Big Ideas

2025 is a landmark year for Australian privacy law. The new statutory tort for serious invasions of privacy came into effect in June this year. This could be a breakthrough providing you with a better way to protect your privacy interests through the court system. Big Ideas digs deep into its origins, its inspirations, and its potential future.

Presented at the Queensland University of Technology.

Speakers

Emeritus Professor Barbara McDonaldProfessor of Law, University of Sydney Law School; led the 2014 Australian Law Reform Commission Inquiry on Serious Invasions of Privacy in the Digital Era.

The Hon Justice Peter Applegarth AM KCFormer barrister and Judge of the Supreme Court of Queensland

Mark Burdon (host)Professor of Law, Queensland University of Technology, QUT's Digital Media Research Centre

Further information

This rollicking history traces the evolution of the London stock exchange, from the Transatlantic slave trade to modern day missions to Mars, arguing that the financial markets wield the power to bring down governments, and shape our societies, for better and for worse.

This lecture was recorded at the Australian National University.

Speakers

Philip Roscoe Author, How to Build a Stock Exchange: The Past, Present and Future of FinanceProfessor of Management, University of St Andrews, Scotland

She's on a bank note (British 10 pounds), and a bath soap (Suds and Sensibility), and she also wrote some of the most beloved novels in English literature. Why has Jane Austen become such an enduring cultural force, and what makes us return to her works time and time again?

This event, celebrating 250 years since Jane Austen's birth, was recorded at the National Library of Australia on 20 August 2025.

Speaker

Susannah Fullerton President of the Jane Austen Society of Australia, guide, ASA Cultural Tours

Is the end of the world nigh, or just the end of the world as we know it? Are we set to doom-scroll our way to apocalypse? Or is this the moment we wake up to ourselves, change course, and save the planet? Don't miss this hilarious battle of brains and bravado when two teams join Big Ideas' host and science journalist Natasha Mitchell at Hobart City Hall for the annual Beaker Street Festival Great Debate.  Have our multi-crises of climate change, over-consumption, over-reliance on vulnerable technologies, and [insert your favourite impending disaster here] finally brought us to the brink? Or do we just love a good challenge, the hairier and scarier the better!? You decide the winner. Your life could depend on it.

TEAM AFFIRMATIVE - The Three Horsewomen of the Apocalypse

Dr Esmé Louise James (Team Captain)Sex historian and TikTok star Host of the Kinky History podcast and Sextistic showsAuthor of Kinky History: A Rollicking Journey Through Our Sexual Past, Present, and Future (2024)Kitana MansellProud Palawa womanBusiness Development Manager of Tasmania's first Aboriginal native food business Palawa Kipli

Dr Kate BoothHuman geographer and Associate Professor in Urban & Regional PlanningLeader of the Critical Collapse Studies research program.University of Tasmania 

TEAM NEGATIVE - The Transformers

Hannah Moloney (Team Captain)Tasmanian host of Gardening Australia on ABC TVCreator of Good Life PermacultureAuthor of Good Life Growing: How to Grow Fruit and Veg Anywhere in Australia (2023)  and The Good Life: How To Grow A Better World (2025)

Toby WalshScientia Professor of Artificial IntelligenceChief Scientist, UNSW.AI Institute, University of NSWAuthor of The Shortest History of AI (2025), Machines Behaving Badly: The Morality of AI (2022), Faking It: Artificial Intelligence in a Human World (2023)

Gretta PeclProfessor of marine ecology, Institute for Marine and Antarctic Studies (IMAS), University of TasmaniaDirector of the Centre of Marine SocioecologyA lead author for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) reports

Thanks to Dr Margo Adler, Executive Director of the Beaker St Festival: a week long celebration of science and art in Nipaluna/Hobart each August.

Thanks to the house band Stevie and the Bunsen Burners and the whole festival team.

Conflict and great power rivalries are on the rise, democracy is in retreat, and multilateral institutions created to maintain global cooperation appear increasingly toothless. So is the world as we've known it coming to an end? And if so, what will replace it?

This speech was recorded at the University of Queensland on 17 September 2025.

Speaker

Andrew PhillipsProfessor of international relations and strategy with the University of QueenslandAuthor, War, religion and empire: The transformation of international orders, Outsourcing empire: how company-states made the modern world and more

The Democratic Party in America is in an identity crisis. It's shifting priorities to claw back grounds from the Republicans. But is it too little, too late? How can the Democrats respond to a radicalising and increasingly authoritarian-minded Republican Party? The Future of America's Democratic Party presented by the American Academy in Berlin

Speakers

Jacob S. HackerStanely B. Resor Professor of Political Science, Co-Director of the Ludwig Program in Public Sector Leadership at Yale Law School

Paul PiersonJohn Cross Distinguished Professor of Political Science, University of California at Berkeley

Daniel Benjamin (host)President of the American Academy in Berlin

From Rodrigo Duterte, to Narendra Modi, to Donald Trump, strongman leaders around the world are harnessing big tech to consolidate their power. Social media is also being used to energise and organise resistance movements, but is the bad increasingly outweighing the good?

The 2025 Southeast Asia Oration Media Freedom and Democracy in Southeast Asia was held at the University of Melbourne, in partnership with Asialink, the Asia Institute, and the ASEAN Australia Centre.

Speakers

Maria Ressa Filippino journalist, co-founder and CEO of online news site Rappler, 2021 Nobel Peace Prize laureate, author, How to Stand Up to a Dictator

Laura Tingle Global Affairs Editor, ABC

Nicholas Coppel Former Australian Ambassador Myanmar, author, Myanmar's Digital Coup, President of the Australia Myanmar Institute

Dr Ken Setiawan Senior Lecturer in Indonesian Studies at the Asia Institute, University of Melbourne

Professor Michael Wesley (host) Deputy Vice Chancellor (Global, Culture and Engagement), University of Melbourne

If a stiff dose of medical misinformation is what you're after, look no further than the White House right now. And, on social media and in online forums, countless conspiracy theories reign supreme. In this "post-truth" era, has science lost its authority, or have we lost sight of what scientific proof actually involves? From debates over the origins of our species to conspiracies surrounding the origins of COVID19, Dr Elizabeth Finkel goes where others fear to tread to lift the lid on how science works. Join her with Big Ideas' host Natasha Mitchell at this event hosted by the Royal Society of Victoria and Black Inc Books.

Speaker

Dr Elizabeth FinkelScience journalist, biologist, author, former editor of popular science magazine CosmosAuthor of Prove it: A scientific guide to the post-truth era (Black Inc Books, 2025), The Genome Generation (2011), Stem Cells: Controversy at the Frontier of Science (2005).

The Beatles shook the world to its core in the 1960's and, to this day, new generations continue to fall in love with their songs and their story. At the heart of this phenomenon lies the dynamic between John Lennon and Paul McCartney. Few other musical partnerships have been rooted in such a deep, intense and complicated personal relationship. Ian Leslie uses the songs they wrote to trace the shared journey of these two compelling men before, during, and after The Beatles.

This talk is provided by the York Festival of Ideas. The Festival is led by the University of York, UK

Speaker

Ian LeslieAuthor of John and Paul: A love story in songs (Faber, 2025)

John Robinson (host)Emeritus Professor in the School of Physics, Engineering and Technology, University of York

The world feels more dangerous and unpredictable, but with Australia wedged between our traditional ally, America, and our biggest trading partner, China, does our most expensive ever defence project make us more secure, or less?

The 2025 Laurie Carmichael Lecture, Australian Sovereignty and the Path to Peace, was recorded on Wednesday 10 September 2025, with thanks to the Australia Institute's Carmichael Centre for Future Work and RMIT University.

Speakers

Doug Cameron ALP Senator for New South Wales, 2007 to 2019, trade unionist