The media made Pauline Hanson and One Nation, but now the party holds all the power. It’s a perfect storm for democracy: a shrinking and cowering traditional media, the toxic algorithms of the unmoderated social media cess pit and the warped reality of generative AI. But why is the party that once led the charge in the new internet age seemingly so restrained in weaponising AI? In the fifth instalment of The Making of One Nation, we speak to Kurt Sengul, a political scientist at Macquarie Univer...
Jun 09, 2026•25 min•Season 1Ep. 5
It’s never held government, or even opposition, yet One Nation’s managed to exert an outsized influence on the public policy agenda. From borders to migration, multiculturalism to Indigenous affairs, the far-right party has mastered mainstreaming and captured the masses fleeing the Coalition. In the fourth instalment of The Making of One Nation, we speak to Josh Sunman, Associate Lecturer in Public Policy at Flinders University and Tim Bale, a Professor of Politics at Queen Mary University of Lo...
Jun 02, 2026•19 min•Season 1Ep. 4
We’d all like deeply considered policy and informed debate to be at the heart of politics, but unfortunately controversies and scandals tend to steal the show. For most parties, scandals are disastrous: they lose seats, ministers and elections — but not One Nation. It's weathered defections and punch-ups (including a memorable smearing of blood on a Senate door), jail and chaos, and thirty years on it's surging. This is a party that doesn’t just survive the chaos, but cultivates it and capitalis...
May 26, 2026•20 min•Season 1Ep. 3
You might remember this line in Pauline Hanson's maiden speech: "I'm afraid we're in danger of being swamped by Asians." It wasn't the first racist comment she'd made in public and it certainly wasn't the last. Over the years, her enemies have changed and she now targets Muslims and elites, but it's the same tactic and it's infiltrated Australian politics. This episode was written and hosted by Ashlynne McGhee and produced and edited by Isabella Podwinski. Sound design by Michelle Macklem. Misha...
May 19, 2026•20 min•Season 1Ep. 2
Listen to the full series by searching and following 'The Making of One Nation' (click here for Spotify or Apple .) Nearly thirty years on, Hanson's infamous maiden speech — warning that Australia was "being swamped by Asians" — still echoes through Australian political life. But who was Pauline Hanson before she became a phenomenon, and what did she actually represent? Was she a cause of a new kind of politics, or a symptom of one already forming?...
Apr 01, 2026•25 min•Season 1Ep. 1
Search for "The Making of One Nation" and follow now. From a fish and chip shop in regional Queensland to the heart of Australian politics: this is the unlikely story of the country’s most controversial minor party. For thirty years, One Nation and Pauline Hanson have been ridiculed, dismissed and shut out. Now, no one is laughing. This is the story of how a party built on fear and grievance thrived, died and rose again to upend Australian politics. We go beyond the headlines and stunts to docum...
Mar 27, 2026•2 min
In November, six Democratic lawmakers recorded a video directed at members of the US military and intelligence agencies. In it, they issued a blunt reminder: "The laws are clear: […] You must refuse illegal orders." The lawmakers were issuing the warning against the backdrop of US airstrikes on boats off the coast of Latin America the Trump administration claims are suspected drug runners. Many Democrats and legal experts, however, argue these strikes are illegal. Since returning to office, Trum...
Jan 04, 2026•19 min•Ep. 6
The list of people Donald Trump has punished or threatened to punish since returning to office is long. It includes the likes of James Comey, Letitia James, John Bolton, as well as members of the opposition, such as Adam Schiff, Mark Kelly and Kamala Harris. In fact, he has gone so far as to call Democrats "the enemy from within", saying they are more dangerous than US adversaries like Russia and China. According to Lucan Way, a professor of democracy at the University of Toronto, when a leader ...
Jan 04, 2026•15 min•Ep. 5
In democratic systems, the courts are a vital check on a leader’s power. They have the ability to overturn laws and, in Donald Trump’s case, the executive orders he has relied on to achieve his goals. Since taking office, Trump has targeted the judiciary with a vengeance. He has attacked what he has called "radical left judges" and is accused of ignoring or evading court orders. The Supreme Court has already handed the Trump administration some key wins in his second term. But several cases now ...
Dec 28, 2025•17 min•Ep. 4
Donald Trump has sounded the alarm, over and over again, that the United States is facing an “invasion” by dangerous gang members. He blames immigrants for the country's economic problems and claims protesters are destroying US cities. Trump is not the first would-be autocrat to manufacture a crisis to seize extraordinary powers. So, is the United States really facing a national emergency? Or is this just a tactic on Trump’s part to amass more power? Mentioned in this episode: The Making of an A...
Dec 28, 2025•15 min•Ep. 3
Every autocrat needs a clan of loyalists, strategists, masterminds – these are the figures behind the scenes pulling the strings. They’re unelected and unaccountable, yet they wield a huge amount of power. This is the role Stephen Miller has played for Donald Trump – he is the architect in chief for the second Trump administration. He has so much power, in fact, he’s reportedly referred to as the "prime minister" So who is Stephen Miller? And why are architects so important in helping a would-be...
Dec 28, 2025•16 min•Ep. 2
We used to have a pretty clear idea of what an autocrat was. History is full of examples: Adolf Hitler, Joseph Stalin, Mao Zedong, along with Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping today. The list goes on. So, where does Donald Trump fit in? In this six-part podcast series, The Making of an Autocrat, we ask six experts on authoritarianism and US politics to explain how exactly an autocrat is made – and whether Trump is on his way to becoming one. Mentioned in this episode: The Making of an Autocrat Follo...
Dec 28, 2025•17 min•Ep. 1
We used to have a pretty clear idea of what an autocrat was. History is full of examples: Adolf Hitler, Joseph Stalin, Mao Zedong, along with Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping today. The list goes on. So, where does Donald Trump fit in? In this six-part podcast series, The Making of an Autocrat, we are asking six experts on authoritarianism and US politics to explain how exactly an autocrat is made – and whether Trump is on his way to becoming one.
Dec 22, 2025•1 min
Every day that he was locked up in a scam compound in Southeast Asia, George thought about how to get out. "We looked for means of escaping, but it was hard," he said. Scam Factories is a podcast series taking you inside Southeast Asia's brutal fraud compounds. It accompanies a series of multimedia articles on The Conversation. In our third and final episode, Great Escapes, we find out the different ways survivors manage to escape, what it takes for them to get home, and what is being done to cl...
Jun 12, 2025•45 min
A few weeks after Ben Yeo travelled to Cambodia for what he thought was a job in a casino, he found himself locked up in a padded room. “It’s a combination between a prison and a madhouse,” he remembers. He was being punished for refusing to conduct online scams. Scam Factories is a podcast and multimedia series taking you inside Southeast Asia's brutal fraud compounds. The Conversation collaborated for this series with three researchers: Ivan Franceschini, a lecturer in Chinese Studies at the U...
Jun 12, 2025•39 min
Scam factories is a special three-part series taking you inside Southeast Asia's brutal fraud compounds. Hundreds of thousands of people are estimated to work in these scam factories. Many were trafficked there and forced into criminality by defrauding people around the world. The Conversation collaborated for this series with three researchers: Ivan Franceschini, a lecturer in Chinese Studies at the University of Melbourne, Ling Li, a PhD candidate at Ca' Foscari University of Venice, and Mark ...
Jun 12, 2025•34 min
The neglect of working-class voters in the past few decades has had profound consequences for British political life. Disillusioned with the two main parties, many have turned to Nigel Farage’s Reform and others are simply not voting at all. With the next election likely to be a tight race in many key constituencies, something must be done to win these voters back. But as we find out in this fifth and final part of Know Your Place: what happened to class in British politics , the relationship be...
Nov 04, 2024•32 min
After the 2024 election, the British parliament looks very different, with a large Labour majority for the first time in more than a decade. Several cabinet ministers come from working-class backgrounds, including the prime minister, deputy prime minister and foreign secretary. What impact will the upbringing of this new parliament have on the way Britain is governed? In the fourth part of Know Your Place: what happened to class in British politics , we examine the link between representation an...
Oct 28, 2024•30 min
In the third part of Know Your Place: what happened to class in British politics , we explore how class is defined and measured, and how the UK’s changing class identity interacts with identity politics. Featuring Daniel Evans , lecturer in criminology, sociology and social policy at Swansea University, Gillian Prior , deputy chief executive of the National Centre for Social Research, John Curtice , senior research fellow at the National Centre for Social Research, Oliver Heath , professor of po...
Oct 21, 2024•35 min
In the second episode of Know Your Place: what happened to class in British politics , host Laura Hood, senior politics editor at The Conversation, looks back at a century of class in British politics to understand why Tony Blair's decision to move Labour away from the working class was such a watershed moment. Featuring Mark Garnett , senior lecturer in politics at Lancaster University, Martin Farr , senior lecturer in contemporary British history at Newcastle University and Tim Bale , professo...
Oct 14, 2024•33 min
In the first episode of our new podcast series Know Your Place: what happened to class in British politics , host Laura Hood, senior politics editor at The Conversation, explores when the relationship between class and voting broke down and why. Featuring John Curtice , professor of politics at the University of Strathclyde and senior research fellow at the National Centre for Social Research, Paula Surridge , professor of political sociology at the University of Bristol, Tim Bale , professor of...
Oct 07, 2024•32 min
The relationship between class and political preference in Britain used to be clear cut – Labour for the working class, the Conservatives for the middle class. But not any more. In a new five-part series, Know your place: what happened to class in British politics , Laura Hood, senior politics editor at The Conversation, explores what fractured the relationship between class and voting in the UK, and why no politicians can take the working class vote for granted. The first episode launches on Oc...
Sep 24, 2024•3 min
We’re changing our name, from The Anthill, to The Conversation Documentaries! Over the last few years we’ve used The Anthill podcast to run in-depth series on a range of issues. And that’s exactly what we’ll keep on doing. But we’re changing our name to better reflect that what you’re listening to are documentaries from The Conversation . We’re a not-for-profit independent news website and our editors work with academics to help share their expertise and research with as many people as possible....
Sep 17, 2024•2 min
The quest for a theory of everything – explaining all the forces and particles in the universe – is arguably the holy grail of physics. While each of our main theories of physics works extraordinarily well, they also clash with each other. But do we really need a theory of everything? And are we anywhere near achieving one? Featuring Vlatko Vedral, a professor of physics at the University of Oxford and Chanda Prescod-Weinstein, an assistant professor in physics and astronomy and core faculty in ...
Apr 12, 2023•57 min
What’s the difference between a living collection of matter, such as a tortoise, and an inanimate lump of it, such as a rock? They are, after all, both just made up of non-living atoms. The truth is, we don’t really know yet. Life seems to just somehow emerge from non-living parts. Featuring Jim Al-Khalili , professor of physics at the University of Surrey, and Sara Imari Walker , professor of physics at Arizona State University. This episode is presented by Miriam Frankel and produced by Hannah...
Apr 05, 2023•48 min
It is hard to shake the intuition that there's a real and objective physical world out there. If I see an umbrella on top of a shelf, I assume you do too. And if I don't look at the umbrella, I expect it to remain there as long as nobody steals it. But the theory of quantum mechanics, which governs the micro-world of atoms and particles, threatens this commonsense view. Featuring Chiara Marletto , Research Fellow of Physics, and Christopher Timpson, Professor of Philosophy of Physics, both at th...
Mar 30, 2023•53 min
Interest in the multiverse theory, suggesting that our universe is just one of many, has spiked since the movie Everything Everywhere All At Once was released. The film follows Evelyn Wang on her journey to connect with versions of herself in parallel universes to stop the destruction of the multiverse. The multiverse idea has long been an inspiration for science fiction writers. But does it have any basis in science? And if so, is it a concept we could ever test experimentally? Featuring Andrew...
Mar 30, 2023•41 min
Imagine a universe with extremely strong gravity. Stars would be able to form from very little material. They would be smaller than in our universe and live for a much shorter amount of time. But could life evolve there? It after all took human life billions of years to evolve on Earth under the pleasantly warm rays from the Sun. Now imagine a universe with extremely weak gravity. Its matter would struggle to clump together to form stars, planets and – ultimately – living beings. It seems we are...
Mar 30, 2023•42 min
Without a sense of time, leading us from cradle to grave, our lives would make little sense. But on the most fundamental level, physicists aren't sure whether the sort of time we experience exists at all. We talk to three experts and find out if time could potentially be moving backwards as well as forwards. Featuring Sean Carroll , Homewood professor of natural philosophy at Johns Hopkins University, Emily Adlam , postdoctoral associate of the philosophy of physics at Western University and Nat...
Mar 10, 2023•44 min
There are many competing theories about what causes Alzheimer's disease. For more than 30 years, Ruth Itzhaki has been accumulating evidence that viruses are involved in its development in the brain. We investigate this evidence in the third and final episode of Uncharted Brain: Decoding Dementia , hosted by Paul Keaveny and Gemma Ware from The Conversation. Featuring interviews with Ruth Itzhaki , professor emeritus of molecular neurobiology at the University of Manchester in the UK, Dana Cairn...
Nov 15, 2022•28 min
