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PODCAST

Big Ideas

Feed your mind. Be provoked. One big idea at a time. Your brain will love you for it. Grab your front row seat to the best live forums and festivals with Natasha Mitchell.

society & culture politics

All Episodes

0:54:36

What are universities for today? The usefulness of...

Big Ideas ·

2025/11/26

Are our universities facing an existential crisis by trying to be too many things? Places for learning, research, the production of new knowledge, the production of job-ready graduates, and profit-making enterprises? Does everything they do have to produce a tangible, measurable, practical, or profitable outcome? Should they also foster intellectual life and the pursuit of ideas just for curiosity's sake? Or is that an elite, outdated mission? Who gets to judge what knowledge is

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0:59:27

Jane Caro — why Australia is failing our school system

Big Ideas ·

2025/11/25

We often hear about "failing schools", but what if it is us, the Australian community, who are failing them? Public school advocate Jane Caro argues that Australia's pursuit of school choice, and the tax payer funding that enables it, has come at a huge cost to the school system, to children's education, and to our broader society.The 2025 Dymphna Clark Lecture at Manning Clark House was recorded on 26 August 2025.SpeakersJane Caro — Author, The Mother, Lyrebird, What Makes a Good

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0:54:35

Coming Out and Inviting In — with Zoe Terakes, Nina...

Big Ideas ·

2025/11/24

Join ABC's Mon Schafter and four incredible speakers as they share honest, powerful stories about revealing their identities on their own terms. From fear to freedom, isolation to community - this is a conversation about truth, courage, and connection. Held in recognition of 40 years of ACON, it celebrates every journey of coming out and shines a light on personal stories, collective resilience, and the power of being seen.SupportIf this conversation raises any concerns for you,

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0:54:36

Searching for convivencia — philosopher AC Grayling...

Big Ideas ·

2025/11/20

If you're a feminist, or pro-civil or gay rights, does that make you "woke"? And if you're not, does that mean you should be cancelled, or abused online, or lose your job? So many of our public debates nowadays are divided along these lines, but is there a better way?This event was recorded at the 2025 Melbourne Writers Festival. To explore more Melbourne Writers Festival talks, visit mwf.com.au.SpeakersAC Grayling Philosopher, author, Discriminations: Making peace in the culture

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1:10:05

The Sophia Club live philosophy — what are friends for?

Big Ideas ·

2025/11/19

Friends are different from family. We choose them and they choose us. Philosophers long wondered about what makes friendship such a distinctive relationship in our lives. Is being a good friend a kind of moral virtue? Can friends help us find our true selves? What about the dark and difficult side of friendship — toxic friends and frenemies? How is the love between friends different from romantic love? Join Big Ideas host Natasha Mitchell and guests at the Sophia Club, a live

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0:44:48

Understanding China's history is crucial for Australia

Big Ideas ·

2025/11/18

To deal with China as a major trading partner, and also a national security threat requires understanding the history that made China what it is today. That history is shaped by resistance and different waves of uprising. How have governments dealt with these movements? How do they influence politics today?China: Past, Present, Future was recorded live at the 2025 Sydney Writers' Festival.Listen to Big Ideas — Behrouz Boochani and Arnold Zable: The language of

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0:55:15

Universities and other antidotes to authoritarianism

Big Ideas ·

2025/11/17

The United States has long been famous for its world leading universities. But in the face of research funding cuts, government attacks on free speech, DEI and the right to protest, and the persecution of foreign students, could all that be changing?The speech, Poison Ideas: Universities and other Antidotes to Authoritarianism, was recorded at the 2025 conference of the Australasian Council of Deans of Arts, Social Sciences and Humanities (DASSH) representing 350 deans and

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0:54:36

One day, everyone will have always been against this...

Big Ideas ·

2025/11/13

The Western world is supposed to stand for values like freedom, justice and human rights, a commitment to meet wrongdoing with consequence, guided by rules and obligations. How then, do we reconcile that with Western governments' and media's support of and complicity in the horrors in Gaza? How do we witness the bloodshed and destruction, and yet look away?This conversation was recorded at the Canberra Writers Festival on 26 October 2025.SpeakersOmar El Akkad Author, One Day,

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1:03:07

Fixing Australia's housing crisis — is increasing...

Big Ideas ·

2025/11/12

Build more houses. That'll fix Australia's housing crisis won't it? If you listen to governments, you'd sure think so. Under the National Housing Accord, all governments have agreed to support a target of building 1.2 million new, well-located dwellings in 5 years. But will that increase housing affordability, availability, quality, security of tenure, and the growing gap between the haves and have-nots? What's missing from this picture?Join Big Ideas host Natasha Mitchell at the

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0:54:35

Gough Whitlam's dismissal — why is it still relevant...

Big Ideas ·

2025/11/11

Whitlam's dismissal and following double dissolution 50 years ago, was arguably the most tumultuous period in Australia's political and constitutional history. This political crisis raises key questions about constitutional change and the robustness of Australia's current democracy. What are the lessons? And could it happen again?Presented at the National Archives of AustraliaSpeakersAnne TwomeyProfessor Emerita of Constitutional Law at the University of Sydney Law SchoolFrank

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0:54:36

An intriguing story of art and espionage — how a...

Big Ideas ·

2025/11/10

In the 1930s, New Zealand-born, Cambridge educated Arthur Dale Trendall carved a niche for himself as the world's foremost expert in the study of ancient South Italian vase painting. How then, did he end up leading a crack team of code-breakers working in Melbourne to decipher Japanese messages for the Allies during the Second World War?This lecture was recorded at Melbourne's Shrine of Remembrance in partnership with La Trobe University's Trendall Research Centre.SpeakersDr

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0:53:59

Empire of AI — Karen Hao goes inside the reckless...

Big Ideas ·

2025/11/06

When it was founded in 2015, openai — the company behind Chat GPT — had a mission to develop artificial intelligence tools that would benefit humanity. But somewhere along the way, that mission changed. While the use of AI in our daily lives is increasingly pervasive, the technology's toll on the environment, human rights, copyright, privacy and workers and resources in the global south is starting to mount. In her new book, leading AI reporter Karen Hao details the AI industry's

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1:11:15

ABC's CITIZEN JURY — Fixing salmon farming's...

Big Ideas ·

2025/11/04

ABC Radio National's CITIZEN JURY takes hard, hot-button issues affecting a community — and places citizens at the centre of finding solutions. It's citizen-driven democracy in action!Tasmanian salmon is on dinner plates across Australia. It's a 1.4 billion-dollar industry producing jobs for Tasmanians, and more than 70, 000 tonnes of fish annually — with plans for expansion. But salmon farming has also become a lightning-rod for locals concerned about its environmental impact — on

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0:54:35

Anne Summers — 50 Years of Damned Whores and God’s...

Big Ideas ·

2025/11/04

In 1975, aged just 29, she wrote a bestselling book that changed Australia. Since then, she's courted controversy and acclaim, but Anne Summers has never given up the fight for gender equality.This conversation was recorded live at the 2025 Sydney Writers' Festival.SpeakersDr Anne SummersAuthor, Damned Whores and God's Police, Ducks on the Pond: An Autobiography 1945-1976, The Misogyny Factor, and many moreProfessor of domestic and family violence, University of Technology

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0:54:34

Why we need to cancel cancel culture — with...

Big Ideas ·

2025/11/03

When people say or do the wrong thing, we have laws and a legal system that should be able to deliver consequences and, hopefully justice. But in this digital age, the human instinct to inflict punishment in the court of public opinion has reached fever pitch. So do we want to live by mob rule, or the rule of law?The 2025 James Merralls Fellowship in Law Lecture, hosted by the University of Melbourne Law School and the Victorian Bar, was recorded on 4 September 2025.SpeakersSue

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0:54:09

Out of this world — with Booker Prize winning author...

Big Ideas ·

2025/10/30

For all of human history, space has been a place of mystery, awe and fascination. But unless you're an astronaut, a billionaire, or a pop star, most of us will never have the opportunity to travel there — except in our minds. This conversation features two writers who've used the perspective of space to explore our humanity, Earth's place in the universe, and the meaning of it all.The conversation, Out of this World was recorded live at the 2025 Sydney Writers'

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0:54:34

What Artists See? Critic Quentin Sprague helps you...

Big Ideas ·

2025/10/29

Have you ever visited an art gallery full of wonder, ready to be inspired, only to leave feeling like it was all a bit over your head? You're about to meet one writer whose new book of essays rejects the over-complication and gets to the messy, human heart of art.What Artists See is a collection of essays from award-winning arts writer and critic Quentin Sprague, canvassing twelve contemporary Australian artists whose works span sculpture, painting and architecture, and the stories

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0:54:58

Matrescence — on the metamorphosis of motherhood

Big Ideas ·

2025/10/28

When a child is born, so too is a mother. This idea, known as "matrescence", was first conceived in the 1970s by American medical anthropologist Dana Raphael. Parenting in 2025 looks very different in many ways, the scientific evidence now supports the theory that women undergo radical physiological, psychological and social changes during pregnancy, childbirth, and motherhood.This conversation was presented by the Sydney Opera House at the 2025 All About Women

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0:42:52

Alexander the Great — A genius? A tyrant? A...

Big Ideas ·

2025/10/27

He was undefeated in battle and established one of the largest empires in history. But his legacy goes beyond his military conquests. He increased trade between East and West, spread the Greek civilisation and founded cultural centres that still thrive today. Learn more about Alexander the Great's life, personality and impact with a fresh perspective on his reign, including the vital roles that other figures played in historical events and new insights into how and why historical

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0:57:39

Nobel laureate Donna Strickland on her life in lasers

Big Ideas ·

2025/10/23

She became the third ever woman to win a Nobel Prize in Physics in 2018, and the first in 50 years. This is the story of how Donna Strickland became a "Laser Jock", and why she's now on a mission to restore trust in science.This event was recorded at the Centre for Ideas at the University of New South Wales.SpeakersDonna StricklandProfessor in the Department of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Waterloo, Canada2018 winner of the Nobel Prize in Physics (with Gérard

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