Murder at Myall Creek

With special guest:

• Mark Tedeschi QC AM
  … in conversation with Bill Kable

Our guest today is the well-known former Crown Prosecutor for New South Wales and author of Murder at Myall Creek, Mark Tedeschi.

Mark has written a deeply moving account of the massacre of 28 Aboriginal men, women and children in 1838 which led to a trial that defined the nation of Australia. If the law of the land in Australia was to have any credibility, if the principle is that we are all equal before the law, then this is a watershed case.

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Australia Reimagined

With special guest:

• Hugh Mackay AO
  … in conversation with Bill Kable

Australia has had a well-documented and unprecedented run of economic growth but this has not translated into a happy, harmonious society. Our guest today is Hugh Mackay who describes the current level of anxiety in Australia as an epidemic.

The level of income inequality in Australia is growing, public education is under-resourced and our children are falling behind when compared to other first world countries.

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Fatherhood: Stories about being a Dad

With special guest:

• William McInnes
  … in conversation with Bill Kable

In today’s program we go behind the public face of William McInnes. We do not speak to Max Connors from SeaChange, we speak to William McInnes the Dad from Queensland about his real life love of being a father to his son and daughter.

We get to hear lots of stories as included in William’s new book Fatherhood: Stories about being A Dad. As William tells us, being a Dad is a serious business but it is at the same time a funny, heart-warming and at times scary experience.

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Surviving Adolescents

With special guest:

• Elly Robinson
  … in conversation with Bill Kable

All parents realise on leaving the maternity ward that there is no manual that comes from the hospital with instructions for a new baby. The parents just strap themselves in for the rapid growth and development of this new and totally dependent child.

Ten years later with the coming of adolescence there is another period of risky growth and development. The age group from 10 to 19 calls upon a whole new skill set to deal with challenges some of which are familiar and some that are new to this century.

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Being Black ’n Chicken, & Chips

With special guest:

• Matt Okine
  … in conversation with Bill Kable

Matt Okine’s book Being Black ‘n Chicken, & Chips is based on his award-winning stand-up show and is at once heart-breaking and hilarious.

Matt provides a bird’s eye view of life as a 12 year old when things start unravelling, just as that boy/child is working out some important stuff. He is working on There is the relationship with his father that has never really developed; there is a potential heart stopping girlfriend on the fringes; and there is a girl next door who is more of a friend than his male companions. Finally and most importantly he has to negotiate the changing relationship with his mother.

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Deadly Connections

With special guest:

• Keenan Mundine
  … in conversation with Bill Kable

Dreamer, nothing but a dreamer. That might be where it started for our guest today Keenan Mundine after a beginning in life that really didn’t give him a chance.

But after Keenan had spent the first half of his life in the criminal justice system he came to a realisation. Keenan either had to change his ways or face up to spending his life behind bars. Fortunately for us and for Keenan he decided to make a worthwhile contribution to society. And so was born Deadly Connections where he is the co-founder along with his wife Carly.

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Out of the Forest

With special guest:

• Dr Gregory Smith
  … in conversation with Bill Kable

When asked if he sometimes pinches himself and wonders if all that has gone before is true, Gregory Smith says not sometimes but all the time. Our guest today has a truly amazing story that should encourage all of us.

After a traumatic childhood Gregory was always trying to escape from his surroundings and became something of an escape artist. Except that he did not escape and his efforts just led to painful encounters with the country Police of NSW.

When his mother deceived him and left him at an orphanage in Armidale he spent 19 months experiencing institutional abuse. To make matters worse he was thinking all the time that his sisters were enduring something similar at the same institution after they were separated from him by the nuns on arrival.

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The Resilience Project

With special guest:

• Hugh van Cuylenburg
  … in conversation with Bill Kable

When Hugh van Cuylenburg went to India as a volunteer teacher he did not expect to be on the receiving end of the learning process. At first reluctant to even be in India he soon found that he was learning from his students how to develop the psychological foundation for success in all educational and physical pursuits.

Hugh’s trip finished up being full of surprises. He was surrounded by so much poverty yet there was also happiness and contentment. Working on his observations Hugh was able to develop The Resilience Project for application in Australia and backed up his approach with technical qualifications obtained by completing a Master’s Degree at University.

In Australia many school children are anxious and depressed. They spend too much time looking at their mobile phones and other devices. Individual sports people such as some of our leading cricketers are needing to take time off to improve their mental health and sporting teams have earned a reputation for misbehaving when they seem to have everything presented on a platter. So if something is going wrong here what can be done?

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Sound Tracks

With special guest:

• Raymond Hawkins
  … in conversation with Bill Kable

There is a word for the special mystical feeling we get when we look at the stars in the heavens or listen to some ethereal music and that word is “numinous”. Unfortunately numinous is not a word most of us get to use very often but our guest today experiences this feeling frequently through his tours to remote locations and he tells us all about it.

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Mr Ordinary Goes to Jail

With special guest:

• Wil Patterson
  … in conversation with Bill Kable

Mr Ordinary Goes to Jail is really a story about choices.

Some choices we hope we will never have to make. Once made they have significant consequences. Wil Paterson found himself facing temptation at a time when he had financial pressures at home and he made a fateful choice.

Wil was at work on an ordinary day. Part of his job was that he was expected to cancel his employer’s cheques when the payee had not been located.

But on this day a returned cheque for $5000 made out in his own name came across his desk and instead of cancelling it Wil decided after a few days to deposit in his own bank account. If it happened that once it could happen again and again until in the end $300,000 had been taken. When Wil was caught, the feeling strangely enough was relief even though he knew it would be the end of his life as he had known it.

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The Boy from Baradine

With special guest:

• Dr Craig Emerson
  … in conversation with Bill Kable

This is a rare opportunity. We do not often hear a successful politician being hailed for giving a shockingly personal honest and compelling reflection with brilliant insights. Our guest today is Craig Emerson who opens up about his rollercoaster ride from Baradine a small town in north western NSW to the corridors of power in Canberra.

In his book The Boy from Baradine we follow Craig on his journey. We hear how we are all shaped by our upbringing but this does not mean that we are imprisoned by it. Craig and his brother Lance were subjected to random acts of physical and mental cruelty from their mother and a father who was unable to help while he battled his own demons.

Yet from this unpromising start in life Craig was able to benefit from a good education. By a combination of hard work and some good fortune along the way Craig found himself advising the Prime Minister and bravely standing up for what he thought was right even when under pressure.

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How to Buy a Home

With special guest:

• Emily Power
  … in conversation with Bill Kable

Today we catch up with one of the many young people struggling with the biggest purchase of their lives. For the young men trying to support a family and progress their careers at the same time, buying a first home means pressure.

Our guest today is not only an expert commentator on real estate but she is also trying to purchase her first home in Melbourne.

Emily Power is a regular on TV and radio but we did not know her secret project of getting herself on the first rung for home ownership. Emily avoids the smashed avocadoes but has some tips that have worked for her in joining the crazy housing market we see in Melbourne and Sydney.

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Lifespan

With special guest:

• David Sinclair PhD AO
  … in conversation with Bill Kable

Lifespan is a visionary book in a fast moving field. In fact when we talk to Dr David Sinclair for today’s program we discover that there have been some amazing developments in the scientific research of aging even since the book was written.

The immediate response of some people to aging research is that death at a certain age is the natural order of things. Perhaps you might hear that someone has had a look at old age and now does not want to lengthen this time in that person’s life. But would we want to go back to the time not so long ago when life expectancy was more like 40 than the current 80? What if by controlling aging we could reduce rather than extend time spent in total dependency in a nursing home?

David Sinclair concedes that his book could perhaps have been titled Healthspan because what he is working on will extend the healthy part of people’s lives. And not forever.

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The High-Conflict Co-Parenting Survival Guide

With special guest:

• Megan Hunter
  … in conversation with Bill Kable

Megan Hunter is the co-author with Andrea Larochelle of a new book The High-Conflict Co-Parenting Survival Guide with the sub-title Reclaim Your Life One Week at a Time.

Perhaps this book would not be necessary if everyone followed the recommendations contained in Megan’s earlier book Dating Radar: Why Your Brain Says Yes to “The One” Who Will Make Your Life Hell. However as Megan writes in Week 1 you cannot unconsciously or consciously rewrite history in an attempt to save yourself (and your kids) from the present circumstance. It is what it is.

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Movember: Grow a Mo, Save a Bro

With special guest:

• Jeremy Macvean
  … in conversation with Bill Kable

Jimmy Buffett sang that he wished he had a pencil thin moustache. Apart from the benefits of looking so dapper, a moustache in November 2019 can mean you save lives.

Our guest today is Jeremy Macvean who worked initially in the fundraising section of Movember and has now moved on to projects such as the TV series Man Up and the SpeakEasy Workshops.

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Mentoring Men

With special guest:

• Ian Westmoreland
  … in conversation with Bill Kable

Mentoring Men like a lot of great things in life started simply, one man and an idea.

Ian Westmoreland decided that what Australian men needed big time was an opportunity to learn from the wisdom and mistakes of other men. But he discovered that the number of such services offered free to adult Australian men was zip, zero, zilch. This is when he had the idea of setting up Mentoring Men. If this meant working full time 7 days a week for no pay then so be it.

There would be very few men who do not at some time experience periods of anxiety, feeling down, relationship issues and low self-esteem. For some men these negative emotions are occasional and for others they may occur more frequently. When it happens, men need someone who will listen to them without judgement.

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Origin Story

With special guest:

• Dr David Christian
  … in conversation with Bill Kable

It doesn’t get any bigger than this!

In his new book Origin Story: A Big History of Everything our guest David Christian traces human history arising from the Big Bang and going through to the first stars, our solar system, life on Earth, dinosaurs, homo sapiens, agriculture, an ice age, empires, fossil fuels, a moon landing and mass globalisation. And all this is done in the context of what it means to us and our families.

This origin story is one of numerous such stories. Examples might include the Christian story of creation and the Aboriginal Dreamtime. Dr Christian’s story is based on the latest scientific findings and theories but it is told in a way that it can be related around a campfire or start discussions around the dinner table. What we hear is that story telling going back to the beginning is important to all of us.

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Guy Tai Shanghai

With special guest:

• Eric Johnson
  … in conversation with Bill Kable

The number of American men who have completely left the workforce to raise children has more than doubled over the past decade according to a New York Times report on census data. And many others serve as primary caretakers for their families while maintaining freelance or part-time jobs.

This situation is reflected in cosmopolitan cities around the world where expat wives are taking up new jobs and bringing with them their families. In previous times it was usually the men who arrived in foreign cities to start work and their wives were labelled Tai Tais or trailing wives. These Tai Tais were unlikely to find work because of visa restrictions and language barriers so they dedicated themselves to running the home, perhaps with some domestic help.

More recently it is the husbands arriving with their working wives who find themselves in this situation and in Shanghai they decided to get together and call themselves Guy Tais. This led to the formation of an association, Guy Tai Shanghai.

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The Father Hood

With special guest:

• Luke Benedictus
  … in conversation with Bill Kable

Professor Richard Fletcher says it’s the most exciting time in history to be a dad. But there is an old problem of where does that modern dad get his riding instructions.

Our guest today is Luke Benedictus who like so many others was faced with this problem. So Luke got together with two mates, Jeremy Macvean and Andrew McUtchen, to set up The Fatherhood, a new destination for modern dads.

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A Better Death

With special guest:

• Dr Ranjana Srivastava
  … in conversation with Bill Kable

Most people in our society try to avoid death and taxes. But at least in the case of our mortality it is a universal experience, a bookend of our life, part of being human.

Our guest today is Dr Ranjana Srivastava OAM who is an Oncologist working in the public hospital sector of Victoria. Ranjana packs into her daily life being a doctor, an award winning author, a journalist and also a family life with her husband and three children.

Yet her professional life as a cancer specialist revolves around dealing with a deadly disease, cancer. It often falls to her to pass on the unimaginable news that the person in front of her has limited time to live. Some doctors can’t imagine themselves doing this because they want to help heal a condition. Other doctors can’t imagine doing anything else and for this they have a special type of courage.

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