Big Ideas

Rising authoritarianism, splintering alliances and an organised backlash against women's rights, gender equality and international development are threatening progress towards justice and equality. Can the United Nations' women, peace, and security agenda still help ensure stable international relations? Does it need to be modernised? 
Feminist Answers in a Dangerous World: Gender, Peace and Security in a Precarious Geopolitics — the 2026 Pamela Denoon Lecture was presented by National Foundation for Australian Women and the Gender Institute at the ANU.
Speakers
Caroline MillarFormer Australian Ambassador to the European Union, NATO, Belgium and Luxembourg; former Deputy Secretary for National Security, in the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet
Dr Elise StephensonDeputy Director at the Global Institute for Women's leadership at the ANU
Asha ClementiPrincipal of the Persephone Network, 2022 ACT Young Women of the Year

From GP appointments and hospital procedures, to medical research and clinical trials, for centuries, women's health has historically been dismissed, diminished, or misdiagnosed. But in recent years, there are some signs that the medical system is slowly coming to terms with the fact that women — their bodies, their symptoms, their experiences, are different from men's, and need to be treated as such.
This event was recorded at All About Women at Sydney Opera House on 8 March.
Speakers:
Dr Zoe WainerInaugural Director General of the Australian Centre for Disease ControlCardiothoracic surgeonFormer deputy secretary, Victorian health department, conducted Australia's first ever public inquiry into women's pain
Summer May Finlay Associate Professor in Indigenous Health, University of Wollongong
Gabrielle Jackson (host)Deputy editor, Guardian AustraliaAuthor, Pain and Prejudice: How the Medical System Ignores Women and What We Can Do About It

Australia's 29th Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull joins former Canadian Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland to deliver a candid appraisal of the shifting sands of global politics, from Donald Trump to AUKUS to rising right wing populism in liberal democracies.
This conversation was recorded at the Harvard Kennedy School at Harvard University on 16 April 2026.
Speakers:
Malcom TurnbullAustralian Prime Minister, 2015 to 2018President of the International Hydropower Association
Chrystia Freeland (host)Fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School, Harvard UniversityEconomic advisor to the President of UkraineFormer Canadian deputy prime minister and finance minister 2019 to 2024Author, Plutocrats: The Rise of the New Global Super Rich and the Fall of Everyone Else, and Sale of the Century: Russia's Wild Ride from Communism to Capitalism

The untold story of Evelyn Marsden and the woman who rowed against the tide. You've heard of the Titanic disaster. Luxury ship. Largest ever. Impossible to sink. Hits iceberg. Catastrophic. Few survivors. Wreckage still under the sea 114 years later. Hollywood film starring Kate Winslet. But have you heard of Evelyn, the Titanic's only Australian survivor? She was a young nurse from rural South Australia with a sense of adventure. Journalist and former The Today Show and The Project co-host Lisa Wilkinson went digging, and what she unearthed is gobsmacking. 
Lisa joins Big Ideas host Natasha Mitchell at this event organised by Northern Books in Castlemaine, Victoria.
Speaker
Lisa WilkinsonJournalist, TV presenter, former co-host of The Project and Today ShowAuthor, The Titanic Story of Evelyn (Hachette Australia, 2026).

Democracy is on the decline, so could Plato help? Irish scholar Dr David Horan spent 16 years translating Plato's complete works, including his dialogues on the world's first democracy in ancient Greece. So what lessons can we learn from Plato today?
This event was recorded at the School of Practical Philosophy in Sydney.
Speakers:
Dr David HoranLeader of the School of Philosophy and Economic Science in IrelandMember of the Plato Centre at Trinity College DublinAuthor/ translator, The Dialogues of Plato