This post was contributed by Professor Leanne Wiseman, ARC Future Fellow and member of the Law Futures Centre.

On May 29, 2022,  Brisbane City Council’s sustainable living festival, Green Heart Fair, was held at Victoria Park /Barrambin in Herston, Brisbane.

A Griffith University/Australian Repair Network tent was hosted by Professor Leanne Wiseman to promote Repair Cafes and the Right to Repair movement. Hundreds of people visited the tent to learn more about the Repair Café movement (there are now 10 local repair cafés operating in South-East Queensland), the Right to Repair movement and the Australian Repair Network. The Repair Café movement is expanding rapidly in Australia, with over 75 repair cafes operating in local communities.

Leanne was assisted across the day by members of the Australian Repair Network (Associate Professor Kanchana Kariyawasam and Jane Hawthorne, an ARN volunteer), volunteer repairers and Lilia Ben Denkhill, one of Leanne’s law students, who is a recipient of the prestigious New Colombo Plan Scholarship, whose project also focusses on the Right to Repair.  There were plenty of discussions about how to set up a Repair café, how to recruit volunteers, the types of things that people can bring to repair cafés, and the benefits of repair and reuse over recycling.

Leanne was also invited to present on the Green Home Centre Stage at lunchtime on How Repair Cafes Can Help You Fix Your Stuff. Leanne and Les Barkla, the convenor of the Redcliffe Peninsula Repair Café, discussed Repair Cafés and the Right to Repair movement to a large interested crowd. The day was a great success for raising awareness of the Repair Movement in Australia.