Afternoon Light

How did Australia go from being the 'golden land' to a place of persecution?

On this week’s Afternoon Light Georgina Downer speaks with Michael Gawenda to unpack the horrific rise of antisemitism in Australia. Drawing on his own family history as Menzies era migrants, and recent experiences as a prominent Jew in Australia's media landscape.

Michael Gawenda is a multi-award winning journalist and former editor-in-chief of The Age - the only Jewish editor-in-chief in the newspaper’s history. In 2023 he published a memoir, My Life as a Jew, which won the Leslie and Sophie Caplan Award for Jewish Non-Fiction at the Shalom Australian Jewish Book Awards. He now provides regular commentary and reflections on his substack, Gawenda Unleashed.

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250 years after Adam Smith published The Wealth of Nations, have we in Australia forgotten the foundational economic lessons that Smith offered?

On this week’s Afternoon Light Georgina Downer speaks with Joseph Healy to resuscitate the insights of famous Scottish Enlightenment thinker Adam Smith to help tackle Australia's current problems. From cost of living and housing crises to corporate cronyism and moral decline, Smith can help us understand why we've gone wrong, and what we can do to bring back not just our prosperity, but our vitality.

Joseph Healy is a career international banker and mental health entrepreneur. He was a co-founder and CEO of Judo Bank, a bank created to serve the needs of the SME economy - the baker, the butcher, and the brewer. He is also a co-founder and Executive Chairman of Malu Health Group, which specialises in mental health care. Joseph holds six master’s degrees in subjects covering financial economics, business studies, Chinese studies, and the psychology and neuroscience of mental health. He is the author of What Would Adam Smith Make of Modern Australia? How Lessons from the Past Provide Answers for a Better Future.

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Does Australia's utilitarian constitution reflect a lack of inspiration on the part of our founding fathers?

On this week’s Afternoon Light Georgina Downer speaks with Ben Saunders to unpack the intent behind the framing of Australia's constitution. Something which eschewed grand value statements and a Bill of Rights, in favour of trusting the Australian people to 'breathe life' into the 'dry bones' of constitutional machinery. Under the understanding that it's ultimately the quality of the electors, rather than the theoretical designing of the institutions, that ultimately determines the success or failure of a democracy.

Dr Ben Saunders is an Associate Professor at Deakin Law School. Ben’s principal areas of research interest are constitutional law, especially executive power and responsible government, law and religion, and public sector governance. He recently published Responsible Government and the Australian Constitution: A Government for a Sovereign People (Hart Studies in Comparative Public Law, 2023). In 2024 he co-authored an Australian Journal of Politics and History article on ‘The Australian Constitutional Framers and the Languages of Virtue’, with Simon Kennedy.

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Amidst seemingly unending crises of social cohesion, cost of living, and in the party system, how is Australia's democracy holding up?

On this week’s Afternoon Light Georgina Downer speaks with Lydia Khalil and Zachary Gorman to unpack the conditions under which democracy thrives, and issues which currently threaten Australia's democratic health. Offering both timely warnings and enduring optimism about the strengths and weaknesses of Australia's political institutions 125 years on from Federation.

This discussion is based on the Robert Menzies's Institute's new policy paper, authored by the Institute's Historian Dr Zachary Gorman, which you can access here.

Lydia Khalil directs the Transnational Challenges Program at the Lowy Institute, overseeing the Digital Threats to Democracy Project. Her career spans governance, technology, and security, with expertise in terrorism and political violence. She is a Senior Research Fellow at Deakin University’s Alfred Deakin Institute, co-convening the AVERT Research Network, and leads the Crisis Points project at the Centre for Resilient and Inclusive Societies. Lydia has advised the US Department of Defense and New York Police Department.

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Before Dan Andrews, who was Australia's most polarising state premier?

On this week’s Afternoon Light Georgina Downer speaks with Bruce Kingston to discuss one of Australian history's most beloved and bemoaned Queenslanders, Sir Joh Bjelke-Petersen. The man who turned the Sunshine State into a modern economic powerhouse, yet who is contrastingly reviled for allegedly representing all of its maroon shades of reactionary conservatism.

Bruce Kingston has some 35 years experience in management, marketing and public affairs in Australia in corporate, consulting and government roles working in various States and Territories. He was Senior Director Community Partnerships with the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority co-managing Australia’s largest community consultation program.  He has also been a University lecturer, a Ministerial speechwriter for two Ministers in Bjelke-Petersen Cabinets, a political campaign consultant and a restaurateur. He authored the Australian Biographical Monograph on Johannes Bjelke-Petersen.

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