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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.

Big Ideas

She's on a bank note (British 10 pounds), and a bath soap (Suds and Sensibility), and she also wrote some of the most beloved novels in English literature. Why has Jane Austen become such an enduring cultural force, and what makes us return to her works time and time again?

This event, celebrating 250 years since Jane Austen's birth, was recorded at the National Library of Australia on 20 August 2025.

Speaker

Susannah Fullerton President of the Jane Austen Society of Australia, guide, ASA Cultural Tours

Is Jane Austen the greatest English novelist of all time?

Is the end of the world nigh, or just the end of the world as we know it? Are we set to doom-scroll our way to apocalypse? Or is this the moment we wake up to ourselves, change course, and save the planet? Don't miss this hilarious battle of brains and bravado when two teams join Big Ideas' host and science journalist Natasha Mitchell at Hobart City Hall for the annual Beaker Street Festival Great Debate. Have our multi-crises of climate change, over-consumption, over-reliance on vulnerable technologies, and [insert your favourite impending disaster here] finally brought us to the brink? Or do we just love a good challenge, the hairier and scarier the better!? You decide the winner. Your life could depend on it.

TEAM AFFIRMATIVE - The Three Horsewomen of the Apocalypse

Dr Esmé Louise James (Team Captain)Sex historian and TikTok star Host of the Kinky History podcast and Sextistic showsAuthor of Kinky History: A Rollicking Journey Through Our Sexual Past, Present, and Future (2024)Kitana MansellProud Palawa womanBusiness Development Manager of Tasmania's first Aboriginal native food business Palawa Kipli

Dr Kate BoothHuman geographer and Associate Professor in Urban & Regional PlanningLeader of the Critical Collapse Studies research program.University of Tasmania 

TEAM NEGATIVE - The Transformers

Hannah Moloney (Team Captain)Tasmanian host of Gardening Australia on ABC TVCreator of Good Life PermacultureAuthor of Good Life Growing: How to Grow Fruit and Veg Anywhere in Australia (2023) and The Good Life: How To Grow A Better World (2025)

Toby WalshScientia Professor of Artificial IntelligenceChief Scientist, UNSW.AI Institute, University of NSWAuthor of The Shortest History of AI (2025), Machines Behaving Badly: The Morality of AI (2022), Faking It: Artificial Intelligence in a Human World (2023)

Gretta PeclProfessor of marine ecology, Institute for Marine and Antarctic Studies (IMAS), University of TasmaniaDirector of the Centre of Marine SocioecologyA lead author for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) reports

Thanks to Dr Margo Adler, Executive Director of the Beaker St Festival: a week long celebration of science and art in Nipaluna/Hobart each August.

Thanks to the house band Stevie and the Bunsen Burners and the whole festival team.

We’re F**ed! It’s too late to avoid civilisational collapse. 2025 Beaker Street Festival Great Debate

Conflict and great power rivalries are on the rise, democracy is in retreat, and multilateral institutions created to maintain global cooperation appear increasingly toothless. So is the world as we've known it coming to an end? And if so, what will replace it?

This speech was recorded at the University of Queensland on 17 September 2025.

Speaker

Andrew PhillipsProfessor of international relations and strategy with the University of QueenslandAuthor, War, religion and empire: The transformation of international orders, Outsourcing empire: how company-states made the modern world and more

Who killed the liberal international order (and what comes next)?

The Democratic Party in America is in an identity crisis. It's shifting priorities to claw back grounds from the Republicans. But is it too little, too late? How can the Democrats respond to a radicalising and increasingly authoritarian-minded Republican Party? The Future of America's Democratic Party presented by the American Academy in Berlin

Speakers

Jacob S. HackerStanely B. Resor Professor of Political Science, Co-Director of the Ludwig Program in Public Sector Leadership at Yale Law School

Paul PiersonJohn Cross Distinguished Professor of Political Science, University of California at Berkeley

Daniel Benjamin (host)President of the American Academy in Berlin

Can the Democrats save democracy in the US?

For 85 years, Meanjin has published the essays of Australian writers. The magazine's founding editor, Clem Christesen, wanted Meanjin's writers 'to reveal and clarify our life by showing it to us though a vision different from ours and deeper." In the wake of the news the magazine is closing, Big Ideas explores and celebrates the essay in all its forms.

This conversation was recorded at the Words on the Waves Festival on 28 May 2025.

Speakers

David Marr Presenter, Late Night Live, ABC Radio National, author, My Country: Stories, essays and speeches and more

Esther Anatolitis Out-going editor, Meanjin, editor, Essays that Changed Australia, Meanjin 1940 to Today, and author, When Australia Became a Republic, (out in October through Monash University Publishing's In the National Interest series)

Brooke Boland Author, Gulp Swallow

Ashleigh Wilson (host) Author, Brett Whiteley: Art, Life and the Other Thing, A Year with Wendy Whiteley, and Transcendence: 50 Years of Unforgettable Moments at the Sydney Opera House

The power of essays — with David Marr, Esther Anatolitis, Brooke Boland and Ashleigh Wilson

From Rodrigo Duterte, to Narendra Modi, to Donald Trump, strongman leaders around the world are harnessing big tech to consolidate their power. Social media is also being used to energise and organise resistance movements, but is the bad increasingly outweighing the good?

The 2025 Southeast Asia Oration Media Freedom and Democracy in Southeast Asia was held at the University of Melbourne, in partnership with Asialink, the Asia Institute, and the ASEAN Australia Centre.

Speakers

Maria Ressa Filippino journalist, co-founder and CEO of online news site Rappler, 2021 Nobel Peace Prize laureate, author, How to Stand Up to a Dictator

Laura Tingle Global Affairs Editor, ABC

Nicholas Coppel Former Australian Ambassador Myanmar, author, Myanmar's Digital Coup, President of the Australia Myanmar Institute

Dr Ken Setiawan Senior Lecturer in Indonesian Studies at the Asia Institute, University of Melbourne

Professor Michael Wesley (host) Deputy Vice Chancellor (Global, Culture and Engagement), University of Melbourne

Maria Ressa on what Donald Trump learnt from Rodrigo Duterte and other strongman rulers

If a stiff dose of medical misinformation is what you're after, look no further than the White House right now. And, on social media and in online forums, countless conspiracy theories reign supreme. In this "post-truth" era, has science lost its authority, or have we lost sight of what scientific proof actually involves? From debates over the origins of our species to conspiracies surrounding the origins of COVID19, Dr Elizabeth Finkel goes where others fear to tread to lift the lid on how science works. Join her with Big Ideas' host Natasha Mitchell at this event hosted by the Royal Society of Victoria and Black Inc Books.

Speaker

Dr Elizabeth FinkelScience journalist, biologist, author, former editor of popular science magazine CosmosAuthor of Prove it: A scientific guide to the post-truth era (Black Inc Books, 2025), The Genome Generation (2011), Stem Cells: Controversy at the Frontier of Science (2005).

Prove It! Elizabeth Finkel's Scientific Guide for the Post-Truth Era

The Beatles shook the world to its core in the 1960's and, to this day, new generations continue to fall in love with their songs and their story. At the heart of this phenomenon lies the dynamic between John Lennon and Paul McCartney. Few other musical partnerships have been rooted in such a deep, intense and complicated personal relationship. Ian Leslie uses the songs they wrote to trace the shared journey of these two compelling men before, during, and after The Beatles.

This talk is provided by the York Festival of Ideas. The Festival is led by the University of York, UK

Speaker

Ian LeslieAuthor of John and Paul: A love story in songs (Faber, 2025)

John Robinson (host)Emeritus Professor in the School of Physics, Engineering and Technology, University of York

John Lennon and Paul McCartney — a partnership that changed cultural history

The world feels more dangerous and unpredictable, but with Australia wedged between our traditional ally, America, and our biggest trading partner, China, does our most expensive ever defence project make us more secure, or less?

The 2025 Laurie Carmichael Lecture, Australian Sovereignty and the Path to Peace, was recorded on Wednesday 10 September 2025, with thanks to the Australia Institute's Carmichael Centre for Future Work and RMIT University.

Speakers

Doug Cameron ALP Senator for New South Wales, 2007 to 2019, trade unionist

'Militarism gone mad' — Labor firebrand hits out at party’s support of AUKUS

A frank and impassioned plea for peace by Gareth Evans. As Australia's former Foreign Minister and former president of the International Crisis Group, he's spent most of his career forging real paths to peace globally. From Sudan to Gaza, Myanmar to Ukraine - who can we rely on to stop "forever" wars and genocides? Does Australia have a unique role to play? And what about the UN in its 80th year? It was created after the horror of World War 2 to keep the peace. Has it lost its way? The 2025 Brisbane Peace Lecture is presented by the United Nations Association of Australia, Brisbane - and includes responses by two key leaders from the Sudanese and Palestinian communities.

Speakers

Professor the Hon Gareth EvansHonorary Professor at the Australian National University; Australia's former minister of Foreign Affairs and cabinet minister in the Hawke and Keating Labor Governments.

Dr Yassmin KhadraBrisbane-based physician, Doctors for Palestine, and Palestinian human rights advocate

Bishop Daniel AbotSouth Sudanese Anglican bishop

Genocides are everyone's business, not no-one's business — Gareth Evans, Yassmin Khadra, Daniel Abot's urgent plea for peace

A freckle-faced kid from Bondi, Pauline Menczer fought the entrenched sexism of the pro-surfing scene to became women's world surfing champion and pave the way...er, waves..for girl grommets today. But all the while she was also fighting another battle inside her own body’s cells. Ironwoman and surf lifesaving champion Bonnie Hancock became the fastest and youngest person, and the first Australian woman, to circumnavigate Australia on a small surf ski, solo. What possessed her to paddle 12,700 kilometres through crocodile and shark-populated waters, mega-waves, and worse? Pauline and Bonnie join Big Ideas' host Natasha Mitchell for a conversation that might inspire you to chase your dreams, big or small.

This event was organised and hosted by the Queenscliffe Literary Festival. 

Speakers

Pauline MenczerWomen's world surfing champion Author, Surf Like a Woman (2024)

Bonnie HancockAthelete, professional Ironwoman, dieticianAuthor, The Girl Who Touched the Stars (2024)Ambassador, Gotcha4Life Foundation

Further information

Girls Can't Surf documentary

Australian Surfing Awards Surfing Hall of Fame

The surfer and circumnavigator — the gobsmacking feats of Pauline Menczer and Bonnie Hancock

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