Big Ideas ABC listen

As Donald Trump makes his case for re-election in 2024, under a cloud of criminal prosecutions, how can journalists better cover such a norm-busting and rule-breaking political figure?

New York writer Jonathan Rosen’s memoir The Best Minds: a story of friendship, madness, and the tragedy of good intentions is a story of tenderness, heartache, and horror as he explores the vexed tensions between civil rights, medical power, and the complexities of recognising and treating severe psychotic illness. He joined Natasha Mitchell with psychiatrist Patrick McGorry for a powerful conversation at the 2024 Adelaide Writers Week. In light of the recent Bondi shopping centre killings, this discussion recorded just prior was sadly prescient, but deeply insightful. 

You don't need that dress, you need a hug. Or so says fashion activist and writer, Aja Barber.

It took 400,000 people to land man to the moon. And it's using that example as inspiration that the influential Italian American economist Mariana Mazzucato argues we can change capitalism.

Could Asia Pacific be with China within a couple of years? Is the independence of Taiwan worth for Australia to get involved? Would Indonesia be a better security partner for Australia than the US? On Big Ideas, a panel of foreign policy experts dissect evolving dynamics of South East Asia and offer insights into how Australia can navigate the delicate diplomatic dance with the two global giants and emerging regional powers. There are many different views on Australia's geopolitical position and the implications for its strategic future.

Has the way politicians speak ever made you shout at the television, feel bamboozled, helpless,  or shut out of democratic debate over our shared future? Pollie-talk can make important issues opaque, the inequitable seem fair, and the fair seem inequitable. Join Big Ideas host Natasha Mitchell for some straight talk that cuts through the spin and jargon with Richard Denniss (author of Econobabble: How to decode political spin and economic nonsense), Yanis Varoufakis (author of Technofeudalism: What Killed Capitalism),  Joelle Gergis (author of Humanity's Moment: A Climate Scientist's Case for Hope) and Thomas Keneally (Schindler's List).