Amidst the scorched earth policy pursued by the conservatives in the federal budget, there are some green shoots of hope for progressive Australia sprouting in the blackened ground. It’s also worth remembering that some very good things about Australia remain very good - even in a country where our finance minister smokes cigars while cutting pensions.

The emergence of politicised youth leadership

Nearly 50 years out from the kind of student leadership that facilitated the western counterculture and led to decades of progressive social reform, it’s easy to forget, sometimes, that today’s student protestors are tomorrow’s social leadership.

Watching my own generation of student activists slowly tug on the reins of power (Terri Butler and Adam Bandt, I’m looking at you), it’s inspiring to see a new generation of progressive young persons seizing the moment to gain lessons in the reality of authority and power on the streets. Responses to the student protests indicate there’s a leftward political shift happening in Australia; it’s not just the work of the impressive Sarah Garnham of NUS rallying the kids in Melbourne, or Camberwell High’s finest, the beautiful Tallulah, requiring three cops to take her down … or even the articulate Andy Zephyr telling it like it is at UTS.

It’s that for the first time in a really long time, and despite predictable pooh-poohing from middle-aged, middle-class status-quo profiteers, student action is not marginal to the political conversation. Julia Baird says “the students are right to raise hell”, Amy Gray’s taking her own kid to demonstrations and John Birmingham’s declared: “angry Brisbane students are back, and it’s awesome.” This writer, herself an old student hack, is beaming with pride.

Unity is strength

In March, I had the sad task of writing about how industrial conditions faced by workers in a suburban Super A-Mart warehouse were bad enough to have provoked the young employees – most of whom had never been union members before - into strike action.

Working amongst collapsing palettes, blocked fire escapes, forklifts without clear-roads and a lot of heavy furniture they were expected to lift manually – and without a payrise in over three years – the striking employees were locked out by the company and their union faced a legal fight. But the workers were inspired by the encouragement of supporters far and wide, and took their protest on the road, riding a bus in a “low wage bus tour”, sharing their story of industrial resistance from Melbourne to Sydney.

In the glare of negative publicity, the embarrassed company backed down, and the workers received all their demands. The victory heralds something of a renaissance in old school trade union activism – an energy most necessary to summon, given the WorkChoices-style IR legislation with which Tony Abbott, despite pre-election promises to the contrary, is pushing ahead. That the blind giant of an activist trade union movement may be dancing again is visible online, with a Trades Hall comic response to the “best budget ever!” rapidly clocking up the Youtube hits.

Feminism: it’s recruiting

Since a balance of power vote in the Victorian lower house fell to anti-abortion ideologue, Geoff Shaw, the garden state's women of reproductive age have rightly felt subject to a state of legal siege. As Shaw has dangled his vote before a state government who are not entirely onboard themselves with the whole “woman’s right over her own body” idea, it’s been a relief to see popular opposition to gender oppression fiercely defended online. Not only did the “tummyeggs” meme that ridiculed Shaw’s curious understanding of female anatomy have an ebola-like viral impact across the internet, but Shaw’s own parliamentary colleagues seem to be catching on that the historical denigration of women has cruel, specific and immediately material effects.

No less than Victoria’s opposition leader Daniel Andrews has come out declaring that domestic violence is a “national emergency”, citing statistics provided by feminist commentator Clementine Ford as he pledged a royal commission into intimate partner violence if elected in November. "We have to admit that if women and their children were being systematically tormented by total strangers, we would be quick to act,” Andrews said, as feminists watched in shock. Happy, amazed shock.

Lock the gate

In an extraordinary demonstration of the power of righteous alliance, the combined activism of rural farmers, regional townspeople and environmental campaigners scored a mighty win against the threat of coal seam gas fracking in a protest that’s come to be known as the Bentley Blockade. In opposition to the environmentally devastating impact of gasfields planned for local land, the inclusive and non-violent community protest in the Northern Rivers of New South Wales has been running for years, but since February has maintained an active vigil blockading company Metgasco’s potential fracking site.

Last week, the campaigners faced down up to 700 police who’d amassed under the ominous name of “Operation Stapler” – only to learn the state government had suspended Metgasco’s license four days before the “stapling” was to commence. Spokesperson Annie Kia spoke to the blockade’s people power success: “A powerful social movement grew under the aegis of Gasfield Free Northern Rivers. We represent every political loyalty and section of society. We are farmers, teachers, plumbers and retired chief executives. We are Indigenous and non-Indigenous, ex-National party office bearers and environmentalists who have mastered the art of collaboration. We understand that invasive gasfields are a threat not just to our home, but to all of Australia.”

As gasfields are mooted all over the country, so is resistance spreading nationwide: in the Pilliga, it is not ferals but farmers who are “locking on” to sites to stop the damage.

Gun laws

Finally, In the wake of another horrific gun mass murder in the US, it’s worth progressive Australians solemnly reminding themselves that even in periods of conservative rule, and from the most unlikely of prime ministers, there can emerge decisions of leadership that can move the nation forward. No one witnessing the heartbreak of the father railing against the gun death of his innocent son in the Isla Vista shooting can fail to be grateful for former PM John Howard’s swift, decisive and unifying action introducing gun bans in the wake of the Port Arthur Massacre. In the midst of the present political chaos, we can be ever thankful that there is one particular issue that Australians have been spared.