Big Ideas
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Big Ideas
Your front row seat to big thinkers at the best live events, forums, and festivals. Feed your mind. Be provoked. One big idea at a time. Your brain will love you for it. We love hearing from you about the show or events you are planning. Get in touch! Email: Bigideas@abc.net.au SMS line for ABC Rad...
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When Turnbull met Trump — and what it means for today’s changing world order
Australia's 29th Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull joins former Canadian Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland to deliver a candid appraisal of the sh...
The untold Titanic story of Evelyn with Lisa Wilkinson
The untold story of Evelyn Marsden and the woman who rowed against the tide. You've heard of the Titanic disaster. Luxury ship. Largest ever. Impossib...
What can Plato teach us about democracy today?
Democracy is on the decline, so could Plato help? Irish scholar Dr David Horan spent 16 years translating Plato's complete works, including his dialog...
Could self-driving cars & other innovations end the tyranny of distance in regional Australia?
Communities that once built their future around coal and agriculture are asking: what do we become next? Regional Australia usually gets left behind w...
Regional Australia at the crossroad
Communities that once built their future around coal and agriculture are asking: what do we become next? Regional Australia usually gets left behind w...
Love for your neighbour: how to cultivate radical empathy in a disenchanted world
From running a massage clinic for homeless men to running the largest independent human rights organisation in the country, Kon Karapanagiortidis has...
What makes Putin tick — and how will his iron-fist rule of Russia end? Natasha Mitchell with guests
Some say Russian president Vladimir Putin is growing increasingly paranoid, as his war with Ukraine wages on. It's hard to know from the outside looki...
When the safety net frays − nuclear weapon risks in a new era
The global treaty for preventing nuclear proliferation is under serious strain. The last review conferences for the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty h...
How to date from a position of power, with Bad Dates of Melbourne creator Alita Brydon and Nelly Thomas
Have you ever heard of something called Chatfishing? From to AI profiles to cat-face filters, finding true love has never felt more difficult. And yet...
How to date from a position of power, with the creator of Bad Dates of Melbourne Alita Brydon
Have you ever heard of something called Chatfishing? From to AI profiles to cat-face filters, finding true love has never felt more difficult. And yet...
How to live and die well — with Marieke Hardy, Hannah Gould and Antonia Pont
It's the only sure thing in life: that we will all die some day. But many of us are scared to think about death — our own, or our loved ones'.
...
Is there an alchemy to good leadership? And why Prime Ministers should love their mums
Three savvy political minds get up close and (very) personal with power to consider where it succeeds and struggles. They've got gripping stories to t...
Jimmy Lai's fight for press freedom and democracy in Hong Kong
From rags, to riches, to a prison cell. He could have stayed wealthy and silent, but chose not to. Hong Kong's Jimmy Lai launched newspapers that dare...
From deepfakes to dodgy headlines, what’s going on in your newsfeed? — journalism, AI and the algorithm
These days, more Australians get their news from their social media feed than traditional media outlets. Meanwhile artificial intelligence is supercha...
Why working-class kid turned millionaire banker Gary Stevenson wants you to join the fight against economic inequality
He's got a rags to riches origin story, a hit Youtube channel and a bestselling memoir. Now Gary Stevenson is using his platform to fight the growing...
Dear Prime Minister Albanese: Where are all the BIG IDEAS?
A year on from its landslide victory, has Labor used its historic win to deliver big on BIG ideas to set Australia up for the future? Or is Prime Mini...
Martin Luther King III on why Indigenous employment is essential for Australia's prosperity
Martin Luther King III knows what the long fight for equity looks like. His father was the late great Martin Luther King Jr who led the modern America...
How do Royal Commissions work (and are they worth it)? With Betty King, Jack Rush and Jon Faine
Are Royal Commissions just a lawyer's picnic? A political witch hunt? Or, a necessary reckoning? They're Australia's highest form of inquiry on matter...
Was Malcolm Fraser a conservative warrior or a closet progressive?
Malcolm Fraser's legacy remains contested territory in Australian politics. Decades after he left office, we still can't quite figure him out. The Pri...
"Here I am, here we are" Jewish Australian women reflect on the rupture of October 7 2023
October 7 has become synonymous with the Hamas attacks on Israel in 2023, in which more than 1200 Jewish people were murdered. What has followed — the...
Resistance — Yanis Varoufakis with Helen Vatsikopoulos on the people who fought back against fascism
Through the stories of five women across three generations of his family, the influential Greek economist, author, politician and public intellectual...
What lies behind the scientific breakthrough? Professor Georgina Long on medicine's third space
Every scientist dreams of a breakthrough — a new discovery that will change everything. Professor Georgina Long is someone who has done it — as a pion...
40 years after Chernobyl we face a new nuclear risk — this time as a weapon of war
The explosion of reactor number four at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant is not only a story of the past. Right now, nuclear plants are weaponised in...
Is Trump a new Nero, Caligula, Caesar? Can the Roman Empire help us make sense of today's chaos? And other burning questions
Is President Trump a new Nero, or a contemporary Caligula? The Roman Empire was full of merchants of chaos, power-hungry emperors, epic wars, backstab...
Australia's broken social contract — Tahlia Isaac wants to protect women in prison
What happens to a community when it punishes its most vulnerable instead of protecting them Drawing on her own story of addiction, imprisonment, and r...
Australia's Broken Social Contract — Tahlia Isaac wants to protect women in prison
What happens to a community when it punishes its most vulnerable instead of protecting them Drawing on her own story of addiction, imprisonment, and r...
Is Southeast Asia Australia's blind spot? — with Michael Wesley and Geoff Raby
Australians love a holiday in Southeast Asia. But our proximity to this region also makes it key to our national security and prosperity. Yet Australi...
The future of the past — how artificial intelligence is changing history
Artificial intelligence has been defined as a cluster of technologies of and for the future. But like most humans, AI is built using what has happened...
Aliens exist (and the truth is out there)!? Science Smackdown at World Science Festival Brisbane 2026
It's Team 'Aliens Alive' versus Team 'Earthlings United'. Get out of this world, hear the arguments, and you decide. Was the X-Files really a document...
British journalist Emily Maitlis on THAT Prince Andrew interview and news in a post truth world
Former BBC presenter and host of the hit podcast The News Agents, Emily Maitlis, gives a fearless assessment of modern news coverage, public broadcast...
Tennis prodigy Todd Ley on the underbelly of elite junior sport
Todd Ley exposes a high-pressure world where talent is everything, but protection is rare; where overzealous parents, manipulative coaches, hungry spo...
Who's afraid of a joke? Comedy in an authoritarian age — with comedians Sam Jay, Tom Ballard, Bahaa Dabbagh and Leon Filewood
Comedians are increasingly being forced to navigate a world where the right punchline at the expense of the wrong politician carries the risk of perso...
The science of SEX! Natasha Mitchell and guests at World Science Festival Brisbane
Get bonkers on bonking with Natasha Mitchell and guests at the 2026 World Science Festival Brisbane. It’s a sexy, fun, and educational – what's not to...
Forgiveness — a generous gift or social pressure disguised as a virtue?
You often hear that forgiveness is the key to healing and moving on — but is it always the right thing to do? This conversation explores how forgivene...
The diplomats — the ups and downs of life in Australia's foreign embassies
According to the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, Australia has some 120 embassies, high commissions, consulates-general and representative of...
Six years of writing, 200 rejections — how Miles Franklin award-winning writer Siang Lu learned to live with failure
Failure is a part of life, whether we like it or not. While most of us don't ever want to fail, failure does have things to teach us — about ourselves...
Disinformation, deep fakes, and other dodgy doings — the threat to Australian security, democracy, and you
Misinformation, disinformation, deep fakes, false news — do you feel confident spotting them? They’re doing real harm to our relationships, our commu...
A human rights agenda for Canada (2025 CBC Massey lecture 5)
In more than 40 years on the front lines of international human rights Alex Neve has heard Canada described as ‘the land of human rights’ — and seen t...
How people power makes human rights real (2025 CBC Massey Lecture 4)
Eleanor Roosevelt once said that universal human rights begin in “small places, close to home — so close and so small that they cannot be seen on any...
Human Rights don't have to be earned (2025 CBC Massey lecture 3)
Our inherent human rights belong to us from the moment we are born. There is nothing we need to do to earn them, and they are supposed to apply to us...