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Byron Shire
March 19, 2024
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Mandy Nolan's Soapbox

Mandy Nolan’s Soapbox: Reach Beyond

One in 12 people over 65 are living with dementia. Dementia is not a specific disease, but is a general term for the impaired ability to remember, think, or make decisions that interfere with doing everyday activities. It’s actually no longer called dementia, but Major Neurocognitive Disorder (MND).

Mandy Nolan’s Soapbox – Free Assange: It’s Up to Us

'If war can be started by lies, then maybe peace can be started by truth.' ~ Julian Assange. It’s a simple profound statement said by someone who knows that as a journalist the truth doesn’t set you free. It gets you locked up in solitary confinement in Belmarsh Prison. The truth can cost your life. Assange knows that too well.

Mandy Nolan’s Soapbox: We Need to Talk about Birth

Birth is magical. It is powerful and wild and beautiful and scary and miraculous. Until it’s not. When things go to shit, it happens fast and when your baby dies, your life is changed forever, but not in the way you were expecting.

Mandy Nolan’s Soapbox: Growing Mould Together

I love the smell of mould in the morning. Actually I don’t. It drives me nuts. Some days I’m obsessed that it’s all I can smell. It’s the smell of living in the Northern Rivers. The humidity and rain of our summer has created the perfect conditions for mould. Mould on shoes. Mould in my bread bin. Mould in the dark of my cupboards. Mould in the cracks in my bathroom. Mould behind the sink. Mould in me

Mandy Nolan’s Soapbox: My Motherhood Statement

I don’t mind having my ideas shredded. But criticism rarely stays there. It becomes personal. I usually don’t engage. I just let people fight it out with themselves. But I came across this one comment, on a thoughtful post I’d written, that enraged me. The writer accused me of making ‘motherhood statements’. That statement was like acid. I couldn’t let it go.

Mandy Nolan’s Soapbox: To Hall and Back

The February flood sent 2.7 metres of water through Corndale Hall. This water of biblical proportions reached to the roof. It wrenched the modest little building from its footings and set it free. It collided with a power pole and was broken into pieces. Such a violent and unexpected death for such a magical place.

Mandy Nolan’s Soapbox: Change It

66 millionaires earning almost a billion dollars put together paid no tax last year ... We celebrate people like this. But their profits come at a cost. It’s called poverty.

Mandy Nolans Soapbox: No to STRUTH, Yes to TRUTH

On 26 January we celebrate 236 years. It’s like celebrating a single grain of sand instead of the entire beach. If we are going to celebrate colonisation we need to face up to the ugly stories of what our ancestors did. Not just about what was stolen, but how. Because some of us are the beneficiaries of what was stolen while others inherit generational trauma.

Mandy Nolans Soapbox: Why changing names changes us

How do I continue to perpetuate circumstances that cause pain or injustice? Decolonisation is a big process, and it asks us to reexamine all that we have captured, appropriated and stolen, all the hurt caused to First Nations cultures all over the world.

Mandy Nolans Soapbox: The careless and the cashless…

When I was a kid, every birthday I’d wait by the letterbox for a card from my nan. It wasn’t just the careful writing on the floral card wishing me the best, it was the $10 stashed inside. There’s probably not a person over 30 who hasn’t received birthday cash.

Mandy Nolans Soapbox: Knitting the Big Cardigan of resistance

Whenever anyone says, ‘There is nothing we can do,’ I think of the Knitting Nannas. I think of this powerful and politically potent group of older women who hold the frontline of so many impossible protests with a ball of yarn and a cheeky conversation, and not just an ironing board – an iron will! They stand in unity. They know there is work to be done. And they do it.

Mandy Nolans Soapbox: The White Dress

You don’t know me, and you probably won’t ever read this. But I want it to sit in the public record; something emotive and kind and human.  You are a hero. You are my Australian of the Year. You have stood strong where many would have crumbled. You have crumbled, and yet you have endured. You have shown us what strength looks like. It is a young girl in a white dress. That dress.

Mandy Nolans Soapbox: Two feet under

The internet is a very strange place. It does things to you when you’re sleeping. Today I was looking for an old article I wrote, so I googled myself. It was something I’d written on ‘feet’ as a soapbox in 2018. It came up as one of the first searches. But so did something else. I came across a super weird subject header in the google list. ‘Rate Mandy Nolan’s Feet’. What the?

Mandy Nolans Soapbox: Why We’re Stealing Bread Again

The other day I watched someone put their groceries back. They were at the checkout anxiously watching the tally. I know that feeling. It’s something I’ve done many times in the past. Especially when I was a single mother. It’s humiliating. Having to declare your financial strain by returning items until the number on the screen matches the numbers in your account. In public. Under pressure. Usually with screaming kids hanging off your trolley. 

Mandy Nolans Soapbox: Peace Today Peace Tomorrow

Why is peace so hard? As the assault on Gaza resumes I am reminded of the quote by Albert Einstein: ‘Peace cannot be kept by force, it can only be achieved by understanding’.

Mandy Nolans Soapbox: Climate is About People

What scares you more? The impact of warming by 1.5 degrees that results in drought, famine, heat stress, species die-off, loss of entire ecosystems and habitable land and 100 million people being thrown into poverty? Or a hundred or so activists in a kayak?

Mandy Nolan’s Soapbox: End Patriarchy. End Violence.

When I was six years old my father was killed in a car accident. By then I had witnessed countless incidents of domestic violence. I had seen my father physically and verbally abusing my mother. I had been locked in a room for safety, only to have the door smashed in with a chair. I’ve seen my mother pushed. I’ve seen her punched. I’ve heard her crying and begging. I’ve felt the fear. I’ve heard people whispering about me. I’ve felt the shame. 

Mandy Nolans Soapbox: L’appel du vide

I am scared of heights Which is ironic because I’m six foot tall. And I wear heels.  And I’m a Capricorn. It appears my destiny is to inhabit high places. It’s a weird fear. I don’t remember ever not being terrified. As a kid I don’t recall anything in particular that set it off. Except maybe Mr Fredericks, the old man across the road, dangling me by my feet from his verandah for fun.

Mandy Nolans Soapbox: Peace for Our Children

Children are magical. They arrive innocent and new, a chance for humanity to have a fresh start. An ordinary result of human biology and the propagation of the species. Nothing quite prepares you for the miracle of that moment.

Mandy Nolan’s Soapbox: We’re not OK

Everywhere I turn there are conversations about someone dealing with extreme mental health issues. Friends, family, young people, older people who are struggling. People reaching out looking for services that sometimes aren’t available, are booked out, or aren’t helping. We are sad. We are scared. We are worried. We are lost. We need to find a way through.

Mandy Nolan’s Soapbox: Praise the Madonna!

I love Madonna. Not her music so much. It’s not my jam. She’s such an incredible artist, that doesn’t matter. Because she is more than her music - she is iconic. I love her. I love how brave she is. I love how relentlessly authentic she is. I love how she doesn’t give a F. I love how she doesn’t listen to the dominant narrative. I love how she becomes the narrative. I love her sense of play. Her lack of shame. Her ability to stand in who she is and radiate positivity. It’s powerful. And it’s unique.

Mandy Nolan’s Soapbox: Hearing the Truth

On 15 October I woke up profoundly sad. Like many people in this region, I’d been committed to supporting the Uluru Statement from the Heart by campaigning for a ‘Yes’ vote. We ran a cohesive positive campaign that embodied the core value of truth-telling. But it wasn’t enough. The results were deeply shocking. It felt hard to believe that this modest request could have become such a divisive issue.

Mandy Nolans Soapbox: In the shadow of a coming referendum – the light of progress

On 15 October I hope this country wakes up with a ‘Yes’ for the Voice referendum. In putting forward my view, I have been savagely trolled. I’ve had some opportunistic ‘No’ people use my platform to prosecute their agenda. I have not gone on the page of ‘No’ supporters. I have not abused them. I have seen the proliferation of misinformation and the use of fear and conspiracy to inflame uncertainty and to keep Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people voiceless in our colonial system. So this week I have asked my nephew, Levi Murray, a Wakka Wakka/ Kubi Kubi man to share his insights.

Mandy Nolans Soapbox: Hug vax cures loneliness

We live in a world of over 8 billion people. Never in the history of humanity have so many people inhabited this planet. And yet many of us are lonely. How can we have so many humans so absolutely disconnected and sad? 

Mandy Nolans Soapbox: Unbranded

I’ll admit it. I was a Russell Brand fan. I thought he was funny. I thought the sexually rampaging lothario image was just a clever comedic persona. I thought he satirised the privilege and legacy of rock stars.

Mandy Nolan’s Soapbox: Big Polluters are Getting Off

Offsets don’t work. They have become a licence to pollute. What we actually need is a reduction in carbon emissions, not carbon-emitting industries to greenwash their impact by investing in a solar farm or planting saplings. While it’s nice to know that big polluters are keen to invest in green industry it would be better if they just stopped polluting. You know what’s better than offsets?

Make Bruns the new Bentley

There is never nothing we can do.  There are just people who do nothing. With a world that is not on track to meet its climate targets, in the face of government failure it is the community who must act. It is time to do something. Right now in Brunswick Heads our wild heathland is calling.

Mandy Nolans Soapbox: National Child Protection Week – Break the Silence

The Australian Child Maltreatment Study found that almost 1 in 4 Australians experienced one or more types of contact child sexual abuse while almost 1 in 5 experienced non-contact child sexual abuse. Almost 1 in 10 Australians experienced forced sex in childhood. How do we continue to fail to protect our children? What is broken that we need to fix? What is systemic that we need to smash?

Mandy Nolan’s Soapbox: The Luis Kiss

Don’t grab women by the head and kiss them. It seems obvious. But the patriarch had to stake his claim. Luis Rubiales, the president of the Royal Spanish Football Federation just broke Christmas. And I’m pissed.

Mandy Nolan’s Soapbox: Are we losing the Raffle?

The last day off I had was June 23. The next one is sometime in September. I was wondering the other day why I was feeling a bit tired so I checked my diary. Oops. Apparently they invented this thing called the ‘weekend’. Ostensibly it was to refresh the worforce. Or at least give them time to yell at their kids, mow the lawn and wash their undies. And maybe go shopping. There’s no point to a capitalist system if you don’t have time to spend your money or get into debt. Or cut down old growth forests. Or up your carbon footprint.

Mandy Nolan’s Soapbox: Action to Stop Extraction

Ryder is a forest activist. After the floods he spoke at a climate rally in Sydney in front of 5,000 people where he called for an end to fossil fuels. He is a forest protector who runs ‘tree listening’ tours in our local forests and was part of the citizen scientist group that found giant trees that had not been protected in Doubleduke State Forest. This led to the Forestry Corporation having to stop logging. Ryder is 10 years old. 

Mandy Nolan’s Soapbox: The Team Girl

FIFA Women’s World Cup is having massive positive impact on girls all over the country. It’s telling girls they are powerful. That what they do is exciting. That the world is watching them. And when the world is watching, it’s watching them for their skill. Women in sport are exciting and commanding massive audiences.

Mandy Nolan’s Soapbox: To Bank or Not To Bank…

I remember going to the bank as a kid. It was an austere place – because money was serious. Banks designed themselves a bit like confessionals. The teller was your private priest of poverty or prosperity. Everyone spoke in hushed tones, so when you withdrew $2.50 from your passbook your fiscal sins were private.

Mandy Nolan’s Soapbox: The Real Conspiracy

Black helicopters will arrive and bring the US under the control of the United Nations. Water condensation trails contain biological and chemical agents sprayed on the population to lower fertility, give them cancer and make them compliant. International elites control governments, industry and media. These include Jewish people, and NGOs such as The World Economic Forum.

Mandy Nolan’s Soapbox: Barbie Girls Claiming Back their Barbie World

As a little girl nothing compared to the smell of a new Barbie. It smelt like love and ambition. It smelt like a new job. Independence. I remember the pink of the box. The shine of her blonde hair stapled to cardboard. Her tiny pointy feet pushed into stilettos. Her giant nipple-less breasts screaming to the world that she was an unashamed sexual icon who clearly wouldn’t be breastfeeding. It seemed like a very sexualised toy for a kid. I think that’s why I love her so much.

Mandy Nolan’s Soapbox: Robo from the Rich

According to the recent Royal Commission, nearly half a million Australians received false Robodebt notices. Welfare recipients – people living in poverty, were criminalised by an automated debt-recovery system that left people to dispute a debt they never had. The system used to calculate the debt was wrong. It caused enormous harm to hundreds of thousands of vulnerable people.

Mandy Nolan’s Soapbox: Yes

I cannot comprehend waking up in a country that has said ‘No’ to the Voice. A country of over 96 per cent non-Indigenous people...

Pam’s chemical-free farming passion

Third-generation farmer Pam Morrow has been growing her own organic food for over 20 years. Her passion for farming without the use of chemicals...

Many rental homes barely habitable due to heat

Rental homes had an average indoor temperature of 25°C and experienced two hours a day over 30°C according to a new report, 'Cruel Summers', from tenant advocacy organisation Better Renting.

Stone and Wood’s new NRB beer

Stone and Wood have launched a new beer: Northern Rivers Beer (NRB). At a warm, and pretty laidback, night at the Billinudgel Hotel earlier...

The Drongo: even more of them around these days

The team at Spangled Drongo Brewing officially fired up their brewhouse in June last year, but you may have heard their name prior to...