Big Ideas

Rising authoritarianism, splintering alliances and an organised backlash against women's rights, gender equality and international development are threatening progress towards justice and equality. Can the United Nations' women, peace, and security agenda still help ensure stable international relations? Does it need to be modernised? 

Feminist Answers in a Dangerous World: Gender, Peace and Security in a Precarious Geopolitics — the 2026 Pamela Denoon Lecture was presented by National Foundation for Australian Women and the Gender Institute at the ANU.

Speakers

Caroline MillarFormer Australian Ambassador to the European Union, NATO, Belgium and Luxembourg; former Deputy Secretary for National Security, in the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet

Dr Elise StephensonDeputy Director at the Global Institute for Women's leadership at the ANU

Asha ClementiPrincipal of the Persephone Network, 2022 ACT Young Women of the Year

From GP appointments and hospital procedures, to medical research and clinical trials, for centuries, women's health has historically been dismissed, diminished, or misdiagnosed. But in recent years, there are some signs that the medical system is slowly coming to terms with the fact that women — their bodies, their symptoms, their experiences, are different from men's, and need to be treated as such.

This event was recorded at All About Women at Sydney Opera House on 8 March.

Speakers:

Dr Zoe WainerInaugural Director General of the Australian Centre for Disease ControlCardiothoracic surgeonFormer deputy secretary, Victorian health department, conducted Australia's first ever public inquiry into women's pain

Summer May Finlay Associate Professor in Indigenous Health, University of Wollongong

Gabrielle Jackson (host)Deputy editor, Guardian AustraliaAuthor, Pain and Prejudice: How the Medical System Ignores Women and What We Can Do About It

Australia's 29th Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull joins former Canadian Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland to deliver a candid appraisal of the shifting sands of global politics, from Donald Trump to AUKUS to rising right wing populism in liberal democracies.

This conversation was recorded at the Harvard Kennedy School at Harvard University on 16 April 2026.

Speakers:

Malcom TurnbullAustralian Prime Minister, 2015 to 2018President of the International Hydropower Association

Chrystia Freeland (host)Fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School, Harvard UniversityEconomic advisor to the President of UkraineFormer Canadian deputy prime minister and finance minister 2019 to 2024Author, Plutocrats: The Rise of the New Global Super Rich and the Fall of Everyone Else, and Sale of the Century: Russia's Wild Ride from Communism to Capitalism

The untold story of Evelyn Marsden and the woman who rowed against the tide. You've heard of the Titanic disaster. Luxury ship. Largest ever. Impossible to sink. Hits iceberg. Catastrophic. Few survivors. Wreckage still under the sea 114 years later. Hollywood film starring Kate Winslet. But have you heard of Evelyn, the Titanic's only Australian survivor? She was a young nurse from rural South Australia with a sense of adventure. Journalist and former The Today Show and The Project co-host Lisa Wilkinson went digging, and what she unearthed is gobsmacking. 

Lisa joins Big Ideas host Natasha Mitchell at this event organised by Northern Books in Castlemaine, Victoria.

Speaker

Lisa WilkinsonJournalist, TV presenter, former co-host of The Project and Today ShowAuthor, The Titanic Story of Evelyn (Hachette Australia, 2026).

Democracy is on the decline, so could Plato help? Irish scholar Dr David Horan spent 16 years translating Plato's complete works, including his dialogues on the world's first democracy in ancient Greece. So what lessons can we learn from Plato today?

This event was recorded at the School of Practical Philosophy in Sydney.

Speakers:

Dr David HoranLeader of the School of Philosophy and Economic Science in IrelandMember of the Plato Centre at Trinity College DublinAuthor/ translator, The Dialogues of Plato

Communities that once built their future around coal and agriculture are asking: what do we become next? Regional Australia usually gets left behind when industries change and young people leave. But it's also — quietly, persistently — reinventing itself. Remote work is reshaping where jobs can be done. AI and digital innovation are opening new doors.

Presented at the SEGRA National Regional and Economic Development Summit in Lithgow, New South Wales, in partnership with the City of Lithgow and their Lithgow Emerging Economy Project (LEEP)

Speakers

Jackie SchirmerDirector of Environmental Governance, University of Canberra. Founded the Regional Wellbeing Survey in 2013

Dr Jess JenningsRegional and Rural Consultant and former mayor of Bathurst regional council

Bjorn JarvisHead of Workforce Futures Program at Jobs and Skills Australia

Ashley Bland (host)Chair of the SEGRA Foundation Board; Associate Partner and Business Development Manager for Green Homes International

Further information

From running a massage clinic for homeless men to running the largest independent human rights organisation in the country, Kon Karapanagiortidis has always had a strong sense of his moral duty to help the people around him. Not just his friends and family, but anyone that might be called a neighbour. He even named his bestselling cookbook Philoxenia, a Greek word that means having love for the stranger. Kon's life has been defined by refusing to turn his back on those in need but that comes with a cost. Every year he receives thousands of hateful messages from people that he says have allowed themselves to become numb to the plight of others. Hear how he maintains his empathy and motivation while helping thousands of refugees through The Asylum Seeker Resource Centre with the radical simplicity of seeing the humanity in everyone.

The conversation Compassion in Action, was recorded at the Centre for a Compassionate Society on 15 March, 2026

Speakers

Petrina BarsonDirector of the Centre for a Compassionate Society

Kon Karapanagiotidis OAM Founder and CEO of the Asylum Seeker Resource Centre Author, The Power of Hope and Philoxenia - A Seat At My Table

Some say Russian president Vladimir Putin is growing increasingly paranoid, as his war with Ukraine wages on. It's hard to know from the outside looking in. What makes the elusive Putin tick? How has he changed during his 26 years in power? And where will it all end? Putin's not a fan of Soviet era communism, so what's drives him? And what's his thing with Trump? 

Join Big Ideas host Natasha Mitchell with two seasoned Russia watchers at the 2026 Sorrento Writers Festival.

Speakers

Associate Professor Will PartlettMelbourne Law SchoolFellow, Centre for Public IntegrityAuthor, Why the Russian Constitution Matters: The Constitutional Dark ArtsCoauthor, The Post-Soviet as Post-Colonial and The People's Guide to the Australian Constitution.

Dr Elizabeth BuchananSenior fellow, Australian Strategic Policy InstituteCo-founder and co-director of polar warfare studies at West Point Military Academy's Modern War InstituteFormer, Head of Research for the Royal Australian Navy’s Sea Power Centre, Department of Defence.Author,  Red Arctic: Russian Strategy under Putin and So you want to own Greenland: Lessons from the Vikings to Trump.

Thanks to Corrie Perkin, founding director and programmer of the Sorrento Writers Festival.

The global treaty for preventing nuclear proliferation is under serious strain. The last review conferences for the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty have ended in deadlock. And this year, last treaty limiting U.S. and Russian nuclear arsenals has expired. This new risk comes at a moment when new nuclear actors are asserting themselves, and the diplomatic tools that once managed these dangers are weakening. What's at stake when the nuclear guardrails come down?

Presented by the Institute of Politics (IOP), Harvard Kennedy School; Co-Organizer Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs

Speakers

Rose GottemoellerWilliam J. Perry Lecturer, Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, and Research Fellow, Hoover Institution, Stanford University; former Deputy Secretary General of NATO

Laura S. H. HolgateSenior Fellow, Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard Kennedy School; former U.S. Ambassador to the International Atomic Energy Agency and the United Nations Office in Vienna

Graham AllisonDouglas Dillon Professor of Government, Harvard Kennedy School; Former Director, Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs

Matthew BunnJames R. Schlesinger Professor of the Practice of Energy, National Security, and Foreign Policy, Harvard Kennedy School; Co‑Principal Investigator, Project on Managing the Atom, Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs

Meghan L. O'Sullivan (host)Jeane Kirkpatrick Professor of the Practice of International Affairs and Director, Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard Kennedy School

Further Information

Taskforce Harvard's Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, and the Nuclear Threat Initiative — Preventing an Era of Nuclear Anarchy: Nuclear Proliferation and American Security

Have you ever heard of something called Chatfishing? From to AI profiles to cat-face filters, finding true love has never felt more difficult. And yet, dating is still fundamentally unchanged. It relies on good communication and mutual respect. After creating the social media juggernaut Bad Dates of Melbourne, who better to help you navigate the pitfalls and dealbreakers of dating in the modern world than Alita Brydon. Her first book is called How To Date Like A Dangerous Woman and it is full of straight talk with radical self-love at the heart of it all.

This event was hosted at the Brimbank Writers and Readers Festival

Speakers

Alita BrydonRelationships expert, author of How To Date Like A Dangerous Woman and Bad Dates of Melbourne founder

Nelly ThomasComedian, MC and host of the Dear Nelly Podcast