How Good Are Humans

Humans need stories. We are stories, each of us, and some of our stories are so great they've been written down. Others have invented stories, be they allegorical or pure fiction, for no reason more than brewing and spilling another provocative and entertaining piece to our cultural ether.  But no story is guaranteed permanence. In fact, almost all are guaranteed the opposite. It takes a libr...

Bridges, roads and railways don't just appear out of thin air, and the government doesn't walk around tossing wads of cash into a city's letterbox. Someone has to not only ask for it, but put their reputation on the line by pointing out where billions of dollars in domestic and International investment will be best spent. An economy, therefore, relies on those who can best advocate...

It's a tough time to become a politician in Australia. Housing supply is short and prices are high, the climate is changing but society still can't agree why or what to do about it, cost of living is on everyone's minds every day and AI is about to take all our jobs and maybe even exterminate us for good measure. Who do we consistently blame for our problems? Politicians. While they...

Starting a gym routine can be confusing and daunting. Many people still believe a gym is only good for stripping weight or getting uselessly buff, that real fitness is not built under barbells. Even if a newbie takes a courageous step into a gym, it could be just days before they're demotivated by the bewildering array of machines or the intimidating presence of god-like figures walking here...

Warren Entsch served in Australia's federal parliament for almost three decades. He worked with half a dozen Prime Ministers and witnessed the passage of some of the nation's greatest shifts in social and economic policy. He was an entrenched backbencher with an outsized influence and outsized opinions. He stood against enraged gun owners in his own community after the Port Arthur massac...

Anna Middleton was elected as the Division 7 councillor to Cairns Regional Council in 2024 as an unaligned and independent candidate with a low budget, grassroots effort, beating other candidates with more cash and more recognisable names. Since her election, she has leant on the expertise of industry professionals, scientists and experienced public servants to guide her decisions in the council c...

Bronwyn Opie is the director of the Cairns and Far North Environment Centre, a leading Queensland advocacy organisation for climate change action and ecological conservation.

Adam Stephen is a journalist and radio presenter who has hosted ABC Queensland's regional Drive radio program for twelve years, a weekday show now broadcast to three-quarters of Australia's second largest and third most populous state. 

Atlantis is an artist whose story is equal parts amazing and terrifying. Just listen, ok.

Martin is a zoologist and ecologist based in Cairns, Far North Queensland, as well as a tour guide that has led wildlife tours in places such as Antarctica and Africa. On this episode, Martin and I speak about Australian ecology and biodiversity, the impacts of climate change on Australia’s natural habitats, Martin’s work as a zoologist around the world and the time he got drunk with Sir David Att...

Mike Atkinson is an adventurer and film maker who was a finalist on the first season of Alone Australia. He has had a career in the military as an aviator and survival instructor and has since turned his attention to completing extraordinary feats of adventure and survival while telling stories of the Australian environment.  He has recently campaigned against government overreach that affects how...

To walk into Coles or Woolworths is a step into a foreign land. Row upon row, aisle upon aisle, an abundance of food, will sit before our eyes. Some, maybe most of it, has been grown or produced in Australia, but nearly all of did not originate here. Its native lands are across the seas. Before 1788, Australia was a nation with its own food sustaining a continent of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Is...

If professional sporting success was a 100m racetrack, the starting blocks being discovery of the sport and the finish line being a major sports contract, the track ahead would appear totally different for a young girl compared to the track for a young boy. The boys' track would be flat and open; they would just have to focus on beating the others crouched on their left and right. The stadium...

Dining out can be the most delightful, satiating experience of our week, or our most disappointing. We all know the feeling of being promised the world on a menu but discovering we’ve been catfished when the plate arrives. Many of us have sweated over finding a satisfying first date restaurant. Almost all of us just want to find the perfect coffee, which can seem like chasing the end of a rainbow....

Finding mental health support can be an expensive, inaccessible and intimidating experience. This experience is additionally difficult for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. And men are doggedly reluctant to seek out health services, let alone mental health services, until the last safe moment; sometimes, not until it's too late. Indigenous children are witnessing family breakdown...

When an economy has a lot of potential to grow, but is also stalked by a fair risk of stall and decline, it takes experienced thought leaders, regional development experts and policy wonks to gently, or firmly, guide decision makers to steer the economic vehicle into the correct lane. Professor Hurriyet Babacan is such a person, and has the resumé, intellect and drive to lay social and economic de...

Tilmann Waldthaler has cycled more than 600,000km through 143 countries. He has spent hours in conversation with Bob Marley, been almost murdered and bombed in Iran, and met the love of his life in the middle of the Sahara Desert. He has experienced the best of humanity. At 83, he is happy, he is a picture of health and he still cycles 100km every day. 

For more than 40 years Brian Cassey has watched suffering, tragedy, hope, elation and thrill through a few curved glass elements, waiting for moments of greatest importance and nearest perfect illumination to manifest. When they do, he stamps them into history via a 35mm grouping of pixels. The next morning, the moments are tossed onto your doorstep where you unfurl them in the calm of your home....

In a slow week, Dr Ebbie Swemmer examines the skins of dozens of patients, performs many surgeries and saves people from the horrible fate of melanomas and other aggressive skin cancers. In a busy week, he is run off his feet, often as the only skin care option for thousands of remote Queenslanders. In a year he sees up to 10,000 patients from outback towns. He extends the hours of his practice to...

On episode 52 of the podcast, I speak with Assistant Commissioner Brett Schafferius and Sergeant Lyall McKelvie from the Far North Queensland police district about several police and crime topics. Brett and Lyall have a combined six decades of police experience across multiple disciplines, and have seen about as much as a policing career can offer. We spoke about the police response to recent, hor...

Jill Boltz is a two-time Olympian, Commonwealth Games medalist and former world record holder in two athletics distances. She is now devoting her time to training future generations of athletes in the outer regions of Queensland where talented kids typically have not had a fair go. On this episode we spoke about her own Olympic journey and how she is readying those who have a chance of representin...

The How Good are Humans podcast recently published its 50th episode. To celebrate, we have chosen the top 15 moments from the first 50 episodes and ranked them here in this special episode of the podcast that looks back on an awesome group of humans with truly inspiring stories to share. Warning, this episode contains distressing material and topics such as suicide and sexual assault. Support can...

Shai Ager leads the largest wildlife rescue organisation in Queensland. She and her team have rescued and relocated almost 1000 macropods (kangaroos and wallabies) in conditions that even environmental scientists said were impossible. She personally cares for dozens of wild animals at her own property, consults locally and interstate, and is sent around the country to rescue the most delicate anim...

Three decades ago, Suellen Maunder was using her own furniture as stage props for the productions of what was then thought of as a radical, audacious and in-your-face theatre company. As an actor and director, Suellen and her co-boundary pushers have challenged audiences in regional Australia to see beyond the facades of their own towns and traditional beliefs. Now the JUTE Theatre Company, of whi...

Lucy Graham is going deep into the subarctic wilderness, alone. Bears, storms and isolation will be her frenemies for three months. So why is she doing this? For fun? Sure. To challenge her adventurous spirit? Absolutely. What about for a cause even greater, beyond just herself? For years Lucy has lived with pain, drop-you-to-your-knees pain. She previously kayaked more than 2000km along the Canad...