Transcript: Unpacking the Social Economy

Music by: Fratres – Arvo Part and First Flight – Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith

Judi Drown: Welcome, everybody. Thank you for joining today's open learning session. 

My name is Judy Drown, and I work for Social Enterprise Australia (SEA). I'm relatively new to the organisation and I've joined to head up SEA’s policy and advocacy work.

These open learning sessions are funded by the Commonwealth Department of Social Services. The aim is to create a space for change-makers and supporters across the social enterprise community to share knowledge and experiences, and to help strengthen connection and collaboration across the sector.

Today's session is convened by the team from Co-operative Bonds. Featuring speakers from the International Labour Organisation's Co-operatives Unit, Nundah Community Enterprise Co-operative and the Strategic Development Group. It's a real pleasure to be joined by our four amazing speakers, Simel Esim, Richard Warner, Michael Pilbrow and Antony McMullen. Thank you to our speakers for coming and sharing your wealth of knowledge on the social economy.

Before I hand over to Antony, I acknowledge the Traditional Lands on which we're meeting. I'm based in Canberra, on the beautiful lands of the Ngunnawal people. It’s an absolutely stunning day today. Ngunnawal land is where people would come and meet on the Murrumbidgee River. It's a really important, beautiful area for local people. I pay my respect and acknowledge the lands where we're all meeting right across Australia, and respect for First Nations Elders past, present and emerging.

I wanted to note that in stewarding these open learning events, we really value the experiences and ideas that are different to our own and encourage everyone to respect different points of view. We aim to foster a learning environment that brings to life the values of authenticity, collaboration, creativity, diversity and justice. And invite everyone here to be brave and kind in sharing your insights and views, and I'm sure we'll get a lot more from the session if we do that. Without further ado, I'll hand over to Antony to introduce the speakers and start the session.

Antony McMullen: Thank you, Judy. Thanks for that lovely introduction, and welcome everyone to Unpacking the Social Economy. 

We're going to be talking about social enterprise and how it can be part of a broader social economy. What is that social economy? What can it look like? What are some examples? It's really exciting. 

As Judy mentioned, I'm a member of Co-operative Bonds. We're a co-operative of cooperative developers and work with member-based organisations in the social economy.

It's wonderful to be part of this discussion and hosting today. Having a look at some of the questions that people have been asking ahead of this discussion, really interesting.

How do co-ops and social enterprise intersect? How common are co-ops? Well, 12% of humanity, apparently, is a member of a co-operative. So a lot of us are, and 8 out of 10 Australians are members of a co-operative or mutual, but only about 3 out of 10 know that. Another question that came up was, how can we bring family and friends on the social and solidarity economy journey? So, some really interesting kick-off questions just to have in our mind as we have this broader discussion today.

Solidarity is all about deepening connection. It's about a real connection between me and others, and others with me. I should mention I'm speaking to you from a co-operative co-working space established in the heart of Melbourne. Co-operatives come in all shapes and sizes. This is not a fake background; it's real. It's quite industrial and gritty and I hope you're enjoying that. Now I digress. 

We have Simel Esim from the International Labour Organisation (ILO). Simel leads the Co-operatives Unit at the ILO in Geneva, and she has worked extensively on gender equality, informal work (there are some great examples around co-operatives in informal work globally) and just in general co-operative development. Simel's an all round co-op legend globally. We are so privileged to have her with us today. Without further ado I will throw it over to you Simel. 

Simel Esim: Thank you Antony. It's wonderful to join you for this open learning event. This is my first engagement with Australian audiences. I've been reading and meeting people, but I'm excited for that. It's important to have these conversations during the second United Nations International Year of Cooperatives 2025. Many thanks to Antony and Co-op Bonds for this invitation. 

It's a time of quite unsettling, profound, intersecting transformations in the world. There's demographic shifts, shifts with rapid aging, large-scale migration of peoples, forced displacement, and the cascading climate crisis make a just transition an absolute necessity. 

The digital transformation requires its own just transition. Redirecting the concentration of power and control and AI platforms toward more democratic governance, decent work. Our global systems are under strain, and inequalities are deepening. Trust in institutions that have been established since, let's say, the First or Second World War, like the United Nations - although a multi-party democratic system - is eroding and rights-based agendas, international law, humanitarian law, human rights law are encountering growing resistance and some even call it the period of post-ethics, post-virtue.

In such a context, we are wondering how we keep solidarity alive. Periods of system change and stress, intensify the demand for alternatives that bring fairness and stability. This is where the social and solidarity economy comes in. At the local level we have co-operatives, mutuals, associations, and self-help groups working with their members, users, workers, and communities in translating this notion of solidarity, and mutualism into daily practice to mitigate/address some of these challenges.

When we were in the breakout room, Garry Cronan, whom I have followed of course, for many years, a distinguished, inspiring, Australian co-operatives researcher. He was mentioning the need for a definition that we need to converge around. I do have an international tripartite definition of the social and solidarity economy to share with you. This is part of a resolution that was adopted at the International Labour Conference in 2022, on decent work and the social and solidarity economy. It was brought to the agenda and discussed. So I will actually use that resolution as the basis of my inspiration today. The definition is as follows: 

"The social and solidarity economy encompasses enterprises, organisations, entities that are engaged in economic, social, and environmental activities to serve the collective and/or general interest, which are based on principles of voluntary cooperation and mutual aid, democratic and participatory governance, autonomy and independence, and the primacy of people and social purpose over capital in the distribution and use of surpluses and/or profits as well as assets. SSE entities aspire to long-term viability and sustainability, and to transition from the informal to the formal economy and operate in all sectors of the economy. They put into practice a set of values which are intrinsic to their functioning and consistent with care for people and planet, equality and fairness, interdependence, self-governance, transparency and accountability in the attainment of decent work and livelihoods. According to national circumstances, the SSE includes cooperatives, associations, mutual societies, foundations, social enterprises, self-help groups and other entities operating in accordance with the above mentioned values and principles of the social and solidarity economy." 

I know, it's a mouthful, but this is what happens when you bring 187 member states, not just the government, but employers, workers, and organisations who put their priorities, and their perspectives forward.

Our challenge now is how do we operationalise this? What does this mean in legal terms? What does this mean in organising education? Statistical terms? And so on. I think that this resolution, this definition comes at a good time. When democratic institutions are under strain due to austerity, shrinking civic space, and erosion of rights. It is offering us a model for economic democracy. They can act as schools of democracy by involving people directly in economic decision-making. And they can foster civic skills, collective responsibility and democratic resilience from the ground up.

In ILO terms, we understand the social and solidarity economy entities as supporting both redistributive justice, for more equitable outcomes, and pre-redistributive justice, fair access to voice and participation. There's this ability to enable people to co-determine the institutions, the rules that shape their livelihoods. Of course, not every initiative labelled as social or impact-driven is the same. There are boundaries. There are many top-down, let's say philanthropic investor-led approaches, that may achieve short-term visibility but lack the accountability, redistribution and the democratic governance that define the social and solidarity economy.

I think what distinguishes SSE's is that ownership, control, and decision-making rests with the members, workers, users, and communities. We also see the social and solidarity economy as a space where workers can exercise their rights, enjoy freedom of association, collective bargaining and participate in social dialogue.

At this point, you may ask why the International Labour Organisation, a specialised agency of the United Nations that has a mandate on the world of work, social justice, is engaging with co-operatives as a social and solidarity economy. The answer is in its history. Since 1919 the ILO has been built on the conviction that peace and stability are impossible without social justice. It's also, as I mentioned, unique in the United Nations system because it's not just governments that decide. The policy is forged through tripartite dialogue with employers and workers as well as governments. From the beginning the ILO had cooperation as a key concern.

Yes, co-operatives and social and solidarity economy entities may not be part of this tripartite structure, but as early as 1920 under the first Director of ILO, Albert Thomas, he was himself a co-op leader from France. He urged the member states to create a Cooperatives Unit. He argued this by saying that the organisation should not just be concerned about conditions of work but also conditions of workers' lives, and that co-operation was a practical expression of that.

Fast forward to 2002, the tripartite constituents of dialogue adopted recommendation number 193 on the promotion of co-operatives. This is still the only international labour standard dedicated to co-operatives. It's been used by 120 member states to draft or reform their laws and policies on co-operatives. Today, the unit I lead - the Co-operative and Social and Solidarity Economy Unit, is the only dedicated technical unit in the UN system. We work with the International Cooperative Alliance, a multi-stakeholder body, and the Committee for the Promotion and Advancement of Cooperatives. We're also founders, co-founders and leading the United Nations Inter-Agency Task Force on the Social and Solidarity Economy. This is work that is aiming at strengthening laws, policies, capacities, education systems, financing and so on. 

Moving 20 years forward and I mentioned this resolution on decent work in SSE that was adopted in 2022. In addition to this shared definition and the way forward, we were asked by our member states to develop a strategy and action plan. This is a seven-year plan, from 2023 to 2029, and we are in the third year of implementing it with support from member states. 

The ILO is part of a longer arc of UN recognition. At the 1992 Rio Earth Summit governments acknowledged the role of co-operatives and community-based approaches in sustainability. In 1995 World Summit for Social Development in Copenhagen highlighted their contributions to employment, poverty reduction and social integration. In 2013 the ILO, with other UN agencies and SSE actors, created this task force on the SSE that facilitates dialogue between the UN and the SSE movement and fosters coherence across key issue areas. This task force was also instrumental in supporting member states to adopt two United Nations General Assembly Resolutions, one in 2023 and one in 2024, that formally recognise the social and solidarity economy as a driver of sustainable development. 

As the task force, we drafted the UN Secretary-General Report on the SSE in 2024. We are gearing up to draft another one starting later this year for next year's General Assembly discussion. This is all happening at the time when there is huge strain on the United Nations system. Big cuts with some Member States not paying their dues. So while there is this momentum there's also the counter momentum. As movements, as actors, as stakeholders engaged in the space we need to find further collective actions, and solutions to mobilise around these issues.

ILO is also facing cuts and our Unit has been around for 105 years but I'm not sure how we will come out of this round in all honesty. In July 25, this year, the Sevilla outcome of the Financing for Development Conference acknowledged co-operatives and the SSE in the global financing agenda and negotiations on the Doha Declaration for World Social Summit also references co-operatives and the SSE. And this is coming up in November. This is a draft, so we hope very much member states like Australia will engage and will make the case for the language to be there, because once the language is there, then member states, national and local actors can refer to it and start activating it, operationalising it.

In addition to these international developments, and I'm starting to move to regional, national, local, there are regional commitments like the European Union. It adopted an action plan on the social economy in 2021, and a Council recommendation on social economy framework conditions in November 2023. This is actually a very good read I must say, for inspiration, The African Union with support from the ILO, developed and endorsed the 10-year strategy on the social and solidarity economy, along with an implementation plan last year. The Ibero-American region established a network to promote the social and solidarity economy. The Americas are very advanced with this notion of the popular economy. Indigenous peoples' movements have also been very much a part of that. This philosophy of Buen Vivir, good living, living well, living in harmony with nature, with each other. 

You may now say, what about our region, Asia and the Pacific? There is no formal inter-governmental initiative. This has not yet emerged, but there are networks of support, institutions, activists, researchers, and practitioners that are quite active in this space. All this is to say there is a momentum rather than just a sudden turn, in terms of support for co-operatives in the wider social and solidarity economy. It may be this support for moving it from margins toward the centre of international policy as instruments for fairer, more sustainable, and more democratic economies.

Now these high-level decisions are building on, inspired by local actions. For instance, there are regions and countries where the social and solidarity economy has thrived with convergence of policies, financing, education, and reforest systems. One example is the Emilia-Romagna region of Italy. Associations, co-ops, and mutuals are spread across agriculture, social services, construction, retail, and co-operatives account for 13% of total employment. Their contribution was estimated at around one-third of the region's gross domestic product, for lack of a better measure. 

The way that the system has endured is the density of interlinked entities that are supported by secondary institutions and keep providing each other with research and development, financing, and additional services. Creating these secondary-level unions, consortia and so on for bidding for public procurement, for instance, for the provision of care services through social co-operatives with the local government. Different co-operatives, 50 co-operatives coming together to create scale to be able to bid. 

Then there is the model of, which is also very well known, Mondragon Corporation in the Basque Country in Spain. It's a different approach. There's a single federation of 81 co-operatives in industry. Retail, finance, knowledge, and they employ about 70,000 people. They have industrial co-operatives that do airplane parts and refrigerators, and the like. They had a turnover of more than 5 billion euros last year. It's very much a worker-owned co-operative notion. And it has experimented with governance mechanisms like member-set pay ratio limits. There is often around six to one between the highest and lowest earners. A big issue, as you know, in the corporate culture. In both cases, Emilio Romano and Mondragon came out of the Second World War and the devastation and the need for rebuilding those communities. Not necessarily only a lack of government or limited government support, but the need to do things that suited their context.

In India, the Self Employed Women's Association, SEWA, uses a dual approach of unionism for rights and co-operativism and collective social entrepreneurship for livelihoods among women workers in the informal economy. It started in the Gujarat region, and it has around 2.5 million members across 18 states. They gain access to finance through a SEWA co-op bank. Markets through their online marketing system. Basic social protection, like ayurvedic medicine and pharmacies, co-op pharmacies that would otherwise be out of reach for this group of workers. 

This is significant in the context of informality, which is big in the Asia Pacific. Two-thirds of all employed people, 66% are in informal employment. Similarly for women, 65% of the Asia Pacific region are in informal employment. So these SEWA-type examples are important pathways for formalisation, bringing rights in and bringing services in.

Smart is a European network of co-ops that acts as a shared enterprise employer of record for freelancers. It started in the culture and creative industries but now spans wider including delivery workers. It exists in Belgium, Germany, Italy, Sweden and Austria. It's inspired other countries to do similar shared enterprises. In Belgium alone, it supports 90,000 members with payroll, insurance, compliance and enabling these so-called self-employed workers to access protections. 

Sometimes unions would criticise this as a short-term solution and not addressing the deficits, especially in the gig economy, platform economy. While this may be true, these immediate solutions are important while we also run the long run. There is, in fact, at the ILO now a discussion on standards - a convention and possibly a recommendation for regulating the work in the platform economy. So that's something that is also coming. 

Another example of action in Europe is REScoop. A European Federation of citizen-led energy communities. Serves energy co-ops, community initiatives, and allied local actors. It offers EU-level advocacy, project development support, training, financing guidance and networking, and it runs collaborative EU-wide projects. They have around 124 member organisations across 26 European countries and represent 2,500 energy communities and 2 million citizens.

Now you know that replication is always tricky business. How do you bring something like that, for instance, to North Africa? To find the legislation, the financing, the know-how, the advisory services. So, we need to be careful with these good examples because we also need to be self-critical. There are issues of dependency on government or donors, or there may be principles applied in one place but not elsewhere. And I think, what makes it work is these people living by the principles, and putting them into practice.

A conducive environment is about creating a level field that is no less favourable in terms than other enterprises. Then the financing that's fit for purpose, so that SSE entities are financed by those that are aligned with their mission, like credit unions, ethical banks, co-op banks and so on. There's, of course, a lot of capacity building, voice, data, issues that are needed and without forgetting about the social dialogue and rights protection. And safeguarding integrity and trust. There are entities that emerge claiming to be co-op, claiming to be SSE, sudo entities that are circumventing labour laws or exploiting labour rights. And I think this matters for Australia because you have cooperation in your economic social fabric. First Nations people practiced it across sectors, you practice it. 

I think for the Pacific region there are co-ops, associations, and communities of initiatives.

Australia has been a big partner in the Pacific for development cooperation and this collective response in addressing the realities of the small islands, limited markets, fragile ecosystems, and scarce employment opportunities. These could be addressed with some of these shared ownership models in livelihood, stewarding land, forests, fisheries, community-based ecotourism.

There are recent initiatives in the Pacific - co-operative registrars are modernising functions in Fiji, Vanuatu, and Samoa. There's a new credit union bill in Fiji. There is a dialogue on co-ops and the blue/green economy being organised in September. And Kiribati has a new co-op policy and draft bill that was consulted in the family of islands last year, so it's expected this year. I think Australia can be a leading partner in the Pacific - mutual learning and regional solidarity between Indigenous Australian initiatives and Pacific communities, and SSE initiatives. 

One thing I'll mention and I'll stop, is co-op to co-op trade. SSE trade is something that's developing in different regions like Kenyan coffee sold in co-op consumer shops in Denmark, but both from co-ops. So this export facilitation. Or Togolese pineapple in Italy, same co-op to co-op. This is an emerging thread that could be an interesting innovation for Australia to think about. Thank you, and over to you, Antony. 

Antony McMullen: Simel, that was a great overview. We've gone from the theoretical, straight into great global examples and right into our region. What you've really highlighted is the scale of the movement in the social and solidarity economy. Particularly that term you use pre-distribution which is opening up ownership more broadly to people in the economy is an incredibly exciting vision.

There'll be more from Simel when we have a panel discussion. We're going to go over to a couple of Australian speakers to complement the international perspective that Simel brought in, which has just been wonderful. 

We've got Michael Pilbrow, who is coming to us from Yass regional New South Wales. He's a former diplomat and strategy consultant who supports regional communities with housing, social care, education and employment projects. He brings expertise in mutual ownership and inclusive local development. Michael plays a leading role in the Care Together Program, social care of the Business Council of Co-operatives and Mutuals. Over to you Michael. 

Michael Pilbrow: Thank you very much Antony and nice to be here. Greetings from Yass, from Ngunnawal Land. I'm going to share my screen, just a few slides. I wanted to share a couple of examples and case studies that I've been involved in.

I often joke about, but I'm quite serious actually, working in this field of trying to use business enterprises to achieve objectives or solve problems that aren't being solved by either the government or the private sector. I often talk about blood, sweat and tears as a bit of a throwaway line, but foreshadowing one of my case studies really did have blood and tears. I will share that and all the brutal lessons learned from that. 

There's also joy in collective action, where a group of people are running a business together. I'm going to share some brief examples to give a sense of my journey, which has taken me into some interesting co-operative and social business areas.

The first one I want to share with you, and thanks Simel for introducing co-op’s so I won't go back into the principles behind co-ops in great detail. I discovered co-ops through a problem in my community. Where I am in Yass is just over the border from the ACT. I was at this time in the northern suburbs of Canberra, in quite a long-time public housing area where four medical practices had left within a couple of years. I and others couldn't find a doctor. 

So over a few years, to cut a long story short, a bunch of people in the community, starting with 5, that led to 100, that ended up ultimately with 40,000 members, created a health co-operative. The patients are the owners of the health practice, and it was a beautiful thing. A similar comment was made so many times, where people said, ‘Before the health co-op existed, I couldn't find a doctor. Now I own my own medical practice’. The variation of words was different from different people, but that sentiment used to come through so much. 

We discovered the co-op model, the co-op legislation, which was a really neat legal structure to work with, but to run a co-op, it had to be professionally run. We had to hire professional management, and doctors who knew how to treat patients, nurses, and other allied health staff. It started small and the demand was so great that it grew and grew and grew. Many people benefited from the services the co-op provided, but also from the sense of ownership that they had. Not the sense of ownership - the ownership, the real ownership they had. I won't dwell on this too much, but it had a very interesting ending. I had spent 14 years starting it up with others, chair of the board, on the board. Then as you do, you do your succession planning.Three years after I'd finished, the board at the time essentially privatised the co-op. A long story of how they did that. So brutal lessons from that experience. It still gives me hope in the co-op model. 

So being in Yass, where I'm living in regional New South Wales, we had a health clinic, one of the clinics in this national health co-op. Then I started getting phone calls from people wanting to start other types of co-ops. An hour down the road is the city of Goulburn. Goulburn is about two hours from Sydney, an hour from Yass, and an hour from Canberra. People had heard about the health co-op, so I was asked to come over, where a group of committed environmentalists had the idea to start their own solar farm. They were committed to renewable energy and had the idea but didn't know how to go about it. They asked me to come and present to their group about the co-op model. 

One of the principles of co-operatives is cooperation among co-operatives. So that was what I was part of. I got the phone call. I went over to Goulburn and talked to them, and they decided to run with the co-operative model. If you go to Goulburn now, you'll see the panels. It's about to formally finish construction and start operations. Community members 100% own this solar farm. The beauty of it is, whether someone buys a hundred thousand shares or 400 shares, they all have one member, one vote; it's democratic. 

That little comment I put there is so special. In our region, we have so many renewable energy projects that people don't love. They have protest groups against them. We have some bad companies coming in, to be honest, to do some of the projects. Even if you love renewable energy, you wouldn't like the behaviour of some of these companies. This is the only renewable energy project in our region that doesn't have a protest group formed against it because the community are the owner. They get a say in how it works. 100% community-owned. It's given me such inspiration for collective ownership through a co-op model in renewable energy. I think it's the way of the future. 

Having started with the health co-op, then gone into renewable energy, the opportunity to work with the Business Council of Co-operatives and Mutuals (BCCM) came up. Through a lot of advocacy that the peak body, the Business Council of Co-ops and Mutuals is the peak body for this sector, they had been in discussion with the Commonwealth Government around the Aged Care Royal Commission and the crisis and challenges that were revealed by that Royal Commission. The Commonwealth government and BCCM have partnered in a social care co-operative innovation program. Some of what that has involved through working with communities who are interested in providing social care, aged care, disability care, and primary health care through a collective action model, through a co-operative model.

The BCCM has been working with communities across the country, from WA, a little town called Wagin, to Bowen in Queensland, a few places in New South Wales, South Australia, and Victoria have been supporting communities to start co-ops. Some examples include: 

• a worker co-operative of independent care workers forming a co-op to support each other and the work they do
• a provider-owned co-operative, small aged care providers banding together to provide back office and front office services collectively. 

They're just some examples. That program continues, and there is a community of practice. It's exciting that through the advocacy of the co-op peak body, the Commonwealth government has come to the co-op sector to say, ‘Help us with some innovation’. There's some really exciting work being done through the Care Together Program. 

I want to mention some lessons. One is the co-operatives legislation that's in each state, and then there's a national law, which is beautiful. I wouldn't say that legislation is generally beautiful, but it is ready-made for the social and solidarity economy. If anyone has time to go and look at the co-ops legislation in your state, in New South Wales, it's section 1.3, which lists the seven co-operative principles around Democracy, autonomy and co-operation. It’s written into legislation. Beautiful. It saved us so much time to be able to go straight to that legislation. 

Never forget that you're running a business. You're running a profitable ongoing business. It doesn't have to keep the profit or give the profit to shareholders, but to be profitable. I know Social Enterprise Australia, you have the word enterprise in your name. So it's all about enterprises, which is different from other types of community groups.

The beauty of collective enterprise is something very special. Cooperation among co-operatives, as I said, that's a great asset. There are people in co-ops and mutuals around the country who are a phone call away from supporting you, and they're almost mandated to support you because that's one of the seven principles.

And finally, and this is where the blood and tears came in, you know, if you lose the original DNA of what got a co-op or a mutual or a collective action together going. If you lose that, you can lose all the great work that you've done. That's a hard lesson that those of us involved in the national health co-operative have learned. That something changed along the way, that all that brilliant work was now essentially privatised. The benefits of that work have gone on. Of course, people have hugely benefited from the 11 and a half years that the national health co-op was in operation, but be vigilant and diligent to always keep the original DNA of co-operation in there as you run your social enterprise. 

I'm going to stop there and just thank you all for the opportunity to give you that quick whirlwind of some Australian examples from healthcare to renewable energy to aged and disability care. I’m excited that so many of you are interested in having this conversation. Thank you very much Antony, and I'll hand it back to you. 

Antony McMullen: That was wonderful Michael, I really enjoyed that and some great local examples. We're going to drill even further into a fascinating and inspiring example from my next speaker. One of the things that you mentioned that really stood out for me is the very boring, for some people, not for folks like me, but the legislative framework that we have in Australia. I talk to people in international jurisdictions about the kind of investment opportunities in our legislation. That we can have equity-like investment into social enterprises using the co-operative form. The way that we've got a national system compared to the hodgepodge in the US, and they go ‘Wow, this is fantastic’. Then I say, but it's under-utilised. We've got a really great legislative framework to get things happening, but we need to get more people across it and learning about it, and using it for the benefit of their communities. Thank you very much, Michael, that was wonderful. 

Our next speaker, we're going to be drilling down a little bit further, and we've got a co-operative social enterprise legend, another legend. We've got Richard Warner from Nundah Community Enterprises Co-operative. Richard is a social worker and community development practitioner. He coordinates an award-winning Brisbane co-operative, Nundah Community Enterprises Co-operative. A very long-standing project that is groundbreaking in terms of social procurement and a whole range of other initiatives. It's led by people with disability, who are members. He's also the former chair of the Queensland Social Enterprise Council. Welcome Richard. 

Richard Warner: Thanks Antony. G'day everybody and thanks Simel and Michael. 

I'll tell you a little bit about us, and I might share some photos because I agree with all of Michael's points. The legislation is actually really beautiful if you look at it. I don't understand why we don't adopt it more in the social economy because it's suited to social enterprise and peak bodies, and people, or organisations working together. 

Michael's last point is where I wanted to start, which is about the heart of what we do. I think what is at the heart of co-operatives is really about the members, and really that is the most important thing in the whole endeavour. It's so important not to lose sight of that. For us, it was people like me who were community workers and were working with people with disabilities who were long-term unemployed. 100% of them were long-term unemployed. They had gone to job agencies after job agencies, sometimes 40 times in a year and constant rejection. But they wanted to work. They wanted to be workers, and they didn't give up. They hadn't given up but they didn't have a way of being able to enter into meaningful employment. 

So, one community worker said to them, why don't we meet together? Listen to their stories first, of rejection and wanting to work. So we brought those people together - they shared their stories, and they decided to start a little jobs club, which was very humble and in the informal economy. They'd all had experience being members of a housing co-operative, so it was quite a logical step for them to form a work co-operative. 

That process was 27 years ago. They borrowed the community workers' mower and whippersnipper, made sandwiches for the local agencies and worked people's backyards. It was this informal jobs club at first, but then incorporated as a co-op, which had as its primary activities to create work for people with disabilities who wanted to work. That energy is what has driven the co-op over 27 years. It's the energy that, and I think probably it's worth listening to what people say. When people are being really honest with me, they'll say things like, Richard, I went for a job and people were very nice in the interview room, but you can tell they don't want me for the job. Or, I get the job and then I lose it, I don't know what happened. My brother and sister have got a job, why can't I have a job? Then after people get the job with the co-op, they're saying things like, I'm a worker now. I'm not sleeping all day because I'm depressed. I'm not staring at four walls, drinking coffee and smoking cigarettes - I'm out working. I can tell my mum and dad I got a job. I can tell my brother and sister I've got a job. And it's a good job and I get well paid. For some people it might be, I'm on the board of directors as well. 

We've got a majority board of members with disabilities and other expertise to assist us with governance. That's the founding energy which starts with listening to a group of people with a common interest and a strong need to achieve something. That's the most important thing not to lose sight of. It's very powerful and it energises those members as well as people like me. I mean, that's why I get up in the morning. I was mopping a hall at 7 o'clock in the morning. We manage a community hall and employ people. All of the senior managers in our organisation, we'd really try and encourage, it's not mandated, but really try and encourage people to engage and get their hands dirty. Even if it's one shift a week or one shift a fortnight. Because that's what it's all about. The co-op's gone on to do pretty cool things. It's won awards and people are very proud of themselves, and they've supported the development of other co-operatives.

This picture is a group that we worked with from Bhutan. We were approached by people who are refugees who'd been in a UNHCR camp for 20 years, and they'd heard about the co-op, and they wanted to learn how to start a business. We helped them to start a mowing business called the Mountain Mowing Men. They went on to have hundreds of customers. They didn't form a co-op, but they're cooperatively-minded people. The money was raised for their business from within the community. They didn't go out for a loan - $20,000 came out of nowhere. We learned a lot from them, so that was a wonderful experience. 

This picture is what it's all about. There's Ian, who's one of the founding members and he's a Director with Kirsty, our Operations Manager, who rose up through the ranks of managing the cafe. Ian makes hundreds of sandwiches each day and is a stalwart. You can see it's all about relationships, having a good meaningful job and the community that comes through that.

This picture is a bit of outreach work. That was through our connection with Yolanda, and we're doing some work with people in Logan who are from a Central African background, many from Congo. Doing some work around social enterprise and co-operative training as well as employment training. 

There's Susan, and one of our past social work students, in the kitchen making cookies. There's Ian with probably the biggest slate of catering I've seen in one order, in our cold room, which is taller than him. I had to take a photo of that the other day. 

Here's our youth co-op. I went out and mowed with them the other day and they've picked up a big contract. A couple hundred thousand dollars' worth of work a year. A hundred properties in a run. We're trying to grow this youth co-op, which I'll end on this point. Which is not about giving people a job. It is about that, but it's actually people growing the business. They've been involved in building it from the grassroots, so it's their space. They've got real ownership over it. 

Now that's it for me. I hope that gives you a bit of a taste at the human level of what can happen in co-operatives.

Antony McMullen: Fantastic. Wow. What great complementary presentations from each of our three speakers. Thank you to all three of you for your presentations.

I'm wondering what drives you in this work. Often we talk about the work, the success and some of the challenges that we face. Michael, you told a very inspiring story. You were involved in that health co-op for a very long time. You obviously have a strong commitment there. Simel, you've been working internationally for many years in all sorts of challenging and interesting contexts. Richard, you've been a really first-rate community development worker in the co-operative movement for a very long time. So, I’m interested in what drives you, your personal motivation.

Simel Esim: I'm originally from Turkey. I grew up with co-ops all around, but not quite knowing that they were co-ops. Housing, retail, my dad was active in them. I never studied them. I went all the way through to PhD and never heard of co-ops. Economics, political science, sociology, yes, but never heard of co-ops. 

When I was doing my PhD field work, I came across these women - home-based workers, informal economy workers, and domestic workers trying to set up their co-ops. Struggling. Getting some support from municipalities, but not quite making it because when the political party changed, the interest changed, and they would fall apart. They didn't have the know-how. They knew why it was important to come together for care, for marketing, for joint purchasing and the overall collective voice.

I was like, what a great idea, but why doesn't it work? It was really what motivated me. Then working around the world in Lebanon, Yemen, Palestine, Jordan, and India, I got to learn more and more of what makes it work and what doesn't work. That's kind of been driving me since. 

Antony McMullen: Thank you Simel. So, it's actually getting in there and solving some problems. 

Michael, what's driven you over the years in your work? 

Michael Pilbrow: To get involved in the first place in the health co-op was purely about need, self-interest, actually. I couldn't get a doctor for my little kids, it was as simple as that. My friends at the footy club, my fellow parents at school, my friend, the local chemist, all had the same stories - this lack of doctors in this area was a need. I wanted my kids to have a doctor,  pure and simple as that. 

But also, back from my early childhood. I spent part of my childhood in America with my dad's work, and we lived in Wisconsin. Our footy team was the Green Bay Packers. I still have on my desk my Green Bay Packers memorabilia from when I was in year five at school. I knew the Green Bay Packers. I had this idea that they were this amazing community-owned co-operative football team in the most capitalist sporting competition in the world. They are still very successful, and they are still a co-op. I've always remembered that. I didn't fully understand what that meant as a kid. But it came back to me as I got into co-ops, that if they can succeed in America, co-ops can probably succeed anywhere. 

Fundamentally, need. Co-ops are about finding a way to meet a need that no one else is meeting, and that involved some self-interest. 

Antony McMullen: Sport had to come in somewhere. Thank you, Michael. Richard, what drives you? 

Richard Warner: That's a deep question, Antony. I think in terms of co-operatives, it's people who are pushed to the margins of society and who face a lot of barriers. Often, one of the only roles they have is as a recipient of services or as a consumer, a client. The beauty of co-operatives, and more broadly in a lot of forms of social enterprise, but particularly in co-operatives, is that people have a stake. They're getting behind the driver's wheel, and that is game-changing for people. For a lot of people that's the new experience. They've always had stuff done to them or done for them, but they're not doing things for other people, for themselves and for each other.

Antony McMullen: So that's where the solidarity comes in, would you say?

Richard Warner: Yeah. It's self-help and it's mutual aid. It's helping yourself and helping each other. And also you're helping the broader society.

Antony McMullen: Yeah. Let's get into some of the challenges and also some of the opportunities. I'm interested to hear from each of you. If you could name the single biggest barrier to growing the social and solidarity economy, and also one on the other side of it that enables a social and solidarity economy, either globally or locally. Interested in your thoughts about that.

Simel Esim: Look, establishing a conducive environment for the SSE. The level playing field that I was telling you about. Treating SSE entities on terms no less favourable than those of other forms of enterprise and social organisation. That's a supportive policy, a legal institutional framework consistent with the nature and function of SSE entities and guided by principles and values that we talked about.

It's also about mainstreaming the SSE into relevant strategies and policies. It's not just having an SSE strategy but about it being included in the food security or in the resilience strategies or in the employment or trade or agriculture, integrating the SSE as a partner, as a mechanism. The SSE financial institutions are there, and other SSE finance providers are there, and we need to activate them as per principle six, cooperation among co-operatives. Bring them to assist, to support the financing needs of SSE entities. Whether these are credit unions that could extend this or the ethical banks, the co-op banks. There are lots of good examples of this from around the world, including government establishing social and solidarity economy funds. Co-ops in the UK have done some interesting work with community bonds etc, but really innovative financing that's fit-for-purpose. Thank you. 

Antony McMullen: Lovely. Thank you, Simel. Richard, I'm wondering if you have any thoughts? Something that's a big challenge but also something that enables this model. 

Richard Warner: One of the biggest challenges is how we design our markets. Markets are highly competitive, and they push certain activities to the margins. Where co-operatives have strength is that there's strength in people's passion. If people really want to achieve something and they come together, that's a very powerful force because people will find a way.

The other thing they can do is they can bridge different forms of economic activity. From the private market, which is a highly competitive area that tends to marginalise certain activities and people, but also brings in government activity. Also support from philanthropic and donation-based giving towards a public good. They can blend those forms of support or forms of economic activity, which I think make them quite adaptable.

Antony McMullen: Yeah. Michael, did you have any thoughts? 

Michael Pilbrow: Yeah, thanks. I think a big barrier that I see is the lack of awareness and understanding of the models out there, particularly the co-operative model. In school business studies or in university accounting and law degrees or in company director training, it's there a little bit but just not enough. There's still a lack of understanding. I'm amazed when I talk to accountants and lawyers who've never heard of the co-op model.

In terms of enablers I think it's already there. There is a legislative framework. I mean company Corporations Act can work for some of these social enterprises. The Associations Act can too. But the Co-operatives Act brings the best of them all together. The best of business and the best of community together and it exists already. And that combined with the existing pool of co-ops who are prepared to do cooperation among co-operatives. We already have enablers. We need to get the word out more.

Antony McMullen: Yeah, the how bit because the purpose is clear. That we're wanting a social economy where more people are included in economic activity. That there's a greater share. It's just finding those ways of doing it and I guess that's part of this discussion that we're having today, and I'm really keen to bring everyone into that conversation before we conclude today.

I might finish our panel discussion a little earlier to get the maximum amount of time for questions to be posed. And the question we've got is, how do you mission lock a co-operative?

Now that's an interesting thought. How do you bake in the mission to a co-operative? Would anyone like to answer that question? 

Michael Pilbrow: It’s a really painful question in some ways because I did share an example where I think that was an issue. After over a decade, and so many changes in people, I would say the DNA had changed a bit and/or the mission. The sight of the mission might have been lost. 

I would say that what we started with, in that particular co-op, was very early on we started with a whole lot of members when we were smaller. The Board didn't just meet but the members met, so there were opportunities for member meetings on a regular basis to talk about the co-op. That got lost as it got too big. So have a deliberate strategy in place from the beginning to maintain the DNA through regular engagement with your members so that the mission, the DNA, is maintained. Monthly, quarterly, or yearly so that you don't suddenly find 10 years later you've got bigger and it's been lost. So deliberate member engagement right from the start. 

Antony McMullen: Yeah. Any responses if you feel either Simel or Richard?

Richard Warner: I just say the same, maintaining a culture. You've got to actively support a culture of participation and engagement, and there is risk as you grow. There's some benefit, not for all co-ops, but for co-ops like us to stay at a ‘small is beautiful’ size which is a human size. Scaling might happen through replication rather than vertical growth. The relationships really hold it together and I think that's your best guarantee of mission lock. If there's a strong culture and we're all on about the same thing. 

Antony McMullen: I would add that co-operatives are interesting in that every co-operative has to have a clear purpose and primary activities in their rules. The interesting thing is, you have members and they have obligations. So when you join a co-operative you get something from that but you're also expected to do something. So in a way the activity is a clear thing that members do towards that purpose and that mission. Keeping that really clear and that relationship really clear is important in my view. 

Another question, how to advance learning and education around the social and solidarity economy in Australia? Simel, would you like to start? 

Simel Esim: Sure. This was actually discussed in our group and one of the ideas was in business schools, this is not really taught and how do we bring learning about co-ops to these schools?

In countries like Canada, mainly Quebec, there is a co-op movement - financed chairs for co-operatives like St. Mary's, and these actually then allow for this stream to be established, this stream of learning. There are also a lot of tools online, self-administered tools that co-op educators can use, these online learning events. 

How do we speak beyond the converted is the trick, right? This is a speaking to your tribe issue. We are all nodding here but then you know, it's the others that we need to convince. That we need to bring to the table. This is always a tricky one. 

Antony McMullen: Yeah. Any thoughts,Michael or Richard on learning? 

Michael Pilbrow: Not much to add to what Simel said but I know the Business Council of Co-Ops and Mutuals has really worked hard, the CEO Melina Morrison, to get accounting degrees and universities and the Institute of Company Directors to cover co-ops in their training. So that is happening. Small steps, small steps, small steps. We just need more of those small, well hopefully big, steps. So it's actually hard work advocacy. If anyone has connections to a school curriculum, university, TAFE or other business training, just to spread the word. If we keep having people doing degrees in accounting and not learning about co-ops then we've lost. So spread the word. 

Antony McMullen: It's such a pity it's a specialised area, but when you do find those accountants and lawyers that know what they're doing, they can really supercharge a project. Richard, did you have any comments on that? 

Richard Warner: Yeah, I think the business schools - that is really important that people are educated, and realise what a big part of the economy it is. The other thing is marketing of co-operatives in Australia, and I'm not sure if around the world, but in Australia, it's been a strong part of regional development. It crosses political divides in regional communities. It's been part of rural development and in other areas of the economy. It's something that people from the country can go, yeah, I know about a co-op. The current treasurer of our state, his dad sold his milk to a dairy co-op. I think that's really important. 

In the not-for-profit world, I think it's the pro bono lawyers. We need to get them educated a bit more because I know when we started the Queensland Social Enterprise Council, I was really pushing for it to be a co-operative, but no one really understood. Everyone was more comfortable with, not even associations, which would suit a member-based form, but a company. Which didn't seem to make much sense to me, and it was a lack of knowledge. I think people just didn't know about it. We're so much more familiar with the company form. 

Antony McMullen: There's lots of work to be done there. Got another question here about ownership. The question is, how might we ensure owners/members understand what's required of them and the risk involved? 

I wonder, Simel, if you have any thoughts? I know you work in the informal neck of the woods globally, the informal economy. How do we translate that from a sense of ownership, even just to begin with, to actual, real ownership and that shared risk but also shared benefit that can come from cooperation?

Simel Esim: Especially in the disadvantaged communities where you have an intersection of vulnerabilities, it’s important to have accompanying institutions. For instance, the example of SEIWA that was given, but there are many others that would be in the U.S, for instance, there is a community-based association that will work with the migrant refugee populations to accompany them for three years, or five years to be able to get it right. It's not just about legal advice, but it's also about confidence, it's about conflict resolution, it's about staying motivated, finding solutions to problems, and not giving up this kind of accompaniment.

In the, let's say, regular enterprises, non-co-op enterprises, you have the business incubator type thing. And this is both a social, and political accompaniment as well as an economic one. We've seen this work well. There is a generation of fatigue, you need to bring in new generations, new members, or remind the existing members of the principles and values. 

At think.coop we have all these peer learning tools. One of the things is to start discussing what does this principle mean? How do we do membership participation? How do we do democratic control? And what are the roles, rights and responsibilities, as you were saying.

Antony McMullen: When we're looking at how organisations work, it's often in the social neck of the woods. It's the donor/recipient model or the helped and the helper. Richard, your model really challenges that. Not only in terms of a point of view, but the actual way that your co-op does work in the social economy. It's participatory, it's membership-based, and you did talk a little bit about that. I'm wondering about that shared risk and ownership question, and how that's addressed in your co-operative?

Richard Warner: Well, we're all in it together. In our co-operative, we synthesise, bring together different energies to make it work for our members. We're all in it together, in the same ship, so we sink or we float together. That's a powerful unifier, and that's the value of the form. That the model can combine these different energies towards a common good.

Antony McMullen: It just reminds me of that game called Coopoly, where everyone's on the same team, and you all either win together or you all lose together. It's actually a fun game, I’ve played it with my kids. It's enjoyable. It seems countercultural. Every other board game you can think of is individual players all trying to win. Whereas you've got this other game, still a game, still have to learn how to do stuff, where you come together and either all succeed together or share the risk of failure.

As Michael has pointed out, sometimes things go really well and you do beautiful work over many years, but you've got to keep that culture there as well.

In terms of the practicalities and of trust, now we're getting into culture and relationship building, to co-design and collaborate, to grow and sustain co-operatives. I’m wondering if anyone has any comments about that? How do you do this and manage power dynamics, time and capacity constraints? Those two questions are related and they are particular challenges for co-operatives when they start. Hopefully, over time, they can move from voluntary to getting everyone paid, and trust and culture is important at every step of the way. Any of our panellists? Michael, I see you're nodding your head. 

Michael Pilbrow: I think there's a thesis in that question. It's something I've tried to do with co-ops I’ve been involved in, is to see every member as a potential director. Not having the the directors here and the mass of members there. I know member directors will have to be the majority. If you see every member as a potential director, you're bringing people into an understanding of the weighty responsibilities that you have in governing an organisation like this. As I said before, you can lose that. 

In the health co-op we started that early, and we had member meetings. We treated everyone the same but getting bigger was harder. So I would say, think of every member as a potential director and therefore everyone is being educated in the responsibilities of a co-op that is not that much different from the weighty responsibilities that a company director of a big company has. That's what I would say and encourage. 

Antony McMullen: That was a beautiful answer, Michael. Thank you. We've got a bit of a left-field question. It's an Australian question about self-managed super funds. Could you have a co-operative for self-managed super funds?

That's a very left-field question. We have a superannuation system in Australia. Some people manage their own superannuation. I know that there's interesting stuff in terms of risk pooling now. So there are lots of people looking at alternatives to insurance because regular insurance has become so costly, and there are mutual forms where people can insure each other through mutual aid. That's something that's starting to happen a little bit. 

Richard Warner: Look, that's way out of my area of expertise, but when I started as a young social worker at Nundah, there was Australia's first ethical superannuation fund. Basically a whole lot of social workers pooled their super funds into this, and were members of Foresters. I was a member of the super fund. It wasn't self-managed but it was a member-based super fund largely for community and social workers. It used to invest in community properties and make quite a reasonable return on the investment. One of our buildings was purchased through a loan from Foresters. A building I work in now, which has shops and the co-op cafe. It was financed through that super fund, and the organisation paid back the rent, which then went to the fund members. There were challenges with regulation and its size at the time with ASIC, so it was eventually wound down, but not because it wasn't making good returns. 

Antony McMullen: It's an interesting point, Richard, because the regulatory environment for co-operatives and mutuals in Australia is so risk-averse. Things just get bigger and bigger, and the capitalisation requirements just get higher and higher, but it doesn't take into account the difference of the co-operative and mutual model. For example we didn't have any mutual banks that went before the Royal Commission into financial services. So there's something in the model itself, the way it is member-driven that makes it more ethical. Some of the safeguards in the regulatory environment don't have any risk anywhere. They're blind to seeing that, actually, member-based models have some inbuilt safeguards and mechanisms. 

Simel, I'm wondering if you have any left-field observations about this discussion in terms of financing, regulatory environment, and those sorts of things?

Simel Esim: Yes, pension funds have been used. In France I think 90/10 solidarity investment funds mandate that a percentage of private investment portfolios be directed towards social purpose enterprises. In Brazil community development banks like Banco Palmas provide some tailored services for low-income communities, leveraging digital finance as an innovation. Quebec has financial co-operatives, patient capital from government, workers pension funds, government-owned investment. Quebec and others allowing for tailored support gross financial needs of the SSE. Senegal has co-op banking networks to facilitate access to informal economy workers. Yeah. These are some of the good examples of financing that I can think of.

Antony McMullen: Great examples. Michael? 

Michael  Pilbrow: Thinking of how you might start small with this idea. I'm loving it. My brain is ticking. I have a self-managed super fund, so I'm interested. One option would be, conscious that this is not financial advice and there's probably APRA rules that we don't know about.

Antony McMullen: No one is going to sue you, Michael. Are we? We're not going to sue Michael. 

Michael Pilbrow: Would be to set up a shared services co-op amongst 10 friends who have self-managed super. Set up a co-op to do joint accounting, joint audits etc. and get efficiencies by pooling your funds and doing that on a small scale. That would be one way you could start it. 

I suspect if you went really big, you're then going to have to become a fully regulated fund with APRA, like some of the big super funds. That could be an interesting way to go, but there could be an option to start small with a small shared service, back-end co-op. 

Antony McMullen: You could have lots of smaller co-ops that then join a secondary co-op and so have shared services there, but still get yourself under any regulatory, but it's not legal advice that we're offering here Michael. I should stop right there. 

A more general question that's come up is, how can the co-op sector, so the sector as a whole, we can look at that both nationally but also globally, and with partners, help each other understand resilience and sustainability to strengthen the smaller co-ops, and maintain purpose and passion? This is a question about well established, large co-operatives and mutuals in Australia and other jurisdictions. How can they come together to assist the growth and the new?

I will mention there is something called The Bunya Fund of the Business Council of Co-ops and Mutuals, which does support the new and is supported by some larger co-operatives and mutuals. 

This is an important general question about the bigger, supporting the smaller and growing the social and solidarity economy. Michael?

Michael Pilbrow: I think introducing at the personal level, the large co-ops to the small co-ops. The biggest co-op in the country, CBH, Cooperative Bulk Handling, is working with one of the small care co-ops I mentioned, Wagin, which is a tiny little town in Western Australia where they've started a small co-op to coordinate aged care and disability services. So, possibly the smallest co-op in the country right now has a partnership with the biggest co-op in the country. That happened through some relationship building and networking. We can just do more and more of that. 

Antony McMullen: Great. It's been a great discussion. We have so many more questions that we could look at, but that was a lovely example to finish with. We've got the largest co-operative in Australia, Cooperative Bulk Handling, which is a not-for-profit, non-distributing, co-operative that you look at the surface -  it's farmers and it's industry. Yet it does all this amazing work in towns and in regions and is now working with smaller co-operatives to build that social economy. A very good live example to finish on.

Unless there's any burning last comments from our panelists to finish off. 

Richard Warner: I thought that was a great example, Michael. I think also the reverse of what you were saying, Antony is true. The small actually has a lot to offer to the big. In terms of that human connection and energy around cooperating which can help some larger organisations reinvigorate their culture and see why what they're doing is really valuable.

Antony McMullen: Absolutely. Because the small and the new have all this creativity and innovation to offer the large, and that's about mutual benefit. That's a lovely thought to finish on, Richard. Simel, any last comments from you? 

Simel  Esim: The New York City Network of Worker Co-operatives is a good example of nurturing worker co-operatives in the New York area. They do public awareness on workplace democracy, and improve business conditions for democratic worker-owned businesses. The National Worker Cooperative Federations Associations, US, Canada have those and other countries like France. Those are good examples for learning, incubating, and facilitating learning. That's what comes to me.

Antony McMullen: Absolutely. I mean, the US has some amazing examples of cooperation.

Thank you so much to our three panellists. Thank you to all for coming along to this and bringing your questions and your interest in the social and solidarity economy. It's been wonderful to be with you. I will throw it back over to Social Enterprise Australia, to Judy, to close proceedings.

Judi Drown: Thank you very much for that. I'm sure you'll all agree that was just an incredible session. Thank you, Antony and Yolanda, for all your work in the background and for creating and putting that together for us.

Simel, Michael, and Richard, what you provided was just amazing and it's been a really great two hours. I wish we had longer, but I'm sure everyone's wanting to dash off for dinner. 

Thank you to the Department of Social Services for funding these sessions, and thanks to the team at Social Enterprise Australia, Sherryl and Athanasia, for putting this together. 

If you would like to look at Understorey to see if there are other learning sessions that you'd be interested in, please do.

That was really fantastic, thank you to all the speakers, Antony, and Yolanda. Thank you for that, and I love the co-op super fund idea. I think that's a really good idea. Michael, will be in touch.

All right, thank you very much, everybody. Good night and thanks for joining us.