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Jan 23, 2025 | 
abc.net.au | Carmel Rooney |Rebecca McLaren |Sarah Kanowski
After arriving in Australia with her family as a refugee, Jelena Dokic became a tennis champion while still a teenager. But her father’s drunken outbursts at Jelena’s tournaments got even more headlines than her playing. What the world didn’t know was that Jelena’s father was also violently assaulting her and had been since the day she first picked up a tennis racquet.
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Dec 10, 2024 | 
abc.net.au | Rebecca McLaren |Richard Fidler |Nicola Harrison
Reflecting on a year of phenomenal guests, we are bringing you a selection of the Best Conversations of 2024. Jack Beaumont (not his real name) is a former intelligence operative and the author of several spy thrillers. Jack grew up in a turbulent family in Paris and when he got older he decided to train as a jet fighter pilot with the French Air Force.
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Nov 20, 2024 | 
abc.net.au | Carmel Rooney |Rebecca McLaren |Sarah Kanowski
Darren Hayes rose to fame in the 1990s as part of the musical duo Savage Garden. The band ended up selling 35 million albums and won numerous awards with hits like 'Truly Madly Deeply'. On the surface, Darren had achieved wealth, adoration and stardom —everything he dreamt of as a kid growing up in Logan, on the outskirts of Brisbane. But the scars of his violent childhood nearly ended everything.
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Oct 31, 2024 | 
abc.net.au | Rebecca McLaren |Sarah Kanowski |Nicola Harrison
Athlete Gerrard Gosens didn't realise he was blind until his first day at primary school. His parents had raised him alongside his sighted brother, riding bikes, chasing geese, and running about their farm. Gerrard has maintained this adventurous spirit into his adulthood, becoming a three time Paralympian, climbing Mt Everest, swimming the English Channel, and performing the rhumba on Dancing With The Stars. He's also used his heightened sensory perception to become a master chocolatier.
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Oct 28, 2024 | 
abc.net.au | Rebecca McLaren |Richard Fidler |Nicola Harrison
Some years ago journalist Michael Visontay was researching his family history when he stumbled upon the story of a man named Gabriel Wells, who had been a New York book dealer at the height of the Roaring 20s. As a way to make fast money, Wells came up with a scandalous plan. He bought a precious, ancient copy of the world's greatest book, the Gutenberg Bible, and began extracting leaves from it to sell off the individual pages.
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Oct 23, 2024 | 
abc.net.au | Sarah Kanowski |Rebecca McLaren |Nicola Harrison
Chef Ben Shewry grew up on a farm in New Zealand where his family grew or hunted most of their own food. Ben was 10 when he started working in restaurants and his discovery of a second hand Thai cookbook eventually led him to Australia. In 2015 Ben become the owner of Attica in Melbourne and turned it into one of the world's most acclaimed and innovative restaurants. Uses for Obsession: A Chef's Memoir is published by Murdoch Books.
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Oct 14, 2024 | 
abc.net.au | Rebecca McLaren |Richard Fidler |Nicola Harrison
Steve Ellis is a survival instructor and wilderness guide whose first lesson in survival came very young. He was just 6 years old when he got lost in the national forest near his family farm in central Victoria, but as Steve snuggled up to one of the working dogs for the night, he knew he'd be ok. Steve has made a career of teaching bushcraft and survival skills to civilians and Defence personnel.
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Sep 20, 2024 | 
abc.net.au | Rebecca McLaren |Ann Jones
Pause for a moment and think about what you consider beautiful in the animal world: perhaps a peacock spider's fancy dance, vibrant hues on a mandrill's face, or the chittering chatter of a zebra finch song. We largely have the females of the species to thank for these. For most animals, females use more energy in reproduction than males — not just in gestating their offspring but rearing it too. Loading...
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Sep 18, 2024 | 
abc.net.au | Sarah Kanowski |Rebecca McLaren |Nicola Harrison
Less than 100 years ago the discovery of antibiotics revolutionised medicine. Antibiotics saved lives by stopping infection, and enabled treatments we now take for granted, like surgery and chemotherapy. But the rapid rise of antibiotic-resistant bacteria is putting all this at risk. Professor Ian Henderson has spent his career studying bacteria, and working out ways we can outsmart these ubiquitous life forms before they wreak disaster on human populations.
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Sep 1, 2024 | 
abc.net.au | Rebecca McLaren |Richard Fidler |Nicola Harrison
Jack Beaumont (not his real name) is a former intelligence operative and the author of several spy thrillers. Jack grew up in a turbulent family in Paris and when he got older he decided to train as a jet fighter pilot with the French Air Force. During a dogfight at supersonic speed, Jack suffered a devastating injury that meant he could no longer fly jets, but he still wanted a job steeped in adventure and danger.
