Big Ideas

Jill Stark was wracked by paralysing anxiety and serious depression. She hit rock bottom, her mental health crisis flaring up in the aftermath of a personal triumph: the success of her debut book. She talks to Paul Barclay about the myth of happiness, what her personal struggles have taught her, and the hard, but rewarding, road she’s travelled, rebuilding her life, and her health. Big Ideas is revisiting this discussion as part of Your Mental Health — an ABC-wide initiative to help us navigate through these unusual and trying times.

It’s often said that cats have slaves, not owners. But as part of the ABC’s Your Mental Health week — focussing on how to improve our mental health and wellbeing in these challenging time — Big Ideas returns to these moving personal tales of the pet cats who rescued their owners and gave them courage and resilience at times when life seemed unbearably hard.

Pet ownership has been linked to mental health and wellbeing. So as part of Your Mental Health — an ABC initiative to help us navigate through these unusual and trying times — Big Ideas revisits this discussion about the value of having a canine companion. Dogs are be trained to do all kinds of things and they have emotional intelligence, making them great companions for people with mental health conditions.

How do we reinvent ourselves after the coronavirus? Nothing can go back to being exactly as it was in the way we work, travel or study. Our universities in particular face a budget black hole with the loss of international students and the prospect of more students remote and online. This mirrors the struggle in the broader economy to recover from economic lockdown and the global disruption to the flow of people, goods and services.

Neglect of the elderly is rife in Australia. An ageing population also means an increase in dementia, with many saying they would rather end their life than endure the disease.

Your experience of this pandemic depends on the work you do. If your job is considered essential then you’ve been going out to work every day. If you’re in a job that can be done remotely, it’s the laptop and internet at home.

And if your workplace is struggling to stay afloat then you’ve had to fall back on Jobkeeper or Jobseeker for the unemployed. So what will jobs and workplaces look like after this pandemic?

Money may well make world go round but cash is surely an encumbrance we can do without. Surveys show that most people think so.

But what does a cashless society look like? How would you like to write you own payment algorithms in the future? And are common fears around privacy, security and costs unjustified?

Can democracy tame twenty-first century capitalism?

Not if our institutions are only formally democratic – without real foundation and depth.

Steven Klein examines the connection between economic crises and the crisis of political legitimacy. He describes capitalism as a form of economic authoritarianism and calls for a financial democracy.

To stop the spread of COVID-19, governments hastily passed extraordinary laws limiting democratic freedoms in previously unimaginable ways. How well have they balanced the right to personal freedom against the need to protect the community from coronavirus?

One crucial role of media is to inform the public in a time of crisis.

During bushfires and cyclones – and as it turns out during a pandemic.

But have media been cut back so much that good and comprehensive crisis reporting can’t be guaranteed anymore?

And has the relationship between media and governments been eroded to a point where accusations of fake news get in the way of critical health advice?