Curtin’s Cast

This week’s Curtin’s Cast features the thoughtful and formidable former Liberal MP Keith Wolahan . Kos Samaras and Nick Dyrenfurth discussed Keith’s Irish Catholic working-class roots in Dublin, his childhood in suburban Melbourne and education at Ringwood Secondary College, through to his academic achievements at Melbourne, Monash and Cambridge and career as a barrister. Our conversation delved i...

In a competitive field we think this week's Curtin's Cast might be the best yet featuring the super impressive South Australian Premier Peter Malinauskas . Kos Samaras and Nick Dyrenfurth discussed Peter's upbringing in Adelaide, his career as a unionist rising from the Woolies shopfloor to become state secretary of the Shop, Distributive and Allied Employees' Association representing retail, fast...

We are very fortunate to have the one of the brightest and most innovative economists in Australia as part of our team - Dr Dominic Meagher . He's our latest guest on Curtin's Cast with Kos Samaras discussing the finer details of our recently released paper co-authored with Nick Dyrenfurth - 'Innovation Nation: Powering Australian Productivity in the 2020s and Beyond'. On this episode we get to th...

The great 'Kung Fu' Kos Samaras is back with Curtin's Cast co-host Nick Dyrenfurth discussing the post-election environment and the crisis of the Liberal-National Party.

This week's Curtin's Cast is a ripper featuring Gautam Raju , Global Director, Policy & Advocacy – Programs with Movember. Gautam, as listeners will discover is a ripper bloke talking about an issue Australian society is slowly but surely confronting - bloke's health, whether mental or physical well-being. Nick Dyrenfurth and Redbridge's Simon Welsh covered a smorgasbord of topics from Gautam'...

This week's Curtin's Cast is a powerful, at times moving episode featuring Ronnie Hayden , Australian Workers Union Victorian Branch Secretary. Hosts Nick Dyrenfurth and Redbridge's Simon Welsh chatted to Ronnie about his upbringing in Ireland, diverse working life as a cafe owner and construction worker, life as a Dad to five children and fostering 55 (!) kids, personal challenges he has overcome...

History nerds and labour movement aficionados we have a cracker of a Curtin's Cast for you this week! Nick Dyrenfurth was joined by Redbridge's Simon Welsh to yarn with historian and author Dr Liam Byrne, discussing his new book, No Power Greater: A History of Union Action in Australia. Liam is a distinguished biographer of the great John Curtin and another Labor prime minister Jim Scullin - his f...

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.

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 s...

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 ferve...

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...

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 bein...

On this week's Curtin's Cast, Nick Dyrenfurth and Kos Samaras chat to Michael Samaras (no relation to the latter!), a Sydney-based researcher, writer and historian, who in 2022 uncovered the Nazi past of the founding benefactor of the Wollongong Art Gallery. Michael has just published a fascinating new book, Anti-Fascists : Jim McNeill and his mates in the Spanish Civil War (Connor Court) .  Anti-...

In the final post-election Curtin's Cast wrap Kos Samaras and Nick Dyrenfurth discussed the on-off again Coalition partyroom divorce, why the Liberals stand to gain from a trial separation from the Nationals, the hysterical opposition from some Liberals and right-wing commentators to Labor's tightening of multi-million dollar superannuation tax concessions, and Nick looks ahead to some of the big...

With time and space for more considered reflection on the federal election that was, Kos Samaras and Nick Dyrenfurth sat down with one of the doyens of political history and significant public intellectual in Australia, Monash University's Professor Paul Strangio . We deep dived into the election that was, why voters voted the way they did, where 2025 sits in the pantheon of Labor victories, ask i...

We've got a cracking episode of Curtin's Cast this week featuring Liberal Party rising star and MP for Canning in Western Australia, Andrew Hastie, who was their only metropolitan adjacent seat holder to record an increase in his primary and 2 party preferred vote. Nick Dyrenfurth and Kos Samaras chatted to Andrew about his early life and family as the son of a clergyman and grandson of soldiers,...

The 2025 Australian federal election has been won - in a big and history-making way by Anthony Albanese's Labor Party - and lost in a humiliating manner for the Liberal-National Coalition led by Peter Dutton, who lost his own seat on May 3. On episode 11,  Nick Dyrenfurth and Kos Samaras unpack virtually every element of the campaign that was - what Labor did well, why the Libs tanked, the disastr...

Curtin's Cast MEGA federal election preview! On tomorrow's episode of our podcast with Nick Dyrenfurth and Kos Samaras we are joined by psephological superstar Shaun Ratcliff of Accent Research. We discuss all things democracy sausage including who will win and why, the key seats to watch, does it matter whether party leaders know how much a carton of eggs cost, what respective campaign HQs will b...

We have a fantastic episode of Curtin's Cast this week featuring Professor Drew Westen , well-known US political psychologist and author of the super influential 2007 book, 'The Political Brain: The Role of Emotion in Deciding the Fate of the Nation'. We spoke to Drew about his book – including receiving praise from Bill Clinton (which he initially thought was a hoax!) - why feelings trump facts e...

On Episode 8 of Curtin's Cast, Nick Dyrenfurth and Kosmos Samaras take the pulse of the federal election halfway through the campaign. Kos gives us an update on what the polls are telling us drawing on his decades of experience, how campaign launches work, key seats watch from across the continent, what's behind Peter Dutton's seeming implosion and competing party machines, while Nick and Kos trad...

We have a powerful, compelling episode of Curtin's Cast Episode 7 for your listening pleasure this week featuring the Independent MP for Fowler in in Sydney's outer southwestern suburbs, Dai Le Co-Hosts Nick Dyrenfurth and Kos Samaras chatted to Dai about her arresting back story, from her dramatic departure from Vietnam in April 1975, life as a refugee family first in the Philippines and then Aus...

On Episode 6 of Curtin's Cast,   Nick Dyrenfurth and Kos Samaras unpack Week One of the federal election. Kos tells what to take from the avalanche of new polling, key seats to watch in the outer suburbs and inner-cities, Liberal woes and the "Trump bump", plus they deep dive into a major research project the John Curtin Research Centre and RedBridge Group are undertaking on right-wing populism. ...

On this week's episode of Curtin's Cast Nick Dyrenfurth and Kos Samaras deep dive into the looming federal election, what the polls are telling us, Donald Trump's tariff wars, the future of the two-party system in Australia and the 2025 Budget. Listen to Curtin's Cast Episode 5 at your favourite streaming service!

We have an amazing new episode of Curtin's Cast with the the brilliant Minister for Housing and Homelessness, Clare O'Neil MP. Nick Dyrenfurth and Kos Samaras yarned with Clare about family including her convict relatives, her childhood raised by publisher parents, modern life and being a working Mum of three in politics, and plenty of policy focusing (not surprisingly!) on housing. Some say if yo...

Episode 3 of the John Curtin Research Centre's Curtin's Cast podcast has landed and it's a cracker! JCRC Executive Director Nick Dyrenfurth and RedBridge Director Kos Samaras yarn with Lord Glasman . We deep dive into Maurice's Blue Labour project, discuss the rise of Trump and his recent chat with MAGA 'Godfather' Steve Bannon, the follies of unchecked globalising capitalism and modern left-wing...