Expendable Australians (2022) | Kylie Moore-Gilbert, Peter Greste, Ian Kemish & Sangeetha Pillai

Expendable Australians (2022) | Kylie Moore-Gilbert, Peter Greste, Ian Kemish & Sangeetha Pillai

Author: Festival of Dangerous Ideas January 23, 2024 Duration: 1:00:06

We all have assumptions of what citizenship means. However, in recent years we are starting to see the envelop pushed with more common law rights being taken away. From Australia shutting its doors during the pandemic to authoritarian regimes acquiring the habit of turning travellers into political prisoners, where is it becoming too dangerous to go? And if an Australian passport does not protect you, what are you owed by your government? 

Kylie Moore-Gilbert is a scholar of Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies. She was falsely charged with espionage and imprisoned in Iran from September 2018 to November 2020 before being released in a prisoner exchange deal negotiated by the Australian government.

Peter Greste is a journalist, author, media freedom activist and professor at Macquarie University. Before joining academia in 2018, he spent 25 years as a correspondent in the Middle East, Latin America and Africa. In 2013, he and two colleagues were arrested in Cairo on terrorism charges. They were convicted and sentenced to seven years in a case regarded as an attack on press freedom. Egypt released Peter after 400 days, and he has since become a press freedom advocate.

Ian Kemish AM served as Australian High Commissioner to Papua New Guinea, Ambassador to Germany, Head of the Prime Minister's international division, and Head of the consular service in a diplomatic career that spanned twenty-five years. He is an adjunct professor in history at the University of Queensland, a non-resident fellow with the Lowy Institute, a director of the Australia–Indonesia Centre and an Honorary Fellow of Deakin University.

Dr Sangeetha PIllai is a constitutional lawyer and a Senior Research Associate at the Andrew & Renata Kaldor Centre for International Refugee Law at UNSW Sydney. She is an expert on Australian citizenship law and the scope of government power over citizens and non-citizens. She has published widely on this topic, and is a regular commentator on legal issues relating to citizenship, immigration and refugees in a range of media outlets.

 

 


For more than a decade, the Festival of Dangerous Ideas has curated a space where provocative thinking isn't just welcomed, it's the entire point. This podcast is a direct line to that stage, offering an archive of talks that deliberately unsettle comfortable opinions and interrogate the stubborn problems we often agree to ignore. Each episode captures a live conversation from Australia's original disruptive ideas festival, presenting arguments that can be exhilarating, uncomfortable, and vitally important. You’ll hear from a compelling roster of festival alumni-including leading experts, intellectual troublemakers, and visionary authors-who share perspectives that conventional discourse frequently sidelines. The discussions here aren't theoretical exercises; they grapple with the pressing and difficult issues shaping our society and culture right now. Tuning in means granting yourself access to a decade-long tradition of intellectual courage, where the core assumption is that some truths are only reached by first entertaining a dangerous idea. It’s a chance to listen as boundaries are pushed, not for shock value, but for clarity. The result is a consistently challenging and refreshing audio experience that complicates simple narratives and expands what feels possible to talk about.
Author: Language: English Episodes: 100

Festival of Dangerous Ideas
Podcast Episodes
Salman Rushdie (2014) - Freedom to Write [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 31:55
We're living in increasingly brittle times. Ideas that once provoked argument, now provoke outrage – and the art of debate has now shattered. What does it mean to think freely about our world when speech itself is treate…
A message from Stephen Fry [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:48
Heading into its 13th festival, FODI exists thanks to supporters who don't flinch at difficult topics. Brave minds. Bold hearts. Dangerous conversations. We've built a reputation for dragging the world's sharpest provoca…
Roxane Gay (2024) - How to Have Dangerous Ideas [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:00:53
Drawing from her experience as an author and cultural critic who consistently challenges predictable opinions, Roxane Gay urges us to embrace the danger and discomfort of dissent. But in an age of polarised opinion warfa…
The Anatomy of Evil (2024) - Stan Grant & Simon Longstaff [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:02:24
Humanity has demonstrated, time and again, a horrific tendency to destroy its own kind – often to eliminate difference and impose uniformity of identity. At its worst, this tendency has led to the destruction of whole pe…
John N. Friedman (2024) - The Fading Dream [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 28:30
Economist John N. Friedman has made a career researching the causes of inequality and its long-term consequences for children in the US. His findings are grim. Social mobility is in sharp decline. Where you live and go t…
Todd Fernando (2024) - The Next Frontier [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 41:47
The concept of success and excellence is fraught with tension between communities within Australia. For non-Indigenous Australians, excellence is almost exclusively an economic concept, founded on stolen and inherited re…
Saree Makdisi (2024) - Tolerance is a Wasteland [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 45:09
For some, the image of Israel, as a shining example of liberal democratic ideals has been broken by the Netanyahu Government's actions in Gaza since 7 October, 2023. Yet, for others, the positive image projected by Israe…
David Baddiel (2024) - The God Desire [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:14:27
Is God a story we've just told ourselves to satisfy our own desires? Comedian and author David Baddiel knows God doesn't exist, but wishes he did. As Baddiel wrestles with his understanding of God and spirituality as a J…
Coleman Hughes & Josh Szeps (2024) - A Colourblind Society [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 59:14
Are we too focused on race? Have recent anti-racist movements like Black Lives Matter abandoned the 'colourblind' spirit of the original civil rights movement? In this live FODI edition of Uncomfortable Conversations wit…
Jen Gunter (2024) - Lifting the Curse [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 34:34
Being open about the female body has always been taboo, risky and dangerous. So, by smashing ancient menstrual taboos, and demolishing dangerous pseudoscience, the Internet's OB-GYN Jen Gunter has long been on a mission…