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PODCAST

Conversations

Conversations draws you deeper into the life story of someone you may have heard about, but never met. Journey into their world, joining them on epic adventures to unfamiliar places, back in time to wild moments of history, and into their deepest memories, to be moved by personal stories of resilience and redemption. Hosted by Richard Fidler and Sarah Kanowski, Conversations is the ABC"s most popular long-form interview program. Every day we explore the vast tapestry of human experience, weaving

society & culture relationships

All Episodes

0:52:19

Encore: My year in Japan, in stillness and silence

Conversations ·

2026/07/14

Travel writer Pico Iyer was at the peak of his career when an accidental layover at Narita airport saw him begin to question everything.Pico began flying around the world solo at the age of nine.His parents lived in America and he had become a boarder at the Dragon School in Oxford.To get to school and from school he took several flights each year alone.The formative experience of travel stayed with him, and he grew up to become a journalist and travel writer for Time

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0:54:10

How the Liberal Party lost its hold on Australia

Conversations ·

2026/07/13

Paul Kelly, Editor-at-Large of The Australian, investigates how the country went from the great reform age under Hawke, Keating and Howard, into the tumultuous Abbott-Turnbull-Morrison era of prime ministers, and arrived at the current existential crisis facing the Liberal Party.Paul started his career as a political journalist in the 1970s and was at old Parliament House when Gough Whitlam was dismissed.In his latest book, Paul examines how the Liberal Party lost its

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0:52:05

NAIDOC 2026: From an iron lung to the page — Gayle’s...

Conversations ·

2026/07/10

Wongaibon woman, Gayle Kennedy tells the story of her childhood, punctuated by years of treatment for polio. A bright child, she blitzed school and was drawn to comic book writing, which led to an award-winning career as an author.Gayle was two when she contracted polio. The family was living in a camp outside Condobolin when little Gayle collapsed at her aunt’s house.Gayle’s mother was in hospital at the time, where she had given birth to Gayle’s younger brother. She ran from the

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0:52:00

NAIDOC 2026: Troy Cassar-Daley: the boy from Halfway...

Conversations ·

2026/07/09

Troy grew up travelling between two very different worlds with his Indigenous mum and his Maltese Dad. At just 17 he started on his path to becoming one of Australia's biggest country music stars (R) CW: Mentions suicide, please take care when listeningTroy Cassar-Daley is a proud Gumbaynggirr and Bundjalung man, and one of Australia's most beloved country music stars.As a 17-year-old musician just starting out, Troy joined a band called Little Eagle. Soon afterwards, he won the

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0:47:00

NAIDOC 2026: Anita Heiss with stories of love and war...

Conversations ·

2026/07/08

Writer Anita Heiss has based her novel Dirrayawadha on stories from the 1800s during the frontier wars in Bathurst, when martial law was declared.

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0:51:00

NAIDOC 2026: Rachel Perkins on 'The Australian Wars'

Conversations ·

2026/07/07

The filmmaker on her series which documents a period some historians call the most important war Australia has ever fought in.Rachel Perkins is one of this country's great storytellers, translating distinctively Australian stories for the screen, including a television series first released in 2022 called The Australian Wars.It tracks the bloody conflicts that broke out across the continent after the arrival of the British colonists.Rachel says these are the most important wars in

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0:53:20

NAIDOC 2026: Victor the fire man on burning country...

Conversations ·

2026/07/06

Tagalaka man, Victor Steffensen on the ‘walking encyclopedias’ — dear old men he met who entrusted him with their decades of cultural knowledge and taught him to apply the right traditional burn for the right environment, so Country can thrive. Victor advocates for small, cool fires that emit white smoke. This is something Indigenous people have done for tens of thousands of years to help Country survive and thrive.Victor was a young man who wasn’t sure which direction to take when

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0:53:06

Finding love, compassion and God after a lifetime of...

Conversations ·

2026/07/03

For 40 years, crime was the only constant in Lincoln Lynch’s life, until a prison stint forced him to look inward and change the trajectory of his life for good.His young mum went to prison for dealing drugs when Lincoln was little, and eventually he followed in her footsteps.Lincoln endured periods of homelessness and institutionalised abuse as a teenager, and he became a teen father, before winding up in prison himself.There, in his cell, Lincoln discovered God’s teachings about

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0:53:18

Encore: Gina Chick's wild grandmother, and embracing...

Conversations ·

2026/07/02

The inaugural winner of Alone Australia on her life as a creative, outrageous, nature-loving misfit who grew up to live through great depths of love and grief. Warning: Discusses the death of a child.In 2023, Gina Chick spent 67 days by herself, in the wilderness of Tasmania’s West Coast, surviving on worms, fish, and one unlucky wallaby.After those 67 days, Gina became the first-ever winner of a reality show on SBS called Alone Australia, but her approach to the competition was

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0:47:59

Nuking the moon and mirrors in space—man's wildest...

Conversations ·

2026/07/01

Nuking the moon, putting mirrors in space and blowing up the Polar ice caps are just some of history's hairbrained schemes to control the weather, an obsession man has had since the dawn of time.As a major heatwave tears through Europe, millions of people are frantically trying to stay cool, or praying for some relief. Their desperation is not new.For thousands of years, human civilisations have been obsessed with trying to control the weather, to stave off drought and famine, in

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0:51:00

Encore: A brother's insight into the genius of artist...

Conversations ·

2026/06/30

John Hockney's memoir gives a rare insight into the unusual life of one of the world's most famous artists.He grew up in the industrial town of Bradford in Northern England and was one of five children in a creative household, led by his iconoclastic father Kenneth, a conscientious objector who always told his children to 'never worry what the neighbours think'.During the war, there were many shortages. As child, John's brother David would creep downstairs in the morning and draw

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0:48:46

The mysteries, ghosts and healing powers of the...

Conversations ·

2026/06/29

For more than a century, Melbourne's Abbotsford Convent was occupied by the Sisters of the Good Shepherd, and the "wayward" girls and orphans they took care of. Patricia Sykes was one of those girls.She was dropped off at the orphanage with her three sisters in the early 1950s after their mother died.Their father couldn't afford to take care of four girls at home, but wanted them to stay together, so an orphanage felt like his only option.As a girl, Patricia, a gifted student who

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0:51:00

How limitations in life, love and creativity can...

Conversations ·

2026/06/26

Science writer David Epstein on why freedom can be the enemy of success and how we can all benefit from less choice, not more.We live today with vastly more freedom of choice than our ancestors.But there’s also plenty of research telling us all this choice is making us more anxious, overwhelmed and less creative.In his book, Inside the Box, David makes the case for how constraints can unlock creativity and satisfaction.And why after writing this book he now believes that narrowing

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0:51:00

Encore: The traits I was teased about are now my...

Conversations ·

2026/06/25

Veteran performer Paul Capsis on his strict upbringing and the strong female role models who helped him stay in school despite the brutality.A powerful and expressive voice, flamboyant physical presence, and mane of dark hair have become his trademarks as a performer.But when Paul was growing up in inner-city Sydney as the child of Greek and Maltese parents, these same qualities brought him a world of trouble. At school he was relentlessly ridiculed and beaten.The love of his

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0:52:18

The adoptive mum who now fights to keep families...

Conversations ·

2026/06/24

Anna Dombkins was 25 years old, when she and her husband happened on a television program about adoption which would completely change their lives. CW: this episode of Conversations discusses adoption.It was a documentary investigating the unimaginable conditions of some orphanages in China.The newly married couple felt compelled to adopt, but because they already had biological children, it was near impossible to adopt in Australia.The newly married couple felt compelled to adopt

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0:51:00

Encore: How not to be a d***head with singer Kasey...

Conversations ·

2026/06/23

Country music artist Kasey Chambers has spent her life making music and connecting with audiences. It’s what she believes she was put on the earth to do.Growing up Kasey and her family spent much of the year camping and roaming the Nullabor Plain where her dad would hunt for foxes and rabbits.She started singing around the campfire as a little girl and went to sleep to the sound of her father’s rifle as he worked through the night.Singing came naturally to Kasey, and she loved all

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0:51:58

A race against time to help my friend dying from...

Conversations ·

2026/06/22

James O'Loghlin had only just reconnected with one of his best and oldest friends, Jum Wallner, when Jum received some terrible news. What began next was a high stakes race with a fatal deadline.The two men had grown up in Canberra, where thousands of homes had been filled with asbestos, which was often carelessly installed and removed.Jum himself had grown up in one of these so-called "Mr Fluffy" homes, named after the local company that had installed the carcinogenic

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0:47:00

"ELVIS IS ALIVE AND RUNNING FOR PRESIDENT" The story...

Conversations ·

2026/06/19

Peter Hoysted, AKA Jack the Insider is back with a look at the humorous and bizarre stories of the newspaper founded in 1979 by a former CIA officer.“174 MPH SNEEZE BLOWS OFF WOMAN’S HAIR”, “BABY BORN WITH TATTOO”, “GARDEN OF EDEN FOUND!”These were some of the fantastical headlines that led the comedic black and white US tabloid, Weekly World News (WWN).Peter Hoysted, AKA Jack the Insider is a true crime writer and a columnist for The Australian. He was a fan of the nonsensical

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0:51:00

Encore: Darren Hayes on the dark side of his fame...

Conversations ·

2026/06/18

Darren Hayes rose to fame in the 1990s as part of the musical duo Savage Garden but the scars of his violent childhood nearly ended everything.The band ended up selling 35 million albums and won numerous awards with hits like 'Truly Madly Deeply'.On the surface, Darren had achieved wealth, adoration and stardom —everything he dreamt of as a kid growing up in Logan, on the outskirts of Brisbane.This episode of Conversations was first broadcast in 2024Further informationUnlovable is

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0:52:00

Why this private investigator loves the cases others...

Conversations ·

2026/06/17

Ken Gamble is very good at spying on people doing the wrong thing but perhaps the investigations that have had the most impact are the missing person cases he's taken on pro bono.Ken spent part of his childhood living in a remote outback pub and by the age of 12, he was driving drunk jackaroos back to their stations.When his family moved to the Sunshine Coast, Ken took up boxing on the amateur circuit and left school in Year 10 to pursue the sport full time, until a savage injury

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2,122 results

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