Curtin's Cast Episode 39 - 26 November 2025 - Paul Sakkal (Nine Media Chief Political Correspondent)
Nick Dyrenfurth and Kos Samaras sit down with Nine Media’s Chief Political Correspondent, Paul Sakkal, for one of the sharpest political conversations we’ve had all year. We cover everything reshaping Australian politics right now:
• The latest polling — and what it really means
• Liberal Party chaos & whether Sussan Ley can hang on?
• The rise and rise of One Nation: who’s voting for them? Why?
• Whether Pauline Hanson has finally hit her ceiling
• Andrew Hastie — principled conservative or emerging Messiah figure?
• Why the Liberals’ national future runs through fixing Victoria first
• And what to expect from new Victorian Opposition Leader Jess Wilson
It’s a wide-ranging, data-rich, brutally honest breakdown direct from the corridors of power.
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Curtin's Cast Episode 38 - 19 November 2025 - Nick and Emma Dawson on the Revolt Against Politics As Usual
With Kung Fu Kos away, Nick Dyrenfurth teams up with guest co-host Emma Dawson (Chifley Research Centre) to tackle a huge few weeks in politics:
📊 What the latest federal polling really says
🌆 Mamdani’s NYC upset + outsider politics
🇬🇧 UK Labour turmoil, Reform & Greens surge
📱 Australia’s under-16 social media ban
Is a new generation rejecting “politics-as-usual”? And what should Australian Labor, indeed political parties of all stripes, learn before it’s too late?
Listen on Apple, Spotify and YouTube.
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Curtin's Cast Episode 37 - 11 November 2025 - Troy Bramston on Gough Whitlam
Fifty years to the day after the Dismissal, this week on Curtin’s Cast, Nick Dyrenfurth and guest co-host Emma Dawson talk to acclaimed historian and political biographer Troy Bramston about his stunning new biography Gough Whitlam: The Vista of the New. 700+ pages of reform, chaos, and vision — from Gough’s youthful poem to the tumultuous events of 11 November 1975. What does Whitlam still mean to Labor today? Listen now on Apple, Spotify and YouTube. Buy Troy's book:
https://www.harpercollins.com.au/9781460716137/gough-whitlam-the-vista-of-the-new-the-definitive-and-most-up-to-date-biography-from-australias-leading-political-biographer/
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Curtin's Cast Episode 36 - 5 November 2025 - SDA Union National Secretary Gerard Dwyer
🎙️This week on Curtin's Cast, Kos Samaras and Nick Dyrenfurth sit down with Gerard Dwyer, National Secretary of the SDA — Australia’s largest private-sector union covering retail, fast food and warehouse workers and a proud John Curtin Research Centre Board member. From regional NSW, to the classroom and social work, and now the frontline of the labour movement, Gerard shares his journey, values, and vision — from the dignity of retail work and the scourge of workplace violence to the fight for fair pay for young workers, and why housing must be at the heart of Labor’s renewal. There’s even a yarn about his short-lived career as a jockey 🏇 This is a conversation about work, safety, and fairness but also about the enduring moral purpose of the labour movement in an era of economic insecurity and populist politics. 🎧 Listen now wherever you get your podcasts.
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Curtin's Cast Episode 35 - 29 October 2025 - Kos and Nick on the Netflixisation of Politics
🎙️ This week's Curtin's Cast delves into what one British political writer calls the Netflixisation of Politics. Nick Dyrenfurth & Kos Samaras dive into the end of the political pendulum: both major parties bleeding to their disruptor flanks, the rise of niche tribes, and how politics has become algorithmic entertainment — the voter as subscriber, not loyalist, from Reform UK and the Greens’ surge in Britain with Keir Starmer's Labour government assailed from right and left to similair Aussie trends. We also ask why do right-wing fear campaigns on crime and law and order still work outside the cities but flop inside them? And what does the recent and successful Albo–Trump meeting — and the Coalition’s hysteria over it — tell us about Australia’s underlying political psychology?
Welcome to Curtin’s Cast, the John Curtin Research Centre’s podcast of politics, culture and ideas brought to you by JCRC Executive Director Nick Dyrenfurth and Redbridge Director and former Victorian Labor assistant secretary Kos Samaras. Each fortnight we bring you the freshest and most challenging conversations from the world of Australian and global politics with leaders, activists, and thinkers.
Australia