The Minefield

In a world marked by wicked social problems, The Minefield helps you negotiate the ethical dilemmas, contradictory claims and unacknowledged complicities of modern life.

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Episodes

Can Australia’s federal election escape the shadow of Donald Trump?

If there is ever a time when politicians should be able to expect a fair share of the public’s attention, it’s during an election campaign. After all, this triennial event is when they can demonstrate to the Australian public that they’ve been attentive to their aspirations and concerns for the future, and have developed a series of policies able to address those hopes and fears. And yet Donald Trump’s reckless bluster and punitive tariffs have sucked most of the air out of Australia’s federal e...

Apr 16, 2025•54 min

AI in education — is it a technology to be feared, or a tool to be taught?

This is the second of two episodes recorded in front of a live audience as part of a special “Week with Students”, a collaboration between Radio National and ABC Education. Over a short period of time, AI has become pervasive. Immensely powerful platforms have placed artificial intelligence at our fingertips, and more than two-thirds of Australian students admit to using AI chatbots like OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Microsoft’s Copilot. But as with any technology, alongside the convenience and new capab...

Apr 09, 2025•58 min

Are we on the brink of a world without books? On Ray Bradbury’s “Fahrenheit 451”

This is the first of two episodes recorded in front of a live audience as part of a special “Week with Students”, a collaboration between Radio National and ABC Education. Of the three great dystopian novels published on either side of the Second World War — Aldous Huxley’s “Brave New World” (1931), George Orwell’s “Nineteen Eighty-Four” (1949) and Ray Bradbury’s “Fahrenheit 451” (1953) — it is Bradbury’s vision of a future without books that can lay legitimate claim to being the most prescient....

Apr 05, 2025•1 hr 1 min