Welcome to the Dads on the Air archives, with hundreds of programs dating back to 2003. You can browse by month or year, or search the entire archive for a specific topic or name. Find a show you heard a long time ago, download or stream individual programs, or just poke around by clicking “Click to read more…” next to each program for a detailed show description.
Thursday, July 14, 2022 at 9:00AM 
With special guest:
Matthew Spencer decided to make a big change in his life after 20 successful years as a journalist.
The challenge he took on was not going to be easy and there were no guarantees. Matthew chose to enter the highly competitive field of writing a crime novel and as with a lot of ventures he needed a bit of luck along the way.
Thursday, May 5, 2022 at 9:00AM 
With special guest:
Peter FitzSimons
… in conversation with Bill Kable
As well as being a 20th century marvel in its soaring design it remains a source of marvel that the Opera House was even conceived in the parochial, conservative backwater that was 1950s New South Wales.
One thing that was typical then and remains so is the Australian love for a gamble so it was a brainwave of the NSW government to think of financing the construction by way of a lottery. All of a sudden there were more than enough funds to do the work of construction.
But the bigger gamble was to construct a building like no other that would be on display at the heart of the city with techniques that had not been invented based on the imaginings and sparse drawings of a Danish architect who had never taken a building design through to completion.
Thursday, February 3, 2022 at 9:00AM 
With special guest:
Ryan Heffernan
… in conversation with Bill Kable
Ever thought about how when you leave the hospital with your new baby you do not receive an instruction manual? Our guest this week Ryan Heffernan has addressed this issue. In his entertaining and informative book Ryan provides a welcome toolbox for any Dad left with the responsibility of caring for a young child in the age range of 0-6. In fact any parent will welcome this no-nonsense source book for handling the challenges of parenting where you get the benefit of learning from a single Dad’s experience. What’s more with Ryan Heffernan giving us the lesson there is a lot of fun to be had which everyone can enjoy.
Thursday, January 6, 2022 at 9:00AM 
With special guest:
Our guest today provides us with an entertaining peek into what is still an unusual career in our society. Clint Greagen is a stay-at-home Dad with the skills of an award-winning blogger who tells us about his life in suburban Melbourne with four boy-children and a loving working wife.
There is nothing un-masculine about Clint’s struggles as he is assigned to buy breast pads for his wife and to do the cooking / washing / cleaning for the family. He has to juggle these responsibilities and apply some logic in the middle of the chaos and craziness.
Thursday, December 30, 2021 at 9:00AM 
With special guest
In the news lately there have been frequent references to pay differentials between males and females. This is often put down to the different opportunities available in the workplace because of gender roles that are a hangover from a less-enlightened past. But what about the denial of opportunities to look after the children and get involved in other areas around the home? In brief, Mums have too many roles, Dads have too few.
Thursday, October 21, 2021 at 9:00AM 
With special guest:
Jai Hobbs
… in conversation with Bill Kable
Covid 19 is just one more hurdle for our young people coming out of school. They already have to face up to serious competition to progress in a chosen career. If they can get through University they face a HECS debt and what about the housing market.
Our guest today Jai Hobbs decided to do something practical to help the young people get on top of all that. With his wife Marlies, Jai has written a manual called FLY which stands for financially literate youth. This is what he is striving for.
Thursday, May 20, 2021 at 9:00AM 
With special guest:
Sam Mac
… in conversation with Bill Kable
This show is not for anyone expecting to hear a TV weatherman in the mould of Alan Wilkie.
Sam Mac has forged a new role for himself in the Sunrise program where he goes around Australia looking for interesting people, interesting towns in fact anything that will give his morning viewers a lift. Naturally Sam will pass on the essential weather information such as do you need to get your umbrella but he will not go into the detailed meteorological analysis behind that decision mainly because he is not a meteorologist.
Thursday, May 13, 2021 at 9:00AM 
With special guest:
Hugh Mackay AO
… in conversation with Bill Kable
When we looked forward to 2021 we also looked back on the disaster of the national bushfires season of 2019/20. That changed us but we did not expect the floods and then the ongoing impact of Covid 19.
Our guest today is Hugh Mackay who has been listening to what the community thinks and says for over 60 years as the country’s pre-eminent social researcher. Hugh draws on this immense experience to see where the community is now and what comes next.
It may turn out that The Kindness Revolution is Hugh’s last non-fiction book to grace our book shelves so we should all listen up. In his usual articulate way Hugh sees that the horrors of 2020 and 2021 have in fact set the scene for a kindness revolution.
Thursday, April 29, 2021 at 9:00AM 
With special guest:
Jeff Apter
… in conversation with Bill Kable
Everyone remembers Jon English with those raccoon eyes and tall thin frame contributing to a very distinctive appearance.
Jon English had regular appearances in so many different forms of entertainment. He was a rock singer, a star of live musicals, a romantic star of acclaimed television series, and at all times a rascal. In between those activities he wrote sensitive music and became an entrepreneur.
Thursday, April 15, 2021 at 9:00AM 
With special guest:
David Sinclair PhD AO
… in conversation with Bill Kable
Lifespan: Why We Age – and Why We Don’t Have To 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?
Thursday, April 1, 2021 at 9:00AM 
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.
Thursday, February 11, 2021 at 9:00AM 
With special guest:
Jeff Apter
… in conversation with Bill Kable
Malcolm was a younger brother of George Young guitarist and songwriter with The Easybeats. Music was definitely in the family but in such a fickle industry could lightning strike twice after the enormous success of brother George?
The Young family story starts in an economically deprived part of Scotland. Then seven of the eight members of the family became Ten Pound Poms and settled in a migrant hostel in Australia. One of the elder children continued to work as a musician in Europe.
After years of playing guitar in his bedroom Malcolm joined a band and later agreed to let Angus in, recognising at that early stage the genius of his younger brother. It was his sister who came up with the name for the band and that was never changed. It is arguable that their choice of music style never changed either, always driving rock’n’roll.
Thursday, January 28, 2021 at 9:00AM 
With special guest:
Jai Hobbs
… in conversation with Bill Kable
Covid 19 is just one more hurdle for our young people coming out of school. They already have to face up to serious competition to progress in a chosen career. If they can get through University they face a HECS debt and what about the housing market.
Our guest today Jai Hobbs decided to do something practical to help the young people get on top of all that. With his wife Marlies, Jai has written a manual called FLY which stands for financially literate youth. This is what he is striving for.
Thursday, April 9, 2020 at 9:00AM 
With special guest:
Stuart Coupe
… in conversation with Bill Kable
We have always heard about the sex and drugs of the rock’n’roll lifestyle but few of us get any access to this hidden part of the music industry. Until now
Stuart Coupe has lived in the music world for over forty years and by getting the roadies, these unsung heroes, to open up we can find out both the good and the bad sides of this life on the road.
Stuart tells us one of his motivations in doing the research and writing his latest book Roadies: The Secret History of Australian Rock’n’Roll was to preserve the stories from the early days because the roadies have had some casualties and he does not want the stories to disappear with the last of the original roadies. Not only does the lifestyle take a toll on the roadies’ physical health but the toll on family life is intense. The roadies will often be away from home for 10 to 11 months of the year because the show has to go on.
Thursday, January 2, 2020 at 9:00AM 
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.
Thursday, December 26, 2019 at 9:00AM 
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.
Thursday, December 12, 2019 at 9:00AM 
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.
Thursday, December 5, 2019 at 9:00AM 
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.
Thursday, October 24, 2019 at 9:00AM 
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.
Thursday, September 5, 2019 at 9:00AM 
With special guest:
Jeff Apter
… in conversation with Bill Kable
Malcolm was a younger brother of George Young guitarist and songwriter with The Easybeats. Music was definitely in the family but in such a fickle industry could lightning strike twice after the enormous success of brother George?
The Young family story starts in an economically deprived part of Scotland. Then seven of the eight members of the family became Ten Pound Poms and settled in a migrant hostel in Australia. One of the elder children continued to work as a musician in Europe.
After years of playing guitar in his bedroom Malcolm joined a band and later agreed to let Angus in, recognising at that early stage the genius of his younger brother. It was his sister who came up with the name for the band and that was never changed. It is arguable that their choice of music style never changed either, always driving rock’n’roll.