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.auSMS line for ABC Radio National: 0418 226 576Airs Monday to Thursday 8pm, repeated Tuesday to Friday 12pm, on ABC Radio National.

Big Ideas is a society podcast hosted by ABC Australia, with 248 episodes on record and a Required Pod Score of 80. PitchCentric scores this show on Booking Probability, Listen Score, and live audience signals refreshed every 24 hours.

ABC Australia hosts Big Ideas, a society show with 248 episodes published.

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  Big Ideas

  Indigenous speculative fiction takes on the apocalypse — with Canadian sci-fi Indiginerd Chelsea Vowel

  Aug 19, 202655 min

  Dystopia or utopia? How do you imagine the future? In films and books, the future is often filled with alien invasions, nuclear war or the zombie apocalypse. But a movement of Indigenous storytellers is reshaping traditional science fiction tropes based on their own storytelling cultures and experiences. This event was recorded at the Melbourne Writers Festival on 10 May 2026. Speakers: Chelsea Vowel Candian Metis language instructor, public intellectual, writer, and activist educatorAuthor, Indigenous Writes: A Guide to First Nations, Métis & Inuit in Canada and the short-story collection Buffalo is the New BuffaloCo-host, Métis in Space podcast Mykaela Saunders Koori and Lebanese award-winning writerAuthor of Always Will BePost-doctoral research fellow on First Nations speculative fiction at Macquarie University

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  Big Ideas

  Blast off! Exploring our solar system and beyond

  Aug 18, 202655 min

  We're going extraterrestrial with a panel of super star space scientists who are exploring the solar system and beyond. Will they find life out there? Which is the universe's best planet? And what's Matt Damon got to do with it? Incredible tales from Mars, Jupiter, and more. This event was recorded at the World Science Festival Brisbane on 29 March 2026. Speakers: Tracy Drain Chief Engineer with NASA's Europa Clipper Mission to Jupiter David Flannery Associate Professor of astrobiology, Queensland University of Technology Sara Webb Author, science communicator and astrophysicist, Swinburne University Brian Schmidt Distinguished Professor of astrophysics, Australian National University, 2011 Nobel Prize for Physics Tamara Davis (host) Professor of Astrophysics, University of Queensland

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  Big Ideas

  Too Dumb for Democracy? Why your brain struggles with good political decision-making

  Aug 17, 202655 min

  Think about the person whose politics you find most baffling, or most infuriating. Now imagine you must make a decision together. Actually negotiate, project forward, find common ground. That's democracy. And it turns out our brains aren't especially well-built for it. In an era shaped by inequality, environmental crisis and the decline of democratic institutions understanding how we make political decisions might be one of the most urgent questions we face. Recorded live at the Melbourne Writers Festival as part of the Wheeler Centre's The Fifth Estate series. Speakers Dr David Moscrop Politics columnist for The Washington Post, The Walrus, Time Magazine, The Globe, The Guardian and othersAuthor of Too Dumb For Democracy: Why We Make Bad Political Decisions And How We Can Make Better Ones Dr Sally Warhaft Melbourne based freelance broadcaster, anthropologist and writer. Host of The Wheeler Centre's series The Fifth Estate

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  Big Ideas

  What makes television? 100 years of tumultuous change

  Aug 13, 202656 min

  It's been called the idiot box, the drug of the nation, the tube. This year marks 100 years of broadcast television. Over its lifetime, TV has adapted to big changes in technology, government policy, culture and media consumption habits. And yet, while its future remains uncertain, for now, it endures. This is the incredible true story of television. This keynote address was recorded at RMIT University's 100 Years of Broadcast TV Symposium: The impact and future of broadcast TV in Australia . Speakers: Professor Jock Given Adjunct Professor of Media and Communications, Swinburne UniversityAuthor, The Death of Broadcasting: Media's digital future and Turning off the television: broadcasting's uncertain future Dr Damien O'Meara RMIT Lecturer in Public Relations, RMIT University Dr Alexa Scarlata Lecturer in Digital Communication, RMIT University

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  Big Ideas

  CENSORED! CANCELLED! BOYCOTT! The future of artistic freedom and democracy in Australia

  Aug 12, 20261 hour

  How free should artists be to make risky work, to provoke, to get political? Who gets to decide if a work of art is deemed too risky, too dangerous, too difficult? Cancellations. Censorship. Controversy. Political pressure. Mass boycotts. The collapse of festivals. The Australian arts community has seen it all recently, in part triggered by the devastation in the Middle East. But is there more going on too? Join Big Ideas host Natasha Mitchell with a panel of arts and culture heavyweights to consider the future of artistic freedom and democracy in this country — and why both matter in these fractious times. This event was organised by Griffith University and Griffith Law School. Speakers Professor Julianne Schultz Professor Emerita of Media and Culture at the Centre for Social and Cultural Research at Griffith University. Columnist, Guardian Australia Board member, Sydney Writers FestivalAuthor, The Idea of Australia: A Search for the Soul of the Nation.Founding editor, Griffith Review. Dr André Dao Winner of the Prime Minister's Literary Award for Fiction for his debut novel AnamWinner of the Pascal Prize for Cultural Criticism for his pubished essays.Postdoctoral fellow in international law at Melbourne Law SchoolCo-creator of the asylum seeker oral history project Behind the Wire. Author, The role of the committed writer in an unfree world (Overland Magazine, 2026)Presenter, The State of the (Writing) Nation (2023) Dr Ben Eltham Cultural policy researcher and consultant, freelance arts journalist and critic.Lecturer in the School of Media, Film and Journalism at Monash University. Fellow, Centre for Policy Development Thanks also to Professor Sarah Joseph, Dr Karen Crawley, Dr Samid Suliman at Griffith University.

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