Big Ideas

When a book becomes a hit TV series, or a play becomes a Hollywood film, what makes it a great adaptation? Meet the creators of these international smash hits as they take you behind the scenes, into the writers' rooms, and inside their creative minds. Suzie Miller's award-winning play Prima Facie has just become a Hollywood film starring Cynthia Erivo, while the sixth season of television's Slow Horses, based on Mick Herron's bestselling spy novels, starts next month. 

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

Speakers:

Mick HerronAuthor, Slough House series, Down Cemetary Road series and more

Suzie MillerPlaywright, novelist and screen writer, Prima Facie, Interalia, Strong is the New Pretty and more

Benjamin Law (host)Journalist, columnist, TV screenwriter and author of The Family Law, Gaysia: Adventures in the Queer East and Quarterly Essay 67: Moral Panic 101Creator and co-writer of award-winning SBS TV series The Family Law

Interesting idea or nanny-state gone way too far? If babies weren't born to doom scroll, why do we think grown-ups are? Don't miss our hilarious annual battle of brains and bravado with two teams and Big Ideas' host Natasha Mitchell at the Beaker Street Festival: where science meets art. Australia was the first country in the world to ban under-16s from social media. France just struck down a push for the same.  Are adults immune to all the harms of these platforms? Should OVER-16s be banned too!?  

TEAM AFFIRMATIVE: "THE VIRAL INFLUENZAS"

Dr Esmé Louise James, sex historianReturning debate champion and sex historian, creator of the book and viral TikTok phenomenon Kinky History, co-host with her mathematician mother of two seasons of the Sextistics series on Youtube, and her first novel Becoming Venus is out on September 1, 2026.

Saul Eslake, economistSaul has been chief economist at the big end of town with big banks, he now runs his own consultancy, is a Vice-Chancellor's Fellow at the University of Tasmania, advises Australia's Parliamentary Budget Office, serves on the Council on the Ageing, and is a regular expert chatterbox in the media.

Dr Meredith Castles, human-computer interaction researcher and lecturer Meredith is a science communicator and a lecturer in human-computer interaction at the University of Tasmania's School of Information and Communication Technology. She's interested in ethical, accessible, inclusive, and human-centred technology — and how to design it so it's nice, not nasty.

TEAM NEGATIVE: "THE YAPPERS"

Professor Barbara Holland, statisticianFormer reigning Beaker Street debate champion, Barbara is a mathematician in the School of Natural Sciences at the University of Tasmania. She fell in love with the power of statistics, made it her life's work, and works with biologists and uses stats to unravel the big biological puzzle that is the evolution of life on Earth.

Dr Kirsten BanksYou know her as AstroKirsten on the socials, youtube, on screens and stages everywhere. Kirsten is an astrophysicist, science communicator, and proud Wiradjuri woman who mixes science with humour — and her passion for the cosmos — to help us all reach the stars.

Dr Tim NugentTim is a co-founder of Yarn Spinner, a spin-off of the award-winning Tasmanian grown gaming studio Secret Lab. He and his team build games and narrative tools for games for both indie and major studio releases. He is the co-author of a stack of computery, programmy books, and he did a PhD on mobile human computer interaction and information flow in public spaces.

Thanks to Dr Margo Adler, Rosie Pidd, Stevie and the Bunsen Burners, and the whole festival team.

Acclaimed journalist Kerry O'Brien has seen it all, but nothing like right now. And he's not mincing his words. On AI, neoliberalism, education, equality, gutless governments, and more. For over 50 years, he covered the world's biggest stories and changemakers, and asked tough questions of power. Hear why he thinks a perfect storm threatens our society and our politics, and what he thinks can be done about it.

The 2026 Thea Astley Address was recorded at the Byron Writers Festival on Saturday 15 August 2026.

Speakers:

Kerry O'BrienFormer ABC journalist, host, 7.30 Report, Four Corners, Lateline and more, six-time Walkley award winner

Richard FlanaganMan Booker Prize and Baille Gifford award winning author of The Narrow Road to the Deep North, Heresies, and more

It's estimated that one in three Australian households have experienced food insecurity. At the same time, one third of all food produced in Australia gets thrown out. For more than two decades, Ronni Kahn has been fighting these dual challenges as head of food rescue charity OzHarvest. She argues these ongoing dual challenges show a failure of imagination and of will.

The 2026 Kenneth Myer Lecture was recorded at the National Library of Australia in Canberra on 4 August and in Melbourne on 6 August.

Speakers:

Ronni KahnFounder, OzHarvest

Australia is home to some 25,000 plant species. And nine out of 10 Australian plants occur nowhere else on Earth. But many are under threat. So why does that matter? This National Science Week, we meet a plant ecologist with a message.

This conversation was recorded at the Lyrebird Festival in the Blue Mountains of NSW.

Speakers:

Rachael GallagherProfessor in Plant Ecology and Conservation, Hawkesbury Institute for the Environment, Western Sydney University

Gregg Borschmann (host)Oral historian, journalist and writer

Further information: 

What is Australia's most amazing wildflower? Vote now - ABC Science Week

Dystopia or utopia? How do you imagine the future? In films and books, the future is often filled with alien invasions, nuclear war or the zombie apocalypse. But a movement of Indigenous storytellers is reshaping traditional science fiction tropes based on their own storytelling cultures and experiences.

This event was recorded at the Melbourne Writers Festival on 10 May 2026.

Speakers:

Chelsea VowelCandian Metis language instructor, public intellectual, writer, and activist educatorAuthor, Indigenous Writes: A Guide to First Nations, Métis & Inuit in Canada and the short-story collection Buffalo is the New BuffaloCo-host, Métis in Space podcast

Mykaela SaundersKoori and Lebanese award-winning writerAuthor of Always Will BePost-doctoral research fellow on First Nations speculative fiction at Macquarie University

We're going extraterrestrial with a panel of super star space scientists who are exploring the solar system and beyond. Will they find life out there? Which is the universe's best planet? And what's Matt Damon got to do with it? Incredible tales from Mars, Jupiter, and more.

This event was recorded at the World Science Festival Brisbane on 29 March 2026.

Speakers:

Tracy DrainChief Engineer with NASA's Europa Clipper Mission to Jupiter

David FlanneryAssociate Professor of astrobiology, Queensland University of Technology

Sara Webb Author, science communicator and astrophysicist, Swinburne University

Brian SchmidtDistinguished Professor of astrophysics, Australian National University, 2011 Nobel Prize for Physics

Tamara Davis (host) Professor of Astrophysics, University of Queensland

Think about the person whose politics you find most baffling, or most infuriating. Now imagine you must make a decision together. Actually negotiate, project forward, find common ground. That's democracy. And it turns out our brains aren't especially well-built for it.

In an era shaped by inequality, environmental crisis and the decline of democratic institutions understanding how we make political decisions might be one of the most urgent questions we face.

Recorded live at the Melbourne Writers Festival as part of the Wheeler Centre's The Fifth Estate series.

Speakers

Dr David MoscropPolitics columnist for The Washington Post, The Walrus, Time Magazine, The Globe, The Guardian and othersAuthor of Too Dumb For Democracy: Why We Make Bad Political Decisions And How We Can Make Better Ones

Dr Sally WarhaftMelbourne based freelance broadcaster, anthropologist and writer. Host of The Wheeler Centre's series The Fifth Estate

It's been called the idiot box, the drug of the nation, the tube. This year marks 100 years of broadcast television. Over its lifetime, TV has adapted to big changes in technology, government policy, culture and media consumption habits. And yet, while its future remains uncertain, for now, it endures. This is the incredible true story of television.

This keynote address was recorded at RMIT University's 100 Years of Broadcast TV Symposium: The impact and future of broadcast TV in Australia.

Speakers:

Professor Jock GivenAdjunct Professor of Media and Communications, Swinburne UniversityAuthor, The Death of Broadcasting: Media's digital future and Turning off the television: broadcasting's uncertain future

Dr Damien O'MearaRMIT Lecturer in Public Relations, RMIT University

Dr Alexa ScarlataLecturer in Digital Communication, RMIT University

How free should artists be to make risky work, to provoke, to get political? Who gets to decide if a work of art is deemed too risky, too dangerous, too difficult? Cancellations. Censorship. Controversy. Political pressure. Mass boycotts. The collapse of festivals. The Australian arts community has seen it all recently, in part triggered by the devastation in the Middle East. But is there more going on too? Join Big Ideas host Natasha Mitchell with a panel of arts and culture heavyweights to consider the future of artistic freedom and democracy in this country — and why both matter in these fractious times.

This event was organised by Griffith University and Griffith Law School.

Speakers

Professor Julianne SchultzProfessor Emerita of Media and Culture at the Centre for Social and Cultural Research at Griffith University.Columnist, Guardian AustraliaBoard member, Sydney Writers FestivalAuthor, The Idea of Australia: A Search for the Soul of the Nation.Founding editor, Griffith Review.Dr André Dao Winner of the Prime Minister's Literary Award for Fiction for his debut novel AnamWinner of the Pascal Prize for Cultural Criticism for his pubished essays.Postdoctoral fellow in international law at Melbourne Law SchoolCo-creator of the asylum seeker oral history project Behind the Wire. Author, The role of the committed writer in an unfree world (Overland Magazine, 2026)Presenter, The State of the (Writing) Nation (2023)

Dr Ben ElthamCultural policy researcher and consultant, freelance arts journalist and critic.Lecturer in the School of Media, Film and Journalism at Monash University. Fellow, Centre for Policy Development 

Thanks also to Professor Sarah Joseph, Dr Karen Crawley, Dr Samid Suliman at Griffith University.