Amy Mullins chats with Don Watson, acclaimed author and former speechwriter to Paul Keating, about his Quarterly Essay, 'High Noon: Trump, Harris and America on the Brink.' In this historically rich and incisive account, Watson explores Donald Trump, Kamala Harris, and a nation approaching its democratic high noon. As part of his research, Don travelled across the U.S. earlier this year, exploring the question: Is the United States disintegrating? Key themes of his essay include voter suppressio...
Sep 23, 2024•58 min•Transcript available on Metacast British philosopher and best-selling author A. C. Grayling joins Amy in the Triple R studios for a very special in-depth conversation. Anthony tells us how we can consciously build our own philosophy of life, and why it is so important that we have one of our own. Grayling doesn't want to be prescriptive, but rather says we should take what's best for us from a range of philosophical schools and ideas. Amy and Anthony discuss free will and Sartre and Beauvoir's concept of existentialism, the key...
Aug 19, 2024•1 hr 5 min•Transcript available on Metacast A very special interview is brought out of the archives as acclaimed British writer Robert Macfarlane joins Amy for an in-depth conversation about the connections between landscape, language, people, and place. This expansive conversation begins with an exploration of the aspects of nature, landscape, and place that motivate Robert’s writing. Robert says, “We can think of thought itself as site-specific and as motion sensitive,” and that bodily movement in a particular landscape can prompt trans...
Aug 19, 2024•1 hr 8 min•Transcript available on Metacast Author and former financier Satyajit Das joins Amy for a long-form conversation about the rise of ecotourism, the joys and wonders of seeing animals "in the wild," along with ecotourism's very problematic effects, as explored in his latest book, Wild Quests: Journeys into Ecotourism and the Future for Animals (Monash University Publishing). Is Das witnessing the end of the natural world as we know it? Das was named in 2014 by Bloomberg as among the 50 most influential people in financial markets...
Aug 19, 2024•1 hr 13 min•Transcript available on Metacast Author and philosopher Dr Kate Manne returns to speak in-depth with Amy about her excellent new book, Unshrinking: How To Fight Fatphobia. As Kate describes it; "part memoir, part polemic, and part (all?) philosophy, this book aims to show why fatphobia is a vital social justice issue, and provide an analysis of what fatphobia is and how it works." She proposes "a radical reevaluation of who our bodies exist in the world for: ourselves and no one else." Kate spoke about her previous best-selling...
Jul 11, 2024•1 hr 14 min•Transcript available on Metacast Amy is joined by Professor of Philosophy A. C. Grayling for a deep examination of his new book, 'Who Owns The Moon? In Defence of Humanity’s Common Interests in Space.' With rare earths and natural resources that are essential for future technology from microprocessors to EV batteries running out on the Earth – humanity is now looking towards its closest solar neighbours for future resources. Moving away from the question of should we harness these resources, A. C. Grayling instead asks 'who' sh...
Jul 01, 2024•59 min•Transcript available on Metacast Dr Bertrand Bourgeois speaks in-depth about the snap French elections for the National Assembly (lower house) called by President Emmanuel Macron. With the far-right National Rally (led by Marine Le Pen and Jordan Bardella) leading in the polls, closely followed by the far left coalition, the New Popular Front (comprising 'La France Insoumise' or France Unbowed, the Greens, Communists, and Socialists), and Macron’s centrist coalition Ensemble, including his Renaissance party coming in third – wa...
Jun 29, 2024•1 hr 2 min•Transcript available on Metacast Professor James Curran delves into the discussions and real intentions behind the AUKUS agreement and Australia's plan to obtain nuclear submarines from the US and the UK. How exactly does the US perceive AUKUS? James reveals how the US' view differs greatly from the Australian government's view. With so many practical questions weighing around the delivery of the submarines and the cooperation of the US, UK, and Australian navies, does Australia have a Plan B? James Curran is International Edit...
Jun 29, 2024•56 min•Transcript available on Metacast Professor Andrew Walter from the University of Melbourne updates us about the UK election campaign, which is in its third week. With voting to be held on July 4th, will the UK population show up and vote according to what the polls presently indicate, which is a landslide victory to Sir Keir Starmer’s Labour Party? Or will there be an increase in the popularity of minor parties, or an unlikely resurgence of the embattled Tories led by PM Rishi Sunak? Broadcast on 11 June 2024.
Jun 21, 2024•34 min•Transcript available on Metacast Dr Richard Denniss talks all about inequality in Australia and how we fix it – the topic of his current national speaking tour. Richard is Executive Director of The Australia Institute. To attend the online live-streamed event being hosted in Adelaide, visit: https://australiainstitute.org.au/event/unequal-australia-adelaide/ To listen back to Amy's past interview with Richard about his book, Econobabble: How to Decode Political Spin and Economic Nonsense: https://soundcloud.com/uncommonsense-rr...
Jun 19, 2024•36 min•Transcript available on Metacast Acclaimed writer Ceridwen Dovey brings real space objects to life in her new collection of short stories, Only The Astronauts (Penguin Books). Ceridwen reflects on the stories and inner lives she creates for Elon Musk's rocket test mannequin, 'Starman,' as well as the International Space Station, the first sculpture ever taken to the Moon, the Voyager 1 space probe carrying the Golden Record, and more. Ceridwen speaks with Amy in-depth about the restorative effects of reading and writing fiction...
Jun 19, 2024•57 min•Transcript available on Metacast Amy speaks with Bruce Pascoe and partner Lyn Harwood about their new book, Black Duck: A Year at Yumburra (Thames & Hudson), which is a personal reflection on life, Country and the consequences of Dark Emu through six seasons on Bruce and Lyn’s farm. Bruce Pascoe is a Bunurong, Yuin and Tasmanian Aboriginal writer of literary fiction, non-fiction, poetry, essays and children's literature. He is the enterprise professor in Indigenous Agriculture at the University of Melbourne. He is best known fo...
Jun 16, 2024•1 hr 10 min•Transcript available on Metacast British best-selling author Johann Hari joins Amy Mullins to talk about his excellent new book, Magic Pill, which examines the benefits and risks of controversial new weight-loss drugs, like Ozempic and Wegovy. Johann has in fact tried this medication himself and is conflicted about whether they are the miracle solution for obesity that they appear to be. We get into all the nuances of the science and debate around these medications, as well as the real causes of obesity and why people who try t...
Jun 16, 2024•55 min•Transcript available on Metacast Julian Assange's brother Gabriel Shipton joined Amy Mullins to update us as to Julian's state of mind and health ahead of the UK High Court's impending decision, which is to be handed down tonight 9.30pm AEDT (10.30am London time). The court will decide whether Wikileaks founder and journalist Julian Assange will be able to appeal the decision to extradite him from Britain to the United States where he faces 18 charges for publishing US military documents and diplomatic cables and up to 173 year...
Mar 26, 2024•32 min•Transcript available on Metacast Freelance journalist Nick Feik speaks in-depth about his essay for The Monthly, 'The Rotten Core', which details his own investigations and the findings of a Tasmanian commission of inquiry uncovering decades of abuse towards young people in the state's care, including at the Ashley Youth Detention Centre and Launceston General Hospital. Nick also talks about the damning Richardson Report into the Home Affairs Department and the media's current lack of scrutiny towards the then responsible minis...
Mar 16, 2024•50 min•Transcript available on Metacast Amy speaks with long-time blogging friend, turned journalist and economist Greg Jericho. Greg is a Guardian columnist and Chief Economist at The Australia Institute and he dives into the dubious political and policy debates around tax "reform" in Australia and the Stage 3 tax cut changes announced by the Albanese Labor government. He also talks about Australia's slowing inflation and the extent of the RBA's role in controlling it. Check out Greg's columns for the Guardian, 'Grogonomics' here: ht...
Mar 16, 2024•39 min•Transcript available on Metacast We remember John Pilger, renowned Australian independent journalist and filmmaker, who passed away on 30 December 2023, by re-airing an interview Amy conducted with John at the Triple R studios in February 2017 on his prescient documentary, The Coming War On China (free to watch here: https://johnpilger.com/videos/the-coming-war-on-china). John was age 84. Re-broadcast on 6 February 2024.
Mar 11, 2024•26 min•Transcript available on Metacast Born in Chicago in 1938, author, artist, feminist, and commentator Sara Dowse speaks in-depth about her Jewish family history and how it is intertwined with the history of Zionism and specifically the dissenting voices within it who disagreed with the establishment of the state of Israel at the expense of Palestinians – those such as Asher Hirsch Ginsberg who wrote under the pen name Ahad Ha’am ("man of the people"). You can read Sara's columns for John Menadue's Pearls and Irritations on Israel...
Mar 11, 2024•51 min•Transcript available on Metacast For International Women's Day, award-winning author and science journalist Angela Saini joins Amy from New York to talk about her latest book, The Patriarchs: How Men Came To Rule. Angela delves into the origins of "the patriarchy" and gendered oppression and finds that patriarchal societies are a far more recent historical development than we might imagine. She also talks about our fascination with matriarchy and women-led matrilineal societies and reveals that many different types of matriline...
Mar 07, 2024•1 hr•Transcript available on Metacast Renowned Australian-born film critic Adrian Martin joins Amy to discuss the brilliance of Jean-Luc Godard’s cinematic masterpiece, LE MÉPRIS (Contempt, 1963), starring Brigitte Bardot, Michel Piccoli, Jack Palance, Giorgia Moll, and Fritz Lang. Filmed in Capri, Italy, LE MÉPRIS depicts the breakdown of a marriage, but it is also about much more than that as you'll hear. It has been newly restored in 4k and is having its Australian premiere at Europa Europa Film Festival in Melbourne on the 6th a...
Mar 06, 2024•1 hr 11 min•Transcript available on Metacast James Curran, international editor of the Australian Financial Review and Professor of Modern History at the University of Sydney, speaks in-depth about his latest essay for Australian Foreign Affairs, 'Excess Baggage: Is China A Genuine Threat To Australia?' James writes that, "Australia’s fears of China... are profoundly shaped by what is being said and discussed in Washington." Are Australia's fears largely unfounded? What are China's intentions toward Taiwan? What is the United States aiming...
Oct 28, 2023•59 min•Transcript available on Metacast Sean Reynolds, cultural archaeologist and founder of Melbourne Ghost Signs on Instagram, speaks about his passion for ghost signs in Melbourne and Victoria more broadly, and tells us what they reveal about our local histories. He also tells us about a community fundraising campaign for the Chiltern Athenaeum Museum building to get a climate control system. This will enable the Victorian gold rush town to protect their precious collection of items, photographs and records documenting the history ...
Oct 28, 2023•23 min•Transcript available on Metacast El Gibbs, writer and disability advocate, joins Amy to talk about the Disability Royal Commission's final report. The commissioner's handed down their their 222 recommendations in September after extensive hearings detailing the violence, abuse, and neglect of disabled people in Australia. El Gibbs analyses the Royal Commission's activities, its findings, and what should happen next. El also addresses the ongoing COVID impacts on disabled and chronically ill people who are effectively excluded f...
Oct 28, 2023•1 hr•Transcript available on Metacast Melbourne-based composer and multi-instrumentalist Claire Deak talks about her debut solo album, Sotto Voce, and the two women composers of the Baroque whose music she recovered and reimagined – Francesca Caccini (1587-c. 1645) and Barbara Strozzi (1619-1677). Some of their compositions are intuitively sensed and worked into new neoclassical compositions by Claire using a range of Baroque and modern instruments, as well as innovative modern and analogue recording techniques that bend our concept...
Oct 25, 2023•30 min•Transcript available on Metacast To mark the 70th anniversary of Britain's atomic weapons tests at Emu Field in South Australia – the first on terrestrial land in Australia – author and academic Dr Elizabeth Tynan speaks about her book, The Secret of Emu Field: Britain’s forgotten atomic tests in Australia. It was at Emu Field, SA on October 15, 1953 that a terrifying black mist spread across the land after an atomic bomb detonation (Totem 1), bringing death and sickness to Aboriginal people and other people in its path. Secrec...
Oct 24, 2023•54 min•Transcript available on Metacast Don Watson and Chris Wallace analyse the outcome of the Voice to Parliament referendum in-depth. They also examine Australia's response to the Israel-Palestine conflict and humanitarian crisis in Gaza, and Labor's unwavering support of AUKUS, as outlined in Don's recent essay in The Monthly (link below). Don Watson is an award-winning author and former speechwriter to Paul Keating. His books include, Death Sentence: The Decay of Public Language, Recollections of a Bleeding Heart: A Portrait of P...
Oct 22, 2023•1 hr 7 min•Transcript available on Metacast Indigenous leader Thomas Mayo and award-winning journalist Kerry O'Brien sit down with Amy for a special in-depth conversation about the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice to Parliament, which Australians will vote on in a referendum this Saturday 14th October 2023. Thomas and Kerry explain the history behind the Voice, why we should support it, and the consequences if we don't. They also debunk the many myths and misconceptions around it. Thomas Mayo is a proud Kaurareg Aboriginal and ...
Oct 11, 2023•1 hr 4 min•Transcript available on Metacast Acclaimed writer and journalist David Marr speaks in-depth about his new book, Killing for Country: A Family Story, which details Marr's great-great grandfather Reg Uhr's involvement in Australia's frontier wars of the nineteenth century as an officer of the Queensland Native Police. Uhr also recruited his two sons into the Native Police. Marr explains how the dispossession of land and massacres of Aboriginal people occurred and how they fought back. He also explains the historical significance ...
Oct 06, 2023•38 min•Transcript available on Metacast Triple R's very own Daniel James and The Monthly's Rachel Withers sit down with Amy to delve into the Indigenous Voice to Parliament, providing an in-depth analysis and answer to every question you might have about it before you vote at the upcoming referendum. Daniel James is a Yorta Yorta man, writer, broadcaster, and host of The Mission on Triple R FM. Rachel Withers is Contributing Editor of The Monthly and columnist for The Politics. Broadcast on 3 October 2023.
Oct 05, 2023•56 min•Transcript available on Metacast Amy's first ever interview for Uncommon Sense was with Peter Wohlleben on his debut book, The Hidden Life of Trees. Now. the German forester, conservationist, and best-selling author returns to discuss his latest book, 'The Power of Trees: How Ancient Forests Can Save Us If We Let Them.' Amy and Peter delve into a wide-range of themes from the book. Peter reveals how trees can create their own climate and weather systems, how trees communicate with birds and insects to protect themselves, the fa...
Sep 26, 2023•44 min•Transcript available on Metacast 
