Big Ideas

The COVID-19 crisis has seen international student enrolment at Australian universities plummeting. But international students inject between $30 and 40 billion into our economy. While that loss is not only felt in the educational sector, many universities are not facing drastic cut-backs. International teaching experts consider the necessary provision of quality education and appropriate health and other support systems to bring back international students – even if it’s only online.

Euthanising animals is always a very difficult decision. It’s not even clear cut when your pet is sick: How much treatment is justified? But it gets worse when it comes to ‘performance animals’ for example racing horses and greyhounds or wildlife. How do we navigate through the ethics in this space and the potential conflicts of interest? 

What would happen if we could understand what animals were saying? Harnessing both the surreal and the serious, three authors pose inventive and urgent questions about our place in the world and what it means to be human.

Who hasn't thought the world has gotten faster, noisier, busier, more digitally demanding, and more stressful?  Writer and journalist, Christine Jackman, was a frantically busy communications executive who realised she needed to try and slow down, seek silence, and live a better, calmer life

Political analyst George Friedman looks to the United States’ past to illuminate its present – and predict its future. He tracks the cycles of crisis, order and reinvention of the country and identifies changes to the size and scope of the federal government, the future of marriage and the social contract, shifts in corporate structures, and new cultural trends.

We’re blessed with good quality food in Australia and we’re spoiled for choice . Many people in the world aren’t so lucky. But the environment pays a big price for what we put on our plates. So how can we feed the world and save the environment?

And how can we demand more green space in our cities so we can be closer to nature?

It's life but not as you know it. If you’ve had enough of the pandemic,  time to look for life on other planets! We hear from an astronomer and an astrobiologist about the search for life in our solar system and beyond. There’s billions of stars out there. How do we know where to look and will we recognize life if, and when , we find it?

We have ten years to halve global greenhouse gas emissions, and move toward zero emissions. Failure to do so will lead to environmental catastrophe.  So believes Christiana Figueres, former head of the UN convention on climate change, who helped deliver the Paris agreement. She explains to Paul Barclay why she is optimistic.

Kerry O’Brien and Sally McManus look at changes to work and workplaces and the roles of unions in the future. Business leaders and union representatives are currently negotiating what could be landmark industrial relations reforms. They will shape what the future of work looks like in Australia. And they also come at a time of drastic changes brought on by the pandemic crisis and new technologies

Young Australians complain they’ve been locked out of the property market and expect to live their life in the private rental market . Wages haven’t kept up with house prices. Secure full-time jobs are harder to find and not everyone can rely on an inheritance .With Covid 19 , the situation is even more precarious. Home ownership is a marker of a growing generational and class divide in Australia.

Journalist Stan Grant looks at the impact of the pandemic on international relations and democratic freedoms. The pandemic is increasing tension within and between nations . Will the repression of civil liberties and authoritarian governments be a lasting legacy and has the strategic rivalry between the USA and China reached a dangerous new phase ?