In the first podcast of the year, Professor the Hon Bob Carr and I reflect on the lessons for reform leadership that emerge from his time as former Premier of NSW (1995-2005) and as Australian Foreign Minister (2012-2013). We also consider: the reform tradition of the Australian Labor Party; the nature and reach of historical study; the ongoing follies of human beings; and the statesmanship of Abraham Lincoln and Franklin D. Roosevelt.

What is the Cultural Commons? Is there a tradition that links Burke with Nietzsche? What about Burke and Gandhi? What was Gandhi's critique of modernity? And what was Burke's, too, of Capital? Is there an Indian secularism? In this conversation it is my honour to speak with Professor Akeel Bilgrami about his past and present work in philosophy, political economy, and intellectual history.

Who are we to each other, and to ourselves? In this conversation, Sylvana Tomaselli and I explore Wollstonecraft’s visceral critique of Burke in A Vindication of the Rights of Men (1790). We explore the differences between their thinking about women, men, relationships, and love; and consider some of the points on which their thoughts surprisingly align.

In this conversation, I speak with Leslee Udwin about her quest to end discrimination around the world – particularly violence against women and girls. We discuss: the relationship between her acting and activism; her direction of India's Daughter (2015), the award-winning documentary in which she interviewed the rapists and murderers of Jyoti Singh in Delhi; and her founding of Think Equal, the not for profit that aims to undo hate by teaching children under the age of 6 how to love through empathy, emotion and embodying the other as self.

Edmund Burke and Mahatma Gandhi – two thinkers separated in time and place – both come to political theory with an idea of moral integrity always in view. In this conversation, Uday Mehta and I explore the deep relationship between the rhetoric, writing and spiritual exercises of these two men – thinkers, who in the midst of politics, asked the ethical question: ‘Who am I? And what am I prepared to stand for?’

“Is our liberal democracy up to the task of meeting the ethical claims and challenges of [historical] truth? Are we up to it? Because if we are not, liberal democracy will fall. It won’t fall because China is more strong: it will fall because it is incapable of dealing with the ethical demands that are being placed on it from its own people; its own constituents.”

It is my great honour in this podcast to speak with Stan Grant: International Affairs Analyst at the ABC and award-winning author of books like Talking to My Country, Australia Day, and most recently, With the Falling of the Dusk.

In this wide ranging conversation, we grapple with the big ideas: thinking oneself free through writing and philosophy; the poisonous relationship between history and identity; the return of China and the challenges facing liberal democracy from within. Stan finishes with a clarion call to finish the work we are in: to bind up the nation's wounds for Australia's Indigenous peoples.

“It’s up to us, it’s up to men, we need to step up.” In this podcast, I speak with David Leser, multi-award-winning journalist and author of ‘Women, men and the whole damn thing,’ about Australia’s current cultural reckoning in wake of the Brittany Higgins allegations, those brought against the Attorney General, and the stories of sexual violence and disrespect coming out of Australian schools.

We consider several questions: Why and how should men step up? What are the causes of toxic masculinity and how do we benefit from addressing them? What is the relationship between the problem in our schools and parliament? 

“The most difficult task in politics,” writes David Bromwich, “the reason for something called statesmanship to exist – is to awaken public sentiments against an entrenched abuse and convince lawmakers and public opinion to act for the improvement of justice.” In this episode, it is my great honour to speak with David Bromwich, Sterling Professor of English at Yale, about how this difficult task was met through the lives and imaginations of two great statesmen: Edmund Burke and Abraham Lincoln. We then consider the potential for reform in the context of contemporary American Breakdown.

What is the role of the scholar in democracy? It is my pleasure to speak with Professor Tarunabh Khaitan, Vice Dean of Oxford’s Faculty of Law, about the part scholarship has to play in institutional reform. We discuss his pioneering work on discrimination law, the dangers of subtle power, and the health and future of Indian democratic institutions.