're having on the show,
• 55:41
  Speaker 4: But we talk a lot with them about Allyship year round.
• 55:44
  Speaker 4: I don't want to just celebrate nay Doc where can
• 55:46
  Speaker 4: be like oh cool, like we're promoting creators, because that's
• 55:49
  Speaker 4: what every other company is doing. How do we have
• 55:51
  Speaker 4: a deep impact that opens many doors for many people
• 55:56
  Speaker 4: throughout the year. Because you're right, like three days a year, Sorry,
• 55:59
  Speaker 4: that's not impact, that's actually.
• 56:01
  Speaker 2: The bare minimum.
• 56:02
  Speaker 4: We expect you to recognize those days at a minimum.
• 56:06
  Speaker 4: So I think there's just so much that needs to
• 56:08
  Speaker 4: be done in this space. Yeah, I think alloyship all year. Like,
• 56:11
  Speaker 4: ask your employer, do we have to have January twenty
• 56:14
  Speaker 4: six off next year? Could we like swap that because
• 56:16
  Speaker 4: I'd much prefer to be at work and not celebrate that.
• 56:19
  Speaker 4: And I think it's just small steps in the right
• 56:21
  Speaker 4: directions where you can impact other people as well. Oh
• 56:25
  Speaker 4: my gosh, guys, this has been absolutely beautiful. Of course,
• 56:29
  Speaker 4: as I mentioned before, I will make sure that the
• 56:31
  Speaker 4: petitions and all our recommendations are in the show notes
• 56:33
  Speaker 4: and all over our social media today. I would really
• 56:36
  Speaker 4: really love if you could sign the not a date
• 56:37
  Speaker 4: to celebrate petition and then find out more and just
• 56:40
  Speaker 4: be more educated about this. And if this conversation has
• 56:44
  Speaker 4: made you think differently my friends, share it with your friends,
• 56:48
  Speaker 4: and don't forget to subscribe to She's on the Money
• 56:50
  Speaker 4: wherever you get your podcasts, We've got more big conversations
• 56:54
  Speaker 4: coming your way. Thanks guys for sharing.
• 56:56
  Speaker 7: The time with me.
• 57:03
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• 57:05
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• 57:09
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