Meredith Burgmann – författare

In this moving, funny and sometimes chilling book, leading Australians open their ASIO files and read what the state's security apparatus said about them. Writers from across the political spectrum including Mark Aarons, Phillip Adams, Nadia Wheatley, Michael Kirby and Anne Summers confront - and in some cases reclaim - their pasts.Reflecting on the interpretations, observations and proclamations that anonymous officials make about your personal life is not easy - at least for some. Yet we see outrage mixed with humour and writers reflect on the way their political views have - or haven’t - changed.Surrounded by influential Australians and piles of paper from our recent past, activist, politician and writer Meredith Burgmann has produced a book where those being watched look right back.

At the height of the building boom in the 1970s, a remarkable campaign stopped billions of dollars worth of indiscriminate development that was turning Australian cities into concrete jungles. Enraging employers and politicians but delighting many in the wider community, the members of the NSW Builders Labourers’ Federation risked their jobs to preserve buildings, bush and parkland. The direct impact of this green bans movement can be seen all over Sydney.Green Bans, Red Union documents the development of a union that took a stand. Apart from the green bans movement, union members also used industrial power to defend women’s rights, gay rights and indigenous rights. In telling the colourful story that inspired many environmentalists and ordinary citizens – and gave the word ‘green’ an entirely new meaning – Meredith Burgmann and Verity Burgmann open a window on a period when Australian workers led the world in innovative and stunningly effective forms of environmental protest.A new introduction reconsiders the impact of the now iconic green bans movement at a time when workers’ organisations around the world are looking to fight back against overdevelopment and global warming more strongly than ever before.