Curtin’s Cast

Australia isn’t experiencing one populist surge, but two. In this episode of Curtin’s Cast, Nick Dyrenfurth and Kos Samaras unpack new RedBridge and Accent Research polling revealing a striking political reality: under the same economic pressures, different generations are breaking in completely different directions. Among financially stressed Gen X voters, One Nation is surging. Among Gen Z voter...

Has World War 3 already begun — just without a declaration? This week on Curtin’s Cast, Nick Dyrenfurth and Kos Samaras are joined by the excellent Misha Zelinsky — Fulbright Scholar, economist, lawyer, and national security expert — to unpack a confronting idea: We may already be living through the early stages of the third great global conflict of modern times. From Russia’s illegal war in Ukrai...

This week, Nick Dyrenfurth and Kos Samaras are joined by arguably Australia’s finest historian and public intellectual, Professor Frank Bongiorno, for our landmark 50th episode — and a big question at the heart of Australian politics: Is Bob Hawke really the “gold standard”… or a myth we can’t escape? Our conversation is anchored in the new book Gold Standard? Remembering the Hawke Government, edi...

A seismic election result in South Australia — but was it a Labor landslide, or a structural collapse of the Liberals? Nick Dyrenfurth and Kos Samaras unpack: The Liberals finishing third and fourth across large parts of the state One Nation’s 22% surge and what it really means The critical importance of SA Premier Peter Malinauskas Why this could be a warning shot for Victoria 2026 This is a deep...

This week on Curtin’s Cast, Nick Dyrenfurth and Kos Samaras break down the most striking polling shift in a generation — and what it means for Australian politics.   Victoria is no longer a conventional contest. Both major parties are struggling to reach 30%. One Nation is now polling in the mid-20s. The next Victorian election won’t be one election at all. It’ll be eighty-eight by-elections happe...

This week co-hosts Nick Dyrenfurth and Kos Samaras are joined by Dr Kylie Gilbert-Moore — Middle East scholar, columnist and former political prisoner in Iran. After spending 804 days jailed in Tehran’s Evin Prison, Kylie offers a rare perspective on how the Iranian regime works and how ordinary Iranians see the world. In this episode we unpack: • Iran’s widening war in the Middle East • The death...

This week Curtin's Cast is joined in the studio by Peter Khalil — Labor member for the federal seat of Wills in Melbourne, Assistant Minister for Defence, former Chair of the Intelligence and Security Committee, ex-national security adviser to Kevin Rudd, and previously the government’s former Special Envoy for Social Cohesion. From public housing in Melbourne’s north to junior tennis glory, from...

This week it’s a one-on-one Kos vs Nick deep dive. No guests. No niceties. Just a hard look at the polling — and some of the rubbish floating around. We unpack: 📊 The latest federal and state polls — what’s real and what’s noise 🔵 The new Liberal leadership — and why it’s not generational renewal 🗳️ The same free-market fundamentalism dressed up with culture-war garnish 📰 The same campaign/medi...

🎙️ New Curtin’s Cast: Alastair Campbell on democracy in the age of Trumpism Politics everywhere feels simultaneously stuck and combustible — in the US, the UK and here in Australia. This week Nick Dyrenfurth and Kos Samaras are joined by Alastair Campbell — former Director of Communications and Strategy to Tony Blair, co-host of The Rest Is Politics, and one of the sharpest observers of modern dem...

🎙 Curtin’s Cast returns for 2026 Episode 43 | Polling shocks, Coalition fracture and the new politics of grievance Australian politics is realigning in real time. In the first Curtin’s Cast episode of 2026, co-hosts Nick Dyrenfurth and Kos Samaras unpack a turbulent political summer — from polling shocks and Coalition breakdown to the surge of One Nation, the Gen X revolt, and the risks now facing...

As we wrap up Curtin’s Cast for 2025, a big thank you to everyone who’s tuned in this year — and a Merry Christmas, Happy Chanukah, and season’s greetings to all our listeners. Your support has helped make Curtin’s Cast one of the most widely listened-to political podcasts in the country, and we’re deeply grateful. To close out the year, we couldn’t ask for a better conversation. Quarterly Essay h...

On this week’s Curtin’s Cast, Nick Dyrenfurth and Kos Samaras go one-on-one on what the latest Redbridge and Resolve polling is really telling us about Australian politics heading into a huge 2026 calendar. With two state elections looming in South Australia and Victoria, and federal pressures building, we unpack what to expect at state level, how federal factors are cutting through, and why One N...

🎧 NEW EPISODE | CURTIN’S CAST 🇺🇦🇦🇺 Recorded live from Parliament House, Canberra Winning the Peace: Why Ukraine’s Reconstruction Is Australia’s Test Too This episode features one of the most powerful voices in Australia’s Ukraine community. Alex Vynokur didn’t become an advocate by choice — history chose him. A Ukrainian Jew whose family endured antisemitism and world war, Alex's family have buil...

Nick Dyrenfurth and Kos Samaras sit down with Nine Media’s Chief Political Correspondent, Paul Sakkal, for one of the sharpest political conversations we’ve had all year. We cover everything reshaping Australian politics right now: • The latest polling — and what it really means • Liberal Party chaos & whether Sussan Ley can hang on? • The rise and rise of One Nation: who’s voting for them? Wh...

With Kung Fu Kos away, Nick Dyrenfurth teams up with guest co-host Emma Dawson (Chifley Research Centre) to tackle a huge few weeks in politics: 📊 What the latest federal polling really says 🌆 Mamdani’s NYC upset + outsider politics 🇬🇧 UK Labour turmoil, Reform & Greens surge 📱 Australia’s under-16 social media ban Is a new generation rejecting “politics-as-usual”? And what should Australia...

  Fifty years to the day after the Dismissal, this week on Curtin’s Cast, Nick Dyrenfurth and guest co-host Emma Dawson talk to acclaimed historian and political biographer Troy Bramston about his stunning new biography Gough Whitlam: The Vista of the New. 700+ pages of reform, chaos, and vision — from Gough’s youthful poem to the tumultuous events of 11 November 1975. What does Whitlam still mean...

  🎙️This week on Curtin's Cast, Kos Samaras and Nick Dyrenfurth sit down with Gerard Dwyer, National Secretary of the SDA — Australia’s largest private-sector union covering retail, fast food and warehouse workers and a proud John Curtin Research Centre Board member. From regional NSW, to the classroom and social work, and now the frontline of the labour movement, Gerard shares his journey, values...

🎙️ This week's Curtin's Cast delves into what one British political writer calls the Netflixisation of Politics.  Nick Dyrenfurth & Kos Samaras dive into the end of the political pendulum: both major parties bleeding to their disruptor flanks, the rise of niche tribes, and how politics has become algorithmic entertainment — the voter as subscriber, not loyalist, from Reform UK and the Greens’...

🎙️ Our guest today has lived the Australian story from the inside out. Born in Basra, Iraq, arriving to Australia as an asylum seeker aged nine including spending time in Villawood Detention Centre, and now a lawyer, chairperson and entrepreneur — Sam Almaliki’s journey is one of hope, hardship and renewal. From learning English behind fences to leading in business and community, Sam’s story captu...

🎙️ New Curtin’s Cast episode! Kos and Nick dive into explosive new polling showing the combined major party primary vote at historic lows. The Liberals are haemorrhaging votes on their right flank while collapsing among Gen Z, millennials, women and CALD voters. They unpack the immigration debate, the rise of Advance Australia and right-wing online grifters, and ask: who exactly is voting for One...

🎧 New #CurtinsCast episode - Kos Samaras is back with Brisbane Lions tragic & premiership celebrator Nick Dyrenfurth to dissect the week in politics: 🇬🇧 The rise of alt-right & MAGA politics in the UK and Australia 🛠️ Andrew Hastie on migration, housing & slaying the neo-liberal dragon ⚠️ Wayne Swan’s warning to Labor on its shallow base in a time of electoral volatility…  and much mo...

🎧 New Curtin’s Cast Episode With Nick Dyrenfurth still away, JCRC board member & leading constitutional lawyer Dr Shireen Morris joins Kos Samaras for a rich, personal and political conversation. 🌏⚖️ 💡 From her Indian-Fijian family roots and early acting dreams to the frontlines of law and advocacy, Shireen shares the journey that shaped her fight for justice and belonging. 🗳️ They dive dee...

#CurtinsCast host Nick Dyrenfurth takes a well-earned spell from the microphone as John Curtin Research Centre board member and constitutional lawyer Dr Shireen Morris joins Kos Samaras to lead a searching conversation with "proud Westie" and emergency physician Dr Stephen Parnis. From the frontlines of emergency medicine to the fraught politics of end-of-life care, Dr Parnis reflects on the class...

This week’s Curtin's Cast features the excellent ACTU Secretary, Sally McManus . Kos Samaras and Nick Dyrenfurth explore her working-class upbringing in north-west Sydney, the parallels between the rise of One Nation in the 1990s and today’s hard-right, neo-Nazi currents, and whether her attraction to the labour movement was a matter of nature or nurture. We cover the cultural left milieu she emer...

This week we’re joined by Professor Sean Scalmer — one of Australia's leading historians based at the University of Melbourne, Fellow of the Academy of Social Science, and author of A Fair Day’s Work: The Quest to Win Back Time. We dive into: ⏳ The fight for the eight-hour day and Australia’s pioneering role 📉 How progress stalled from the 1980s onwards 👩‍👩‍👧‍👦 The hidden burden of unpaid wo...