The ghost people arrived by boat. They never left. But the stories of first encounters and what came next live large, 250 years later, in First Nations families and communities. An ambitious journey to reclaim the names and stories disappeared by Captain James Cook, but never lost. A deeply personal excavation of herstories and the women wrenched from their Country by colonial sealers. A Polish freedom fighter and the fight for the mountain that bears his name. Join Big Ideas host Natasha Mitche...
May 28, 2025•57 min
At the time of colonisation, there were more than 250 Indigenous languages spoken in Australia, but these days, all are considered endangered. Many First Nations people are working hard to revive and reclaim their mother tongues. In the anthology, Words to Sing the World Alive: Celebrating First Nations Languages, 40 Indigenous Australians share words and phrases that are meaningful to them. This event was recorded at the Clunes Booktown Festival on on Dja Dja Wurrung Country on 22 March 2025. S...
May 27, 2025•54 min
Music has been around for at least as long as humans, and possibly even longer. How have forces like religion, the economy, society and technology, shaped music over time? And why, in lullabies and concert halls, songlines and streaming services, have humans always been irresistibly drawn to making it? This event was recorded at Sydney's Gleebooks . Speakers Andrew Ford Host, The Music Show, ABC Radio National Author, The Shortest History of Music , and moreAward-winning composer Kirsty McCahon ...
May 26, 2025•53 min
From wars with global consequences to violent crimes in the suburbs, trauma underpins so much of the news cycle. It’s something award-winning journalist Bruce Shapiro came to understand intimately when, as a young crime reporter, he was stabbed. It changed his whole perspective on his profession, dedicating a large part of his career to the question of how trauma in yourself - or your source - changes the way you approach a story. Hear how trauma became newsworthy, how reporters learned to bette...
May 22, 2025•55 min
What if we could turn back time on our biological clock and slow down — even reverse — aging? High profile Harvard scientist David Sinclair is co-author of the New York Times bestseller Lifespan: Why We Age and Why We Don’t Have To. His lab’s work is as ambitious as it is controversial. He wants to radically change the way we live our lives — and push at the boundary of what it means to be human. Professor Sinclair joins Big Ideas host Natasha Mitchell at the 2025 World Science Festival Brisbane...
May 21, 2025•1 hr 7 min
It's been 60 years since then Australian Prime Minister Robert Menzies sent Australians to fight in the Vietnam War. Since that time, the defence force has been involved in many armed conflicts and peace keeping missions around the world — but with varying degrees of public support. So how have successive Australian governments managed public consensus around military engagements? And with war once again a threat to global security, might they have to do so again? These events were recorded at t...
May 20, 2025•1 hr
If democracy is the will of the people, what does this federal election result say about Australia? In his election night victory speech, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said Australians had voted for Australian values, claiming these were fairness, aspiration and opportunity for all. But is this right message we should take from the election result? This conversation was recorded live at the 2025 Melbourne Writers Festival in partnership with The Wheeler Centre . To explore more Melbourne Write...
May 19, 2025•55 min
Australians are now the biggest consumers per capita of clothes in the world. But just three per cent of clothing is made here in Australia. So is it time for a fashion rethink? This event was held at the Melbourne Museum as part of Melbourne Fashion Festival's Fashion Talks program on 4 March 2025. Speakers Tara Moses Chief Operating Officer, RM Williams Sarah Sheridan Co-founder, Clothing the Gaps Amy Gallagher Co-founder, Kloke Juanita Page Founder, Joseph and James Jaana Quaintance-James (ho...
May 15, 2025•54 min
Meta's Mark Zuckerberg has said “a lot of the corporate world has become culturally neutered” and that it needs more “masculine energy”? Has it and does it? At Meta, he recently shut down initiatives that promote equity and diversity in his workplace. In the USA, so has Ford, Mcdonalds, Walmart, and the Trump administration. But in Australia, less than 5% of CEOs in private companies are women and the gender pay gap is slow to budge. Meanwhile, future male leaders are being courted online by man...
May 14, 2025•54 min
Democracies in retreat, attacks on science, border disputes, death and destruction. It can feel like we are living in unprecedented times - but here's the thing: world history has a habit of repeating itself. So what lessons does history teach us about this moment in which we find ourselves? Do we humans learn anything from the past, or are we destined to repeat the same mistakes? This event was recorded at Adelaide Writers' Week on 5 May 2025. Speakers Orlando Figes Historian of Russia and Euro...
May 13, 2025•56 min
Democracies in retreat, attacks on science, border disputes, death and destruction. It can feel like we are living in unprecedented times - but here's the thing: world history has a habit of repeating itself. So what lessons does history teach us about this moment in which we find ourselves? Do we humans learn anything from the past, or are we destined to repeat the same mistakes? This event was recorded at Adelaide Writers' Week on 5 May 2025. Speakers Orlando Figes Historian of Russia and Euro...
May 13, 2025•56 min
After five nominations, Ruthie Foster has taken home the 2025 Grammy Award for Best Contemporary Blues Album - affirming her status as an American music legend. In this intimate conversation, she shares what made her want to be a singer; the roles of her grandmother and mother in her life; why faith is so important to her and why she wants to sing about real people. And much more… A Heartlands Conservation presented at the Blue Mountains Music Festival. Speakers Ruthie Foster American singer-son...
May 12, 2025•54 min
The exiled founder of Russia's only independent television news channel, Mikhail Zygar, takes us inside Vladimir Putin's Russia, with a firsthand account of how the President has successfully silenced the media, opposition and Kremlin critics, to cement his hold on power. The 2025 AN Smith Lecture: Journalism against autocracy: Putin, Trump and the future of news was recorded at the University of Melbourne's Centre for Advancing Journalism on 31 March 2025. Speakers Mikhail Zygar Exiled Russian ...
May 08, 2025•52 min
A story of continents crashing and cleaving apart, the making of a civilisation, the language of the dead, and ... a mummified rat makes a cameo too. The Incan empire was vast and sophisticated. It built the stunning citadel in the clouds of Machu Picchu in the Andes mountains. But within a century its people were catastrophically wiped out by the onslaught of the Spanish conquistadors. Join Big Ideas host Natasha Mitchell with two intrepid researchers — an archaeologist and a leading mammalogis...
May 07, 2025•53 min
The language used to talk about mental ill-health can play a key role in reducing or enforcing stigma. And it's constantly evolving. But what terms should be used and when? And by whom? The wrong word can not only deeply hurt a person's feelings. It can end careers, destroy relationships, cut access to support systems. This special World Mental Health Day PsychTalks event was presented by the Mental Ill-Health Stigma Researchers Australia Network (MISRA ), the Melbourne School of Psychological S...
May 06, 2025•53 min
What can a mosquito teach us about time? Noone likes a mosquito bite — but for a brief moment when it stings you, you know you are alive. Humans are temporal beings, but across cultures, our concepts of time are vastly different. This event explores what we can learn from science, philosophy and Indigenous perspectives that can alter experiences of and attitudes to time, to make better decisions for the future. This event was recorded at the Sophia Club in London on 17 October 2024. Speakers Ric...
May 05, 2025•54 min
This election has been described as a boring campaign, but with some fascinating contests. So just what is going on in the minds of voters as Australia heads to the polls this weekend? This event was recorded at the Sorrento Writers Festival on 27 May 2025. Speakers Frank Bongiorno Professor of History, Australian National UniversityPresident, Council for the Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences, and the Australian Historical AssociationAuthor, Dreamers and Schemers: A Political History of Austr...
May 01, 2025•54 min
Are we living through a key turning point in world history? How do we make sense of this present moment, and what's on the horizon?Trump's trade wars, long-held alliances dismantled, the deadly conflicts in Gaza and Ukraine, the rise and rise of AI, the tech oligarch takeover, China's military build-up, NATO's demise, and much more. It's a confusing time. Four seasoned analysts and journalists with their finger on the pulse join Big Ideas host Natasha Mitchell to share their prognoses. This even...
Apr 30, 2025•56 min
It's been called a coming-of-age story for a nation. The Whitlam Government's purchase of Jackson Pollock's Blue Poles in 1973 helped to bring down the government. So how did this abstract expressionist masterpiece become the most famous, most controversial artwork in Australia? Then: how does political portraiture affect how we feel about politicians — and how we vote? Jacqueline Maley looks at The Art in the Optics — and explains why political portraiture is more important than ever today. The...
Apr 29, 2025•56 min
Until recently, the USA provided about 30% of global health funding. It was dominant in supplying HIV/AIDS medication and funded a major part of medical research. Much of this has now stopped with Donald Trump restricting gender affirming care, withdrawing from the WHO and holding funds from USAID - and the list goes on. What are the impacts on pandemic preparedness, future global health priorities and resource mobilisation? This conversation has been presented by the The Australian Institute fo...
Apr 28, 2025•54 min
Acclaimed British historian Sir Simon Schama reflects on the history of antisemitism, the Holocaust and contemporary culture. He says that for millennia Jewish people have been "the other of convenience. We are the dark mirror in which the wish fulfilment of other societies takes it out on people who are said to represent its opposite." Presented at the Adelaide Writers Festival in partnership with the University of Sydney . Speaker Sir Simon Schama British historian and television presenterProf...
Apr 24, 2025•50 min
Cancer is common and chemo and radiotherapies can save or extend our lives. But sometimes they don't, or they stop working, or they come with disabling long-term side effects. In a state of desperation, some of us seek out unproven alternatives which might even put us at greater risk of cancer. Join Big Ideas host Natasha Mitchell and guests to find out how scientists are attacking the problem of cancer treatment. This event was organised by the Australasian Society of Stem Cell Research , Unive...
Apr 23, 2025•58 min
For the past 18 months, Israel's war in Gaza has polarised the world. The Indian author and essayist Pankaj Mishra reckons with the conflict through the lens of colonialism, morality and history. This event was recorded at the University of NSW Centre for Ideas on 27 February 2025. Speakers Pankaj Mishra Author, The World After Gaza , From the Ruins of Empire and Age of Anger: A History of the PresentEssayist, New York Review of Books, London Review of Books, The New Yorker and more Simon Longst...
Apr 22, 2025•54 min
Two thousand years ago, life in Pompeii stood still when Mount Vesuvius erupted, preserving the town in volcanic ash for centuries. Today, this ancient Roman city captures the imagination like few others. This event was recorded at the National Museum of Australia on 14 December 2024. Speakers Dr Sophie Hay Roman archaeologist, press and communications officer, Paco archeological de Pompeii Professor Steven Ellis Professor of Classics and Roman Archaeology at the University of Cincinnati Dr Lily...
Apr 21, 2025•54 min
Authoritarian regimes are threatened by women who fight for their freedom — and are pushing back in even more extreme and deadly ways. The world watched wide-eyed as Iranians took to the streets and social media for the #WomenLifeFreedom movement. We watched Afghan women and children run towards American planes taking off from Kabul as the Taliban returned to power. In Myanmar, women have taken up arms against the military junta. What do women at these front-lines need you to know right now? Joi...
Apr 17, 2025•54 min
The only certainty in life is that we will all some day die. Most of us don't know when that day will come. But others must face their mortality front on. Mark Rafael Baker was no stranger to death, losing three loved ones in seven years — and then he was confronted with his own. This event was recorded at Readings Bookshop Melbourne in October 2024. Speakers Michelle Lesh Lecturer at Melbourne Law School, University of Melbourne Raimond Gaita Emeritus Professor of Moral Philosophy, King's Colle...
Apr 17, 2025•44 min
Join Natasha Mitchell and guests to grapple with some gritty paradoxes about science and religion, and in this era of misinformation, conspiracy theories, and existential angst — are they serving the needs they used to? Science drives much of modern life, and yet fewer people are drawn to studying it at school putting scientific literacy at risk. There's been a rise in anti-science sentiment and a questioning the authority of scientific expertise. Many societies are becoming more secular with fe...
Apr 16, 2025•54 min
We know them as Zuckerberg, Musk, Bezos, Gates, Jobs. But to Kara Swisher, they're Mark, Elon, Jeff, Bill, and Steve. She was once a Silicon Valley insider, but now she's one of big tech's most vocal critics. This event was recorded at Adelaide Writers Week on Monday 3 March 2025. Speakers Kara SwisherAuthor, Burn Book: A Tech Love Story , aol.com: How Steve Case Beat Bill Gates, Nailed the Netheads and Made Millions in the War for the Web and There Must Be a Pony in Here Somewhere: The AOL Time...
Apr 15, 2025•54 min
Jobs vs the environment. Profits vs environmental protection. One pitted against the other. That dominant story has defined environmental regulation in Australia, drowning out the stories scientists or environmental campaigners want to tell. Scientist, environmentalist, and government insider, Peter Cosier, has worn all the hats and he wants to change how we think and talk about Nature. An eye opening account of Australian environmentalism and its politics. Presented at the Lyrebird Festival Spe...
Apr 14, 2025•54 min
Is prison time for violent offenders mostly about appeasing a sense of revenge? And if so, are there better ways to rehabilitate perpetrators? Dr Gwen Adshead assesses the effectiveness and impact of therapeutic interventions and restorative justice - and she's looking at how Norway does it. The 2024 BBC Reith lecture series Speakers Dr Gwen Adshead Award-winning forensic psychiatrist and psychotherapist, author of The Devil You Know. Encounters in Forensic Psychiatry Anita Anand (host)BBC Radio...
Apr 10, 2025•54 min
