Have you spent the pandemic binge-watching movies, going through your music collection or attending virtual concerts and galleries? Workers in arts and culture aren’t defined as essential yet their work has been essential for pandemic mental health.But will they survive Covid? What's the outlook for the hard-hit sector as the economy recovers from the pandemic?

Climate change policy in Australia has split political parties and brought down Prime Ministers and governments. In the shadows has been the "carbon club" - a group of business leaders, politicians, and climate change sceptics. They have collectively stymied action on climate change, and undermined climate science.  So says investigative journalist, Marian Wilkinson

Nearly a decade after the promised prospect of EU membership, many countries of the Western Balkans are still waiting to join. Meanwhile Russia and China have become active players in the region. A region that still struggles with territorial and ethnical tensions. History showed again and again that an unstable Balkans threatens the stability of Europe - and therefore has a global impact.

Covid has exposed gaps in the health, disability and aged care system. These sectors were already strain before the pandemic. We hear from the UK about ways to revitalize the care sector and value the essential work of caring . And we also hear strategies to build connection in a socially-distanced world. Is economist and author Noreena Hertz right when she describes loneliness as the defining condition of the twenty-first century?

The pandemic places new restrictions on our work and lifestyle but those constraints can spark creative solutions and innovations. In lockdown at home people learn new skills and hobbies and join virtual workteams. Businesses meanwhile have reinvented themselves online and home delivery services are more popular than ever. Necessity is proving to be the mother of invention.

Public intellectual, Clive Hamilton, argues China is engaged in an ideological struggle with the West, including Australia. He believes China's ruling Communist Party is deliberately subverting democracy and employing "discourse control".  Paul Barclay speaks to him about his new book, "Hidden Hand".

Water is the essence of life. As climate change delivers extreme weather and changes rainfall patterns, water managers are employing new technology to track and trace every drop. And in the ocean, the rising temperature of the water threatens to destroy coral reefs. To climate-proof corals, scientists have decided to take radical measures to speed up the development of resilient corals.

Do you think that we are today worse off than previous generations? There is no easy answer and it very much depends on what aspects of life and society you look at. On Big Ideas, a panel of social commentators tackles the question: Have we seen better days?

There used to be a strict dividing line between public and private lives in Australia. That was until the 1970s when the personal became political. Women’s liberation and the gay and lesbian movement moved the boundary line between private and public life. In the 1970s gender, sexuality, domestic violence and reproductive freedom became the subject of political debates and a royal commission. Historian Michelle Arrow looks at how 1970’s activism remade Australia and its legacy for contemporary debates.

COVID19 seems like a contagious virus without parallel, but Australia has been hit by devastating pandemics before. This panel discussion examines the history of viruses and vaccines and their impact on Australian society and science.