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Red and grey curves

Building a fairer podcast industry

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Podcast Workers Australia is a community striving to create a fairer podcast industry.


Our members undertake roles across the industry and include producers, sound designers, hosts and audio engineers. We represent podcast professionals whose work includes some of the country's most celebrated, critically acclaimed and widely listened to audio programmes. We represent workers who are freelance or contracted, part-time, full-time, casual or between gigs.

We are working together to advocate for an industry in which podcast professionals are fairly compensated, have better working conditions, and can build sustainable careers.

When you join this community, you're supporting a fairer podcast industry.

Organising Committee

Podcast Workers Australia is organised by democratically-elected Community Organisers who volunteer their time on an unpaid basis.

Current Community Organisers

Michelle Macklem is a Naarm-based freelance sound designer, mix engineer and artist. Her passion for working with sound, listening and creating community led her to create the sound art collective Constellations, which curates a podcast, live events and community listening. She has been active in PWA since its creation and believes that organising is essential to building a fair and equitable podcast industry.

a sunlit, formal portrait of Michelle Macklem, a white, millenial woman positioned so she's looking over her right shoulder
a candid photo of Lawrence Bull, a white millenial man with a beard, broadcasting. He is wearing headphones and talking into a microphone and is situated in front of a screen showing broadcast playback software

Lawrence Bull makes freelance audio documentaries, and makes podcasts part-time at 2ser in Eora/Sydney. He has experience on both sides of freelance work – working and hiring. He believes that the craft of podcasting is currently poorly understood and underappreciated by employers, and organising in solidarity is essential to acquiring fair pay and conditions.

Ryan Pemberton is an Eora-based podcast producer and audio engineer. He currently works full-time as an audio engineer for iHeart Podcasts at ARN, but has spent many years freelancing as well. He started regularly attending PWA meetings in August 2023. He is motivated to contribute to PWA by a belief that the stronger our sense of community and solidarity as podcast workers becomes, the more power we have to advocate for better pay and conditions.

a candid photo of ryan pemberton, a white millenial man, concentrating and looking down. it's out of crop, but he's looking at a portable recorder.
an artistic greyscale portrait of Jon Tjhia. He is an Asian, millenial man with a moustache positioned in front of trees. There is a blurry piece of grass obscuring his face. he is also wearing the black t-shirt favoured by audio engineers

Jon Tjhia works through radio and podcast, literature, photomedia, music and publishing. He’s a founding member of Access Lab & Library, the Manus Recording Project Collective and Paper Radio. Jon has been involved from the early stages of PWA and is increasingly convinced that accuracy, aesthetic specificity, labour conditions and equity are a package deal.

Our Members

Kwame Slusher

Andrei Tarca

Bernice Galang

Rah Gardiner

Ross Manuel

Sammy Perryman

Adair Sheppard

Helene Thomas

Shevonne Hunt

Emily Perkins

Justin McArthur

Anthony Dockrill

Rosa Serret

Francisco Lopez

Lea Redfern

Josh Brennan

Bronwin Patrickson

Lyndal Rowlands

Daniel Bacchieri

James Milsom

Ian Walker

Bindi Heit

Jaye Kranz

Alex Amster

Lindsey Green

Josh Butt

Myoung Jae Yi

Rob kaldor

Bonnie Lavelle

Xander Cross

Chiara Kemp

Max Gosford

Belinda Lopez

Ruth De Souza

Darius Kedros

Sana Qadar

Jacob Round

Jack Traynor

Bethany Atkinson-Quinton

Dan Schulz

Liz Clarkson

Louise Poole

Lia Tsamoglou

Karly Nimmo

Zacha Rosen

Jane Curtis

Mike Williams

Jon Tjhia

Michael Green

Nick King

Michelle Ransom-Hughes

Leith Alexander

Pariya Taherzadeh

Cinnamon Nippard

David McDonald

Sarah Bacaller

Megan Spencer

Joanne Helder

Mell Chun

Phoebe Adler-Ryan

Regina Botros

Achala Datar

Ajay

Nance Haxton

Kathrine Baldishol

Ciara Duffy-Quinn

Sam Blacker

Ethan Kavanagh

Alyssa Partington

Libby Noble

Chery Gladman

Josh Newth

Lucia Tuong Vy Nguyen

Thomas Phillips

Shareeka Helaluddin

Nathanael Little

Loretta Hart

Erielle Sudario

Lisa Taylor

Cara O'Brien

Natasha Mitchell

Miko Santos

Sarah Mashman

Roslyn Oades

Masako Fukui

Kyle McAuliffe Cronin

Ali Aitken

Rhys Gunter

Josh Liston

Elise Bradshaw

Ali Lemer

Phil Horn

Holly Mitchell

Jess O’Callaghan

Harry Hughes

Nic Huntington

Myjanne Jensen

Claudia Craig

Siobhan McHugh

Caroline Winter

James Milsom

Emily Naismith

Daniel Semo

Kate Lawrence

Janak Rogers

Laura Corrigan

Michelle Macklem

James Parkinson

Amelia Navascues

Ed Gooden

Jeremy Wilmot

Jay Gasser

Karla Arnall

Camilla Hannan

Celine Teo-Blockey

Catherine Green

Kyle Hopkins

Nicole Curby

Elle Marsh

Sam Loy

Catarina Fraga Matos

Tina Matolov

Rebecca Graham

Fatima El-Assaad

Edgar Andres Florez Caro

Colm McNaughton

Kieran Ruffles

Melanie Bakewell

Nicola Harvey

Leoniel Degoro

Jac Lauren

Morven McIntyre

Evrim Sen

Martin Franklin

Lyndal Harris

Craig Garrett

Margaret Paton

Layla Palmer

Evan Munro-Smith

Maria Stoljar

Cherie Holland

Sophie Ellis

Anna Priestland

Rowena Murray

Sarah Steel

Rebecca Maakasa

Simon Beaton

Mike Liberale

Darren Scarce

Danni Stewart

Julia Carr-Catzel

Claudianna Blanco

Elise Cooper

Tiffany Dimmack

Kaspar Visser

Mia Lindgren

David Schreurs

Lem Zakharia

Paul Horan

Lawrence Bull

Claire Murphy

Alice Garner

Romy Sher

Gretchen Miller

Shiv Sumer

Corey Green

Mic Cavazzini

Ryan Pemberton

Courtney Carthy

Lindsey Green

Jennifer Macey

Lisa Divissi

Cheyne Anderson

Linda Bonney

Keeshia Pettit

Caddie Brain

Alex Tighe

Olivia Rosenman

Ian Curr

Rate Card

In order to create fair compensation and support the growth of the Australian podcast industry, Podcast Workers Australia has established a new industry standard for podcast rates. These standards aim to ensure that freelancers working in podcasting receive equitable compensation for their knowledge, valuable contributions and expertise.

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