Big Ideas
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Big Ideas
Your front row seat to big thinkers at the best live events, forums, and festivals. Feed your mind. Be provoked. One big idea at a time. Your brain will love you for it. We love hearing from you about the show or events you are planning. Get in touch! Email: Bigideas@abc.net.au SMS line for ABC Rad...
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Kerry O'Brien on the perfect storm destroying our politics — with Richard Flanagan
For decades, ABC journalist and TV presenter Kerry O'Brien made a career of asking the hard questions. Now, in the face of what he calls "the perfect...
Why Oz Harvest's Ronni Kahn wants you to join the "Order of the Teaspoon" to end food insecurity and waste
It's estimated that one in three Australian households have experienced food insecurity. At the same time, one third of all food produced in Australia...
Protecting Australia’s native plants
Australia is home to some 25,000 plant species. And nine out of 10 Australian plants occur nowhere else on Earth. But many are under threat. So why do...
Indigenous speculative fiction takes on the apocalypse — with Canadian sci-fi Indiginerd Chelsea Vowel
Dystopia or utopia? How do you imagine the future? In films and books, the future is often filled with alien invasions, nuclear war or the zombie apoc...
Blast off! Exploring our solar system and beyond
We're going extraterrestrial with a panel of super star space scientists who are exploring the solar system and beyond. Will they find life out there?...
Too Dumb for Democracy? Why your brain struggles with good political decision-making
Think about the person whose politics you find most baffling, or most infuriating. Now imagine you must make a decision together. Actually negotiate,...
What makes television? 100 years of tumultuous change
It's been called the idiot box, the drug of the nation, the tube. This year marks 100 years of broadcast television. Over its lifetime, TV has adapted...
CENSORED! CANCELLED! BOYCOTT! The future of artistic freedom and democracy in Australia
How free should artists be to make risky work, to provoke, to get political? Who gets to decide if a work of art is deemed too risky, too dangerous, t...
Forget The Odyssey. Yann Martel, Nikita Gill, Zoe Terakes have their own mythical retellings
Gods and goddesses, heroes and monsters, quests and odysseys, sex and violence. Greek mythology seemingly has it all. And as Christopher Nolan's box o...
Forget The Odyssey. These authors have their own mythical retellings — with Yann Martel, Nikita Gill and Zoe Terakes
Gods and goddesses, heroes and monsters, quests and odysseys, sex and violence. Greek mythology seemingly has it all. And as Christopher Nolan's box o...
Africa in a shifting world order — can digital technology achieve what aid never could?
As the great powers renegotiate their alliances and priorities, Africa is reshaping its future. From the promise of digital economies and homegrown in...
How policy decisions today can hurt your kids in the future — are we even trying to get it right?
The decisions being made right now, in parliament, in budget lock-ups, in policy debates, will shape the lives of your kids and their kids. Think: Cli...
The PNG environmental defenders taking on Australian mining giants — what is extractive justice and its toll?
Meet the tenacious Papua New Guineans who won't give up on holding Australian mining giants to account, despite the enormous personal toll of doing so...
Australian war history — the past, present and future of remembrance. With Professor Peter Stanley
From the Frontier Wars, to foreign wars experienced by migrant Australians, to the threat of Australia's involvement in future conflict, war means man...
What Pacific peoples know about climate justice — and Australia still needs to learn
Pacific communities have long led the global climate fight — not from the margins, but from the front. Australia's hopes of co-hosting COP31 alongside...
Gay rights pioneer Dennis Altman on five decades of activism, writing and social change
He was there at the birth of a movement. He's been a champion for the rights of gay people both in Australia and abroad ever since. The son of Jewish...
Why didn't anyone tell me Australian history was ACTUALLY interesting!? Sita Sargeant, Santilla Chingaipe, Jacinta Mackay, Harini Rangarajan
Think of a history textbook you had at school. Could you relate to the characters inside its pages? These women are proving Australian history contain...
What does 'being a man' look like — today?
The conversation around men's mental health, identity and emotional lives is changing. Literature is one of the places where that shift is happening....
Could the 21st century be the greatest age of exploration in the history of humankind? Ocean explorer Terry Garcia thinks so
The ocean sustains all life on Earth, yet we know remarkably little about it. Now, because of technological advances, we could be on the cusp of a new...
On how fear destroys your relationships — and why love can heal fear
It's the greatest power you all have as human beings — a healing power: to make others feel safe and welcome. It's so powerful because it puts a stop...
Angertainment — is it too late to escape the rage bait machine, and why are its roots ancient and evolutionary? With Ed Coper
Is it too late to escape the rage bait machine? And why are its roots ancient and evolutionary? Leading strategist Ed Coper has used all the tricks of...
Globalisation and geopolitics – the forces that will make or break Asia
Globalisation has powered the extraordinary economic rise of Asia. But the same components that built this success — open trade, deep supply chains, i...
Calling out wrongdoing can come at a cost — here's how Australia can strengthen its whistleblowing laws
From Robodebt to the banks, KPMG to the NDIS, whistleblowers have exposed egregious cases of corruption and misconduct. But it's often come at great p...
Ex-chief scientist Alan Finkel's three laws of Artificial Intelligence
The Prime Minister Anthony Albanese wants AI in Australia's interests, and has announced steps to regulate the technology. So can Australia get the ba...
Could you be a hope punk? Jack Toohey on rebellious hope and why better things are possible
Jack Toohey was flying high. Then he crashed. But from despair came renewal, and a rebellious hope. In 2023, when his social media post about housing...
Fear, healing and finding calm – how the ocean can change you
The ocean calms us. It terrifies us. It heals us. Sometimes all at once. We explore the sea's complex hold on your mental health — from the fear of sh...
Is education policy damaging our democracy?
We are seeing seismic shifts in our politics, as more people than ever turn away from the major parties. Could public policy failures be to blame? For...
These Palestinians and Israelis are talking to each other − determined to make peace real in Gaza
Palestinians and Israelis are building common ground for peace where most say there is none. Since October 7 and the war in Gaza, the idea of cross-co...
8 Million Ways to Happiness with Hiroko Yoda — what we can all learn about life, love, and loss from Japan’s flexible spirituality
When writer Hiroko Yoda's mother died, she found herself unmoored. They'd argued a fair bit over the years — as daughters and their mothers can — some...
What is the role of the writer in troubled times? Tony Birch with Michael Williams on the ethical imagination
Writers have access to endless worlds, perspectives and experiences — both real and imagined. So what should they do with that privilege? Do they have...
If a river is declared a legal “person” — can it talk, remember, feel?
What if the way we think about rivers as resources to be allocated, infrastructure to be managed, problems to be solved, is just fundamentally wrong....
Is the cosmos unravelling? With theoretical physicist Tony Padilla
Forget climate change, forget nuclear Armageddon, did you know that the universe is unravelling? It's probably aeons away, but according to physics, d...
A song for every feeling? Pub Choir founder Astrid Jorgensen has a big story to tell (REPEAT)
Need a mid-Winter pick me up? Well this is the conversation for you! You could call Astrid Jorgensen a choir conductor, but that really doesn’t captu...
The gambling industry is targeting your children - how, why and what can be done?
The gambling industry is targeting young people through digital platforms, personalised algorithms and the blurring line between gaming and betting. B...
David Marr on preaching to the converted
The arc of the moral universe may bend toward justice, but not without a whole lot of committed individuals doggedly banging on about it. Even when no...
The God we made — safeguarding humanity in the age of AI
It is replacing our work, our relationships, even our capacity to think. It's the combined sum of all human knowledge — so how long until artificial i...
The art of forgiveness and why it's not what you think it is — with Rachael Coopes and Natasha Mitchell
Is there an art to forgiveness? Join Natasha Mitchell with popular Play School presenter, writer, actor, yoga and meditation teacher Rachael Coopes to...
Whose recipe is it anyway? A nourishing conversation about food and culture
They say we are what we eat, and in this big, migrant nation, every dish tells a story, about culture, about connection, about identity. But when trad...
Errol Flynn — discover the dark secrets of the Australian Hollywood star
He is considered the first Hollywood action hero and had a rapid rise to stardom. But Errol Flynn also was on trial for rape and had relationships wit...
The future of democracy? With Jon Sopel, Nick Bryant and Rosalind Dixon
It may be the least worst form of government, but faith in its leaders and its institutions is waning. From the US to the UK to Australia, democracy h...