Sunday Extra - Separate stories podcast

Journalist Rachel Withers has been talking to all the  cross benchers over the last few months to get a feel for what they would want to achieve in a possible hung parliament. But as the polls swing towards a possible Labor majority, could they be rendered powerless.

Guest: Rachel Withers, columnist with Crikey

In 1997, actor Tasma Walton won the Logie for Best New Talent for her work on the hugely popular show Blue Heelers. But behind the scenes it was also the year that her grandmother spent a month with her in and around her flat in St Kilda telling her the stories of her ancestor Nannertgarrook and her people from Boonwurrung Country. Now she has written these stories down in her new book of historical fiction, I am Nannertgarrook.

Guest: Tasma Walton, actor and author of I am Nannertgarrook (Simon and Schuster)

The Manchester Art Gallery has a dedicated space where visitors are presented with just three paintings all set within a quiet room designed for slower contemplation. The space is called Room to Breathe and it was created to help visitors slow down and focus on the art, which can have benefits for mental health.

Guest: Louise Thompson,  museum consultant and the brains behind Room to Breathe at Manchester Art Gallery

Oxford University Criminology Professor Mary Bosworth is the first and only academic to get research access inside the UK’s immigration deportation facilities. What she found was a stressed and unqualified workforce and a system immune to failure.

Guest: Mary Bosworth, Professor of Criminology at Oxford University 

The former Prime Minister of the Philippines Rodrigo Duterte, has marked his eightieth birthday in detention at the International Crimal Court, as he waits to find out if charges against him for crimes against humanity will go to trial. 

Duterte was arrested by police on March 11 after a years long investigation by the ICC over his leadership of a brutal crack down on drug crime between 2011 to 2016.

It’s federal election season, and that means lots of politicians wearing hi-vis at media events on the hustings.    

Hi-vis fluoro vests and other items are, first and foremost,  safety gear which is why they’ve become a mandatory for workplace health and safety reasons in all sorts of workplaces.

But hi-vis has also evolved into something more than that - it’s a cultural phenomenon.

GUEST:

Dr Jesse Adams Stein School of Design at the University of Technology Sydney, and part of a research project called “Illuminating Hi-Vis”

Can you guess this week's tweeter?

This week your Bass Strait migrant tweeter is the Striated Pardalote.

Andrew Wilkie was very disappointed that his whistleblower legislation did not go through before the end of the current parliament. He is hoping whoever has control of the house after the upcoming election will revisit the Bill. He also reflects on what he learnt from his experience working with the minority government under Prime Minister GIllard.

Guest: Andrew Wilkie, Independent Member for Clark in Tasmania

Has the banh mi become Australia's national sandwich?

The Vietnamese roll filled with meat, condiments and an exotic array of vegetables is spreading, with or without chilli, in cities and towns across the country.

Banh mi is the Vietnamese word for bread, and its rise in Australia is a food story, but also closely linked to the migrant experience of the Vietnamese diaspora that began arriving in Australia in the wake of the Vietnam war. 

GUEST:

Anh Nguyen Austen researcher at the Australian Catholic University in Melbourne.

Nick Kaldas came to Australia as a young boy with his family from Egypt. He joined the police and went on to become the NSW Deputy Police Commissioner overcoming some controversies and challenges along the way.  His Arab background both helped and hindered his career, but it also opened up opportunities later in his career to roles in international investigations in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and the Palestinian territories.

Guest: Nick Kaldas, co-author with Roger Joyce of his memoir Behind the Badge (Harper Collins)