What topics does Big Ideas cover?

Big Ideas covers topics including: society, culture, news, politics.

Big Ideas

EN255 episodes

societyculturenewspolitics

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.

Episodes (255)

What lies behind the scientific breakthrough? Professor Georgina Long on medicin...

Big Ideas

Apr 27, 202655:11failed

40 years after Chernobyl we face a new nuclear risk — this time as a weapon of w...

Big Ideas

Apr 23, 202655:52failed

Is Trump a new Nero, Caligula, Caesar? Can the Roman Empire help us make sense o...

Big Ideas

Apr 22, 202659:21failed

Australia's broken social contract — Tahlia Isaac wants to protect women in pris...

Big Ideas

Apr 21, 202654:35failed

Big Ideas

Episodes (255)

What lies behind the scientific breakthrough? Professor Georgina Long on medicin...

40 years after Chernobyl we face a new nuclear risk — this time as a weapon of w...

Is Trump a new Nero, Caligula, Caesar? Can the Roman Empire help us make sense o...

Australia's broken social contract — Tahlia Isaac wants to protect women in pris...

Is Southeast Asia Australia's blind spot? — with Michael Wesley and Geoff Raby

The future of the past — how artificial intelligence is changing history

Aliens exist (and the truth is out there)!? Science Smackdown at World Science F...

British journalist Emily Maitlis on THAT Prince Andrew interview and news in a p...

Tennis prodigy Todd Ley on the underbelly of elite junior sport

Who's afraid of a joke? Comedy in an authoritarian age — with comedians Sam Jay,...

The science of SEX! Natasha Mitchell and guests at World Science Festival Brisba...

Forgiveness — a generous gift or social pressure disguised as a virtue?

The diplomats — the ups and downs of life in Australia's foreign embassies

Six years of writing, 200 rejections — how Miles Franklin award-winning writer S...

Disinformation, deep fakes, and other dodgy doings — the threat to Australian se...

A human rights agenda for Canada (2025 CBC Massey lecture 5)

How people power makes human rights real (2025 CBC Massey Lecture 4)

Human Rights don't have to be earned (2025 CBC Massey lecture 3)

The six years that remade human rights (2025 CBC Massey Lecture 2)

Renewing the broken promise of universal human rights. Alex Neve (2025 CBC Masse...

From breadwinners to Bluey's Bandit — a history of Australian fathers and their...

Girl on Girl — How pop culture turned a generation of women against themselves w...

Randa Abdel-Fattah and Louise Adler on the cost of speaking out in a time of div...

Mental illness —Taking stigma out of media reporting

Shattered lands — Sam Dalrymple on the five partitions of British India

Three Nobels! Are we backing young minds today to pull off what Brian Schmidt, P...

The secret of how to topple tyrants and dictators — and crimes against humanity...

ABC National Forum

Antisemitism's religious roots

In a time of division, how can we rebuild social cohesion? — with Australian Hum...

How a song became a movement for Afghanistan's women and girls — with Internatio...

Scientist Tim Flannery — a Panopticon for our times?

Who can we become? Thomas Mayo and Ray Martin speak Black and White about Austra...

Can an arts degree change the world? A defence of the study humanities at Austra...

Dearest Gentle Reader, a very Bridgerton Big Ideas! Australian novelists dissect...

The Stoic and the introvert — life hacks from Brigid Delaney and Jenny Valentis...

Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya fights for a free Belarus − and what are Russia's strat...

Backlash against LGBTIQA+ community — why now? Joe Ball

The life of astronauts — with 2026 Australian of the Year Katherine Bennell-Pegg

Harvard firebrand on intellectual freedom Steven Pinker with Natasha Mitchell

What does Labor stand for? With Sean Kelly and Misha Ketchell

What does liberalism mean today?

The history of money — with Irish economist David McWilliams

The Australian Wars with Rachel Perkins and Henry Reynolds — a watershed event a...

Bob Brown on the role of defiance in the climate crisis — with Gardening Austral...

War is changing and the laws meant to protect civilians aren't cutting it anymor...

Stan Grant — when words fail us, reclaiming the language of love

How conspiracy theories get inside our heads and take hold — Ariel Bogle, Cam Wi...

PRESENTS — The Challenger Legacy

If we can make space accessible, we can make any space accessible