Big Ideas

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 philosophy event series held in Melbourne, London and New York. It is produced by Aeon Media, publishers of Aeon and Psyche.SpeakersMark Alfano — Professor of philosophy at Macquarie University, author of Moral Psychology: An Introduction, and Nietzsche's Moral Psychology.Dr Peter Knight — multi-award winning composer, trumpeter and electroacoustic musician, former artistic director of the Australian Art Orchestra.Sunny Kim — internationally renowned South Korean-born vocalist, composer, improviser, and senior lecturer in the jazz and improvisation at the University of Melbourne.Thank you to Sam Dresser (senior editor), Brigid Hains (editorial director and co-founder), and colleagues at Aeon Media.

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 resistanceSpeakersLinda JaivinAustralian author, cultural commentator, essayist and translatorAuthor of Bombard the Headquarters! China's Cultural RevolutionLouisa LimAward-winning journalist who reported from China for a decade for NPR and the BBCAuthor of Indelible City: Dispossession and Defiance in Hong KongEdward WongAmerican journalist and diplomatic correspondent for The New York TimesAuthor of At the Edge of Empire: A Family's Reckoning with ChinaPeter Hartcher (host)Australian journalist and the Political and International Editor of The Sydney Morning HeraldAuthor of Red Zone: China's Challenge and Australia's Future

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 associate deans from Australian and New Zealand universities.SpeakersSimon Adams - President & CEO, Centre for Victims of Torture, Professor of Human Rights, Murdoch University

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, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This, and novels The American War and What Strange ParadisePeter Greste (host) Professor of journalism, Macquarie University, Author, The Correspondent

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 2025 National Housing Conference with guests debating the rhetoric, reality and policies around housing supply.This event was organised by the Australian Housing and Urban Institute (AHURI), hosts of the National Housing Conference.SpeakersDavid ReynondsChief Executive, Department of Housing and Urban DevelopmentGovernment of South AustraliaProfessor Rachel Ong ViforjLeading housing policy researcher and advisorJohn Curtin Distinguished Professor of EconomicsCurtin UniversityDr Tim WilliamsGlobal Practice Leader, CitiesFormer advisor to five consecutive UK housing ministersFormer CEO, Committee of SydneyArchitecture firm GrimshawHost, The Grimshaw podcast Further informationProductivity Commission report on housing construction productivity (2025)The Economics of Housing Supply: key concepts and issues (August 2024)The State of the Housing System 2025: National Housing Supply and Affordability Council's second annual report.Housing policy reporting by ABC NewsHousing research reports and analysis by the Australian Housing and Urban Research Institute (AHURI)Housing analysis by the Grattan Institute

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 BongiornoProfessor of history, Australian National UniversityFrom 2026, Donald Horne Professor of History and Public Ideas and Director of the new Centre of Public Ideas at the University of Canberra Dr Brendan LimBarrister and author of Australia's Constitution after WhitlamPaul Barclay (host)Broadcaster and former presenter of Big Ideas

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 Gillian Shepherd — Director of the A.D. Trendall Research Centre for Ancient Mediterranean Studies, Senior Lecturer in Classics and Ancient History at La Trobe University

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 pursuit of progress at any cost.This conversation was recorded at RMIT University in partnership with Readings Bookshop on 5 September 2025.SpeakersKaren Hao Author, Empire of AI: inside the reckless race for total domination, former Wall St Journal reporter, former senior AI editor at the MIT Technology Review, lead at the Pulitzer Centre's AI spotlight series, one of Time Magazine's Top 100 people in AI in 2025Kobi Leins (host) Lawyer, academic, AI governance and digital ethics advisor, author, New War Technologies and International Law: The Legal Limits to Weaponising Nanomaterials

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 water quality, wild species, and then there was the mass mortality event last summer which saw over 1 million salmon die and smelly fatty fishy globules wash up on local beaches. Join BIG IDEAS host and science journalist Natasha Mitchell in the historic town of Franklin in the Huon Valley with three Citizen jurors, two expert witnesses, and a live audience of passionate locals — including salmon workers and activists — as they listen, debate, and share solutions on this fraught issue.CITIZEN JURORSJohn StanfieldLifelong recreational fisher in Tasmania, former army employee, now works in healthFounder, RecFishTas (Recreational Fishing in Tasmania) Facebook GroupPeter GrahamSculptor, former mining industry geologistSecretary, Port Huon Progress Association Lives near a salmon company's hatchery facilityDr Rayne AllinsonHistorian, former university academic, authorFirst-time environmental campaigner and state election candidate after mass salmon die-off polluted her local beach in 2025. Employed by newly elected MP Peter George's electoral office in 2025.EXPERT WITNESSESProfessor Jeff RossSenior researcherFisheries and Aquaculture CentreInstitute of Marine & Antarctic StudiesUniversity of Tasmania Christine Coughanowr Water quality management consultantCo-chair, Tasmania Independent Science CouncilFounder and former director,  Derwent Estuary Program partnershipINDUSTRY REPRESENTATIVEDr John WittingtonCEO, Salmon TasmaniaFormer CEO, Blue Economy Cooperative Research Centre (CRC)Former Secretary of the Department of Primary Industries, Parks Water and Environment, TasmaniaAUDIENCEMembers of the Huon Valley community and surrounds. The call-out for audience was made on ABC Hobart, ABC Radio National, and The Cygnet. Huon & Channel Classifieds.ACKNOWLEDGEMENTSThanks to Huon Valley Council for granting the ABC access to The Palais Theatre in Franklin for this event.Thanks to Jo Spargo and the ABC Hobart team for supporting this Citizen Jury event.Thanks to Huon Aquaculture staff for a tour of their hatchery facility and salmon pens for the Citizen Jury members and ABC Citizen Jury team.FURTHER INFORMATIONTasmanian Salmon Farming Data (Salmon Portal)Fin-Fish Farming in Tasmania Legislative Council Inquiry report (2022)How many salmon farms are there in Tasmania — and who owns them? (ABC News, 2025)Massive fish deaths in Tasmanian salmon farms to be investigated (ABC 730, 2025)Tasmanian salmon industry reeling from largest-ever fish deaths event as EPA launches investigation (ABC News, 2025)

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 SydneyJournalist, editor, political advisor, advocateDr Alecia Simmonds (host)Associate Professor in Law, University of Technology SydneyAuthor, Courting: An Intimate History of Love and the Law, and Wild Man: The True Story of a Police Killing, Mental Illness and the LawFurther information:Tenacity and two squat houses — how an Australian movement was born for women leaving violenceBig Ideas, ABC Radio National, Monday 6 May 2024Baby boycott — the fertility crisis and the big decisionBig Ideas, ABC Radio National, Thursday 26 June 2025

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 Chrysanthou Defamation barristerJames Waters (host) Commercial law barrister

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' Festival.SpeakersSamantha Harvey Author, Orbital (2024 Booker Prize winner) and many moreCeridwen Dovey Writer of fiction, creative non-fiction and science, filmmaker, author of Only the Astronauts and many moreAshley Hay (host) Writer, editor, facilitator, mentor, author of A Hundred Small Lessons, and many more

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 are just as diverse as the mediums.This talk was recorded at the ANU Drill Hall Gallery on 27 August 2025.SpeakersQuentin SpragueArts writer and critic, author of What Artists See, Ken Whisson: Painting and Drawing and The Stranger Artist: Life at the Edge of Kimberley Painting (2021 Prime Minister's Literary Award for non-fiction)Mark McKennaProfessor of history, University of Sydney, author, The Shortest History of Australia, Return to Uluru, From the Edge: Australia's Lost Histories, Looking for Blackfellas' Point and An Eye for Eternity: The Life of Manning Clark, (winner, Prime Minister's Literary Award for non-fiction)

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 Festival.SpeakersLucy Jones Science journalist and author, Matrescence: On the Metamorphosis of Pregnancy, Childbirth, and MotherhoodGina Rushton (host) ABC journalist and author, The Parenthood Dilemma, Procreation in an Age of Uncertainty

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 interpretations have changed.This talk is provided by the York Festival of Ideas. The Festival is led by the University of York, UK.SpeakerDr Stephen HarrisonLecturer in Ancient History, Swansea University, Author of Alexander the Great: Lives and Legacies