Conversations

Latest Episodes:

When Peter Greste became the story Jun 17, 2025

Show notes

It’s been a decade since Australian journalist Peter Greste became a global news story, spending 400 days imprisoned in Egypt. But he still misses the life he had as a foreign correspondent.

Peter and two colleagues were arrested while working for Al Jazeera in Cairo, they were charged with spreading false news and aiding terrorism. Peter then was found guilty and sentenced to seven years in jail.

Back home, Peter’s parents Juris and Lois became the face of the campaign to free him and his two brothers were a constant presence in Cairo throughout the ordeal.

But after the initial exhilaration of freedom Peter had to work out how to live a different kind of life. One far away from the adrenaline of his years reporting from some of the world’s most volatile places.

Find out more about the Conversations Live National Tour on the ABC website.

This episode of Conversations deals with reporting from war zones, prison, solitary confinement, grief, death, press freedom, family, psychological distress, political unrest, post traumatic stress, prison life, captivity.

Encore: When success, a big house and a loving family aren't enough Jun 13, 2025

Show notes

What happens when a man can't stop his drive and desire for more? Author Andrew O'Hagan dissects the pitfalls of more money, more success and more applause (R)

Andrew O’Hagan is the author of several highly acclaimed novels.

His most recent book is a sweeping portrait of modern-day London, a city ‘levitating on a sea of dirty Russian money’.

The main character, Campbell Flynn, is much like Andrew himself: a public intellectual who escaped from the Scottish council estate he grew up in and came to London to enjoy great success.

But success, a big house, a loving family and expensive habits are not enough.

Campbell is a man riding for a fall, and there will be many spectators at the final hurrah, when his life comes tumbling down.

Further information

First Broadcast May 2024, and recorded at the Melbourne Writers' Festival.

Caledonian Road is published by Allen & Unwin.

Find out more about the Conversations Live National Tour on the ABC website.

To binge even more great episodes of the ‘Conversations podcast’ with Richard Fidler and Sarah Kanowski go the ABC listen app (Australia) or wherever you get your podcasts. There you’ll find hundreds of the best thought-provoking interviews with authors, writers, artists, politicians, psychologists, musicians, and celebrities.

Actor and Hollywood It Girl Ione Skye on surrendering her Rock 'n' Roll past and forgiving herself Jun 12, 2025

Show notes

The Gen X actor on making peace with her absent father, the ghosts of her Hollywood past and nursing Anthony Kiedis through his drug addiction while she was still a teenager — a relationship she shudders at today.

The 1990s It girl was named for the Scottish island where she was conceived, before her enigmatic folk singer father, Donovan abandoned the family before she was born.

A string of stepfathers couldn’t remedy Ione's fundamental abandonment and she grew up surrounded by creative types who flowed freely through her mother’s house in Los Angeles.

Following her beloved older brother into the world of acting and modelling, Ione had an early start in Hollywood and it led her to a full, messy life in which she starred alongside the likes of River Phoenix, Keanu Reeves and John Cusack.

When she was only a teenager, she began a relationship with Anthony Kiedis, the lead singer of The Red Hot Chili Peppers, who was addicted to heroin.

This dysfunctional relationship led to Ione’s marriage to the first great love of her life, Adam Horovitz of The Beastie Boys, and a period of time she describes as her 90s daydream.

This happy period devolved as Ione joyfully and remorsefully explored her bisexuality and the infidelity eventually ended the marriage.

Today Ione is happily married to Australian musician, Ben Lee and has two daughters.

Further information

Say Everything is published by HarperCollins.

Find out more about Ione Skye and Ben Lee’s creative project, Weirder Together.

Conversations Executive Producer is Nicola Harrison.

Find out more about the Conversations Live National Tour on the ABC website.

This episode of Conversations deals with absent fathers, epic life stories, personal stories, cheating, divorce, relationship breakdowns, inappropriate relationships, age gap relationships, intimacy, therapy, Hollywood, Ad-Rock, partying, substance abuse, modelling, child actors and acting.

Our post-American future — what will the new world order look like? Jun 11, 2025

Show notes

Defence analyst Hugh White says Australian leaders are in denial about how dramatically the world has changed, and need to get a grip on the deep, troubling forces propelling us into a new order of world power.

The balance of global power has changed dramatically over the last 25 years.

Even in the last five years, so much has happened - the pandemic, AUKUS, the war in Ukraine, a change of government here in Australia, Donald Trump's return to the White House, and all the tumult that has followed over the past six months.

According to defence analyst Hugh White, we are quickly heading into a post-American world.

However, Australia's defence assumptions remain based on a world which America built for us, where the United States is still a predominant world power that is heavily invested in Asia, and in us.

Hugh says political leaders in Australia are in denial about all of this, and need to get their heads out of the sand, accept the the world as we knew it is passing away, and redefine our relationships with powerful nations including the United States and China in order to make our way in this new world.

We've done it before, with the United Kingdom in the post-World War II years, and we need to do it again, Hugh says.

Further information

You can read Hugh White's essay, Hard New World: Our Post-American Future, in the June issue of the Quarterly Essay.

If you're interested in more episodes like this one, have a listen to Richard's recent conversation with Marcel Dirsus about tyrants and dictators on the ABC Listen App, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Find out more about the Conversations Live National Tour on the ABC website.

Conversations' Executive Producer is Nicola Harrison. This episode was produced by Jennifer Leake and presented by Richard Fidler.

This episode of Conversations explores nuclear war, Russian expansionism, Ukraine, Putin, Donald Trump, Elon Musk, Los Angeles protests, riots, political landscape, Lauren Tomasi, ANZUS, Asia-Pacific, Xi Jinping, Taiwan, invasion, California, the decline of the West, National Guard, law enforcement, ICE.

The pyromaniac kid who made barbecue his life Jun 10, 2025

Show notes

As a child, chef Graeme Stockdale was embarrassed by the smell of sauerkraut and pickles that would trail him from his Polish and German grandparents' home. A transformative encounter with a barbecued duck in Singapore changed his life, though nothing would prepare him for two monumental floods in his adopted region of Lismore, NSW.

Graeme was only a boy when he was introduced to the power and ferocity of fire.

As a nine-year-old living in Albany, Western Australia he lit a fire out of curiosity on a neighbour's property.

It was the look on his mother's face that turned his experience from awesome into terrifying.

Graham grew up with the flavours of his grandparents' German and Polish ancestry, raised by a single mum, and experienced social isolation brought on by the judgement of kids at school.

After the barbecued duck experience, his whole world became focused on food, and he eventually opened his own restaurant in Lismore, NSW.

Graeme survived two major floods, and in the aftermath, cooked on his barbecue non-stop for weeks, outside his ruined restaurant, feeding his community with help from volunteers.

Further information

Read more about Graeme's restaurant in Lismore, The Stockpot Kitchen.

Graeme's cookbook, Red Hot & Smokin’! was published by New Holland Publishers in 2019.

Conversations' Executive Producer is Nicola Harrison. This episode was produced by Alice Moldovan.

Find out more about the Conversations Live National Tour on the ABC website.

This episode of Conversations deals with mental health, fire, barbecue, murder, epic life stories, origin stories, sauerkraut, Singapore barbecued duck, the Albany Snake Run, cooking, restaurants, feeding, single mum, aged care, aged care mistreatment, Lismore floods, adventure, vocation.

Encore: Hormones and mental health with Dr Jayashri Kulkarni Jun 06, 2025

Show notes

Dr Jayashri Kulkarni on her Indian-Australian upbringing and her groundbreaking research into women's hormones and mental health (R)

Jayashri Kulkarni’s family moved from India to Australia in 1961.

They found there were no Indian grocery stores, few spices of any kind, and plain yoghurt wasn’t available.

But the Kulkarnis adapted to their new home, teaching their neighbours how to cook Indian food, and encouraging Jayashri's love for studying.

Jayashri became a doctor, and during her training as a psychiatrist she became fascinated by the relationship between women's hormones and mental health.

She’s since been at the frontline of groundbreaking research, which challenged many of her colleagues and ended up helping women all over the world.

Further information

First broadcast in February 2024.

Find out more about the Conversations Live National Tour on the ABC website.

Conversations' Executive Producer is Nicola Harrison. This episode was produced by Tamar Cranswick and presented by Sarah Kanowski.

To binge even more great episodes of the ‘Conversation podcast’ with Richard Fidler and Sarah Kanowski go the ABC listen app (Australia) or wherever you get your podcasts. There you’ll find hundreds of the best thought-provoking interviews with authors, writers, artists, politicians, psychologists, musicians, and celebrities.

It explores female health, medical research, menopause, perimenopause, hormonal health, female medical research, migration, studying medicine, depression, anxiety, gut health, why don't doctors listen to women, gender stereotypes, underrepresentation in medical research, gaslighting in women's health, women's pain, motherhood, stress, psychiatry, reproductive health, hormonal birth control.

Part TWO: Locked up in China — Cheng Lei on cell mates, singing and survival Jun 05, 2025

Show notes

Cheng Lei's years in detention in China, on trumped-up espionage charges, go from cruel and isolating, to absurd and romantic when she gets moved into a cell with three other women.

The Chinese-Australian journalist was held in detention in China for more than three years, accused of selling state secrets to foreign people and powers.

In episode one of this two-part series, Lei explained how the charges hinged on a document that was read out publicly on television, and how she survived the cruelty of interrogations and being kept in isolation.

In this episode, Lei's details how her experience of detention changed as she moved out of solitary confinement, but still under lock and key with three other women.

In cell 112, Lei and the other women sang songs when the guards weren't watching, they fought, they bonded and they communicated secretly with the prisoners in a cell next door.

The knocking, for which Lei was punished, climaxed in a covert proposal.

Eventually, Lei saw sunlight again.

With the help of the Australian Government, she was released and flown back home to Melbourne, where she was reunited with her children (now teenagers), rebuilt her life and can be publicly critical of the paranoid and image-conscious state security system that locked her behind bars for years.

Further information

Listen to the first part of Richard's extraordinary conversation with Cheng Lei here.

Cheng Lei: A Memoir of Freedom is published by HarperCollins.

Cheng Lei: My Story is a documentary made by Sky News Australia. It is available to stream at SkyNews.com.au.

Conversations' Executive Producer is Nicola Harrison. This episode was produced by Meggie Morris.

Find out more about the Conversations Live National Tour on the ABC website.

This episode of Conversations explores CCP, Covid, propaganda, communism, paranoia, Marise Payne, Scott Morrison, family separation, career changes, jail, justice system, Chinese Communist Party, embassy, diplomatic relations, CCTV, state broadcaster, media, television, news anchor, single mothers, trade, tariffs, books, writing, motherhood, parenting, Tiananmen Square, personal stories, origin.

Part ONE: Locked up in China — Cheng Lei on state paranoia and staying sane in isolation Jun 04, 2025

Show notes

When journalist Cheng Lei was detained by Chinese state security agents, she thought would be freed within the week. Instead, she was held on absurd espionage charges for more than three years, much of that time spent in isolation.

When Cheng Lei moved back to the country of her birth after the dramatic opening up of China to the world, she was a part of something exciting and historic.

That all changed after Xi Jinping came to power, and Australia's relations with China deteriorated.

In this first episode of a two-part series, Lei explains how eventually, she found herself detained on bogus espionage charges, and held for more than three years in a Chinese detention centre.

For the first six months of her detention, Lei was isolated and alone except for the rotating female guards who stood over her 24 hours a day.

Lei was not allowed to speak to these guards, she was forced to sit on the edge of her bed for 14 hours a day, she had to ask permission to do anything, she was not allowed to close her eyes and intermittently she was taken to a room, tied down in a chair and interrogated about allegedly sharing state secrets with foreigners.

Lei learned how to ration books, she practised German vocabulary, wrote scripts in her head and thought of her two children to stay sane under torturous conditions.

Further information

Listen to the second part of Richard's extraordinary conversation with Cheng Lei here.

Cheng Lei: A Memoir of Freedom is published by HarperCollins.

Cheng Lei: My Story is a documentary made by Sky News Australia. It is available to stream at SkyNews.com.au.

Conversations' Executive Producer is Nicola Harrison. This episode was produced by Meggie Morris.

Find out more about the Conversations Live National Tour on the ABC website.

Depersonalisation — when Nathan lost his sense of self and nothing felt real Jun 03, 2025

Show notes

In 2008 Nathan Dunne was night swimming in Hampstead Heath in the middle of winter when a psychological catastrophe struck him. He felt his sense of self split in two, and an unbearable pain overtook him. He couldn’t work out what had happened to him, and neither could the doctors.

CW: This discussion contains sensitive mental health details and mentions suicide.

Nathan was driven to attempt suicide, and endured years of misdiagnoses from doctors and medications that didn't work.

Nathan didn't have the words to describe the confusion, pain and splitting of self he was experiencing.

For years, water was the symbol of his undoing.

When Nathan returned home to Australia and his parents' care, his mum gave him a copy of his grandfather's war memoirs.

Here, Nathan found a link that showed him the healing qualities and the beauty that were possible in water.

Eventually, Nathan found a doctor who could explain his symptoms and finally give them a name — depersonalisation.

Further information

If you need help, you can phone Lifeline on 13 11 14.

When Nothing Feels Real is published by Murdoch Books.

Read more about dissociative disorders and depersonalisation on the NHS website.

Read about dissociative disorders and depersonalisation specifically in relation to young people on the Orygen website.

Find out more about the Conversations Live National Tour on the ABC website.

Conversations' Executive Producer is Nicola Harrison. This episode was produced by Alice Moldovan.

Encore: A home filled with music — raising the Kanneh-Masons May 30, 2025

Show notes

Kadiatu Kanneh-Mason on what it takes to keep up with her seven children — all of them gifted classical musicians (R).

Kadiatu is a former English academic and the mother of seven extraordinary children.

All of them are gifted classical musicians.

Her eldest daughter, Isata wrote and performed her first piano concerto at the age of eleven.

Her son Sheku mastered the cello and performed at the royal wedding of Harry and Megan Markle.

Every day the seven Kanneh-Masons, who range from early teens to the mid-twenties, fill the family home with glorious, sometimes chaotic, music.

This episode of Conversations explores music education, classical music, accessibility to music, Isata, Braimah, Sheku, Konya, Jeneba, Aminata, Mariatu, piano, violin, cello, orchestra, state school, public education, big families, motherhood, fatherhood, prejudice, mixed race families, music is for everyone, how to learn the violin, gifted children, raising gifted children, gifted and talented.

Further information

House of Music: Raising the Kanneh-Masons is published by Oneworld.

Kadiatu's newest book, also published by Oneworld, is called To Be Young Gifted And Black.

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