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Democracy Sausage with Mark Kenny
The best bits
From Brexit Britain to Trump’s obsession with the stock market, and from era-defining infections to ideology vs interests, this week on Democracy Sausage Extra we look back over some of our favourite bits of the podcast from the last 18 months.
Why do some Brits have a ‘yearning for chaos’? Is it really ideology that drives government spending decisions? What do Donald Trump and stock market ‘day traders’ have in common? And how has disease defined human progress? These questions and many many more are answered on this week’s very special Democracy Sausage Extra. With Mark Kenny away, Martyn Pearce takes charge of the barbecue tongs as we take a look back at some of our favourite interviews over the last 18 months of The Sausage.
Kieran Gilbert is Chief News Anchor for Sky News, co-anchor of First Edition and anchor of AM Agenda on Sky News Live.
David Speers is an Australian journalist and outgoing Political Editor at Sky News Australia. He has been the host of PM Agenda, The Last Word, and Speers. Beginning in 2020, he now hosts ABC’s Insiders.
Brian Schmidt AC is Vice-Chancellor and President of The Australian National University. He was awarded the 2011 Nobel Prize in Physics.
Liz Allen is a demographer and social researcher with quantitative and qualitative expertise at The Australian National University and author of The Future of Us: Demography gets a makeover.
Stan Grant is the Vice Chancellor’s Chair of Australian/Indigenous Belonging at Charles Sturt University. He was formerly ABC’s Global Affairs and Indigenous Affairs Analyst.
Jim Chalmers has been the the Shadow Treasurer since 2019 and the Member for Rankin in the Australian Parliament since 2013.
Richard Denniss is Chief Economist and former Executive Director of The Australia Institute. He is a prominent Australian economist, author and public policy commentator, and former Associate Professor at Crawford School of Public Policy.
Ros Taylor is Research Manager for the LSE Truth, Trust & Technology Commission and Managing Editor of the LSE Brexit blog.
Bevan Shields is Europe Correspondent for The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age. He was previously Federal Editor and Canberra Bureau Chief.
Fintan O’Toole is one of Ireland’s leading political and cultural commentators. He is a columnist and writer for The Irish Times, the 2017 winner of both the European Press Prize and the Orwell Prize, and author of Heroic Failure: Brexit and the Politics of Pain.
Jonathan Swan is National Political Reporter for Axios, covering Republican leaders in the United States federal government and the White House.
Jane Golley is an economist and Director of the Australian Centre on China in the World at The Australian National University.
Marija Taflaga is Director of ANU Centre for the Study of Australian Politics and a lecturer in the ANU School of Politics and International Relations. Her major research is on political parties and particularly the Liberal Party of Australia.
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...
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Hostile complexity
48:04|Why has David Farley's and Pauline Hanson's immigration number not matched up — and does it even matter to One Nation's supporters? What do focus groups really say when people explain why they're giving up on the major parties? If many disaffected voters want a left-wing agenda of "taking back what we own," why is it the populist right keeps cutting through? RedBridge's Alex Fein joins Democracy Sausage to talk about the confusion at the heart of One Nation's immigration pitch, the voters who feel failed by the political class, and why the simplest story is winning.Insiders and Outsiders
58:18|Twenty-five years ago, Insiders went to air for the first time – the morning after the Aston by-election, before smartphones, before social media, and long before anyone had to explain what a fax machine was. So how much of what's changed in Australian politics since has really been about the politicians, and how much about the technology reshaping how they communicate and how we watch? Is the feminisation of politics and the press gallery a quarter-century story, or something that's only really happened in the last five years? And now that everyone gets their news from a different, algorithmically sorted feed, is there still such a thing as a shared public – or a shared set of facts – for a democracy to argue over? Historian Anna Clark, Professor of Public History at the University of Technology Sydney and author of Making Australian History, joins Democracy Sausage to mark Insiders' 25th anniversary and take the long view on how politics, the media and the public conversation between them have been transformed.You win some, you lose more
46:40|Why has the government fallen so far short of the Murphy Report's recommendations despite around 80 per cent of Australians wanting gambling ads banned? How did an under-resourced Northern Territory regulator end up overseeing a $34 billion-a-year industry? Why do inducements — not just the eye-watering ones, but the humble "here's $100, have a punt" kind — count as predatory when someone's trying to quit?Gambling researcher Charles Livingston joins Democracy Sausage to unpack the politics behind the federal government's gambling reform package.Job (Un)Ready
49:54|Is a policy that students, staff and vice-chancellors all agree has failed still standing because no one in government wants to spend the political capital to fix it? Can universities rebuild trust and student voice after a string of governance crises, from the ICAC probe into the University of Wollongong and parliamentary inquiries? What does it say about the state of higher education when the queue for the student food pantry is more competitive than the queue for an expensive degree?National Union of Students President Felix Hughes and ANU Students' Association President Charley Ellwood join Democracy Sausage to unpack the fallout from the Job-Ready Graduates scheme, the mounting weight of student debt, and governance in the university sector.Command, Control and Conformity
52:40|How did a Prime Minister sitting on one of Labor's largest-ever majorities turn his national conference into a masterclass in silence — and what does that say about who's allowed to argue inside the party? Is Albanese's "command and control" PMO disciplined governance or a party too afraid of its own conscience? With One Nation polling above 25 per cent in a Victoria that's just lost its Premier — without an MP, candidate or policy to its name — and Pauline Hanson's blossoming friendship with billionaire Gina Rinehart raising questions about who bankrolls the populist right, can Labor's manufactured unity survive the volatility of 2028? The Saturday Paper's chief political correspondent Karen Barlow joins Mark and Marija to make sense of Labor's conference of conformity, the Pyongyang PMO, and the rise of One Nation.The Cohesion Question
58:55|Why has social cohesion — a concept researchers still can't agree how to measure — become one of the most contested ideas in Australian politics? What separates the multiculturalism built by successive Australian governments from the harder, more exclusive boundaries being drawn by Pauline Hanson and Tony Abbott today? And with the political cost of saying the unsayable at an all-time low, can government and society rebuild trust before the fracture gets worse?Dr Michael Zekulin joins Mark and Marija to unpack why "social cohesion" has become the buzzword of the moment, as Pauline Hanson returns from a UK tour with Tommy Robinson and Nigel Farage, and Barnaby Joyce warns against fraying community bonds.The Australian Political Book of the Year Award is launching a new University Essay Prize! Full details, including eligibility and how to submit, are at available their website: https://auspolbookaward.com.au/uni-prize/.Antidote to the far right
46:25|Is the collapse in trust of Australia's institutions, the retreat of unionism from everyday working life, and the alliances forged in Victoria's Covid lockdowns and reactivated by the 2023 Voice referendum responsible for the rise of the far right? Is One Nation's surge a passing spike, or the tail end of a forty-year rupture in Australian political life? Could a revived, class-based union movement win back the "recent defectors" drifting from Labor to Pauline Hanson before it's too late?This week, Mark and Marija are joined by Oscar Kaspi-Crutchett, research organiser at the Victorian Trades Hall Council and author of the new report Antidote.Angertainment
52:18|Is social media now a more powerful force reshaping Australian democracy than any politician, party, or policy? Why has Pauline Hanson spent thirty years in the political wilderness only to emerge as the country's most potent electoral force in 2026? Can the anger-entertainment industrial complex explain everything from One Nation's surge to the Voice referendum's collapse — and if rage bait is more engaging than porn, what hope does civility, truth, and evidence have in the modern political arena? Ed Coper, author of Angertainment, joins Mark and Marija to unpack how social media algorithms have weaponised our ancient neurochemistry, why the internet's promise of a global village became a gladiatorial arena, and whether anyone can still win politics by appealing to hope.Two Teals, One Ticket
43:19|Have Zali Steggall and Allegra Spender just become the party they always swore they weren't? Can a "free vote" constitution and no party room really survive contact with a Senate seat? Does the donation and spending caps from the last parliament leave community independents with no real choice but to collectivise? And what happens to "putting community first" the moment a hung parliament forces a deal? Zali Steggall and Allegra Spender join Mark and Marija from Parliament House to discuss the launch of Community Strong Australia, the logic (and the irony) behind it, and whether teal voters will buy a party that insists it isn't one.