Big Ideas

Jane Goodall’s radical ideas that animals have individual personalities, relationships and even emotions reshaped how we understand primates. It also sparked fierce ethical debates that are still playing out today: Do great apes have rights? What responsibilities do researchers carry when studying minds so much like our own? Jan Goodall wasn't just a trailblazing scientist. She became one of the most influential conservationists of the last century and created the foundation of modern primatology. 

City of Science: Jane Goodall and Her Legacy was presented at the CUNY Graduate Center

Speakers

Kristin AndrewsProfessor of Philosophy, CUNY Graduate Center

David LahtiAssociate professor of Biology and Psychology at Queens College and the CUNY Graduate Center

Jessica RothmanProgram director in Human Biology and professor of Anthropology at Hunter College and the CUNY Graduate Center

Dr Mark Hauber (host)Professor of Biology and Psychology at the CUNY Graduate Center and executive director of the Advanced Science Research Center

Australia's population is getting older. In fact, by 2076, 45 per cent of us - that's 18 million people - will be aged over 65. What will ageing look like in 50 years time? Will science keep us healthier for longer? What role will older people play in the workforce, in the economy, and in our communities? Will robots wipe our bottoms, or keep us company? How will we respond to major health challenges—like dementia, already our leading cause of death— and the growing burden of chronic disease? This conversation explores the ethical and social challenges facing our ageing country, and the planning, research and policy systems needed to ensure a dignified, safe and healthy life for older people by 2076. This event was recorded at the fiftieth National Ageing Research Institute annual summit with the theme Imagine Australia in 50 years on 22 July in Melbourne.

Speakers: 

Mark Dreyfus Former Attorney General, MP Member for Isaacs

Professor Jenny Waycott Professor and Deputy Head of School (Research) in the School of Computing and Information Systems, Melbourne University

Professor Andy Philp Head of the Centre for Healthy Ageing at the Centenary Institute and leads the healthy ageing research at the University of Technology Sydney where he leads the Biology of Ageing Laboratory in the School of Sport, Exercise and Rehabilitation

Professor Tim Adair Demographer and Principal Research Fellow in the Nossal Institute for Global Health at the Melbourne School of Population and Global Health.

Jacinta Parsons (host) Broadcaster, author and speaker

What does the future look like to you? How can you prepare yourself for what's coming down the line? And how does what you do today, change what will happen tomorrow? Join three forward-looking thinkers for a conversation about how to shape a better tomorrow, today.

The conversation Brave New Futures was recorded live at the annual 2026 WOMADelaide festival, produced and presented as part of their Planet Talks program, held on the traditional lands of the Guarna people.

Speakers:

Richard KingCritic, cultural commentator and author, Brave New Wild: Can Technology Really Save the Planet?

Clare MarshallAward-winning futurist, former lead of the National Futures Initiative at The Australian Centre for Social Innovation

Grace VegasanaClimate justice organiser and youth advocate, National Director of the Australian Youth Climate Coalition (AYCC), co-founder of The People of Colour Climate Network

Lee Constable (host)Environmental communicator, TV presenter, author, How to Save the Whole Stinkin' Planet: A Garbological Adventure, and more

The Inter-Continental Hotel on a hilltop above Kabul has watched Afghanistan’s modern history unfold from its windows. Built in 1969, it has survived Soviet occupation, multiple coups, a civil war, a foreign invasion and waves of Taliban rule. This is the story of that hotel and of Afghanistan itself, told through forty years of visits, world-making headlines, and the people who called the finest hotel in Kabul home.

This event was recorded live at the 2026 Sydney Writers’ Festival at Carriageworks.

Speakers

Lyse DoucetBBC Chief International Correspondent and author of The Finest Hotel in Kabul, A People’s History of Afghanistan, Hutchinson Heinemann (2025)

Debbie Whitmont (host)ABC Journalist and author 

It's been called "The Odyssey of the East", and the ancient Hindu poem remains central to Asian cultures and traditions from India to Indonesia 2500 years after it was written. From the names of Thai kings, to traditional Javanese shadow puppets, the ancient temples of Cambodia's Angkor Wat to contemporary Indian politics, the journeys of Rama and his wife Sita are deeply embedded. Why does this story endure?

The conversation The Ramayana reimagined: storytelling across cultures was recorded at the Art Gallery of New South Wales as part of the exhibition, Avatar: Forms of Vishnu, on until 5 October 2026.

Speakers:

Dr. Chaitanya SambraniCo-curator (with Melanie Eastburn) of Avatar: Forms of Vishnu exhibition, Art Gallery of New South WalesArt historian, Australian National University

Savanhdary VongpoothornPainter, sculptor and installation artist

Alfira O'SullivanArtistic Director and solo artist with Suara Indonesia Dance

Sunil Badami (host)Writer, broadcaster and academic

The Future Library is filled with unpublished books written for readers yet to be born. Every year a new literary work is commissioned to be held in trust in a special room in the National Library of Norway. And in a forest just outside Oslo, 1,000 Spruce are growing - waiting until 2114 to fulfil their role: To be pulped and transform these unseen words into print. This hundred-year literary artwork by Scottish artist Katie Paterson is one of the most internationally acclaimed long-term cultural projects of our time. 

Presented at the National Library of Australia in partnership with the Royal Norwegian Embassy in Canberra.

Speakers

Anne Beate Hovind  Norwegian urban developer, curator and cultural producer of Future Library (2014–2114) by Katie Paterson

Kathryn Favelle (host)Director of Community Engagement, National Library of Australia in Canberra

From doctors spruiking untested therapies to celebrities selling "revolutionary wellness hacks", self-styled health gurus promise results traditional medicine can't. Social media transforms a healthcare system that struggles with GP wait times and short face-to-face appointments. Because when it comes to trust, it turns out fame competes surprisingly well with scientific evidence.

Bad Influence: How the internet hijacked our health was recorded at the York Festival of Ideas. The festival is led by the University of York, UK.

Speakers

Dr Deborah CohenBroadcaster, journalist and author of Bad Influence: How the Internet Hijacked Our Health

Simon GilbodyProfessor of Psychological Medicine and Epidemiology at the University of York and the Hull York Medical School

Alice Pung started writing her first published book as a teenager. Now, it's been read and studied by two generations of Australian teenagers through the school curriculum. On the 20th anniversary of her irreverent, loving memoir of her migrant family's 's everyday struggles and bittersweet triumphs, she reflects on the book's endurance and the various reactions it's provoked in her young readers.

The 2026 EW Cole Lecture was recorded by The Wheeler Centre Australia's first dedicated centre for Books, Writing and Ideas. Explore more discussions like this one on The Wheeler Centre podcast — available wherever you listen to podcasts. Follow @wheelercentre for updates

Speakers:

Alice PungAuthor, Unpolished Gem, Her Father's Daughter, Laurinda, One Hundred Days, Growing Up Asian in Australia (editor) and more

Raina Tran15 year-old writer

Marina SanoCo-creator and owner of Amplify Bookstore

Migration has shaped modern Australia, but as the country grows, debates around immigrants and multiculturalism are intensifying. Join David Speers for the ABC’s latest National Forum. We bring together Australians from all walks of life to ask: Is our migration system still working? And just what is our National Identity? It’s a big discussion about the kind of country we want to be.

Panellists

Dr Abdul RizviFormer Deputy Secretary of the Department of Immigration

John AndersonFormer Deputy Prime Minister

George MegalogenisJournalist and author

Nyadol NyuonLawyer and human rights advocate

Dr Anne AlyMinister for Multicultural Affairs

Andrew HastieShadow Minister for Industry and Sovereign Capability

Barnaby JoyceOne Nation MP

Being poor has become big business in Australia, but not for people who need work. Billions spent. Millions of profits. But who's getting them?  Why do unemployment and poverty continue to be stigmatised? And does the legacy of the Robodebt scandal live on? The Centre for International Corporate Tax Accountability and Research concluded in a new excoriating report Who’s rorting who? The failure of outsourced job services that the system is "filling the pockets of private equity and millionaires" while leaving job-seekers without work. Three people close to the coalface join Big Ideas host Natasha Mitchell to weigh in.

This event was held at the 2026 Festival of Dangerous Ideas on Gadigal Country in Sydney. 

Speaker

Rick Morton Investigative journalist Multi-award-winning author, Mean Streak, My Year of Living Vulnerably, On Money, and One Hundred Years of Dirt.

Mark Considine Political scientist and Redmond Barry Distinguished Professor Co-Director of the Australian Welfare and Work Lab, University of Melbourne Author, The Careless State Co-author, Buying and Selling the Poor: Inside Australia's privatised welfare-to-work market

Emily Roy Chief Executive OfficerNot-for-profit employment services provider JobLink Plus 

Thanks to Danielle Harvey, Lauren Bennett, and the whole Festival of Dangerous Ideas team.

Further reading 

Report: Who's rorting who? The failure of outsourced job services (Centre for International Corporate Tax Accountability and Research, 2026) Australia's jobseeker system fails workers and enriches millionaires, report says  The Shaping the future of employment services Discussion Paper  (Australian Government, 2026) Senate Committee Report: Rebuilding Employment Services (2023)