Curtin's Cast Episode 20 - 9 July 2025 - Prime Minister Anthony Albanese
This week's Curtin's Cast is a special edition featuring Prime Minister Anthony Albanese's 2025 Curtin Oration in Sydney on Saturday 5 July on the 80th anniversary of John Curtin's passing and the PM's expansive Q and A which followed with our centre's Chair, Sam Almaliki.
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Curtin's Cast Episode 19 - 2 July 2025 - David Swift (Author of Scouse Republic: An Alternative History of Liverpool)
We had a fabulous chat this week on Curtin's Cast with one of Britain's finest young historians, authors and leading political commentator, David Swift. Co-hosts Nick Dyrenfurth and Kos Samaras deep dived into Dave's latest book, Scouse Republic: An Alternative History of Liverpool (Constable). We explored what makes Liverpool unique culturally and politically and touched on all manner of other subjects from Nigel Farage, why "Tory" is such a venomous insult, and what the left gets right and wrong about working people. Enjoy!
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Curtin's Cast Episode 18 - 25 June 2025 - Basem Abdo (Labor Member for Calwell)
This week's episode is a cracker featuring Basem Abdo, the newly elected Labor MP for Calwell in Melbourne's outer north-western suburbs. Kos Samaras and Nick Dyrenfurth deep dived into Basem's back story, the son of Palestinian migrants growing up in 'Broady' who went from flipping burgers to sitting in federal parliament in 2025, his previous work in the private sector and government, and fervent working-class passion for rebuilding opportunity and secure, well-paying jobs for Calwell's young people through manufacturing and reindustrialisation.
In the latest Curtin's Cast Kos Samaras and Nick Dyrenfurth deep dive into the seismic ways Millennials and Gen Z - who collectively make up over 43% of the electorate - are disrupting politics just as the Baby Boomers did post-WWII. Based off exclusive Redbridge polling we look at how the shifting of generational tectonic plates is reshaping the media, advertising and industries such as gambling but is yet to be reflected properly in our democratic institutions and policy settings. There are big lessons for all sides of politics - on the Right but also competition on the left.
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Curtin's Cast Episode 16 - 11 June 2025 - Emma Dawson (Chifley Research Centre)
This week's Curtin's Cast is a cracker featuring the Chifley Research Centre's (official thinktank of the Australian Labor Party) new Executive Director Emma Dawson, one of the best and most forthright thinkers in social democratic circles. With Anthony Albanese giving his first major address to the National Press Club, Nick Dyrenfurth and Kos Samaras chat to Emma about her background, from being born in Northern England, working as a political advisor, running the progressive Per Capita thinktank, her new role, and of course what's going on in Australian politics and what's next for the second term Albanese Labor government.
Emma Dawson is Executive Director of the Chifley Research Centre and former Executive Director of Per Capita. She has worked as a researcher at Monash University and the University of Melbourne; in policy and public affairs for SBS and Telstra; and as a senior policy adviser in the Rudd and Gillard Governments.
Emma has published reports, articles and opinion pieces on a wide range of public policy issues. She is a regular contributor to Guardian Australia, The Age and The Australian Financial Review, and a frequent guest on various ABC and commercial radio programs nationally. She appears regularly as an expert witness before parliamentary inquiries and often speaks at public events and conferences in Australia and internationally.
Emma is the co-editor, with Professor Janet McCalman, of the collection of essays What happens next? Reconstructing Australia after COVID-19, published by Melbourne University Press in September 2020. She is a Fellow of the Women’s Leadership Institute of Australia and an Adjunct Professor at the UTS Business School.
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.
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