Curtin’s Cast

No Kos this week — but Nick Dyrenfurth is joined by one of Australia’s leading public intellectuals and scholars of political leadership, Professor Paul Strangio, to unpack one of the defining political questions of our age:
Why has democratic politics become so chaotic — and why has Australia, so far at least, resisted full-scale democratic rupture?
Drawing on Paul Strangio’s new book ‘The Alchemy of Leadership: Seven Australian Prime Ministers in a Turbulent Twenty-First Century’ (Melbourne University Publishing), this wide-ranging conversation explores the collapse of old political loyalties, revolving-door prime ministers, media fragmentation, hyper-politics, populism, culture wars and the emotional exhaustion now embedded in modern democratic life.
From Howard, Rudd and Gillard to Abbott, Morrison, Albanese and the post-2025 political landscape, Nick and Paul examine how leadership itself has changed in the twenty-first century — and whether traditional democratic authority can still survive in the age of algorithms, permanent campaigning and anti-politics.
They discuss:
Why Australian politics became permanently unstable after 2007
John Howard’s role in “smuggling” conservative populism into the mainstream
Pauline Hanson, Trumpism and why Australia avoided full MAGA-style collapse
Listen now on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and YouTube.

Is Australian politics finally exiting the dead zone of managerialism and re-entering an era of genuine ideological conflict?
In Episode 57 of Curtin’s Cast, Nick Dyrenfurth and Australia’s "revered pollster” Kos Samaras unpack the political shockwaves from Labor’s 2026 budget — and why much of the legacy media may be completely misunderstanding what is happening.
As newspapers scream “political suicide” and compare the budget to the disastrous 2014 Hockey Budget, Nick and Kos explore why this is not 2001 or 2004 politics anymore. Millennials and Gen Z do not expect miracles — they want proof governments are finally willing to “touch the architecture” on housing, tax and intergenerational fairness.
Nick and Kos dive deep into:
why Labor now openly sees under-45s as its electoral base
the collapse of the old Howard-era political settlement
how this is the first serious reform battle in decades
Angus Taylor’s high-risk budget reply and the risks of chasing Pauline Hanson
why the Coalition’s proposal to strip non-citizens of welfare, NDIS and other benefits could detonate support among Chinese-Australian households
how “household voting” works politically in migrant communities
and why anti-Dan Andrews politics is a dead-end for the Victorian Libs
Plus: Kos hints at a bombshell new Redbridge/Australian Financial Review poll, predictions on Andrew Hastie and November's Victorian state election

For years politics and media have obsessed over angry young men, the manosphere and figures like Andrew Tate.
But what if the bigger political story is the radicalisation — and growing pessimism — of ‘Angry Young Women’?
This week Nick Dyrenfurth and Kos Samaras are joined by New Statesman staff writer Emily Lawford to discuss her major recent cover story on the rise of the Gen Z “femosphere” and the widening political divide between young men and women.
They discuss:
▪️ How young women are becoming more politically engaged, but more anxious and pessimistic
▪️ Why these young women are so down on young men, capitalism and animated by issues like Gaza▪️ The rise of online feminist identity and activism▪️ TikTok, social media and radicalisation pathways▪️ Why young men and women are increasingly diverging politically▪️ The impact on relationships, trust and social cohesion▪️ What this means for Labor, the Greens and the future of democratic politics
Featuring Australian polling and focus-group insights from Kos Samaras and the team at RedBridge.
A serious conversation about one of the biggest — and least understood — political shifts reshaping the Anglosphere.
Listen now on Spotify, Apple Podcasts and YouTube.

One year on from the 2025 federal election, the political landscape is shifting again — and not in ways either major legacy party can fully control.
In this episode, Kos Samaras and Nick Dyrenfurth unpack the latest RedBridge/Accent/AFR  polling and the fallout from the Nepean by-election. Has One Nation’s surge peaked? And is there a “Trump dump” effect — where getting too close to Trump and MAGA begins to turn voters off?
Nick and Kos also explore Pauline Hanson’s emerging dilemma: a choice between battlers and billionaires, as her party draws support from working Australians while benefiting from the backing of right-wing figures like Gina Rinehart.
We also preview the looming Farrer by-election and examine what Nepean signals for both Labor and the Liberals — and the Victorian election ahead.

In this episode, Nick Dyrenfurth and Kos Samaras break down why AI anxiety is already political — not hypothetical — and why governments are at risk of repeating the biggest mistake of the last economic transition. We’ve seen this movie before. It didn’t end well. Over 70% of Australians think AI will cost jobs — and this time, the fear hits before the impact. Based off new Redbridge polling and the John Curtin Research Centre's new policy report, 'For All of Us: Making Artificial Intelligence Work for Working People', the argument is simple: if workers don’t share in the gains, they won’t accept the change. And if they don’t accept it, they’ll vote against it.

On this episode, Nick Dyrenfurth and Kos Samaras are joined by leading scholars of nationalism and European politics expert Associate Professor Ben Wellings (Monash University) to unpack the forces reshaping the UK and Europe. From the collapse of the political centre to the rise of populists and Greens alike, this is a continent in flux. We cover:
▪️ The UK’s shift to five-party fragmentation with Greens and Reform surging ▪️ Trump Bump 2.0 reshaping European politics in real time▪️ Hungary after Orbán — liberal reset or just a populist pause?▪️ Scottish and Welsh elections and Keir Starmer’s future
Essential listening for anyone trying to understand where Western politics is heading — and why the old rules no longer apply.

Australia isn’t experiencing one populist surge, but two. In this episode of Curtin’s Cast, Nick Dyrenfurth and Kos Samaras unpack new RedBridge and Accent Research polling revealing a striking political reality: under the same economic pressures, different generations are breaking in completely different directions.
Among financially stressed Gen X voters, One Nation is surging. Among Gen Z voters under that same pressure, the Greens are rising just as sharply. Same system. Same frustration. Completely different political outcomes.
This isn’t just volatility — it’s something deeper. The unravelling of the class-based political system that has defined Australia for more than a century.
But here’s the paradox: as the system fragments, Labor remains dominant. Why? Drawing on Nick’s ‘Trump Bump 2.0’ thesis, the episode explores how voters are shifting from blaming governments to asking a different question — who looks like the “adult in the room” in an age of global instability. Nick and Kos break down:
Why Australia now has two competing populisms
The generational divide reshaping politics
Why One Nation is insurgent but not a governing force
The Coalition’s accelerating collapse
How Labor is holding on amid fragmentation
Is class politics is being replaced by generation and education
This is a conversation about a political system coming apart — and what might replace it.

Has World War 3 already begun — just without a declaration?
This week on Curtin’s Cast, Nick Dyrenfurth and Kos Samaras are joined by the excellent Misha Zelinsky — Fulbright Scholar, economist, lawyer, and national security expert — to unpack a confronting idea: We may already be living through the early stages of the third great global conflict of modern times.
From Russia’s illegal war in Ukraine to chaos in the Middle East and rising tensions in the Indo-Pacific, Misha argues we are witnessing an unevenly distributed, undeclared world war — driven by a loose but dangerous alignment of authoritarian powers.
On episode 51 we cover:
Why historical analogies (1930s, WWI, Cold War) only go so far
Why defence experts now see a 20–30% chance of global conflict this decade
The rise of a “bad guys club”: Russia, China, Iran, North Korea
How Western democratic deterrence failed — slowly, then all at once
How modern warfare contains multiple overlapping theatres — military, economic, cyber — along with the familiar use of proxies
Whether democracies are strong enough — including internally — to prevail
This is a serious, sobering conversation about power, geopolitics, and whether the world has already crossed a threshold we don’t yet recognise.

This week, Nick Dyrenfurth and Kos Samaras are joined by arguably Australia’s finest historian and public intellectual, Professor Frank Bongiorno, for our landmark 50th episode — and a big question at the heart of Australian politics:
Is Bob Hawke really the “gold standard”… or a myth we can’t escape?
Our conversation is anchored in the new book Gold Standard? Remembering the Hawke Government, edited by Frank, Carolyn Holbrook and Joshua Black — a major reassessment of Hawke’s record and reputation.
We unpack:
▪️ Why Hawke still dominates how we judge governments▪️ What actually made the Hawke model work▪️ Why reform feels harder today▪️ Whether Labor is misreading its own history
What matters now is what Albanese Labor can realistically learn from Hawke — and what his record tells students of Australian politics about the limits and possibilities of reform today.

A seismic election result in South Australia — but was it a Labor landslide, or a structural collapse of the Liberals? Nick Dyrenfurth and Kos Samaras unpack:
The Liberals finishing third and fourth across large parts of the state
One Nation’s 22% surge and what it really means
The critical importance of SA Premier Peter Malinauskas
Why this could be a warning shot for Victoria 2026
This is a deep dive into fragmentation, realignment, and the future of the two party system. Check out episode 49 wherever you get your podcasts.