Radio National Presents
Episodes
06 | The Home Front: The intentional home
22 Sep 2025
Contributed by Lukas
What if the future of home isn't about ownership — but about connection? In this final episode, Anthony Burke re-imagines the Australian Dream thro...
05 | The Home Front: Lessons from afar
15 Sep 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Around the globe, architects and designers are reimagining housing with bold, inventive solutions - from sprawling multi use compounds in Indonesia t...
04 | The Home Front: Money money money
08 Sep 2025
Contributed by Lukas
We all know that house prices have gone through the roof, but what’s driving them, and what can actually be done?In this episode, we dig into the m...
03 | The Home Front: One roof, many lives
01 Sep 2025
Contributed by Lukas
What if Australia’s housing crisis wasn’t just a problem — but a chance to build something better? Australia’s homes are doing more than shel...
02 | The Home Front : Lessons in living
25 Aug 2025
Contributed by Lukas
We look at how Australians have lived together in the past — and what those lessons might offer us today.From the tightly packed worker’s cottage...
01 | The Home Front: Owning the Dream
18 Aug 2025
Contributed by Lukas
What if Australia’s housing crisis wasn’t just a problem — but a chance to build something better? In the Home Front, we unpack the historical,...
INTRODUCING — The Home Front with Anthony Burke
05 Aug 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Australia's housing crisis is pushing more people to the edge — but could better design help turn things around? In The Home Front, design expert A...
05 The Books That Changed Us — The Female Eunuch
18 Dec 2024
Contributed by Lukas
She told women they'd been objectified, stereotyped, sold a middle-class myth of romance and marriage and that another, better, life could be had. Th...
04 The Books That Changed Us — Silent Spring
18 Dec 2024
Contributed by Lukas
The extraordinary story of a lowly-paid public servant who launched an environmental conservation movement and became an unlikely 1960s pop culture i...
03 The Books that Changed Us — Hiroshima
18 Dec 2024
Contributed by Lukas
John Hersey's Hiroshima revealed the true horror of the 1945 nuclear bombing of Japan. Following the lives of six ordinary people from the moment of ...
02 The Books That Changed Us — How to Win Friends and Influence People
18 Dec 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Championed by business tycoon Warren Buffett, utilised by former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev and exploited by the murderous cult leader, Charles ...
01 The Books that Changed Us — The Interpretation of Dreams
18 Dec 2024
Contributed by Lukas
The Interpretation of Dreams by Sigmund Freud introduced us to the concepts of the unconscious, hidden desires and repressed sexuality and is the fir...
06 | The King of Kowloon — Reinvention
04 Aug 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In this final episode of The King of Kowloon, Hong Kong is being remade at warp speed. In this national security era, its politicians have been jaile...
05 | The King of Kowloon — Defiance
28 Jul 2022
Contributed by Lukas
On June 9, 2019, Hong Kong convulses, as a million people march on the streets in protest against a proposed extradition law. The King had used his m...
04 | The King of Kowloon — Legacy
21 Jul 2022
Contributed by Lukas
The King of Kowloon is an old man now; lying frail in a hospital bed. Outside, on the streets, there is trouble. A protest at the demolition of Queen...
03 | The King of Kowloon — Search
14 Jul 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In 2000, Hong Kong has been under Chinese rule for three years. At first glance, it seems that not much has changed. The King's star continues to ris...
02 | The King of Kowloon — Transition
07 Jul 2022
Contributed by Lukas
As Hong Kong hurtles towards the transition from British colony to Chinese territory, the king becomes an unlikely celebrity artist. Governor Chris P...
01 | The King of Kowloon — Disappearance
29 Jun 2022
Contributed by Lukas
The King's calligraphy once covered Hong Kong, but now it has all but disappeared. Louisa searches for traces of the King, and for any truth to his c...
INTRODUCING — The King of Kowloon: A Most Unlikely Icon
22 Jun 2022
Contributed by Lukas
He called himself the King of Kowloon and, for almost half a century, he used his misshapen Chinese characters to wage a calligraphic campaign claimi...
04 | Face Value Empowerment or exploitation?
22 May 2022
Contributed by Lukas
The decision to get cosmetic enhancement is complicated. It could be triggered by childhood bullying, influenced by social media, or stem from a beli...
03 | Face Value — Killer curves and harsh realities
14 May 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Cosmetic enhancement comes with plenty of risks. Botched surgeries, safety breaches, and in the worst-case scenario, fatal results. They've been repo...
02 | Face Value — Ethnic ambiguity and the Kardashian effect
07 May 2022
Contributed by Lukas
For the longest time, Western beauty has been celebrated. The desire and pressure to look more 'Western' has led to skin whitening products, nose job...
01 | Face Value — Beauty boom in the age of Zoom
30 Apr 2022
Contributed by Lukas
COVID-19 has changed the way we do things. We're relying on video platforms to work and to connect. And it turns out that seeing our faces on-screen ...
INTRODUCING — Face Value
27 Apr 2022
Contributed by Lukas
The cosmetic enhancement industry is booming. Injectables and surgical procedures promise age-defying beauty. But they come with real risks. From ant...
04 | This Much Is True — Getting Out
10 Sep 2021
Contributed by Lukas
By some estimates, 15 per cent of Americans believe in QAnon, the conspiracy movement connected to the storming of the US Capitol in January this yea...
03 | This Much Is True — Cults, QAnon and those left behind
03 Sep 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Alex's bible classes started taking over his life — then he discovered who was really running them. Emma's mum went from crystals to a clique that ...
02 | This Much is True — Dream weavers
27 Aug 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Why do people spread information that isn't true on social media? Especially when they know that's what they're doing?
01 | This Much Is True — Tradwife rabbit hole
20 Aug 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Equality is for ugly losers. Feminism is cancer. #submissivehousewife. Welcome to the world of tradwives, a movement with two distinct subcultures: o...
INTRODUCING — This Much Is True
12 Aug 2021
Contributed by Lukas
What do you believe? There’s some very weird stuff out there. From fringe ideas to full-blown conspiracy theories, we dive into the rabbit hole to...
08 | Patient Zero: First Outbreak
27 May 2021
Contributed by Lukas
In 1789, a disease tore through Aboriginal communities around Sydney Cove, or Warrane, leaving dead bodies floating in the harbour, and scattered alo...
07 | Patient Zero: Back From The Brink
20 May 2021
Contributed by Lukas
A six-year old boy in Papua New Guinea wakes up one day and is suddenly unable to stand by himself. Less than a year later, children in three other A...
06 | Patient Zero: Ticking Time Bomb
13 May 2021
Contributed by Lukas
You’re a doctor faced with a dilemma: your patient isn’t responding to treatment. In fact, they’re getting worse. You run through a list of wha...
05 | Patient Zero: Spillover In Suburbia
06 May 2021
Contributed by Lukas
A sleepy suburb in Brisbane is the scene of a gruesome disease outbreak, where the streets literally run with blood. Unravelling the mystery of wher...
04 | Patient Zero: How We Got Here
03 Sep 2020
Contributed by Lukas
This is the big one. The history we’re living. From Melbourne to Munich, Lombardy to Wuhan and all the way back again: this episode is about what h...
03 | Patient Zero: The December Transplant
27 Aug 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Three transplant patients die within a week of each other and alarm bells start ringing.Guests:Fiona PepperActor, playing the part of Rae MoranDr Mik...
02 | Patient Zero: Basement Files
20 Aug 2020
Contributed by Lukas
A junior doctor uncovers a mystery that rewrites the story of a famous epidemic — and we learn the troubling origins of 'patient zero' as a concept...
01 | Patient Zero: Something In The Water
13 Aug 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Disease is spreading in the wake of a natural disaster on the Caribbean nation of Haiti — and everyone thinks they know where it's coming from… (...
INTRODUCING — Patient Zero
07 Aug 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Even big diseases start small.A co-production of ABC Science and Radio National, Patient Zero tells the stories of disease outbreaks: where they begi...
06 | Section 71 — The Race Power
10 Jul 2020
Contributed by Lukas
An extra episode in the series about High Court cases which have changed Australia. Series producer Jane Lee unpicks the origins and uses of Section ...
05 | Section 71 — The Hindmarsh Island Bridge Affair (Part 2)
10 Jul 2020
Contributed by Lukas
In the second part of the long running and divisive case known as the Hindmarsh Island bridge affair, the battle heads inside the High Court.
04 | Section 71 —The Hindmarsh Island Bridge Affair (Part 1)
10 Jul 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Ever wondered how the term "secret women's business" entered the Australian lexicon? It's part of a bitter legal battle over land, culture and histo...
03 | Section 71 — Communists, Terrorists and the High Court
10 Jul 2020
Contributed by Lukas
How much power does the Federal Government have to protect Australians from international threats?
02 | Section 71 — The High Court Dog-Fight on Schools Funding
10 Jul 2020
Contributed by Lukas
The High Court showdown over religious freedom that could help you understand how schools are funded to this day.
01 | Section 71 — Tasmanian crime of gay sex
10 Jul 2020
Contributed by Lukas
It might surprise you to learn that until 1997, a man could go to jail for up to 21 years for having sex with another man in Australia.
04 | Hot Mess — Hope
23 May 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Despite all the gridlock on Australia's climate policy, there are moves towards a decarbonised economy. The exit from coal is gathering pace in the f...
03 | Hot Mess — Party lines
16 May 2020
Contributed by Lukas
There's more to our climate politics than the circus of losing a succession of Prime Ministers. Export earnings, donations, access, revolving doors b...
02 | Hot Mess — Spin Cycle
09 May 2020
Contributed by Lukas
The fossil fuel industries ignored their own research as far back as the 1960s and then denied climate change was going on. We hear how a small grou...
01 | Hot Mess — Human frailties
02 May 2020
Contributed by Lukas
What it is about us, all of us, that makes climate change hard to get our heads around and even harder to do something about? We talk to people who ...
INTRODUCING — Hot Mess: Why haven’t we fixed climate change?
25 Apr 2020
Contributed by Lukas
It’s been over three decades since most of us first heard about global warming. Meanwhile, the 20 hottest years on record have all occurred in the...
04 | Shifting Cultures: Vanuatu's stolen generation
22 Feb 2020
Contributed by Lukas
150 years ago thousands of young men were taken from the Pacific Islands. Today the scars are still being felt.
03 | Shifting Cultures: Polygamous marriage in modern Malaysia
15 Feb 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Muslim Malaysians often have complex and tangled views about polygamy. Their feelings and beliefs aren’t always mirrored by their actions. What r...
02 | Shifting Cultures: Survival and revival in the Torres Strait
08 Feb 2020
Contributed by Lukas
The island of Poruma is a shrinking tropical paradise — battered by king tides and eaten by coastal erosion. Meet the locals fighting for survival,...
01 | Shifting Cultures: South Korea's hope in hell
01 Feb 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Expectation and competition are pushing young South Koreans to give up on marriage and kids.
08 | Myths of War — Vietnam: the war's forgotten supporters
20 Jan 2020
Contributed by Lukas
If everyone was against the Vietnam War, how come Australian forces spent 10 years fighting in Southeast Asia? Why have the supporters of the Vietnam...
07 | Myths of War: Gay servicemen in Vietnam
13 Jan 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Anyone could be discharged from the Australian armed forces for gay sexual behaviour in Vietnam. And since nobody wanted to fight the Vietnam War –...
06| Myths of War — The Thai-Burma railway and the myth of the river Kwai
06 Jan 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Did mateship really sustain Australian POWs of the Japanese any more than it helped — for example — the Dutch to endure the horrors of the Thai-B...
05| Myths Of War — Was there a battle for Australia?
30 Dec 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Why do we commemorate an event that probably didn’t happen?Did the Japanese really plan to invade Australia in 1942? What does it mean that we have...
04 | Myths of War — Changi and the POWs behind the wire
23 Dec 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Why some prisoners of war were happiest in Singapore.Was Changi a POW heaven or a death-camp hell? The camp’s reputation has worsened in the years ...
03 | Myths of War — General Sir John Monash: a flattering self portrait
16 Dec 2019
Contributed by Lukas
A great general — but was he really the greatest?General Monash, the only Jew to command an army in the First World War, has been described in Aust...
02 | Myths of War— Gallipoli: ANZAC misremembered
09 Dec 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Ataturk never said his famous words and Bert Facey wasn’t there for the landing. Gallipoli stripped bare.One of the most famous and best-loved Aust...
01 | Myths Of War — The white feather women and their unwelcome gifts
01 Dec 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Did young women really hand out white feathers to young men who didn’t enlist in the services during the First World War? It sounds like a myth, bu...
04 | Why the Cold War still matters — The year no-one saw coming
09 Nov 2019
Contributed by Lukas
In January 1989, East German leader Erich Honecker declared that the Berlin Wall would still be standing in 50 or even 100 years. By November that sa...
03 | Why the Cold War still matters — The fall of an empire
02 Nov 2019
Contributed by Lukas
How did a committed communist become an accidentally revolutionary Soviet leader? Take a closer look at the leadership of Mikhail Gorbachev and disco...
02 | Why the Cold War still matters — Repression and dissent
26 Oct 2019
Contributed by Lukas
The Cold War is often referred to as the 'War of Words'. Meet the people who tore down the Iron Curtain from within the Soviet Union through protest ...
01 | Why the Cold War still matters — The superpower standoff
19 Oct 2019
Contributed by Lukas
The most familiar story of the Cold War is that of the superpower rivalry between the US and the USSR—two armed camps, teetering on the precipice o...
05 | The Somerton Man Mystery — could DNA finally solve this puzzling case?
12 Oct 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Could breakthroughs in DNA technology and forensic genealogy identify Adelaide's Somerton Man? And is it time to finally dig him up?
04 | The Somerton Man Mystery — a family connection could hold the answer
05 Oct 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Derek Abbott has spent decades trying to identify the man found dead on Somerton Beach. If his theory is correct, he's married to the unknown man's g...
03 | The Somerton Man Mystery — a case of disguised identity
28 Sep 2019
Contributed by Lukas
The man who died on Somerton Beach in 1948 went to great lengths to disguise his identity. But he couldn't hide the clues on his body — his peculia...
02 | The Somerton Man Mystery — a poetry book clue and an elusive young woman
28 Sep 2019
Contributed by Lukas
A torn piece of paper from a book of Persian poetry leads to the discovery of an elusive young nurse. What was her relationship to the dead man on So...
01 | The Somerton Man Mystery — the strange case of the body on the beach
21 Sep 2019
Contributed by Lukas
In post-war Adelaide, there's a feeling of optimism and relief in the air, but it's mixed with paranoia about the changing world order. And in this m...
04 | Who Runs This Place — The People
06 Jul 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Union membership is a fraction of what it was but people power is finding a voice through new platforms and movements.
03 | Who Runs This Place — The States
29 Jun 2019
Contributed by Lukas
The different power players in each state. All six states are led by Premiers and have cabinets — they're the same. But they're also different. In ...
02 | Who Runs This Place — The Lobbyists
22 Jun 2019
Contributed by Lukas
The industries and organisations that get what they want from government. In part two we stay in Canberra and look at the lobbyists, the industries a...
01 | Who Runs This Place — The Triangle
15 Jun 2019
Contributed by Lukas
More power is concentrated inside Canberra’s Parliamentary Triangle than anywhere else. The Constitution doesn’t mention the Prime Minister but ...
04 | Class Act — Don’t mention it
05 Apr 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Why don't we talk about class directly? We recognise it when its rendered through language, dress and cultural taste. And a lot of our best comedy, ...
03 | Class Act — The dark heart
04 Apr 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Inequality has been growing in Australia for three and a half decades. It’s reinforcing class divisions and affecting our health, where we live, o...
02 | Class Act — How we got here?
03 Apr 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Part two of Class Act looks at how we got here. The history of class in Australia, and how it has been shaped by immigration and structural changes t...
01 | Class Act — Where we sit?
02 Apr 2018
Contributed by Lukas
The idea that Australia is a classless society is widely held and very appealing. It’s just not true. Class exists — it’s determined by econom...