Podcast Episodes

The secret life of a hostage negotiator

Hostage negotiation isn't at all like what you see in Hollywood blockbusters. There is no lying, no promise-making, not even any names. Vince Hurley …

1 month, 3 weeks ago

Upside down in Bass Strait

Navigator Will Oxley expected the 1998 Sydney to Hobart yacht race to be a challenging one. But when he and his crew met with 12-metre waves and 80km…

1 month, 3 weeks ago

New Beginnings: How Rafael Bonachela let out his inner showgirl with Kylie Minogue

Rafael Bonachela was born in the dying years of Franco’s Spain, into a patriarchal culture that didn’t appreciate little boys who wanted to dance. 

As…

2 months ago

New Beginnings: Justin Heazlewood on swapping fame for his hometown

Justin Heazlewood fled a complicated early life in Tasmania searching for fame as an artist on the mainland but then moved back to his home town of B…

2 months ago

New Beginnings: When a sea change collides with messy midlife

For journalist Kate Halfpenny, moving to a beachside town during Melbourne's lockdowns seemed like the perfect way to unwind and escape her huge mort…

2 months ago

New Beginnings: Artist Loribelle Spirovski on finding family and love

The artist Loribelle Spirovski on her unusual childhood in the Philippines, meeting her father for the first time at 7 years old, and making her way …

2 months ago

New Beginnings: Felicia Djamirze, beauty queen and drug dealer

Felicia Djamirze grew up in the criminal underworld, then became a beauty queen. But her life outside the pageant circuit was mired in the world of d…

2 months ago

Holiday listening: Anh Nguyen Austen's story of rescue and reinvention

When Anh Nguyen Austen was a small girl, her family fled South Vietnam on a boat which met a once-in-a-century storm in the South China sea. When all…

2 months, 1 week ago

Holiday listening: the secret world of the human ear

For Professor Kelvin Kong, the ear is our most beautiful organ. Kelvin is a proud Worimi man and an ENT surgeon at the forefront of medical innovatio…

2 months, 1 week ago

Holiday Listening: Birds, bees and intelligent machines

When Professor Mandyam Srinivasan began studying bees almost 35 years ago, we was interested in learning how bees landed so elegantly, and avoided co…

2 months, 1 week ago