Richard Holden | Alan Kohler

Australia, a land of sweeping plains, has one of the lowest population densities on the planet. So, how did we end up with a housing shortage?

In conversation with economist and author Richard Holden, veteran finance journalist Alan Kohler’s new Quarterly Essay, The Great Divide: Australia’s Housing Crisis and How to Fix It, investigates where things went wrong at the start of the 21st century with escalating property prices leading to a rental crisis, a dearth of public housing and a mortgage crunch.

This event is presented by the Sydney Writers' Festival and supported by UNSW Sydney.

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Machines lead the charge on today’s battlefields, but what does this mean for the people caught in the crossfire?

Learn from journalist Antony Loewenstein, whose Walkley Award-winning investigation, The Palestine Laboratory: How Israel Exports the Technology of Occupation Around the World, uncovered the widespread commercialisation and global deployment of Israeli weaponry tested in Palestinian territories. Antony is joined by AI expert Toby Walsh, whose new book, Faking It: Artificial Intelligence in a Human World, explores how AI impersonates human intelligence.

Listen to this vital conversation with host Michael Richardson about the intersection of technology, conflict, occupation and surveillance.

This event is presented by the Sydney Writers' Festival and supported by UNSW Sydney.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

How did sex begin? How did it evolve to become so varied and complex in humans? And what could sex look like for future generations?

Hosted by evolutionary biologist Rob Brooks, this blush-worthy panel discussion features sex historian Esmé Louise James and historian David Baker. Esmé adapted her wildly popular TikTok series into a book, Kinky History: The Stories of Our Intimate Lives, Past and Present, and David’s Sex: Two Billion Years of Procreation and Recreation charts sex’s evolution from early life to sexbots.

Listen now to bone up on carnal knowledge across the centuries and find out what the future of fornication holds.

This event was presented by the Sydney Writers' Festival and supported by UNSW Sydney.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.