Ep. 91 Don Watson on the power of words, political speechwriting and where to from Trump.

Don Watson has spent a lifetime listening closely - to the language of politics, power, persuasion and all the spaces in between. A historian, author and master of the written word, he is perhaps best known as the speechwriter behind some of Australia’s most unforgettable words - including the iconic Redfern Speech, delivered by then-Prime Minister Paul Keating in 1992. It remains one of this country’s most raw and courageous reckonings with our colonial past, and a landmark moment in the long and unfinished story of reconciliation. But Don Watson's work doesn’t stop at politics. Over decades, he’s carved out a formidable legacy as one of our most astute and fearless cultural critics - writing bestselling books, searing Quarterly Essays and brilliantly biting commentaries that strip the varnish from political spin, corporate waffle and the TikTokian digital decay of modern language. In this wide-ranging conversation, Don offers his brutally clear-eyed take on the state of language and the state of the world with that other Don running amok in the White House. From the rise of meaningless buzzwords and the weaponisation of language to the turning of the free world under the Trumpian Project 2025 dictate, Don Watson says America was never a perfect democracy anyway - and that if anyone tries to tell you what is going on in the United States, you should quickly walk away.  We talk about democracy - what it was, what it is and what it’s becoming - but we also  go way back to Don’s childhood on a muddy, blue-gum-lined dairy farm in Gippsland. A world of rolling hills, working hands and laconic storytellers - where his first understanding of Australia, its language, its past and its people took shape. We chart his unlikely journey from farm kid to the halls of academia where he discovered that the real nuggets weren’t to be found in textbooks, but in the colour, grit and perennial contradictions of Australia’s chequered political history. What is clear when you listen to this is that no matter where you sit - or not - on the political spectrum, Don Watson is a remarkable human and a rare thinker - a man unafraid to call out bullshit, challenge conventional wisdom and remind us that words aren’t just words; they define who we are.  Words can shape nations, tear down empires, ignite revolutions and - sometimes - heal wounds. Words can give voice to the voiceless, turn ideas into movements and hold power to account.  And in an era of misinformation, disinformation and the white noise of the White House, where the zone is flooded, meaning is diluted and truth is up for debate, the way we use language matters now - more than ever.  This is a conversation about the power of language but really, it’s about everything. About truth. About history. And about the kind of future world we want to live in - and the words we’ll need to build it. Guest: Don WatsonBooks: PenguinCatch Don at the Sorrento Writers’ Festival Host: Mads GrummetProducer: Audio Superstar Daryl Missen*****LISTEN NOW🎧 Spotify: Listen here🎧 Apple: Listen here Human Cogs is available wherever you get your podcasts or via our website where you can also catch stacks of great conversations with previous guests :) Got some thoughts on today's episode you'd like to share?Get in touch via website or Instagram @human.cogsWe'd love you to share our podcast and leave us a quick review! It helps us get these human stories out there!Thanks, as ever, for listening. Go well. Be well. Human well.www.humancogs.comLearn more and support the show: https://www.humancogs.com/See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Politics is the stuff of Shakespeare. Acts of revenge, personal sabotage, falls from grace and epic power struggles have always pushed politicians in and out of public favour. As Australia heads toward a federal election, in our own political landscape we see the high drama of campaign theatre play out against the global backdrop and twisted plot of an increasingly shaky world order.  Do you still have faith in our democracy and the kind of leadership Australia needs right now? I recently sat down with Julia Banks - former federal MP, corporate lawyer, leadership consultant and author of Power Play: Breaking Through Bias, Barriers and Boys' Clubs. Julia’s story is one of grit, resilience and a deep commitment to challenging the structures that hold people back. She made headlines when - after winning the seat of Chisholm in 2016 as the only Liberal to take a seat from the Opposition - she later walked away from the party, calling out Scott Morrison, the toxic culture, gendered power plays and systemic bias she experienced firsthand. Julia unpacks the realities of Australian politics behind closed doors, and unpacks the tension between ‘positional power’ - the authority that comes with a title - and ‘personal power’ - the strength we each carry within us.  While Julia’s experiences in Australian politics played out in the full glare of the public eye, her insights extend far beyond the bearpit of Canberra.  In Australia's boardrooms, workplaces and everyday interactions, she says women in leadership roles are still labeled as "too ambitious," "difficult" or "overemotional" - coded language used to diminish their power. And women are still gravely unrepresented in the political arena. In this episode of Human Cogs, Julia brings a perspective that is sharp, honest and deeply needed at a time like this, in a world like this.  Julia reminds us that while the power struggles will perpetuate, we all have a choice in the leaders we elevate, values we uphold and future we collectively shape through our individual actions and democratic participation. Guest: Julia BanksBook: Power Play: Breaking Through Bias, Barriers and Boys' ClubsTwitter / X: @juliahbanks Host: Mads GrummetProducer: Audio Superstar Daryl Missen*****LISTEN NOW🎧 Spotify: Listen here🎧 Apple: Listen here Human Cogs is available wherever you get your podcasts or via our website where you can also catch stacks of great conversations with previous guests :) Got some thoughts on today's episode you'd like to share?Get in touch via our website or Instagram @human.cogsWe'd love you to share our podcast.Please share, follow us or leave a quick review. It helps us get these human stories out there!Thanks, as ever, for listening. Go well. Be well.www.humancogs.comLearn more and support the show: https://www.humancogs.com/See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Annus horribilis is a Latin phrase that means "horrible year". It’s the antithesis of annus mirabilis which means "wonderful year". Of course years don’t exist in those binaries but we all know that some years are better than others: some are defined by greatness, and others we just can’t wait to see the back of. As this episode goes to air, Mads shares what this past year has been like for her, marred by deep grief and a few mortality jolts that have brought into sharp focus what really matters.  Mads doesn’t count her experience as unique because this is just ordinary human life, of course, playing out as it ever has with its wonders and horrors in chorus.  But it is true that for most of us, by the time you’ve clocked up a few decades of living, you’ll likely have had a front row seat to witnessing some people you deeply love die, dement, disappear or divorce. How you choose to walk through those human hardships is the only choice you will ultimately have because life will continue to throw curveballs, which means you will need to deliberately choose - again and again - where you will focus your energy, who you will spend your precious time with and who you will need to let go. Sarah Grynberg knows this walk well because she’s had to make some pretty hard personal choices recently to let a few old friends and habits go so she can create more space for serendipity in her life. This has partly been prompted by what Sarah has learned in her professional life, as an internationally acclaimed mindset coach and speaker, and the host of A Life of Greatness podcast which to date has had millions of downloads. On her podcast, Sarah interviews some of the world's greatest thought-leaders, sporting legends, famous entertainers and best-selling authors as they explain how they have overcome challenges, conquered self-limiting beliefs and unearthed what it means to achieve greatness in their own lives. Of course, what a life of greatness looks like is very different for each of us. But as Sarah walks us through her own difficult journey to now, we hope you can all take a little tonic of greatness from this conversation. Enjoy. Guest: Sarah Grynberg, Host of A Life of Greatness Podcast and internationally acclaimed Mindset Coach and SpeakerHost: Madeleine Hanger (Grummet)Producer: Audio Superstar Daryl Missen*****LISTEN NOW🎧 Spotify: Listen here🎧 Apple: Listen hereGot some thoughts on today's episode you'd like to share?Join in the convo on Instagram @human.cogsWe'd love you to share the love! Please follow us or leave a quick review. It really helps us get these stories out to more awesome peeps like you!Thanks, as ever, for listening. Go well. Be well.▶️ www.humancogs.comLearn more and support the show: https://www.humancogs.com/See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Stan Grant is a man of remarkable intellect, profound story and deep faith.On a late winter's afternoon recently, I meet Stan in a moment when he is on a difficult journey through a kind of lament - deeply contemplating the three big disciplines that have steeled his extraordinary life and work - physics, philosophy and theology. Stan says since the Voice to Parliament Referendum he’s been taking time to take stock, that he’s done too much time plucking the wings off butterflies - and that right now he’d rather write beauty into the world.So he’s been working on a new book that is a meditation on time, on God, on the temporal nature of our being and on the complex state of our modern world.There is plenty for Stan to sit with and sort through right now. As a journalist and correspondent who covered war for 40 years, he's seen the worst of what we can do to each other but he has also seen love endure in the most Godforsaken of places. So he knows first-hand the paradoxical contradictions of what it means to be a human in a world like ours.Stan believes it's essential we all have something bigger than ourselves to believe in because if the human being is the limit, then we will only see the limits of the human.And in a world so often consumed by the chaos of modernity, ongoing conflicts and the binaries of identity, Stan Grant is keenly focussed these days on kindling what we share rather than what divides us for, as Franz Kafka said, identity is a cage in search of a bird.I'd love you to listen to this episode of Human Cogs podcast as we journey with Stan through his rivers and eddies of thought, where philosophy, theology and the mystical realm converge to offer a deeper understanding of Stan Grant the mortal, what might lie beyond this life, and how we humans can all - somehow - someday - find our place in the untold cosmos.Guest: Stan Grant, Award-winning Journalist, Author, Writer, Poet and Vice Chancellor's Chair of Australian-Indigenous Belonging at Charles Sturt University.Host: Madeleine Hanger (Grummet)Producer: Audio Superstar Daryl Missen*****LISTEN NOW🎧 Spotify: https://lnkd.in/gUBnf7gb🎧 Apple: https://lnkd.in/gfWstDmeGot some thoughts on today's episode you'd like to share?Join in the convo on Instagram @human.cogsWe'd love you to share the love! Please follow us or leave a quick review. It really helps us get these stories out to more awesome peeps like you!Thanks, as ever, for listening. Go well. Be well.▶️ www.humancogs.comLearn more and support the show: https://www.humancogs.com/See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

When you think of a health retreat, I wonder what thoughts and feelings come to mind? Yoga with a monk on a mountain, people healing their deepest wounds around grief, illness or weight issues, or perhaps it’s images of Nicole Kidman in 9 Perfect Strangers as depicted in the book and movie? I’ve attended countless retreats in Australia and overseas, and every time I have made one or two changes that have catalysed bigger shifts in my life. I believe we need to update our beliefs that retreats are somewhere “broken” people go, and replace them with the idea that retreats provide an environment with all the ideal ingredients that help set us up for tuning into our own innate sense of knowing and wisdom that have the potential to invite us back to a sense of wholeness, rest and repair – emotionally, physically, psychologically and mentally. In 2023, I spent six life changing days at Aro Hā Health Retreat in the glorious New Zealand mountains near Queenstown. In this episode, we are joined by Aro Hā’s co-founder and glorious human, Damian Chaparro. He shares the philosophy embedded in the program at Aro Hā as well as what a typical week looks like for guests. Damian shares his own younger year experiences of working tirelessly in an IT job with all the financial trappings, and too much alcohol, minus the meaning and fulfillment. And how as a life-long learner he continues to find ways to acknowledge all the parts that show up in him and how he has learned to listen to self and others with curiosity and acceptance. We discuss the benefits of fasting, movement, nature and stillness, and what gets in the way of creating sustainable behaviour changes that we desire, yet so often sabotage. Damian also reveals some entertaining and heartfelt stories of connecting with his 80 year old mum after they both shared the plant-based psychedelic, ayahuasca (not at Aro Hā by the way!) If you’re curious about dialling up wellbeing, or are wondering what a health retreat might be like for you, or if your body, mind and soul is looking for a reset, then this conversation is for you. I deeply believe the world would be a better place if we all had the opportunity to experience the magic of Aro Hā.  Here’s my chat with Damian.   Website: Aro HaLinks: Instagram, Spotify, YouTube, Facebook,  Hosts: Mads Grummet + Sabina ReadProducer: Audio Superstar Daryl MissenHuman Cogs is available on Apple, Stitcher, Spotify, Google Podcasts or via our website where you can also catch great conversations with previous guests :) Got some thoughts on today's episode you'd like to share?Join in the convo on Instagram @human.cogsWe'd love you to share the love! Please follow us or leave a quick review. It helps us get these stories out to more awesome peeps like you!Thanks, as ever, for listening. Be well.www.humancogs.comLearn more and support the show: https://www.humancogs.com/See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

If you’ve turned on the radio lately, have you ever sat back to listen to who’s telling the stories? Current data shows that only 27 per cent of radio hosts are women, female experts are quoted just 34 per cent of the time and - here’s the clanger - NINETY PER CENT of radio voices of people aged over 45 are in fact - men. Yep. NINETY per cent. Why is that? What’s going on? And how does this skew attitudes and perpetuate gendered inequality in society? Well our guest today, Jo Stanley, asked herself those questions for years, and is now on a mission to change the stats with the launch of Broad Radio - Australia's first women-centric radio network - connecting women through audio and serving the mostly overlooked five million-strong female audience aged over 35. Jo Stanley is, of course, no stranger to audio - with a decades-long successful career in breakfast radio including rating number one for six years on Melbourne’s Fox FM, and dominating the top spot at Gold FM alongside her ongoing TV, writing and podcast gigs. Despite being in the public spotlight and sharing her life with millions of listeners every day, in this conversation Jo shares how the lack of levity in her childhood shaped her, the challenges of living with fear, and how the birth of her daughter taught her what being enough really means.  Click here to listen to Broad Radio Guest: Jo StanleyLinks: Facebook, Instagram Hosts: Mads Grummet + Sabina ReadProducer: Audio Superstar Daryl MissenHuman Cogs is available on Apple, Stitcher, Spotify, Google Podcasts or via our website where you can also catch great conversations with previous guests :) Got some thoughts on today's episode you'd like to share?Join in the convo on Instagram @human.cogsWe'd love you to share the love! Please follow us or leave a quick review. It helps us get these stories out to more awesome peeps like you!Thanks, as ever, for listening. Be well.www.humancogs.comLearn more and support the show: https://www.humancogs.com/See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

It was the poet and civil rights activist Maya Angelou who once said ‘there is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you’. Stories are what help us make sense of the world around us and of ourselves, of great tragedies and fates and fortunes, of buried histories and mysteries, of the untold secrets and human essence of things. Journalist Corrie Perkin was born with stories in her blood. Her father, Graham Perkin - the famed journalist and editor of The Age newspaper - was a story that unfolded before her larger than life, as she grew up on a diet of breaking news, of ink and print, and the daily happenings of the world at large playing out in fervoured conversations at her kitchen table. But her father’s tragic death when she was aged just 14, set Corrie’s story on a different arc, and changed her life in ways that today are still unfurling.  In this conversation we talk about grief, how we each make sense of our lived stories, about Corrie’s decades working as a respected journalist, storyteller and champion of novelists and books, and mostly, about why in an increasingly fractured and distracted world, our words really do matter. Guest: Corrie Perkin, Journalist, Podcaster and Director of the Sorrento Writers FestivalSorrento Writers Festival: https://sorrentowritersfestival.com.au/Book tickets: https://sorrentowritersfestival.com.au/artfuel/programInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/sorrentowritersfestivalLinkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/sorrento-writers-festival/Host: Mads GrummetProducer: Audio Superstar Daryl MissenHuman Cogs is available on Apple, Stitcher, Spotify, Google Podcasts or via our website where you can also catch great conversations with previous guests :) Got some thoughts on today's episode you'd like to share?Join in the convo on Instagram @human.cogsWe'd love you to share the love! Please follow us or leave a quick review. It helps us get these stories out to more awesome peeps like you!Thanks, as ever, for listening. Go well. Be well.www.humancogs.comLearn more and support the show: https://www.humancogs.com/See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Being a young person in your 20s is a complicated and challenging time. Whether you’re living through this decade of your life now, or you’re a parent to a twenty something, you likely already know that the 20s are the most uncertain decade of life. In this episode, we talk to the always compassionate and wise Dr Meg Jay, a developmental clinical psychologist, who is on faculty at the University of Virginia and maintains a private practice in Charlottesville where she specializes in twentysomethings. Her first book, The Defining Decade, has sold more than half a million copies, launched one of the most-watched TED talks to date, and is the topic of 13.7 million views on TikTok. Meg has just released her third book, The Twentysomething Treatment: A revolutionary remedy for an uncertain age, which upends the pathologizing of young adult life and offers practical skills and hope as she normalises the hurdles faced by young people, to help navigate this important time of life. Meg shares with us why the 20s isn’t a developmental downtime to be pushed to the side, but rather a transformative time that paves the way for decades to come. She shares how small tweaks in our 20s can metamorphosis our careers, mental health, and relationships for the rest of our life. We also discuss Meg’s fascinating second book, Supernormal: the secret world of the family hero, which details stories of people who have faced adversity in the form of death, divorce, mental illness in a family member, abuse or bullying and who go on to thrive. We deep dive the impact of keeping family pain in the shadows and the power of sharing secrets to help us grow and develop in healthy ways despite the family dynamics we grew up in or the hardships we endured. Meg’s warmth, insights, knowledge and watertight evidence-based research invite us to rethink our 20s, and understand that this decade won’t be the best years of our life. In fact, she states if your 20s are the best years of your life, something has gone terribly wrong! This is a not to be missed conversation for any parent and any 20 something. Guest: Dr Meg JayLatest book: The Twentysomething Treatment: A revolutionary remedy for an uncertain ageLinks: Instagram, LinkedIn,TikTok, X, ThreadsHost: Sabina Read Producer: Daryl Missen Human Cogs is available on Apple, Stitcher, Spotify, Google Podcasts or via our website where you can also catch great conversations with previous guests :) Got some thoughts on today's episode you'd like to share?Join in the convo at Instagram @human.cogsWe'd love you to support our show! Please follow us or leave a quick review.It helps us get these stories out to more awesome peeps like you! Thanks for listening.Learn more and support the show: https://www.humancogs.com/See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Grace Tame is a name that needs little introduction, but that doesn’t mean you know Grace - or indeed her story - on her own terms.  Catapulted into the spotlight as 'Australian of the Year' in 2021, Grace stepped squarely into the public eye and became a powerful catalyst for a tidal wave of conversation, action and policy change for survivor-victims of sexual abuse across Australia.  Finally, this was a chance for Grace Tame to find - and use - her voice, after years of shadows and silence. "Let's make some noise Australia" was her catch cry. In this honest and at times confronting conversation, Grace shares with us the findings of a new Australian study - the largest of it’s kind in the world - that validates what victim-survivors have been saying for years; that child sexual abuse is a public health issue and the current statistics are shocking. Child sexual abuse is widespread in this country. According to the study, one in six (15.1%) Australian men report sexual feelings towards children and one in ten (9.4%) Australian men have sexually offended against children.  Grace calls for policy change and accountability for the big tech giants who continue to allow online access to child sexual abuse material on their sites, and for intensive education so grooming is implicitly understood by children, parents and bystanders - which means all of us.  Like every human on earth, Grace is a work in progress, and is still coming to terms with her experiences of instability, uncertainty and trauma. But she is powerfully reclaiming her narrative by ceding control as an adult in charge of the story of her life. And in Grace’s words: “Peace is not freedom from pain; it is the acceptance of it.”  WARNING: This episode is about child sexual abuse, and may be disturbing to some listeners. Please use discretion when considering listening to this episode, and if you do need support please contact Lifeline Australia on 13 11 14 or 1800 RESPECT. Guest: Grace TameBook: The Ninth Life Of A Diamond MinerInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/tamepunk/Grace Tame Foundation: https://www.instagram.com/gracetamefoundation/ Hosts: Mads Grummet + Sabina ReadProducer: Audio Superstar Daryl MissenHuman Cogs is available on Apple, Stitcher, Spotify, Google Podcasts or via our website where you can also catch great conversations with previous guests :) Got some thoughts on today's episode you'd like to share?Join in the convo on Instagram @human.cogsWe'd love you to share the love! Please follow us or leave a quick review. It helps us get these stories out to more awesome peeps like you!Thanks, as ever, for listening. Be well.www.humancogs.comLearn more and support the show: https://www.humancogs.com/See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Over the Summer I spent countless hours deep in the pages of a remarkable book called Eve: How The Female Body Drove 200 Million Years of Human Evolution. The book is written by the very entertaining scholar, researcher and poet Cat Bohannon, and it's making very big waves across the world right now. The book is an epic story and sweeping scientific exploration that starts with mammals 200 million years ago and moves forward through time, to fundamentally challenge the real origin of our mammalian species. In fact, in this book, Cat Bohannon completely rethinks human history, and offers a necessary myth-busting, landmark corrective about how humans have really evolved. It took Cat 10 years to write this book: it is exhaustively researched but beautifully readable, and is densely packed with astonishing facts and revelations about how the female body came to be, why the size of male balls influences monogamy, why wet nurses in ancient cities catalyzed explosive population growth, and why modern medicine needs to stop the default to the male as the norm. This conversation touches on all of that, and much much more, and it will completely change what you think you know about human evolution, the design wonders of the female body plan, and why Homo Sapiens have become a dominant species on our pale blue planet.A warning that we talk about vaginas and sex and balls and swear in this episode, and also that you’ll need to strap on your big brain for this listen, and get ready to learn a lot, because this conversation will literally blow your mammalian mind.Guest: Cat BohannonBook: Eve: How the female body drove 200 million years of evolutionHost: Mads GrummetProducer: Daryl MissenHuman Cogs is available on Apple, Stitcher, Spotify, Google Podcasts or via our website where you can also catch great conversations with previous guests :) Got some thoughts on today's episode you'd like to share?Join in the convo on Instagram @human.cogsWe'd love you to share the love! Please follow us or leave a quick review.It helps us get these stories out to more awesome peeps like you!Thanks, as ever, for listening.www.humancogs.com  Learn more and support the show: https://www.humancogs.com/See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.