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Democracy Sausage with Mark Kenny
Biden’s America with Matthew Knott
On this episode of Democracy Sausage, North America correspondent for the Sydney Morning Herald and The Age Matthew Knott joins Mark Kenny to discuss President Joe Biden’s initiatives on climate, COVID-19, and infrastructure, and what this means for the political landscape in the United States.
After a traumatic period in American politics, a tone of relative calm has returned to the United States. Now providing millions of vaccines a day, how is the country’s COVID-19 response tracking? Is new President Joe Biden’s two trillion dollar infrastructure plan - including a proposal to lift the corporate tax cut from 21 to 28 per cent - the right way to get the economy moving again? And how is the Republican Party responding without Trump? On this episode of Democracy Sausage, foreign correspondent Matthew Knott joins Mark Kenny to discuss the beginning of the Biden presidency and American politics after Trump.
Matthew Knott is North America correspondent for The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age.
Mark Kenny is a Professor in the ANU Australian Studies Institute. He came to the university after a high-profile journalistic career including six years as chief political correspondent and national affairs editor for The Sydney Morning Herald, The Age, and The Canberra Times.
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This podcast is produced in partnership with The Australian National University.
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The power of persistence
54:29|Can international law still work when powerful states ignore it? Are Australia's defamation laws silencing women who speak out about abuse? And what does it take to keep fighting a case everyone says is impossible?On this episode of Democracy Sausage, recorded live at ANU, Sydney Peace Prize winner Jennifer Robinson joins Professor Mark Kenny. They talk about her path from a public high school on the NSW South Coast to Oxford and the international courts. They also cover the landmark climate advisory opinion at the International Court of Justice, the 14-year campaign to free Julian Assange, and her 25 years of advocacy for West Papua.The not-so-wasted years
56:58|Why has the Fraser government been so overlooked, by Labor and the Liberals alike? What did a government with progressive, conservative and reactionary wings get done in a time of global upheaval? Why does Malcolm Fraser's era sound so familiar in 2026? On this episode of Democracy Sausage, Historian Dr Joshua Black joins Professor Mark Kenny and Dr Marija Taflaga to discuss his special issue of the Australian Journal of Politics and History on the Fraser years. They cover the dismissal and the question of legitimacy, Vietnamese refugees and multiculturalism, and the Liberal Party's uneasy relationship with its own past.The corporate capture of our universities
49:07|Why are Australia's publicly funded universities some of the least accountable institutions in the country? What went wrong at the University of Wollongong, and what does it reveal about who really runs our universities? Has rudeness in public life been mistaken for authenticity?On this episode of Democracy Sausage, NSW Labor MLC Dr Sarah Kaine joins Professor Mark Kenny and Dr Marija Taflaga to discuss her parliamentary inquiry into university governance, the loss of universities' public mission and social licence, and the growing abuse directed at politicians in the wake of the attack on Dr Helen Haines.Midterm reckoning: Trump, Texas and a test for democracy
48:50|How has the attack on Helen Haines changed the conversation about political violence in Australia? Are the US midterms about to become a referendum on an unpopular president? Could Democrats take the Senate, with Texas, Michigan and Kansas suddenly in play?In this episode of Democracy Sausage, Mark Kenny and Dr Marija Taflaga are joined by the United States Studies Centre's Bruce Wolpe. They begin by reflecting on the attack on the Member for Indi, and on what politicians, parties and the media owe to a healthier political culture. The conversation then turns to the US midterms, now less than a fortnight away. They cover Trump's sinking approval ratings, affordability and the war in Iran as drivers of the vote, and the key Senate races to watch. They finish with what a Democratic Congress could mean for the rest of Trump's term and the road to 2028.The One Nation vote: a map of government neglect
45:20|Why are Australia's least resilient communities turning to One Nation? What happens when the major parties take their heartland seats for granted? Can Labor's "shallow" 2025 win hold together in 2028?Redbridge Group director Kos Samaras joins Mark and Marija to unpack the new Australian Resilience Index. It maps the financial, health and social resilience of communities across all 150 federal electorates. They look at why seats with low health resilience line up so closely with One Nation's projected gains, and at how decades of pork-barrelling in marginal seats have left regional Australia and the outer suburbs behind. Kos also talks about Meadow Heights, the Melbourne suburb where he grew up, which went from a Labor stronghold to one of the least resilient communities in the country.Not here to fix Labor
47:35|Is Labor's managerial, middle-of-the-road style a sensible way to steer through rough seas, or does it leave room on the left for someone selling a bigger vision? If Pauline Hanson can do it to the Coalition, can Shoebridge do it to Labor? Or is Australia simply heading for a multi-party era where every seat is marginal? On this episode, Professor Mark Kenny and Dr Marija Taflaga look at what was behind the Greens' first truly competitive leadership contest. They discuss why personal relationships carry so much weight in a party room that could fit in a minivan, and whether the Greens are really just a privatised left faction of the ALP.The Alchemy of Leadership
56:53|What did John Howard understand about survival and self-correction that his six successors never quite grasped? Why do so many of our prime ministers trace their drive back to fiercely ambitious mothers — and what does that pattern tell us about who gets to lead? Is the Liberal Party's current unravelling the price of clinging to the "Howard settlement" long after the country moved on? Historian and biographer Paul Strangio joins Mark to dissect what makes — and breaks — an Australian prime minister, drawing on his newly shortlisted book The Alchemy of Leadership: Seven Australian Prime Ministers in a Turbulent Twenty-First Century.Forty Years On
35:26|What are the five forces reshaping Australia's economy and society over the next four decades? What it will take to keep Australians' faith in government alive while managing them? What can younger Australians expect from future governments?Treasurer of Australia and ANU Alum the Hon Dr Jim Chalmers MP joins Mark Kenny and Liz Allen on Democracy Sausage to unpack the 2025 Intergenerational Report.New game, new rules
58:57|Is too much political capital being put into meaningless foreign policy platitudes rather than defining what modern Australian security looks like? If Australia's shared values with its allies are contradicted can we still rely on those principles to steer policy with them? Can Australia take a globally prominent position in petitioning the US to end the wars that fundamentally threaten Australia's national security?On this episode of Democracy Sausage, Allan Behm — a 30-year veteran of the Australian Public Service across defence, diplomacy and the Attorney-General's Department, and a former senior adviser to now-Foreign Minister Penny Wong — joins Professor Mark Kenny to discuss his new book, New Game, New Rules: A Foreign Policy for Dystopian Times, and why breaking Australia's "stranglehold of dependency" starts with an honest reckoning with our own identity.