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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Who's afraid of a joke? Comedy in an authoritarian age — with comedians Sam Jay, Tom Ballard, Bahaa Dabbagh and Leon Filewood
Comedians are increasingly being forced to navigate a world where the right punchline at the expense of the wrong politician carries the risk of perso...
The science of SEX! Natasha Mitchell and guests at World Science Festival Brisbane
Get bonkers on bonking with Natasha Mitchell and guests at the 2026 World Science Festival Brisbane. It’s a sexy, fun, and educational – what's not to...
Forgiveness — a generous gift or social pressure disguised as a virtue?
You often hear that forgiveness is the key to healing and moving on — but is it always the right thing to do? This conversation explores how forgivene...
The diplomats — the ups and downs of life in Australia's foreign embassies
According to the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, Australia has some 120 embassies, high commissions, consulates-general and representative of...
Six years of writing, 200 rejections — how Miles Franklin award-winning writer Siang Lu learned to live with failure
Failure is a part of life, whether we like it or not. While most of us don't ever want to fail, failure does have things to teach us — about ourselves...
Disinformation, deep fakes, and other dodgy doings — the threat to Australian security, democracy, and you
Misinformation, disinformation, deep fakes, false news — do you feel confident spotting them? They’re doing real harm to our relationships, our commu...
A human rights agenda for Canada (2025 CBC Massey lecture 5)
In more than 40 years on the front lines of international human rights Alex Neve has heard Canada described as ‘the land of human rights’ — and seen t...
How people power makes human rights real (2025 CBC Massey Lecture 4)
Eleanor Roosevelt once said that universal human rights begin in “small places, close to home — so close and so small that they cannot be seen on any...
Human Rights don't have to be earned (2025 CBC Massey lecture 3)
Our inherent human rights belong to us from the moment we are born. There is nothing we need to do to earn them, and they are supposed to apply to us...
The six years that remade human rights (2025 CBC Massey Lecture 2)
The ideals behind the concept of human rights — such as the sacredness of life, reciprocity, justice and fairness — have millennia-old histories. Afte...
Renewing the broken promise of universal human rights. Alex Neve (2025 CBC Massey lecture 1)
Human rights are universal, right? For everyone, everywhere, without exception. That promise, born out of the Holocaust and World War II, has been bro...
From breadwinners to Bluey's Bandit — a history of Australian fathers and their families
This episode explores the past and present expectations and experiences of Australian fathers, in the workforce, domestic duties, and child-rearing, a...
Girl on Girl — How pop culture turned a generation of women against themselves with The Atlantic's Sophie Gilbert
Dive into the world of heroin chic and Girl Power to make sense of the mixed messages Millennial women experienced as they came of age. Before social...
Randa Abdel-Fattah and Louise Adler on the cost of speaking out in a time of division
She's attracted controversy and cancellation, but Palestinian Australian author and academic Randa Abdel-Fattah has not been deterred from speaking ou...
Mental illness —Taking stigma out of media reporting
When a violent crime makes the news, mental illness is often part of the story. But how that story is told, the words chosen, the details included, th...
Shattered lands — Sam Dalrymple on the five partitions of British India
Over five decades, one single, sprawling dominion, from Yemen to Myanmar, became twelve modern nations. This is the story of how the actions of politi...
Three Nobels! Are we backing young minds today to pull off what Brian Schmidt, Peter Doherty, Rolf Zinkernagel did?
Nobel Prize winning work often happens in a young scientist's 20s or 30s — early in their careers. Are the conditions right in Australian universities...
The secret of how to topple tyrants and dictators — and crimes against humanity under the microscope
Presenting a road map to a world with fewer Putins and Kim Jong Uns. Political scientist Marcel Dirsus exposes the precarious reality behind the façad...
ABC National Forum
The inaugural ABC National Forum is a live, televised panel discussion bringing together Jewish Australians to examine their lives in Australia in 202...
Antisemitism's religious roots
The roots of antisemitism run deep. Christians and Muslims have told stories for centuries about Jewish people. Stories that have weaponised the relat...
In a time of division, how can we rebuild social cohesion? — with Australian Human Rights Commissioner Hugh de Kretser
A global pandemic, a foreign war, a failed referendum on Indigenous rights, increasing inequality and a fractured media — these and other forces have...
How a song became a movement for Afghanistan's women and girls — with International Children's Peace Prize winner Nila Ibrahimi
In March 2021, Afghanistan's Taliban rulers banned female students over the age of 12 from singing in public. The prohibition sparked a wave of online...
Scientist Tim Flannery — a Panopticon for our times?
The Panopticon was a prison design by the famous philosopher and social reformer Jeremy Bentham which placed prison guards in a central tower overlook...
Two Visions, One Challenge: Building a better Australia
Join acclaimed author and human rights advocate Thomas Mayo and media icon Ray Martin AM as they deliver two powerful orations on justice, reconciliat...
Can an arts degree change the world? A defence of the study humanities at Australian universities
Universities are under pressure — particularly the study of subjects like languages, history, social sciences and the creative arts. This lecture look...
Dearest Gentle Reader, a very Bridgerton Big Ideas! Australian novelists dissect the regency era
As Bridgerton continues to captivate millions and we just marked the 250th anniversary of Jane Austen's birth, the Regency era has never been more thr...
The Stoic and the introvert — life hacks from Brigid Delaney and Jenny Valentish
Feeling a little world weary? Is Stoicism the philosophy you need a little more of in your life? Can an introvert be your guide to getting out the fro...
Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya fights for a free Belarus − and what are Russia's strategies in Southeast Asia?
Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya is calling for a braver response to the actions of the Belarusian dictatorship. She explores the impact of the war against Uk...
Human rights under pressure — responding to the backlash against the LGBTIQA+ community
The hard fought for gains of one generation can pave the way for the next, but the road to equality is never straight. After meaningful progress for L...
The life of astronauts — with 2026 Australian of the Year Katherine Bennell-Pegg
What is it really like to be an astronaut? How do you even become one? What happens when an argument breaks out on the International Space Station? An...
Harvard firebrand on intellectual freedom Steven Pinker with Natasha Mitchell
Harvard psychologist and bestselling author Steven Pinker is a fierce advocate for intellectual and academic freedom — and one of the world’s most pro...
What does Labor stand for? With Sean Kelly and Misha Ketchell
In its second term, the Albanese Government enjoys a large majority in parliament and an opposition in disarray. But faced with a fragmented, fractiou...
What does liberalism mean today?
Liberalism is one of the most influential — and contested — political philosophies of the modern age. But what does it actually mean in contemporary A...
Moral revolution — Dutch historian Rutger Bregman's BBC Reith Lecture 4 — Fighting for humanity in the age of the machine
Humanity is facing an existential risk posed by unchecked tech and AI. But what if these technologies were used, not to increase the wealth and power...
Moral revolution — Dutch historian Rutger Bregman's BBC Reith Lecture 3 — A conspiracy of decency
Do you dare to dream of a world that is different? From the Fabians to the Neoliberals, small groups with big ideas, perseverance and long-term vision...
Moral revolution — Dutch historian Rutger Bregman's BBC Reith Lecture 2 — How to start a moral revolution
Do you have the power to change the world? Do you think the world needs changing? In the past, eras of corruption gave birth to transformative movemen...
Moral revolution — Dutch historian Rutger Bregman's BBC Reith Lecture 1 — A time of monsters
Rutger Bregman believes we are living in a time of moral decay, in a world governed by un-serious elites. But history shows us that we have been here...
The history of money — with Irish economist David McWilliams
It makes the world go round, but it's also the root of all evil. It hasn't always had a great rap, yet most of us would like more of it. From clay tab...
The Australian Wars with Rachel Perkins and Henry Reynolds — a watershed event at the Australia War Memorial
For decades, a debate has been waged over whether the colonial massacre and resistance of First Nations Australians should be recognised and memoriali...
Bob Brown on the role of defiance in the climate crisis — with Gardening Australia's Hannah Moloney
For more than 50 years, Dr Bob Brown has been breaking and making laws to protect the environment. Now aged 81, he is hoping to give strength to new g...